An artist is compelled to create. On a global stage or alone in a room; for personal profit or social change; to sell a product or recapture a memory. As vast as the world of art is the range of reasons for artmaking.
For avid outdoorsman and educator Charles Beck, the reasons have been straightforward, not overwrought. Beck doesn’t sell or even show his work. He often gives paintings as gifts. He is inspired to translate what he sees and feels visually through a fluid medium that amounts to a legacy.
Art is something he enjoyed doing as a kid and pursued for a while as a student at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art before going to Montclair State University’s Panzer College of Physical Education and earning a master’s in outdoor education and conservation. He also served in the Army and spent two years in Korea. Beck started to revisit and explore his art more when he retired about 20 years ago from his long career as an elementary school physical education teacher in Livingston.
Photography and watercolor painting are his two preferred mediums. Hundreds of his framed pictures cover the walls of his Manahawkin beach house, a three-bedroom condo in The Landings that he and his wife Betsy bought about 15 years ago and where they now spend 80% of the year.
“I haven’t counted them in a long time,” Betsy chimes in. “It’s a lot.” They estimate between 200 and 300. They’re on FaceTime from their home up north while the guided tour of art in their beach house is underway.
Over the years Beck would always take his watercolors and a pad on vacations and sketch what he saw. He took one class in oils but prefers the quality of watercolors and finds they lend themselves more to landscape work. As a fisherman he has admired many sunsets in Barnegat Light.
Just two years ago Beck lost an eye to cataracts, but he can still paint.
And paint he does – often red barns. Red barns from every angle and distance. Colorful skies. Trees and water and rocks.
The 86-year-old also swims and hikes daily in addition to his recreational and creative endeavors. Up north he heats his home with a woodstove for which he splits and carries his own wood.
“I don’t sit down,” he said. When he does sit down, he makes use of the time productively by painting. Does it bring him inner peace? “Probably,” is his reply.
One bathroom in the condo is decorated entirely with Beck’s photos of Barnegat Lighthouse. He says the key to a nice lighthouse shot is “clouds and a good sky.” Fishing vessels are another fond subject.
He is drawn to the red barn imagery because, he explained, he believes he would have been quite happy in life as a farmer. Something about the early morning chores and the physicality of farm work has long appealed to him. Growing up in Verona Park, he had baby ducks and caught fish in the creek. He treaded for clams and caught flounder for dinner. His home in Livingston is a 250-year-old farmhouse where he has tended 2,400-square-foot gardens, apple trees and chickens.
Fishing and pheasant hunting are two more of his favorite pastimes – he’s raised and trained five English springer spaniels – and it shows in his artwork. When he’s out he always photographs the scenery for reference to paint from later.
He still fishes every day when he’s at the shore and keeps a trailer in the Catskills where he goes to fly fish. The self-described “togaholic” ties his own rigs and is a professional-grade fly-tier. But whether fishing saltwater or fresh, he only casts from land.
“I don’t do boats,” he said.
Though he has not considered how he might put his artistic style into words, he knows he’s continually growing and expanding as an artist.
And maybe that’s the purest expression of all: “I never thought about it,” he said. “I just paint.”
– Victoria Ford
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