Artist Jim Ridlon with his work, “Goldenrod and Wild Asters.” Photo by Rich Whelsky.
Wildflowers adorn the lobby of Upstate University Hospital downtown, in a painting called “Goldenrod and Wild Asters.”
The painting is the largest from artist Jim Ridlon’s garden series. It consists of 30 9-by-12-inch painting he made over a year at fields between Cazenovia, the village where he resides, and New Woodstock, where he has a studio.
“I would go to the same spot at different times of the day to capture the color shifts and moods of the day,” he explains. “I can paint realistically. What I wanted was more of a feeling for what happened in that garden, from early morning to early evening.”
Drawn by the vibrant yellow of the goldenrod and contrasting purple of the wild asters, Ridlon later cut the small paintings and turned them into a giant collage.
As a child, Ridlon says he always enjoyed art; he was dyslexic and struggled with reading and writing. Today he is retired from the art faculty of Syracuse University, where he taught for 35 years. He played football for SU in the 1950s and then played professionally for eight years, for the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys.
Ridlon submitted his artwork for consideration to be included in the Upstate Cancer Center. The selection committee decided it would instead be perfect for the main wall in the hospital lobby. The painting’s white border matches the white of the wall, so that the painting appears to be floating.
