Seal Beach artist Ron Hust came up with a way to take advantage of the slump that Main Street is currently feeling. While walking along the centerpiece of Seal Beach, Hust stopped at the empty space at 214 Main St. Looking into the small space, most recently used as a scented product store, Hust had a thought. He thought it might make a nice art gallery space.
He contacted the owner and asked about renting the space for a weekend to showcase some of his art work. Hust has been painting for as long as he can remember. It was a passion of his since childhood and through a career in the hotel business, he always made time to paint.
He is now essentially retired from full time work, but still works on his paintings.
With an agreement, he mounted some of his favorite works on the walls of the recent Forest Nymphs shop and opened for two days of art sales, showings and discussion. The weekend went well, he said and he sold several pieces. What he really enjoyed was the chance to meet with visitors and talk a little about art and life.
“It was a wonderful turnout, it was more than I expected,” Hust said.
Hust has lived in Seal Beach for 15 years, but he is a southern California native. He was born in Long Beach and also lived in Lakewood for much of his life until moving to Seal Beach. He and his wife, Lori, raised two daughters and now have two grandchildren.
He works in several different mediums and styles, Impressionism, abstract, realism, whatever the painting wants to become. He uses acrylic, oils, brushes or even bottles. He said that what the painting becomes, often starts with the first line, or brush stroke.
“The painting tells me what style it wants,” Hust said.
He has a silhouette painting that is the skyline of Seal Beach, seen at sunset, with the houses and trees in shadows. He painted a flower outside his patio door that began with the earthtoned background. He has a four part piece, inspired by Andy Warhol that is also a tribute to him, along with three other artists he admires, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Richard Hambleton. The piece incorporates a little bit of each artist’s style into one. He also uses plastic ketchup bottles to create impressionist style pieces out of drops of paint
Another he created was 52 years in the making, he said. It is a silhouette of a girl on what could be a sand background. But the image came from a picture he took as a child, of a friend of his. It was taken on a Polaroid style camera, but it was the type that didn’t spit out the photo upon being taken. It was the style that required the user to pull the exposed picture from the camera.
However, after taking the photo of the girl, he forgot to pull the photo and he snapped another shot of the pool water. What came out was a water looking silhouette of a girl with pig tails, in front of a brown background. The actual photo had long since disappeared.
However, it was still clearly visible in his memory. Recently he heard his friend was struggling with an illness and he tracked her down through social media. He was able to reconnect with her briefly, but she eventually succumbed to the illness. So he decided to recreate the image still in his mind.
Most of Hust’s work comes from his personal experiences. He included several pieces from a trip to Hawaii, because, of course, the views were spectacular. But mostly, he uses his work to express himself and to understand life and “what we can’t say or need to express,” according to the about us page on his website.
For more about Ron Hust visit his website, rmhust.com or find him on Facebook at facebook.com/ron.hust.3?fref=ts.
