Head Toward the Light

PALMER — Douglas Girard could really care less if his paintings end up on postcards, T-shirts or pins. He hasn’t thought about what the tourists want or why salmon don’t make appearances in his paintings either. He is just glad to be working.

Girard has been painting since he was 13-years old. In the bustling steel jungle of Sacramento, Ca., he pursued his passion for art through college, but was slowly looking for a way out.

“I just had enough of the concrete and smog,” Girard said. “I wanted to be in a beautiful place. I came up to visit family with my girlfriend, now my wife, and she said ‘Let’s just go.’ So we got in the car and drove up. That was 13 years ago and I don’t miss it.”

Outside of becoming a local favorite with art goers, Girard is first and foremost an artist of compelling proportions. His day job allows him to work as a freelance illustrator, creating book and magazine covers and posters. He also teaches art classes on his spare time and has completed many private commissions. As a “not so much” established artist, Girard has found an audience with group and solo shows, hanging exhibit pieces at Alaska Pacific University, Decker Morris Gallery, Stephan Fine Arts Gallery and the Artique Gallery in Anchorage. For the past 13 years he has resided in Palmer with his wife and two boys, where he tends to paint the familiar and dramatic landscapes that surround his quaint home.

Recently, the Palmer Museum of History and Art (PMHA) received a $1,000 Rasmuson Art Acquisition Grant to purchase Alaska based art to beef up its showroom. Girard’s romantic portrait “Seeking the Light” was chosen from five other local artist submissions as the recipient of the grant where the piece will hang indefinitely at PMHA. For Girard, it’s a blessing.

“David Holladay, who’s bought paintings from me before, e-mailed asking that I submit a painting,” he said. “That was on a Thursday. On Friday, I called the museum to see what I had to do. I guess Rasmuson won’t accept any old painting, so I had to jump through some hoops, but the museum has the painting, where it will be on permanent display.”

Girard said that receiving the acclimates of becoming a fixture inside museum is top honors for him.

“I live in Palmer with my kids growing up there and to have a painting in a museum is a part of history,” he said. “Hopefully my grand-kids will say, ‘There’s my grandparent’s piece.’”

“Seeking the Light” is a 20- by 24-inch painting crafted in oils on canvas that portrays a peek of Hatcher’s Pass in the summertime. The orange clouds and plush green hills are shadowed by the illumination of a beautiful woman, who almost floats to the open water below. The colors are striking and the time period is illusive, capturing hints of Colonial idealism with modern day features. The somewhat haunting, yet elegant, work has been compared to early works by Eustace Zigler and Sydney Laurence.

“The Hatcher’s Pass area is where I love to paint,” Girard said. “I love going out there and catching and looking for the dramatic moments of light. It’s kind of a personal thing. The high mountain lakes is a spiritual place for me, and so ‘Seeking the Light’ could have a double meaning.”

Girard said during the summer he almost always works outside, to capture real colors and atmosphere.

“It’s based on a feeling and a mood,” he said. “I go off of what I feel and then work composition around that. A lot of times I invent the images, asking ‘what would it look like?’ That effect usually is the happiest, so I make it work with whatever I have.”

David Holladay, a PMHA board member, said the response to “Seeling the Light” was to get it hung in the museum as quickly as possible.

“He’s a talented man with an eye for detail,” Holladay said. “It’s important for us to recognize his contribution.”

Girard noted that fans of his artwork frequently respond to his Hatcher’s Pass pieces, saying they feel a part of the scenes, as if they were actually inside the painting.

In an area that is swarming with up-and-coming artists with few places to showcase pieces in the Mat-Su Valley, Girard said he doesn’t necessarily feel he has the need to compete with fellow Palmer-ite artists for the spotlight.

“I’ve been somewhat oblivious to it, mostly because I’ve been so busy,” he said. “In Palmer in particular there seems to be a lot of interest in art. I think any advancement in the knowledge base and awareness of creative pursuits helps the young people get involved.”

He also noted that if an artist wants to make it to the forefront of gallery showings and museum hangings, they have to produce like never before.

“It’s a struggle and I think that’s why not many people make it. It’s hard, it’s tough, and you have to have determination. I’ve had a lot of failure and rejection in my day, which used to bother me, but I just kept with it. I don’t give up to easy. I don’t know if you’d call it established. I just paint a lot.”

Girard said the PMHA’s board of directors are focused on enhancing the overall spirit and quality of its collected art objects by establishing an appropriate, important reference point for future collecting in artistic media. His painting serves to demonstrate the museum’s interest in a broad range of both historic and contemporary works of art, offering the museum the tools for teaching the value of mixing traditional and contemporary values in a changing community.

Not painting polar bears and native villages is okay with Girard. He said he paints what he feels has inspired him for that moment, and that’s it.

“It’s tough, especially if you don’t paint Alaskana,” he said. “My paintings aren’t geared towards the tourists. I tried that, it just doesn’t leave me very happy. I have to paint what makes me happy. Plus, I don’t want to flood the market with images, so I like the idea of going smaller. I do what I want to do.

“Seeking the Light” will be revealed to the public at the PMHA during its annual meeting, starting at 2 p.m. this Saturday at the Visitor Information Center in Palmer. Attends will be served refreshments and get a chance to meet the artist.