From drum skins to a color palette

Back in his rock musician days, Jack Kolber liked to turn on the television for something to do in the afternoon.

"When you're a rock musician with late hours, 2 o'clock in the afternoon is like 7 a.m. for folks with 9-to-5 jobs," said Kolber, who, in his 20s and early 30s, played the drums with Arety, a six-member band that played clubs in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York.

He started watching Bob Ross and Bill Alexander, two artists who appeared on PBS to teach painting, but dismissed the idea of becoming an oil painter.

Now, more than 30 years later, Kolber is the one teaching painting on television. Last month, a third station picked up his show. He's on public access cable channels at Pemberton Township and Rancocas Valley high schools and, most recently, Burlington County College.

When the band broke up in 1982, Kolber had to decide his next move.

"The record deal fell through, and we were all getting older," he said. "I needed something more stable than the music business to support my family."

That turned out to be art.

"I wasn't sure what I wanted to do," said Kolber, a native of Philadelphia and a 1969 graduate of Frankford High School. "All I knew is that I wanted to work for myself."

Then he remembered the art shows he had watched.

"I liked art, but I was no artist," Kolber said. "I couldn't draw anything, but I thought that if Bob Ross and Bill Armstrong could teach others how to paint, I could be an artist and teach others, too."

Now, after purchasing "how to" videos from the PBS show and teaching himself, Kolber is on the other side of the TV set.

"I teach art at senior citizen centers and other venues, but like Bob Ross and Bill Armstrong, most of my students I never see," said Kolber, 53, who lives in Burlington Township.

He appears on Channel 19, the public access channel in Pemberton Township, Lumberton, Mount Holly, Eastampton, Hainesport, Westampton and at BCC.

For those who claim they just don't have a molecule of artistic talent, Kolber has the answer: Anyone can paint.

"Hey, just look at me," Kolber said. "I couldn't draw a straight line when I first started."

And his students don't need months of study to paint a picture, either. "If you come to a class, you'll leave two hours later with a picture," he said.

By 1989, after about seven years of preparation, he was ready to teach. He offered his services to the elementary school near Northeast Philadelphia's Oxford Circle section attended by his son, Jack, and daughter, Candace.

That worked so well that he decided he could earn a living teaching techniques he had learned from the how-to videotapes.

"I called the Alexander Art company in Oregon and told them what I had done," Kolber said, referring to the business started by the PBS instructor who first exposed him to art lessons. "They told me there was no one in the Philadelphia area and then asked me if I would be interested in coming to Oregon to become certified as a Bill Alexander instructor."

After certification in 1990, he opened Magic Brush Art Studio near his Oxford Circle home.

"It was just down the street from where I lived, and the rent was cheap, but the best part, which I learned after I moved in, was the big front window," Kolber said.

He set up his easel by the window and started painting to entice passersby to come in.

"It didn't hurt that there was a Catholic elementary school across the street," Kolber said. "I'd paint things like underwater scenes and killer whales, and pretty soon I had a lot of kids... taking art lessons."

He stayed in Oxford Circle until 1998, when he moved to Burlington Township to a home his uncle had owned.

"Everyone in my family used to come to my uncle's house for the Fourth of July because he had a pool," Kolber said. "When he wanted to move to Florida, I bought the house to keep it in the family."

In Philadelphia and South Jersey, Kolber's goals have been the same: boosting his students' self-esteem.

"Finishing a painting gives my students a sense of accomplishment," Kolber said. "It makes them happy, and as an artist, I like it when my students say they now look at things differently... . They appreciate more the things they see every day, things like sunsets and clouds, which they no longer take for granted."

Information

To learn more about the shows and classes Jack Kolber conducts at senior citizen and community centers, call 609-386-5621.