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Artist's special drive

... In the living room of his elegant Federal-style house dating to 1800, propped up on crutches amid his framed work, the 54-year-old Newburgh artist's eyes reveal a remarkable affability considering his circumstances, and his words an acceptance of his condition."The cancer has slowed me down, but it hasn't fundamentally changed the type of art I do," he said recently.Billman works primarily with landscapes, using oil paint on a linen canvas to capture the Hudson Valley.

Oddly enough, he maintains that his cancer has actually helped his art in some ways."I've always started off with all this energy, and you want to keep going, but you end up flattening (the painting) out," he said.

"Now, I don't have the kind of energy ...

You need someone on your shoulder, telling you when to stop.

With the cancer, I've gained that ...

I'm able to say 'enough.'"Billman never knew that he had any interest in art until he spent a year at Lancing College in England when he was 18 and part of a student swap program.

There, he took his first serious art class and was inspired by the works of the impressionists, whom he describes as "so prolific, so in your face."Back home in the United States, he attended Syracuse University, where he studied painting and drawing, receiving a b...