Elated Artist Steps Forward
It took $18,000 for Terry Lee to accept himself as an artist.
“In my mind, artists aren’t productive people,” he says. “Art’s too much fun. I couldn’t claim that at all.”
Until his work impressed a couple of high-rolling art collectors from Florida and Texas. The money they paid for four of Terry’s gigantic paintings last month helped him admit what he’d denied for 48 years.
“I’m an artist. I love it,” he says with the same rush of emotion that drives him to paint door-sized canvases in a few hours. “I want to be collected by the biggest collectors in the country. I want to be showcased. My whole heart and soul is in this.”
Art as an occupation was too frivolous for the son of a former North Idaho College president and businessman. Terry dabbled with drawing as a child but pursued business in college until he had time for an elective.
He enrolled in an advanced figure-painting class with no experience. It was a disaster, but he was hooked. He earned his degree in art and design, even though his painting teacher advised him to do something else with his life.
Terry followed the advice. He saw art as a hobby, so he opened a sporting goods business and a scuba shop, Divers West, in Coeur d’Alene. For 18 years, he taught diving, sold equipment, certified recreational divers - and dabbled in painting.
His one attempt at art school ended with rejection.
“I was terrible,” he says. “I’d skipped the basics.”
Still, he couldn’t put away his brushes. He oil-painted through his marriage, the loss of his sports store, three children, then the sale of Divers West and his divorce.
“I love the smell of the paint,” he says, as if his well-being depends on the tart sting in his nostrils.
Life in Coeur d’Alene lost its luster after his divorce in 1989, so Terry migrated to Southern California. The western sun blasted awake his senses. He suddenly noticed shapes and light, colors and patterns everywhere.
He studied art in galleries, books and outdoor shows, and sold real estate to survive. He painted every spare moment - seascapes, race horses, women in flowing dresses.
He discovered he liked to paint big - canvases the size of picture windows - and layer color with eye-teasing, impressionistic strokes.
Gallery owners encouraged him to stick with it. Terry sold works for $500 each at outdoor shows and usually broke even. But he didn’t quit his job until his sister convinced him to return to Coeur d’Alene to paint full time two years ago.
Life on a shoestring motivated Terry to seek out other painters to share workshop expenses. The two who responded, accomplished artists Chris Burgeson and George Carlson, catapulted Terry into a new realm.
They taught Terry the basics he’d missed and the science of color. They encouraged him to stretch himself.
“I began to realize that this isn’t a hobby, it’s a passion,” Terry says. “This is what I want to do.”
An elephant he painted for a Republican event pinpointed his market. People wanted his larger-than-life elephants with dramatically crevassed trunks and sunlit ears. They wanted Terry’s aloof leopard and the buffalo charging under a mysteriously moving sky.
They wanted his work enough to pay thousands for it.
“The money justifies my existence,” he says, embarrassed by that admission but still high over his first major sales. “I’m collected. Wow, what a feeling. What a cool job - and it’s my job.”
Double trouble
My daughter, Megan, and Marissa Harrison ran Coeur d’Alene’s Spring Dash in 58 minutes Sunday three-legged - with their inside feet tied together and arms linked the whole five miles. It was their fourth year as double-runners, which makes me envy their remarkable and memorable friendship.
What crazy things have you done with your best friend? Spill your stories to Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene 83814; send a fax to 765-7149; call 765-7128; or e-mail to cynthiat@spokesman.com.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo