Politics, social ailments, and corporate greed aside, Limber’s art has substance.
The first thing you notice — and the last thing you notice — at Richard Limber’s home studio is that everything is covered in paint. Everything. Snow shovels leaning against a shed, a couple of kayak paddles, a large rubber glove that at first glance looks like a hand reaching out of a giant planter, even a semi-phallic-shaped piece of concrete that sits at the bottom of his rustic front steps is covered in paint. I ask what his plans are for a large straw bag that’s sitting outside in the yard. “Oh that,” he says, “I picked it up on the side of the road and I haven’t quite decided what to do with it.”
You’ve likely driven by Limber’s home studio on Circuit Ave. near Wing Road in Oak Bluffs dozens of times. You can’t miss it. There’s always a banner out front, created in his unique style, hanging from a tree that at the very least piques your curiosity. Limber decided to keep his studio open to visitors on Sundays all summer this year, but if you’re interested, he’d have no problem showing you around another day.
The house itself is a canvas for Limber. (He moved it piece by piece from West Tisbury a while back.) I ask what’s covering the walls in what looks like a living room. “Plaster,” he says, “that’s plaster with a little bit of wax and titanium. Pretty cool, huh?” His refrigerator is covered in magic marker drawings of creatures from his imagination and from friends and family. I almost want to ask if I can draw on it too. There are shelves made from all different shapes and sizes of wood, filled with jars, fishing line, packing tape, cheese graters, a juicer, and some shears. Even the bathroom isn’t off limits, with drawings on nearly every inch of cabinet space. Every door in the house invites you to open it just by its decorative front. Come in, they seem to say, we’ll show you something you haven’t seen before. “Is there a name for the piece that’s on the inside of that closet door?” I ask. “We can make one up,” Limber says. “Woman in the Closet.”
These days, Limber is elbow deep into creating mostly portraits, and they are by no means ordinary. When the war in Ukraine broke out, he painted a young woman’s portrait from a photograph in the New York Times. He added mortars cascading down around her in a sketch, and she popped up all over the Island in poster form, reminding the entire community what was happening in Eastern Europe.
Most of his portraits these days have a point to make — the late Congressman John Lewis in an ink portrait, his face a roadmap of his life, a portrait of George Floyd that you can identify immediately. One of the newer ink images contains three portraits, one of them clearly Vincent van Gogh.
Limber says the Island art scene is too tame, not enough risk-taking. He explained that he did some research on the internet and found that one of the primary reasons people like to come to Martha’s Vineyard is because of security — it’s a relatively secure, safe place. “We’re a nostalgia-based art community here,” Limber explains, “so the art doesn’t upset the apple cart. It’s going to ride along with it. Because people come here out of insecurity, they don’t want to be confronted, but you have to push the envelope in some way to be creative.”
One of his good friends is artist and teacher Doug Ashford, who counted Hans Haacke as a mentor. Limber was around the scene in the 70s that produced conceptual art by some of the most well-known, Manhattan-connected artists. These folks were sitting around the table talking about how art can be much more than something beautiful to look at. The influence of the experience can be seen in Limber’s work.
“This group did social and political work in the realm of museums, subway systems, and putting art wherever,” Limber says. “Art can not only be beautiful, but it can be put in places it’s never been seen before. I was on the periphery of that and I saw that and I think it deeply affected me … this idea that you can take stuff and put it out on the street … it can be more effective in that way.”
Limber created a huge George Floyd banner, and Eugene Langston Jemison used it in Black Lives Matter protests all over the Island. He almost always has a banner out in front of his driveway that includes renditions of everyone from Putin to John Lewis to Rupert Murdoch. Limber says the Vineyard seems ripe for pushing the creative envelope in the art community,
“Just a small push,” Limber smiles, “you don’t really know how much you can push the envelope until you do it.”
Limber goes down a rabbit hole when he reflects on banned books and the politics of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis juxtaposed the censoring of the Disney-owned film “The French Connection.”
“Envelopes can go two different ways,” Limber says. “You have DeSantis going after Disney because they’re talking about trans kids and getting rid of discrimination. Then there was an article in the NYTimes about the Gene Hackman film, ‘The French Connection.’ Disney taking offensive words out of the movie doesn’t make sense. He plays a very flawed character, it’s who he is in the movie. They took whole scenes out so that it doesn’t make sense now. We can’t use those words even if there is context. It’s a weird time we’re in right now.” Limber argues that if racism is in the context of the film, you’re taking something away if you omit scenes where racism is portrayed. “It wasn’t because the director was racist; it was a very flawed character.”
We switch gears and start to talk about artificial intelligence (AI) in art, and Limber tells me he thinks a lot of visual art already looks like it was generated by AI. Then we’re back to talking about the Island and how economic forces lead to artists painting different versions of the same thing over and over again. He said he could be as commercial as the next guy when it comes to his artwork, but it’s clear he doesn’t think there’s any fun in that proposition.
“My education was a lot of sketching in museums and doing wacky sketches the guards enjoyed,” Limber says. “I have some traditional skills, and I’m able to render something quickly, knowing composition and color and their relationship to what you are doing. I take relatively traditional techniques and try to make it relevant. You’re not successful all the time. For me, it’s about mixing it up. Traditional with contemporary. You can render something and have life in it too.”
Limber says it has been a challenge on the Island to get his artwork into the mainstream, so much so that sometimes he wonders why he’s still here after all these years.
“Before, it was more unique and people didn’t judge you,” he says. “Decades ago, yes, you had to spend some money to get here, but the economy allowed for artists to survive and do their artwork. Now, it’s extreme wealth.” Limber thinks a minute then laughs, “Anyone else with half a brain would go do this someplace else, but I’m a stubborn person.”
Richard Limber’s studio is at 184R Circuit Ave., Oak Bluffs. He plans to be open through the rest of the summer, and if not, look him up and he’ll set something up with you.