Bellefonte’s Jim Colbert is a man who wears many hats.
He is an instructor, a poet, a visual artist, and a singer/songwriter. He’s got a lot of irons in the fire, so to speak.
“I do,” Colbert says with a laugh.
This month, his visual art will be on display at the Bellefonte Art Museum. The show is called Shiny Bits. Colbert explains the name.
“It’s a collection of mostly graphite drawings of both cars and motorcycles. But it’s zoomed in to where it’s not the entire bike or the entire car. It’s focusing on the geometric forms that make up cylinder heads, exhaust pipes, or whatever,” he says.
The inspiration for the works comes from different places, he says.
“It’s not just the geometric shapes but also the reflections on polished surfaces and the differences between matte aluminum and shiny chrome. Things like that are what really fascinate me. I think it just translates really well into pure black and white in a graphite medium,” Colbert says.
He’s looking forward to having his artwork on display at the museum. “I am very excited and very honored by the opportunity to do this.”
Colbert also is known as a singer/songwriter. He didn’t start playing guitar until he was almost forty, but once he picked up the guitar, he couldn’t put it down.
“I started playing guitar because I wanted to write songs. There had been a couple of half-hearted attempts earlier in life. When I was about thirty-nine, I got a guitar. I just wanted to write songs and get the point of them across. That was my impetus for doing it,” Colbert says.
He played in public for the first time two days before his fortieth birthday inside the historic Bush House in Bellefonte.
“It just kind of went from there,” Colbert says.
He describes his musical style as “lyric-driven folk.”
“It’s mostly pretty simple as far as melodies. I like telling stories in song. That’s a big, big thing for me,” he says.
Colbert is now sixty-one, so he’s been playing and performing for more than two decades.
If you have been to any of Centre County’s numerous art shows or festivals, chances are that you have seen Colbert perform. He often plays inside the Bellefonte Art Museum at Fridays in the ’Fonte.
“It’s really like playing inside a guitar. It’s just so beautiful to play in there,” Colbert says.
Along with the drawings and the guitar, there is Colbert’s poetry. He has a passion for poetry, which has taken on a life of its own.
“I had been writing poetry and was involved in open mics. We also ran a poetry series at Webster’s called ‘Words of Webster’s’ for about four or five years. I decided to self-publish a book. I did that about ten years ago,” Colbert says.
That book of poetry was called Defiantly Blue Skies.
As time went by, Colbert kept writing poetry and soon had enough for a second book. That book, simply entitled Lines, came out in April.
“This one has a lot more about family and growing up in western Pennsylvania,” Colbert says. “I grew up in Johnstown and went to school in Pittsburgh.”
Surprisingly, Colbert says the poetry and the songwriting never meet.
“Virtually never,” he says. “I’m very focused on structure and meter in song. Poetry, to me, is less structured.”
While Colbert does wear many hats as an author, an artist, and a singer/songwriter, he said it’s impossible to pick just one pastime to focus on.
“What I really like is the mix. What I’ve found that I’ve needed through the years is a creative outlet,” Colbert says. “It’s all cyclical for me. As long as I’m doing something, I’m good. It might not be time to work on a poem, but it might be time to work on a song. Sometimes, I will just pick up a pencil and draw just to do something.”
In addition to all of his creative pastimes, Colbert’s main job is as program coordinator for the graphic arts program at South Hills School of Business & Technology in State College. He’s been there since 2008.
“I absolutely love it. I really do. I really like teaching,” he says.
Colbert says that no matter what he does, an Andrew Wyeth quote sticks with him.
“He said, ‘Sometimes we’re so busy looking for beauty overhead that we’re tramping it under our feet.’ That has always resonated with me,” Colbert says. “I’m not waiting for my muse to come calling and tap me on the shoulder repeatedly. … I do try to be moving forward with something every day.” T&G
Chris Morelli is editor of The Centre County Gazette.
