Robert Welkie was born in Logan, Utah, lived for a short time in England, and then returned to Logan. From there he went to Tucson, Arizona, and then to Los Angeles.
While in the Photography Department at the University of Arizona, he studied under Harold Jones, Todd Walker, Judith Golden, Lew Thomas, and Louis Carlos Bernal. Tucson at the time nurtured a rich environment for revolutions in how we thought about photography. The masters and the revolutionaries visited Tucson. At the Center for Creative Photography (CCP) in Tucson, “ I sat across a table from Ansel Adams. His kindness and encouragement was not forgotten.”
The images in the archives of the CCP at that time were open for viewing to anyone off the street if they knew enough to ask. The first ones he saw were Edward Weston prints. And then he went through the catalog from beginning to end. Before he ever started going to school, he had an education that could not be rivaled. He arrived at the right time, at the right moment, at the right place. That seems simple.
Nothing is simple. He diverted into filmmaking, into the entertainment industry. He diverted into the business of art. Because he lived with a painter, the house only had room for one artist. The recession of 2008 changed the business of art back to art. He is thankful for the changes that came with demolishment. He was never a real businessman, but he played one for the entertainment industry and did a good job.
Now he is making images again, as I was meant to. They seem important and significant.