As an artistic soul, J.L. Summers has come full circle. After years of putting his talent to use as a professional sign painter and calligrapher, he has returned to an early passion for capturing people on paper.
Summers has encountered any number of interesting faces to study throughout his lifetime. In addition to commercial artist, the Columbus man has been art student, gospel singer, security guard and radio talk show host. His long-running show, “Summertime,” airs on WTWG AM 1050 Monday through Friday from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m.
The gentleman with a ready joke moved to Columbus in 1997 with his wife, Willie, a native of Macon. Summers was born in Arkansas and later moved to Michigan. That’s where he and Willie met, at church. They have been married since 1983. Willie understands her husband’s passion for art. While majoring in accounting she minored in art at Mississippi University for Women and paints every day to keep up her skills. She even understood when he decided to go back to school in 2010 for refresher art classes. He was in his early 60s.
“I had gotten away (from portraits) because I was doing nothing but signs and calligraphy, and I found out that you can’t hardly do everything at one time,” J.L. Summers chuckled. “I decided to revert back into a lot of that childhood desire that I had back then to do people’s pictures.”
As a student at East Mississippi Community College-Golden Triangle, Summers had elder status, something he came to appreciate.
“The kids were very kind,” he said. “It was amazing that kids would show that kind of interest in older people.”
Reinvention
Summers’ renewed commitment to portraiture came with renewed ideas about his medium of choice. Instead of the oil paints and watercolors he had used often in the past, the artist now elects to interpret most of his subjects in graphite pencil.
“Somehow or another in my mind, that black and white (contrast) was something old-fashioned, sort of nostalgic … I wanted to do something that would be so people would have something that looks old, but yet it’s a new drawing,” he said.
He prefers working from photographs, to circumvent long hours of sittings subjects would be required to go through otherwise. The artist is drawn to images of compelling figures when not busy doing commissioned work. They may range from Native American elders to a group of prisoners, as illustrated in accompanying photographs.
The faces unfold on paper, sometimes an eye first. Eyes and noses are often challenging features to get realistic.
“And teeth aren’t that easy,” Summers said. “You’ve got to really be patient. … And then there’s that forehead, with all the little wrinkles — it’s really fun to get into the life of a person through graphite.”
Many people will assume that working with oil, acrylics or watercolor is more difficult, but Summers has found graphite to be exacting.
“You’ve really got to know what you’re doing, how to handle your pencils; everything is handled very lightly,” he said.
His work isn’t limited to portraiture. Summers’ landscapes are some of his wife’s favorite pieces.
“I really love his landscapes,” said Willie Summers. “And we have a lot of his framed calligraphy works in the house.” When it was time to decorate their Columbus home, she remembers thinking, “I don’t have to go out and buy prints. I have the real thing.”
Summers enjoys bringing pleasure through his art, whether with a likeness of a grandchild, a picturesque scene or a passage in calligraphy, which he still does on commission.
Graphite pencil is almost a lost art, he said. He admires those artists who love to work with pencil, that have the ability to create art that almost looks like a black and white photograph. It inspires him. “It can become so beautiful, when you know what to take away and what to leave in.”
Editor’s note: Email reaches J.L. Summers at [email protected].
Jan Swoope is the Lifestyles Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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