Two new exhibitions at the Aiken Center for the Arts (ACA) include the work of local artist Jim Harrison.

"Jim Harrison: Glimpses of Aiken" and "Jim Harrison: A Retrospective" and a collection of 20 new Harrison paintings will open Thursday and run through May 8.

An opening reception will be held on Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the ACA. The reception serves as the kickoff for the second quarter of Celebrate Aiken events based on the theme of arts, education and entertainment.

For more information on the reception, call the ACA at 641-9094 or visit www.aikencenterforthearts.org.

The beginning

"When I was 14, I went to work for an elderly sign painter. I asked him about a summer job. I began scraping signs and painting backgrounds. He took a liking to me and taught me how to letter for the Denmark Coca-Cola Bottling Co.," Harrison said.

Harrison had an interest in drawing in high school and took art classes at the University of Carolina where he studied education. After college, Harrison became a teacher and a coach for 11 years. During the summers as a teacher, he began taking art classes in Allendale.

"Gradually, through Ms. Melon's encouragement and what I had learned, I decided to take a year off and see if I couldn't make it as an artist," said Harrison. "That would have been in the summer of 1969. I was an artist, and I didn't know what to do. I lived in Denmark and had never spoken with an artist who made their living from the sale of their work, but I was a little bit familiar with Greenwich sidewalk shows. I decided to go that fall to the Greenwich sidewalk sale. I got a space and I exhibited on the sidewalk. I sold one painting for $85.

"But I learned a lot. I learned about life on the sidewalk and what it would eventually take for me to be successful ... I realized that I had to learn to paint fast and small or lower priced.

"There was a guy there selling small paintings across from my space ... I asked him what was the secret and he said, 'well you got to be able to paint them first.' He'd paint oranges and apples on a dark background, but he said, 'You always must price things so it hurts you a little bit to sell them.' That was my beginning, that sidewalk show in New York. I would say that would be the beginning of my professional painting career."

The show in New York was a three-week show on the weekends. Harrison stayed in his travel trailer during the event. He never moved from Denmark but traveled the country.

"I learned there were shows like the one in New York going on all over the country, even in Aiken. The next show I went to was in Brunswick, Ga. A weekend show. I was there for maybe three days, and I sold maybe $200, but at least that was better than being in New York for three weeks and only selling one," said Harrison. "Gradually, I got into shows so that I was somewhere every weekend. But I was always back home during the weeks. I traveled the sidewalks from Miami, Fla., to Buffalo, N.Y. I did that for two or three years."

'Retrospective'

Even in the beginning, Harrison's art focused on Southern rural landscapes and the coast - a theme that is still strongly identified in his works today.

Harrison has been pulling out the artwork from the sidewalk days.

"I tried to save paintings from every period. Through the years I've saved a lot of paintings so I can show what I call now my sidewalk paintings. They have a different look but the subject matter is the same," he said. "This is the first retrospect and will probably be the only retrospect I do. It is quite appropriate for it to be in Aiken. Out of all the towns and everywhere I have exhibited and promoted, Aiken has been the best town for me through the years. And some significant things happened either in Aiken or as a result of knowing people from Aiken that were important."

"The retrospect goes back to some little sketches that my mother had that I did when I was 6. She saved those through the years and, from that point on, I have things that I did in college and while I was on the sidewalk. There are a number of paintings that show the progression over the years," Harrison said.

Sold in Aiken

"After I had been painting two or three years, a Mrs. Paxson - who had Paxson Stables in Aiken - called me in Denmark. She wanted to come look at my art. She came over and bought two paintings, the first two prints that I had done. She bought the originals, they were $3,000 apiece. That was the most I'd ever sold anything for at the time, and she paid me $500 a month for a year," said Harrison. "That was significant because I could live off of that. It relieved me of the sidewalk shows. I changed from doing 40 paintings a day for a sidewalk show to maybe working a couple of months on a painting."

'Glimpses'

As a part of the Celebrate Aiken's yearlong celebration, Harrison created a special exhibition called "Glimpses of Aiken." Among the collection is a painting that was printed as a poster with proceeds benefitting Celebrate Aiken. The entire collection was created in a loose style.

"The poster is done in what I call a compositional study style, it isn't as detailed as I normally do, but I've been doing paintings like that for years. It's a loose kind of painting, and then I take a carbon pencil and draw sometimes into the painting or around the paint.

"It has been said that this is a new style, but I've been doing it all along. I've never really shown them, I've sold some of them so it's more a using a style that I've been working on for years.

"Some of them are just a small glimpse, maybe of an azalea bush next to a gate. It's those small kinds of things. What I am trying to do is just capture some of the essence of Aiken. There will be some specific places. I painted the oak tree which is out in the middle of the race track which people have referred to as an icon in Aiken. So things like that, some of the gates, maybe a fountain, trees, Hitchcock Woods."

Coca-Cola

Over the years, Harrison's work has incorporated the Coca-Cola logo. He explains how the Coca-Cola connection began.

"I only painted Coca-Cola signs, it really had nothing to do with what I do now except that it whet my appetite and gave me a feeling for the trademark. I went to a sidewalk show, before there was a craze for all this Coca-Cola stuff, and I took a small canvas and painted it red and wrote Coca-Cola on it in the Coca-Cola script style. It was the first thing that sold at the sidewalk show, and so I did two or three more at the next show and they sold," said Harrison. "I realized there was a feeling for the Coca-Cola trademark and perhaps I should try and find a way to explore it.

"I continued to do that, and I did a print later on of a covered bridge with a Coca-Cola sign on it. I was familiar with people at the Coca-Cola Co. because I was selling some of my stuff to them. This print worked its way into the hands of the legal department of Coca-Cola and they wrote me. It was a friendly kind of confrontation. Coca-Cola people liked it but the Coca-Cola policy didn't, they wanted to protect their trademark, so I argued with them a little while and then, eventually, I realized it would be to my advantage to join them rather than fight them. They asked me if I wanted to be licensed, which means that we pay them a royalty with anything that we have produced with Coca-Cola on it.

Contact Rachel Johnson at rjohnson@aikenstandard.com.