Garry McMichael, of St. Louis, has been an artist for as long as he can remember – “ever since I could scribble with a pencil or a crayon,” he muses. Photography became his main medium, and the one by which he earns his living. But alongside the editorial and commercial photography, McMichael finds time for fine art photography, charcoal and pencil drawing, and pastel painting.
His interest in photography started with a Kodak Brownie camera at age six. “I have been an editorial and commercial photographer all my life,” he says. His clients have included such national publications as National Geographic, Time, Newsweek and Forbes. Today, much of his work is for commercial clients, creating annual report photography, brochures and catalogs. About seven or eight years ago, he started painting seriously again.
“I find my fine art today is really a counter balance to my high-tech day work,” he writes on his website. “Pastels have become my medium of choice. As an editorial and commercial photographer, my vision has always been grounded in reality and fine detail. Pastels allow me to release a lot of pent-up emotions and work more from my imagination.”
In fact, he has coined a new term for creative people like himself: imaginagrapher, pronounced imagine-ographer, which is defined as someone skilled at imagining new ideas. “I always wanted to be a photographer, but I also love to write, draw and paint.” Imaginagrapher captures all those possibilities.
Some of his paintings may have a photographic look, but they’re not from photos. He might use a photo as a starting point, but then he changes things around to fit his mental memories of the setting. For example, he explains that his pastel painting of autumn fog on the Gasconade River was not inspired by a single photograph or a single experience.
“It’s an image captured over time on the thin emulsion of my mind from hundreds of float trips and thousands of photographs taken on the rivers and streams of the Missouri and Arkansas Ozarks.”
The Ozarks are near and dear to McMichael’s heart. He was born in Kansas, reared in Texas, then moved to Springfield, Mo., at age 15 and fell in love with the Ozarks. He spent 12 years in the Arkansas Ozarks, doing editorial photography. Now he resides in St. Louis, but the Missouri and Arkansas Ozarks remain an integral part of his pastel art.
“It’s one subject I never get tired of painting. Our clear running streams and green-forested hills are a treasure to behold as well as a challenge to paint.”
It’s no surprise that when he isn’t painting, he’s likely to be kayaking or fly fishing.
As a young photographer, McMichael was influenced by the nature photography of Eliot Porter. Today as a painter, he is influenced by the Hudson River School artists. “I would dearly love to have experienced the forested Ozarks back in the early to mid 1800s like the Hudson River School painters experienced New England and upper New York.”
Yet for all his love of nature and the Ozarks, he acknowledges that much of his inspiration today comes from family, friends and fellow artists. “I’m coming to realize there is as much beauty in my backyard or downtown St. Louis as there is in a thousand acres of forest-covered hills.”
There’s also beauty – and therapy – in the act of creating art. “I often tell friends that I make art because it’s cheaper than seeing a psychiatrist every week. Every evening I go into my studio, turn the music up and start painting. The next thing I know, three, four or more hours have disappeared and my stress level has dropped to near zero.”
His passion for pastels led to his involvement in the Gateway Pastel Artists organization, of which he is president, www.gatewaypastelartists.org.
McMichael is a member of Gateway Gallery, an artist-owned gallery at 7921 Forsyth Boulevard, Clayton, 63105, www.gatewaygalleryonline.com. “It is everything a gallery should be. We offer original, high-quality, regional art at a fair price. There are no middlemen between the artist and the collector.”
His artwork is also available via his own website, www.garrymcmichael.com, and he sells prints of his work at www.etsy.com/shop/garrymcmichael. |
