It started as a Facebook post that went viral — at least by Hampton Roads standards.
Officer Greg LaRose of the James City County Police Department posted a status, along with four photos, and told a story: A story about a painter named Chuck Dickerson, who lost his arms in an electrical accident almost 30 years ago, who kept painting after the accident and now sells his oil paintings in a Target parking lot to provide for his family.
As of mid-July, LaRose’s post was liked on Facebook by 564 people and shared nearly 400 times, making the rounds across the Seven Cities and beyond.
Five days after LaRose posted about Chuck Dickerson and his art on Facebook, I received a challenge to track him down.
All I had to go on was LaRose’s Facebook post as well as a phone number that may or may not have belonged to Mr. Dickerson. I called the phone number and was told that the customer I was trying to reach had not set up their voicemail. I tried searching for a Chuck Dickerson on Facebook, but still no luck. I drove by the Monticello Shopping Center — where Dickerson was rumored to set up shop — on several sunny days, but the timing never seemed right.
Finally, in late June, when I was about to give up, I decided to try to find him one more time. I drove by the shopping center during lunch hour, parked near Target and looked around. No sign. I figured since I was already at Target, I’d go in and do some shopping. Then, on my way in the front door, I thought I recognized the face of a man leaving, carrying a couple of bags. He had paint on his jeans. It was Chuck.
Not wanting to accost him in front of the store, I watched as he resumed his work, setting up shop with an easel on a median in the back of the parking lot, cans of paint and brushes on the grass. A sign by his car said “PAINTING $25.” He was working on a dark cosmic-looking landscape — a swirl of red and blue — to the tune of loud rock music in the background.
“I started painting when I was 5 years old,” Dickerson, now 47, told me after I introduced myself.
“I’d just turned 21 when it happened,” he continued, describing the electrical accident in Cumberland County that nearly killed him and forced the amputation of both of his arms from the elbows down. “I was in a coma for a while; I forgot certain family members; it all hit my brain pretty hard. My mother I knew, though.”
After an extensive period of recovery, Dickerson was determined to do as much as he could. He went back to school and studied drafting, all while being a single dad raising two kids on his own.
“I have tremendous respect for someone who overcomes these setbacks to continue to take care of his family while doing what he loves,” LaRose had written in his viral post about Chuck.
When I asked about LaRose’s Facebook post, Dickerson smiled.
“I don’t go on the Internet much,” he said. “But now, because of it, people do come up to me while I’m painting or just around town and say ‘I know who you are!’”
The James City County Police Department has shown its support for Dickerson’s art, with individual officers donating art supplies to Chuck from time to time, and of course, buying paintings from him. (They’ve also given the green light for him to be in the particular median where he sets up).
Chuck doesn’t talk a lot about himself, although Facebook tells us that he apparently speaks with veterans at a VA Hospital and sometimes rides a motorcycle despite his two prosthetic arms. He’s shared his paintings at the Gloucester Daffodil Festival and when the Facebook post went viral, piqued the interest of Williamsburg’s 2nd Sundays Arts & Music Festival.
Oh, and he studied with Bob Ross. THE Bob Ross of the “happy little trees,” the famous landscape artist and television host who died in 1995. Years before, Dickerson was in Richmond at a doctor’s appointment when he heard Ross was doing a seminar at a nearby hotel.
“I went up to some of the people who were working for him and said, ‘Look, I’m an artist, I lost my arms, but I want to figure stuff out again,’ ” Dickerson recalled.
Word of Dickerson’s story and his desires made their way to Ross, and Ross agreed to work one-on-one with Dickerson in two separate meetings that lasted several hours. It was from these encounters that Dickerson began to apply what he had learned and channel it into his art, which regularly sells out every time it’s on display.
The experience really helped Dickerson turn his art from a hobby into a way to express himself and support his family. Because there’s one thing Chuck wants to make clear: His art, from beginning to end, is for his kids.
“This is how I feed my kids, how I help my family. I can’t work in an office, so I do this instead.”
Just as I was about to conclude our interview and buy one of his paintings, his daughter called. He immediately stopped everything — packing up his paints, brushes, easel and an unfinished canvas likely to be sold the next day — to go pick her up from work.
Want to support Chuck Dickerson’s art?
Head to the Monticello Shopping Center before 1 p.m. on most sunny days in the spring and summer, and you might just catch Chuck painting his next masterpiece that you can take home that day.
How long does it take? “It depends on what I’m doing. Usually just a couple hours.”