Artist Robert Bassett fondly remembers the days when people were kind enough to take their next door neighbour’s clothes off the line before it rained and fold them before they got home.“I can remember having neighbours who felt a sense of responsibility towards the neighbourhood and each other,” he said.Such efforts aren’t always made today, but Mr Bassett is confident the Island can get back to its kind-spirited roots.His latest exhibit, Holding Firm, opens Friday at the ACE Gallery in celebration of his 60th birthday. It will be his first show in about five or six years, with many of the 37 pieces kept under wraps until now.He wants the exhibit to show the “connection between the past and our future” and reignite memories of better days.“Those were the kind of neighbours I remember having grown up with and it’s those kinds of values, if you hold firm to them and carry them forward with us, then we have a future that I believe will hold great promise for us.”Mr Bassett began painting at age four when he borrowed his father’s paintbrush dipped in red paint and decided to decorate the wall.“He was painting his truck and I got a hold of that brush and painted a sailboat on the wall. [My dad] didn’t even discourage me or scold me. I think he thought it was a nice looking sailboat.“I think that early experience is something that encouraged me to explore painting and being experimental with pen and pencil.”He later worked towards an art degree from Central State University in Ohio and has been seriously painting now for 25 or 30 years.Mr Bassett took a hiatus from displaying his work for five or six years, but said he was steadily preparing for his latest exhibit.Most of the pieces were “figurative abstract images”, giving him freedom to experiment with line, shape and form, he said.And while Mr Bassett is traditionally influenced by the Gombeys and the Bermuda kite, he also experimented with still-lifes for this collection.He said the ACE Gallery was the “ideal environment” to exhibit his work because of the honey tones in the woodwork, layout of the building and location in the heart of the city.“There are times when you are really restricted by what you can exhibit, depending on the gallery, but I am able to exhibit with freedom in here.“I just have a wonderful relationship with [the] ACE company period. They have proven to be a company that is genuine about supporting the arts locally in Bermuda.”While the theme is Holding Firm, Mr Bassett doesn’t intend for it to be a heavy topic. He wants the exhibit to be accessible to all generations and has included two paintings by up-and-coming artists Jonelle Simmons and Kilae Crockwell.Mr Bassett hopes people leave the exhibit with the belief values and traditions from the past “can still be very easily embraced”.“With the climate we see around us we see there is an erosion of moral values and I hope that my exhibit will just call attention to the fact that it’s about personal choice and what we want to do good or bad is in our hands.”Holding Firm will be on exhibit through March 9 at the ACE Gallery on Woodbourne Avenue. The gallery is open Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 11am to 2pm.