By Susan Shinn

For The Salisbury Post

You could call Mark “Mook” Brincefield an artist for all seasons.

This time of year finds Brincefield working on custom Christmas cards for a couple of longtime clients — and he says he wouldn’t mind adding a few more customers to his list.

“The Christmas card thing evolved from doing cards for my Mom and Dad,” says Brincefield, slouched in a comfortable chair at a local coffee shop. “When their birthdays came up, I’d do a funny little card. Dad just loved that kinda stuff and Mom did, too. It just became a habit.”

Brincefield eventually sent hand-painted Christmas cards to family and friends.

“My family is huge,” says Brincefield, who has six brothers,” so it got to be a really big thing.”

The family thing eventually evolved into work for customers. Brincefield has been designing Christmas cards for Power Curbers since the 1990s.

“Those cards go all over the world,” he says. “It’s a big deal.”

In recent years, he’s also done cards for Darrell Blackwelder, director for the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service in Rowan County.

“He called me one day out of the blue and said, would you do me a Christmas card,” Brincefield says. “We’d do household items or caricatures, and that’s always fun.”

So if you’re interested in Brincefield creating a Christmas card for you, get in touch with him. If you’ve already gotten your cards for this year, he’ll be happy to add you to his list for next year.

But make sure you know what you want.

“I’m not really an idea person,” Brincefield admits. “I can drawn an idea, but I can’t sit around and come up with ideas.”

He did, however, get a great idea this summer, after Clyde encouraged him to “paint big” for a show they did together.

Brincefield started a series of jazz musicians and soon added other favorites: Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, Joe Strummer, Jimi Hendrix, Tom Waits.

“I never planned on selling this stuff,” Brincefield says, but sell it did.

Brincefield loved translating the energy these musicians put into their music to his canvas.

“I’m just splatterin’ paint everywhere,” Brincefield says. “For me, these are big pictures. I put the paint on thick and use a lot of water.”

The paintings in this series measure either 15 inches by 22 inches or 30 inches by 22 inches.

He’s also painted Rambling Jack Elliott, a musician nobody’s ever heard of, but who hung around with Dylan in the 1960s.

The jazz great Dave Brubeck is next on his list.

Attorney Vick Bost is a big fan of Brincefield’s work, and has several pieces from this series.

“I collect him and I support other local artists,” Bost says, “but I really like Mark’s watercolors.”

Especially the musician series.

“They’re striking — the color and the composition,” Bost says. “He’s able to catch the spirit of the jazz musician in his paintings.”

If you’d like to see some of the paintings from this series, visit Fine Frame Gallery at 105 S. Main St.

For more information about Brincefield’s work or his Christmas cards, call him at 704-637-5170.