The journey of the President Carter portrait started through chance. Call this serendipitous or timing, everything came together at the right time and has brought new inspiration for me to painting.
After taking nearly 20 years off from commissioned portrait painting, I decided to test the waters and because of something I had once had a deep love for with a new beginning. Not long after this decision, I was approached about doing a ‘Legacy Series’ of drawings and paintings of President Carter.
At the time, I was given some images from the archives and decided to make the trip to Plains, Georgia, a small town in a rural area. For me, the images were inspirations to seek to understand a person with a legacy and history that went much deeper than simply images. You see, I could see in the images that President Carter was surrounded by people who had a deep passion for his mission and love for what he stood for last decades, some 20-45 years. Compound this with the fact that we met the President and his wife, over five years ago, and I knew that this was something more than just a ‘Legacy Series.’ This was a story of a President and the people that surrounded him.
The Importance of Understanding Your Message
On our first visit to Plains, GA, we had the honor to meet President Carter and his wife. To say that this was the opportunity of a lifetime would be an understatement. And not because of a shared religious belief system, but because the depth of the images that were shared with me came to life in the conversation.
As my work on the project continued, I had the privilege to continue with numerous conversations and interviews with the people that were central to his life. One person was Jill Stuckey, Superintendent of National Park Service, Jimmy Carter National Historic Site of Plains, GA. Jill has known and worked with the Carters personally for a significant portion of her life. To that end, she had the unique perspective of spending time with President Carter in various professional and personal settings. Whether this was dinner, work, and everything in between, for the likes of 30 years.
Naturally because of our limited time with the President, I choose to continue to understand and dig deeper into what I had already seen in the images and the brief conversation with the President by interviewing Jill. A conversation that would last five hours, and we discussed her life behind the scenes with President Carter and how she saw him from her perspective.
Over the course of my 40-year career, I have always approached art as more than just a picture. More than just the cover of the book. For me, when I approach drawing and painting, this is multifaceted. This is about conveying to the viewer through art the depth that you don’t get to see on the outside. It’s the 30 years of dinners and decision making and mutual respect that is garnered over a lifetime.
The Power of Art Mapping
The practical term for this is Art Mapping. The fundamental term for this is understanding.
As my journey continued, I sought out more dimensions of President Carters life. You see, a picture is just a snapshot in time, and until you understand the joy, the pain, the ups, and the downs, you cannot really understand how to approach the outcome. For that, I needed to talk to another individual intricate to the Carter’s life, Rita Thompson. She spent nearly 45 years working with the Carters in various capacities, first with the President’s time running for public office.
The more I discovered about President Carter the more I understood why they were his lifelong friends. The images began to take form. The pictures that had been initially shared with me started to tell a story that was much deeper than the outcome of a camera sitting in front of the President.
And embarking on this journey became a sobering moment for me. Telling the ‘Legacy’ of a person with so much depth became more that just about President Carter. It became about creating a portrait that would convey a lifetime of people coalescing together.
Practically speaking, we all agreed on the image that would be the hallmark, what the outcome would ultimately be. But that image was just the starting point. Without the stories and discussions with the President and the people that surrounded him, it was just that.
At that juncture, I embarked on the painting. And while this journey started well before I was involved, I felt a responsibility to carry the message of everyone forward. When I finished the first painting, I realized that something was missing.
For me it was missing the person viewed by his friends. It was missing the emotions of the people that had surrounded the President for a lifetime. So, I continued my search for how to depict the man so loved by so many.
Journaling My Exploration: As a Part of Art Mapping
To help me organize my thoughts I started to Journal My Exploration to clarify my own personal thoughts. Journaling about the people that have brought me into their lives to convey a message is something that I started just recently, over the last ten years. And throughout this process, I continued to journal – before, during and after each drawing, sketch and painting. Capturing a reflection of my emotions based on the extensive conversations that I had had with the people that surrounded the President.
The journaling helped me process through the desired results in each piece of art I do. The journaling started to help me search through various drawings and perspectives. To process what I had heard. To process what I had seen. And bring a much richer understanding with more depth on the President.
In the process I found that it was more than just President Carter, but I needed to journal about the multiple dimensions of this painting. In the process, I started two journals, one about Rita and Jill’s thoughts from the five hours spent together, and the other journal is a personal journal which is my personal journey steep in my personal experiences.
I began to see the photos taken from my first visit to Plains, GA of President Carter praying in church and was closer to what I was after. My journal reflected what I had heard, experienced, and discussed in this experience.
This included drawings and paintings of the Carters in some of the most personal moments. While painting someone holding hands feels fairly straight forward, there is a personal component that is much deeper. To add to this, I wanted to make sure that I provided a sense of place. Therefore, sharing some of the landscapes from Plains, GA.
Through this process, I started to see the value and commitment which he has toward Rosalynn, his friends, and lifelong commitments for the people he was standing for. And while the ideas and images for this series began to surface after reading his autobiographies. The biggest revelation was his childhood stand against social injustice (His reference to an incident -The Pasture Gate).
All told, I believe there are 28 drawings in graphite and charcoal, paintings, oil sketches before realizing the image I was looking for.
The painting in the Smithsonian was after all this process, when I finally discovered what I and everyone else involved had seen in him. Even the painting which is in the Smithsonian went through six previous paintings changing the size of the canvas. And several of the other paintings have made their way to the Carter Library, with the other one being in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.
Now that I have almost completed the series I realize after more sketches there is one more painting in the progress and that is titled “A Man of God”. The first photograph we (my wife) were able to capture of him praying by a stain glass window before his bible study class in church. This painting has a Gold Leaf background which is already laid, lighting will be back lite, bathing him with God’s light.
The sketch on grey paper is one of two reference drawings used for this painting, this sketch in the Carter House. There are various oil sketches of these at the Carter Library.
The process of Art Mapping and the questions because of this that were answered by Rita and Jill aided me in capturing the essence of portrait (and drawings).
The Value of Studying the Old Masters
Looking back, I have enjoyed this experience and getting to know the people around the President. For me, art is much more than critiquing someone’s work or learning the theories of the Old Masters. Art is about telling a story. And that story can only be told by understanding the emotions that lead to art coming to life.
Setting aside the questions on composition, color schemes, and the hundreds of other components of a painting, you will never be able to convey the true emotion of what is being created. In the Art Mapping process, the main question is "why is that important to you (them)", which I asked Jill and Rita. This one question can give me clarity on the type of brush, size, surface, type of brush strokes, color schemes, lost and found edges, etc. to help me paint their - our painting. Rather than deciding based on the image, the Art Mapping tells me more about the depth that is beyond an image and the surface.
My first remarks I wrote down-in my journal: (How President Carter/ God/ other people involved became One)
Team effort joined together and became
One person with a desire placed on Their heart by God,
the people who came along His (God’s) vision
the difference He made,
the difference they made
together through God’s appointment in time
one day these paintings, journaling might influence a new type of of person and or politician.
A man of prayer, their story.
Without Art Mapping, I would not have started painting again and had never had this opportunity.
For me, the process of going deeper into understanding the message that needs to be conveyed far outweighs the theories, tools, and concepts of art. While everything is important. Absent the message, it’s just a replication of what we see with our eyes. It’s just a copy and paste of an image.
The very reason I stopped painting commissions in 1995. I did not see the depth that sat behind a painting and was not attempting to bring that forward in my work.
Art Mapping was the inspiration that I needed to start again. And through this, I believe so adamantly in sharing what I have learned about the great artist and how those concepts could be used in artist lives today that I knew I would have paint again and to show my art, to hopefully have people be open to take their art to another level. My single driving goal in art is to help artists succeed.
Using Art as Tools, Not as Rules
After teaching for thirty years, I have started to see all the ways artists did and do art is correct, just not all the time. I had to start to see art differently, Art as Tools not Rules. As a result, I began a new way of teaching in the last five years. The method today is so vastly different than when I started. Today, it’s about teaching every concept and allowing people to pick which concept, technique, art principle will help them tell their story.
When I look at John Singer Sargent’s, you can see the art principles, which Sargent knew and used in one painting and not the next, twenty years ago I started to ask why. In the research that I did, I started to uncover why he used one concept in one painting and why he did not the next. And by studying them further, it became apparent how he did it.
And through the research, I have spent my entire life recreating (copying) the old masters and copied hundreds of paintings by the Old Masters, countless charcoal drawings, and filmed the entire process. From Sargent to Vermeer’s, Rembrandt's, Monet's, Tissot's, Velasquez's, Corot's, the list goes on and on. For me, this is so exciting to discover new things about art but most importantly to share it. I believed because I did not have to do commissioned art, I was blessed to be able to do what I love - study the art of the past and see how to use it today.
My life is about sharing what I have learned for the artist of tomorrow to add to what I have come to understand. It is beyond my attempts at trying to be the best painter, or painting for personal reasons, and I never thought a painting would be in the Smithsonian. I have found a love to discover and share.
As a teacher, you have the fortunate perspective to see the hurdles artist face. And many artists want to do it their way and that’s ok. But for those that do understand the process and want to learn, the techniques of the Old Masters and when they are and are not used are powerful tools.
Beyond Techniques and Concepts
I am a big advocate in learning how to handle a pencil, charcoal and understand that 75% of the art concepts can be taught in black and white drawings. When I refer to learning how to draw, I am not talking about making an object look like that object, or how to shade. I am referring to how and when to use art principles, an example is the commonly used term - HalfTone. The art world uses it in three different ways, so I believe why not teach all three ways. And empower the artist to use these tools when they want, in a way that answers why for them, where they see the most practical use. The concept of what and how to use the tools will only help tell their story.
Because you may find yourself using three different ways in every painting. For example, the important aspect is how the use of the HalfTone creates the NoTan. Too often artists are told to do a NoTan first, but my answer or more importantly question to that is, ‘what is the Quality of Light?’ which is controlled by the HalfTone, and will need to be determined to establish the NoTan. This is about clarifying this mess before you add color, temperature, intensity, color schemes and which of the five choices you are going to have to choose to lower the intensity of those colors, too much.
If I have one conclusion over the last 40 years, it’s that many artists want to get right to painting or paint a portrait before it is time. For me, the goal is for the artist to succeed and that starts in the thought process. We must encourage artists of today to see the value in understanding concepts taught in a drawing, which I believe is the foundational principle they will lean on when painting. Patience and trust in the concepts that lie beneath the surface.