June 2008 Gulfscapes Magazine Interview: Larry Felder
www.gulfscapes.com

GS: When and how did you first become interested in art? How long have you been painting?

LF: I became interested in Art in the 3rd grade. I had a teacher who was an artist and taught us how to paint an apple by layering color. I still have that apple.

I have been painting since about age twelve. I spent most of my summers at my grandfather’s house in Port Aransas. I started painting boats and water then, giving them to my family. They were quick to complement most anything I did and I enjoyed the praise so I did more.

After graduating from UT Austin in 1974, I used my degree in Fine Art to go into advertising design and rarely did any fine art until after I left that field in 2001 to return to my love of painting. My resume is filled with many awards for graphic design but not fine art. I am just now honing my abilities in oil painting and getting noticed in the fine art world.

GS: What are your artistic influences?

LF: My Fine Art mentor at UT was painter Michael Frary, who passed away several years ago, but my wife, Linda, and I are honored to show his work now at the Felder Gallery.

In regards to my style, that is my own. Yet, I would have to say that my influences came much from my early education in drafting and Architecture. That is why my work tends to be very detailed. It is also why I know how shadows and reflections really look, since as a Freshman Architecture student I had to draft all the millions of lines to prove exactly how they work.

Then, as an art director and then creative director in the advertising and publishing fields I was lucky to be able to work with professional illustrators and photographers from around the county. My work now reflects the same quality and exacting requirements that I demanded from those artists I hired.

GS: Is anyone else in your family an artist?

LF: My sister, Glory, has a lot of talent as an artist but was hesitant to develop professionally. My mother was also talented, creating decorative flower arrangements, etc.

GS: Where are your favorite places to paint?

LF: My love of the Coastal Bend’s imagery gave me the perfect place to paint. Yet, much of what I like about the old harbor scenes are quickly disappearing with new development. The old shrimp boats and cruisers that I remember as a child are almost all gone. I have a lot of reference photos that I have taken through the years to work from, but seeing a scene in person is best. I am starting to paint scenes from my travels to Costa Rica and enjoying that as well.

GS: When you’re not painting, how do you spend your time?

LF: As president of the Rockport Heritage District Association, I enjoy working with different entities and people to help Rockport’s downtown develop in a positive way in order to keep the “charm” it has always had.

GS: What is your favorite painting that you have created?

LF: I would have to say “Five Boats,” not because it is my best work to date (although I like it a lot), but because it was the first large painting I did when I quit my corporate educational publishing position and decided to move to Rockport and start to paint again. It was my “coming out” piece and I use it in my signage for the Felder Gallery. I am lucky that a good friend purchased it when we opened the gallery and I can still see it when we visit her home on Fulton Beach Road.

GS: Who are some of your favorite artists?

LF: I specialized in Dutch and Flemish 17th Century painting in my art history studies so I have to say that Vermeer and his contemporaries were some of my heroes. I loved the water scenes of Venice paintings by Canaletto.

GS: When you paint do you listen to any particular music, eat any particular food or have any traditions or habits?  Times of day?  Clothing you wear?

LF: I keep my studio in my home’s living area because I paint at all hours of the day and night. We live in the country and my space has many windows where I can look out through the Oak trees without seeing any neighbors. On one end of the long room I have an eight foot by eight-foot easel out of two-by-twos drilled with holes every six inches and level with each other. I use pegs in the holes and move my painting up and down to fit my needs. I use a lot of lighting on the work. When I’ve painted for an hour or so, and my arm is tired, I plop on the leather sofa on the other side of the living space to watch TV for a while. I record programs I am interested in, such as on the History or Travel channels. While watching TV I look across the room out of the corner of my eye and analyze what I have done and what I will do next. When working large it is important to view the work close up and at a distance. I want them to work from both viewpoints. I also turn the lights off during the process to see how the piece will work in lower light. I feel it is successful if it can still glow and the water still reflect in less light. When my arm is rested and I know what I need to do next, I pop back up and head for the easel again. I repeat this process throughout the days until I finish a piece. I usually have several paintings working at one time – one or two in the other room drying and waiting for another round of work.

GS: Tell me about the creative process of painting for you – from inspiration to final product.

LF: Although I do have a style in which I just start loosely sketching a large canvas, most of the time I use my digital camera and my Mac to begin my work. From my experience in Graphic Design, I know how to use professional software such as Photoshop and InDesign to help me get an image on a large canvas.

While many artists savor the “process” I am more prone to put more emphasis on the result, no matter how I get there. I prefer painting to drawing, although I know how to draw. I use the photo as a reference to the details, especially the riggings and details I enjoy painting on the boats.

On most of my paintings I start with the sky background. I keep my skies simple because I want the painting to be about the water. I paint the images above the water line first using my reference material and then paint the water and the reflections. I rarely paint the water of my reference photo. I also think in terms of painting what the eye sees, not necessarily what the photo shows. A person’s eye is so much better than what any camera can depict. There is a lot more information in the shadows and highlights than a photo can show you. I think this is key to whether a painting works or not when taken from a photo. Many artists make the mistake of copying a photo and it looks like that is what they did.

GS: What part of the painting process is your favorite – discovering, planning, actual painting or seeing what you have done (selling J ) – and why?

LF: My favorite part of the painting process is about the last hour of painting. During the planning stage I can easily visualize how I want it to turn out, so I can’t wait to get to the point where the “magic” begins, in other words, when I paint the reflections on the water and make that look real.

GS: Do you ever paint something and decide you don’t like it – what do you do?

LF: Interesting question. I generally don’t stop until I like it. I have been known to completely paint out water and paint it again using a different strategy. Unfortunately, just because I like it doesn’t mean other people will. I have a few paintings at home that have not sold but I like them anyway and will keep them.

GS: How did you decide to live where you are, establish your gallery where it is?

LF: Although I grew up partially in Port Aransas, I knew that Rockport had the best reputation as an art colony and had a dynamic art center. We had always planned on retiring down here, particularly because it held the harbors that I wanted to paint. I felt that people from other parts of the Coastal Bend would drive to Rockport to shop for art if they were serious buyers. And, I was counting on the synergy of the art community to help our gallery succeed.

GS: What makes a painting a success to you?

LF: Sometimes when I am in the gallery I watch people as they walk around looking at the art. The most successful paintings are the ones that demand that the viewer stop and look.  I can see it in their eyes. I also enjoy the look on people’s faces when I help hang a piece in their home. Making someone happy makes me happy and I measure the success of my own work in that way.

GS: How would you describe your work to a blind person?

LF: Well………it would depend on whether they had ever seen before. I could describe the scene in a basic way if they had a reference to start with. If they had never seen, I would describe the work using their other senses. The salty smells of the harbor, the sounds of the water lapping against the hulls of the moored boats, and the wetness of water painted in the reflections.

GS: What do you believe your signatures are in your work?

LF: I concentrate on water reflections the most. But, there are other elements that I enjoy painting. I look for the most unusual boats. I shy away from the typical Gulf shrimp boats in favor of the smaller bay shrimping and oystering boats. Each one is different, hand-built to the specifications of the individual fisherman. There are no two alike and I like to mix them in my harbor views. The same can be said about the riggings of each boat. Each fisherman does things a little different. It’s similar to comparing a tackle box. They all have much of the same stuff in them, but no two are arranged exactly the same.

GS: Are you a self-taught artist or did you go to school?

LF: I covered this before, but just for the record:

BFA in Studio Painting, University of Texas at Austin, 1974

GS: Have you had other careers?

LF: I covered this also, but if you need to work any of this in:

Art Director…………………………..various ad agencies in Texas
Vice President/Creative Director…….various ad agencies in Texas
Senior VP/ Executive Creative Director…..educational publishing company

GS: If you weren’t an artist, what would you do for a living?

LF: I can’t imagine working in a non-creative field – but they say that I am a good leader. I might have been an Architect as a career, but would have probably ended up right where I am today anyway. I can function fine in the corporate world; I just don’t like it much.

GS: What are some future projects you have in the works or areas you want to explore creatively.

LF: I love to design just about anything. I enjoy working with Architectural spaces. Right now as a member of the Design Guidelines Committee for downtown Rockport I am part of a team working with developers and the City of Rockport to create a desirable future look for our city and harbor front.

As far as Art goes, I used to be a jeweler in the 70’s while going to school, but oil painting is my real medium and I have little desire to do any others.

GS: How much does the world community (events or conditions) impact your creative process?

LF: I am starting to paint some images outside of Rockport. I was honored to be invited to join the International Guild of Realism last year and will be sending in a painting I did of a Costa Rican Beach to enter into their annual show in Naples, Florida.

Otherwise, there is nothing political about my work. I am not making any social statements. The value to society is just for enjoyment of the viewer and of the artist.

GS: Do you remember the day or moment you said to yourself – this is it, the thing I want to do for the rest of my life.

LF: If I had to pick a day it was the day our last child moved out and my wife and I became “empty nesters.” I no longer had to work in the corporate world to support my family. I now had another option to make a living and I took it.

GS: What’s the strangest thing you have painted or been ask to paint?

LF: About a year ago I received a call from an older gentleman from San Antonio who had been told that if he wanted a boat painted I was his man. He told me that he was very hard to work with and I might not want the hassle. A challenge! I listened as he described his last experience with commissioning an artwork. He thought artists had egos inflated to the heavens and wasn’t sure he could work with one again.

About a year earlier he had taken a photo of an historic event when USS Texas Nuclear Attack Submarine was being commissioned in Galveston harbor. The photo showed the tall ship Elissa sailing alongside the sub as it made its way into the bay. He was a retired Navy officer and collected marine art. He just had to have a painting of this contrast between the old and new Navy vessels.

It wasn’t the subject matter that I normally painted but something inside of me wanted to restore his faith in my fellow artists. To make a long story short, I completed to painting to his satisfaction after several months of sketches and details emailed between us. He was very happy and we had become friends during that time even though we only communicated through emails.

He retained the original but had three Giclee made. One of those prints now hangs in the Officer’s Mess on the actual Submarine. Another was presented to the WWII Museum in Fredericksburg. And, the other was given to the
Galveston Historic Society, which owns and maintains the Elissa.

It wasn’t the money that I enjoyed in that commission. It was the new friends I  made and the joy he received when he shared my piece with his comrades.

GS: What would I learn about you by looking at one of your paintings?

LF: I like to make an impact! I borrowed much from my career in advertising design. Theoretically, an art gallery isn’t much different than a magazine. Flipping the pages and stopping on a dynamic ad is much like scanning the wall of an art gallery and stopping on a piece of art that turns you on.  I like to think that I am touching the emotions of people who see my work. Even if they can’t afford to purchase, I still get satisfaction that they are taken back by something I created.

You might also learn that my brain is evenly spread between right brain and left-brain. I know because I was tested years ago as part of an advertising training session. I am also a Libra, which makes all the sense in the world to me. When you look at my painting I hope you see that I can be very detailed. From a distance you see the dynamics of the whole (left brain) and it draws you in. Then, the closer you get the more detail you see. I love that about large-scale pieces!

GS: Have you ever painted something that you would never sell no matter what? If so, what and why?

LF: I am over that. I used to think I wouldn’t sell something because I liked it too much. But, you can’t take it with you. Now I paint to make other people happy. I live with the work during the painting process and then I let it go. Like pushing a young bird from the nest. I send it out into the world for someone else to enjoy. I can always paint another one and that keeps me going. Nothing like an easel without a canvas on it to motivate me to start another one.