THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 28, 1996 TAG: 9607260219
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 16 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY IDA KAY JORDAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 64 lines
John D. Thomas Jr. was an artist in disguise for many years - a bar manager, a deputy sheriff, a department store manager, a camera salesman, a topless-club bouncer, a cash register repairman.
``You name it, and I've done it,'' he said.
All the while, he was ``smearing paint.''
But it wasn't until last March that this 53-year-old Chesapeake man thought of showing and selling his work.
``I sold one pen-and-ink drawing of a barn back in 1982, and that's the only thing I ever sold until this year,'' he said.
Thomas saw a news report on the opening last winter of the Potrafka Gallery in Downtown Portsmouth.
``He brought in some of his work, and I agreed to show it,'' gallery owner Wayne Potrafka said. ``He's remarkable, virtually self-taught. He's good, and he's selling.''
Thomas is concentrating now on still-life acrylics.
``I paint from the real thing,'' he said. ``I don't even like watermelon, but I had to buy one the other day for a painting. That watermelon got painted several different ways.''
In fact, he's not much of a fruit eater, he said, so the image of a starving artist eating what he paints doesn't fit.
``I try to get three or four paintings out of an apple before it goes bad,'' he said.
Thomas started out at about age 15, painting oil portraits.
He switched from portraits of people to paintings of objects about two years ago.
``I really preferred portraits, but they don't sell too well,'' he said.
Born in Durham, N.C., Thomas moved as a child with his family to Norfolk County in 1951. His late father, whose hobby was woodworking, was a Chesapeake policeman for 30 years.
Art classes in the schools of old Norfolk County and later Deep Creek High School were his total exposure to art education. At Deep Creek High, Thomas met the late Edith Franklin, who was not only his art teacher but also became his mentor.
``I wouldn't be painting if it weren't for her,'' Thomas said of Franklin. ``She saw something in my work, and she encouraged me, had me doing all sorts of things.''
Franklin encouraged him to go to art school.
``But I never went to art school,'' Thomas said. ``I learn by reading and watching other work. I learn better that way.''
When Thomas graduated from high school, he worked for a Norfolk advertising agency as a layout trainee. He later took a job as a manager trainee at Woolworth in downtown Portsmouth.
``I did a bunch of things, sometimes two or three jobs at a time,'' he said.
He managed the Leggett Bargain Center in the 800 block of High Street, worked at Harris Camera at Alexanders Corner, ran a flea-market booth, managed Countryside night club on Military Highway and later The Frontier bar on George Washington Highway and was a bouncer at J.B.'s Gallery of Girls.
But all of that is in the past.
``I'm a full-time painter now,'' he said. ``I'm retired from the other stuff.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MARK MITCHELL
Artist John Thomas, with ``Juicy Fruit,'' says he paints from the
real thing. ``I don't even like watermelon, but I had to buy one the
other day for a painting,'' he said. by CNB