Art Lecture by Jim Robertson

               The Art Lecture by Jim Robertson took place at Lone Star College - North Harris in the Academic building in room A126.  His art is also currently on display in the Fine Arts building - Fine Art Gallery and is also for sale.  He is a retired professor from Lone Star College and worked for over thirty-five years teaching painting.  He still draws and paints and says he loves perspective.  His love of drawing is evident in his speech about how he carries a sketchbook wherever he goes; drawing and journaling all the time.   He got into large scale steel sculptures and art cars after taking a welding class.  He has had one of these sculptures on display at the Menil Art Museum for a temporary exhibit and rented another one out to the Midland Convention Center for four years. 

                His process with the large steel sculptures starts with finding old farm equipment.  The he has the rust sandblasted off and assembles the pieces by laying them out on the floor.  Then he uses soap stone to mark on the steel to make cuts; because he can see it when he is welding.  After that he stacks the pieces up on blacks to see if everything lines up before he welds them permanently together.  The final process involves polishing the steel to a shine and spraying the sculpture with clear sealer to prevent rust.  It can take him three to four months to build these sculptures that he feels are inspired by Medieval art.

                I think some of the pieces are more Gothic in design with all the exterior details.  The railroad spikes on his sculptures Xylotobot, Xylotobot Rex, and the Cactus Crawler even resemble the flamboyants on the Gothic church spires.  You can see a bit of science fiction influence in his sculptures too; which helps make his designs inspiring, with the old farm equipment becoming the modern sculptures.  It shows that anything can be made new again.

His drawings / journal pages showed a lot of his personal side, which showed a different side of his art.  I think his best work as an artist is definitely the large steel sculptures from the found objects!  This art exhibit has been my favorite exhibit so far!  The artist, Jim Robertson's, happiness and excitement in sharing his art with the school and students made the event even more fun!

Xylotobot (price $6,000)

Alternate view of Xylotobot (has green water-ripple-texture stained glass windows)

Chopper (price $8,000) - you can also see some of his journal drawings on the walls

Xylotobot Rex - it runs on a go-cart motor & has been in the Houston Art Car Parade (price $15,000)

Outlaw Chariot (price $9,000)

Tractor Trike (price $1,800) and Cactus Crawler (price $2,100)

Seven Up (price $900)

Alternate view of items (some of his journals are in the glass case, I chose to only feature his sculptures)