Washington Governor Jay Inslee will leave office in mid-January, but his presence will remain in the governor’s office. His official portrait, created by Spokane native Grace Flott, will be hung in early January. Flott spoke with SPR’s Doug Nadvornick about the project for our “Inland Journal” program.
Grace Flott: “I love painting portraits. I love painting people who are inspiring and usually that’s folks that I already know or have a more personal connection to or they might be referred as a client. I’ve lived in Washington since I was four years old, so it felt like a natural fit. I grew up in a very civically-engaged family in Spokane. Both of my parents were city of Spokane public employees. My father was the urban forester for the city of Spokane. My mom worked at the East Side branch library. She was the manager of the public library branch. It just felt very fitting to get to work with the governor, someone who is a public servant.”
Doug: “Flott won a public competition for the job. She was chosen by the governor and his wife to do the painting.”
Doug: “So when you think about doing a portrait of a certain person, how do you approach that?”
Grace Flott: “It’s only a painting so it’s not as if we’re capturing every aspect of that human, but I want there to be a core element that feels recognizable to them. That is the element that can really connect them to others. So it’s a conversation. We talk about, and I talked with the governor, what are you proud of? What are you hoping to convey? What is the mood and the message that you would like to put out there? And then it’s different studies. We’re putting together a concept idea. It’s a lot of back and forth. It’s getting to know that person, getting to know their like. This portrait is an official portrait, so it is something that is more formal. But I can say that this one is quite different than all the others in the collection so far.”
Doug: “So does the governor get a veto on this, as he would with legislation? Does he get a veto over his portrait?”
Grace Flott: “The governor always has veto power. Yes. He can veto it, but he knows what he’s getting at this point.”
Doug: “A lot of what we see about paintings is what we see on TV, where you’ve got the artist and the subject is sitting in front of him or her or someone is working off of a photograph. How does this work for you?”
Grace Flott: “I was trained to work observationally and that’s my preference. The governor’s a busy guy, so we did a photo shoot and the way I work from photos is I take, obviously, several, but making sure I’m getting all the different angles. The final painting ends up being a composition of a couple of main references with the added help of seeing, having spent time with him, but then also having references for all the different angles.”
Doug: “Have you felt more pressure doing this painting than any other painting you’ve done?”
Grace Flott: “I wouldn’t say the actual painting is more pressure. I think it’s been a lot of me pretending it’s totally normal to hang out with the gov. So I felt a little bit of pressure in the beginning. Obviously, it’s just like I had never met him. It’s a big deal to be working with someone who is so public. He’s really easy to talk to. He’s very down to earth. I feel really lucky in that he really is just like anybody else.”
Doug: “The nuts and bolts. Is the painting done and if not, when does it have to be done. When do you have to put it front of her and say, ‘Ok, here it is.’”
Grace Flott: “The unveiling is scheduled for January so I work backwards from that. Right now the painting is essentially done. We’re waiting for final comments and then, nuts and bolts, it’s got to be dry. It’s got to be varnished, framed and delivered in the next month, in December.”
Doug: “Are you happy with it the way it looks now?”
Grace Flott: “I’m happy with it. Yeah, it looks good.”
