Upbeat music plays…
“Hi, I’m Suzi Dailey and we’re here at the Marc Whitney Gallery in Laguna Beach. We’re gonna go inside and talk to Marc. So come on in. I’ll take you inside. So, Marc, I have so many clients that love your work and the people from out of town always ask me, ‘Why are there so many galleries in Laguna Beach?'” [Marc replies] “There are a lot of galleries in Laguna Beach because Laguna Beach is an art colony. It’s been an art colony for like 100 years. So, back in the 20s and the 30s artists would come up here. It was very isolated. They would set up their little studio and tourists would come down from Pasadena in the summer. They’d come down to Laguna with the families and they stayed here and they’d buy paintings – and they actually would visit the artist’s studio. It was so isolated there was no art dealers so you were dealing directly with the artists. Those artists are like famous artists now. Those guys who painted here in the 30s. I grew up here in the 60s. When I was a kid I was lucky enough to study with guys that were professional artists that were working in town.” [Suzi] “This place is loved from all over the world. I mean, we have people here from Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Asia.” [Marc] “It’s the international destinations…” [Suzi] “Well, it’s so neat that you set up your studio here and your artwork and you’re famous and you’re local, you know. You’re not a commodity that is…” [Marc] “Yeah, this is a very local thing. I grew up here. I went to art school here. I did study back in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Academy for a long time, but me and my wife came back here and we operate this gallery like a mom and pop shop, really. When you come in here to buy art you deal with my wife so you’re getting it straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. ” [Suzi] “Oh my gosh. Well I know you’re famous for these paintings over here, Unmade Beds and I love them and people in Laguna absolutely adore these paintings.” [Marc] “I tell people as a joke that I paint them because I’m tired or my mom made me make my bed so this has to be unmade… I painted beds that were made and they don’t have the same emotional content, you know, so…” [Suzi] “I love it and I love how your signature goes across the bottom.” [Marc] “Yeah, people get a kick out of that.” [Suzi] “It’s really gorgeous.” [Marc] “I’ve had people say, ‘you know you have drips here along the bottom. If you clean those up, I’ll buy the painting. It’s the signature, yeah.” [Suzi] “What was the very first painting that you did when you knew, ‘Oh my gosh, I am, I’m an artist.” [Marc] “You know, that’s an interesting question because when I went to art school I had older, you know the professor whatever saying, you know if you do this, and do this, you’ll become an artist. I always thought I was an artist. Even like back to very early ages, you know, four or five years old I knew I was an artist. That always kind of struck me like this guy telling me I’m not an artist, I know I’m an artist. So it’s weird. Yeah, I always had that feeling. I come from a family of artists. I come from a family of sculptors and musicians and national academicians and whatnot, so cuz I had that background my mom encouraged it when I was really young.” [Suzi] “How refreshing that your mom encouraged you, because so often you hear parents that discourage their kids from such a successful business.” [Marc chuckles] “It’s not easy…” [Suzi] “People love your work and they want to hang your work in their homes. It’s so amazing like when people are selling a home in Laguna Beach and they know that their home is going to be photographed, they actually want to put one of Marc’s paintings in their home just so they can show they have one of his paintings when their home is pictured in say dream magazines or private jet magazine, so it’s just such a compliment.” [Marc] “You know the little sketches I do are right here in Laguna like off Brook Street or sometimes I’ll go down to Doheny, you know down to Dana, where I can park my car on the beach. I just drive my car and go into the park, the state park, there is usually a picnic bench there, I haul my stuff there, sit down, paint. It’s real easy you know.” [Suzi] “That’s so cool to know that’s Doheny. I love that.” [Marc] “So I do little sketches, like, you saw the small sketches and I come to the studio and I use my memory of it to make the big paintings.” [Suzi] “I like how you’re capturing the light too because as we know the light changes on the ocean so much and you get these light and dark spots that are just so incredibly beautiful. Another type of painting Marc does are these incredible floral arrangements. I just love the colors in this one.” [Marc] “This is a ranunculus. They’re grown in north county San Diego. They only bloom for one month. The month of April. It’s a totally cool flower. I like it because it has, like, volume. It’s a beautiful flower and then they have hybrids now that have amazing things like the center is all bright green but what I do is, I paint from life. I set up those still lifes in April. I paint a lot of flowers. And then the best ones, the ones I think I can grow into larger paintings, I’ll make paintings of – this scale. It’s almost like so oversized it has sort of a pop art quality to it.” [Suzi] “Well, thank you so much for joining us today. It’s been such a pleasure and thank you for showing the gallery and teaching us about your art. It’s so magnificent. I’m Suzi Dailey with Dailey By the Sea and we’ll see you next week.”