July 02, 2004

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Palo Alto Online

Colored chaos

by Terry Tang

S porting rumpled pants and a yellow polo shirt, both freckled with paint stains, Robert Schimke sits in his studio, dripping house paint, oils or acrylics on a canvas.

Inspired to create "colored chaos," he leans down from his wheelchair and, like syrup on a sundae, smoothly drizzles white paint on a piece of poster board already streaked with magenta and blue.

The white makes "fascinating magenta colors," Schimke said. "You may not like them, but I do."

Vibrant canvasses and drawings adorn almost every room of Schimke's Palo Alto home, including an old barn that's been restructured as a gallery. Beyond painting for himself, Schimke invites critics and art lovers to stop by his in-home gallery and studio almost any day of the week.

Schimke did not originally set out to be a painter. Though grade-school classes had nurtured a love of art, he studied biological sciences, ultimately becoming professor emeritus of Stanford University's biological sciences department. But when a bicycle accident left his legs and hands almost completely paralyzed, Schimke learned to re-embrace his non-scientific side.

In February of 1995, while riding home from campus on Sand Hill Road, he started to cross an intersection. A driver thought he was going to turn right and ended up hitting Schimke from behind. His helmet "smashed to smithereens," Schimke remained in and out of consciousness for more than a week. After staying at Stanford Hospital for a few days, he moved to the Palo Alto Veterans Affairs Hospital's spinal cord injury center.

While his wife, Pat Jones (also a Stanford professor and researcher in the biological sciences department, as well as vice provost for faculty development), made daily visits of encouragement, Schimke spent six months at the hospital with a physical therapist. He started the arduous task of learning to stand, walk and feed himself again.

"I must say, sitting in a wheelchair has been a challenge," said Schimke, who was able to stand up after five months. "I remember sitting in the hospital and thinking, 'Well, Bob, you have the rest of your life to figure this one out.'"

While laid up in bed, Schimke noticed that anything decorating the walls only made the room blander.

"What is the art in hospitals?" Schimke asked. "Much of the art there, who's it for? Not for the patients."

Still, Schimke spent the next seven years concentrating on his physical therapy. He occasionally taught classes and published academic papers in cell biology and cancer research. But science brought frustration instead of fulfillment.

Three years ago, he decided to focus on his artwork, which had always been a comfort during "personally and emotionally low" times.

"If I don't do art for four or five hours, I feel like I'm not doing things," Schimke said.

Although he doesn't practice walking -- which requires special braces and someone to accompany him -- Schimke still exercises his legs and arms for two hours every day. His two-motor wheelchair can get him to Stanford in 35 minutes from his Palo Alto home.

Because Jones prohibits oil painting in the house, Schimke also does beading, which helps him unwind indoors.

"I love making women's necklaces. I'm a nut for it," Schimke said. "I've always been attracted to colors."

Besides emotional gratification, Schimke credits arts and crafts for keeping him in physical circulation.

"Since I've been using my hands for necklaces and art, I've gained more ability," he said. "It's a complicated issue. I'm not sure if it's regenerating nerves -- which I think is part of it ... or overcoming a psychological block."

One mantra Schimke lives by is that anything on a canvas qualifies as art. This credence has spawned a prolific array of pieces. Places such as Walgreens provide Schimke almost as much material as an art-supply store. In Schimke's studio, a canvas supporting a curling iron, comb and other beautification tools becomes an ode to female grooming. Another canvas pokes fun at Barbie as two dolls, in all their plastic glory, are glued down with all their accessories.

A future goal is to turn some of his more colorful paintings into prints and put them in nursing homes and hospitals.

Today, Schimke, 71, prefers stirring people with an original work of art, rather than with an essay in a scientific journal. But he acknowledged that he might not have reached this spiritual conclusion had the accident never happened.

"I'm more at peace with myself," he said. "Had I not had the accident, there'd be more struggling, self-analysis.

"Everyone, somewhere along the line has to deal with this question: What are you here for?" he continued. "My answer -- I don't know. But I think we're all here to make the world better for the people after us."
Robert Schimke can be reached at rschimke@stanford.edu.

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