Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009

Students learn airbrush artistry

BLAIR — The postmaster of this crossroads community was surprised to find out about Fairfield County’s new art school, but quick to note its location.

“Out in the middle of nowhere,” Darlene Smalls observed from behind her tidy counter.

Turns out the remote location is part of the attraction, as people travel to Blair from all over creation, seeking out the secrets of airbrush art, an unconventional art form.

Last week, 15 students arrived from Indiana, Utah and New Jersey, not to mention Australia, Sweden and Canada, for a five-day class in photo-realism — painting “illusions of reality” that don’t exist, that a camera cannot create.

Dru Blair paints with an instrument the size and shape of a ballpoint pen. By controlling the air pressure, he can apply acrylic paint as thin as a wisp of hair or wide as a magazine cover.

His students include graphic artists and people who customize cars and motorcycles for a living.

Many, though, are folks who paint for enjoyment.

“We’re being trained by possibly the best airbrush artist,” said Bruce Kass, 64 and retired from Boeing.

Five years ago, Blair was living in Wake Forest, N.C., where he started teaching classes in airbrush art in 1997.

On a visit home, he felt the pull to relocate to his ancestral home in this small community between Winnsboro and Newberry.

He could be closer to his 80-year-old father.

He could simplify his life.

“The stars are incredibly bright at night,” he said, looking out over endless hills scented with pine.

He and his wife opened the school in January, after purchasing a historic plantation home, along with 100 acres of woodlands and two buildings with a total of 16 suites. The dorm-style buildings allow students to work late into the night — or until Blair shuts down the studio at midnight or so.

“It’s very peaceful. No distractions,” said Ken Czyzyk, 44, a firefighter from Scranton, Pa.,, who paints keepsake portraits of homes on the side.

At the upper dorm, Blair’s wife, Cris, serves three meals a day. Breakfast always includes grits for local flavor.

“As soon as you get here, all the stress goes away,” Cris Blair said. “If you forget something at the grocery store, it’s like, ‘Oh, well; we won’t have that for dinner.’”

Her social life is richer than it ever was in Wake Forest, she said, because neighbors and family gather often for meals.

A dozen people live in Blair proper, including the county sheriff. It has a community library where people can check out books on the honor system and an antique store that is only open the last weekend of each month.

When the art school relocated to Blair, it boosted the population by six — Dru and Cris Blair, their teenager Samantha, and the school’s three employees.

Dru Blair was introduced to the airbrush in 1981, after graduating from Furman with an art degree. He took a summer job in Myrtle Beach, painting names and sunsets on souvenir T-shirts.

He immediately enrolled in the masters program at the University of South Carolina, noting he got a “C” in painting. His professor was interested in abstract expressionism, he said, while “I was painting something that looked like something.”

“There’s a 6-year-old boy that’s still inside of me who thinks airplanes and trains and spaceships are really cool. I love cars, too.”

Blair got his big break in 1989. He photographed a model of a fighter plane, re-creating it with his airbrush as the centerpiece of an image he called “Power.”

In it, the plane swoops so close to the surface of a mountain lake that a spray of water flares behind. Blair said the fantasy image, which appeared on the cover of Air Force Magazine, prompted a general to send out a memo reminding pilots they could not fly dangerously low merely for photo shoots.

Similarly, a 2005 portrait of a Brazilian model named Tica ignited an Internet debate about its authenticity.

“A lot of people saw it and said, ‘I can’t believe that’s airbrush,’” said Blair’s personal assistant, Melanie Alexander.

While she said it wasn’t meant to be advertising, it crystalized Blair’s reputation among the country’s small circle of professional airbrush artists.

Many of Blair’s students said they heard about the Blair school through the “Tica” controversy.

As the psychedelic rock band Pink Floyd played in the studio, Blair encouraged his students to seek out nuances.

“Airbrush is a very subtle instrument,” he said, “and nature, around us, is a very subtle place.”

Reach Hinshaw at (803) 771-8641.

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