Ryan Blades finds artistic inspiration in Milton
New residents find all kinds of reasons to fall in love with the Town of Milton. Whether it's the small-town charm, close-knit community or frequent events, the town offers a little of something for everyone.
For Ryan Blades, the town has given him something a bit different: artistic inspiration. A native of Millsboro, Blades, along with his wife and two children, recently moved to Milton. It was on walks with his youngest daughter, who would be in her stroller sleeping, where he would take in the scenery and either start sketching things along the way or taking a picture so he could paint it later.
Some of his sketches have included some of Milton’s quirky residential architecture or the familiar fermenter tanks of Dogfish Head brewery. His art is about to be displayed more permanently in Milton, as Blades is one of 14 artists taking part in a project that will put art in crosswalks around town.
Blades said his work, which will be featured at the crosswalk at Federal and Coulter streets, will be an abstract of houses in the area. Blades and the other artists plan to begin work in the spring.
“The architecture is something I’ve always loved in this town. It’s very inspiring,” he said. “I’ve never done anything that large or on road before. It should be a lot of fun.”
Blades said he has enjoyed art from a very young age. He started drawing in an effort to recreate the comic book heroes he saw growing up in the 1990s.
“Comic books were my entry point in the art world,” Blades said. “In the ’90s, it was Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld and these big, muscular characters. Everything was exaggerated and more extreme, by design. When you’re 10, 12 years old, it’s appealing. I’m thinking of Cable from X-Men with this big, massive gun and all these pouches for ammo. He just looked cool.”
He said his favorite characters from back then were the X-Men, but he also liked Superman, Batman and Spiderman. Blades said as he got older, his drawing grew more realistic, but he would describe his style now as loose and expressive.
“Realistic realism but with a side of being a little expressive. I’m trying to be more expressive. That’s my struggle,” he said.
Blades has spent the last three years teaching art, drawing and painting to freshman/sophomore level students at Sussex Central High School in Georgetown. He’s been a teacher for 15 years, having also taught at Georgetown Middle School for six years and at the former Carver Academy in Frankford. He said teaching is in his blood, as his mom was a teacher, and that his interest in the profession was spurred by having good teachers growing up.
“It’s fun. Kids put off an energy, I think. Some people don’t like that and think ‘Kids aren’t for me’ or ‘Other people’s kids aren’t for me.’ Some people embrace it. I feel like the energy the kids bring into school, to match it, is like an upper,” Blades said.
For much of his career, Blades taught math, before switching over to art when he moved to Sussex Central.
“I wouldn’t want to be a high school teacher of math, but I wouldn’t want to be an elementary or middle school teacher of art. High school art is great because 75% of the kids want to be there because it’s an elective. It makes it a lot more fun when the kids want to be there,” he said.
Besides artistic inspiration, Blades said he has come to like living in Milton for its walkability, parks, the library, restaurants and attractions.
“We wanted to live in an area where we could live in town and get whatever we needed,” he said.
Blades has recently taken to posting some of his works on Milton-centric Facebook pages and he’s been pleasantly surprised by the response.
“A lot of people really loved them. A couple people asked me if I could paint their house,” he said.
