The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake.
—Kurt Vonnegut

Tom Barber was working in a commercial art studio in the mid ‘70s when he walked into a local bookstore during lunch break. There he found a book of illustrations by N.C. Wyeth, picked it up, leafed through it. Then he marched into his boss’ office and gave his two-week notice.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but after looking at those paintings I knew it was something along those lines,” he said.

That “something” was a lifelong commitment to the creative muse, wherever it led.

Tom’s first major score as an independent artist was the cover of the March 1976 Amazing Science Fiction, featuring a story by George R.R. Martin. That same year he attended the New England Science Fiction Convention, engaged an agent, and started selling regularly to New York publishers, including Zebra Books, an imprint of Kensington Books. Zebra published Tom’s work in a torrent for the covers of Black Vulmea’s Vengeance (Robert E. Howard), Lud of London (Talbot Mundy), Andrew Offutt’s The Sign of the Moonbow, Adrian Cole’s The Dream Lords: A Plague of Nightmares, Lin Carter’s paperback revival of Weird Tales, Robert Bloch’s Mysteries of the Worm, and others.

“I found my niche,” he said.

The rest is history. A chunk of that colorful history is now revealed for the first time in a new memoir of his creative life, Artists, Outlaws & Old-Timers: The (sometimes hazy) recollections of a wandering artist, now available on Amazon.

Followers of DMR Books will probably recognize many of Tom’s most famous pieces. Artists, Outlaws & Old-Timers features more than 60 pieces of his art, unavailable elsewhere. Some are scenes from his life, including landscapes, but others are conceptual, dark, and personal. So in the pages of the memoir you experience not just his story, but a large slice of his visual imagination. Which is considerable.

Cover art for *Artists, Outlaws & Old-Timers*

Tom discovered his love of speculative fiction from the short-lived TV show Flash Gordon (1954-55), which he watched as boy of eight. Later he discovered Conan and Frank Frazetta. “That took me off into the land of make believe. Or maybe I already had it in me and that woke it up,” he said.

Tom dwells in other worlds because he’s found this one rather brutal and chaotic. He served as a Vietnam-era army medic from 1968-71, providing bedside care for some grievously wounded soldiers returning from the jungle. The experience never left him, and for several years he tried to drown it in a bottle.

In the early ‘80s Tom moved to Arizona, leaving behind the east coast and his promising art career. He attempted to keep working but his addiction got the better of him, and for a while stopped painting altogether.

Artists, Outlaws & Old-Timers relays several of Tom’s wild escapades. An Indian who materialized seemingly out of nowhere and proceeded to fight one of his friends. Setting up his easel in the operating room of an old, abandoned hospital in Jerome, Arizona (now the Jerome Grand Hotel) and seeing ghosts as he worked. Living out of a van without a nickel in his pocket.

Drinking not only derailed his career but nearly ended his life. He was fortunate to have friends who realized he needed help.

“I knew if I didn’t stop drinking, I’d be dead,” he said. All the details are in the memoir.”

Tom reads books about Zen Buddhism and has tried meditation with limited success. Painting and writing remain his principal form of therapy, his studio a walled garden where the chaos stills. He’s also a regular at the Vet Center in White River Junction, VT where he attends readjustment counseling. Tom’s VA counselor provided the spark he needed to set down his story.

“She said, ‘Tom, you’ve had an interesting life. Why don’t you write?’ So I went home and starting writing. It took hold, and turned out to be a real eye-opener,” he said. “I was learning about myself, stuff I didn’t realize.”

Artists, Outlaws & Old-Timers is written for entertainment and tells a compelling story. But Tom’s other intent was to let others suffering with addiction know there is a way out. He doesn’t care who knows about his struggles. He hopes his story might help them in some way.

“One thing I don’t like about Alcoholics Anonymous is the word ‘anonymous.’ You’re not supposed to tell people,” he said. “Well, I always tell people because you don’t know who you’re standing next to. They could be ready to go home and shoot themselves.”

At age 79 Tom is a survivor, and likewise his best work stands the test of time. Most of his classic work is in the hands of private collectors. This includes “Attack at Dawn,” a piece that resides in the private collection of George R.R. Martin. The Frank Collection: A Showcase of the World's Finest Fantastic Art (Paper Tiger, London, 1999) offers the following short writeup of that piece, and speculates as to the whereabouts of its talented but missing artist:

Watching over these sculptures, peering warily above the tops of their shields, is Tom Barber’s small army of armored warriors in Attack at Dawn, a personal work he created circa 1980. This is the first piece we purchased from him. We were immediately drawn to the image, always wondering, who and what army might those soldiers be confronting that morning? We lost track of Tom in the early 80s, when he moved out west to paint western scenes. And no one that we know in the fantasy art world has ever run into him again. That’s a shame because Barber was a great talent and if he had stayed in the field he would today be known to fans around the world.

Tom certainly wandered far but was never wholly lost. He made it back from the brink and continues to create. Today he gets occasional jobs, including some covers and private commissions. And continues to live by the motto:

Art that isn’t shared with the world is only half finished.

I’m proud to call Tom my friend.

Please consider buying a copy of Artists, Outlaws & Old-Timers. You’ll enjoy it, and you’ll be helping out a unique soul who could use a little lift. You can buy it here in glossy print or as an e-book.

Check out the gallery of Tom’s art below.