When artist Chad Harr joined the Wheat Ridge Art League in March and registered for the Carnation Festival Art Show, he had no thought of winning an award. But that’s just what happened. Much to his surprise, his oil painting “Grandpa’s Train” won Best of Show. “I whipped it out so quickly, I really wasn’t thinking about everything I was doing,” Harr said.
Harr’s fine art journey didn’t really kick in until three years ago, when his wife bought him a set of oil paints. “She wanted me to relax more because I’m kind of a type-A personality,” he said. “She likes to fish and I’m not the best person to fish with. In fact, I’m a horrible fishing person. So, I sit there and paint while she’s fishing.
“We went to the Carnation Festival last year—we had gone years before–and we walked the show with a friend that I went to college with, and he says, ‘You could do this, you could be in this.’ This year, my wife encouraged me to sign up and I said, ‘Okay, I’ll do it.’ That kind of gave me a goal.”
Harr joined the Wheat Ridge Art League and signed up for the art show in March. He’d only been dabbling in his spare time and had no finished paintings. “I basically painted everything for the show in about two and a half, three weeks,” Harr said.
One of those paintings was “Grandpa’s Train,” based on a 1930s black and white photograph of his grandfather, a conductor, standing by a passenger car hooked up to a locomotive. “I didn’t see a lot of detail, so I had to make it up, and instead of being a passenger car I changed it to a boxcar.”
There’s a lot to be said for not overthinking an art project. Harr put together everything he needed for the show in less than three weeks—he painted about a dozen paintings, framed them the night before opening day and built a wood display to show them on. That effort rewarded him with his prize.
In his youth, Harr studied graphic design at the Colorado Institute of Art for two years. “I had life drawing and painting classes but was more focused on graphic design,” he said. “I was not very good.
“The first place that hired me, right out of college, was an aerial photography company. If you were a real estate developer, somebody would take aerial photos shot out of a plane or a helicopter. I got a job doing that.”
From the back of a Cessna 206 with its doors removed, he’d sit on the floor and shoot out the side of the plane, using a vintage WWII camera that B-52 bombers used in bombing runs. “I never set out to do photography,” Harr said. “I was just kind of the guy who ended up shooting photos, you know, out of airplanes. I ended up being in the account management and sales department and wound up getting out of the art world.”
Eventually, his path led him to owning a graphic and signage installation business—Lakota Skye. “We don’t make anything. What we do is install graphics for companies. Albertson Group has 2,500 stores around the country. We pretty much manage the install work for them. We also do ADA and wayfinding signage.”
Harr says he’d always wanted to paint and now has a bit more time for it. “If I work off a photograph, it’s one I shot. I paint a lot of stuff in my head. We live right by Clear Creek,” he said, pointing out a rough sketch he made while walking there one day. He paints mainly with oils but often uses watercolor and gouache for sketches. “Awhile back, my wife and I were stuck in traffic near Fairplay, and right outside my window was the little town of Jefferson, so I sketched that.”
Harr likes his paintings to feel a bit mystical. “I want people to translate their own feelings into them, as well as the paintings being, you know, somewhat representational.”
Longtime Wheat Ridge residents, Harr and his wife founded Trunk or Treat about 15 years ago, with six or eight cars in front of what was the junior high, at 38th and High Ct. That event, now sponsored by Wheat Ridge Parks and Recreation, takes place this year at Anderson Park, October 26, 4-6pm, and is still going strong.
