Twelve Baskets Catering is a catering company so well established that they have their own wedding show— or at least an open house that functions as one. Andrea Harrison, an event coordinator on their staff, invited me to be a part of this year’s event. Some familiar faces were there, such as Olga Szwed of La Belle Reve, with her spectacular line of wedding dresses, whom we saw just a week ago at Weddings in Woodinville.
The venue, known as 415 Westlake, was a pleasure to paint. Under this great arch of wood beams, a warmly colored space was easily transformed into a bright party.
This wedding show was unique among the many I’ve done in the seven years I’ve been painting weddings. Instead of one venue, there were seven: COLUMBIA WINERY, DeLILLE CELLARS, JM CELLARS, MATTHEWS ESTATE, NOVELTY HILL • JANUIK WINERY, WILLOWS LODGE, and WOODHOUSE WINE ESTATES.
Attendees were ferried around from one winery to another by the fleet of Butler Transportation, which provides first class busses and limousines. A showroom at each venue was decorated by a separate, selected wedding planner. I was invited by Erin Lindeman, of Lindeman Weddings and Events, to be part of the offerings at Columbia Winery. Erin’s brilliant design featured models wearing gowns designed by La Belle Reve, who took turns modeling under a chuppah at one end of the room, and on a small proscenium at the other, surrounded by small shrubs. The painting now belongs to Ms. Lindeman, with my fondest regards.
The 2011 JAM Bubble Ball was held December 19th by the local chapters of the following organizations: Meeting Professionals International, International Special Events, National Association of Catering Executives (Seattle and Tacoma Chapters), Association of Bridal Consultants, and Wedding Network USA (Seattle and South Sound Chapters).
This is basically the holiday party for the Who’s Who of those who plan the parties in the greater Seattle-Tacoma area. So I was delighted to be invited to paint the event by organizers BreeAnn Gale and Adam Tiegs, who was also master of ceremonies. Adam appears in the painting as Santa Claus, on the right, near the tree. (BreeAnn is mingling in the crowd behind.)
Metaphorically serving us, front and center, is Mr. Don Boshears, Private Events Director of the Columbia Tower Club, where the event was held.
Looking down from the Columbia Tower Club’s 76th floor is like looking down from an airplane on its approach to SeaTac Airport. The club is more than a thousand feet above the waterfront, five blocks away. With a good pair of binoculars, I could see the self portrait in the window of my studio, in the nearby neighborhood of Pioneer Square. Looking out to the horizon, there are mountains and sea for a hundred miles. I wasn’t there to paint the view, of course, and once the sun goes down it’s all just lights in the blackness anyway. But Seattleites who know this city view well might recognize a series of dots in the far window as the lights of 15th Avenue Northwest, climbing over the horizon in Ballard, and the red radio tower lights on Queen Anne Hill. Through the window on the left we see the waterfront, under reflections of the holiday party.
The brightest lights are at the party, however— the party planners of Puget Sound themselves.
The building is mixture of architectural styles, but the Dome Room evokes Paris in the Belle Époque. I have painted in the room before, and I hope to again— many times. In fact, I think it would be my dream art studio. So it was really a privilege to paint the room for its new owners.
This painting was also an opportunity for me to do something I’ve never done before: a vertical wedding painting. The size and format were actually dictated by the wall on which the painting will eventually hang, but it works compositionally because of the Dome Room’s magnificent stained glass ceiling, which occupies the top half of the painting.
At most weddings and events, I paint on a French easel, which is a portable travel set designed in the days of the Impressionists to carry enough paints in the box for a plein aire outing. I use this for paintings up to 30 inches high, though it gets a little rickety with torque on paintings as wide as 40 inches. For the Macias-Lawson wedding, the canvas was 48 wide and 60 high— the second largest I’ve done for an event, and by far the tallest. I rented a van to move a big easel from the studio, even though the venue was just six blocks away! (Its also unadvisable to walk through the neighborhood carrying a big wet oil painting in the rain, after midnight.) The easel was designed for paintings up to 59 inches high, and needed a minor modification for this job. But it has a great sliding carriage, which allowed me to set the painting low at first, when I painted that grand ceiling before the wedding, and simply slide the whole thing up the ratcheted vertical support to paint the lower half during the reception. I used my French easel on the side for a tableau, to hold my paint and brushes.
It really would take a week to faithfully and realistically render the architectural details of this exquisite room. But as with paintings I’ve done at The Ruins, where an excellent muralist labored for three years to adorn the place, my scribblings are quick impressions, meant to evoke that single evening in its magic moment. By constricting my painting time to the time of the event (with some allowance to paint the setting in just the hours before), I control, harness, and channel the energy of expedience. If I were to take the painting back to the studio to touch it up, dither over it, and— as one of my illustration teachers called it — noodle it to death, that energy would leak out of the painting. Some people, upon hearing (but not seeing) what I do, ask me if I’m going to take a photo of the wedding, and do the whole painting back at the studio. I could, of course, and I could make the painting look just like the photo. But you can get that from any of several corporate studios that email your photos to China, where factory artists copy them faithfully for the cost of a good craft store frame.
There are no photos from any wedding that depict what I paint; I do not capture a sliver of time in a click of a shutter, but the whole elapse of the evening over several hours. Mini-portrait-caricatures depict the key figures. The bride and groom, in this case, were painted in their entirety during their First Dance. I have to confess here that I take extensive liberties with perspective, even with my point of view. I have compressed nearly 180 degrees of view into this vertical rectangle. When a camera does this, we call it a fish-eye lens, and close objects become enormous and far details disappear. Its great for documenting architecture, but people, not so much. I paint as if I were on a ladder, and the floor angled like a raked stage. This allows me to give elements within the room relatively equal importance as events, rather than distorting closer things.
Artistry lies as much in the process and interpretation of what the artist sees, as in the skill with which it is rendered.
In the Spiegeltent at Teatro Zinzanni for the third time, on Sunday the sixth of November, I did a painting for their annual gala auction to benefit the Zinzanni Institute for the Circus Arts. The Institute teaches children to juggle, clown, and tumble their way towards a chance to run away with the circus—or at least to develop some killer skills. The gala funds scholarships for kids who can’t afford the program. An amazing nine-year old graduate appears in my painting, center stage, juggling five balls, next to auctioneer Kevin Joyce.
It just another normal weekend for me to put on a bowtie and black apron and perform for a crowd, with my brushes and palette and mahl stick and a rapidly transforming canvas. Doing it under the big top with these performers lets me pretend I’m a tall, Danish version of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec at the Moulin Rouge. Their Spiegeltent dates from that era (so named because of the mirrors encircling the space), the dancing, singing waitresses wear corsets and fishnet stockings and feathers, paired with waiters in vests and caps. Décor of tassels and fringe and faded velvet are everywhere.
The air of Paris is especially strong at Zinzanni right now, since their current dinner show is Bonsoir Liliane!, a memoir about, and starring, Liliane Montevecchi— a grand dame of the stage, ballet, cinema, and theatre. I told her that her voice reminded me of a stretch version of Edith Piaf (she’s more than a foot taller than La Môme.)
With all the acrobats and contortionists and strays from the opera and ballet, this troupe has been called “the Kit Kat Club on Acid.” So why not throw in a barrel-voiced cross-dressing comedian/comedienne primped and powdered like a Venetian carnival queen? That’s him/her posing with the buyer of my painting and her daughter, center left. Kevin Kent is one of TZ’s original members.
Another regular at Zinzanni is Francine Reed, who came in from Atlanta for the gala and a concert the following night. As I mixed my colors and began to paint the background of the venue, while the crew tested lights and recording volumes, Ms. Reed spent a luxurious amount of time chatting with me. It was a pleasure getting to know the woman whose voice makes Lyle Lovett sound good. We talked about growing up singing in church, and she listened patiently while I sang to her a song I wrote for my wife, nodding and smiling approvingly. During the auction she sang God Bless the Child. She appears in my painting dressed in purple, with feathers, on the stage, middle right.
It feels great to donate a painting, and I do for several charity auctions each year. It feels even better when the event’s appreciation allows me to bring my wife and guests back for dinner and a show throughout the year!
On Sunday, October 23, 2011, I was pleased to be invited to draw caricatures at the Klein-Susinno Wedding, held at the Salish Lodge,
Snoqualmie, Washington. The lodge sits atop the roaring 268 foot Snoqualmie Falls, and was made famous in the television series Twin Peaks.
I don’t do caricatures nearly as often as I used to. The live wedding paintings pay better, of course, because the couple is getting a work of art that can last for generations. But caricatures are an affordable alternative for the client, and a valuable wedding favor for the guests to take home.
And I truly love doing them. I never tire of drawing or painting faces. I love seeking out the personality of the sitter; it often manifests in a single brush stroke as they flash that smile they were hiding, or as they raise an eyebrow or smirk at the reaction of their friends to my drawing in progress. I love the family resemblances and variations I see, from grandparents to grandchildren. I love the subtle differences unique to every ethnicity (in this case German and Italian) that sits before me. These particular families were full of confident personalities, and I was able to caricature them honestly and playfully without being disrespectful or disparaging.
Of course, throughout the years I’ve drawn many people who were more reserved and anxious about how I might portray them. There are always people who ask me to make them thinner, or omit a double chin, or downsize a nose. At every caricature gig, I find myself repeating, for the nervous, the mantra that I always make the women look like movie stars. I then joke that the men get what they have coming to them. But the truth is I try not to offend anyone. I subscribe to Al Hirschfeld’s philosophy that caricatures never need to be insulting, because everyone has an interesting face.
