City Art Works is hosting a display of Dale Farrington’s works during May where she has showcased a large variety of her acrylic and pastel paintings. According to her, she’s drawn most of her life, but didn’t get started painting until she moved to Florida later in her life.
“I started drawing stuff to go with poems I’ve written. ‘85 on through that I just did drawing,” said Farrington. “I’ve been a beauty operator, had my own shop and did all that. The first painting I ever painted was of my brother and his wife at their favorite restaurant, and I did it with the same stuff I painted peoples finger nails with, because I didn’t have enough money to buy any paints.”
The piece that made her decide to do art for a living was one of Houseboat Row before Hurricane George. After it struck, the piece held a sentimentality that led to all of her pieces of it being purchased.
“I got a divorce and moved to Florida, and I moved in onto a sailboat with a friend of mine and her husband. I started just painting stuff down there, and down there, there’s art in the street, art in this, art in that, so I set up a little booth,” said Farrington.
“I had painted Houseboat Row before Hurricane George. All of the houseboats were grandfathered in. Once Hurricane George came through they were gone, and I sold all of those for at least $300-400 a piece. And I just thought, ‘this is great I’m going to do this from now on.’”
Later on, the couple that owned the boat decided to sell it, and Farrington decided to move back closer to family in Bossier City. Since then she’s been selling pieces all over in cities like Longview, Dallas, Baton Rouge and, of course, Shreveport.
Some of her favorite pieces included two that were recreations of pieces by Lovis Corinth and Edouard Manet. “When they started teaching art, they would make you do these over and over and over until they couldn’t hardly tell the difference between their own work and yours,” said Farrington.
“I painted probably three or four times before I got it right. In the other, I painted the brushstrokes at least seven to nine times before I could get them right. To get the brush strokes to come out just right. If you can paint as good as they can, you can paint anything.”
The work of Dale Farrington will be on display until the end of May.