Artist Studio Visit with James Loveless Jr.

Good morning, internet and world and Instagrammers worldwide. George Irwin here with Western Gallery. This morning we are going to be doing another studio visit, virtual, right here through this magical window device into the homes and studios of artists across the world. And today we're gonna be visiting James Loveless Jr. in Fort Worth, Texas, which is actually not terribly far away from where I am right at this moment. But you might be in Wyoming. So I hope that you enjoy this magical portal. I'm gonna get James on here. He is a very accomplished artist who his painting historical scenes of the Old West. And if you have not seen his work, please check it out at western.gallery in the New Western Talent Show. I said talent show again. New Western Talent Exhibition. Though I think James would probably do pretty well in a talent show, actually. Let's see if we can get him on here. Beep bop boop boop boop boop boop bop. Internet's— All right, here we go. It looks like we're in a studio. Hey, James!

Hey, how's it going?

All right, how are you?

I'm doing well today, glad to be here.

Excellent, same, same here. Always, always glad to be, uh, doing well and, and talking about art.

Awesome.

Yeah, um, So you're out, you're in Fort Worth, right?

Right. I understand that you're here also. Yeah, we've been here for the past 13 years. Uh, my wife and I originally came to Fort Worth to plant a church, and now we're with the Potter's House. T.D. Jakes is my bishop, Patrick Winfield is my pastor.

Very cool. Excellent. Yeah, well, um, cool. And then, so are you still working then at the church?

Uh, No, no, we're currently with the Potter's House of Fort Worth, where Patrick Winfield is the pastor. And like I said, T.D. Jakes is my bishop. So we do things at the Central Place in Dallas from time to time. We have different events that go on there. And so we're able to do that with them when they have such events. But with COVID it's kind of slowed everything down. So we've been doing a lot of things Just like this.

Yeah, yeah, buddy. Yeah, I saw, uh, on your, on your website that you guys did a live art show, or on, on YouTube. Was that last summer, or was that—

right, we, we were doing that at first and stuff, uh, and so I didn't know whether that was connecting those two audiences together We, before COVID hit, we had a cover band. And so we travel all over Texas doing weddings and stuff like that. And we also sang in nursing homes. So when COVID hit, it kind of put a wrench into all of that. And so we decided to go with what we were doing before with the art. We had a gallery in St. Louis St. Louis, Missouri. And so, uh, that's what we were doing before we came here. But after that was over, we did that for 3 years, then we, uh, did a gospel tour. My wife sings, she's opened for Gladys Knight and Cedric the Entertainer. So we did that for about, uh, 3 years, and then we came to Texas, and, and here we are now doing historical Western art.

That's amazing.

Full circle.

Yeah, really. What, um, so when you guys were doing the gallery in St. Louis, was that Western art as well, or was that a different kind of genre?

No, what we were doing there is basically African American art, because in St. Louis the demographics were a lot different. And so we did that, we did custom framing, We did commissioned portraits, and that's how I got my kids through school. They all, you know, that's how I paid for them to get through college and stuff, by having them work at the gallery. I have 5 kids and 3 of them draw and paint. And so I had them framing, and my oldest son does portraits, and so he works with airbrush. And so we were doing all of that. Then so, It was just a lot of work to try to keep a store like that open. It was a beautiful store that we had, but that's times past and water under the bridge. And now we're on to Western Art here in Fort Worth, Texas.

Amazing. So I'm guessing then that you were— you've been sort of inspired then by being in Cowtown and all the Western—

Right, right. All the things that go on here, being here. In the West as it was, my grandfather— and we used to go to my grandfather, grandmother's house every summer. And so he was a cowboy. We went to rodeos. He did, you know, steer wrestling and roping and all that stuff. And in the living room there at their house, it was all of these ribbons that were on the wall from all the things he had been to. And my grandmother is a Native American. And so with that, that's how I became interested in all of this through his influence. And, you know, I got it honest. I got it honest.

Yeah, that's awesome. That's really cool. And then, so then your statement is, says that you, you know, I'm guessing inspired especially by your grandparents, like looking at relationships of kind of like less represented demographics within the cowboy and western genre of art.

Right, right. So I got into the historical part because of discrepancies that I've seen in museums with the representation of cowboys As you know, 25% of them were African American or former slaves, and then another 33% were Mexican American, Vaqueros and stuff. So I'm planning to do that. In fact, I'm working on a photo shoot right now with a fella by the name of Bass Reeves.

Okay.

Now Bass Reeves is known as the original Long Ranger. He captured over 4,000 fugitives trying to escape justice. He could not read or write, so he would take the writ given to him by Judge Isaac Parker, memorize it, and then go searching for the fugitives. Wow. He also spoke 4 Native American languages, and he was taught and gained relationship with a Creek chiefdom, and that's how he got the relationship. So the fugitives had nowhere to run. They couldn't be around the settled parts of the country, and they couldn't run to Indian Territory in order to escape the reach of Bass Reeves. And so because of his connections, because of his language things, they weren't able to escape him. So that's— I'm doing a a photo shoot next month with a guy who's gonna portray Bass Reeves, and he's been in Yellowstone, he's been in a lot of movies and things like that. And so he's agreed to do this, and so I gotta call him on today and let him know that everything is a go with what we planned. So we're gonna have horses, we're gonna have him and other cowboys there, in order to do the photo shoot, and hopefully I come up with some good information, good reference material that I can use for the paintings that I'm planning to produce.

Yeah, really, that's, that sounds awesome. Um, are you doing the photo shoot here in the Fort Worth area or outside?

He actually lives in Tyler, Texas, and so we're going to be, uh, either going there or having it at another one of the Cowboys lives here in Grand Prairie area and Euless. And so we might do it there. We're still trying to decide about that and what's gonna be best with everyone's schedule. So we're trying to do this in July. It's like planning a party with all of these different people involved and stuff. Oh man, it's more than a notion just trying to do this. I've got John Buxton, I don't know if you've ever heard of John Buxton. John, I befriended him on Facebook and he's helped me. He's done narrative paintings like this all his life. He started working—

Oh, there we go.

Okay, and so we've been in touch with him in order to get his advice on which is the best way to go to do this. I've done like one or two photo shoots, so So I'm trying to see if I can get some input on if I could do better or what was his plan in order to do a photo shoot and trying to make sure I have everything that I need and dotted all my I's and crossed all my T's on the way to doing this successfully.

Man, that's— I love that you are doing that and putting in, you know, that level of research into these pieces that you're going to be creating. Um, that speaks to, you know, I think a lot of times when I talk to artists about their process, we kind of jump straight into the, like, what happens when you get the canvas out. But there's always— I mean, for some artists, I guess that's where it starts, but for, you know, a lot of other artists, there is just, like, so much prep work that happens way before you get to that point. And that's That's really admirable, and to shoot your own, you know, coordinate your own shoots and then shoot your own reference like that is really fantastic.

Right, I found that a lot of other guys that have been doing this much longer than I have have been doing that kind of thing with their shoots, with their paintings and stuff, so just taking a page out of What I've learned from them, that's what I've been trying to do and focus on as I go forward and stuff. So, you know, I didn't invent the wheel. I'm just trying to keep the wheel going.

Yeah, well, that's awesome. I mean, you're doing a great job doing it. James, one of the things that I love about your paintings is at least the pieces that are in New Western Talent, is kind of how bright they are. Just to step back, Teal, exactly, yeah. Teal Coat Blake is commenting on here talking about getting your own reference photos, and I know that's something he does, and a lot of other, like, very well-respected artists do. So I'm—

okay, get your own reference pics. Okay, I appreciate that too. Yeah, yeah, I love his work. It's very colorful.

Yeah, so anyway, so I was gonna say, the pieces you've got in New Western Talent especially are so— they're like, they're really bright. You have like an interesting way that you look at, I don't know, the light. There's a wonderful kind of like light source that you include in these pieces.

Yeah, I've always been interested in light as it goes with some of my favorite artists, like Caravaggio, with the way that he did light in the chapels and stuff of Italy. And so with that, I enjoy trying to get the effects of light in the paintings that I do. And so you'll see that quite a bit. And so that's one thing I really like. There's another artist, I can't call his name right now, but he really does a great job with color. And so I'm trying to inject more of that into my work with it being colorful and not too historic looking.

Sure.

Because I've seen a lot of paintings are historical and it's like, well, what happened to the aesthetic part? You know, so I don't want to be that kind of artist, so. Yeah, this is one I just completed. Uh, this is called, uh, "Let's Get You Back to Mama." Awesome. And so you have a horse— of a rider, rather, a cowboy chasing a calf.

Oh, awesome.

And I was thinking, well, I didn't want people to misconstrue what was going on. He's not trying to hurt the little calf, but he's trying to get him back to the herd. So get him back to mama. And so that's why I call it, well, so that people would understand really what's going on in the piece, that he's just trying to save the calf and get him to safety 'cause he's just running. That's what herds do. That's what calves do. They are even grown cattle. If you get them stirred up, they'll just start running.

Yeah, you gotta—

So if you yell, you know, quickly toward them, stuff like that, they'll just take off, you know.

Yeah, you gotta—

So that doesn't help with trying to, control a herd and get them to a destination, to drove them to a destination. So, you know, he's out here chasing this little calf. So yeah, I mean, that's what that was all about, right?

I mean, that's so much of like what, yeah, what the cowboy, you know, day to day is, is just keeping the herd together, I guess.

Right, right. I shoot a lot at the stockyards, the Fort Worth Stockyards, and I got an opportunity to see the drovers being trained and showing the— how they herd the cattle, how they drive the cattle, and different techniques that they use in order to herd the cattle. So it was a class that I was shooting, and it was right there in back of the stockyards. But it showed me a lot about what they go through and how they're able to keep the cattle in check as they try to drive them to their destinations. Very cool. So that's, I'll go there quite a bit in order to get my reference.

Yeah, so I wanna talk about some of these paintings in particular, if that's all right. Okay, sure. Back to the calf painting though, I love that, the foreground in there with the, I don't know if those are like dandelions or cotton or queen anne's.

Right, right. I don't know the exact species of those. Uh, thistles maybe? Yeah, but it grows in the desert as you can see, so I figured, well, that would be interesting and kind of eye-catching and maybe soften the entire mood of the painting with a calf and flowers and stuff. That's why I went with something like that.

Yeah, that's really smart, and I think it really kind of helps to reinforce your idea of like getting the calf back to mama, and like it's like a, you know, a soft baby as opposed to like thinking of it as more just like, you know, wrangling the livestock.

That's it. Right, right. That's, that's it. Kind of hopefully that appeals to women because they have a big influence in purchasing art, so I wanted to do that. Another thing that I did with this one is I do underpaintings, as I'll show you later, but this particular underpainting I did in purple, and so there's little tinges of purple all the way through the painting so that it would kind of pop through and kind of give it a a light kind of airy feeling to it and not too serious, but just the fact that this cowboy is doing business and trying to do what he needs to, to save this calf, even though it doesn't seem like, to the calf, like he's saving him.

Right, right. Cool. Can we look at the one where you've got the bucking Bronco in the backlit, the sunset or sunrise.

Right, right. My idea here was to come up with something that would be significant or symbolic of the Old West.

Yeah.

So I thought of the Western skies. I thought of the horse bucking and kind of being symbolic of the West. So I was trying to really develop a symbol instead of our icon of what the West is. So that's kind of how I came up with the idea. As I went forward, I did a little thing with the sun that it's peeking through his belly. It wasn't a reference, I just kind of added that.

Oh, wow.

The effect of light coming through. And then also with this, the rays of light coming through that, I added that to my reference. And of course, this is different photographs kind of I probably took 5 different photographs and kind of put everything together. I do it in Photoshop first.

Okay.

And I've just developed that technique so that I'm able to show, especially on my commission work, that the customer is able to see how everything will look before I even finish the painting.

Yeah.

So it's very close, and then of course, as I go forward, I add things. I subtract things, hopefully to make the painting better as I go forward.

Yeah, of course. But yeah, that's a great technique. And can you back it up just a little bit on that painting?

Sure.

That's great. Yeah, that really is like just kind of like a really great, like you're saying, kind of like iconography of a Western idea. That's awesome.

Right, right. I was planning to do some more that would be like this because I was thinking of the buffalo would be another symbol of the West, you know, and they always kind of have a tendency to overemphasize the size of the buffalo in the painting by coming, doing close-up, and you can see his eyes and all the hair, you know. So I was thinking of doing something that would be a pretty big painting, maybe 30 by 40, something like that. And so it would show how big the buffalo were. But, you know, compared to a lot of other animals, they weren't— they're not that big. But they, you know, the icon of them, the idea of them being these huge animals. Yeah, to emphasize that in, in the painting. So I was planning to do something like that.

That's a, that's a cool idea. I love, I love how this one is backlit. You know, but you, and you managed to keep it feeling like it's really, it really is backlit, but at the same time, it's not just like a silhouette. You went ahead and put the detail in there.

Right. I had done a painting like this before, and I did not have that much detail in the cowboy and rider, and I wasn't satisfied with it. And so this is like second generation. People wonder, why you charge so much? I'm like, You know what I had to do to make this?

It's a lot of work, yeah.

This is not just this painting. I had to make another painting before that. Oh my goodness, and research that. But that's, that's what happens. And when I did this one, this time I wanted to make sure there was something in the cowboy so that you would be able to see the details of what was going on there, so it wouldn't be just a simple silhouette. But actually more, more than that.

Yeah. And you also, you put in the time to also make sure like the, all the details and the tack and everything is accurate, right, James?

That's right. That's right. This particular horse, you know, I only learned this by looking in reference books. I buy reference books to find out about how the tack was during, like this is 1883. This is called 1883 Cowboy. Yeah. Everything here is specific to that era. The saddle, the, the hat that he has on, all those things are indicative of the 1880s cowboy. So you have to look through the history book and find where those things are, so I'm able to make sure that they reflect that in the piece. And I know a lot of collectors that really know about this stuff.

Oh yeah.

Look at that. And if it's not correct, you'll hear about it. And I don't want to hear about it. I just want to do it right.

Yeah, well, that's great. I mean, that's awesome, James. So also, you used to be— I know you said you put some, like, these collages together in Photoshop.

Right.

You used to be a graphic designer and then—

Right. Is that how it started? Photoshop? Yeah. Right. Coming out of art school, I went to the Kansas City Art Institute and I worked as a package designer, a graphic designer. I did illustrations for Ross and Karina and Kentucky Fried Chicken and all kinds of folks. So that's how I learned, you know, about some of these techniques. And some of them I learned a great deal by looking at YouTube, believe it or not. Yeah, so that's really helpful for me. So anything that I don't know, I look it up on YouTube and it's got the answer.

That's one of the, like, the— yeah, that's the wild thing about being able to You know, to try new things in these times, you can look up most anything you need to know.

Right, that's it, that's it. So this one is one that I'm starting. It's called Fort Worth Stockyards.

Yeah.

And it shows the stockyards back in the day when they would drive the cattle down the street. And so I've got the old signs that are there. I haven't started putting paint on this one yet. I've started out with charcoal and— pencil. But so you can see kind of some of the things that are going on, the old wagon, chuck wagon in the back with the people inside and all the little dog in front.

Yeah.

Just trying to get the idea of it being old and back in the day and not really right now. And of course, I shot this guy. His name is Donald Lee. He was one of the drovers for the Fort Worth herd. And so I was able to get him to pose for me during that time that they were being instructed on how to do the cowboying. So they have special specialists come in that are cowboys that are trainers, and they teach the drovers how to do their job. So I was able to get in on that just by happenstance. And so I was glad to be there. Because when the cattle come down, they come down the street there in the stockyards twice a day, but the whole drive takes about maybe 15 minutes. And so you gotta really shoot in the space of 15 minutes to get some workable kind of photographs. So it really helps that I was able to shoot like all morning, about 3 or 4 hours, I was able to shoot and then I came back and shot the other drive in the evening too. So it really worked out.

Wow.

But yeah.

So James, I'm curious, 'cause I've seen, I saw this one in like colorized on your website, I think, Old Town Road.

Right, right. That particular painting was purchased by the Pierce Museum. They purchased that. To my surprise, I couldn't believe it. I was like, really, you want to buy it? Yes, sir. So this one is going to be different. I'm going to do different colors in the sky, kind of a different colors in this, trying to experiment with the color. People seem to like the composition, so I figured maybe if I change the color a little bit, I could do it again. Yeah, that's my idea. Oh yeah, that's what I'm planning to do.

Well, I mean, it's, you know, everything you learned, like almost like a study, like everything you learned from doing the last one, you can apply to this one and then also, you know, make whatever changes you want to.

Exactly, exactly. Uh, this one is, uh, one that I've started, and it's more or less how I would start something that is not so detailed and with the small lettering and all this kind of stuff. And so, uh I started out as a monochromatic painting or impervura, and then I'm able to, you know, start from there, get a rough idea of my values, how dark things are, how light things are. But this is nowhere near finished. It's just the beginning.

Sure.

Of how this is a Buffalo Soldier, right?

Awesome.

So Yes, that's what's on the thing in the studio right now. Yeah, so those things—

is that your— was that your easel there that that piece was that you're working on?

Yeah, this is my easel. I'm— I, uh, I want to get a bigger one because I want to work bigger paintings, but yeah, this is it for now. This is it for now. Right, I like those cans that you can just kind of move the whole, uh, painting up and down as you work on it. I really like that. So the— it's pretty expensive to get that kind of easel, but I think it'll be worth it as long as I keep selling these bad boys.

Yeah, awesome.

Yeah.

Um, so you, you also were juried into the Oil Painters of America exhibition this year, right?

Right, right. That was a piece called, uh, uh, With Roosevelt in Cuba in 1898, because I work with a historian by the name of Henry B. Crawford, and Mr. Crawford was the, uh, his— the curator of the Texas Tech museum. Oh, and so with— right, so he helped me with the cartridge belt that he was wearing, the hat, the colors, the scarf, all those little details to make sure that everything was right because he specializes in Buffalo Soldiers. So with that, uh, it really added a certain air of, uh, getting things right with him and had him in on the project. So if anybody asks me about things not being quite right, I direct them to Mr. Henry B. Crawford. I am not the historian. I'm just the bearer of the news. Don't kill the messenger.

You're the messenger, right?

Right.

Well, nonetheless, I think it's, I think it's great that you are, you know, finding these sources to, you know, verify the pieces of your work that you want to be accurate.

Yeah, I'm just so glad to be able to do this because I think about—

I've got 14 grandkids, George, and I think about a little bit, James, we're just— I'm sorry, looking straight up your nose for a second.

Looking into my chin, right? I was just thinking, but I wanted them to know their legacy with their grandfather and how it's been for cowboys of the West and trying to make sure that the women of the West, the Native Americans, Mexican Americans, all were part of that history and trying to reflect that in my painting. So Hopefully after I go away from here, that they'll know about some of their history and some of what happened in the past.

Yeah, I mean, that's so important, and I think that I'm glad that you are, you know, working so hard to tell that story, and that the story is starting to come— it's starting to come to light a little more these days than it has in the past, but It's, as you were saying, you know, like, it's still like so many underrepresented demographics in cowboy and western art, and it's nice to start to see a little bit more of varied representation in there.

I just hope that we can continue on the same vein in the future so that more people— I know that Mark Maggiore, I'm sure you've heard of him, that he's doing more Black cowboys now. I've seen several huge paintings that he's done and some sketches and so forth that he's doing vaqueros and Black cowboys. So yeah, it's important that everyone— they can see in the history of the United States what happened and stuff. So absolutely, I'm excited about that. And for the Pierce Museum to get involved with me in trying to portray this. I'm really excited about them and their— doing this.

Yeah, that's fantastic. Um, I see the little one down there that— maybe that's the third one that we've got in the New Western Talent, uh, where the guys crossing the river.

All right, let's get a shot of that one.

Yeah, and so That's another one, so sparkly.

Yeah, that's what I was shooting for with this one because you can't really show the light without having darkness, so I tried to make it dark so that the light of the water and the reflection and stuff would pop, and in my reference I didn't have that reflection in I wanted it there, and I was able to do that in Photoshop so that when I painted, I would know exactly where things were going, so that it was helpful with that aspect of it. So I put in the reflection and a couple of other things, changed some colors of it so the yellows would really pop. So it's— I wanted it to be colorful because I know that mixing the darker colors With the brighter, high chroma colors makes everything, you know, nice and bright. So I like that effect. So that's what I went with, with this small piece. It's only 9 by 12, it's a small piece, but it's good to go, ready to hang on the wall like it is right now.

There you go, yeah, it's a nice frame. And then, yeah, can we take another look at the other, the third piece in there with cowboys and the— Sunset.

Okay, yeah, I call that Chisholm Trail, 1857. It was the first year that the Chisholm Trail started, when they started driving the cattle up north to Kansas so they could get on the trains there and ship them east. And because of the— there were so many cattle in, you know, the the plains areas, that they weren't worth that much. But once you ship, you got the cattle to the eastern part of the United States, they wanted those steaks and stuff. Yeah, it became a lot more valuable the way that you could take cattle to the east. So I wanted to show that. Even got the little dog here to show how he is helping herd the cattle. Yeah, yeah, but they, they had dogs that really helped do that, and they would bark at the cattle and they would move because they didn't want to be around anything that disturbed their peace. So yeah, even though the dog is a lot smaller, they, they would run away from the dog. So if they wanted to, if they were steering off too far from the herd, the dog would bark at them and they'd get back in line.

So yeah.

All of that was going on.

Yeah, I, you know, growing up in like— I grew up in the mid-cities in between Dallas and Fort Worth and right next to Chisholm Park is what it was called. And so I was always like— I was always like, the idea of the Chisholm Trail was always like a big kind of like mythology in my brain when I was a kid.

That's awesome. Right, right. Yeah, we live near the Chisholm Trail. It's probably 3 miles from where we live, and so I've been able to go there and take some reference photographs, uh, to know how the Chisholm Trail looks and stuff. It's really, uh, this particular part is a lot more plainsy looking. It's a lot more wooded where we are here in Fort Worth, so, uh, It's further up. It's a long trail, so it's got a lot of dimension going through the states.

Yeah, well, very nice, very nice. Uh, I'm just blown away again. Like every year in New Western Talent, I find out about more artists that I had not known about that are just so talented, and I'm really grateful to have found out about your work, James, and the Thank you for showing us around your studio and telling us about your work.

Well, it's been a pleasure. I appreciate you, and I hope we can do this again lots more time.

Yeah, definitely. I hope we'll have to get together in person sometime.

Okay, that sounds like a plan. Cool. Yeah, I'm in West Fort Worth, right off of Camp Bowie West.

All right, I'm, I'm on the other side of town. I'm in the Dallas area, but I get over there sometimes.

Oh, okay. I didn't realize that. I thought you were in Fort Worth.

No, not right now. Okay. But yeah. Well, cool. Well, thank you so much, James. It's been a pleasure. Thank you everybody else who tuned in and commented and threw some questions in. And be sure to check out the close-ups of James's work in New Western Talent on western.gallery. And James, what's your— I guess your Instagram handle's right on here and your website is jameslovelessart.com.

That's the one.

So, uh, check it all out, and, uh, thanks again, and we'll see you next time.

Appreciate you. Thanks so much, George. Talk to you soon.

All right, James, thank you. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.