Lorenzo Chavez finds renewed inspiration in beloved landscapes from his past
By Gussie Fauntleroy
As an artist who has painted in fully half of the states in this country, including all of the western states, Lorenzo Chavez knows there is profound beauty everywhere. And then there are places that are not only beautiful but also call up memories rich with emotion, associations, and even ancestral history. For Chavez, these are the landscapes whose layers of meaning make them even more inspiring and enjoyable to paint, even as he revisits them again and again, seeing them each time with deeper appreciation.
Arroyos, or dry creek beds, are places like this. For Chavez, who was raised in New Mexico, they bring to mind the endless hours he spent running through the sand as a distance runner in high school. Their meandering courses, lined with desert plants and offering views of distant mountains and the immense sky, became embedded in his psyche as he ran. “To this day, I just get a sense of peace and gratification being in an arroyo, setting up my easel,” he says. “I find great solace and connection there.” In his compositions, the dramatic contrast of an arroyo’s dark, curving line against the intense light of a New Mexico landscape reminds Chavez of calligraphy, another association he enjoys.
Another scene with deep meaning is depicted in LA SOLANA, HIGH ROAD (the title includes a Spanish phrase meaning “the sunny side”), in which the 62-year-old painter thinks back on boyhood hours spent sitting against a south-facing adobe wall in winter, feeling the sun’s warmth. In earlier days, elderly Hispanic musicians would gather informally on la solana to play on chilly but sunny days. In paintings such as this, Chavez honors his native state’s culture, history, and those who’ve gone before him.
Chavez grew up in Albuquerque, one of five children of a genial, good-natured salesman and a supportive, stay-at-home mother. Known as Larry at the time, the future artist remembers himself as “painfully shy,” melding into the background in groups but with evident artistic potential from a young age. On a third-grade report card, his teacher wrote to his parents: “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to spend more time with art with Larry. I hope he continues practicing his art.” He did. He frequently drew portraits of friends and schoolmates and gradually began forming a sense of himself as artistic, although he had no idea how that might translate into the world of jobs and work.
Chavez had no exposure to art galleries growing up, but a small, early incarnation of the Albuquerque Museum was located inside Albuquerque’s airport, which was not far from the family’s home. Admission was free, and his frugal dad often took his children there. Chavez remembers standing in front of the paintings, feeling strangely elevated and thinking, “This is pretty neat!” A few years later as a high school sophomore, he was fortunate to have New Mexico painter Frank McCullough as an art teacher at his public school. McCullough took his students to visit the studios of well-known artists including modernist painter Raymond Jonson. He showed them films on art and artists, and introduced them to the Tamarind Institute, an acclaimed lithography workshop in Albuquerque.
With relatives in Denver and Pueblo, CO, Chavez headed to Denver after high school to attend the Colorado Institute of Art (later called the Art Institute of Colorado and now closed). Also in Denver he met Dolores, “the best blessing I ever had or ever will have,” he says, and now his wife of 36 years. He earned a graphic design degree, graduating with honors in 1983 and working in that field for several years. In those pre-computer days, graphic design was entirely hands-on, and the tools of the trade were things he considered fun: acrylics, oils, pastels, markers, Rapidograph pens, and T squares.
But the most significant aspect of this period in his life involved a visit with one particular client. Walking into the man’s home to discuss a project, Chavez was immediately struck by the art on the walls. The client, a collector, noticed his interest and began talking about the artworks, later taking him to meet some of the artists. “He opened the door for me to the fine-art world,” Chavez says. Among the painters he got to know was Pawel Kontny, an advocate for local artists who periodically hosted exhibitions in his wife’s ballet studio in their home.
Kontny offered Chavez a one-man show, presenting him with a deadline six months hence and asking for 60 framed works. On top of his full-time graphic design job and long hours spent painting, that meant a quick hands-on education in the business of art—finding framers, producing invitations, and creating a mailing list. On top of that, the day after the Friday-night opening would be his wedding day. At least half of the paintings sold during the opening, including a couple to a gallery owner who soon began representing him. The artist was 25 years old.
At the time his art was figurative, with a focus on portraiture. He had always been fascinated by how people look, especially the weathered faces of older Hispanics and Native Americans he grew up around. He admired the work of Colorado figurative painter Ramon Kelley, founder of the gallery that first represented him. Then, in 1990, landscape painter and friend Chuck Mardosz suggested painting outdoors together. “Sure!” Chavez replied, thinking that although he’d never done it before, it couldn’t be that hard. After all, he’d gone to art school, knew how to paint, and was already in two galleries.
He was wrong. It was hard. But the challenge was invigorating and the subject matter enormously inspiring. “It lit a fire in me,” he says. In fact, the more he painted the land around him, the more he realized that although he’d been fascinated since boyhood with the iconic western image of a cowboy on a horse, it was actually the surrounding landscape that really attracted him. In his own paintings he watched the figure get smaller and smaller until it was no longer needed. “I saw that it was the landscape, that’s what makes the cowboy—the landscape where they ride,” he says. Often in movies they ride in spectacular settings with a feeling similar to that in SHADOWS ON THE MESA, which Chavez painted not long ago in Arizona’s Canyon de Chelly.
Like other spots he has visited many times, the painting represents a lifelong connection to the desert Southwest, a bond that only grew deeper during the five years Chavez and his family lived in the Pacific Northwest. They moved there in the late 1990s when his wife, whose sister lived on the Oregon coast, took a job in Eugene. “I learned a lot about painting arid lands by living in a wet area,” he says, smiling. Although he painted and enjoyed the vibrant green landscape, showing his work and leading workshops there and around the country, he periodically returned to the Southwest to paint. Each time he did, he says, “I saw the landscape through a new lens. I saw color and light with new eyes.” Over the years he enhanced his observational and painting skills by studying with renowned painters Richard Schmid, Gerald Fritzler (who remains a good friend and painting buddy), Skip Whitcomb, and Clyde Aspevig, among others.
When the opportunity arose to return to the Denver area, the Chavez family took it. About 15 years ago they settled just south of Denver in Parker, at the time a suburb bordered by ranches and other wide-open spaces. As part of one of the fastest-growing counties in the United States in recent years, that openness is quickly disappearing, replaced with burgeoning development. Still, from a vantage point not far from his house, Chavez can see virtually the entire snow-capped Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. He can walk to a large green space along Cherry Creek, undeveloped because of flood danger. And within a few minutes he can drive to some of his favorite painting areas, carrying along his French easel and his pastels or oil paints.
Many of his paintings are completed on location, while others are finished or translated into larger pieces once he’s back in the walkout basement studio at his home. Although it’s not a large workspace compared with other studios he’s had over the years, it suits him very well, with good light coming in through French doors, dozens of plein-air sketches, thousands of reference photos he has printed on heavy paper, and his trusty easels waiting for him “like good old friends.” But his real studio, he says, is the great outdoors. Especially as he matures as an artist and a person, Chavez hopes to convey through his art an ever-deepening sense of place and home. “The Southwest is that for me, and I want that to come through in the brush marks and pastel marks,” he says. “It’s a profound reason to want to step up to the easel.”
representation
ArtzLine; The Mission Gallery, St. George, UT; Wild Horse Gallery, Steamboat Springs, CO; Abend Gallery, Denver, CO; Thunderbird Foundation, Mt. Carmel, UT; Mary Williams Fine Arts, Boulder, CO; Cathy Kline Art Gallery, Parkville, MO; www.lorenzochavez.com.
This story appeared in the February 2021 issue of Southwest Art magazine.