This festival is his favorite
Artist returns for 48th year to Mystic event
Out of the 230-plus artists who will be coming to the Mystic Outdoor Art Festival this weekend, artist Lloyd Garrison is perhaps one of the few that can confidently state that he has been coming to the festival for nearly 50 of its 60 years. This year, in fact, will be his 48th.
Garrison will be driving from his home state of New Jersey, bringing with him dozens of oil paintings depicting a wide range of subject matter, from portraits, gardens and landscapes to various moments in American history.
And this year, like every year past, Garrison will sit in the same spot in downtown Mystic — under a large cherry tree, in front of the Frontier Communications building, almost across from St. Patrick’s Church on East Main Street.
His reasoning for coming back so many times is simple, he says: out of the eight festivals he attends on a yearly basis (he used to go to upwards of 15 annually), the Mystic Outdoor Art Festival is easily one of his favorites.
It probably doesn’t hurt that, at this festival, he happens to have a loyal group of followers who come from all over the region to buy his art. It also probably doesn’t hurt that he has typically been well received by the festival jury, which, in 2015, named Garrison best in show. And the Mystic Art Festival is the only place where Garrison was once able to sell over 75 pieces over the course of one weekend, back in the 1970s.
All that aside, the Mystic Outdoor Art Festival has continued to remain one of his favorite festivals for one reason in particular: the people.
“The people who come to that festival are always so knowledgeable in history, and they like to have conversations with me about the subjects depicted in my art,” Garrison says. “I don’t find this as often when I’m showing in New Jersey, for example. Maybe it’s the fact that their families have spanned generations in the United States, but it’s clear that history is a fascination for people in New England, and to appreciate many of my paintings, you will need to understand American history.”
Garrison’s art is often historical in nature, depicting landmark American events such as scenes from the Civil War or pre-revolutionary Boston. But he also likes to diverge from the history of centuries past. His favorite scenes to paint, he says, are of Halloween nights in the 1960s. In those paintings, costumed children walk around neighborhoods at dusk as old-fashioned Chevys drive past.
“I love these Halloween scenes the most because I love the nostalgia and growing up in the ‘60s — it’s really a fun period to paint,” he says.
Garrison is also known for his paintings of historic ships and nautical scenes. One that he has been finishing depicts an enemy British ship coming into Boston during the Revolution. Garrison’s paintings are detail-oriented. For him, the process of creating a painting usually includes a lengthy period of historical research.
“I go to libraries and use books from my personal library and even those from the Mystic Seaport. Laid across my table right now are photographs that show what the stern section of a British ship of the line looks like, for example, and the uniforms of the 29th Grenadiers — the British soldiers who marched up to Bunker Hill,” he says. “I really put in a lot of research to make sure that each painting is historically accurate.”
Garrison, who is now 73, will be coming to the festival this year from his hometown of Millstone, N.J. — the state where he grew up and where he began his career as a professional artist after opening his first art studio in Rahway in 1966.
From an early age, Garrison knew that he had a talent for art. He started drawing when he was about 6 years old and completed his first oil painting as a gift to his mother when he was 12.
“It was an easy way to get through grammar school,” he says. “The teachers always liked us doing little drawings for them.”
Once completing high school, Garrison joined the Army in 1962, but he jokes that he missed a portion of his basic training at Fort Dix because the sergeants and officers decided to utilize his talents as an artist rather than as a soldier.
“They had me paint pieces of various historical American moments for the dining rooms of several commanding officers,” he says. “They eventually rewarded my efforts through a promotion to corporal, something that I am very proud of.”
After leaving the Army in 1965 and opening his own gallery with his wife in Rahway, Garrison was forced to either sink or swim while supporting his family through art.
“When you don’t have any help, you have no back door, so you better make it work,” he says. “I think that’s why I created such a variety of paintings to sell in order to survive.”
So it was during that time that Garrison discovered that attending various art festivals was another way to receive recognition and make money — and Mystic, he says, has always been a place that has given him a lot of
support.
“I’ve truly been very lucky. Mystic is one of the places that truly appreciates the type of work that I do,” he says. “And it’s one of those places where people like to engage in conversation with me about the moments in history that I have painted.
“There was a man that came up to me after looking at my painting of the raising of the flag in Iwo Jima, and he simply just told me that he was a veteran who was there for that battle. I turned for just a second to take care of something else, and, when I turned to talk to him again, he was gone. I wish we could have spoken more,” Garrison says.
But it’s these type of interactions that thrill Garrison.
“I always love it when people are able to talk with me about my art. That’s the best feeling, and in Mystic that happens a lot,” he says.
“For me, being able to create something that someone else puts on their wall and enjoys seeing every day is what makes it all worth it to me. How often can someone claim that their creations bring joy into people’s lives?”