2006.10.24: October 24, 2006: Headlines: COS - Kenya: Art: Painting: Castro Valley Forum: Kenya RPCV Gerry Thompson spends his free time creating oil and watercolor paintings
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2006.10.24: October 24, 2006: Headlines: COS - Kenya: Art: Painting: Castro Valley Forum: Kenya RPCV Gerry Thompson spends his free time creating oil and watercolor paintings
Kenya RPCV Gerry Thompson spends his free time creating oil and watercolor paintings
Thompson began traveling in college, with summer trips to Europe. He joined the Peace Corps in 1976 and spent two years teaching high school Chemistry in Kapsabet, in the Western Highlands of Kenya, Africa.
Kenya RPCV Gerry Thompson spends his free time creating oil and watercolor paintings
CV Artist’s Work at Hayward Chamber of Commerce
By : Emma Krasov : 10/24/06
Gerry Thompson of Castro Valley trains customers in Perforce Software as his day job. Yet these days, his colorful paintings are on display at the Hayward Chamber of Commerce for everyone to see.
Besides gaining two Master’s degrees—in Chemistry and Education from the San Francisco State University, Thompson attended the Academy of Art College in SF and turned to oils and watercolors on many occasions throughout his life.
Thompson was born in Santa Monica, and still remembers his childhood visits to his grandmother, who lived in Selma in a two-story craftsman home built in the 1920s.
He remembers her coiled oil paints in neat piles in her upstairs studio, and the house, furnished by his grandfather, with paintings by his grandmother, lamps, made by his father, and stained glass windows created by his mother.
All Thompson family members had artistic talents, and he began painting abstract oils in his teenage years.
Thompson began traveling in college, with summer trips to Europe. He joined the Peace Corps in 1976 and spent two years teaching high school Chemistry in Kapsabet, in the Western Highlands of Kenya, Africa.
He spent three months traveling through Asia after completing his Peace Corps service.
At all times, he spent his free time creating oil and watercolor paintings.
One of the paintings on display is an interpretation of a satellite photo of the surface of Jupiter. He calls it “The Red Spot.”
Currently, he’s contemplating an oil painting that would depict an aerial view of Ogallala Aquifer which runs north and south through the Great Plains states, and the affects of agricultural development on the are as an abstract metaphor for change.
Gerry Thompson’s paintings are currently on display at the Hayward Chamber of Commerce, 22561 Main Street, Hayward. For more information, call 537-2424.
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Headlines: October, 2006; COS - Kenya; Art; Painting
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Story Source: Castro Valley Forum
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Kenya; Art; Painting
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