2016’s got me like….
Things here at West Fraser Studio are busy. Busy with new commissions, busy with a new intern, busy with building a bigger, better website, and busy with planning a book tour.
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Have you ever walked past this door on Broad Street and wondered what lay beyond? On Thursday October 29, 2015 you can come on in look around and have a glass of wine and a nibble of food as well.
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Monday, for most people, is the first day of the week. It’s the wake-up call after the weekend. The end of doing your own thing and the beginning of doing someone elses thing. For the self-employed, monday is just like any other day of the week.
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Often people ask how long it takes for West to finish a painting. It’s a fun question, well no, not really. I once heard him answer the question with what was basically a mathmatic word problem. It was something like this: I’ve been painting all my life, so let’s say 50 years plus a few days, maybe a few months, plus a few hours, plus another few days, plus a year or so, plus an hour or so for stretching canvas and maybe a few extra hours for contemplation.
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We all know that rice was grown in the lowcountry during the colonial era. There are reminders everywhere of our by-gone rice culture. But have you ever thought about what happened to these fields after they stopped growing rice? Many of them were sold to wealthy northerners for hunting plantations. Evidently the rice fields became a wonderful home for ducks.
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As a student of Art History I find that I often look at what was going on culturally and historically during the time a particular piece of art was created. For instance Picasso’s ‘Guernica,’ it would be hard not to think about the events it represents. Often artists are commissioned to create an allegorical piece that represents a certain event, think John Trumbull’s ‘Declaration of Independence.’
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Since marrying Helena, Costa Rica has become a sort of home away from home for West. Recently they joined friends for a little R&R in the ‘vacation oasis located in the tropical paradise of Playa Carrillo, ‘ Las Ventanas del Mar.
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Recently West received a copy of a book by Mark R. Stoll, Inherit the Holy Mountain: Religion and the Rise of American Environmentalism. It is a fascinating read; especially for a self proclaimed lapsed Presbyterian as myself. In Stoll’s book he states that a “high proportion of leading figures in environmental history had religious childhoods,” but “curiously few were church goers as adults.” This definitely applies to West Fraser.
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Protecting the coastal environment in which I live and paint has always been important to me, in particular the unique water system that is the Port Royal Sound–an interesting historical fact, Port Royal Sound is the second oldest surviving French place-name in the United States having been named by Jean Ribault in 1562.
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The manuscript for my second book has gone to the publisher, the University of South Carolina Press! The book is titled, Painting the Southern Coast: The Art of West Fraser.
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