Meet The Art Guy: Paul LaPorte

If you’ve ever listened to WTCM Radio, visited the Crooked Tree Arts Center or attended any number of local art events, chances are your path has crossed with Paul LaPorte’s. Known locally as The Art Guy, La- Porte is host of a popular art review program every Monday morning, discussing what’s happening in visual arts west of I-75 from Mackinaw to Manistee.

LaPorte, a board member of the recentlymerged Crooked Tree Arts Center/ArtCenter TC, has helped bring attention to local artists, arts centers, arts tourism and gallery owners. His informal manner helps educate and inform listeners every week; his enthusiasm for the arts is infectious.

From computer programming to writing, from a life downstate to a life Up North, LaPorte has taken a long, winding route to his current radio career; painting, a hobby he’s pursued since he was a kid, is the common thread winding through it all.

PROGRAMMING PROGRESS

LaPorte grew up in East Tawas, heading to University of Michigan after high school. He graduated with a degree in English language studies and became immediately immersed in the computer scene of the mid ‘60s.

“I never went back to East Tawas,” La- Porte said. “IBM had just launched a line of computers and I caught that wave. I became a computer programmer for Sears, Roebuck & Company in Chicago, programming credit card systems on big mainframe computers.”

Working in an industry that he said was “always trying to cut costs,” he found the work a tough go, as many people had yet to understand the value of information technology.

Around age 30, he decided he wanted to work for a company whose business was computers, not just one that used computers for billing. So he accepted a job with Compuware, a Detroit software company.

“We were inventing how to license, value, sell and protect intellectual property,” La- Porte explained. “It was a very creative time.”

CHANGE OF SCENERY

With a comfortable income and a place in Birmingham, LaPorte and his wife Carol had purchased a cherry farm in Elk Rapids as their Up North retreat, and in 1990 they decided to move there full time.

“There were changes happening in the computer industry and my personal situation dictated that the smart thing to do was to move away from Detroit and move north,” LaPorte said.

He fused his 25 years of technical computer work with his English language degree and started writing installation guides for software.

“I caught another wave: the beginning of the internet,” he said. “I could live in northern Michigan, in a rural environment, and write for any company, anywhere in the world. I worked for places in Australia, Silicon Valley; I could travel the world. It was a wonderful, exciting way to make a living and people were fascinated that I lived here, but worked elsewhere.”

The couple sold their farm seven years ago and now live on Old Mission Peninsula, where LaPorte has continued writing, although he’s shifted his focus to different kinds of work: a biography of local resident Father Fredm and a book called “Life in the North Lane” about living in rural Michigan that he co-wrote with his wife.

And, of course, there’s now time for more painting.

CULTURAL SURPRISES

Once the LaPortes moved north, they were surprised to discover that cultural assets were far more available to them here than they’d been downstate.

“One of the factors is having Interlochen nearby, of course,” LaPorte said, “but we also have a beautiful symphony, the National Writers Series, the film festival, dance com panies.

There is a class of people who have moved north by choice; typically they’re risktakers like I was, which also means there are a lot of overqualified people who live here. I think that’s a big determining factor in all of the unexpected culture we have here.”

Culture was a big deal to LaPorte, who started painting when he was around 4 years old.

“My mother used to take me along to her painting classes,” he said. “In those days they used real, actual turpentine. So, whenever I smell it, I’m 3 years old again, tagging along and starting to paint.”

Throughout his life, he added, he’s been in and out of “different degrees” of painting, and he also dabbled in other mediums, running a stained glass studio in Birmingham for 15 years.

Most recently he’s started working in watercolors; a work he submitted to the Michigan Water Color Society at the encouragement of his art instructor Glenn Wolff won The Detroit Institute of Arts Excellence in Watercolor Award several years ago. Yet, he still considers himself something of an outsider in the “official” art world.

RADIO INSPIRATION

“I took classes at ArtCenter TC and, as a matter of fact, being there was part of how I got elected to the board,” LaPorte explained. “I hesitate to call myself an artist, though, because I don’t make a living at it.”

After a lifetime of experimenting with, and appreciating, art, he could definitely talk about it. He thought a radio show about art would be a good addition to the local scene, so he approach WTCM with the idea.

“I’d never done radio before,” LaPorte said, “but I’m at least as smart as everyone else out there. So I pitched a weekly art review show that they could sell advertising around. If you’ve ever heard NPR’s “Car Talk,” that’s what I modeled the show after — a way to make people laugh, which will help them remember what you’re talking about.”

The show features art shop owners, gallery owners, people from CTAC and Art- Center, museum folks, guest artists and updates about what’s going on in the region.

“It’s a great public consciousness program,” LaPorte said. “And, in talking to you, I just realized that it’s about visual arts — yet, it’s on the radio. So that’s makes it even more interesting!”

ART IS WHERE YOU FIND IT

Also interesting is how much of The Art Guy’s life’s work hasn’t been about art, making it all the more impressive that his art show has made such a significant local impact. He’s self-taught on many art topics, another product of his early days.

“If you grow up in a town like East Tawas, you learn early on that you have to look for beauty and art anywhere you can find it, because sometimes you have to look really hard to find it,” he said.

In response to his critics, who complain that The Art Guy has little true art background, LaPorte just shrugs. It’s a criticism he’s heard before.

“I’m not some huge artist,” he agreed.

“I’ve won a couple of small awards for my art, but I was just there and I chose to do it [the radio show]. I’m more the man on the street, talking about art, which I think makes me more approachable.”

People who don’t typically engage with the arts are listening, which for LaPorte is one of the most rewarding things about doing the show.

“I went to get my car fixed and my mechanic said, ‘Hey, I heard your show the other day and it was really good.’ People often tell me that they don’t know anything about art, but they like listening to the show, and sometimes people will go to art events they wouldn’t have known about otherwise. The show really is an awareness tool — and that’s what matters.”

Join Paul LaPorte for “The Art Guy” on WTCM NewsTalk 580 every Monday morning at 8:30am during the “Ron Jolly Show.”

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