The full article is available here

Sheila Cameron: No fair.  Doesn’t she have enough fame, fortune and talent in music?!

Moira McLaughlin: I just looked at her work.  She is REALLY good.

SC: Yeah.

MM: No, I mean she is REALLY good.

SC: I KNOW.

MM: But I didn’t read the article yet.  Do other people realize she is that good?

SC: Oh yeah.

MM: No, I mean, she’s not just a singer who decides one day to paint a bouquet of pretty flowers, and then call herself an artist.  These are really great.

SC: I know.

MM: Does SHE know she is that good?

SC: Yes, everybody knows!  She is collected and she has shows and she has studied with mentors and done the hard work of making herself better when she didn’t start out that great, but she is really super talented too.  That is what I am saying!!!

MM: She reminds me of Lucian Freud, one of my favorites, and one of the greatest portrait artists living today.

SC: Yep.

MM: And I love the dogs.

SC: Thought you would.

In her HP article, Carole asks readers to share their own stories about their second careers blooming late. Or you can send her a note at her website where you can see more of her work, including her abstracts, which are equally as accomplished as her portraits.

P.S. Her journey into painting also reminded me of late blooming artist, Kimberly Merrill, another of my favorites.

It’s difficult for me to explain how I, a songwriter for 40 years of my life, am now equally, if not more excited to write today about my painting.

It’s odd. I had no idea that I had any real talent for painting. Honestly. I had tried it five years ago and after a few months of lessons and a few unexciting paintings I gladly returned to my music room.

It was now, well over a year ago when my close friends, Margie Perenchio and Ani Moss asked: if they built and opened a studio/gallery, would I support the gallery by painting there? It was so far in the future it was easy to say yes. You know that kind of ‘yes!’
Read More »

Carole Bayer Sager’s passion for music has given the world scores of memorable songs, including her collaborations on “Nobody Does It Better,” “Don’t Cry Out Loud,” “That’s What Friends Are For” and the Oscar-winning “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do).” And to think it all started back in the ’60s when, as a high-schooler, she wrote “A Groovy Kind of Love.”

But now it’s a love of art that has captured her imagination, and she’s channeling that passion into L.A. Art House on Beverly, where she’s curating an exhibit running into July called “Wounded,” featuring works by new Chinese artists.

The combination working studio (she herself often paints there) and gallery donates 100% of its profits to the Hammer Museum and its Hammer Projects program for emerging artists.

Bayer Sager and her husband, TV and film mega-exec Bob Daly, live in Bel-Air, and their weekends are suitable for framing.

Welcome back
I love when my son, Cristopher Bacharach, visits from Seattle and we get to spend some time together on weekends. I like to take him shopping at Barneys in Beverly Hills because of the designers they carry. It’s my favorite store. After that we’ll go to the Polo Lounge for lunch.

Culture crawl
I love going to art galleries now, and museums. Culver City has a lot of good galleries, and I like the Hammer too, of course. I went to see a young artist’s work in Chinatown the other day. I’ll also go down to Roger Herman’s studio in Elysian Park. He’s been a real mentor to me.

Just the two of us
A special place for dinner is Giorgio’s. They have the most delicious Italian food, but I also love the Dover sole. And another good spot is a little neighborhood restaurant called Vicenti, on San Vicente. Great pizza, the crispy thin-crust vegetarian is pretty great.

And one more place — Mr. Chow’s. I love all the food, especially the squab.

Bringing a crowd
I love to get our big family together and have brunch at the Four Seasons. It’s an abundance of food and it’s so beautiful. It’s expensive, but I guess it has to be because some people eat like little piggies. The outdoor tables are great this time of year. There’s sushi, omelets, waffles, fruit, desserts, just everything imaginable. I’ll have plenty of coffee and a well-done omelet — more egg whites than yellow — with smoked salmon and onions. Then maybe a little yogurt afterward.

Painting the town
I love Dick Blick’s art supplies store on Santa Monica. It’s getting to be my new Barneys. I always end up buying things I had no intention of buying, like maybe some incredibly beautiful oil colors. I also love browsing around Melrose Avenue, and the shops on Robertson are fun. After shopping, I like the Ivy for lunch with a friend. And the Newsroom Cafe, a healthy place that’s right across the street.

If somebody had told me a year ago I would be painting as often as possible, with the same passion I once reserved only for my songwriting (creatively speaking), I would not have believed them.

But that was before my close friends Margie Perenchio and Ann Moss urged me to join them in painting on a regular basis at their atelier, LA Art House, which opened last September in Beverly Hills.
Margie and Ann had the idea to open a gallery for emerging artists, which would also serve as a creative place for artist friends to paint, exchange ideas, and meet other artists. It has now fully evolved into a gallery that donates all sales profits to the Hammer Project, benefiting emerging artists.

Margie and Ann had been painting for some time, and in the past I joined them occasionally, taking lessons form their teacher, Manny Cosentino-a fine artist steeped in realism. It was fun, but that’s really all I though it was. I was a dabbler.

Then my two friends built a space as beautiful as it is comfortable, as conducive to displaying artists’ work as it is to providing them with a studio environment. Margie runs the gallery, and Ann and I lend our support in as many ways as possible.

And I make art. I now have canvases spread all over, mostly oils, but also drawings in oil crayons, watercolors, charcoal, and pen. I love the feeling of putting paint on the canvas, falling in love with the colors, missing them with others, seeing the way they interact and change the canvas. I love doing portraits in all mediums, and I love being a part of LA Art House.

In February and March we ran “Reality Check,” an exhibiting featuring four emerging contemporary realism artists. One of those artists, Frank Marshall, is currently a teacher of mine.

I’m also studying with another wonderful artist named Greta Waller, who was recommended to be by a man I like to call my mentor, Roger Herman. Until December, Roger was running the fine art department and UCLA. I met him through my friends, Bette Midler and her husband, Martin Von Haselberg, who collect his works in their New York apartment.

I was an instant fan and visited his studio in Los Angeles, eventually purchasing a work of his for our collection. When I began painting, Roger met with me and was kind enough to review my work. He has been helping me define myself and my focus ever since.

The more I talk about my love of painting, the more I discover many of my friends also once painted-and may begin again-and others are already fine artists, such as Maxine Smith, Kimberly Brooks, and Mindy Seeger. In fact, they all define themselves though their art as much as their music. Now I, too, am beginning to be able to call myself a musician/artist.

A month or two ago, Roger e-mailed me an article from Esquire called “Late Bloomers in the Arts.” It confirmed what I already knew in my heart: It’s never too late to do anything you believe you can do.

LA Art House, 8825 Beverly Boulevard, Beverly Hills, 310-205-0480; laarthouse.net.