Whenever someone asked, “Where are you from?” Luc Leestemaker always answered in his distinctive European accent, “Los Angeles.” Although Luc was born in the Netherlands, Luc believed that this gigantic life in America gave him a new lease on life. In spite of all its growing pains, it was the place he called home, and the people in it, his family.  After all, it was in the City of Angels where, after more than three decades of finding and losing himself in Europe, he rekindled his relationship with painting. 

I met Luc in 2005 in a crowded boarding lounge at Chicago’s O-Hare Airport. While I was waiting to board a flight to Los Angeles, a tall, handsome silver fox walked by and caught my eye. When he circled the lounge, and then sat next to me, I asked him to watch my bags as I stealthily dropped my trash off in a bin just a few feet away. He told me later, that this gave him “permission to approach.” He told me he was a painter. “You mean houses?” I asked. “No, I’m not good enough for that,” he coyly answered. “I’m still practicing on canvases.” From that moment on, Luc has been a constant beat in my heart.

His practice of painting on canvases was more than applying paint to canvas though. Every day when he entered his studio, I witnessed his commitment to apply himself--his whole and open heart into each brush stroke. He was willing to be vulnerable, to let go of his ego, and to see each session like a journey without a destination. People often asked him if he knew what he was going to paint before he went into the studio. He replied, “No. The emptier, the better.” Like a yogi in meditation, he regarded the nothingness as the place in which he could dive deeper.

Collectors often say they chose one of Luc’s paintings because it reminded them of somewhere they’ve been – a nostalgic place – a beach they frequented as a child, a seaside they once visited. “I know where that is. I’ve been there,” they’d say to Luc. And, he would smile and say, “You are right. It’s exactly where it is.” Considered a “light-and-space” painter whose studio is located in sunny Southern California, some may find it hard to believe Luc painted inside a studio without actual windows or views. Instead, I am certain the window was inside his heart, and that he painted what he saw from there. 

While with Luc, I also had the privilege of witnessing people fall in love with his paintings much like the way I fell in love with the man himself. It’s that magical moment when someone is attracted, perhaps first by its outer beauty, and then pulled deeper in by a force that is strange and familiar at the same time. It’s like we met before, but I’m not sure when or how. The love affair a collector has with a painting is personal and powerful, and I could see why Luc loved what he did. Through his paintings, he connected people to their inner child, or their long-lost self. He took them to that place. Somewhere between the lines and beyond the horizon, people could find themselves. Therefore, to be drawn to, appreciate, and to even have a painting was to give one’s self permission to love oneself.

Through the years, Luc’s work transformed and shifted as his own life had.