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Show One fine line intersects another, interrupting the starkness of the blank sheet. Then color shadows into crevices and hollows that carve the flatness into life, the paper consuming paint from the brush like water into a terracotta pot.- The artist is unrecognizable to most, but the top-hatted dandy left near-breathing on the page is unmistakable: Fred Astaire. A little of the Big Apple seeds have been sown locally, with one of the frontrunners in the world of illustration planting his easel and airbrush air-brush in Park City. Kim Whitesides is a photo realist, a fact undeniably captured in Bob Dylan's defiant stare from the cover of Rolling Stone. And the pursed lips and sultry eyes in Linda Ronstadt's cheesecake cheese-cake portrait. Or the Cuckoo look of Jack Nicholson, cigarettes rolled tightly into the sleeve of his T-shirt. Time's frontpiece has sported sport-ed born-to-run Bruce Springsteen and Wolf man Jack has howled from the pages of Viva. Crest has chewed away at the decay market with his toothy ads and a United Airlines lift pass dangles from a zipper in Ski and Skiing. A home-grown Utah boy, Kim left Logan and headed to L.A., entranced- with the hobo called Dylan. ("I think I was the first person in Salt Lake City to buy a Dylan album that album sent me out of here to art school.") After three years, when everyone else was going to San Francisco, "I unquestionably unques-tionably went to New York." A disappointing year in a big ad agency found him closing his office door more I 'V A - often for the independence of freelance work. His first, for Ladies Home Journal, was the beginning of the domino effect. "Suddenly I was in the national media and it was a real bloodsweater," he recalled. re-called. Whitesides drew his way into the New York art scene, the art scene, in the late 60's, when there hadn't been any new illustrating talent for eight or nine years. He rode the cresting wave, splashing his talents on the likes of 7-Up, Coca-Cola, United Airlines, ITT, Bell Telephone and American Airlines. Then there was animated television ads for Wylers soft drinks and Chase Manhattan bank. "I didn't like doing T.V. animation after a certain stage it was out of my hands," Whitesides said. "The projects were too complicated, you had to meet everyone's wishes. I got turned off and said 'so long' even though the money was good." Though the paychecks were not as big as in advertising, the prestige drew Whitesides to illustrating for stories. There was Red Book and Ladies Home Journal, and then there was Rolling Stone, Oui, Penthouse, Playboy and Viva. How about the glamour and glitter of 5th Avenue, internationally inter-nationally known stars and seeing your name in print? "It's sort of a hermit kind of job," Whitesides confides. "It's usually only yourself and whoever commissions you. But I don't have to sit in on too many business meet ings. Oh sure, New York has so much excitement it has to rub off. But it hasn't been "Smuggling Plane" 'A ' y rjz- : v iff f Iv,;" s ' I ; Ia - that big an influence on me. It has been a great opportunity opportun-ity to go to the galleries, and my agent has an office that tends to be a watering hole for other illustrators." "But in the early '70s I thought I'd had enough. I kept a low profile and kind of dropped out. Then after a few years I thought, I've been in it ten years, so I might as well get in deeper. Last fall and winter was a real creative time for me and I did some nice stuff. It was kind of a resurgence." Whitesides said he never planned to be an illustrator, Kim Whitesides by Kim Whitesides "I fell into it backwards." "When I first went to New York I was doing women's magazines universal appeal ap-peal stuff. But I always wanted to be where the hip art was like Oui and Rolling Roll-ing Stone. I'm pretty much where I want to be right now." But his art went through many changes and plateaus before his brushwork became be-came cover material. Fresh out of a California art school, Whitesides described his technique as "sloppy, tex-tural tex-tural art, real montage." But his control over a pencil kept 'Suddenly I Was In The National Media And It WasA Real Bloodsweater9 him coming back to tight drawings. Then there was art nouveau, and the streamlined stream-lined look of the '40s art deco. He was into yellow submarine sub-marine art before the Beatles immortalized it. "But what's been consuming consum-ing me for the last three years is photo realism," the 37-year-old artist noted. "I got knocked out by the exhibits in New York in the early '70s. I still go to SoHo and see what's new in photo realism." An airbrush breathes life into Whitesides wispy im JffcDnlJ(BC ages, a technique where watercolors and water sol-uable sol-uable dyes are air-compressed to a fine mist. But the soft, focused effect he has pioneered starts first with a tight, precise line drawing. "Now photo realism is just about over," Whitesides said. "And now a looser, introverted expressionist technique is taking its place. It's less tied down, more spontaneous. Photo realism requires precise strokes and a lot of preparation." Whitesides' favorite client is Rolling Stone and he has f . V Joan Crawford....bigger than life done about fifteen pieces of art for them in the past eight years. His favorite illustration illustra-tion is the cover portrait of Bob Dylan, "a keystone in my life since high school." The artist did not sit with his subject, but selected from more than 2,000 photographs. photo-graphs. The end result is the unmistakable presence of the original vagabond, folk hero, idol, caught eternally in the microscopic paper pores. He just recently finished the portrait of Linda Ronstadt, using concert photos, for the record review page of Rolling Stone. "Since she has had a sexy image, I went for the World War II, Betty Grable pin-up. I had a photo of her and I did a tight line drawing. I finished it in two days and two nights." The upswept hairstyle may be Betty Grable's, but the over-the-shoulder glance and the long, high-heeled legs ending in ultra-fitting levis shorts is today's pin-up, Linda Ronstadt. - " "If it's a job I like, I push myself to the limit of my talents every time," the artist commented. "There are, of course, some bummers, but mostly that's because of of the people I have to deal with. I curse myself for taking on those jobs." How did a top name talent fresh from the big city end up in Park City? "When I was a kid in school it used to be a good run up to Park City to have a few drinks and have fun. I knew I wanted to live here sometime." some-time." But his art will continue through his agents in New York, San Francisco and Dallas, since "Utah is the worst place in the world to sell art. Everyone thinks they are an artist, and no one understands the art investment." invest-ment." From his home on Empire Avenue, he hopes to try his hand at oil painting for himself. And continue working work-ing for his other clients. He was feeling proud Wednesday Wednes-day a week ago. His agent had just called from New York to say a satellite-looking poster for rock station WPLJ was plastered all over the city. ("There's a big demand for outer space art right now.") Whitesides looks to Maxfield Parrish and Norman Rockwell for inspiration, in-spiration, and a warehouse to store his artwork. Like the 17 five-by-four-foot movie star portraits he did in 1974 just for the fun of it. Ida Lupino, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, all stand bigger than life, highly contrasted in black and white with metallic silver illumination. Whitesides is overseeing the construction of his new Park City home before joining his wife and children in New York for a few week's work. He has watched protectively pro-tectively over the building of his driveway, rollingly transformed trans-formed into a skateboard practice arena. "It's really severe you have to be ready before you go off the side of it," he grimmaced, rubbing his ace-bandaged ace-bandaged knee. He's got a new pair of skis and a new house and he's ready to settle back and enjoy the Park City life with the rest of us. His message to the aspiring illustrator? "I would advise everybody to stay out of it unless they have hermitic tendencies. But, if you have the urge...." |