The following article appeared in the Cherokee Tribune.

Work of art

Barry Waldman of BridgeMill, left, is teaching students around the world through his online school, BridgeMill Art Center.
Photo by Thinh D. Nguyen

By Barbara P. Jacoby
bjacoby@cherokeetribune.com

Barry Waldman is teaching art to students as far away as Kenya, Indonesia and Australia without ever leaving his BridgeMill home.

The 74-year-old veteran artist has taken skills gleaned from his time years ago as a correspondence art school instructor and hit the digital highway.

Through his BridgeMill Art Center, Waldman is reaching students in 19 countries who, because of remote locales or busy schedules, are otherwise unable to study art.

"When I was teaching at Famous Artists School, the major constituency were people in the Midwest and other large areas where there were no cities," he said of the correspondence school, where he met great artists such as Norman Rockwell. "It was about not being able to get to a class or not wanting to get to a class."

And while remoteness is not as much of an issue in the United States today, it is in other parts of the world, and people everywhere often are too busy to attend conventional art schools. They need, he said, a way to study art when and where it's convenient for them.

"People can work on their art on nights and weekends. The critiques and lessons are available to them 24/7," he said of the advantages of online art school.

In the old days, he said, students would mail their artwork to correspondence schools. Then artists like himself would paint corrections or a new version of the same artwork to show students how to improve their skills.

Through his online art school, Waldman equips students with digital cameras, so they can photograph their artwork and then electronically send him a digital image. He then prints out a copy of the image, paints his corrections onto it and reverses the digital correspondence process.

Lessons and all of the artwork's steps are posted online, and students also receive a CD with the same content at the end of the course.

He offers two options for his complete oil painting course: students can pay the $995 fee (which includes a digital camera and is discounted for students who have their own) up front or "pay as you go." He also offers custom courses he tailors to students' needs such as anime comic illustration, botanicals and seascapes.

Students can take as long as they want within 30 months to finish the complete course, he said, noting some take their time, while others "race right ahead."

Since Waldman started the school in 2001, he said he's taught about 100 students including the Sep. 11, 2001, burn victim in New York, the Indonesian newspaper cartoonist and the serviceman stationed aboard a ship near Dubai.

And he hopes to hear more stories as his lessons circle the globe, Waldman said, as that's what keeps it interesting.

WHO: Barry Waldman

AGE: 74

RESIDENCE: BridgeMill

OCCUPATION: Owner of BridgeMill Art Center, an online art school

EDUCATION: Graduated from the Pratt Institute in New York in 1956 with a bachelor of fine arts degree

WORK EXPERIENCE: Founder, Visual Pad Art Studios Inc., Launching Pad Studios Inc., Life-Like Portrait Studios Inc. and Planograms Plus Inc., Cyber Portraits; creative director, Howard Marlboro Group Worldwide, BMS Marketing Services Inc., Glendenning Associates; art director, Thomson-Leeds Inc. and Schiffenhaus/Displayco; associate professor, Fairfield University; assistant professor, Pratt Institute; instructor, Famous Artists Schools and private art classes; cover designer for Fantasy & Science Fiction, Ellery Queen Magazine, etc.; more than 30 art exhibits

FAMILY: Wife, Barbara; three children; four grandchildren; two great-grandchildren.

INFO: www.bridgemillartcenter.com

; to enroll, see www.interactiveartschool.com  

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