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NAPLES — Inside the house with opera spilling from the screened front door, a blank canvas waits on the easel.

Tom Burke ignores it, busying himself with getting ready to work: sorting mail and organizing brushes in his studio.

One of Burke’s abstracts hangs on the wall above him. Other work clusters around it. Bookshelves (filled with classical CDs and decorative porcelain pieces from Asia) live in just about every other open space.

Every wall is full — in this room and every other room in Burke’s Naples condo. Artwork spills over almost everywhere, even into the spare bathroom’s tub.

“How many of my paintings do I have in this house? I don’t know,” says Burke, 82, smiling and flipping through a stack leaning against the wall in the spare bedroom. “More than five. I paint every day.”

His paintings sell very well, says Gary Shanabarger of Room Interior Philosophy, where Burke’s work is priced from $400 to $10,000. He’s sold about eight in the last month.

“He crosses all mediums and styles, but he’s mostly known for this abstract, colorful style,” Shanabarger says. “It’s through his eyes, the way he sees things. It’s very colorful, with lots of movement.

“It evolves: You see more into one of these works the more you look at it.”

What follows is Tom Burke’s story in his own words.

My oldest brother was a published poet. I am the painter. But I do love poetry.

I began painting when I came back from the service. I asked my mother, who had been a practicing artist, to teach me to paint. She gave me a box of pastels and a drawing pad and said, “Work.” She never gave me any instruction except, “Work and always pick up after yourself.”

Art school was like dying and going to heaven.

I enrolled without telling my parents. They were in Canada and I was in Hollywood. What I did was take a telephone book with the listing of art schools, and the first one that I went to I was accepted.

It was called Hollywood Art Center School and it was just down the street from the Hollywood Bowl ... a place where they give symphony concerts outdoors. I had no money, so I’d go stand outside the gate and listen to the concerts. I had become a music lover.

I had my GI Bill, a dollar a day for food and a dollar a day for my room. Sixty-five dollars a month. Each day I ate two hamburgers, two donuts and two cups of coffee. They were 25 cents each. I always ate at the same place, which was called the Serenade on Hollywood Boulevard. And they knew I was poor so I didn’t have to tip.

I weighed 152 pounds when I graduated. I’m 6 feet 3½ inches.

I was 20 years old when I began painting.

■ ■ ■

My advice to young artists — work and don’t be afraid. I think fear is probably the biggest hurdle we have to go over. When I’m working on something and I logically should do something else next, but I’m drawn to do another thing, I do the other thing.

It’s obedience to creative energy. I don’t pretend to be profound. The other day I realized I am a nerd. I have two different copies of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

I had wonderful experiences in school. We had oil painting. We had portraiture. We had landscape painting. We had watercolor. We had design class.

At one point, my painting teacher asked me if I had any money, and I said no.

My teacher said, “I would like to give you a scholarship to come study with me in my studio on Thursday nights and Saturday afternoons.”

I wore sandals all the time in that climate, and he said, “I like your feet and your hands and the model I am painting from now, I do not like his hands and feet. So I’m going to put your hands and feet on his body.”

And the curious thing is, this model and I had become good friends. He was an East Indian dancer by training. He was Italian. We became good friends and there were my hands and feet on his body.

■ ■ ■ 

When I start to paint, I clear my mind. I suppose it would be termed a form of discipline.

I don’t know what I’m going to paint before I start. And I’m not being evasive. I truly mean that.

I think the first signal of this happened when I was in art school. The model was an old Hindu with a big, grey beard. And something took over. It was me. It was inside of me. But there was no intellectual action connected with it.

I found myself mixing little piles of color. My palette was covered with different facial tones.

The curious thing is this model was an old, old man who had never been a model at the school before. He picked up on it, somehow. He was very sensitive, and he began to hum. Just hmmm mmm mmm. I don’t remember exactly. It wasn’t a Frank Sinatra tune. He picked up that something mysterious was happening in that studio.

I didn’t have to think. It was flowing.

My favorite medium is whatever one I’m working with at the time. I’ve worked with etching inks on sheets of plate glass and put thinner, because etching inks are oil based, and then water, and the water and the thinner and the oil go into battle. I did quite a bit with that mixture.

I could probably paint with ketchup and mustard, because it doesn’t matter as long as it’s got color. And the bugs would love it.

■ ■ ■ 

When I lived on Nantucket I became very good friends with a young couple. She was very large and he was very thin. They had an antique shop and they came and told me they were moving to Maine and they wanted to get a painting of mine before they went. That was 1979.

In 1991, an artist friend of mine moved to Maine and I went up to visit her. I thought, this is close to where they moved. So I checked the phone book ... and I called. She said, “You saved my life.” I said, “What do you mean?”

She said, “In ’81 and ’82, we had a baby girl.” In ’85, he died. He had been a fetal alcohol baby and his heart exploded. He never made it to the hospital. And there she was, left with two little girls and a business to run.

Well, she was a stalwart, so she carried on. In ’87 her house was broken into in the middle of the night by two men who both raped her. That was the last straw.

She had a gun, she got on the bed, held the gun to her head to end it all, looked across the room at my painting, put the gun down, took the painting on the bed with her. She said, “Your painting gave me courage.”

I said, “You just gave me the most wonderful gift that an artist can get.”

It was a total abstraction done in enamel and ink, the little enamel that you can buy in the dime stores called testers. The title for the painting was “The Unity of All the Messengers of God.” It was, as I recall, essentially silver and black.

I think a lot of people buy paintings to match a pillow on the sofa, but this one, really meant something.

■ ■ ■ 

What kind of artist am I? I’m a happy abstractionist. I’m not angry.

I have been, since the age of 20, a member of the Baha’i faith. ... Its goal, despite the present condition of the world, is the unity of all of the people of the world into one common thing.

In the Baha’i readings, it says, “Pity man, he considers himself a puny thing when within him the universe is enfolded.”

■ ■ ■

I’ve had colon cancer, which was cured with 153 seeds of radiation planted in it.

I’ve had three art students here, which I’m happy to do.

And life goes on. I have no complaints. My son’s son is just starting to college. They live near Pittsburgh, Pa.

Where did I grow up? Wherever I lived.

Am I grown up?

I was born and raised in Vancouver British Columbia. My parents were Americans living in Canada when I was born. I had one year of university and I was a dual citizen. Well, I was being drafted and I’d worn the Canadian uniform in college and it was very uncomfortable so I went to the American consul to see if he could arrange for me to go into the Army. Creature comfort.

I was only in the Army one year, because the war ended. Or maybe a year and a half.

I’ve lived in Nantucket (Mass.), California, and my wife and I lived in Puerto Rico for 10 years.

I did whatever work I could in Puerto Rico. I worked in factories, Tuna factories. Dirty work. And painted in my spare time. The neighbors saw my work and made an appointment for me at a gallery in Old San Juan.

They loved my work, so we did an exhibition. Thirty-two paintings, 27 sold. And they were all abstract and they were all bought by Puerto Ricans, which was pretty unusual. That was around ’77.

I came to Naples by car. I’ve been here ever since, since 1992.

I live alone now here. Where would they fit? The second bathroom has paintings in the shower.

(He laughs.)

■ ■ ■

When I was on pilgrimage, I prayed to learn something that I didn’t know that I needed to know. And I got my answer. I didn’t know how to be humble. The answer I got was, “Oh that’s easy, just be happy no matter what happens.”

That’s carried me across a lot of dark times. Just take it on the chin, baby.

I hope my work is happy. Because I want to make people happy. Because there’s so much bewilderment, you know.

E-mail Bishop at kmbishop@naplesnews.com