Remembering Chuck Baird

Chuck Baird and I spent most of our time together talking about model railroads and art. He had HO scale trains on the wall in his living room. I had N, HO, and HOn30 in my train room. That's usually where our conversations started whenever we visited each other.

In the studio, we'd talk about past, present, and future projects, techniques, whatever we were working on. His best studio was in Tucson. He had everything he needed in one room, and his home was just a few steps away. He lived among other artists, studios side by side. I envied that setup. Being around other working artists like that, seeing their work in progress, it's a good support system to have.

We'd paint something and show it off to each other now and then. I did two pieces on glass panes, cutting canvas into shapes, gluing it to the backing, painting on it, then attaching the whole thing to the glass. Chuck got excited watching me work through it. He wanted to figure out how to bring that method into his own work. That never happened, because of his cancer. He painted in oil, I painted in acrylic, so we always had something different to compare notes on.

I built and ran his website, chuckbairdarts.com, and helped him sell his art prints through it for years. In trade, he was going to paint me a locomotive, 42 by 60 inches. I told him to take his time.

Outside the studio, Chuck was funny. He'd tell long stories and get me every time, like they were real. He had that gift, facial expressions, body language, the whole performance.

Life moved us around. Me to Oklahoma, then Washington DC. Chuck through artist residencies, eventually settling near Austin. We kept in touch over videophone, emails, and met up whenever we were close. He came to Jolynn's graduation in 2005.

In 2008, he told me he had cancer. A bad one. There was a long quiet moment on that video call. He said he'd been working on my painting for ten years and still hadn't finished it. After the diagnosis, he pushed to get it done. He finished the Santa Fe locomotive, crated it, and shipped it from Texas to Maryland. Opening that crate and seeing his signature glowing background with the Santa Fe PA-1 locomotive, that was a feeling I won't forget. He told me later, on a video call, that painting the wheels on the track was the hardest part, especially while he was in treatment. That painting was his closure with me.

Without good insurance, his best option was an experimental drug trial. It didn't work. The cancer spread from his kidney to other organs. He kept going as best as he could. In fall 2010 he came to DC to visit us and to do an art project at Model Secondary School for the Deaf. He looked okay on the outside. He wasn't okay on the inside.

About three weeks before he died, we had our last videophone call. He told me nothing was working anymore, nothing left to try. He was calm about it. He said he was ready to go. That same call, I told him I might have cancer too. We just nodded at each other and said, oh well. He said we might see each other again. That was the last time we talked.

Chuck died on 2/10/2012. He is deeply missed.

Update (5/12/2012): Sure enough, I have a blood cancer. I started my Blood Cancer Journey.

Update (2/10/2015): I beat my blood cancer, as far as I know. I wish Chuck could have beaten his too, so we could still be doing this, model railroads and art, together. I think about bringing his website back someday as a memorial for his work. I don't know who manages it now. Maybe I'll find out and look into setting it up again.

Update (4/16/2020): People have asked what the painting Chuck made me actually looks like. Here's a partial view of it, in the gallery below.