Q&A with Principle Gallery Artist in Residence Laura Lloyd Fontaine Laura Lloyd Fontaine found her love for art at the tender age of five. As a young girl growing up in Georgia, surrounded by the great outdoors and a creative, artistic family, it was not too far a leap for Laura to become an accomplished artist. I found Fontaine s story particularly interesting thanks to the detail and personal stories she shared in the Q & A of her background and journey to become a professional artist. A woman, who started out distressing and faux finishing walls to learn the techniques of the old masters, today creates stunning, even inspirational paintings meant to trigger memories and the history of the landscape she captures on her canvases. Laura finds her greatest accomplishment as an artist the ability to create art every day in her studio that looks over the tranquil marshes of Charleston, South Carolina. Find out how she did that and more in this terrific interview. Enjoy!
FCR: Where were you born? What is your strongest memory of your childhood? LLF: I was born in Tampa, Florida but moved to Albany Georgia at the age of two. My father was a coronal in the air force so we needed to be near a base. There was not much in Albany at the time, except pine trees and red clay. I had to have an imagination or I would have been very bored! I played in the mud a lot and pretended it was clay. I remember most going to kinder garden and wanting to do nothing but paint. They provided easels and an apron and I would spend hours painting every day. I remember the teacher commenting on the fact that I loved to paint. That was such a blessing since I did not have paint at home, only red clay! I was never bored when I was creating. I feel the same way today! FCR: Were you always interested in art growing up? LLF: The passion for creating I inherited. My grandmother loved to paint, my mother was an extremely successful interior designer, and my father had a passion was designing homes and gardening. I was truly blessed to grow up in a home that both parents loved art. We had beautiful paintings in our home from their travels in Europe and the United States. My mother always included me in her designing projects for her clients, so I was exposed to beautiful fabrics and antiques as well. When I told my parents I wanted to major in art in college, they were extremely supportive. When I would come home from school on breaks or family vacations my mother would set up a still life of blue and white porcelain and I would paint it in watercolor. She would then sell it to her clients!
She was always supportive and, thank God, always told me I was so good! Without her encouragement and her many compliments, I am not sure if I would be a professional artist today! FCR: Please tell us a little about your training and your influences. LLF: I majored in studio art at Hollins College and moved to Philadelphia after college, and took continuing education classes from the Philadelphia College of Art. I supported myself by selling my watercolors in antique stores and cafes on the Main Line of Philadelphia. At the age of 26, I took the train to Great Neck, New York to study faux finishing under renowned masters of the techniques. I was painting trompe l oeil at the time and admired the Dutch masters. Distressing furniture, marbleizing everything from mantels to cabinets and doors, painting walls to look like suede, and painting trompe l oeil of blue and white porcelain was my passion for about 10 years. When I decided to slow down and try to have children, I started painting in oils. When we moved to Charleston in 2000, I was thrilled that there were so many wonderful workshops available. I took as many as I could here and then travel to other workshops around the United States. FCR: Your low-country landscape paintings have a stillness that reveals the timeless character of place. Can you tell us more about this?
LLF: I loved the Hudson River School of Art for many years. I also admired the softness of Nancy Bush and Kevin Fitzgerald s paintings. I actually travelled to Maryland to take a workshop from Kevin, many years ago. I like the simplicity of both artists and the way their paintings pull you in through using cool and warm colors and sharp contrast in value. The slightly out of focus look creates the stillness and peaceful feeling. I try to stay away from detail. This is also my actual eyesight. Without glasses I am not quite 20/20 so I naturally paint slightly out of focus! FCR: Do you have strong feelings about local landscapes that infuse your depictions of it in your paintings? LLF: My neighborhood use to be a plantation in the early1800 s. The book Sea Island Yankee, by Clyde Bresee, is written about this area. He lived in the house in the front of our neighborhood. It is a fabulous book and I read it when I first moved to James Island. The stories of how the children would take their boats out to catch marsh hen for dinner and fish and crab on the banks, warms my heart because I know it took place in my backyard. I adore the history of James Island and think of it often when painting outside. I live on a tidal creek so I can easily kayak out in the marsh and sketch my surroundings. It is so peaceful to sit and listen to all of the sounds. There are several species of birds that regularly hang out on my dock. I love watching them fly in and out and feast on the crabs all day. My backyard is where I enjoy painting most of the time. We also have beautiful Lake Francis right around the corner that is gorgeous to paint as well. (The lake
use to be marsh separating Lawton s Plantation and Stile s Plantation.) One cannot help but be emotionally moved when you walk in my backyard and see the line of 300 year old live oaks that use to be part of the plantation. FCR: What is your daily painting schedule like? You seem to have tremendous self-discipline. LLF: Thank you, I do have tremendous discipline, which I guess I was born with. Hollins taught me about scheduling my routines by offering classes that were self-taught and reporting into the teacher once a week. I have always had a passion for staying busy so it is not like me to want to take time off and do nothing. That depresses me and bores me to tears! My routine is to get up before the sunrise and spend about an hour being still and praying. I adore this time with God. I either sit on my back porch or in my living room, looking out at the marsh, and watching the sun come up. I journal my thoughts and prayers every morning. This is mandatory for my sanity. It helps me listen to what God wants me to do, what he wants me to work on (my imperfections), and to give me confidence that He is in charge of my life. Then I wake the children and get them off to school. I come back home and stretch out as I listen to Joyce Meyer on TV, and then I go to work! I usually paint from 10:00 until 1:00. I eat a quick lunch while I check emails, then I paint until 3:30. I go pick up my daughter from school and call it a day! Occasionally I am able to get back in the studio with a glass of wine while the kids are doing their homework! What I do not enjoy is working on the computer,
cataloging images of paintings, and entering shows. I realize this is mandatory as well as painting, but just for the record, I would much rather be painting! FCR: My favorite part about your painting technique is the build up your paintings through the layering of color, rather than using a single layer of rich color. How do you feel this impacts your paintings? LLF: At one point in my years of painting, I took a workshop form Lois Griffel, the director of the Cape Cod School of Art. Her teaching stems from Henry Henshe and Charles Hawthorne. They taught the importance of capturing light through layering colors to create light and shadows. As I was struggling to change with the economy, in 2010, I had a resolution that I was tired of painting on small canvas and wanted to paint large. I also could not afford linen canvas that large so I decided to have a foundation of Venetian plaster, which would help give my paintings depth. As soon as I started to paint on the plaster, it reminded me of the days I use to paint faux finishes. I was in love with the depth it created as well as the capability of layering glazes. This was my new technique that I have created myself. I do not recommend painting on Venetian plaster if you do not have any back ground because I have witnessed and heard from my students that they hate it! It causes the paint to dry quickly because it absorbs the paint. I can paint with layers of glazes, with warm and cool values, and I am able to create an atmosphere that glows. I certainly could do this on a linen canvas, but I just enjoy this technique more.
FCR: Has your style or painting technique changed over time? LLF: Every artist has many techniques over time. As you paint, you grow, and as you grow, your ideas change and you are innovative. It is inevitable. This is the process of a successful artist and this only makes you a better artist as you grow older. FCR: What do you believe is one of the key element in creating a good composition in within your work? LLF: A good composition is accomplished in many ways. You would need to take my workshop to hear me explain it! The basics of a good composition is to find your focal point, (it cannot be too close to the edge or to the center of your canvas), draw your viewer in with an S shape or a circle (this helps carry their eye through the painting), make sure you have a strong focal point by depicting a light value and a dark value next to each other, be sure to have dark values to ground your work, and keep it simple! A good composition is important. If you do not have a good composition, you are not going to have a good painting. FCR: Your work brings pleasure to so many collectors. When someone walks into one of your exhibitions, what do you hope they will enjoy about your paintings? LLF: I hope they feel at peace. I want my paintings to be a joy to look at so my collectors can enjoy them forever. I hope my paintings stir up an emotion that makes them stop and stare.
FCR: Can you help our readers understand your process of working on commissioned paintings? LLF: My main concern is that I want this to be a pleasant experience and that begins and ends with communication. If they have a particular painting they love, I start there. We talk about what they like most, if it is the composition, the sky, the colors, the marsh, the reflections. Then I start with a few sketches on paper to capture the composition. After they approve the sketch I paint a small version of the painting. If it is a square painting, I usually paint a 20 x 20 or if it is a rectangle, I paint a 16 x 20. After this is approved, I move right into painting the painting itself. I send images as I progress through the painting so they can see the process. All of my clients enjoy this stage. I have been told that it feels like Christmas every time they receive an email with the image! After approximately 6 weeks, I am finished. I welcome concerns or comments throughout the process so there are no surprises! I have never had an unhappy client! FCR: What do you consider to be your greatest achievement as Principle Galleries first 'Artist in Residence'? LLF: My greatest achievement would be all of the fun I have had meeting so many nice people. I love the positive energy from total strangers when they see me painting. It is so heart warming to
paint in the gallery and meet new possible collectors. I always leave the gallery feeling like I have given the viewers a little of my heart as well as received their love and appreciation. Isn t that what life is all about! FCR: One Last Question... How excited are you about your Solo exhibition on Friday, March 4th? LLF: Very, very excited! It is an honor to be represented by such a beautiful and prestigious gallery and even more honor to have a solo show! Thank you Frank Conrad Russen and the Principle Gallery for your support!!