more on CHRIS McHENRY

WHAT ELSE DO YOU LIKE PAINTING?

Places I am extremely familiar with that have a universal appeal — in a way that appeals to others who aren’t familiar with the spot. For example, I did a painting of the west side of the lake and someone told me it looked like a scene from their vacation home in Michigan. With something like that, I feel I’ve accomplished my goal. I try not to make the work look generic though — I don’t want to lose the specifics that make a place look real. The Turtle Creek area has a similar sense of scale (to White Rock Lake) with the natural and urban juxtaposition. You even feel that Downtown when you see an old turn of the century building next to new, enormous skyscrapers.

YOU MENTIONED PAINTING BILLBOARDS — WHAT WAS THAT LIKE?

I went to school in New Orleans, and I worked in a shipyard and saw these guys painting billboards, and thought it looked fun. At the time, yes, we actually climbed up and painted the billboards. Some of them were high, and the job could get amazingly scary. When I was in my 20s, I had a job painting a cigarette ad on a billboard that was about 100 feet up in the air. When billboards are that high, they sway in the wind and it was windy the entire time we were on that job [5-6 long days].

THEN YOU DECIDED LANDSCAPES WERE SAFER?

Yes, but it took some time before I was able to quit my day job. The first show I did lasted a month, and I did not sell a single painting. But a dealer went on to show them to clients. In the next few weeks, she sold all four of my paintings — three of them to Roger Staubach. When I actually met Staubach a few years ago, I introduced myself and I told him that when he bought those paintings, I quit my day job. He responded, “How’s that working?”

DO YOU ACTUALLY SET UP AT THE SCENE TO PAINT?

I do some paintings on location, others I set up and paint for color combinations. Many famous artists have painted scenes of places that weren’t famous or remarkable at the time they were painted, but after they were painted, they became well known. That is one of the things I keep in mind when painting Dallas and our neighborhoods.

—CHRISTINA HUGHES BABB