1. BY EMMA SCHKLOVEN
R
ichard Crozier has made a career
of painting landscapes out of his
car.
He doesn’t paint from photographs,
and he rarely sketches and then returns
to his studio to paint. Instead, the artist
parks his vehicle, climbs into the pas-
senger seat, props his easel against the
dashboard and paints on the spot, with
his inspiration directly before him.
“It’s a terrible thing to do to a car, by
the way,” the 70-year-old says. “My poor
wife, she has to check if there [is] a blob
of paint in there before [she] sits down.”
Crozier counts his time in undergrad
at The University ofWashington in
Seattle as the true beginning of his art
career, although he did take a water-
color class around the age of 11.
His parents wanted him to study sci-
ence, but his grades quickly revealed
that would not happen. During his
time at UW, the Hawaii native went
from studying science to graphic
design before he eventually settled on
painting.
Crozier then pursed his MFA in
abstract painting from the University
of California, Davis, where he studied
with the likes ofWilliam T.Wiley, Roy
De Forest andWayne Thiebaud. Almost
immediately after receiving his degree,
he accepted a teaching post at the Uni-
versity ofVirginia, where he remained
until he retired in 2011 after 37 years of
teaching.
Since he began painting, Crozier has
created more than 4,000 works of art.
During his career, the retired teacher
moved from abstract art to landscapes.
But his landscapes are not what you’d
typically expect.
Crozier says his art dealer used to
refer to them as paintings of “dirt piles
and dumpsters.”
“I can’t resist a dumpster,” he says.
“They’re so big and they’re so blue.”
Featuring everything from aban-
doned lots and tree stumps to fields
and construction sites, the artist paints
the areas he knows best — that of
Charlottesville, Crozet,Waynesboro
and the surrounding counties.
“I kind of like things when they’re
in process,” he says, “like the colors
and the kind of chaos and the kind of
junkiness of it all. It seems kind of chal-
lenging to paint, for one thing, and [it’s]
a look at something [that] is going to
look different in a few years.”
The former teacher often finds
inspiration in more than just the space
itself; it’s the questions he finds himself
asking about the area — about its past
and its future — that draw him toward
these less than traditional landscapes.
focuson
‘Dirt piles and dumpsters’
8 Wednesday, February 11, 2015 the-burg.com
Why you should
know him:
The Charlottesville artist
currently is showing his
work at Sweet Briar Col-
lege in the exhibit“Land-
scapes in Transition.”
IFYOU GO
What: ‘Richard Crozier: Landscapes in
Transition’
When: Open now through March 25
Where: Sweet Briar College’s Babcock
Fine Arts Center Gallery, 134 Chapel Rd.
Gallery hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday
through Friday
Info: sbc.edu/art-galleries/exhibitions-
and-programs
Featuring
everything from
abandoned lots
and tree stumps
to fields and
construction
sites, Richard
Crozier paints the
areas he knows
best — that of
Charlottesville,
Crozet,
Waynesboro and
the surrounding
counties.
Richard Crozier finds beauty
in everyday landscapes,
sharing artwork in SBC exhibit
See CROZIER, Page 9
COURTESY OF ELLIE MCELROY
SUBMITTED

2. focuson
“What happened here?What was this
place?What’s it going to become?” he
says.“I like the way that you see nature
pushing back.”
Crozier’s collection at Sweet Briar
College features paintings from 2006
through 2014, a small portion of what he
refers to as his visual diary.
“I’ve got heaps and heaps of these
things at home. I try to get out everyday
… and [the paintings], they do form a
kind of diary — today I went here and I
painted this.”
When he moved toVirginia in 1974,
the artist wanted to paint 100 different
views of Charlottesville, like Hiroshige’s
“36Views of Mount Fuji,” he adds.
“I’ll often go and drive around early in
the morning, and just go look the city
over … but often on those trips I’ll say,‘I
want to come back here this afternoon,
see what the light looks like on that in a
couple hours.’Things like that.”
The most difficult part of these trips,
Crozier explains, is returning to find that
his inspiration has been torn down in his
absence.
“There was one place I’d always ad-
mired for a long time on probably one
of the worst corners in Charlottesville,
[it was] an old house that leaned prob-
ably five degrees … and people lived in
it,” he says. “So I finally got my nerve
up to park on the street there … and as
I was painting, this thing, this big yel-
low machine, rolls up to the house and
goes, ‘Burrh’ [gestures knocking down a
wall].
“The interior of the house was painted
the most iridescent pink I’ve ever seen
in my life,” he adds.“… It looked like it
cracked an egg or something.”
Crozier’s paintings have a mysterious
quality about them.When farther away,
they look almost like photographs,
sharp and clear with vibrant color and
exquisite detail. As you approach, the
soft brush strokes of oil on canvas be-
come more pronounced and the image
itself becomes fuzzier.
“I do like that they come into focus,”
he says. “I had a student at one point,
who was a very good mimic, and he
called me up one Sunday — people
were addicted to prank calls — and he
said, ‘Mr. Crozier, my name is so-and-so
and I was wondering, do you give art
lessons? I want to take art lessons from
you — I want to learn to paint all fuzzy
like you do!’”
the-burg.com Wednesday, February 11, 2015 9
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IN HIS WORDS
On side jobs:
“The job I had before I went off to grad-
uate school — I was desperate to earn
some money, and a friend of mine told me
about a company,Jonas Brothers, which
was looking for an artist .... It turned out
they were a company that did taxidermy.
It wasn’t what I had in mind, but I got the
job, and I spent about six months pound-
ing rubber tongues and bear skin rugs.
Puttying little bullet holes and painting
them to look happy — [I] painted up their
lips and curled their tinted hair. I was very
happy to leave that one.”
On earning his masters at U.C. Davis:
“Itwas during the dayswhere a lot of
the facultytheyhad didn’t reallythinkof
themselves as teachers,theywere just
artistswho had found the gravytrain.They
gaveyou a studio and said,‘Make some art,
we’ll come back in about sixmonths and
seewhatyou did.’…And then they’d show
up in sixmonths and stand inyour studio
and they’d sayutterlycontradictory and
incomprehensible things and then go away.
And in twoyears theysay,‘OK,you can
graduate.’”
On getting the job at UVa:
“I’d just graduated … and I was walking
past the chairman’s office, and he stuck
his head out and said,‘Dick Crozier,
you want a job?’And I said,‘Sure …’— I
thought he meant mow his lawn or some-
thing like that — and he handed me the
phone and said‘Talk to this guy.’[It was]
the chairman of the art department at
UVa. Someone had resigned about three
days before classes were supposed to
start, and they called a couple of schools
around the country and asked if they had
somebody who could come.
“And so, I got on the phone, and he
asked,‘Could you tell me how you’d teach
a design class?’And I thought,‘Oh crap, I
flunked design class.’And I said,‘Well, I’d
um —’
“And he said,‘You’d teach about shape
and color and texture, wouldn’t you?’And
I said,‘Yeah, I’d do that.’And he said,‘Can
you get here by Monday?’”
On teaching art:
“It’s really kind of tough, because every-
body sees things differently.You have to
approach somebody a bit gingerly, and to
try not to be too full of yourself and think
that you know all the answers. … I think
to try to encourage people and say,‘Make
more of it.’Someone made the remark
that behind every successful artist are
acres of ruined canvas. I think people try
something and say,‘This doesn’t work.’
…A lot of the teaching I did was getting
people over the hurdle.”
Crozier
From Page 8