Article published - Apr 29, 2006

A brush with fame: Sebastopol artist creates official portrait of Hillary Clinton

By PAUL PAYNE

THE SANTA ROSA PRESS DEMOCRAT

A new portrait of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton hanging in the Smithsonian Institution was painted by Sebastopol artist Ginny Stanford, who endured a winter storm that made her ill and forced her from her studio - an ordeal that shaped her work.

"I thought I knew what the painting was going to be," said Stanford, whose portrait of the former first lady was unveiled Monday at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. "The storm sort of wiped that out."

In January, as rain pelted the North Coast, Stanford, 55, was sketching a canvas at her Bloomfield Road home when she was overcome by allergies caused by mold. The condition forced her to put down her brush for nearly a month.

Doctors told her to move, so she packed what she needed to finish the job and set up temporary shop near Freestone.

When she returned to the portrait, her vision had changed. Rather than a three-quarter-length profile that showed Clinton's hands, she painted a half-length. The background, where she once considered painting traditional architectural flourishes, became a simple dark brown. Clinton's dress took on a different shade of yellow.

"People at the unveiling said the painting was powerful," Stanford said. "I think part of that was everything I had to go through to get it done."

Stanford interviewed at the White House for the job in 1998 after Clinton saw her portrait of the late writer M.F.K. Fisher, which also hangs at the national gallery. She was selected in 2001. She would not say how much she was paid, and the museum declined to disclose what the Clinton portrait cost, according to the Washington Post.

Stanford's work also includes illustrations for book covers by novelists Anne Lamott, Ellen Gilchrist and Evan Connell.

Her Clinton portrait took three meetings over five years - one in Washington, another in Bolinas and a third at Clinton's Chappaqua, N.Y., home - where Stanford discussed her concept and took hundreds of photographs that she would later use to make the painting.

She settled on a profile shot taken at their meeting in New York in November.

"There was something that just clicked," she said. "I said, 'That's the one.' There was really strong energy in that pose."

Stanford found Clinton "very nice, very down-to-earth and funny."

She met Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, and mother, Dorothy Rodham, but wasn't introduced to former President Bill Clinton until Monday.

She said Hillary Clinton was "petite but gives off a big aura."

"She was really much more beautiful than her pictures," Stanford said. "I couldn't get over how pretty she was. She had a beautiful complexion."

Stanford began work in December on the portrait, which has been described as borrowing heavily from 14th-century Italian art. Before she got far, storms hit. A leaking roof allowed water to get into her walls of her home and, soon, mold grew. A month later, she was moving to a new location and facing a tough deadline - April 1.

Even as her concept for the painting was changing, Stanford said she had trouble concentrating.

"I spent days and days and days trying to mix yellow to paint her suit," Stanford said. "I changed the color of the background to dark brown. It wasn't going to be that dark before."

Before long, Stanford realized she would miss the deadline. She told Washington she wanted to quit.

"The clock was ticking and they wanted that painting," Stanford said. "And I just couldn't see how I could do it. I actually told them that. They sort of didn't accept my resignation."

Instead, they gave Stanford a new deadline of April 21 - three days before the unveiling. She finished the 33-inch-by-43-inch portrait April 20 and shipped it by overnight mail. It was in acrylic, which dries immediately.

The portrait, unveiled Monday after a private ceremony for friends and patrons who helped underwrite the commission, will be available for public viewing after the national gallery reopens July 1 following a renovation.

At Monday's ceremony, Stanford's painting stood beside Nelson Shank's 8½-foot-by-5-foot portrait of President Clinton, which depicts him next to a fireplace, his left hand on his hip.

Stanford was there for the unveiling of her work.

"I wished I had one more week," Stanford remembers thinking. "When I saw it again in Washington I thought, 'It's finished. It's fine.' I'm happy with it."