ART TALKS at The Artistic Forum

Lon Mercier
Growing up on the tribal reservation of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, Oregonian Lon Mercier displayed a talent for art at an early age that was noticed and encouraged by his father who was the principal at the reservation grade school and artist himself. “My siblings would be drawing stick figures,” he says of his childhood interest in art, “but I always drew real people with real bodies.” Although grade school provided no arts program, Mercier says he continued to draw in his spare time, calling on his brother and sister, parents and other family members to act as models until they grew too tired to pose any longer. “I learned much about drawing thanks to them,” he recalls today.

Like so many other artists I have written about over the years Lon Mercier had an early inclination to draw, coupled with an almost intuitive sense that drawing was what he was meant to do. It was an interest that would stay with him throughout his life.
But for a young boy growing up on a tribal reservation in Oregon, pursuing artistic interests was only part of his life, a small part. As a member of a close family, his fortune and fate would be tied inextricably to the fortune and fate of his family – and in 1952 that fate involved a major change.

Six years after the tribe disbanded as a reservation in 1952, the Mercier family left the land from which they had family roots dating back to 1865. It was then that his great, great grandmother Martha Jane Sands was found hiding in a beaver dam and relocated to the reservation after her village at Rogue River was attacked and destroyed by soldiers.

©"Gull's View", 18"x12", egg tempera, Lon Mercier

©"Fourth of July", 16"x12", egg tempera, Lon Mercier

Although restored as a tribe by an act of congress in 1982, the disintegration of the tribe in the mid-fifties, and the need for work to sustain the family led the Merciers to relocate to a suburb outside Portland, and for Lon’s dad, to resume teaching. “Fortunately, my father was able to find a teaching job in Portland.”

While he continued to draw during grade school it was while attending Beaverton High School (1963-1967) that Mercier became exposed to art in the formal setting of a classroom. “I never really took art classes in grade school,” he says, “though I was drawing and painting on my own.” He even considered becoming a professional cartoonist. “I used to really love drawing Walt Disney Characters at that time and dreamed of becoming one of his cartoonists.”

High school changed all that. “In high school I began to take art courses and was exposed to many art forms,” he says. “Though I enjoyed sculpture and various crafts, it was always drawing and painting that I enjoyed the most,” focusing mostly on pencil, watercolor and oil. “All through school,” he notes, “I had various teachers encourage me to do art. It was just a natural thing for me to express myself through drawing and painting.”

In 1967 Mercier enrolled at Portland State University. While he continued to draw he says he also realized that if he wanted to eat, he needed a more practical and dependable career than was available to him as a budding artist. So, following his father’s lead, he worked for a degree in education. “I took art courses in college,” he says of that period, “though I was trying to be practical and work on a degree in education.” He eventually graduated, “still planning on doing art as an avocation. I figured I would always have my summers free to do art and that is pretty much what happened.”

“Though I never tried to be a professional artist at the time, many people expressed interest in my ability to draw and paint. I was often drawing or painting portraits for various friends and acquaintances.” Mercier remembers that his work was good enough at the time to earn him extra income and validate his part time interest. Painting, however, was more than just a means to an end; it was therapy. “I really enjoy the solitary nature of doing art,” he says. “Being alone in my studio and really focusing on an image can be very intense. Sometimes I lose track of time and find myself forgetting to eat and even move away from the easel. It is almost a Zen-like experience for me.”

©"Summer Roses", 13"x17", egg tempera, Lon Mercier

It was while attending college in the early seventies that Mercier became familiar with the works of Andrew Wyeth. “I was fascinated by his imagery and his use of light and shadow. When I found out his medium was egg tempera,” he says, “I decided to research his painting form.” As his fascination with the medium of egg tempera grew, and as his talents as an artist began to evidence itself in his work, his interest in teaching faded. “I became restless,” he says of the period. Inside there was a growing desire to devote full time to being an artist. Still cautious, however, he wasn’t quite ready to make the jump from educator to artist quite yet.

Between the seventies and eighties Mercier split his time between teaching days and painting evenings and weekends, picking up whatever knowledge he could along the way about his art. His first recognition as an artists came in 1984 when he entered a watercolor portrait in a local competition sponsored by the area art commission. “I was very surprised when I won the People’s Choice Award. It was the first time I thought that maybe what I painted would be of interest to other people. It really motivated me to continue.”

©"Island Light", 20"x16", egg tempera, Lon Mercier

Other than a year’s sabbatical in 1987 when he traveled to France to study French -- his father was half Native American half French -- Mercier immersed himself in perfecting his skills as an artists. “It was at that point in 1990 that I decided to forgo my full time job for a half time position in teaching.” Working in graphite first, painting portraits that were “inspired by the people I was raised with on the reservation” Mercier found a wealth of work and subject matter to retain his interest. It was in the second year of his new schedule that he made the switch to egg tempera. “I now had the time to really explore this beautiful, luminous medium.” With his teaching job consuming less of his time he delved deeper into developing and eventually mastering a technique of his own in tempera. “I had a chance to really try out egg tempera,” he says. “I began to gesso my own panels and mix my tempera paints from pure pigment and egg yolk. As I painted more and more, I began to refine my process.” As for his style and methods, he says, “someone else may not do things the way I do, but my method works for me.” Indeed, it has.

By 1992 his work began to show up at various art fares and festivals. It was during this period also that he began to make acquaintances with collectors with whom he could discuss his work. “Though doing art shows can be very demanding,” he says, “the contacts you make as an artist are invaluable.”

One of those contacts was a downtown Portland gallery owner who showed an interest in his work. He remained at that gallery for several years, until he and his partner opened, ran and eventually closed a gallery of his own – an exercise he found tiring and time consuming. It didn’t matter. His works were not only selling well, but his recognition as an artists grew. In 1994 he entered a national competition sponsored by The Artist’s Magazine and won First Place. In 1998 he entered another national competition sponsored by American Artist Magazine, and won First Place and the People’s Choice Award. Mercier says that over the years he has won numerous prizes and awards for his work, but finds

his greatest satisfaction in the reception his work receives from those who view and purchase it. “When you spend hours and hours sequestered in a small studio painting, it makes it all worthwhile when someone buys a painting or just tells me how much they like my work. It’s not about making money and becoming well known,” he says, “it’s about doing something meaningful with my life and producing the most beautiful work I can.”
Lon Mercier today works almost exclusively in egg tempera, a medium he has both mastered and continues to tweak. “I don’t know if I will ever say that I have finally reached my ultimate goal,” he says of his full time career and the long hours of work he puts into it, “As long as there are people and places out there that are new to me and spark that creative urge, I will always have plenty of new material to work with.”
His goal at this point in his life, he says is “to keep painting and try to make every image I produce my best.”

©"Texas Gray", 24"x18", egg tempera, Lon Mercier

Mercier is now represented by Winstanley-Roark Fine Arts gallery in Dennis, Massachusetts. To accommodate buyers in the East, he travels summers “to try to find interesting subject matter” along the East Coast. “We have great scenery out West, but there is so much history in the East.” Focusing mostly on landscapes and occasional portraits, Mercier’s work today is classic tempera: warm, detailed, gently luminous in the way only tempera can achieve, and evocative of special moments and places that inspired him and which he hopes will inspire others.