< Previous30 COASTMONTHLY.COM | FebruArY 2022 CURRENTS | ART RENAISSANCE MAN A versatile Clear Lake Shores artist turns his focus to giclée story by SUE MAYFIELD GEIGER photos by STUART VILLANUEVA P rinting, publishing, advertising, photography, cin- ematography and documentary film making over the years have become a juggling act for award- ing-winning artist Richard Coberly. But for the moment, the Clear Lake Shores resi- dent is concentrating on making his subjects come alive through an inkjet printer, a Wacom tablet, Photoshop software and quality paper. The process is called giclée, and it all starts with a Nikon D850 camera, an artistic eye and many hours of manipulating his creations. When Coberly discovered giclée in the late 1990s, computers were in their infancy, so it was labor intensive, he said. Giclée, pronounced zhee-clay, is a term created by print- maker Jack Duganne in 1991 referring to digitally reproduced fine art prints. Based on the French verb “gicler” — to squirt or spray a liquid — giclée has become to mean any high-res- olution inkjet print produced on large format printers from a digitally generated file. Some of Coberly’s finished giclée prints are on display, while many others still are within the confines of his comput- er awaiting final tweaks. The process from start to finish can take up to three days or more. “The genesis of the concept is what imagery I’m putting on a photograph and how,” he said. “It’s tedious and there’s a lot of handwork to it. I always try to find a way to force a photo- graph into acceptance in the art world because photography has never been art to most people. Plus, I never work with anything except my own pictures.” Giclée can produce many effects, Coberly said. “There’s a whole suite of filters with hundreds of adjust- ments,” he said. “A stylus pen has various tips and can be used as a brush on the tablet, so you can make things bigger or smaller, darker or lighter, even change colors. It boils down to hand manipulation with almost every aspect of the (Right) Richard Coberly is a sort of artist of all trades. He has worked in printing, publishing, advertising, photography, cinematography and docu- mentary film making through the years. These days, his focus is on giclée, which involves manipulating images digitally to create fine art prints. COASTMONTHLY.COM | FebruArY 2022 3132 COASTMONTHLY.COM | FebruArY 2022 CURRENTS | ART process. I use watercolor paper instead of photographic paper mostly for printing, as it adds texture.” The giclée prints in Coberly’s collection have various themes, including nature, land- scapes, architecture, boats and just about anything that strikes his fancy while taking photos. Birds seem to dominate, and one in particular, a watercolor treatment titled “Red- Tailed Hawk,” won third place in the 2021 Texas City Art Festival. Although the giclées are impressive — many look like fine oil paintings — Coberly reflects on how the process isn’t always easy. “Not everything works all the time,” he said. “The Battleship Texas, for instance, is something I’m still working on. I seem to have a penchant for raptors, and have sev- eral completed of red-tailed hawks, ospreys, Cooper’s hawks and a variety of other birds.” Although Coberly studied commercial art briefly in college and took a class at the Nikon School in New Mexico, he mostly is self-taught, having started his career with photography in 1969 while living in Lubbock. He taught himself videography as well, learning by example, and eventually launched a series on charter sailing that ran on the Travel channel. Before moving to Clear Lake Shores, he and his partner, Veronica Veerkamp, moved to Kemah, start- ing Windward Media, which afforded him an opportunity to shoot documentaries for Houston-PBS. They won three Emmy awards for “Wit, Grit & Robot Games” in 2002 and received an Emmy nomination for “Galves- ton: Gateway on the Gulf” in 2009. “We’ve produced five documentaries in all and still have one in progress,” Coberly said. “So, I’m still doing all that as well as photog- raphy, but of late, I’ve been busy with giclée.” Coberly and Veerkamp have traveled the globe taking photos and making films, but these days they’re focused on travels in their motorhome, while still doing their art. “I’ve worked really hard to refine this genre, so I take it very seriously,” Coberly said. “When traveling, I can work on a lap- top, but I need the tablet to do it like I want (From top) Large giclée prints hang in Richard Coberly’s studio; birds are a common subject of Coberly’s prints. it. You can do it with a mouse, but makes it that much harder. Plus, it takes several drafts before the image gets to where I want it. Photoshop paved the way to current giclée and enabling it to be the art genre it has become.” Music Filled March AT THE GRAND! THE TEXAS TENORS: HONORING THE TEXAS LEGENDS Sat, Mar 5 | 8 PM Sun, Mar 6 | 3 PM LYLE LOVETT & HIS ACOUSTIC GROUP Fri, Mar 25 | 8 PM Sat, Mar 26 | 8 PM THE QUEEN'S CARTOONISTS Sun, Mar 27 | 4 PM AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN Sat, Mar 19 | 3 PM & 8 PM GET TICKETS! TheGrand.com | 409.765.1894DENVER COURT 4901 DENVER DRIVE $575,000 | PENDING EDIE HARRINGTON | 409.763.2800 DIAMOND BEACH CONDOS 10327 TERMINI SAN LUIS PASS $420K - $625K MARTIE TERRY | 713.504.4202 BERMUDA BEACH 13210 BERMUDA BEACH DR. $1,950,000 LINDA SIVY | 409.599.5847 KARANKAWA 17603 SAN LUIS PASS ROAD $425,000 SUE JOHNSON | 409.682.9050 SEA ISLE 4015 SAN JACINTO DR. $215,000 SUE JOHNSON | 409.682.9050 ©2022 Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate LLC. Better Homes and Gardens® is a registered trademark of Meredith Corporation licensed to Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate LLC. 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GULF PALMS 17546 BRISTOW $324,900 | PENDING TANYA JONES | 409.789.7222 West End Office 13450 FM 3005 Galveston, TX 77554 409.737.5200 In Town Office 2615 Broadway St, Galveston, TX 77550 409.763.8030 HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS...LET US HELP YOU FIND THE PERFECT PLACE TO CALL HOME!36 COASTMONTHLY.COM | FebruArY 2022 CURRENTS | BOOKS ‘IT CHANGED HIS LIFE’ Island author turns father-in-law’s experience in China into real-life thriller story by CHRIS GRAY S orting through a deceased in-law’s personal effects might sound like an unlikely be- ginning for an adventure story. Author and part-time islander Jim Bevill, however, turned them into a thrilling, true-life World War II tale that could be a lost David Lean movie. Bevill’s new book, “Blackboards and Bomb Shelters” (Schiffer Military Publishing), follows three young Yale graduates halfway across the world to teach middle-school English in China’s Hunan prov- ince, part of a Yale-sponsored cultural exchange program. They were walking into a war zone: The Japanese army had invaded China a few years before, and air-raid sirens went off regularly. “This is a time when the Chinese and the Americans were allies,” Bevill said. “They were working against a com- mon enemy. It’s the cultural differences and the immersion of those Americans that really bring that kind of coming-of- age story to life.” One of the men was Bevill’s father-in-law, Paul Springer, who grew up in southern New Jersey and had been a member of the Yale Glee Club. Springer wrote frequent letters home to his mother, which Bevill turns into fascinating eyewit- ness accounts of daily life in a China both at war with the Japanese and divided between the Nationalists and Communists; after the war, the ensuing conflict would result in the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. His experiences there had a profound effect on the young Springer. “It just changed his life,” Springer’s daughter, Bevill’s wife, Jodie, said. “He grew up poor in New Jersey, and had never been anywhere. And here he got a scholarship to Yale, and all of a sudden, he’s in China. He always talked about that.” Springer, who lived to be 94, died in January 2012. He had kept everything — not just the letters, but plane and football-game tickets; his driv- er’s license; even an armband signifying neutrality in the Si- no-Japanese war. At one point, his widow suggested donating everything to Rice University, but Bevill talked her out of it. At first, all he wanted to do was to catalogue everything: scan documents, create PDFs and log them into his computer. “I had to read them all, and I had to write a sentence or two about what it was,” Bevill said. “During that process, the story began to present itself.” That story expanded once Bevill asked Yale to send him the papers of Springer’s fellow “Bachelors,” Art Hopkins and Jim Elliott; the file for their friend Win Pettus, a surgeon at nearby Hsiang-Ha Hospi- tal, was well more than 600 pages. A senior vice presi- dent of wealth management in UBS Financial Services’ River Oaks office, Bevill put together “Blackboards and Bomb Shelters” the same way he had his previous book, 2009’s “The Paper Republic: The Struggle for Money, Credit and Independence in the Republic of Texas” — one page at a time. (Right) Jodie Springer Bevill and her husband, author James P. Bevill, are excited about his latest book “Blackboards and Bomb Shelters: The Perilous Journey of Americans in China During World War II,” which details her father’s time in China during the war. (Above) Paul Springer, Art Hopkins and Jim Elliott on board the SS President Harrison, July 1941. The three Yale graduates were on their way to China for life-changing experiences. PHOTO: COurTeSY JAMeS P. beVILL COASTMONTHLY.COM | FebruArY 2022 37 PHOTO: J e NNIF er re YNOLDS38 COASTMONTHLY.COM | FebruArY 2022 CURRENTS | BOOKS “Once you put everything in date order,” he said, “then you start seeing the …” Jodie Bevill takes over. “Well, no,” she said. “He can see it. He’s very gifted. I couldn’t do it.” Prefaced by a harrowing episode that finds him running medical supplies on the Burma Road, the later chapters of “Blackboards and Bomb Shelters” follow Springer as a codebreaker at the American embassy in Chungking, now Chongqing, and in Cairo, where he helped arrange a summit between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the heads of state of Egypt, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia. Eventually, something else became clear to Jim Bevill: He had plenty of material for another volume. Springer was recruited by the CIA in 1949, and spent the bulk of his career as an intelligence officer in Vietnam, Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Belgian Congo; he retired in 1968. Because of the sheer amount of still-classified material involved, research is proving a little trickier than his other books, but Jim Bevill expects to be finished with the next one in about another year. (From top) Paul Springer, Chinese driver’s license, issued Jan. 24, 1942. Springer was required to have this with him when driving an ambulance on the Burma Road; The Yuanling Air Defense Command, armband pass, 1942, issued to Paul Springer for travel across the Yuanling campus during periods of air raid alarms. PHOTOS: CO ur T e SY JAM e S P. be VILL 409-632-0388 • www.artistboat.org Join us for Unique Coastal Experiences. Edward & Helen Oppenheimer Bird Observatory Open 7 days a week year-round Visitors get a close-up view of freshwater wetlands and coastal prairies along the 150ft. boardwalk and elevated viewing platform. There is also a .5 mile walking trail that overlooks the Coastal Heritage Preserve. Scan the code for more information about the bird observatory. PROJECT S.I.T. FREE Public Art on Galveston Seawall Project S.I.T. is an Artist Boat beautification project that transformed 70 benches along the Seawall into educational works of art. The benches can be found along the seawall between Stewart Beach and 61 st Street. 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