Patricia Chidlaw, painter
The allure of old Los Angeles, how Anna got wings, and an encounter with Julia Child
Many of Patricia Chidlaw’s paintings are love letters to historic Los Angeles and places in California that have seen better days. She finds beauty in junkyards, train depots, abandoned drive-ins, LA traffic, aging neon signs, and swimming pools, and she depicts them in a realistic way that you would not mistake for a photograph.
I envision Patricia trekking around the storied and concrete-lined LA River and following in the footsteps of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, camera in tow, looking for the next great painting in downtown Los Angeles and hoping her car’s catalytic converter isn’t stolen. She lives in Santa Barbara, CA, but finds much of her painting inspiration in disparate LA, the California desert, and further afield.
I hope you enjoy looking at her paintings as much as I do. I was fortunate to see her recent show at the Billis Williams Gallery in Los Angeles and Patricia’s paintings are even more spectacular in real life. Here’s our recent conversation.
I read that as a child, you traveled all over the US and Europe because of your father’s Army career. How do you think that shaped you as an artist?
I saw a lot of important artwork early on. I was 13 years old when we first moved to Paris. It was in the summer, two months before school started. I hadn’t made any friends yet, so for entertainment my mother, brother, and I would look up a new museum every day and set out on the Metro to visit it. I don’t believe we ever ran out of museums during that time because Paris has a lot of them. Then, when school started, I had an art teacher who took the class on museum field trips.
We stayed two years in Paris, then after a year and a half in the United States my father received unexpected orders to Rome. Of course, Rome exposed me to Classical and Renaissance art, as well as Italian food. I mention the food because this interview is for Palate & Palette. As the perfect finish to my art education, and for my senior year of high school, we moved to Brunssum, in the Netherlands. I was able to complete my art survey with the Northern Renaissance and visit the Van Gogh Museum. I was also introduced to Indonesian food and curry.
As a teenager, I saw some of the world’s most amazing paintings, but another important effect on my art was spending a lot of time alone, often with very few friends. I entertained myself with drawing and experimenting with oil paint and reading lots of books, but I remember really painful periods of loneliness.
Tell me about your show, Points of Interest. Many of the paintings show desolate parts of Los Angeles that most residents don’t see or don’t see from the vantage points you chose.
When I was searching for a theme for my 2023 show at the Billis Williams Gallery, I thought concentrating on Los Angeles subjects would be a good idea, and that they might have more appeal than closer-to-home South Coast [Santa Barbara area] subjects. The LA River has been an ongoing interest of mine, and I am drawn to the less predictable and unexpected viewpoints.
What is it about the LA River that you find so appealing to paint?
There are lots of stories there—LA’s intense and uncertain relationship to water, those amazingly beautiful bridges that were constructed in the 1930s in Neoclassic and Gothic styles, and the railroads that run along both sides.
Once at an art reception, I was conversing with a woman who had purchased one of my LA River paintings. She said her husband often used to work there and when I asked whether he worked for the railroad she said, “No, he was a homicide detective.” [Let your brain fill in the rest of that narrative.]
Many of the paintings in your show are of scenes at dusk or dawn.
Night is simply more dramatic and mysterious. I love the contrast of intense darks and lights. And I like that darkness can obscure some of the detail.
Many of your paintings—cafes, laundromats, streets—have no people in them or there are people alone, waiting in a bus or train station.
Before the introduction of the cellphone camera, it was a lot harder to sneak up on people and take photos of them. [She says this with humor but also with an element of truth.] Actually, I think less action introduces a mood of stillness that I like and perhaps leaves more room for the viewer to create their own story.
You’ve painted many motels. Did you watch the streaming show Schitt’s Creek?
These paintings might be about my childhood spent moving so frequently, which made me feel I was never quite home, like being in a motel. Or, it might just be the neon signs, because I find neon very beautiful and fun to paint.
As for Schitt’s Creek—like most everything else on TV—I have never seen it. As a teenager living abroad, I never became fluent enough in any of those languages to watch TV. I’ve never had the habit of watching TV, and so I never got one. My husband had never had a TV in his adult life either, so it never occurred to either of us to start watching. A big part of American culture has simply passed us by.
You created a painting called Anna with Wings. Are the wings real or artificial [I asked jokingly]? The painting seems different subject wise than your other paintings. Is there a story behind it?
I love art shows that have a theme for what the paintings should be about. For years, Westmont College had an annual holiday show with the theme of Angels. I painted the Blue Angel Motel in Las Vegas, the Angelus Chevrolet Dealership, a cemetery angel, and an angel dress shop, everything “angel” I could think of.
My husband, Robert Sponsel, attends a weekly figure drawing group. I thought the group participants should all enter the show with angel drawings, so I ordered a pair of real feather wings online. When nobody was interested, I decided I would do it myself, outside of the class. I asked one of their models, Anna, to pose for me. Sometimes I like to show people that, while my paintings are generally empty of people, I can in fact paint a person. [So, apparently the wings were made of real feathers but not Anna’s actual appendages. :-)]
Your swimming pool series includes a painting of an empty swimming pool with lawn furniture in it. Was there a narrative running through your head as you were painting it?
I had been quoting Raymond Chandler for years: “Nothing is sadder then an empty swimming pool.” But I recently discovered I had the quote wrong! It’s actually: “Nothing looks emptier than an empty swimming pool.” I guess the sad part is just implied.
What’s the story behind Cadillac Junkyard?
I wish I knew the story. On the way to Lone Pine off Highway 395 In Inyo County [eastern central California between Sierra Nevada and Nevada] there’s a group of buildings known as “Pearsonville, Hubcap Capital of the World,” but it seems pretty deserted. I believe there’s also a whole pile of hubcaps. Anyway, there’s a yard full of rusting old American cars, including lots of Cadillacs. I suspect the story has something to do with obsessive compulsive hoarding. There’s also a statue of an 18-foot-tall woman that is supposed to be a Uniroyal Tire Girl.
You spend time around railyards and junkyards. Have you ever encountered any interesting people or situations?
Downtown LA has become significantly gentrified in the past 30 years since I have been exploring it for photo subjects [reference photos for future paintings]. I have friends who do movie location scouting who have been helpful tour guides for me. They have given advice such as, “It’s safe to walk around here, but we can’t leave the car unguarded because there’s a nearby place where you can sell scrap metal!”
When I was walking along the railroad by the LA River a while back, I noticed a bunch of really rough looking guys and wondered if it could be dangerous. Then I noticed someone was holding a round silver reflector—it was a fashion shoot!
Many of your paintings show scenes with graffiti. Have you ever been tempted to do actual graffiti, assuming it was legal? If pressed to do so, what would you create and where?
No. While I certainly admire graffiti, I wouldn’t have a clue how to work with a spray can. And the scale is so much larger than the size I paint. Plus, there’s the physical challenge of getting to freeway overpasses or box cars or wherever they’re putting it. It’s really a job for spry young kids.
You live in Santa Barbara, but you paint subjects that are mostly in LA or other places. Tell me about that.
I started out painting Santa Barbara when I was doing plein air paintings, about 45 years ago. The town was more interesting at that time. So much hadn’t changed from earlier times, particularly lower State Street with its movie theaters with old neon signs, pool halls, and restaurants that hadn’t been redecorated in decades.
Then over the years they have replaced EVERYTHING in the weird, old town with upscale charm. Santa Barbara is so cute now. If I painted it my pictures would all look like illustrations for real estate brochures. I’ve had to travel further to find things to paint. Fortunately, LA isn’t that far away and it still has a lot of interesting parts.
What is your approach to creating paintings?
I photograph the subjects and paint in the studio. I started out plein air painting, but it didn’t suit my subject matter, some of which is in really difficult places [to set up and paint for a while], and didn’t give me the precise detail I really like. I think I painted my last plein air painting 40 years ago.
I project and draw with red acrylic paint and then underpaint with thin washes of warm colors before I start with final colors.
Are there any artistic rules you routinely break to be the artist you want to be?
When I was going to college there was an unwritten rule that one should not paint straightforward realism, which was considered illustration or kitsch but certainly not serious contemporary art.
Is there a painting that started out in one direction and then went in another direction you didn’t expect?
There’s one in process on my easel right now [she finished it and it’s below]. One of the models in Bob’s [her husband’s] figure drawing group colored her hair brilliant flame red. I thought it was absolutely gorgeous and I wanted to paint her. I took photos of her at our local Paradise Cafe. One of the paintings of her sitting at the bar worked out successfully and was finished and sold, but the second one from a different angle has been kind of problematic. There is a TV prominently visible behind the bar and I couldn’t figure out what to put on the screen. [Maybe because she does not watch TV! :-) ]
Last week I decided maybe the screen needed a face and I had a photo of the same model but with her natural-colored dark brown hair. I figured nobody would notice the resemblance, so I painted her in on the TV screen and suddenly I had dueling models! That was way too much, so I had to take out the flame-haired girl sitting at the bar in her red lace dress and black leather jacket. Now the painting that started out as a figure sitting at the bar is a painting of an empty restaurant with a TV tuned to what might be a fascinating soap opera starring a charismatic actress with dark brown hair.
What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received as an artist?
I believe there’s an Oscar Kokoschka quote: “It’s not talent, it’s tenacity." The worst thing anybody has ever said to me was one of my University of California Santa Barbara teachers who told me I painted like an old lady! I painted a plein air landscape, which at the time, wasn’t an acceptable direction for art. The focus was on minimalism and conceptualism, neither of which interested me.
Do you have a painting of yours that you don’t want to sell?
I already sold the one I should have kept. The title is The Hopper Calendar. It’s a self-portrait. In it, I’m sitting in my studio under a calendar with the image of a Hopper painting of a seated model looking out the window. I’m looking out the window and it’s the view from Hopper’s Rooms by the Sea.
Have any of your paintings ended up in an unexpected place?
My painting Bombay Beach can actually be seen for a quick moment in an episode of Entourage where it hangs in the hall outside James Cameron’s office. A former art dealer of mine noticed it.
You seem to have a penchant for vintage cars. If you could have any vintage car, which would you choose?
My husband has more than enough vintage cars: a Model A Roadster, a Model A station wagon, a 1932 Ford panel delivery truck, a 1933 Ford Phaeton, a Morgan, and a Fiat Abarth Zagato Coupe.
Lightening round questions
Do you like to cook? I am ambivalent about cooking. Dinner parties are fun, but daily meals sometimes feel like a chore. My specialty is pie, and I make seasonal fruit pies. I have a whole calendar of them: apricot, peaches, apple, pumpkin, sweet potato, and canned sour cherries in February.
Creative people who inspire you. Julia Child came to one of my art receptions! I had a show in a gallery in Montecito. A friend of Julia’s brought Julia to the reception. Julia was friendly and pleasant. I didn’t think she was interested in my paintings, but it was fun to meet her. My other connection to Julia Child is that her cat has been my neighbor many years. Julia got a kitten right before she died, and her cat has stayed three houses away from where I live. She’s 18 years old now.
Favorite ice cream flavor. McConnell's mint chip.
What art is in your bathroom? A collection of old photographs of women in early 20th century belly dancing or exotic dance costumes.
Most memorable meal. Last year eating with friends at The Shoals Restaurant at the Cliff House Inn in Ventura [CA]. We were waiting for the sun to set and the lights to come on in the big swimming pool next to the ocean. I hoped to get some good photos for paintings and indeed the light was beautiful. The dinner was good too.
You are hosting a dinner party for six people living or dead. Who is coming and what are you serving? As many interviews as I’ve read in the New York Times Book Review where they ask the dinner party question, I’ve never been able to imagine really having a fascinating conversation about art with any of the artist luminaries I might invite. It seems like Frida Kahlo or Georgia O’Keeffe would just keep saying, “Now tell me exactly who you are? Do I know you?"
Favorite piece of art you own. View of La Cumbre Peak from Sycamore Canyon, an oil painting by Carl Oscar Borg.
Most captivating museum visit. Museum of Jurassic Technology.
Palate & Palette menu
Here’s what I would serve if Patricia and her husband came to dinner, which they are welcome to do:
Shrimp cocktail
Roasted asparagus
Buttermilk-brined roast chicken
Parmesan-crusted smashed potatoes
Queen of Sheba chocolate cake, said to be Julia Child’s favorite cake
Where to find Patricia Chidlaw (and you should!)
Billis Williams Gallery, 2716 S La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles, CA
Sullivan Goss Gallery, 11 East Anapamu St., Santa Barbara, CA
I just love this interview. But not as much as I love Patricia's work. She's a tenacious painter!
Beautiful, luminous lighting. Thank you for introducing me to yet another interesting artist, Amy.