Ron Amie: Confident young artist
By Joseph Kirby
R-J Staff Writer
Ron Amie is an artist. The 25-year-old Las Vegas resident also believes he is a very good artist. "It's important for the artist to think his work is good, because otherwise the public won't think it's good," Amie said.
Although he doesn't like to brag about his artistic ability, Amie is pleased with the progress he has made in his brief career as an artist.
Amie said he thinks most artists reach their peak when in their 40s, which indicates that the young Las Vegan will have many years to improve upon his painting and drawing abilities.
"I'm optimistic," he said. "At the rate I'm going, I might mature as an artist in my 30s."
Amie currently has an exhibit of his art work on display at the Westside Art Gallery, 1830 N. Highland Drive, and the exhibit has been quite successful.
The exhibit opened on Aug. 5 and Amie sold eight paintings on the first day. He said he is confident that many more will be sold before the exhibit closes at the end of August.
Employed by the city of Las Vegas as an assistant design technician, Amie manages to pick up some additional money by selling his art work.
"I do make money from painting, but not enough where I could quit my job and do it full time," he said.
While he averages about $100 on the sale of a painting and has sold painting for as much as $300, Amie spends most of his profits on art supplies.
Born in Las Vegas, Amie said he has "been drawing ever since I was 3 years old." After finishing high school, he enrolled at UNLV where he studied art for two years before taking his current job with the city.
Amie said he decided to leave UNLV when he realized that the things he was learning in his painting and drawing class at the university were the same things he had already learned in high school.
His job with the city allows him to use his artistic talent and he said that he sometimes learns things on the job that he can apply to his own art work.
Although he is a black man, Amie said he tries to avoid doing paintings that deal only with black themes, what he calls "social art."
"I can't get away from the black experience because I'm black and these are the things I have experienced," he said, adding that he tends to use many warm colors — brown, beige, orange, red and yellow — in his work, which tens to bring across that black experience.
But Amie said that many artists get into a rut when all of their paintings are based on one them, so he tries to come up with about six different themes every year.
Amie, whose favorite artist is Rembrandt, said he usually tries to turn out at least 20 new pictures per year to exhibit. This is the fourth year in a row that Amie has exhibited his work, and the second straight year he has exhibited at the Westside Art Gallery.
Amie considers pen and ink drawing on of his strongest areas, but added that his oil painting, which he has been doing for only four years, is coming along.
He admitted that he doesn't think that Las Vegas is the best place for an artist to try to establish himself because art tends to take a back seat to the gambling acclivities in the city.
Amie is married and has a 9-month-old daughter named Angel. The young artist said that his wife Kathy thinks his art work is good, but doesn't get too excited about it.
"She keeps me from getting a big head," he said.