Ron Edson

While studying poetry with Joel Oppenheimer at The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery in 1967, Ron was given a gift of a box of Cray Pas. This newly discovered tactile experience inspired him to leave his teaching job and begin studies at The Art Students League of New York and the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting & Sculpture.

From then through the 1980s, Ron continued painting in oils and later with large-scale, multiple-panel works in pigmented plaster, and other on-site installation pieces.

From 1979-1981, he received a grant from Changing Education Through the Arts, which enabled him to expand his work.

Ron showed his work at various venues throughout the 1980s, including the World Trade Center, 25 Federal Plaza, Wards Island, Fashion Moda Gallery, PS 1 in Queens, Snug Harbor in Staten Island, and others. In 1989, he returned to teaching high school English, and he and his wife focused on raising their daughter.

He painted only intermittently until moving to the Cape in 2007. Inspired by Cape Cod’s beautiful landscapes and beaches, he has been painting local scenes both real and imagined using soft pastels and encaustics (hot pigmented wax fused to a surface). He began showing his work with the Eastham Painters Guild at the end of the summer of 2015.