Odds and ends from around the U.S. and the World

Ever since High School I’ve drawn cartoons for friends and associates, eventually even for organizations such as the U.S. Navy, CIA, State Department, and the Pentagon. I created a special feature for State Magazine that ran monthly from 1979 to 1993 called “SUPERCRAT the Super Bureaucrat.” Later, from about 2000 to 2013, I created a panel cartoon called “KILJOY.” I am a retired member of the Association of American Editorial Cartoons (AAEC) and the National Cartoonists Society (NCS) and worked as an editorial cartoonist for a couple northern Virginia papers and two online outlets. I’ve probably had 3000-4000 cartoons published over the years.

One of the perks of traveling, whether it is on back roads in the U.S. or in distant lands, is coming across old structures with character, histories, or mysteries attached to them. They can be barns, ruins, castles, churches, ghost towns, fortresses, sea shanties, historic buildings, or abandoned homes from generations past. I love the textures and hidden stories behind the facades and walls. These are some of my favorites.

Starting in 2020, Beck became a resident artist in the historic town of Hillsboro, Virginia. Started as a frontier settlement called “The Gap” in 1745, by 1802 it was a thriving commercial outpost supporting westward expansion as well as commercial ties to the Potomac port of Alexandria. The eruption of the Civil War diverted a planned Railroad to be relocated south of the town, effectively isolating it commercially for the rest of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Ironically this isolation preserved the historic nature of the town and its stone buildings. No housing developments ensued to disrupt the frontier ambiance of Hillsboro. In 2021, Beck began recording the town of Hillsboro as it began and completed an epic $25 million renovation. Portions of his sales went toward supporting the town’s future art projects.

In 2018 my wife and I spent a month as artists in residence at Chaco Canyon Cultural Historical Park in New Mexico. We lived in flat in the Ranger’s compound and had free access to the amazing valley where a fantastic cultural network existed 1000 years ago, then was suddenly abandoned. Walking around the buttes, mesas, canyons, and ruins brought me closer, as an artist and person to the lives the ancient Chacoans experienced. These are some of the sketches and paintings I did of the experience, including paintings donated to the National Park Service.

In 2017 my wife and I spent 30 days in NOV-DEC living in the old Klingel Farmhouse on the Gettysburg Battlefield, right along the main battle line of the famous three day conflict that changed the course of the US Civil War between July 3-5, 1863. Since my ancestors actually lived in the local farm areas, and several fought in the Civil War (but not at Gettysburg), being there as an artist and photographer allowed me to actually prove deeper into my own family history, as well as the details of the battle itself.

During Operation Desert Storm, the Navy recalled me to active duty for a year to be its official Combat Artist for the conflict. After spending 47 days on the ground from the launch of the air war to the cease fire and expulsion of the Iraqi Army from Kuwait, I produced 35 paintings for the Navy Art Gallery in Washington DC. What follows are those paintings plus some paintings and sketches that remained in my personal collection.

As noted in the ODS gallery, I was the Navy’s official Combat Artis for Operation Desert Storm in 1991. However as a “soldier, sailor, artist, spy” I was a combatant, advisor, observer, intelligence operative, or peacekeeper in about 25 wars, revolutions, coups, and civil conflicts from 1969 to 2013 in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and Central America. This gallery depicts both paintings and sketches (some of them less “mature in execution “ than later ones) that reflect the history that I observed during those decades.

When Chip & Kathy moved to Goose Island Pond and Farm in 2019, part of the attraction was to use the bucolic setting as a source of inspiration and creativity for themselves and their artist friends. The changing light, varieties of animals and birds, coming of seasons, all contribute to fodder for the an artist’s palette.

The artist has traveled to 150 countries since 1958 when he first crossed the border to Mexico as a teenager of 13. Since an early age, he has recorded his memories in art form. This gallery displays more recent watercolor images of wildlife encountered at home and abroad.