Tom Hempel said he was all of 12 years old in 1959 when he realized he had a love for painting pictures.
“My grandmother always used to tell me I was an artist, because I was always messing around with it as a boy,” Hempel said. “I also received a lot of encouragement from my high school instructor, the late Don Poston, who believed in me and told me I would be good one day.”
Hempel was in Perry Thursday for the official opening of the Iowa Watercolor Society’s 2017 Juried Exhibition at La Poste, 1219 Warford Street. He is one of 43 artists featured and one of 19 to have two paintings displayed. Twenty-two artists have single works in the show.
He took an advanced art class at Bettendorf High School and painted throughout his school years, but said he put down his brushes for 12 years, which is when he began dating Marti, who would soon become Mrs. Hempel.
“She learned I used to paint and said ‘paint me a picture’ which is what got me back into it and I have never stopped,” he said. “It can be work to create some paintings, but when you are doing what you love you never mind too much.”
Hempel’s work can be seen throughout the Quad Cities, as more than 20 restaurants display examples of his craft.
“Some have one or maybe two paintings, and there are many that have six, seven or eight displayed,” he said.
Hempel works only in watercolor and is, by his own choice, deliberate in subject matter.
“I paint houses, businesses, old buildings — things like that,” he said. “People really like having paintings of their homes, or maybe a house they grew up in, and I am often commissioned to paint those kind of scenes.”
His “Dearborn Mansion (Stone City, IA)” and “Lobster Shack (Maine)” are both currently on display at La Poste.
The exhibition will be judged September 17 and monetary prizes awarded. The top 30 pieces will then tour the state next year as part of the Iowa Watercolor Society’s Traveling Exhibit. The top paintings from 2016 are on display in The Cellar at La Poste. Both exhibits are available for viewing, at no cost, from 4:30-8:30 p.m. each Thursday until September 28.
