Artist Geoffrey Lardiere: Making up all the rules

Art in Public Places By Ingrid Eulin

Artist Geoffrey Lardiere started his career using his creative talents as an art director/graphics designer for big-name clients at a Los Angeles advertising agency.

Ten years later, after a move to Tallahassee and three years of teaching at Florida State University, this Orange, N.J. man's artistic vision has changed. Using his imagination as an easel, aluminum and wood and his canvas and car paint on his brush, Lardiere is no longer solving marketing problems for corporations.

Now he does three-dimensional abstract sculptures and abstract oil paintings for the mind to interpret.

"I strongly believed I needed to make a living doing what God gave me the gift to do." Lardiere said.

But there's no remnants here from the free-love era. The 40-year-old Lardiere was never a starving artist.

"I achieved at a young age everything I wanted to do in advertising," he said. "I really didn't want to do that with my life anymore."

Contemporary art has always been his main interest, he said.

"I was always interested in contemporary art. In abstraction, you're making up all the rules," he said. "I always believed I was a fine artist. I am a painter/sculptor when you get down to it."

His most recent work for AT&T carried a price tag topping $100,000. Other corporate collections can be found from major companies, such as IBM Corporate Headquarters, Barnett Bank, American Express and Southern Bell, to name a few.

In November, Lardiere and his partner, Bill Selman, completed their third state contract for a masterpiece at the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind.

The other two are at the Florida A&M School of Architecture and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

"Bill and I are a team. He helps me and I help him," said Lardiere.

A glassblower by trade, Selman works hand-in-hand with Lardiere to finish the design. Selman is responsible for completing the engineering aspects and fabrication.

"I've always been involved in the process of building," said Selman who shares Lardiere's passion for art. "We don't want to do anything else with our lives."

"I love doing what I'm doing, but deep down it bothers me that only wealthy people can afford it," Lardiere said. "The truths that artists have discovered have to be shared with other people. These things end up being valuable and precious in a world that's hurting."

According to Lardiere, great artists have a certain element of innocence and naivete, sometimes to a fault. The need for mass appeal and appreciation can either keep them going or kill a budding career. But even though this need exists artists can continue to create for those who enjoy the beauty.

"I think all artists, deep down, would like everybody to like what they do," he said.

The ups and downs of the trade haven't affected the pace Lardiere strives to achieve. He churns out the projects simply by taking a new look at the old.

"The closer you are to quitting something, the closer you are to making it. I started taking my old works apart and putting them back together," Lardiere said. "I like to think I'm a great collagist."

His Birmingham Studies, a series of paintings begun 10 years ago when one of his daughters, Gia, was undergoing open heart surgery. This series of paintings led to his Evolving Forms approach of revamping the old works to inspire new ones. Though she is now deceased, her spirit is preserved through some of Lardiere's most spiritual works.

"They were literal visual prayers. Now those paintings are to remember her soul," he said.

Lardiere and his wife, Ann, now live in Tallahassee with their 9-year-old daughter, Brinley. Ann Lewis Lardiere, partner and administrator, works closely with Lardiere and has always been very supportive, he said.

For Lardiere the beauty of his works is not always for the artist. Once the piece is completed and put in place, the work is appreciated by the viewing audience. Satisfaction is having experienced it, according to Lardiere.

"It's a feeling that comes over you. You know there is nothing else you can do to a piece to improve it," he said. "It's all control versus spontaneity. The best works are a balance between the two."

Those aspiring artists born with the talent have a better chance at success than those who must learn, Lardiere said.

"Anytime you teach somebody something, you stop them from inventing it themselves," Lardiere said. "I'm not trying to make others like me."

This article appeared in Style Magazine, January 1991.

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