Inspiration Courtesy of Vidal Sassoon

Vidal Sassoon is 81 years old. If I live that long, I hope I will be as full of life and as surrounded by family and loved ones, as he was at the Cincinnati Art Museum last Thursday night. You see, he has a home on Mt. Adams and therefore is a neighbor of a friend of mine, who found out about this “members-only” special event we attended at the museum. With Vidal and his family just across the aisle a few rows behind us in the auditorium, we watched the premiere of a documentary film about his life. Afterwards, he talked onstage with museum director, Aaron Betsky, and then answered questions from the audience. I was moved by his answer to the question: “What kinds of things would you tell people to look at for inspiration?” Sassoon got very animated, touched his heart and said “Nothing outside themselves: true inspiration comes from within!” I understood Vidal to say that he believes we all contain much more potential than most of us ever realize or begin to tap. For him, one of the keys was to look inside to what really interested him, what got him enthused. He suggested doing this and fearlessly daring to be truly ourselves, our best selves. As recently as six or seven years ago, I wouldn’t have understood what he meant, as least not as well as I feel I do today. I’ll remember Vidal Sassoon for that and for two other gems he graciously shared with us. It took him and a whole team of people more than nine years, cutting hair every day, to realize the look that made him famous, he reminded us, emphasizing the importance of hard work and persistence, the old “success is ninety percent perspiration, ten percent inspiration” adage. When I realize I’ve only been at this for a little over five years, I’m reenergized and motivated to keep at it, stick with it, and continue to progress creating artwork. One of these two paintings of the Cincinnati Art Museum was done just a few weeks ago; the other about a year ago. Can you tell which one is my more recent work? Finally, another great piece of advice from Vidal Sassoon: “Eliminate the superfluous.” As I’ve thought about that for the past week, I’m beginning to appreciate that it’s good advice for my life, as well as my artwork.

To grandmother's house we go
He was going to Idaho to visit his mother’s birthplace, a home that lives in memory of happy times spent with his parents and grandparents. He told me he was planning to commission me to paint it, even if it looked a lot different than he remembered.
It did, but he took a wealth of new photos to complement the old black and white pictures he had from the fifties. We talked about his memories and the things he’d like to have included in the painting.

Home portraits are a good solution when you can’t get everything in a photograph, as in this case. Usually, I can draw a sketch in pencil but this time, I actually painted several sketches in acrylics to see how best to include the main house, guest house, trees with swing, carport with camper, the barn in back, bridge over the creek and a view of the mountain range in the distance.

Trying to put things in context, we kept ending up with a big empty expanse of lawn in the lower right quadrant of the painting. So I thought of moving the truck with the camper shell into that space. The collector liked this idea but asked me to paint his grand-dad’s old Farmall tractor there instead. Once we had a composition that would fit into a standard size frame, we started talking about the style of the painting.

This portrait was to be a gift for his mom. After looking at examples of my finished paintings and these sketches, we decided I’d paint an 18 x 24” watercolor. Here’s the finished work, as delivered. My client had it framed and surprised his mother with it last Christmas. When I asked how it went over, he told me “She cried, which was exactly the reaction I hoped for.”

I really enjoyed working on this, because now I feel like I’ve been to Idaho (even though I haven’t). And his memories of going to grandma and grandpa’s made me remember my own, with gratitude. Thanks, Steve!