Sometimes artists have to step back for a moment to regain perspective. Vineyard painter Bill McLane had to step way back — all the way to California, actually, and for 15 years — before the artistic inspiration he found on the Vineyard regenerated itself. The hiatus ended this summer, when Mr. McLane, newly returned to the East Coast, opened a show of Vineyard work at the Edgartown Gallery.
Mr. McLane, who had been painting on the Vineyard since 1993, said he needed a different view when he moved to California all those years ago. As the years rolled on, though, he found himself missing his favorite subject matter back East. “Oysters, sailboats, farm equipment — those are the things I’m interested in,” Mr. McLane told The Times. “I want to paint the New England south coast. I want to get as much done as I can before I die.”
In part it was the history of the East Coast that drew Mr. McLane back; not just the ancient cliff faces and the dilapidated barns, but the stories behind each of them. It’s those stories Mr. McLane tries to capture in his paintings. “I love knowing a barn is 300 years old and trying to paint that. My paintings have a history, just like I do.”
Mr. McLane’s history as a painter started when he was a young boy, though he says he made a decision to stick with it seriously around the age of 16. “I don’t think many pursued art after a certain age; there wasn’t much room for artists in the system we were in,” Mr. McLane said. “I’m still trying to find out the place for artists in our culture. But as a child I just kept going. I don’t know if that’s a form of mental illness.”
Mr. McLane coped with some of that societal pushback by jumping the pond to Europe, where he studied the techniques of the old masters. Those techniques, along with those of his beloved American impressionists, can still be seen in Mr. McLane’s work.
“It’s not modern, what I do,” Mr. McLane said. “I paint traditionally; I’m not trying to innovate.” Over the years, Mr. McLane says his work has definitely evolved, though not in the stylistic way one might think. “I think I have more sensitivity now toward the things I’m painting, to the intangible qualities,” Mr. McLane said. “The thing about making a painting is if it’s good, it stands alone in its own time and space. That’s a wonderful thing for a painter to explore. It opens possibilities.”
Mr. McLane’s philosophy is an interesting one in a tourist location that lends itself to gimmicky art. “There are things I never got to paint, like Illumination Night, the lighthouses. How many thousands of times have they been painted? It’s not the lighthouses’ fault, it’s the way you approach it. You have to reinvent.”
Although there are certain subjects Mr. McLane has veered away from, he’s still managed to paint a lot of the Vineyard’s 100 square miles. “I like to paint where man meets nature,” McLane said, which explains his affinity for subjects like barns rising from a grassy field, or fences buried within a dune. “I like to use a limited palette and look for the contrast where geometric shapes leave the organic shapes. The opposites make the painting more dynamic.”
Thanks to his longtime friendship with renowned painter Allen Whiting, Mr. McLane says he has learned to seek out locations he never would have thought of, like the Coca-Cola River on Lambert’s Cove Beach. According to Mr. McLane, Mr. Whiting first took a liking to his work after a show at the Chickamoo Gallery in the late ’90s. The next day, Mr. McLane was walking to Owen Park when Mr. Whiting pulled up and asked if he could join. For several years after, the men painted together almost daily. Now, some of Mr. McLane’s most memorable artistic moments are painting with Mr. Whiting in extreme conditions: from below-zero weather in Menemsha to a hot North Shore fog in August.
Mr. Whiting was one of many artists in a pool of inspirational figures Mr. McLane has found on-Island. That intimate community was another factor that eventually drove him back East. “In Sacramento there was a larger community, but not as strong,” McLane said. “Here, it’s like cross-pollination. There’s a healthy mix of ideas, and it permeates.”
Mr. McLane says there have been a lot of changes since he first moved away: the roundabout, the renovations to the hospital, the drawbridge. But the artistic community, he says, has grown stronger: “I find it so incredible that there are young people who wish to be painters. It’s such a dinosaur trade, but I’m so excited that these young people are learning and carrying on the tradition.”
See Bill McLane’s work at the Edgartown Art Gallery,19 South Summer Street, Edgartown. The gallery is generally open daily from 11 am to 7 pm. For more information or an appointment, call 508-332-8336 or visit edgartownartgallery.com.
