Wild, loud, full of life: Painter keeps his art versatile
Lance Jasper is a storm of creativity. Perhaps he could be described as a male version of Martha Stewart, more rebellious but just as prolific, creating work out of his own strong point which is wild, loud and full of life.
His North Side home, built in 1904, is filled with his creative energy. The walls are decorated with his acrylic paintings depicting a street scene of San Francisco, an aerial view of a festival and a portrait of a basset hound named Chloe. His air-brushed paintings include representations of Jimi Hendrix, Gene Simmons, Ed Roth, Volkswagens and tropical scenes and plants.
In the bedroom he shares with his wife, Rebecca, he has faux painted the walls and ceiling, and the glass doors leading to a sunroom have been painted to look like stained-glass diamonds.
His office has travel postcards all over the ceiling, an airbrushed guitar and mannequin, and a computer on which to work.
Jasper tries to remain versatile. Besides his paintings, he has a portfolio filled with pages of samples of the airbrush work he has done on vehicles. In his garage, which is decorated with painted flames, stickers and trophies for his work at custom minitruck shows, he has the space to let his imagination run wild.
Jasper has done work for auto body shops and car lots but, after a bout of pain caused by sciatica, he took about a year off and is in a period of transition. “I’m at a crossroads in my art, career and life, it seems, but I have fortunately, with the off time, been able to just about complete my very long project of the film history of the Hillyard Hellriderz BMX Gang.”
Jasper, 38, and his brothers Larry and Lance are triplets, and they are “survivors of a quite, but not entirely, dysfunctional childhood, Generation X latchkey kids who had five stepfathers, beyond the original sperm donor,” Jasper said, “I have had to work hard and fight for the things I have wanted in and out of life, and it has made me a stronger person, with some decent level of street smarts.” He admits he has always lived his life against the grain, “instinctively and preferably across the grain.”
Jasper, as a youngster, was a member of a neighborhood of BMX riders. “I am thankful to be alive; I have had a couple close encounters with death on my BMX bike, if you can believe that. I broke myself down and bled myself out more than a few times on my bikes to help bring the sport of BMX and freestyle alive here in Spokane and the Pacific Northwest and keep it alive.”
Jasper has a collection of a couple thousand photos of BMX riders as well as footage of the sport and interviews he has conducted with riders. “I would like an art show opportunity to combine my paintings for show and to also present my film project of the Hillyard Hellriderz BMX Revolution at the same time,” he said, “For me art is not only about painting things anymore, it is about much more.”