Boilermaker basketball star-turned-artist Joe Barry Carroll explores his roots and shares his perspective on growing up in the impoverished South and traveling the world with the NBA through large-scale paintings that befit his imposing stature.
Joe Barry Carroll can’t answer the phone. His fingers are covered in paint.
When he calls back an hour later, his baritone voice exudes warmth. Carroll (M’80) grew up in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Although he graduated high school in Denver, Colorado, he’s called Atlanta, Georgia, home since retiring from the NBA in 1991. There, he built a successful career as an investment adviser.
“When you called, I couldn’t wash my hands in time for the call,” he explains. “I had to make a choice, whether to create a composition on my phone with red paint, or finish what I was doing and call you back.
“I spend my days toggling between transactions on Wall Street and waiting on wet paint to dry. I’m literally in the process of that right now. I’m looking at a board that needs to dry before I put the other paint on it. Otherwise it’s going to be a casserole.”
Carroll devotes half of his home office to an art studio where he paints on four-foot by four-foot boards in mostly bright colors. The longtime art collector has created more than 200 of his own compositions since he first picked up a paintbrush about seven years ago.
“I started piddling around because I wanted to buy more expensive art, and I hoped that painting myself might inform that choice,” he says. “If I understand the challenges of managing space, line, composition, and all those things, perhaps I could have better confidence in further development of my own art collection.”
Galleries across the country now display Carroll’s work, including a recent exhibit at the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette. His first book, Growing up … In Words and Images, depicts paintings accompanied by narratives about his life as the 10th of 13 children. My View from Seven Feet, published in February, includes 50 works paired with narratives that outline his observations, thoughts, and feelings. The collection’s title is a lighthearted statement on others’ perceptions of Carroll’s height.
“There is a bit of curiosity about how I might view the world because I’m a foot — maybe more than a foot — taller than most people.” Carroll says. “In reality, I am seeing and experiencing what everyone else is experiencing.”
It’s those common experiences Carroll attempts to evoke through his work. Not everyone knows what it’s like to be an NBA star, but scenes of everyday life, childhood, family, hometowns, love, and loss … those universal themes are quite relatable to a wide audience.
“To the extent that I can create a piece that touches on some commonality we share, that’s interesting,” he says. “It’s exciting to me when someone says my work reminds them of a life experience, especially if it’s a pleasant memory. But even if it’s not, when people have a shared experience with me, there’s some camaraderie that occurs.
“I’m seeking that common bond, that part of us that we all share in our humanity. Because that’s what’s important. We’re really not interested in other people except to the extent that my life intersects with yours.”
Carroll can’t pinpoint the moment he became an artist; instead he says that over time, it was calling to him all along. At gallery talks, he advises others to explore their own creativity, to search for artistic outlets they have not yet discovered.
“I’m a man of many parts, and I need all of them to stay healthy,” Carroll says. “We all do. But a lot of us stop at the first thing we’re good at, or we stop at what is practical. And there could be other things you’ve not explored. We can be pleasantly surprised to find out all the wonders within. I feel confident in my ability to paint and write, and I was doing neither seven years ago.”
As a self-taught painter, Carroll is uninhibited by traditional rules, structure, or techniques. Unafraid to make mistakes, he paints in massive strokes, his work evolving through process.
“What flows from my pen and brush feels natural to me,” Carroll says in his artist’s statement. “I am never sure if the images create words, or the words move me to images. I am unable to tell precisely what determines my composition of colors, shapes and themes. Perhaps everything is forming at the same time, resulting in a complete story.”
Forty years ago, in his senior year at Purdue, Carroll was a first team All-American who led the Boilermakers to their most recent appearance in the NCAA Final Four. The Golden State Warriors selected him with the first overall draft pick of the 1980 NBA draft. When he reflects on his newfound trajectory as an artist, he chuckles.
“I absolutely did not see any of this coming,” he says. “How could I? I don’t recognize my life right now.”
But yet, he does. Because his story, just like his work, is mirrored in the experiences of others he meets. Just as their lives are reflected in his paintings. Carroll refers to these common experiences as patterns and rhythms of life.
“It doesn’t have to be exactly the same,” he says. “All it has to do is rhyme to know that you’re having a similar human experience. Because we’re all having the same human experience. It just happens in different places.”
This story appeared in the Spring 2020 issue of Purdue Alumnus magazine.
