Nautical Notions: An artist Inspired by the Sea
As the song goes, “It’s summertime and the living is easy.” This time of year, our thoughts turn to talcum powder beaches, fishing trips, all day boating, and taking in seaside sunsets so dreamy that it is hard to imagine where the ocean ends and heaven begins. One Lacombe artist captures the essence of life by the sea so intimately, that you can almost imagine yourself sitting right there in the scenes she depicts. If you are nautically inclined, the waves of color will wash over your imagination and make you long for an escape by the sea.
A contemporary master of marine painting, internationally renowned Annie Strack paints primarily in watercolor. The lion’s share of her work comes from custom ordered commissioned paintings. She has been an official artist for the U.S. Coast Guard since 2000. “They request certain subjects that they would like me to paint, and sometimes send me on specific missions to gather references for my paintings,” she says. “I send them a painting each year, which goes on display in the Smithsonian’s Customs House Museum in lower Manhattan every June.” Strack’s paintings then go on a national tour for a year for exhibits at State dinners and patriotic events.
“I have always enjoyed art,” Strack says. “I finished all my graduation requirements for high school by the time I was 14, and then spent the rest of high school in an accelerated arts program for advanced students.” Strack took classes in life-drawing, still life, landscapes, illustration, portraits, oils, watercolor, pastels, collage, printing, framing, pottery, sculpture, casting, jewelry design and manufacturing. “You name it,” she says. Strack is best known for her seascapes and maritime paintings, “but I still do a lot of architectural renderings and landscapes, and an occasional portrait.”
Strack chairs or curates about half a dozen art shows annually, in addition to teaching workshops in painting, photography, and art marketing. She also volunteers with the Lacombe Summer Youth Camp. “Add to that my custom-ordered commission work and my monthly deadlines for Art Calendar magazine, and I occasionally get a chance to paint something for fun,” she says. Most of the paintings she does now are custom commissions. “I’m booked over a year in advance. I even schedule my time years in advance to paint entries for the juried shows,” she says.
Strack often paints from photos that she shoots from locations along the Mississippi River, and the north and south shores of Lake Pontchartrain. “I try to include the local landmarks in my paintings, such as the local bridges or lighthouses, or sometimes other background elements such as the tall pines of the north shore,” she says.
“Southeast Louisiana is a perfect location for gathering reference materials for my work. The lake provides me with subjects for paintings of sailboats and other recreational subjects; the river is an endless supply of tranquil beach scenery. For a maritime painter, living here is like hitting the trifecta. Everything I need for my inspiration is right here within a short reach, and I don’t need to travel anywhere else. People here have a great knowledge and appreciation for maritime painting.”
Strack’s seascapes are very traditional, realistic, and detailed. “My abstract paintings are completely different from my maritime paintings,” she says. “In the abstracts, I release the extra colors and broad brushstrokes that I can’t fit into my traditional paintings. They are my freedom paintings, where I have the freedom to work out the rest of my inspirations.” While working in watercolor, Strack often manipulates the paint by lifting off layers, scratching or scraping through them, and sanding with sandpaper “to get the results I want.”
Although passionate about her work, Strack was not always an artist by profession. Originally from Naples, Florida, she worked as a seasonal wildfire fighter, for the Florida Fish and Game Commission, as a banquet manager at a resort, as an overseas buyer in Asia, and as an assistant manager of a large jewelry store in California. “There was a big, nasty robbery with scary men and large guns, and I decided to change careers again and become a full-time artist. So you could say, someone had to put a gun to my head to get me to be an artist!” she exclaims. Strack moved to the New Orleans warehouse district in 1999 with her husband, Brian, until they found the perfect home in Lacombe. “I love Lacombe. It is geographically convenient to everything, it is quiet, and everyone is neighborly.”
Strack uses the summer to “catch up” on painting custom ordered commissions and finishing paintings for juried shows, but the first two weeks of June she spends helping the local youth at an art camp in Lacombe. “I will also be exhibiting a judged show at the St. Bernard Courthouse on June 22.” Her work has been published in numerous magazines, including Art Calendar, Wooden Boat, Harmon Homes, Inside Northside, Country Roads, House and Home, Gulf Coast Arts Review, and Gallery Insider. Strack’s paintings have received over 100 awards, and her art is in the collections of the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Senate, the Fredonia Museum of Art, the Zigler Museum of Art, the Lake Pontchartrain Maritime Museum, the Jefferson Parish Courthouse, the St. Tammany Parish Public Art Collection, the New Orleans World Trade Center, and many more. ✦
