Artist Biography

I was born and raised in Chicago where from age 11 we lived in a highrise on the city's lakefront. I began painting and my parents enrolled me in classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. At the age of 16 I started writing poetry and sociological essays.

I enrolled at the University of California at Los Angeles at the age of 17 and studied Platonic Philosophy with Dr. Hans Meyerhoff. I left school and returned to Chicago where I lived in an artists' coop building where I frequently interacted with and was influenced by several of Chicago's finer artists-Argeropolis,Sevedski,Pannier,and Smelser.I audited a graduate history course on Radical Political Thought and worked with Dr.Staughton Lynd a Quaker mentor.I delivered a seminar on the American Independent Party.I had the opportunity to meet Alice Lynd at that time-and later Helen Merrill Lynd,Staughton's mother in Santa Cruz, California after I had formally resumed my studies at the University of California at Berkeley where I was a student of Sociology and completed an A.B. after working with Dr. Herbert Blumer another mentor and a friend.Later I studied with my friend and mentor Professor Paul Riceour of Paris and the U.of Chicago.

I had studied in the Creative Writing program at San Francisco State College with Dan Langton,Thanasis Maskeleris and others who significantly influenced my writing.My poet mentors being Ezra Pound, Jacques Prevert, and E.E.Cummings.I continued to paint in the Abstract Expressionist Surrealist tradition. The greatest inspirers to my art are Max Ernst,Toulouse-Lautrec,and Marc Chagall.

My first public poetry reading was on stage at the Old Fillmore Auditorium.Later, I would read poems to my social psychology class meeting in International House in Berkeley under the guidance of Dr. Harold Jacobs another academic mentor and friend.Later, I presented my Weltenshaung of Paintings,Poetry and Philosophy to Dr. John Robert Searle, Dr. Paul Feyeraband, et al.My Weltenshaung was stolen from a locker in the Art Dept.I attended a graduate seminar in the Philosophy Department John Searle, and Hubert Dreyfus and Dr.Harold Garfinkel a Sociologist from U.C.L.A. I once made a collage Valentine for Garfinkel-and presented it to him on Saint Valentine's day as a gift.

Robert Denis Don's paintings have been exhibited in shows at Artful Angles Gallery,Evanston,Il. Norris Center,Northwestern University,Evanston,Il.,other works have been displayed in the Development Office of the University of Chicago,The Boldenweck Gallery,Chicago,Il.,the Wynkoop,Denver,Co.Paintings have also been held in trust by Sandra Wilson and The Bighorn Gallery of Aspen,Co.Grassroots Aspen TV has presented Mr.Don's paintings and poetry in an aired 45 minute segment.Recently, I had three painting in a show @ CORE and won honorable mention in 2004. There have also been poetry readings on KCFR/national public radio and WHPK U.of Chicago radio.My artistic motivation is both for self awareness and critical recognition.

R.D.Don currently resides in a suburb of Denver,Colorado where he paints, writes poetry,and etc. and is recently a student intern @ Mark Twain Elementary School in Centennial, Co., and a M.A.candidate, work substantially complete. I taught in preschools for 15 years,elementary schools, and middle schools in Denver and Douglas County.There is a book of poetry and artwork in process.Don is not an attorney because Mellville Nimmer his Copyright Law Professor at U.C.L.A. told him he was or is too creative to be an attorney."Robbie'' wonders about this from time to time.He enjoys playing the piano from time to time,plays the Mbira.He has a male black labrador named " Apollo. lMr. Don loves working with children.R.D.Don has 17 paintings in private collections. Recently, a poem was published in the anthology ?Hail to California? by the U.C. Berkeley Alumni Association named "Printemps a Berkeley".