Workhouse Artist of the Week: Bill Firestone

Patch recently visited the Lorton Workhouse and found Bill Firestone -painter, illustrator and graphic designer - showing off his unique painting style to the loud, driving beat of Queen’s “We Will Rock You”. 

“I just kind of like to play loud music when I’m painting,” said Bill, sweeping a large brush over a not-yet finished abstract painting. “When I get going, I lose myself. I listen to rock and roll. I try not to think too much about what I’m doing—just kind of make accidents and leave them or take them out.”

But what do Bill’s studio neighbors think about his rock-out tendencies in the usually quiet Workhouse? “I come here in the late afternoon,” said Bill. “I’ve been fortunate that’s there’s not a lot of people here at the end of the day, so I can just let go.”

Growing up on a fruit and cattle farm in Troutville, Virginia (near Roanoke), Bill was formally introduced to the art in school. “I didn’t really have any artists in my family that I’m aware of,” he said. “But my father was an artist in the way he farmed. He kept the fields so neat that it was like a park, not a farm. So, I may have gotten some of it from him. But I just had talent.

“When I went to the first grade, I just started drawing. And people liked it. And that was how I was popular, I guess you could say, or noticed. So there you go. I wanted to show off and I could draw.”

Bill’s education didn’t lead him to pursue the arts until he graduated high school in 1964. “Where I went to school, it was sort of unheard of to pursue art,” said Bill. "Once I got out of high school I took a course at the Roanoke Fine Arts center where my teacher encouraged me to go to art school.”

But it took a semester of studying personnel management at the University of Tennessee before Bill finally made the decision to change course and study the arts. “Once I got to UT, I’d wander over to the art building, which is this little house where all the weird artists hung out,” said Bill. “I thought, this is what I want to do. This is me. So in 1965 I transferred to VCU (Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond). I just knew I wanted to be a full-time art student.

“VCU in the 60’s was the hippy era. It was a wild time. I just dove into art—for four years I immersed myself into it. I ended up being a communications and design major because they didn’t really have an illustration curriculum and I was afraid to go into the fine arts curriculum. Everybody said you wouldn’t be able to get work as a fine artist, so I did graphic design.”

Bill’s career minded goals pushed his desire to create non-commercial art to the backburner while he worked as a graphic designer first in Roanoke, and then in DC.

“I wasn’t special at it,” said Bill. “I was better at art—painting and drawing. With graphic design, I just wasn’t as good as the other students. When I got out of school, I worked at it but struggled with my choice. Then I started working freelance as a paste up artist—I was good at that.”

After settling down in Northern Virginia with his wife, Bill took up art classes with a local artist who taught out of her home. Upon seeing Bill’s work, she insisted he become an illustrator. “She said, you gotta be an illustrator,” remembered Bill. “Give up that graphic design. You can really draw and paint. This is what you wanna do—then do it.”

With the encouragement of his teacher and wife, Bill enrolled in Northern Virginia Community College in 1982. “I didn’t have the skills to be an illustrator,” said Bill. “I was a painter. I went back to NOVA and took two years of illustration courses. I developed a portfolio that I could go out and promote myself with.”

Eventually Bill started taking classes again. In 2004, he sold his first painting. “I had a show at the National Institute of Health. I had a big painting and it sold," he said. "I mean, if nothing had sold, I probably would have stuck to illustration—even if I was kind of miserable with it.

Bill moved his studio from his home to the Lorton Workhouse in 2007. He also teaches a painting class at the Workhouse called “Painting to Get Loose”.

“I teach how to loosen up and keep your work loose and not overworked,” said Bill. “It’s an ever-growing thing. You can always improve. We torture ourselves as artists. We think we don’t know what we are doing, but I also think you want to be able to have as much fun as you can.”

Bill Firestone accepts commissions and has a showing of his tractor paintings this weekend at the Art Space in Herndon. He’s also featured in Elan Magazine’s September issue.