“I don’t think people are born artists; I think it comes from a mixture of your surroundings, the people you meet and luck.”

-Francis Bacon

Wearing jeans, a neatly ironed striped, button down-collared shirt and soft suede leather boots, retired IPFW art department associate professor Norman Bradley moves effortlessly through the suburban ranch style home he and his photographer wife Dixie share in southwest Fort Wayne en route to their shared basement studio.

A smattering of the couple’s work is scattered in the upstairs rooms, then gathering in numbers, they seem to cascade along the stairway walls before erupting in a bounty of dozens of works - old, new and in progress - hung, stacked and stored like a combination gallery and storage room.

Overwhelming in quantity, style and color, the scene cries out for guidance which Bradley kindly offers in the comfortable, familiar manner of the art historian and artist he remains.

Alluding to several deft landscapes which have been the subject of his efforts over the last two years, Bradley volunteers that he’s not a “plein air” painter, rather he works from his imagination and intuition.

“These are not of a specific place or time,” he explains, “but pure invention. They draw on memory and feeling. I don’t work from the photographs Dixie has taken during our many travels but from here in this basement where I draw my inspiration.

“Some viewers look to spot, identify objects like trees, houses and so on, but that’s not what they’re about. I’m a ‘painterly’ painter, and it is the paint and its quality that is the subject matter.

“Purposely I keep them small. I began the series with these smaller (8 x 10-inch) images then moved up to these larger (18 x 24-inch) pieces. The idea is that I want the viewer to move closer and examine the impasto and inspect the brush strokes, and blotches of color.

“For my nonrepresentational work I use a much larger field (measured in square feet, not inches) and they are better to view from a distance to get the effect.”

Bradley confesses to being a fast painter. After first rapidly covering his canvas to completion he may go back and revisit certain paintings, sometimes years later, to “touch up” a spot, but he’s mostly interested in capturing the immediacy of the creative act and wants the viewer to have the same experience.

On the other, hand in other pieces like the pair of Abe Lincoln portraits he continues to nurture the images and, though they are two years old, he doesn’t consider them quite finished.

The Lincoln paintings can be traced to Bradley’s long and avid interest in American and the Civil War history, a fascination that was perked when he served as a U.S. Army illustrator between his academic studies in Mexico.

Born in Fort Wayne, the youngest of six siblings, Bradley grew up during the Depression. When his older brothers and sister moved out of the nest. his mother rented out rooms of the family’s home on Fairfield to families whose relatives were patients at the old Lutheran Hospital across the street. (“It was a bed and breakfast before we knew what they were,” Bradley added.)

His father, who eked out a living in the insurance business, had flown bi-winged aircraft for the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War I and along with his wife encouraged the young Bradley’s ideas of higher education. But, alas, there was no money after he graduated from South Side, so he began his pursuit in the fine arts at the old Fort Wayne Art Institute.

After a year there Bradley and two like-minded classmates - Don Kruse and John Heitzman - pooled resources (Bradley earned his from working at the former Centlivre and Falstaff brewery) and headed off to Mexico City in Heitzman’s 1940 Plymouth. Bradley would return several times to Mexico City College (later in his own 1950 Buick) and the brewery until he graduated in 1959. After time out for the military he would earn his master’s at the University of the Americas in 1964. (“It was essentially the same school; only the name had changed,” said Bradley.)

During his studies in both art history and Spanish, Bradley became fascinated with the field of pre-Columbian art, a subject, along with Spanish, which continues to inspire and inform his work to this day. Moreover he acknowledges his admiration for painters like Turner, Constable and Bellows.

He launched his extensive run of shows (more than 200 so far) almost immediately after graduation and then found work as an art history and painting instructor at Parsons College in Iowa before he returned to Fort Wayne in 1967 to the Art Institute and later IPFW, from where he retired in 2000.

Bradley’s work can be seen in private and permanent collections and at public places like Chops, and he’s preparing an exhibition for the Artlink “Self-Portrait” show scheduled to open April 9. The event which will feature upwards of 125 entries should be an exciting vista of local and area artists with specially taken, real-time photos affixed to each entry as they are hung.

“I think some who haven’t been in touch lately may find my offering a little shocking since I’ve lost my hair as the result of the treatments I’m undergoing since I was diagnosed with lymphoma,” volunteered Bradley. “It (the cancer) seems to be under control and they’re taking care of it.”

Aside from the forthcoming Artlink invitational Bradley is excited about a summer’s showing in the Focus Gallery at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art. Although it hasn’t been made exactly formal, FWMA representatives have extended an invitation to Bradley for a two-month solo appearance which will focus on the cross-over between his landscapes and abstract renderings.

“There’s an obvious similarity with the way I fashion clouds and landscapes and my nonrepresentational work, and I was pleased that they (the Museum) recognized the carry over,” Bradley said. “I’m honored to have a chance to have my work there.”

Although Bradley expresses some disappointment in the fact that some people these days don’t appreciate the great influence of American abstract painters (a visitor to one of his exhibitions once scribbled “a waste of paint” on a comment card), he has faith that the general public will understand, maybe even like his paintings.