An exhibitor at this weekend's Fall Harvest of Art has outgrown his renegade ways, almost.
By LOGAN NEILL, Times Correspondent
Published November 18, 2005
WEEKI WACHEE - Those who truly believe that you can't hurry art should talk to Scott Luft.
Luft will tell you what it was like to wait in the shadows for the traffic to thin so he could leap to work before the cops came by. He will tell you how, with a few cans of Krylon spray paint, he could transform a bleak wall of an abandoned building into a stunning mural depicting sci-fi creatures, anime characters and cartoon faces in a matter of minutes.
But Luft will tell you that as proud as he was of the outlaw graffiti art he plastered on walls and buildings around his native Long Island home, he is glad that's all in the past.
These days, Luft, of Spring Hill, prefers to confine his talents to smaller canvases, the size that fit neatly in a frame on a wall. He still likes to do murals, but the one he recently completed on a patio wall of his parents' home looks more like one that might be found in a restaurant, with tropical birds, palm trees and a beach scene.
Painting it, he says, "didn't give me the rush that I got when I was a teenager." Neither did it provide the stress that graffiti art once did.
After several years of laying off art, Luft, 31, decided to come back to his lifelong love about four ago. A troubling divorce, coupled with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, had turned his world upside down.
His parents, Steve and Pat Luft, began buying supplies for him, including a set of oil paints and a brush, which he had never used before, in the hope that art would provide some therapy as well as give their son a much-needed creative outlet.
Although he had studied commercial art after high school, Luft never embraced the idea of art for commercial gain. Rather, he preferred the freedom of what he calls "community art," where people could drive by every day and see his creations.
Luft is quick to point out that he was not a "tagger," a person who scribbles his initials or a sign on any painted surface he can find. His offerings, as Luft puts it, had character and style, which is the reason what some of his street art still survives.
By the time he mastered the technique of oil painting, Luft had begun to ponder what effects a few shots from a spray paint can might bring. On a finished painting, he gave it a try and discovered that the spray paint created a lustrous texture of color unlike anything he had seen.
"I had been hoping to find something that would make my art totally unique, and that was it," he said.
Over the next few months, he put the process to work on a series of images he was creating for his father, a Vietnam War veteran. The paintings, which were inspired by some of his father's old war photos, are strikingly lifelike, and earned Luft his first dollar from his art.
Currently at work on a series of paintings, some of which will be on display at this weekend's Fall Harvest of Art at Weeki Wachee Springs, Luft is also trying to make more contacts around the Central Florida art scene.
"Three years ago, I wouldn't have wanted to do this because I didn't feel my stuff was quite ready," he said. "I'm still learning and still experimenting, but I've gotten to the point where I'm comfortable with what I'm turning out. It speaks for me."
Logan Neill can be reached at lneill@sptimes.com or 352 848-1435. IF YOU GO
WHAT: Spring Hill Art League's 32nd annual Fall Harvest of Art. The juried show will feature about 75 local and regional artists. Proceeds benefit the club's scholarship fund.
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday WHERE: Weeki Wachee Springs, U.S. 19 and State Road 50, Weeki Wachee.
ADMISSION: Per day, $3 for adults, $2 for children under 12; includes all park amenities.
INFORMATION: Call Pat at 666-0876 or Louise at 796-1189.
