Artist-in-Residence Michael McBride is no stranger to the Island with this being his seventh visit. Mr. McBride's show entitled "Bermuda, an Intimate Portrait" opens in The West Wing of the Masterworks Foundation, Botanical Gardens, on June 24 at 5.30 p.m. Mr. McBride, who hails from Nashville, Tennessee, is also an art instructor at Tennessee State University and his diverse works are held in private and corporate collections throughout the world.

His work has also been featured on television shows and Hollywood films such as Living Single, The Wayans Brothers Show, the Jamie Foxx Show, Sesame Street, Snow Dog and Hairspray.

On one of his visits with his students, he met Masterworks director Tom Butterfield and curator Elise Outerbridge.

As we sat on the bench under the grapevines at Masterworks he described the moment in soft Southern tones.

"It was right over there (near Camden) in 2003," he said.

"That was the year that we bought our largest group with us, so Vernon Clarke (artist) was doing a workshop and I came with the students to do some painting.

"I had finished my painting and was talking to some students when Elise came up and asked 'who did that painting?' and the students said, 'Mr. McBride'. So, she said, 'my boss has to see this'.

"I had painted the front of Masterworks and I had no idea what it was. Tom came out and wanted to know if I would sell the piece."

Mr. Butterfield told him that bringing artists to the Botanical Gardens was exactly what he wanted.

The students and Mr. McBride came to Bermuda on six separate occasions. They were initially invited by the Department of Tourism who sent out letters to all the historical black colleges in the US because a lot of artists wanted to know why they weren't bringing artists to the Island, although they were bringing sports teams.

Mr. McBride said: "On an average we were bringing in about 25 to 32 students and the biggest group we brought was 48. From that point on every spring break we have been bringing groups over ? and it has been great."

They fell in love with the Island, although he noted that it had changed over the years, but he said: "It is still the Bermudians that we really love."

Mr. McBride came from humble beginnings and did not grow up with a silver spoon in his mouth.

"I grew up in the Western part of Tennessee in what you would call the rural part or the hills and I grew up farming," he said.

"At the age of eight I told my parents that I was going to be an artist and I would draw on a blank white paper with a pencil and my parents appeased me, and said, 'okay fine'."

Although, he said there were no private lessons and no art in school he always knew that he would be an artist.

"I don't know what set it in my head," he said.

"I did sports and when I finished high school I went to college on an athletics scholarship."

In college he studied what is now called graphic art, but at that point the degree was still referred to as commercial art and his aim was to be an illustrator.

"After doing that for two years I transferred to a four year university, Tennessee State, in Nashville," he said.

"I then opened my studio about a year before I graduated from university."

Along his journey he never doubted that he would be successful.

"People would say, 'you've got to get a job ? this art thing, and this, that and the other'," he said.

"But I never swayed away from it and I was never deterred. So, it is kind of like what I say to students, 'if you are following the gift that is given to you I think doors will tend to open for you, especially if you are going after it for the right reasons'."

He says the his success and that of his partner James R. Threalkill at their studio Atelier 427 is no surprise.

"I have a big studio, but I have my own business, which is M&M studio and his is Black Art and it is about 1,500 sq. ft.

"When we started we made a pact that when it came to children we would be available to teach, train or do anything for schools and I think that is one of the reasons that we have both been successful, because we have always had the idea of giving back no matter how successful we became."

He said aside from their work being featured on numerous programmes and Hollywood films, they have done artwork for countless other celebrities.

"We have been very fortunate and we have done artwork for pro-athletes and people like that," he said. "Also illustrated children's books and in fact one of the children's books we did, Sesame Street asked to use them. A lot of our books are still being used across the country and abroad. Oh, yeah, oh yeah!"

When he was approached to be Artist-in Residence Mr. Butterfield told him that he wanted artists to paint Bermuda through their eyes.

"I am sure my show is going to be a little different, because I am coming from a different culture," he said. "So, I am going to see things through the eyes that other visitors will not see.

"As a teacher I have to be brutally honest and sometimes it is very interesting when an artist comes here and is more enthralled with the landscape, as if the people don't exist ? but I am like 'what really makes up Bermuda are the people' and that is what I am looking at."

In his travels he has taken numerous photos, capturing any and every image for later use.

"I took pictures of the pilot of the pilot boat, which leads cruise ships in and he was with a construction worker and they were just sitting there eating and drinking," he said.

"I introduced myself and asked if I could get a picture of them, because of the many faces and personalities. There is one pregnant young hairdresser and I asked her if I could paint her because I have this beautiful place where I am going to place her. I want to call it Bermuda Beauty because of the beauty of childbirth. It is about capturing moments. I am a people person and I like getting out and meeting people. I am not an introvert."

Shortly after he arrived, artist Sharon Wilson's show opened at the Bermuda National Gallery.

"It was very similar to the ideas that I had and it was what hit me before I even came here," he said. On arrival, he stayed at Aunt Nea's Inn and from that experience he said: "I want to paint it at night with a shadowy figure walking and things like that ? I want to create moods.

"Late night at Aunt Nea's Inn it was watching people going and coming and that was what hit me, just the glow of the lamp and the whole feeling of it."

Everything inspires Mr. McBride.

"I tell my students that if they open themselves up to all the nuances around them no matter how trivial, they can start receiving all these wonderful ideas.

"So, I tell them that my ideas come from any and everything ? there is no special place or a mood that I have to be in.

"I am in this mood all the time. I wake up this way! And the reason that I am this way is because I am doing what I love. I am doing what I said I would do, and every morning when I wake up everything is possible. Why shouldn't I be this way?"

His medium ranges from piece to piece.

"I use watercolours, acrylics, oils, charcoal," he said, "But when I do a piece of work I let it decide what the medium is going to be, because what I try to do is to use a medium that will best portray what I am trying to get, because the amount of times that you can't do certain things with watercolours, or you can't do it with oils, but some things you can do with acrylics."

The artists that he has been inspired by, vary from Pablo Picasso to Harlem Renaissance painter Archibald Motley.

"I love several artists for different reasons," he said.

"I love Aaron Douglas, Picasso, and Henri Matisse. I love Matisse for his great sense of composition ? the man understood it like no one's business, whether it was line, solid shape, organic or inorganic shape ? he understood com-po-si-tion.

"And when you talk about colour composition (Paul) Cezanne is what I like most. Charles White, an African American artist, I loved him for his wonderful drawing ability as a draftsman and the energy and emotion seen in his work.

"All of these people kind of influenced me from a standpoint. So, saying that I have a favourite artist is difficult, but if pressed then it would have to be Thomas Hart Benton. He was one of the social realist painters and my style, in the way I deal with colour, probably has more to do with his work more than anything. "And I was doing it before I knew of his work or who he was, and when I was introduced to his work, I was like, 'oh man'. Along with him is Diego Rivera ? those two because they had that same kind of feeling and my work has been compared to theirs by art dealers."

One of his mentors was his professor in graduate school Dr. Harold Gregor.

"I mentored under him when I was doing my graduate work," he said. "He is a master painter and what I mean by that is that he has mastered all forms of painting from encaustic to everything, because we had to study all of it.

"So, he was my biggest influence and he got a doctorate in painting, which they don't give anymore. That was the final degree for studio art and in 1960 there were only four schools in the States that issued the doctorate, UCLA, Ohio State, Yale and Harvard.

"It was such an intense thing that they changed it to the MFA and his doctorate was in colour theory." Along with everything else, Mr. McBride is also also penning a book on marketing guidelines for artists.

"I have had so many artists calling me from all over the place asking, 'how to do this or how to do that' and they kept saying you ought to write a book," he said.

"Being a teacher, I am writing it from a manual standpoint so you don't have to read the whole book." He is pleased to have had this time on the Island to create, as it has been the longest time in a very long while.

"I haven't had this block of time to just work since graduate school," said the father of two, who has been married for 25 years. "It really re-disciplines me because when you have all of this time it is easy not to work and I have to say to myself, just work, quit trying to think it out to much, just produce work ? in other words don't paint the show ? just produce the work."

Mr. McBride's show will remain up until June 30.