The Vibrancy of Color, Nature

Sept. 16, 2016

Using oils on canvas, painter William White uses simple everyday subjects — trees, flowers and landscapes — to create complex scenes packed with details. A viewer is immediately struck by the vibrancy of his palette and the intricacy of his works.

Working in his home studio, White uses bold colors and contrasts, along with layers of transparent glazes. He varies his methods of adding and subtracting paint from the canvas. Most of his color mixing is done directly on the canvas, working wet into wet or wet over dry.

His wife, Margaret, is also a painter, and each have their own work spaces in their Kewadin home. They often spend most of the day working alone in their respective studios. “Margaret and I often work separately all day, not really saying much,” he said. “Then we have dinner, and at night sometimes we might talk about art. Her comments are always very supportive, very helpful.”

He tries to be in his spacious, well-lit studio seven days a week, with time out for household chores, working from 9am or 10am until 3pm or 4pm. He prefers to paint standing up at the easel, listening to some type of soothing music. “I see it as a dance,” he explains. “You have to feel the emotion. When you get too mental with it, it doesn’t work very well.”

HOW I GOT STARTED

I was born in Houghton, in the Upper Peninsula,and later my family moved to Dearborn. In high school I took a career aptitude test and the No. 1 career was landscape architect. After graduating from Edsel Ford High School, I attended Henry Ford Community College, and that’s where I really got interested in art. Then I went to

Wayne State, and in 1963 I earned my Bachelor of Fine Arts and, soon after, enlisted in the Navy, serving from 1964 into 1967. After getting out of the Navy, I got hired to teach art at Southfield Lathrup High School in 1971 and found teaching to be very, very gratifying. After 25 years of teaching, we moved to northern Michigan in 1996.

THE STORY BEHIND MY ART, MY INSPIRATION

My paintings of flowers and landscapes are from the nature we’re surrounded by. That’s my inspiration. I look out my front door, and right there is a painting! When I work I like to listen to music, some opera or classical, something with a flute or cello. I’m not much on hip-hop or that stuff.

In music, I’m very conservative. Sometimes I listen to books on tape, history or philosophy. One of my favorite painters is Pierre Bonnard, the French painter and printmaker. He’s known for his unique color and complex imagery.

WORK I’M MOST PROUD OF

In a sense, I’m proud of all of them, like children. They have all been part of a marvelous experience.

YOU WON’T BELIEVE

I’m a diabetic and have been one for more than 20 years. I see it as a blessing, not a curse. I’m a former runner, and when I was diagnosed, I had two choices: change or die. I’m doing well now. Also, during the Vietnam War, I served on the U.S.S. Yorktown, an aircraft carrier, off the coast

of Vietnam. The Yorktown was commissioned in 1943 and earned five battle stars during the Vietnam War. She later served as a recovery ship for the Apollo 8 space mission and is now a National Historic Landmark in South Carolina.

MY FAVORITE ARTIST

Gerhardt Richter, Monet, Kandinsky, and Diebenkorn. There are just so many.

ADVICE FOR ASPIRING YOUNG ARTISTS

Work! It was Michelangelo or da Vinci who said, to be a great artist, it takes 95 percent hard work and 5 percent talent. Study art history, go to art museums and galleries where art is displayed. Don’t be afraid to copy and study really good artists. There’s so much to learn there. Explore it all. Follow your dream, your journey. But understand you still have to make a living and take care of your responsibilities. And, if possible, be with someone you love.

MY WORK CAN BE SEEN/PURCHASED

At Twisted Fish Gallery near Elk Rapids, at the Main Street Gallery in Leland, and at Crooked Tree in Petoskey.