C. James Frazier
After 40 years as an artist, what keeps me painting everyday is the sheer joy in the process. I so immensely love what I do, that I actually forget I am working. Each painting I create is a personal odyssey. I start with a flat surface and working with combinations of red, blue, yellow and white, I arrange them to create the illusion of objects. I don’t necessarily start with a subject in mind. Instead, I like to play with colors and see what emerges for me, the whole surface has an interest as opposed to just a central object. Sometimes I start painting by looking at a photograph of a subject, other times I start with a color combination that I liked in a previous painting. Listening to classical music as I paint, the painting will combine with my emotions and take on a life of its own. Since I tend to look at everything through rose colored glasses, my paintings whether the are landscapes, still lifes or portraits, usually express happiness or tranquility. As I look at the individual paintings, I can still remember the feelings I had as I created them – the feelings that are now captured on the canvas.
A native of Shreveport, Louisiana, my art career began in advertising, continued when I enlisted as an illustrator with the Air Force in Vietnam, and advanced commercially under the employment of Disneyland and Disneyworld. I became bored with the constraints of commercial art and sought to express my work more creatively by opening a galley in Texas during the 1970’s. I painted and taught, moving to a larger space over the years. Eventually, I found myself being more of a businessman than an artist, so I closed my gallery and returned to full time painting, selling my work in numerous galleries throughout the country over the years.