A new artist will paint the Arkansas governor's official portrait for the first time in 35 years.
Gov. Mike Beebe and his wife, Ginger, picked Garland County artist Ovita Goolsby to paint the farewell portrait of the state's 45th governor, which will be hung in the governor's reception room at the state Capitol when a new governor takes office in January. The portraits of the five previous governors were all painted by the same artist, former Arkansan Nancy Harris, who now lives in Williamsburg, Va.
"Ginger chose the artist. She wanted an Arkansas artist," Beebe said Thursday. "I had been talking about the lady who had painted the ... bulk of the others, but Ginger really prevailed on me to choose an Arkansas artist."
He noted that his wife had tried to choose only in-state artists while decorating the Governor's Mansion.
Goolsby has been a portrait painter in Arkansas for the past 35 years, and teaches portraiture and life drawing at National Park Community College in Hot Springs.
"This is just, I won't say it's my swan song, but it's a highlight of my career," she said. "I'm the same age as the governor, 67. And we both grew up in small towns in Arkansas. I'm honored. It's a thrill to be chosen."
Goolsby, who lives in Royal, just outside of Hot Springs, has spent the past two weeks taking hundreds of photos of the governor to "build the portrait."
"He's been an incredibly good sport about all of it," the artist said. "The first session is for the pose. I ended up taking 154 shots of different poses. I digested that down to six or seven. He had originally talked about a standing pose, but in the end he chose a sitting pose."
Beebe joked Thursday that he was happy to have photos taken, because he doesn't have the patience to sit still for the hours it would take to paint the portrait. Goolsby, who teaches her students to paint from real life if possible, said the photos were the best solution to the governor's busy schedule.
After the pose was chosen, Goolsby came back with a specialized portrait camera to take more photos of Beebe's hands, his face and potential backgrounds. She will use composites of those to paint the portrait, which will take between three and four months to complete.
"There was this one smile I really wanted, a quiet, little smile he made toward the end of the photo session," Goolsby said. "I had been posing him and telling what to do for an hour, and he made this smile at me. ... He was looking at me and that smile said, 'Lady, you do know I'm the governor?'"
Goolsby laughed, "He was a really good sport. I told him I paint these to last 400 years. I just want it to be a wonderful painting."
Beebe ended up choosing the smile Goolsby favored for the portrait.
Goolsby said Thursday that she had measured all of the previous portraits so that the painting will be the same proportions -- which turns out to be a little larger than life-sized -- and she had the canvas stretched last week. She said she planned to start painting Beebe's portrait this week.
"Some painters can do this very quickly. They do these kind of loose portraits," Goolsby said. "But my style is to layer upon layer upon layer skin tones to get the most realistic and natural portrait."
Although dozens of portraits of past governors hang at the Old State House Museum and at the state Capitol, the paintings are not paid for with state funds. Friends, family and staff members often donate the funds to have the portraits made.
Goolsby declined to say what she's charging, but said she will be paid in three installments with checks made out from the Democratic Party of Arkansas.
Former Gov. Mike Huckabee got in trouble with the State Ethics Commission in 2006 when he listed his portrait as a gift from the artist, instead of revealing the people who had actually paid for it.
Beebe's portrait will likely be unveiled in November or December. The portrait will be hung on the east side of the governor's reception room, replacing Huckabee's portrait.
"Until 2000, governors' portraits were all hung in the governor's reception room," Capitol Historian David Ware wrote in an email. "As part of the restoration of that room in 2000, the portraits were distributed around the second-floor rotunda and the first floor. The last serving governor's portrait goes over the east fireplace; over the west fireplace hangs the image of George W. Donaghey, the first governor to serve in this building."
Ware said Huckabee's portrait will be moved to the second-floor rotunda of the Capitol. That's the building that houses most 20th-century governors' portraits.
Ware said portraits of governors who served when the Old State House was still in use are hung in that building for viewing.
Visitors to the state Capitol often stop and view the portraits in the first-floor hallway. The styles vary -- some standing in front of barren backgrounds, some seated behind elaborate desks, and others sitting in armchairs next to tables or unadorned walls.
There's one portrait that inevitably draws visitors in, that of former Gov. Bob Riley. He was an educator and two-term lieutenant governor who served as governor for 11 days in 1975 after Dale Bumpers left to serve in the U.S. Senate.
Riley is wearing a bright blue suit with cowboy boots peaking out from the cuffs of his pants. He's sitting in a rocking chair and leaning forward with an elbow on his knee. And a black eye patch is strung across his left eye.
Ware said the eyepatch was to cover a serious injury sustained in World War II.
"Riley was a storyteller of some fame; that eyepatch covering his blinded left eye was his trademark," Ware said. "He was an interim governor. But his friends were and are legion, and they commissioned a portrait for him as if he had served a full term or two."
While Beebe's portrait won't have an eyepatch, Goolsby is hoping it will also stop people in their tracks.
"He's a really popular governor, and people have liked him and what he's done for the state," she said. "I want this to be a beautiful portrait that shows that."
Metro on 07/07/2014