Ron is also a painter. One of his paintings is on the cover of If Pain Could Make Music
Here is a statement about his paintings that he wrote for a show in Athol, MA
In 2006 with no art education I found myself
sitting next to my 8 year niece.
“Draw with me, Uncle Ron.”
“I can’t. I don’t know how to draw.”
“It’s easy—watch.”
And she closed her eyes and her pencil moved
over the paper. “See.” And she did it again.
And when she opened her eyes and looked
down at her paper, she yelled, “See! It’s a penguin!”
And in fact, amid the jumble of lines, I did see a penguin.
“You do it!”
I did. And when I opened my eyes, it was a dog.
We did that for the next couple of hours. It was profoundly relaxing and as exciting as any adventure I’d ever been on. Everything I know, I learned that afternoon.
My style is non-representational or partially representational, but the key is the spontaneity of composition usually with high intensity, saturated color. The energy and movement of my style has evolved from one basic belief.
I believe the more the brush in my hand is guided by my unconscious, the more it will succeed. Of course, to access my unconscious is an-ongoing struggle.
Whenever my will jostles my unconscious to the side—that failure of nerve—that assertion of my insecurity—that willfulness damages whatever beauty I was trying to unleash.
I believe we value the creative act because we value the overcoming—the discipline to listen to our emotions—yes, we value art because we value the heroic.
That idealism said, I must remind myself that this statement is a goal—the description of a process. Whether I succeed or not depends on whether or not I communicate those emotions.