Lincoln Perry has been a prominent figure on the Charlottesville art scene since the mid-1980s. An acclaimed muralist with significant work in landscapes, figurative paintings, and sculpture, Perry’s murals grace walls around the country including the Met Life building in St. Louis and at the University of Virginia. “The Student’s Progress,” in UVA’s Old Cabell Hall, follows the journey of a fictional student named Shannon from her undergraduate days into her adulthood when she becomes a professor at the university. Consisting of 29 panels, the piece took 16 years to complete.
Perry first visited Charlottesville in 1970, and returned 15 years later to fill in for Philip Geiger, teaching drawing for a semester at UVA. It was during this time that he met his wife, author Ann Beattie, who was also teaching at UVA. After about a decade, the couple left Charlottesville, but returned in 2001. Both held teaching positions until 2012. They now divide time between Maine, Virginia, and Florida.
C-VILLE caught up with Perry in Maine, where he was fresh off an interview with the local NPR affiliate, to talk about his new book, Seeing Like an Artist: What Artists Perceive in the Art of Others. He will discuss the book at New Dominion Bookshop on the Downtown Mall on Saturday, October 22.
C-VILLE Weekly: I think of you as a painter. Have you always written?
Lincoln Perry: No, in fact, I just came across a notebook I kept in 1981 that’s really badly written. So, somewhere along the line, I think maybe from living with Ann, I must have improved.
I was struck by the quality of your writing. There are numerous beautifully written paragraphs—I loved, in particular, your descriptions of the Bruegels. I also liked the way you integrated modern references and popular culture into your writing, it struck me as akin to what you did with paint in the Cabell Hall mural.
That’s actually interesting. I hadn’t even thought of that.
I would think your narrative talent would serve you well helping you
conceive of murals.
Yes. I wish I could do more of them. The hard part is getting the job. I was just a finalist for a courthouse in Alabama. It would have been fun. I enjoy the external collaboration of projects like that.
Are you continuing to write, and if so, how do you balance that with artmaking?
I can only paint for so long and I can only sculpt for so long, or draw for so long. Writing is a way to fill in the chinks between those other bricks.
I love the way the little sketches included in the book make us see the art through your eyes and pay attention to what you are looking at.
Some part of me thought I should make them more diagrammatic, but then I decided that doesn’t do justice to the things, so, I did my best to do copies.
What are you looking for when you look at art?
The book was originally going to be called Stealing from Museums, but the trouble was they thought it would be put in the crime section. But that’s really what it’s about—how painters and potentially non-painters learn to see in different ways. I think a lot of people are intimidated by visual art; they think there’s something they’re supposed to be getting. It’s a visual experience first. Let it wash over you and take pleasure in it. The idea is not to be intimidated or exhausted. It’s best to see some things well as opposed to trying to see everything. When I first went to Italy, I had one of the Blue Guides and I thought, because it was in the book, I had to go see it, and it became insane. Eventually, I realized that you can get more out of less.
I didn’t realize, until I read the book, that you sculpted. Is that something you’ve always done?
That started about 30 years ago. Difficulty interests me. Making a sculpture that’s legible and enticing from 360 degrees as opposed to, say, one view or two views is really difficult. About three years ago I started carving marble, which is ridiculously difficult. It’s almost too much: I feel like, c’mon, I’m too old for this. The stuff weighs a ton and is hard as a rock. But it does make me realize I spend at least as much time in museums looking at sculpture as I do paintings. They have to be seen in the round and, as I say in the book, you really have to be there in “the presence of” in order to read them properly. Which is also true of paintings, more than people know.
Describe a dream art-viewing trip.
A dream trip would be returning to the Villa Valmarana ai Nani in Vicenza, Italy, to see the Tiepolo frescoes. I also want to see Naples again because of the museums there.
As a successful creative person married to a successful creative person, how do you give equal opportunity to your respective practices?
Well, I read everything she writes, but not until she feels it’s done. It’s harder for me to lure her into the studio. She has a very good eye, but she’s really more interested in photography; she takes beautiful photographs—I think she should publish them. Painting’s a little mysterious to her and she wishes I wouldn’t carve marble because I’m getting old and I’ve got arthritis and she wonders what I’m doing this for. I totally respect what she does. I enjoy writing these essays but I cannot imagine writing fiction, and she can’t imagine painting. I suppose there are happy marriages among two painters or two writers, but in our case, it works well that we’re in different fields.
Any upcoming exhibitions?
I’ll be in “Home and Away,” organized by Robert Stuart at the Beverley Street Studio School Gallery in Staunton, which runs from November 18 to January 2.
I hope the last line of the book sums it up. (“This isn’t the anxiety of influence; it’s the joy of influence.”) This is all supposed to be about the joy of influence. Rather than feeling oppressed or confused or intimidated by our tradition, we’re allowed to love it and enjoy it because it’s beautiful. It’s something we’ve done as humans that we can actually be proud of.