By Ruth Ann Ruiz
The Post Newspaper Features Editor
She’s a woman with a lot of grit, and she’s a woman with a lot of stories to tell. She’s the woman who has parked herself on Avenue S right next to Manuel’s Paint and Body Shop in Galveston.
Anne Allyn Lane parked herself there with all her art and determination to show that art changes everything.
Cars, pickups, vans, and other moving vehicles are parked and waiting to be serviced at the body shop. The body shop bustles with auto repair staff and the tools of auto repair work and now there is an art gallery next door which is bringing a change to the landscape.
Her artwork spans nearly four decades. She’s created art spaces for her work in places where she’s felt the call of the artist spirit to enrich her view of life and to develop a unique perspective to share with her clients.
Starting life off as a child with two parents who worked for the federal government in foreign affairs gave Anne Lane a unique perspective on life and gave her the grit and determination it would take to build her name as an artist.
With her first show at her island gallery in Galveston, Anne learned a tough lesson.
“I had this view of Texas as being all cowboys when I lived in New Orleans,” Lane shared.
She had it in her mind that she would paint cowboys and horses and that Texans would come purchase her work. Why shouldn’t they buy her work? She had a long list of clients stretching from New Mexico to Europe, along with many clients in Texas.
What she wasn’t counting on was the love of all things Galveston and coastal for the art buyers who purchase from Island artists.
Her very first showing, according to her reports, was well attended but financially a bit dismal. Thus, she has turned her brush to painting the sights she sees on the island.
“I’m calling my new series ‘Island Eyes,’” Lane says as she points to a white spoonbill on a pink background.
Adapting to the coastal community, Anne acquired a bicycle and goes out on daily exploration rides for sights to capture in her paintings.
“I was out exploring one day, and I was captivated with this spoonbill trying to balance on the tree. It looked so awkward I just knew I had to paint it,” she shared.
Her eyes lit up with glee as she talked about the time, she spent watching the spoonbill.
As she incorporates more of what Texans want, she is dipping her brushes into various shades of pink and letting the glow of fuchsia, rose, hot pink and other shades of pink take over her canvases.
“I had a customer whose wife liked my pink paintings,” Anne shared. “I asked him which one. He wasn’t sure, so he took all the ones I had.”
Shrimp boats are a favorite of many people visiting or relocating to Galveston, and Anne is filling that need with her pastel versions of the shrimp boats she spies on the horizon.
Her mermaids jump off the canvas with their long, ravishing red manes twirled into soft curls. One is positioned with Seawall Boulevard’s Pleasure Pier rising in the background.
“I was on one of my outings, and there was a young woman on the Seawall, Bulem, from Turkey. She was on one of those work visas and she asked me for directions,” Anne explained. “I asked her to come to the studio and be a model.”
“Bulem’s first job in Galveston was at Pleasure Pier, so I painted the amusement park into one of my mermaid paintings,” she added.
Lane began her exploration of art not in art school but as a student of philosophy in Ireland. From there she bounded back to the United States and began her career as an artist in New Mexico. Since then, she has created art and captivated clients in the United States, Europe and even as far away as Zambia.
Prior to being on Avenue S in Galveston, her most recent gallery was in the French Quarter of New Orleans.
Her current body of work reflects her time spent in NOLA, with some work featuring the people of that city and many other pieces showcasing the densely grown swamps from our neighbor to the East.
For her color palette, Anne chooses bright and vivid, “I like to feel happy I don’t like to feel sad, and I use colors that make people happy,” explained Anne.
To keep her own spirit from going down too low, she spends time enjoying music, she gets a lot of fresh air and meets as many people as she can squeeze into her daily schedule. Meeting people helps create the thousands of tales she has to tell and inspires her art.
Her earliest memories of art stem from her father who once imported artists’ prints from Spain and ran a frame shop in Washington D.C.
She proudly declares that her mom was her greatest influencer in building her own career as an artist. One sentiment her mother expressed repeatedly was, “I do believe that what you can do, you must do,” Anne shared.
“I am doing what I believe I can do,” Anne said.” I paint and create happiness. It’s kind of a calling, and I think my painting makes people feel better. If I can get up and do what I do well, then my life has a certain meaning.”
She lives the island lifestyle to its fullest, and at this point, she Is in no hurry to leave.
Her studio is about 35 yards away from her home, and she has been known to host a small gathering with live music in the courtyard of her home or to come out and enjoy an event other are hosting.
Refreshing her body of work with appealing pieces for Texas costal residents takes time, and Anne can’t afford any more of the mistakes she made with her cowboy series. But when all is said and done, she will claim to have done art her way.
“I’m an old school artist. I paint what interests me,” she proclaimed. “I paint boldly and with confidence and it gives me a wonderful sense of freedom.”
