Lewis Wilson has painted familiar landmarks and streetscapes of Cary, Raleigh, Holly Springs, Fuquay-Varina, and even Wilmington, but his first love and the town that started it all was Apex. Following a whim to paint a popular downtown Apex restaurant and a rediscovery of watercolors, the demand for Lew’s prints is growing as his art makes its way into local shops and residents’ hearts.
In spite of a lifelong passion for art, it was a crooked path that led Lew to the landscapes he paints today. “I’d go to my Auntie Nora’s house in western New York and she’d have a card table out and I’d get so excited to see the cup that held the felt-tip markers. I was probably only six or seven. She’d put paper out and I’d start drawing. On one visit, I drew a tree branch with cool leaves on it. I knew it was pretty good and from that point on, I knew what I wanted to do.”
A Dream Takes Shape
Lew’s art training began with illustration at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York, after a false start in industrial design. “I got up in the middle of my third AutoCAD class, with all those green and red lines and z-indexes, and decided there were too many of these people in the world, and I was not going to be one of them. It was not for me. Instead, I drew people’s babies and I sold a couple of those. I also did an oil of Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester and I sold five or six prints at the end of college.”
After graduating from RIT with a degree in fine arts and illustration, Lew landed in the technical realm of computer graphics and web design for three years at IBM in Cary, North Carolina, followed by 18 years (and counting) at BB&T in Raleigh. He and his wife, Laura, moved to Apex in 2003 and for nearly two decades, while they raised their daughters, Hannah and Sydney, Lew only painted an occasional abstract to feed his creativity.
Looking back, Lew says, “I found that I didn’t like illustration and I had completely dismissed watercolors. I was never shown how to do it right so I couldn’t get the look I wanted and I didn’t like that the water was muddy. But I’ve always loved abstract art that moves toward abstract realism. I watched a YouTube artist draw an abstract-realistic landscape that was really loose. She used a random approach and almost deliberately made a mess.” That method hooked Lew and he began experimenting with abstracts using markers along with pen and ink.
The Intersection of Style
and Subject
In 2015, a fellow artist gifted Lew with a palette of watercolors, a watercolor block, and some brushes. “Watercolor is my choice now,” Lew admits with a bit of lingering surprise. “I still pull in marker and paint marker and a lot of pen and ink, but it’s loose and it flows. I try not to make it tight. I try and make it alive. Your eye needs to move around and not stop and the contrast of the black ink pulls the watercolor out. It makes an amazing feel for landscapes. Watercolor pulls the light—it almost mimics light. It’s incredible!”
Around that same time, he decided to paint the Peak City Grill & Bar. “I’ve always loved our downtown. I like the awnings and the colors. I wanted to try pen and ink with watercolor, and it was random that I selected Peak City Grill. I put the finished painting on Facebook and people liked it and wanted to buy it.”
That was the start of something great, big, and colorful! Lew painted more local shops and Laura began marketing. In 2016, through a neighbor, she introduced Lew’s artwork to Sixpence Accents in downtown Apex. “Sixpence has been wonderful!” Lew raves. “Kim Shore, the owner, asked for more so I did the steeple of the Apex Baptist Church and it’s one of the most popular prints. People would go into Sixpence and then want us to paint their towns.”
And paint their towns is exactly what Lew is doing. Street scenes and beloved landmarks from towns across North Carolina have made their way into specialty shops, Hallmark stores, the NCSU campus bookstore, even Mast General Store in Boone. And the list of requested towns and other subjects to paint continues to grow.
Lew has confidence in his talent but he is humble in his appreciation for the creative process. “When I sit down to work, I wonder if it’s going to turn out the way it should. Sometimes I think I’m making a mess and I’ve had to throw a few out. I’m always proud when a piece comes out well. I love the first part of the process when the paint goes on. I love the freshness of it. Then I lose that and try to bring it back. I hope people like what I do from an artistic standpoint. I’d rather push the style than the subjects, but people love the landscapes, the flowers, high schools and colleges, anything they can relate to on a personal level.”
For the Love of Apex
When a friend asked if any of Lew’s paintings had been made into an ornament, Laura set out to make one. She searched the internet and found a method to transfer the printed artwork onto a wood surface. “That was my first process. We sold 300 of those, but the time it took to make them was awful.” Laura kept experimenting until she and Lew settled on a method which is faster and produces a final product with bolder, more vibrant colors.
With their ornaments gaining popularity, Laura remembered the Town of Apex annual holiday ornament she had once bought. She sent her contact at the Town a print of Lew’s streetscape featuring the Apex Baptist Church steeple, and Lew was asked to partner with the Town and paint this year’s ornament—and future ornaments, as well. This year’s ornament features the Halle Cultural Arts Center, which is celebrating the 10th anniversary of its grand reopening in 2008. The Halle was built in 1912 in the heart of the downtown Historic District and served as Apex’s first Town Hall. “People don’t know we’ve had a town ornament for ten years,” Laura jokes, “and the Town of Apex is now up to 50,000 people.”
Philanthropy and the Future
A vital, but less publicized, part of the Wilsons’ artistic vision involves sharing Lew’s talent to help others raise money for important causes. Before Apex High School was demolished in 2017, Lew painted the school and partnered with the PTSA to sell the nostalgic prints, donating $1,000 back to the school. That success led to paintings and fundraisers with other area schools, churches, and several nonprofits, including the Apex Historical Society, the Fill Your Bucket List Foundation, and The Carying Place, just to name a few.
There are so many ways to give back and the Wilsons enjoy drawing attention to worthy causes while fueling people’s passion for the subjects Lew paints. As small business owners, they hope to increase their giving as recognition for Lew’s work grows. “It’s been my dream to live my life painting,” Lew says. “I’d love it to be my full-time job at some point, and to have a shop of my own. It’s always felt like what I should do, ever since I drew the tree branch.”
For Lew, each landscape is personal, but Apex is special. “Downtown Apex reminds me of my hometown—Caledonia, New York. People love Apex and when they’ve just moved here, they want to identify with the town somehow. Apex is identified by the church steeple, Peak City Grill, colored awnings, the caboose…I want to give them something to put in their home.”
