Lindy Blanchard

My Story, November 2023:

A friend of mine once said,  “Aren’t you sad that you got into art so late?”  I was not sad, although she had a point.  I was in my mid to late 40’s before making art had entered my life in a serious way.  But my three sons were in, or about to be in college, and I suddenly had immense freedom from traditional parenting to follow my own path, and never had to argue with parental guilt over art or family.

I had begun to think of graduate school when my husband said, “What about your art?” I had, indeed, made a number of watercolor paintings, and I had made small copies of Picasso and Cezanne for my artist grandmother.  I also had a BA in Art History, but my college only offered one introductory class in actual art making.  Upon graduating I knew that ‘studying the great artists of history' with all those dates was not to be a continued interest, and making art myself hadn’t occurred to me.

Fortunately, many years later, I did hear my husband asking about my art, and signed up for a drawing class at the National Academy of Art in New York City where we were living.  Pencil in hand I drew from live models and loved it; it felt so ’right.’   I was deliciously hooked. My teacher, Peter Cox invited me to try oils at his Art Students League portrait class.  From entry into this wonderful art school and a world of new friends whose aim was painting, I was off to a serious artistic life. I road my bike through Central Park every day to ASL and loved every minute of my years there with Peter Cox, other portrait teachers and two abstract teachers.  I still have an actual old easel I purchased there one summer.  I still imagine that it could have been used by one of many famous artists (Thomas Eakins, Georgia O”Keefe Alexander Calder, Jackson Pollack, Mark Rothko) who worked at the League throughout its history. At the same time, I also took courses at the School of Visual Arts and happily entered a number of juried shows in the city.

My love of painting people and places came out naturally with a realistic signature and eventually overwhelmed my abstract efforts, as well as my collage work in metal and paper.    I had a show of Venice paintings at the Payson Gallery in Hope Sound, FL, and spent a number of years doing commercial portraits in the US and England.

For the last ten years I have centered my work on realistic portraits choosing my subjects and doing them for myself only.  I love the challenge of painting human faces, always hoping to touch deeper chords within them. For the last eight years I have chosen to paint black folks, mainly because they have had little opportunity to be in traditional portraits in the art world.  I still participate in serious juried shows close by where I have been chosen and given prizes for the quality of my work.  These nods to my success from savvy art critics have helped me to value and carry on with my work.

What a privilege it has been to enjoy the creation of art these many years, even with my late entry into the world of art. May I be blessed with many more.