Sioux City artist competes in Elvis art contest
By Joanne Fox Journal staff writer | Posted: Thursday, August 09, 2007
Sioux City artist Pat LeClair poses with the Elvis Presley painting she will enter in the Elvis Week Art Contest and Exhibit. LeClair has previously won ribbons for competing in the contest. (Staff photo by Jerry Mennenga)
Pat LeClair has a "hunka, hunka burnin' love" for one performer.
The Sioux City native has embraced that passion and translated it into creating portraits of Elvis Presley that have won international competitions. During Elvis Week festivities in Memphis, Tenn., she hopes to take home another award.
LeClair recalled she was 15 when The King first came on the music scene.
"All teens listen to the radio," she pointed out. "Things were no different in the '50s and '60s as opposed to today."
Well, a bit different, since before Elvis, LeClair said she listened to Perry Como, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. That phase was followed by Pat Boone, Paul Anka, Bobby Darin and Frankie Avalon.
"But when I heard Elvis on the radio, he really shook everything up inside me," she confessed. "I didn't have to see his movements; the movements were in his singing and electric lead guitar of Scotty Moore's and the rhythm of Bill Black's stand-up bass."
Even LeClair's husband, Lawrence "Pete" LeClair, is a huge Elvis fan.
"Pete was 17 when he saw Elvis in concert in 1956 at the Sioux City Auditorium," said Pat LeClair. "Me? My parents weren't going to let me go by myself."
LeClair had to settle for seeing Elvis on television on "The Ed Sullivan Show."
"Elvis wasn't a man with a huge chest and big muscles," she recalled. "He was just this tall, thin guy with skinny arms who moved with such grace and sensuality. Plus, he had the most beautiful face that I've ever seen on a man."
After Elvis died Aug. 16, 1977, LeClair decided to try to capture that face in a painting -- something that came quite easily.
"I've had a pencil in my hand since I was 3," she said with a grin. "My parents would bring home butcher paper from Cooper's Market and I would draw on them."
LeClair won art scholarships to the Sioux City Art Center all through school and ended up with a degree from the Washington School, Port Washington, N.Y., in 1975. She was also awarded a degree in 1984 from Western Iowa Tech Community College in graphic design and desktop publishing.
She took her training into her employment as a sign painter -- commercial signs and highway signs, truck lettering and neon signs -- from 1977 to 1991 and a graphic designer for catalogs and newspaper tabloids from 1994 to 2005, until her retirement from Information Publications in December 2005.
"About a year before my dad died in 1979, he commented to me that I had such artistic talent," LeClair said. "I told him I got it from him because Dad was very creative. 'No,' he replied. 'You surpassed me years ago.'"
During a visit in 2000 to Elvis Week festivities in Memphis, LeClair found out there was a contest that rewarded painters for creating portraits of Elvis. She entered the next year and took second place with a young, slim Elvis painted in a pink hue. In 2003, she entered again and placed third with a young, slim Elvis posed with a guitar in front of his Graceland home.
This year, LeClair -- a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother -- will submit a portrait of a young, slim Elvis looking a bit like a nautical James Dean, leaning on a motorcycle with a river behind him.
"It's a deliberate choice," LeClair said of recreating Elvis as a youthful, svelte man each time. "I prefer to picture him at the height of his career, not later, when he had problems. That's not the way I want to remember him."
Winners will be announced Saturday from among a field of about 100 participants. But LeClair won't be just cooling her heels waiting. She and Pete will serve as honor guards at a candlelight vigil that honors the Memphis celebrity. They previously served in this capacity in 2003, an honor arranged by the president of an Elvis fan club that Pat, 63, and Pete, 67, belong to.
"It's something we surely enjoy together," Pat LeClair said of the couple's interest in Elvis. "Pete loves to read and enjoys gathering as much information about Elvis that he can find."
Not to mention a love for the music.
"I love Elvis as a gospel singer, but my all-time favorite song of his is 'Any Way You Want Me,'" LeClair confessed. "It still gives me goosebumps when I hear it."
Are you, too, "all shook up?"
Elvis fan clubs can be found everywhere in the United States and around the world. Pat LeClair suggested these contacts for folks who want to still experience and reminisce about The King.
* Elvis Family and Friends Fan Club, Boone, Iowa, featuring Elvis impersonator Jamie Aaron Kelley.
www.jamieaaronkelley.com
* Elvis Heartland Fan Club, president Martha Huddleson, Glenwood, Iowa.
E-mail Elvisheartland@yahoogroups.com
* Elvis Presley Official Web site with information on Elvis Week activities.
www.elvis.com
* LeClair's Web site
http://www.longlines.com/~musicpal
The Sioux City native has embraced that passion and translated it into creating portraits of Elvis Presley that have won international competitions. During Elvis Week festivities in Memphis, Tenn., she hopes to take home another award.
LeClair recalled she was 15 when The King first came on the music scene.
"All teens listen to the radio," she pointed out. "Things were no different in the '50s and '60s as opposed to today."
Well, a bit different, since before Elvis, LeClair said she listened to Perry Como, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. That phase was followed by Pat Boone, Paul Anka, Bobby Darin and Frankie Avalon.
"But when I heard Elvis on the radio, he really shook everything up inside me," she confessed. "I didn't have to see his movements; the movements were in his singing and electric lead guitar of Scotty Moore's and the rhythm of Bill Black's stand-up bass."
Even LeClair's husband, Lawrence "Pete" LeClair, is a huge Elvis fan.
"Pete was 17 when he saw Elvis in concert in 1956 at the Sioux City Auditorium," said Pat LeClair. "Me? My parents weren't going to let me go by myself."
LeClair had to settle for seeing Elvis on television on "The Ed Sullivan Show."
"Elvis wasn't a man with a huge chest and big muscles," she recalled. "He was just this tall, thin guy with skinny arms who moved with such grace and sensuality. Plus, he had the most beautiful face that I've ever seen on a man."
After Elvis died Aug. 16, 1977, LeClair decided to try to capture that face in a painting -- something that came quite easily.
"I've had a pencil in my hand since I was 3," she said with a grin. "My parents would bring home butcher paper from Cooper's Market and I would draw on them."
LeClair won art scholarships to the Sioux City Art Center all through school and ended up with a degree from the Washington School, Port Washington, N.Y., in 1975. She was also awarded a degree in 1984 from Western Iowa Tech Community College in graphic design and desktop publishing.
She took her training into her employment as a sign painter -- commercial signs and highway signs, truck lettering and neon signs -- from 1977 to 1991 and a graphic designer for catalogs and newspaper tabloids from 1994 to 2005, until her retirement from Information Publications in December 2005.
"About a year before my dad died in 1979, he commented to me that I had such artistic talent," LeClair said. "I told him I got it from him because Dad was very creative. 'No,' he replied. 'You surpassed me years ago.'"
During a visit in 2000 to Elvis Week festivities in Memphis, LeClair found out there was a contest that rewarded painters for creating portraits of Elvis. She entered the next year and took second place with a young, slim Elvis painted in a pink hue. In 2003, she entered again and placed third with a young, slim Elvis posed with a guitar in front of his Graceland home.
This year, LeClair -- a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother -- will submit a portrait of a young, slim Elvis looking a bit like a nautical James Dean, leaning on a motorcycle with a river behind him.
"It's a deliberate choice," LeClair said of recreating Elvis as a youthful, svelte man each time. "I prefer to picture him at the height of his career, not later, when he had problems. That's not the way I want to remember him."
Winners will be announced Saturday from among a field of about 100 participants. But LeClair won't be just cooling her heels waiting. She and Pete will serve as honor guards at a candlelight vigil that honors the Memphis celebrity. They previously served in this capacity in 2003, an honor arranged by the president of an Elvis fan club that Pat, 63, and Pete, 67, belong to.
"It's something we surely enjoy together," Pat LeClair said of the couple's interest in Elvis. "Pete loves to read and enjoys gathering as much information about Elvis that he can find."
Not to mention a love for the music.
"I love Elvis as a gospel singer, but my all-time favorite song of his is 'Any Way You Want Me,'" LeClair confessed. "It still gives me goosebumps when I hear it."
Are you, too, "all shook up?"
Elvis fan clubs can be found everywhere in the United States and around the world. Pat LeClair suggested these contacts for folks who want to still experience and reminisce about The King.
* Elvis Family and Friends Fan Club, Boone, Iowa, featuring Elvis impersonator Jamie Aaron Kelley.
www.jamieaaronkelley.com
* Elvis Heartland Fan Club, president Martha Huddleson, Glenwood, Iowa.
E-mail Elvisheartland@yahoogroups.com
* Elvis Presley Official Web site with information on Elvis Week activities.
www.elvis.com
* LeClair's Web site
http://www.longlines.com/~musicpal
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LookinOut wrote on Aug 9, 2007 11:24 AM:
Pat LeClair wrote on Aug 9, 2007 8:31 AM: