Today's Featured Biography

 
Robert Reeves

WOW! I can’t believe it’s been 50 years since graduation from Jonesboro High. For me, those years have been interesting, for the most part fun, and sometimes tumultous.

After graduation I headed to St Louis where I attended the architecture school of Washington University for the next 6 years. Those were some very stimulating years where I was exposed to some of the greatest thinkers in the world in the area of art, design, building and engineering. It was there that I learned to think creatively. I received my Bachelor of Arts degree in 1966 and my Masters of Architecture in 1967.

Upon graduation I received a Fulbright Fellowship to study furniture and industrial design at the Arts and Crafts School of Norway. In the summer of 1967, I boarded the good ship Oslofjiord and took a week-long journey to Oslo where I began my foreign studies.

After returning to St Louis, I was hired by an architecture firm to begin my apprenticeship but after over a year of painstaking work on design detail drawings, I began to question if that was what I wanted to be doing the rest of my life. At the same time I was offered a position in a planning firm so I made the jump from architecture to city planning where I remained for the next 20 years.

City planning stimulated me. I spent the next 12 years in St. Louis working in both the private and public sector. Working for the City I played a key role in formulating long-term strategies for economic, social and physical development policies that are still being followed today. I helped found and directed a non-profit corporation whose primary purpose was to unite the public and private sectors in the redevelopment of the deteriorated central city. In the private sector I headed my own real estate management/development company that was active in the Central West End of the City.

By the late 70’s I was growing tired of the long cold winters of St Louis and I was restless, so I decided to take Horace Greeley’s advice and go west. I moved to San Francisco in 1980 and began a very exciting period of my life. I started working for the City Planning department as a principal planner and became in charge of the planning for South-of-Market and east side industrial areas. Through that, I got involved in the early planning for a new downtown stadium and was transferred to the Mayor’s office as the project coordinator for an effort to find a site, develop the funding and design a new ballpark for the Giants. During the 1982 - 83 period, we accomplished some of the goals but it took until the year 2000 to get public support behind the idea and get the ballpark built. In 1984 I left the public sector and formed my own planning consulting business where I worked on a number of projects for both the City and private developers for the next 3 years.

By the mid 80’s, it was possible to finish the liquidation of my St Louis real estate holdings which produced for me the opportunity to realize one of my dreams. I found an old fixer-upper house on the top of a hill in Noe Valley and in early 1986, I took a year and half off from work and designed and built my own home on the top of a hill overlooking the City. That was fun! By 1987 I had finished and was able to sit in my hot tub in my living room overlooking the Bay from Oakland to San Jose while I sipped my wine.

The experience of building my home proved to be transitional for me. The visions of my future changed as I started designing and making furniture for the house. I began experimenting with layering techniques drawn from my planning experience working with topographic maps and models. And I found to my happy amazement that the work I was creating had some substance and originality and was eliciting a very positive response.

In 1990, I moved to the Palm Springs area seeking a scaled-down lifestyle, warmer climate and larger workspace to create. I bought a classic 1961 midcentury modern house in the Cathedral City Cove neighborhood and converted the garage into a sculpture studio. I refined my techniques of laminating forms, experimented with different material and finishes and explored the visual and structural possibilities of lamination through a series of abstract forms. I started a series of life-size human sculptures, including my signature work “Rob” pictured on my web site, which helped me to express the beauty of natural wood. I experimented with form and structure for functional art works such as chairs and tables. And I created a series of client-commissioned projects including sculptural installations, waterworks, garden structures and gates.

In recent years, I’ve begun producing limited edition series by developing techniques that enable me to streamline and increase the production of my art. This has allowed me to create more works to make available for the increasing commercial success of my art. My latest interest is using audio/video productions to promote my work and I’ve started to learn programs and produce brief videos and musical productions. I posted my first YouTube video a couple weeks ago under my name and am now working on several more that will be video presentations of individual works with original music scores.

Life has been an adventure and thankfully it’s not over yet. I seem to be blessed with my Mother’s good genes and my doctor tells me I’m going to live forever. At 67, I figure that I still have another 30 years to go and I’m hoping that those will be the best days of my life.

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