Art From Accidents
Glendale Brook Studio brings a vibrant splash of color to downtown Lenox, Mass.
It all started with an ordinary can of paint.
One day it spilled, and Alex Kamaroff watched, fascinated, at the swirls and patterns of color as they hit the floor.
He picked up a paintbrush and began.
That was five years ago. Then, through an accident of fate, he met James Hendricks because they shared the same exterminator. James was a brilliant, Smithsonian-exhibited artist, and they became fast friends. Because James had been a professor of both art and art history at Amherst, he gave Alex a crash course in the techniques of modern art.
Inspired by the great 20th-century abstract artists such as Mondrian and Kandinsky, Alex became an expert in the area of hard edge painting, which requires artist’s tape, precise measuring tools and richly infused colors. Alex likes to quote a line from Picasso: “Good artists copy; great artists steal.” Not that Alex is a thief, but he does take basic styles and takes them to another level. If you love Mondrian but don’t feel like spending $17 million, you can still have original art in your home that captures the feel of a Mondrian.
Not that Alex was a stranger to modern art. He grew up on beachy Long Island,alternately surfing the waves and taking the train into New York to see hisgrandmother, who, at his request, took him often to the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim.
(He likes to kid people that he would skateboard down the sloping floors of the Guggenheim, but that’s not true!)