Ron & Ben

Nothing less than the life of an artist. That was the whole-hearted ambition of Ron Anderson, and the gods smiled.

He’s enjoyed a robust career as an artist, developing an original technique for threedimensional painting and raising two artist sons, Ben and Sean, with wife Susie, also an artist. “We’re a family of artists,” says Ron. “When we get together, there’s always art gab.”

For Ben, who paints in a loose photo realistic style, the example his father set was formative. Growing up in his dad’s studio, he went from toddling between easels to a teenager, working for dad doing his underpaintings — all part of his own “epic journey” as an artist, he says. Encouraged by his parents to seek the life he wanted, Ben attended the San Francisco Academy of Art University, as did his brother, and studied in Florence, Italy, before returning to Carpinteria to raise his own children with his wife, and muse, Leigh-Anne. But no matter how far he traveled, his father was always part of the journey.

“I’ve collected most of his emails of inspiration,” Ben says, “He’s an endless source for wise words. He used to come to me with these crazy ideas and ask me what I thought of them. His intention and his motivation, it’s not even something he says, but how he lives his life.”

But while art has remained constant, the medium, style, and materials that they use have changed over the years. Both acknowledge this is more than true — they like to change and to experiment — and they admit, they sometimes grow bored of something they spend too much time on.

For Ben, it was a transition from sculpture, which he studied at art school, to painting, which became his career. He started with portraits which “kicked off right away,” and he has continued to develop. His work took a clear direction when he studied in Italy. He learned about the Italian Renaissance and began to craft his own style of photo realism, but a littler looser. Later he brought that vibrant lens back to Carpinteria, where he paints more than portraits. His recent work includes paintings of water and seascapes with abstract interventions. The natural abstraction of water appeals to him, and the ocean is a “daily inspiration.” “I’m out on the water all the time,” he says, “swimming, surfing, or just watching my boys.”

Ron’s current work on the other hand is definitively abstract. But it hasn’t always been. “I’ve dabbled in abstract work through other periods,” he says, “I tend to evolve with my work. I get deeply into whatever I’m doing and then it runs its course and I start something else that interests me.”

His prior work includes whimsical sculptures, oil paintings, and his unique three-dimensional paintings. Today, he’s painting mixed media “visual meditations” — fever pitch compositions with sizzling brushstrokes that zigzag across the canvas.

“We are a unique family,” says Ron, noting the talents of his wife and sons. They still get together for weekly studio visits to talk about art or anything else.

Ben’s kids are now exploring their dad’s studio, learning to draw and sculpt with clay. The studio is kept stocked with different materials for experimentation, and there’s even a spray-paint booth. “It’s like when I was a kid,” Ben says, “It’s more about giving them the opportunities than anything else.” Only time can tell what the next generation will decide to do in art or otherwise. “The neat thing about kids is they are just free,” Ron adds. “They just do what they want to do. Out of that comes some pretty interesting stuff.” 