By Bill Robinson
RICHMOND — The Richmond Downtown Merchants Association is selling a set of four postcards based on watercolor paintings by artist local Ron Taylor.
The cards feature local landmarks, including the downtown streetscape, the Madison County Courthouse, Irvinton and The Bennett House.
A set of four is $9 and proceeds benefit the merchants’ association.
The cards are available at the Richmond Tourism office on Lancaster Ave., Richmond City Hall, the Gallery on Main, the Chamber of Commerce and several downtown businesses.
The merchants’ association recognized the promotional potential of Taylor’s paintings when he exhibited them at the Gallery on Main in February and March.
The group has incorporated Taylor’s street scape sceen, the south side of West Main Street between Second and Third streets, in it logo.
Taylor, a native of Iowa who spent most of his adult life in Minneapolis, moved to Richmond eight years ago when his wife joined the history faculty of Eastern Kentucky University.
As a young man, Taylor’s talent pulled him out of Chicago Academy for the Arts after only one year. He took a job as assistant art director of a television station. His boss soon left for another position and recommended that Taylor succeed him.
Taylor’s television work led him into advertising and he eventually headed up his own ad agency in Minneapolis. After moving to Richmond, Taylor continued to serve his clients via the Internet, but retired at age 59 after completing on-going projects.
With his ad agency work behind him and his wife teaching at a university, it was time for Taylor to pursue the bachelor of fine arts degree he had begun so many years before. His art studies took him to Italy one summer with the Kentucky Institute for International Studies. As he sat on a curb painting street scenes in Florence, birthplace of the Renaissance, Taylor’s thoughts flew back to Richmond.
“If I can’t go back to Kentucky and paint street scenes in Richmond, then I’m not the artist I think I am,” he recalls saying to himself.
Once back in Richmond, Taylor began painting Richmond streetscapes and landmarks. Other Richmond landmarks in Taylor’s collection include the Glyndon Hotel, Arlington House and the EKU Keen Johnson Building with the statue of Daniel Boone in the foreground.
Taylor insists on calling his watercolors “sketches” instead of paintings. Many artists use watercolor as a preliminary exercise before painting with oils, he points out.
Whatever he calls them, Taylor’s watercolors can more than stand on their own. They truly breathe vitality into Richmond landmarks that otherwise often beg for life
