About the Artist

Artist Robert Logsdon was born in 1948 in rural Shelbyville, Kentucky. Even in childhood he was inspired and intrigued by the beauty and mystery of nature. The natural world was everywhere around him and he spent every possible moment in it. Although his family moved to the largest city in Kentucky, Louisville, when he was two, he took every opportunity to be on his grandparents' farms in southern Indiana and Kentucky. There he would hike, camp and explore the woodlands that many Native American Tribes had explored and that John J. Audubon found so fascinating and full of wildlife. Robert grew felt a oneness with nature and a kinship with the Native American soul.
Robert experienced the beauty of nature as a mysterious doorway inviting entrance into another world. Beyond this doorway lay what he describes as "nature's creative process" and the "Divine Source of Creation". A never-ending source of fascination, opportunity for observation and place of peace, this world of nature compelled Robert toward an artist's life of exploration into, and expression of, this world.

Robert studied art in high school and pursued its ever illusive and always intriguing call. He appreciated all of it's forms; visual, musical, poetic, dramatic and literary. As a teenager he discovered poetry and was moved by the words of Wordsworth, Shelly, Keats, Emerson and Thoreau as these writers explored and expressed their feelings about nature and their relationship to it. Robert entered the Cincinnati Art Academy in 1966 where he was able to focus completely on developing as a visual artist. He followed the curriculum of the Academy and studied everything from drawing to 2 and 3- dimensional design, composition, sculpture and painting. While he felt an affinity to three dimensional work he found his love of color prevailed and focused on painting. Still inspired by literature he discovered Kahlil Gibran and in his post-graduate year was introduced to the work of Rudolf Steiner, an introduction that would change his life and his understanding of "art" and color. In Steiner's work Robert found a synthesis of all that held meaning in his life; art, science, religion - a harmony of thinking, feeling and willing to use Steiner's terms for the activity of the head, heart, and limbs.

To experience this harmony in action - in a total community, Robert moved to Copake, NY and worked with young adults in need of special care in one of the Steiner inspired international Camphill Village Communities. From there he went on to study art and education as inspired by Anthroposophy - the teachings of Rudolf Stiener - at Emerson College in England. While in Europe he worked one summer in Switzerland with Fritz Fuchs learning lasur (lazure) painting. (Mr. Logsdon subsequently helped pioneer this method of coloring architectural spaces with layers of transparent or translucent color.)

With his new wife, he returned from his studies and apprenticeship in Europe to hold the position of artist in residence at The Rudolf Steiner Institute of the Great Lakes Area in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He held that position for four years. It was here that he began his business "ColorSpace" and formed a team to do lazure painting. It was from this initiative that this work began spreading across America. While in Michigan his family grew to include two children, Gabrielle and Jacob and with his wife and new family he moved to Harlemville, NY, an Anthroposophic community near the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts.

While in Harlemville Robert pursued not only his painting but began to work with stained glass, which took him in 1980 to the town of Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He still resides in the Berkshire Mountains, now in Lee, Massachusetts. Here ColorSpace thrived and the interest in lazure, (a new term for lasur coined by Robert for American usage) the main thrust of his interest, enabled him to create beautifully colored architectural spaces as well as create murals and canvases. His love for the totally harmonized environment — integrating art and life— led to an expansion of his work into the design and execution of furniture, primarily beds and to hiring other artists for ColorSpace. While the expansion was rewarding, Robert found it took him away from his primary love of painting. He now focuses on painting walls, canvases and paper utilizing watercolor, acrylic, oils, pastels, and natural organic beeswax/casein. He travels throughout the country to execute this work and also teaches workshops on color and lazure painting.

Commissions for lazure and murals include schools, residences, medical centers, physician's offices, therapeutic facilities, auditoriums, business offices and workspaces. A partial list of where these can be seen may be obtained by contacting Robert.