Jerry Baldwin

I have been interested in art as far back as I can remember. When I say art I mean all the arts. I took piano lessons for several years. I have read and written poetry since high school. I started college as a music major but soon switched to the visual arts and got a B. A. with a major in art from Chico State in California.

I taught elementary school in California for five years before coming back to WAshington and taking classes at the University of Washington. Eventually I earned a M.A.T. (art) degree and began teaching art in the Northshore School District, where I taught junior, then senior high for 29 years before retiring.

After I retired I decided to paint. I had been a potter and taught ceramics at Bothell High for many years but decided to make a clean break and concentrate on painting. It's been during the last years since retirement that I've learned direction and method in my work. I've settled on water media and pastel, and I divide my time between the two. In pastel I can paint my love of the Northwest in a representational way. In water media I'm more experimental and try to listen to the painting and let it tell me the direction. I try to work without any pre-conceived ideas about the final result. I've worked on some paintings for several months before I felt they were finished, while most take less time.