The Griffon News

 Very rarely does a student artist possess as much creative talent as Western’s Sam Perkins. A glance at one of his works demands a closer look, which can lead to minutes, and even hours staring at the tiny, minute details that he has deftly incorporated into the piece.
 
 Perkins, a native of tiny Amity, MO, originally enrolled at Western in the fall of 1995. After being beckoned away from the shelter of higher education to pursue a career as a construction foreman, he dropped out.

 “Basically, I swung a hammer for 10 years,” Perkins said, “It was a good living, but highly frustrating when I saw the things in my mind that I could draw and create. But I had put my art on the back burner. One day, I finally woke up and saw that I was going nowhere fast. So here I am.”

 His influences are as different and intriguing as the works of art he creates. He counts advertising from the 1950s as an influence, as well as early American folk music, and the “Old Masters,” such as Rembrandt and Durer. One influence obvious to anyone that looks at a Perkins piece are comic books.

 “Anything that catches my eye, like one certain leaf among thousands,” He said. “Why did that one stand out? Color? Shape? Its all really quite schizophrenic.”

 Rather unusually, Perkins doesn’t consider himself an artist. “Math, science, English—all are so concrete. Right and wrong answers are easy to judge. I really don’t think I’m an artist. I just love to draw.” He said, “I’m still not satisfied with one single piece I’ve done, so I’ve got no choice but to start yet another drawing and try again.”

 But instructors in the art department seem to disagree. Dr. Allison Sauls, art department chairperson, said, “I became aware of Sam Perkins when he put a few etchings for sale in the Holiday Sale. I had no idea who he was but could tell he had grand hand/eye coordination. His work is so intricate and can be seen on so many levels. The viewer looks and looks and looks and then steps back and says ‘WOW!’.”

 Last summer, Perkins went with a group of Western students to St. Petersburg, Russia, for a chance to immerse themselves in a culture and art world very different from their own. “We carve out this little bubble of reality, a safe, pleasing, uninterrupted life,” Perkins said. “So to be thrown into a completely alien environment like that was totally mind blowing. It’s a big change from my little town into a city of six or seven million people. It was easily one of the best things I’ve ever done. It was both beautiful and gut-wrenchingly sad.”

 Geo Sipp, the faculty member who accompanied the students to Russia, and also one of Perkins’ instructors, said, “His work ethic and insatiable curiosity about methodologies for making art have resulted in a body of work that is diverse, fresh, and visually arresting. He invents. And that is what we want from artists, to present ideas in a context with which we’re unfamiliar. I think very highly of Sam, both personally and as an artist. He constantly has me striving to be better and to take more chances.”

One look at any of Perkins’ phenomenal pieces, and that is immediately apparent.