An interview with painter Luke C. Lamar
by Sam Kulla

When Luke asked me to interview him, I hesitated.  I’ve known him and checked out his work for way too long to ask any unbiased questions.  I said no.  Then I went on my way, thought about it, and decided to just go with biased questions and see if I could provoke him a bit.  But he managed to keep his cool.  One thing to admire about Luke is innate ability to tailor his style to his purpose.  You see, even his answers are a compelling display of style.

You now live and paint in a ubiquitous spot: The Court of the Golden Bough. From Salvador Dali to Aleister Crowley, the name and location evoke an array of surreal and mystical images in my mind. What do you know of the court’s actual history, and to what degree do you feel your work is influenced by this infamous locale?

I have had the opportunity to learn more and more over the years about this interesting courtyard. It seems to be a consensus at this point that Dali was working above the old Sade’s bar where Restaurant PortaBella is now. He was invited to come here during the Second World War by the founder of the Carmel Art Institute, which was located where my studio is now. This courtyard was also the location of Carmel’s first Theatre In The Round, which was right below us. It burned down twice in the 1940s, I think it was, ironically during the same show. This area, to me, represents the culmination of all the architectural styles that were being used early on to create the unique look of this town. I have been inspired by this area and the courtyard in general for nearly eight years or so when I first started dreaming of some new kind of art emergence.

When I visited your now-defunct field studio in Matilija Canyon several years ago, you were doing incredible things with canvas layering and infra-red painting. Do you feel that there is any room in your current work for this type of innovation? You yourself have expressed a desire to get back into this, though never in specific terms. In other words, are you planning to reawaken and release your phenomenal surrealist tendencies any time soon?

I really haven’t stopped thinking about what is possible with the obscure, surreal and abstracted views of the world in general. I feel that the more I’ve delved into technical and realist applications I have discovered the surreal, and the abstract hidden in the microscopic areas of the paintings. This has really been the case lately, as my old ideas have been finding new reserves of fuel in all the new tricks I’ve been working with. I often think back to that earlier work, and now I can really see how much of a benefit it is to follow intuition to an end as well as all the ways to get there, in terms of previous and traditional applications. I think that the old and new work are at a tipping point and that perhaps I may fall into a culminated new style like a sudden fire.

Perhaps related to the previous question, to what degree is your current work market-driven? For example, if somebody gave you a pile of money and said “paint what you want,” where would you start?

When I have the chance to fully delve into my own ideas in painting again, I wish to use the new techniques to further explore the realms of painting that elude to something beyond the symbols, objects, and space representing it. I would like to experiment with the gradual abstraction of interior and and figurative themes, as well as the abstraction of natural elements like water with light and depth. In figurative work I keep seeing new things from a private series I’m doing of stretches, that I may come back in with pen & ink, and some brush work. These may later be the beginning of a painting style I’ve been thinking about that would really have references to a lot different styles, and movements from different times. It’s really hard to say what will actually happen.

Dan Herron, one of your studio mates, is a painter, and a clock maker, as well as a recording artist. Can you talk a little bit about yours and his musical history, and how that relates to putting paint on canvas?

Lately I have been fiddling around more with the keyboard, and jamming with some of the other artists here. Dan has been recording music for twenty years or more, and happens to have a jumble of music equipment we’ve recently put together in the loft area above the front room. We record some of the jam sessions which later gets worked into these collaged songs he’ll work on for months sometimes. The music for me is becoming like a perfect compliment to all the thinking and standing and mixing paint that gets old after a while. Since we started playing music together I’ve been figuring out more about timing and making full chord changes, which has turned the music into a sort of language. It’s something that we all have in common and it’s more instantly gratifying. I seem to get inspiration for painting from music and for music from painting.

Martin Amis, in his short story The Coincidence of the Arts, makes some curious statements about about a painter’s relationship to speech, writing, and silence. When you are in your studio, what is your relationship with each of these three entities?

I find that I listen to things going on or being said around me, but it’s hard to engage in actually talking with people or being a part of a conversation. I used to listen to the radio when I was painting and even now there is a radio or news station on in the background. Sometimes I’ll put music on over the news playing and really go for it. Silence in painting will still creep up on the studio, and I’ve always enjoyed it. Especially when you don’t notice it at first. I’ll notice the sound of the street outside first. Or the conversation of some people walking up the hill into town. I still like to spend time when I can’t paint or do anything anymore in my room just sitting quietly and letting my mind just ease off on everything and anything.

A decade ago, you were collaborating regularly with Theo Ellsworth when you both lived in Missoula, MT. You even make a couple appearances in his book Capacity. Clearly, you played a roll in his journey as a writer and illustrator. How has he, in turn, influenced your work?

Theo was really the one who showed me how to sit and actually work on something without feeling like I had to be somewhere else every fifteen minutes. I learned how to draw and create worlds on paper that sprang up out of thoughts and emerging dreams that would randomly come into mind as I would just start to draw. We were lucky enough to go on a museum tour of Europe at a time when it really sunk in. We discussed art and related queries for years, that time in Europe being like an axis on thought and possibility. I think about our conversation often when I keep up another commission or new project, knowing that eventually I’ll be able to launch some of the original ideas that got me going down this road.

In real life you will never have to choose. But for the purposes of this question, you must choose between saving the collected works of Titian or Corot from a raging fire. Whose would you save and why?

This may be a surprise though I instantly thought Titian. I feel like I still have a lot to learn from his approach to realism, especially on the larger scale pieces he did.

Tell us about the work of your father, Howard Lamar. What is the relationship between your creative works and his, what have you learned from him?

My dad was painting before I was born and from my earliest memories, that is what he was doing. He worked on a lot of sculpture when I was a kid. When we still lived in Arizona I would work with him at his studio on little pieces of marble and alabaster. His career has influenced mine greatly. I grew up in his studio and learned about the gallery world and selling art from him. He sold most all of my first pieces and got a good price for them. I didn’t know it then but he had really set me up. In the near future I think that we may collaborate in some various mediums. We’ve talked about doing some large triptic panels together in the past, though I would imagine our first collaboration would be a unique showing of our family’s work from perhaps one of the event concepts I’ve yet to divulge.

What do you do when you can paint, compose or sing no more? Where do you go?

My favorite places here are this one point at the end of scenic drive, where I can watch the waves come barreling in and disperse over the rocks jutting out from that point in the cove. The other place I go more often than not is to bed, and let the sounds of this little town feel farther and farther away.