Susan Sommer-Luarca, the official artist for the American Cancer Society's local Cattle Baron's Ball efforts and two Olympic games, traces her artistic roots to an unlikely place - her childhood dentist in Aurora.
"He had this tiny little office and this giant painting of a giraffe that was huge because its body filled the whole painting and its head was down on the ground eating the grass. I didn't care what he did - I was excited to go to the dentist to see the painting," she said.
She eventually took a crack at recreating the giraffe on taped-together pages of notebook paper, which she took to school with her. "It got destroyed," Sommer-Luarca said, but the experience wasn't a defeat.
Her passion for the arts, as well as growing up on a Billings horse ranch with her first art critic, her father, have inspired her paintings and murals, which include the well-known painting of wild horses adorning the back of Wehrenberg Theatres’ Campbell 16 Ciné on South Campbell Avenue.
Sommer-Luarca showcased two of her paintings this morning at Hilton Garden Inn as the featured guest for Springfield Business Journal's monthly 12 People You Need to Know series. One painting featured a horse from her childhood, while the other presented a horse she and her husband and manager, E.J. Luarca, own on their Rogersville farm.
The latter painting will be donated for auction at the 2012 Cattle Baron's Ball, scheduled Aug. 18 at the William H. Darr Agricultural Center. Susan Sommer-Luarca said the painting is valued at $20,000. Her highest-priced painting has sold for $35,000, Sommer-Luarca said, and she also generates revenues from royalties.
Sommer-Luarca, who turned down a job as an animator at Disney to work as a commissioned artist after attending college at Missouri State University, now operates her art gallery, Susan Sommer-Luarca Fine Art, with her husband in downtown Springfield.
"He keeps me going," Sommer-Luarca said, noting his handling of the business side of her work has led to larger projects than she could have taken on alone. "I couldn't do it at this level without him."
Though she already considered herself established in Springfield, her art gallery was the catalyst for even more, she said, pointing to former client Bass Pro Shops, which came asking for more work.
"Right about that time, they were starting to build Bass Pros all over the country, and they said, 'We need you,'" said Sommer-Luarca, who traveled the country with Bass Pro completing mural work and painting live.
Sommer-Luarca's gallery started out with about five paintings, and she said her body of work has grown to encompass about 500. "I opened a gallery, and things started happening," she said.
Sommer-Luarca was named the official artist for two Triple Crown horse races and Olympic games in Beijing and Vancouver, British Columbia, and in 2010, she became the second person to be asked to paint New York City’s Rockefeller Center Christmas tree live. Also in 2011, she was asked by NASA to paint live the last space shuttle launch of Discovery. Up next, she will be painting Derby winner I'll Have Another at the Preakness Stakes this weekend.[[In-content Ad]]
