In realm of art, a guiding spirit

A Lower Mills artist who paints with his feet is among the few with disabilities to make a name for himself

As a child, Greg Rogers dreamed of becoming a world-renowned chef. He progressed pretty far with his cooking - but then someone told him that running a kitchen would require him to lift 50-gallon tubs.

Born without a left arm and with most of his right arm missing, Rogers set aside his chef's apron and began searching for another career option. He spent the first year out of high school pursuing a degree in elementary education, and at one point, jokingly told a startled recruiter that he intended to join the Army. In the end, though, say those who know him best, it was basically a given that he was meant to be an artist.

"By the time Greg said he wanted to go to art school, I could see that he had a talent that was just different," said his mother, Mary. "It was obvious that this was where he belonged."

These days, Rogers, now 35, lives and works in 900-plus square feet of artists' loft space in the Baker Chocolate Factory in Lower Mills. The white walls of his oversized studio are lined, floor to vaulted ceiling, with vibrantly colored creations, and still more of his artwork fills the circular landing outside his apartment. The overall effect is stunning. Yet Rogers considers it unremarkable that he carried out his vision for each one of these pieces using only his feet.

"I pretty much just work every day," he shrugged, preferring to talk more about the art itself.

That story took a leap forward in 1996, when Rogers first landed at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. A native of Palmer, Rogers had taken as many art classes as he could close to home before moving across the state to study at a school with more than just a couple of art teachers.

Rogers credits the change of location with inspiring a shift in his work from traditional oil painting to a style that, with its swirls of form and color, is often described as abstract expressionism.

His early compositions were executed entirely in ballpoint pen, he recalled, and reflected what he terms "an intense focus on the page." Leaning back slightly in his chair and sliding his feet from a pair of fuzzy-lined moccasins, Rogers demonstrated his approach to these pieces, each of which he created in two parts. First, he explained, flexing his ink-stained toes as if they held a pen, he would focus all his mental energy on the page as he filled the white space. Then he would use the memory that had been created by that intense intellectual focus to rework the composition on a new sheet of paper, so that the initial "scene" essentially became "something else."

In the beginning, most such pieces were 11 by 13 feet, or, at most, 14 by 17 feet. But by the time Rogers's final semester at MassArt rolled around, the compositions had grown substantially. The last piece he completed in his dorm room, over the first five months of 2000, hangs high on a wall of his loft - black, white, and 40 by 32 feet.

It was at about this time that the bright color and mix of media that have since become distinguishing characteristics of Rogers's art first began to make their appearance in his work. And it was just after graduation that Rogers participated in the formation of the Artists with Disabilities Task Force, an initiative of the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission aimed at helping artists with disabilities use their art as a viable means of financial support. The task force, which started out with just a handful of members, now has about 50 members from all areas of the state. Lisa Weber, the group's coordinator, said that Rogers is one of the artists who is "really making a name for himself."

Indeed, Rogers exhibits his work in close to 10 shows per year. His first solo exhibition, entitled "Yellow, Yes Yellow: Channeling Inspiration," opens Friday at The Governor's Academy in Byfield. And his art is selling, at anywhere from $100 to $2,000 per piece.

And Rogers's work is continuing to develop. Hints of the new directions he is exploring dot his studio - a pair of sculptures, composed of twisted plastic bags, wire, mesh, and shiny acrylic paint, sit on one shelf, for example, and some just-finished mixed media-on-paper pieces are still pinned to a drawing board. In each, black amoeba-like shapes circle elegantly against backgrounds of that bright, bright color.

Two small canvases might be easy to overlook in his studio. The first depicts an arrangement of rosy red-yellow apples; the second is a glowing still life of fruit and vases. Both are perfectly balanced compositions, wrought in rich but muted tones.

Could these also be Rogers's paintings?

The artist nodded his head vigorously and grinned. "I wanted to prove to someone that I could actually do realistic work as well."