Featured Artist by Marsha Rusk
Below is what Marsha Rusk of SAS/Sassy Art Shows wrote about me before the first of two shows in Hendersonville, a suburb of Nashville:
Charlie was born in famous for the “Bradley Tomato” Bradley County, Arkansas in 1940, the same birth-year of Bugs Bunny and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park! He grew up in El Dorado, Arkansas where he loved art in school, starting with water colors and really getting excited when by Junior High he got a Grumbacher oil painting kit. He loved painting nature and tried to imitate his grand uncle Harlan Hunt who was a well-known landscape artist in the Ozarks of North Arkansas. He also grew closer to the outdoors as an avid Boy Scout who prefered hiking and camping trips over everything else.
He graduated from Will Rogers High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, attended the University of Oklahoma and graduated from Ouachita Baptist University back in Arkansas with a BA in Sociology. Because social work seemed like too much paperwork, he went on to graduate from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas in 1965 with a Master of Religious Education. He was a youth minister in Texas and Florida churches before working the rest of his life in various denominational roles for the Southern Baptist Convention.
After being downsized out of LifeWay Christian Resources with early retirement at age 59, he served for three years as a missionary in The Gambia West Africa through 2002 when Social Security kicked in! It was during those years in Africa that nature photography became a consuming hobby.
Charlie states, “It is all about having an eye for a photo – it is in the eye more than in the camera! I want my work to instill a love of nature in folks and encourage them to get outdoors and help preserve our environment.”
Charlie is former president of the Nashville Photography Club and a volunteer photographer and docent at the Nashville Zoo where you can see his work on exhibit signs, brochures, maps, and newsletters. One of his photos represents the zoo on the cover of the 2008 Greater Nashville White Pages AT&Tdirectory. He is an active member of First Baptist Nashville and still loves to go on mission trips. An avid outdoorsman, he still goes hiking regularly and on an occasional camping trip.
Marsha Rusk
¡Pura Vida!
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