Retiree ‘bitten by the art bug’
Charles Ellingburg is enjoying his third career in life. It’s the most colorful because it’s all about color. He’s become an artist.
“Happiest day of my life in retirement,” Ellingburg said when he won that first honorable-mention ribbon in a festival competition.
It came in a Hughes Springs art show four years ago. He submitted two of his paintings.
“I got a ribbon for one of them. Blew me away,” Ellingburg said. “I thought, ‘OK, these judges are seeing my work and giving me a recommendation. Maybe it’s time for me to keep this up and start enjoying myself.’”
So he did. Ellingburg built an art studio at his home and spends time there quite often. He gets to paint every day.
“A way to express myself. We live in a rough world, but this way I can go off by myself and create something. I’ve been bitten by the art bug.”
He’s been a prison warden and a church pastor.
Now as an artist, he thinks the careers overlap in a way. Each takes life seriously and each celebrates its renewal.
Just one gives ribbons, however.
Ellingburg put himself in the same room with the art bug that bit him. It started when he began helping one of his talented children to be an artist.
“I have one daughter who is very talented. Her art teacher at Kilgore College told me she was one of the best students she had seen come through in 20 years,” he said.
Ellingburg said he got behind his daughter in every way, like any parent would do for their child.
“I studied everything about art she was learning,” he said.
Before long, Ellingburg was ready to enter his first work in an art show.
After the opening honorable mention, his second show gained him a first and a second place. Now, 13 or 14 awards later, the ribbons don’t matter.
He gives them away and paints for himself.
He began with encaustic painting—painting with hot wax.
“You heat the wax and add colored pigment. Then the liquid or paste is applied to a surface, usually wood. You have about 15 seconds to make your shapes with the metal tool and brushes. Then the wax cools and hardens.”
Today, he works in oil most often.
In his earlier career, Ellingburg had been a state administrator in the criminal justice system and supervised as many as 800 employees.
On those same weekends, he would pastor churches.
Born and raised near Houston, he had gone to Sam Houston State University, the first in his family to gain a college degree. Today, he continues with a part-time job as a paint inspector.
He and his wife, Meshel, live in the Eagle Landing community near Avinger and are parents of four children and grandparents of two.
Ellingburg said he has another goal of painting.
He hopes to find a proper building in Avinger and turn it into an art studio to help Avinger have even more of the good life.
“Another little art studio in a little town, and the peace and quiet life of Northeast Texas. That’s what I like,” he said.