Murfreesboro artist Gary James says all his talent was given to him by God, and he in turn gives God all the credit for his work.

One of the best-known examples of James’ pointillist artwork might just be his beautiful rendering of our state flower, the iris, featured at the Tennessee State Capitol. He has produced hundreds of intricate, captivating works over his decades-spanning art career, some of the pieces containing hundreds of thousands of tiny dots that, taken together, depict an animal, building, person or other visual subject.

James wrote in his recent book, Gary James – Autobiography, published in 2019 under Christian Faith Publishing, that he would have no talent “without His divine glory.”

James’ book tells his story from his early childhood in Texas to his move to Murfreesboro and his time traveling with the military.

“My earliest memories start when I etched images in white face powder atop a dark mahogany dresser and watched the dust particles spin into images in the streaming sunlight of my picture window,” he writes.

“I learned the basics of light on dark and dark on light. I did it every day for long stretches of time or when my mom would stop me from using her face powder. So then, I would just turn and focus my attentions to the floating spinning dust-particle pictures captured in the sunlight of my picture windows.”

He says life for him as an artist began on his first day of kindergarten when his teacher “got in front of the class and clasped her hands together and said ‘let’s see who all the little artists are!’”

When he was in the sixth grade, he became a serial artist, following strict compositional rules, learning to draw horses from a book that became one of his prized possessions. He also drew a lot of cartoons and realized the importance of drawing in ink for reproduction qualities, preferring black magic markers. He drew pictures on the back of notebooks for anyone who would pay his price of 50 cents to a dollar for his work.

James was an artist for his school drama club and literary magazine. He served as an apprentice illustrator for the 49th Tactical Fighter Wings graphics section and then received a position at the Air Force Academy’s Dean of Faculty Instructional Studios and did government graphics work and then exhibited his first art show in California.

“In 1976, God came to me and said, ‘Gary, I’ll make you famous, but you gotta do the dot.’ A black ink dot to create my fine art repertoire, and he added, ‘You gotta register each point, each dot an essential part of the design.’ In layman’s terms, we had to count them, and I can tell you how many points are in each piece,” according to the artist.

He adds some of his art contains subliminal messages that were put there by God.

He says he started with dots in 1974 as an apprentice at the Air Force Academy. Each of his pictures is made up of thousands upon thousands of dots, made with BIC pens. He then colors that work with beeswax.

James cites Van Gogh and M.C. Escher as two of his major influences. This can be seen prominently in James’ versions of sunflowers and a few labyrinth-themed pieces.

His body of work also includes realistic architectural drawings of buildings like the Nashville skyline and one of an ornate home along Main Street in Murfreesboro.

He created his portrait of Jesus after visiting a palm reader in Smyrna. This is the same portrait featured on the cover of James’ autobiography.

“ . . . she read my palm, looked at me, and said in a thick Russian accent, ‘You are a great artist. You draw me Jesus,’” James says in his book. “And that was the night in the summer of ’84 when I laid out the pictures of a dead bloody Jesus that God gave me to spread the gospel with because it was [in the] bloodshed and death of Jesus that we find salvation before God.”

In conjunction with some of its spiritual overtones, his autobiography includes some surprisingly graphic details of hookups with women along with some strong language, discussion of physical confrontations and graphic stories from time spent in mental hospitals.

On Christmas Day 2010, James lost his balance and fell. From that day forth, he continued having problems with his balance.

“Over the next year, my right leg slowly left me, and the right hand turned to concrete,” he says. “I didn’t know why. It played hell with me. In 2013, the month of July, I went through a battery of tests at the VA: EEG, EKG, CAT scan, X-ray and MRI. The MRI showed the problem: multiple sclerosis.”

James says he used dots until 2013, when they were taken away by MS.

“They were taken away for four years until my personal caregiver, Ruthy, who lives in the back of my studio, prayed over my hands and my ability to do the dots; my old way returned in 2017. Praise the Lord.”

In 2019, James said that since his diagnosis with MS, he has done about six major pieces with very little difference from his original art style.

“These are my pictures,” he says. “I’m still the same artist. This is my domain that was given to us by God.”

Some of Gary James’ work is available to view and purchase at Emery’s Fine Art Gallery on Memorial Boulevard and at Hernandez Mexican Deli on Vine Street.

Find his autobiography on Amazon, and view his work at garyjamesarts.zenfolio.com.