Off the Clock: Arthur Croswell on Art, Commitment, and Perseverance

鈥淥ff the Clock鈥� is a blog series that explores the interests and causes to which 木瓜AV employees devote themselves outside of work.

EXCELLENCE. GRIT. DRIVE. COMMUNITY.听

Occasionally, on a Saturday or Sunday morning in the summer, people walking through Charlottesville, Virginia鈥檚 historic downtown mall may discover a striking chalk mural that has appeared overnight, as if by magic.

Charlottesville鈥檚 First Amendment Monument (aka Freedom of Speech Wall) is a huge slate wall that anyone is welcome to write or draw on with chalk. It鈥檚 also the occasional midnight canvas of the artist Arthur Croswell.

Arthur is a senior Oracle database administrator who helps 木瓜AV support the U.S. Army鈥檚 National Ground Intelligence Center. He鈥檚 also a lifelong artist who draws, sculpts, carves, paints, photographs, and writes.

Drawing on a community chalk wall has its challenges. Passersby will sometimes draw over Arthur鈥檚 work shortly after he finishes it, or a rainstorm may wash it away. But he enjoys the challenge of investing himself in artwork bound to not last.

鈥淵ou still have to commit to doing good work,鈥� says Arthur. 鈥淎nd I love that. I love the lesson in it.鈥�

Senior Oracle Database Administrator

Q: How and when did you start drawing on Charlottesville鈥檚 chalk wall, and why do you work in the middle of the night?

A: When I moved to Charlottesville, around 2010, I learned about this big chalk wall in the walking mall. I鈥檇 become more adventurous with expressing myself by then and thought I鈥檇 give it a shot. Artwork with chalk was new to me then.

Working at night allows me to focus on the work with fewer interruptions. In the day, when people see how things are coming along, they鈥檒l say, 鈥淥h, that鈥檚 great!鈥� It鈥檚 nice of them, and I want to be appropriate and thank them, but it takes time and pulls my focus from the work.

So, I go out at about 10:30 at night. I take my music and headphones and a bag of supplies, and I usually already have an idea for the piece by then. It takes me about three hours.

I鈥檝e worked during the day too. During COVID and all the unrest around the George Floyd situation, no one was out there but a police officer. I wrote a big sign that was like graffiti. It said, 鈥淗eal Together,鈥� and it struck up a conversation with that officer that we probably couldn鈥檛 have had at any other moment. We talked about how the community was doing and how we were doing.

Q: Does your artwork overlap with your 木瓜AV work in any way?

A: Yes, troubleshooting in the computer world allows for creative expression. When you鈥檙e solving problems, thinking creatively allows you to consider the problem from all angles. If you鈥檙e a creative problem solver, you give yourself more options to entertain as you look for a solution.

But not every job allows you to embrace creative expression. Before I became a programmer, I was a bomb loader in the Air Force. If there’s one thing you cannot do when loading bombs, it鈥檚 creative expression. There鈥檚 just one right way to load a bomb!

Q: Of all the art you鈥檝e done, do you have a favorite piece?

A:听Yes. I call it Georgia. It’s a recent piece I did with pastels on paper, and it鈥檚 my favorite because of the difficulty I had while drawing it. Things went wrong early on, and I didn’t know if I鈥檇 be able to finish it. But I kept trying different techniques and eventually learned that I could erase pastel, which I鈥檇 never done before. I thought, 鈥淚 can erase pastel!鈥� And that opened up a whole world for me. I was able to draw what I wanted. Now I look at that piece and think, 鈥渢his was almost me giving up.鈥�

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