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Web posted Saturday, June
15, 2002
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Movie scenic
painter and fine artist William Armstrong has
found unlimited subject matter in coastal
Georgia and South Carolina since he and his wife
Monique moved to Savannah two years ago.
--John
Carrington/Savannah Morning News
Sunrise at
Honey Creek, original oil painting by William
Armstrong
--Special to the Savannah
Morning News
Original oil
painting by William Armstrong, Low Tide.
--Special to the Savannah
Morning News
Fripp Point
Beaufort, S.C. , original water color by William
Armstrong
--Special to the Savannah
Morning News
The Cathedral
of St. John the Baptist painting in oil by
William Armstrong
--Special to the Savannah
Morning News
IF YOU GO
What: Armstrong Summer Art
Show, featuring oil paintings and watercolors by
William Armstrong
When: from 1-5
p.m. Saturday and Sunday
Where:
554 E. Taylor St.
Call: (912)
232-9175
| | Magic
man
The movie industry brought painter William
Armstrong to Savannah; he's showing his works this
weekend.
By Allison Hersh
for
the Savannah
Morning News
William Armstrong started out,
at 14, painting signs for butcher shops in Newark,
N.J.
He grew up to become one of the
world's leading scenic artists, creating magic on
dozens of major movie sets.
An
accomplished artist and craftsman, he's worked on
films with leading directors such as Martin
Scorcese, Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee and Woody
Allen. His ornate sets from films like "Meet Joe
Black" have been featured in "Architectural
Digest" and have set the standard for scenic
artists around the world. "My job is to create the
magic, so to speak," he says.
Indeed, the
movie industry brought Armstrong to Savannah in
1999 to work on the set of "The Legend of Bagger
Vance." At the time, he and his wife Monique lived
in Spring Lake Heights, N.J., on the Jersey shore,
and traveled extensively to movie sets in the
United States, Canada and other countries.
As a scenic artist, he was responsible for
the elaborate transformation of City Market into a
Depression-era movie set for "The Legend of Bagger
Vance," creating faux finishes and hand-painting
lettering on historic buildings on West Congress and
Barnard streets.
Impressed by Savannah's
beauty, Armstrong decided to make Savannah his
home, purchasing a dilapidated brick home at the
corner of Taylor and East Broad street in November
of 1999. "I had been thinking about moving for a
while," he recalls. "We discovered that Savannah
is a big enough city to support theater, music and
restaurants. And the historic district is so
beautiful architecturally."
William and
Monique lovingly restored the 1885 brick home,
converting a once-vacant shell with vines growing
through the stairs into a joyful celebration of
art. "This house was talking to me," says Monique,
a Montreal native who worked for the United
Nations for 17 years. "We had a calling to restore
this house. We just knew that it would be
something very special -- it has really lifted the
morale of the neighborhood."
Armstrong even
applied some of his movie knowledge to the
restoration of his home, creating custom crown
moldings using techniques he learned from decades
working on film sets. "This whole house is like a
movie set," he says, pointing out hidden doorways
and other eccentricities that make the home
unique.
The Armstrongs received an award
from the 2001 Historic Savannah Foundation for
their exhaustive restoration efforts. Their home
has been featured on the annual Tour of Homes and
has helped transform the East Broad corridor,
which serves as the eastern boundary of the
Landmark Historic District. The Armstrongs also
designed and built a carriage house behind their
home and restored another property on Chatham
Square, both of which they run as small
inns.
The carriage house is decorated
largely with William's art from the 1950's --
abstract, geometric paintings crafted in dramatic
black and white, while the main house showcases
his more recent landscapes, portraits and
figurative work. "Over time you change," he says,
"depending on your lifestyle, your crises and the
changes you're going through."
In the main
house, hyper-realistic paintings of the Fulton
Fish Market in New York City, a St.
Patrick's Day Parade lineup in New York City
and Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village
capture a range of real-life characters -- ranging
from aging Ukrainian women to young mothers on the
playground.
Armstrong typically works from
pen and ink drawings and pencil sketches,
carefully observing the people around him. A
traditional painter, Armstrong refuses to work
from photographs. "A photograph is only a
mechanical reproduction of what is there," he
says. "A painting can convey the emotion of the
moment. There's a quality of painting that comes
from within."
This weekend, Armstrong will
present a summer open house showcasing his recent
oil paintings and watercolors, as well as work
from his New York series and Nantucket series.
Twenty-five individual pieces, expertly framed by
Kendall Bowles, will be exhibited on easels and
hung on walls throughout the Armstrongs' home.
Visitors will also be able to tour Armstrong's
private collection, which graces the walls of his
home.From the spires of St. John the Baptist
Cathedral peeking over the treetops to the marsh
scenes in Dataw Island, the magic of the Georgia
and South Carolina coast takes center stage in
Armstrong's latest exhibit. His paintings are
worlds away from high-profile movie sets like
"Brighton Beach Memoirs," "Scent of A Woman" or
"Conspiracy Theory," but they enlighten viewers
with their heightened sensitivity to the ineffable
beauty of a palm tree at sunset or the spiritual
presence of an old wooden dock.
Since
moving to Savannah, Armstrong has found himself,
like many area artists, fascinated by the
ever-changing Lowcountry landscape. "I could tell
I would enjoy painting here because of the wealth
of weather changes you have," he says. "You have
instant storms and beautiful sunrises and
sunsets.
He enjoys creating watercolors on
location, in the plein-air tradition, painting a
shell-pink and pale-lilac sky over the marsh at
sunset or celebrating the view across the river at
Bonaventure Cemetery. Inspired by John Singer
Sargent's watercolors, Armstrong explains that he
strives for a "looseness with the brush strokes"
in his watercolors, which showcase palm trees with
spiky fronds and plush, diaphanous
clouds.
Armstrong's best work is the
product of intense, almost inhuman, attention to
his surroundings. "Most people think nothing
changes," he says, "but things change all the time
-- if you're paying attention." By remaining
attuned to his environment, he is able to capture
subtle reflections in the water that mark the
season or a particular time of day. He uses rich
oil paints to intensify the colors of a Beaufort
marsh, creating a rosy haze echoed visually in the
sky and in the river.
"I love color
theory," he says. "I work out all my colors
beforehand, based on the light and the time of
day." He simultaneously captures the luminescent
glow of the marsh in oil paint and the seemingly
infinite blue of the sky -- ranging from deep
cadmium to pale aquamarine -- in many of his oil
paintings.
"It's amazing what people don't
see, even when something is right in front of
them," he says. "I try to teach people to see the
beauty in their own neighborhood and to learn to
see the day-to-day changes in the world around
us."
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