Born 25th August 1945,
at Elmira, New York,
the son of Hayes Schmick who was also a painter.

From early kid time Jerome displayed a diligent
talent for drawing, watercolors, and painting.
Schmick Senior was an extreme critic, never having
given approval to his son's efforts.
While attending "HORSE HEADS H.S." Jerome won the
1963 Chautauqua Art Scholarship in the High School Art
Competition, winning first and second places in three of
the five categories he entered.

- oils and pastel
- black and white
- graphics

The Chautauqua Art Scholarship, $500.00 tuition
money at the summer session of the Chautauqua Art
Colony was worth six credit hours at Syracuse
University, where Jerome would study for the next
two years prior to entering the US Army and finding
himself in Vietnam in early 1966, where he would
sustain a head injury for which the Veterans'
Administration would deny all but the minimum
medical and financial assistance. The war in
Vietnam left Jerome on his own, a severe grand-mal
epileptic combined with an already enormous
inferiority complex.

After his 1969 separation, from the military,
Jerome made his home on the island of Maui,
where he painted and labored
for the next ten years.

He relocated to Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii
in 1981. His constant companions were the extremes
of poverty, epilepsy, and the elation he took in
perceiving the phenomenal world.

In a board shack, high up on the East Rift Zone
of Kilauea Volcano, he worked, marveled and
suffered much in silence. Here he fell to his
death 16th May 1995.

In his art, he was abbreviated-direct.
Once he had his image he went directly at it, making the
image to immediately read the answer.

Once expressed, it becomes the object of
contemplation. The drawing is the comparison
with his image. They meet or miss in a world
where the distant background appears at the
forefront, and forefront at great distances back.

His palette was always red, yellow, blue,
black and white. Application was always
with a series of sponge pens of his own invention.

NOTES ON THE WORKS:
Jerome's works were coded by the artist in the following manner:

(L) Executed with the left hand

(R) Right hand

No indication (L/R) showing both hands were used

1 MN Picture was executed in one minute.

(LFE) Picture was draw from life

(TV) Picture was done from a television image.
END OF BIO

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