In partnership with Chapel Hill’s FRANK Gallery, Canvas will take a behind-the-scenes look at artists from various disciplines over the spring semester.
In this second installment of the series, staff writer Nat Zhai met with artist Carroll Lassiter to discuss the life, loves, career and craft of a painter and sketch artist.
The Social Security office in Durham was packed with people.
A woman with shoulder-length white hair and a pair of glasses perched on her nose sat among the many awaiting their turn. But she wasn’t staring into space or fiddling with her phone — her pen was flying across a sketch pad as she replicated the scene on a blank paper.
Usually, she would also fill it in with a travel-size watercolor kit she carries in her bag. But she might leave this one for later.
Carroll Lassiter is a member artist at arts collective FRANK Gallery. She paints rural landscapes, desserts and she sketches anything that catches her eye.
This includes sketches of her son fishing and images of New Hope Creek, to scenes like the one from the Social Security office that she sketches to kill time.
“I’ve got lots of sketch books since the last 30 years,” Lassiter said. “I sketch whatever is out there.”
Lassiter is a full-time artist. It might mean doing art is her only occupation, but it can also show a way of life, where making and noticing art in daily life becomes a habit.
Lassiter keeps several sketchbooks around her house that she can just pick up and draw whenever. She buys desserts, paints them in a series called “Good enough to eat,” and eats them.
“Drawing is like practicing a sport or a musical instrument that you have to keep handy and practice,” Lassiter said.
She also stops her car by the roadside to capture a photograph when she finds the passing scenery fascinating. Unless, of course, she’s short of time — then she just snaps the photograph when she’s driving.
The photographs then turn into oil paintings of rural landscapes, especially of those between Chapel Hill and her hometown Edenton, North Carolina, where she visits monthly.
“Those trips of seeing the landscape through all seasons and different kinds of lights, it’s just seeing something that is so familiar and rooted that I’m interested in it over and over again,” Lassiter said. “I’ve painted the same scenes five to ten times.”
She has been painting rural landscapes of blue skies, white clouds, vast fields and farm buildings for 20 years — and she plans to continue this project.
“I paint things that are beautiful or entertaining to me,” Lassiter said. “I want the viewer to feel the same way I felt when I was standing on the field.”
The sceneries in Edenton also hold special meaning for her. It gave her a childhood full of freedom, as she would cycle around town through creeks and vast plantations, visiting friends and family members whenever.
“I haven’t ever felt disconnected from the person I was when I was five,” Lassiter said. “Painting your childhood, for a lot of artists, you can find that joy, that sort of uncomplicated five-year-old experience.”
Her main income comes from selling her paintings. Lassiter is currently only represented by FRANK, where she is one of the member artists. Her other commitments include attending classes and leading tours in the Ackland Art Museum as well as planning for the annual Orange County Artists Guild Open Studio Tour.
The price of her paintings range from $100 to $5,000, depending on the size. The sum she earns is not enough to support herself — but she said she has a husband who supports her work.
Thirty years ago, her husband built her an art studio right by their house.
“This year he gave me a really nice heater,” she said. “Married life has been pretty good — I like it.”
Every day, Lassiter works in her studio for two to three hours. She produces about 15 paintings every year.
“I’m a master procrastinator and I always think I’ve got a whole day,” she said. “But I always consistently go back to the studio at three o’clock in the afternoon.”
Painting is Lassiter’s passion, one that she has known since she was a child. Being an artist is what she has always been doing. But to create art is not enough — an artist has to also sell the art.
That is Lassiter’s least favorite part of being an artist.
“I’d like for someone to just come in once a week and buy a painting, but it doesn’t happen like that for me,” she said. “If I’ve got one gallery, I’m satisfied.”
arts@dailytarheel.com
To get the day's news and headlines in your inbox each morning, sign up for our email newsletters.
