Let’s face it, many artists are notoriously bad at self-promotion. Spending their artistic energies on the act of creation, it feels like a whole other time-consuming job, often totally outside their natural skill set and comfort zone, to send out a press release, network, or build a strong social media presence.
So, I admit to rolling my eyes when I received an email, not from an artist himself, but from his mother(!) about an upcoming show at Savannah’s JEA Gallery.
After reading her words, however, I was intrigued: “Two men, one old, one young, are having an art show together in August. They are both painters, one is starting his career, while the other is painting in retirement. They both met at a painting class at Georgia Southern University, one enrolled, the other auditing, taking advantage of the perks in elder life. Regardless of their age difference, they became fast friends and have shared critiques, techniques, and encouragement. The elder is a young soul, while the younger is an old soul, so they meet synergistically in the center.”
A few weeks later, I sit down with Tommy McMillan of Statesboro and GSU rising senior Gabriel Drabek who is on summer break and living and painting in a property behind his parents’ midtown home. We meet in the small studio where Drabek’s mother, sculptor and ceramicist Tiffany Drabek, sometimes teaches classes on the pottery wheel set up in one corner. Drabek’s father, Michael, was a longtime drummer with local bands; Creativity is clearly a large part of this family’s DNA.
Home schooled with his two younger siblings (all three are outstanding soccer players), Drabek attended Savannah Arts Academy for high school, and, under the tutelage of Steve Schetski and Trellis Payne, was a semi-finalist for the Governor’s Honors Program. About a half-century older than Drabek (I didn’t ask specifically!), McMillan grew up in Ocilla, Georgia, earning a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance and a Master of Music in Organ. He enjoyed a 35-year career as the Minister of Music for First Baptist Church of Brunswick, taking art classes with now deceased Korean-born Kyung Ai Park and later with Jeffery LeMieux, Professor of Fine Art at Brunswick’s College of Coastal Georgia.
In his slow Southern drawl, McMillan tells me he always doodled and sketched as a child in school, a trait he shares with Drabek, but says, “I never liked paintings. Dark and dreadful!” until he saw Park’s light and color-filled work at her gallery in the local mall. He immediately signed up for one of her classes. Retiring to Statesboro in 2013, he continued taking painting classes by enrolling at Georgia Southern and says that when asked if he’s ever going to get another degree he answers, “I’m going to study art until heaven.” [Readers may be interested to know that adults 62 years or older who have been residents of Georgia for at least one year, may attend college classes at no tuition cost on a space-available basis.]
Drabek met McMillan during the young student’s sophomore year of college. It was 2021, and the more senior McMillan had been hesitant to enroll in in-person classes. Sure enough, shortly after the two artists huddled together to look at some portraiture on Professor Elsie Hill Howington’s laptop, McMillan received a call informing him that Drabek had come down with COVID. Luckily, the older artist did not develop the virus, and despite this inauspicious start to their connection, the two have been good friends ever since, often meeting between and after classes, and regularly emailing each other their work for critique and commentary.
For example, when McMillan discovered the work of Norwegian figurative painter Odd Nerdrum, he encouraged Drabek to also research him, while Drabek regularly introduces McMillan to more contemporary artists. Both painters are primarily drawn to figurative work and portraiture and both use oil mixed with linseed as their preferred medium. McMillan’s portraits, such as one he painted of the four young Russian Grand Duchesses Romanov, are highly detailed, refined, static, and finished, while Drabek’s are more gestural, painterly, and suggestive. The latter’s “Portrait of a Woman in Red,” painted from imagination, is a confident experiment in utilizing cool skin tones.
McMillan combines his love of painting with his recently discovered passion for Braves baseball in a series of portraits of players such as [former Braves] shortstop Dansby Swanson, pitcher Shohei Ohtani (portrayed with the 22-season legend Babe Ruth, to whom he is often compared), and first baseman Freddie Freeman.
“They’re all characters! ” he says, but it is his colorful image of Braves pitcher Spencer Strider with his iconic moustache that I find particularly gestural and accomplished.
Over the summer, Drabek is looking forward to slowing down his usual rapid painting process, spending more time on each piece instead of constantly being under pressure to complete his school assignments. He’s excited to paint more landscapes and cityscapes, “I want to start a series of Savannah scenes,” and shows me a recent image of a downtown square and fountain. As the polite and handsome young man prepares to graduate next spring, he is earning more commissions and working on “building connections to showcase my work. I would like to stay in art if it works out. I have so many people encouraging me to go ‘all in.’”
Come and meet the older Tommy McMillan, lifelong Southern Baptist, and the younger Gabriel Drabek, raised in the Jewish faith, at the opening of their show, ‘Two Friends And A Brush,’ on Thursday, August 3 from 5-7pm at the JEA Gallery, 5111 Abercorn Street. I’m particularly curious to see McMillan’s portrait of his young friend, painted in the manner of a John Singer Sergant, and not yet completed when we met. ‘Two Friends And A Brush’ hangs from August 1 through the end of the month.
This article appears in Connect Savannah | July 2023.
