Painter

Welcome to Cidtalk’s latest Featured Artist, William Whitaker. I found Mr. Whitaker, as I often do, by pure accident, or destiny if you want to be more poetic. A common surfing expedition lead me to his on line gallery. As soon as I caught a glimpse of the first painting I was hooked. I explored every image on his site as if I were making my way through an art gallery. One painting at a time, slowly absorbing whatever knowledge and pleasure I could, I stayed fixated for nearly two hours. While I was looking around I kept thinking, ” I need to find out about this individual. He has got to have some wisdom, some wonderful morsels of inspiration to pass on.

I wrote the email inviting him to be a Featured Artist and soon got the response I was hoping for. Obviously, since you are reading it, he graciously agreed and responded to the interview questions with all of the enthusiasm I was hoping for.

My first impressions of Whitaker’s work was complete shock! To be honest, I have a less than stellar academic history in the arts. I studied very briefly (VERY BRIEFLY) at a university, but to no end. I have no art degree nor do I practice fine arts for a living. However, when I see such technical perfection it really crawls into my brain where that bit of art education is still stored and it wakes up the sleeping art student in me. The student who could have become an accomplished artist and member of the ever elite art community, but never made the leap from practical career moves like bartending, grocery store clerk and live bait slinger.

Whitaker’s work, among all of the artists I chose to feature on Cidtalk.com, inspire and motivate me to once again become emerged in the beauty that art brings to life. I see his portraits and figure paintings and I am instantly drawn to get closer and closer so I can steal some bit of information, any lesson that I can now appreciate and put to use. The ultra realistic images are almost eerie, in a good way. I am jealous and in complete awe at the same time. I can neither paint, nor do I have the patience to devote so much time and effort to creating such stunning work.

You can see from the image to the left that if you were not willing to accept the fact that it’s an illusion, a painting, you would really not have to. You could comfortable convince yourself it’s a photo and walk away. Among his online galleries you will find a true testament to his desire to portray flesh flawlessly, not to mention the ever draping fabrics that punctuate an innate elegance and sensuality in his work.

It’s not that it’s all so realistic that is impressive to me. I am more interested in how one can manipulate the same tools I have in my art supply collection to an end that is so extremely out of my reach. I would like to think that I could accomplish that kind of technical skill in time, but I am a realist, that will probably never happen. Just to have the feeling of holding a brush in your hand, making the strokes, blending the colors and painstakingly controlling the colors, textures and lines as Whitaker does, and then stepping back to see what he sees, WOW, that would be something. I would imagine it’s like winning a gold medal in the Olympics, without the ceremony of course.

It doesn’t come easy however, perfection. From the following interview, and from reading about Mr. Whitaker on his site, you find that he has been a hard working artist since his younger years. He has been a professional artist most of his life, ever improving as his work became established. Passion for his work and a drive to continually find the key to unlocking even more secrets of the palette, marry beautifully with an impressive art education to refine his knowledge of art history and established techniques of the crafts of painting and drawing.

He is a prime specimen to leech from, ewe! By that I mean that he offers so much of his own understanding of painting and drawing to those of us who are wanting to soak it up, he’s an amazing resource for information. He includes such details as what kind of palette he uses, what kind of studio he works in and a lot more. I have not been brave enough, or economically sound enough, to commit to an all out oil painting frenzy, but by reading about his studio, his style, his painting sessions as described in his “lessons”, I want desperately to chuck my steady job and become a struggling painter.. but I won’t. Sorry to say I’m old and I like paying the bills regularly. However, because of finding Mr. Whitaker, and the other artists in my featured articles, I have renewed my pursuit of creative ventures.

You won’t find perfection, style, technique or any hint of an art education in my projects, but you will find a true love and appreciation for the act and process of creating. Hopefully that is a good start to what I hope is a journey to that Olympic feeling.

Thanks to Mr. Whitaker for his participation in this article and the use of his images. Read on for the interview.

Cid: Where do you live?

Whitaker: I live south of Salt Lake City in Provo, Utah. A few years ago Provo was voted one of the best places to live in America. The publicity brought a lot of new people here, so I want everybody to know that Provo is a horrible place to live. Stay away.

Cid: How old are you?

Whitaker: I’m fifty-nine and healthy.

Cid: Do you have formal art training or education?

Whitaker: Yes. Some of it did me a lot of harm and it’s taken me decades to get over it. The 20th century was not a good time to get an art education.

Cid: When you were growing up, did you feel that your creativity got special attention?

Whitaker: My art skills did at first. Later, they just got in the way. By the time I was old enough for higher education, they were practically a liability in a University art department.

Cid: Are Art and Design the way you make a living?

Whitaker: Yes. I have done so since 1965. Nothing else I did seemed to take hold.

Cid: Have you been a part of the “art scene” where you live? Do you attend gallery openings, check out the latest offerings of local talent, hang out where the creative community migrate to? How would you describe the art community where you live.

Whitaker: Utah has an outstanding art community and art heritage. There is a great deal of first rate talent here. I’m not much involved locally.

Cid: I read on your site that you have children. How many kids do you have and how old are they? Do they show an interest in artistic ventures?

Whitaker: We have six children. The oldest is thirty-four, the youngest is twenty-four. They are not cursed with the art impulse.

Cid: As an artist, do you feel people see you in any certain stereotypical way?

Whitaker: No. I’m just another self-employed person, no more or no less interesting than most of my friends and neighbors.

Cid: Do you feel there is a stigma or blessing attached to being an artist amongst the “normal” people of the world?

Whitaker: That is totally a factor of the role one chooses to play. I’m well adjusted and fit in nicely. I don’t wear funny hats.

Cid: Are you an adventurous artist, trying new tools, mediums, ideas to keep your passion for creating alive? Or, are you reserved, preferring to stick with what you know, what makes you feel comfortable and safe in your skill “zone”?

Whitaker: It’s no fun unless one stretches the envelope. My focus is pretty narrow, but there is still a universe to explore therein. I don’t paint because it’s my job. If it weren’t almost overwhelmingly challenging, I’d do something practical for a living.

Cid: Are you interested in computers and the internet? If yes, how does the technological world come together with your creative thinking?

Whitaker: I was talked into a digital camera by my friend the artist Morgan Weistling (www.morganweistling.com). I have some very impressive computer equipment. Computer technology is another set of useful tools. I saw a TV show on the making of the movie TITANIC. I was very impressed with the brains behind the scenes. Sometimes they used live actors, sometimes models, sometimes paintings, sometimes computer images, sometimes full scale sets. They used whatever got the job done best. I must try and think like that when I create paintings. I hope to discover many ways to use computers in designing my art. However I’m not interested in computer art as an end in itself.

Cid: What plans do you have for the future? Any new mediums or areas of the artistic world that you would like to explore?

Whitaker: I’d like to create narrative art. In the vulnerability of my impressionable youth, the establishment taught me that narrative art was bad. I learned my lessons well and avoided it ever since. Now I feel rebellious.

Cid: I can’t say enough about how utterly amazed I am at your work. Do you get a lot of enthusiastic responses to your paintings?

Whitaker: Why thank you Cid. By the way, have I ever told you what an intelligent, sensitive, insightful person you are? It’s very evident to me that you have exquisite taste… Some people are enthusiastic, but nobody is after me to have a one man show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

ABOUT YOUR WORK

Cid: You say on your web site “Most viewers like pictures to mean something, to tell a little story. Not me. The only thing I’m interested in is paint and what can be done with paint.” Have you always had this view of your craft? And, does this view influence your personal opinion of other artists’ work when they do try to tell a story or do not concentrate on the more technical aspects of painting?

Whitaker: I really believe that painting is first and foremost about paint. I was taught that, but I also came by it naturally. I don’t look at art for the content, I look at it for the technique. However, some of the most impressive artists I’ve known were narrative painters. Their technical abilities were faultless and their narrative content always controlled. I’d like to be like those guys now. If I can drop my art education baggage, I’ll go for it, at least to some extent.

Cid: The Technique section of your site features “Fleshtone” and you have displayed an amazing painting to demonstrate your use of color! I am intrigued by your fine tuned sense of the basic elements of art. In this particular piece you take a very simple idea of primary colors and translate it into an elegant, graceful work of art because of your technique and commitment to a stunning visual experience. Your life time devotion to your work has giving you the opportunity to mature as a master of manipulating and using the elements or art prolifically and with great success. Do you feel that children learning about art should be taught those elements (color, value, line, shape, form, texture, and space) early on, or should they be allowed to explore their imaginations before being formally introduced to the more rigid guidelines or an art education?

Whitaker: I’m sorry that I don’t have an answer for that. My personal experience is simply that of having been let loose and not stepped on. When my grandchildren draw, I don’t mess with their heads unless they specifically ask me something. We live in a time when it seems that practically everybody is an artist. This is not good. We’d be better off if practically everybody was a scientist or an engineer.

Cid: It is clear that you love to work from real life, in your “old fashioned studio”. What advice would you give to someone who does not have a studio, nor can afford real life models?

Whitaker: Find another interest. Nobody expects to learn to play the piano without a piano. For five hundred years a body a knowledge and experience was built up in Western Art, only to be thrown out in the 20th century. Today anything goes and most of what passes for wall art is …(insert a great many derogatory words here). Serious painting is not easy. Give the learning of the craft the respect it deserves. It is very costly.

Cid: I’m approaching 35 years old and only just finished my first painting. Is there hope for me, or is it too late? Do you feel that an artist must toil for their whole life to become an accomplished craftsman (or woman if the case may be)?

Whitaker: We are all grateful that painting is an old person’s business. The older we get, the better we get. Your thirty-five years of living will stand you in good stead. Remember, your art should lead you. If you must do it, do it. It will tell you what to do and where to go next.

Cid: Your Painting Demonstrations are wonderful. It gives great incite to the process of your creative journey from blank canvas to finished work. Not all professional artists are willing to share their methods and practices with others. Do you feel that your input is valuable to other artists and do you think that there is a certain obligation in the art community to share knowledge, to pass on the wisdom from one generation to another?

Whitaker: It would be nice if the experience and knowledge I’ve gained through painstaking decades of exploration could be passed on. I think most of my artist friends feel the same way. Since traditional art training was discouraged and denigrated in the 20th century, we have come dangerously close to losing a fine body of knowledge. A lot of people think they know about painting and think they know how it was done in the past, but my experience has constantly been one of getting so far and then needing to dig deep and in some cases reinvent, merely so I could do things I’d seen my artistic forbearers do.

I’m continually amused and amazed at how little the Arts Establishment Talking Heads know about how great paintings of the past were actually produced. The non-artists who write the articles and books think themselves knowledgeable because they took a studio course or two in college, held a pencil, held a brush, made a few drawings, made a painting or two. In reality these people know about as much about painting as I know about medicine. By the way, you’ll have to excuse me now. I have to go tell some surgeons how to perform a heart transplant.

William Whitaker – paintings http://www.williamwhitaker.com

Thank You Mr. Whitaker very much for your participation in my site. I appreciate the time and effort.