Goodland Artist Shares His Art Stories

David Fuller is a narrative artist, and on Monday, April 10th, he shared his Art Stories with the Women’s Fellowship Ministry of the United Church of Marco Island. David was a guest during the installation of their new officers’ luncheon.

A picture paints a thousand words and from David, his art stories took us from the beginning of his fifth-grade class at Stewart Elementary School in Garden City, Long Island. On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, David would shuffle to the art room to “get some help in art.” According to David, he graduated from drawing stick people to real people with arms and legs and learned about color and proportion. His interest in art continued through the eighth grade. 

In high school, a science teacher got him fired up about science and everything changed for David. He also discovered a love for math. David applied and was accepted to Georgia Tech. During the summer before attending college, he took another shot at art by taking three courses at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.  This experience solidified in David’s mind that art was not a way to make a living.

But one interesting thing happened that summer – David met a young lady, Joanie, and found the nerve to ask her out, and they have been together ever since.

In 1972, David had a “Salvador Dali” moment, and he decided to paint a scene of a World Chess Championship match between Bobby Fischer, a 29 years old American chess prodigy, and undefeated Boris Spassky. The painting depicted Fischer looking down at a red and black chessboard with the rising sun and poor Boris dead at the bottom. Title: Red is Dead. 

But David tended to be more entrepreneurial, and in 1980 he started a business in Atlanta with two other guys, and it took off. They went from “Can we make enough money to stay alive” to being acquired by an investment group in 1994.

In 1996, David and Joanie decided to make a lifestyle change and found paradise in Naples, Florida. They found a property and built a house but at this point, David had not done anything art-wise.

After 10 years in Naples, they felt it was getting too crowded and it was also time to downsize so they moved to a condo in Goodland. Fate seemed to intervene when David got involved in painting the walls of the Goodland Central Post Office.

David also responded to a Call to Artist from the Naples Art Institute and submitted a painting of two girls in a tap dance recital. On the last day of the exhibit, his painting SOLD and David is all back at his art 100%.

It was 2006, and the call of wild Alaska was too strong. David and Joanie bought a condo and decided to split their time between Goodland, Florida, and Homer, Alaska. According to David, in terms of his art, Alaska presented different scenes of wild animals, hardy and friendly people, and the breathtaking glacier view across the bay. For David’s art, it was the best of both worlds.  

After ten years of traveling and visiting small fishing villages in the Aleutian island chain, it was time once again to simplify life and say goodbye to Homer.  

I decided to visit David’s studio loft in Goodland to view more paintings depicting Alaska.

According to David, he found the residents of Homer very hardy and resilient, and they depended on and cared for each other. They fished for salmon, and a lot of them worked on the North Slope oil project, where they would be away for two weeks and then get two weeks off.

As an artist, David would like to be remembered as somebody who tells a story from his paintings, just like his “guy” Norman Rockwell, where everybody can understand his narrative art.