Local airbrush artist opens new shop

HOUMA — At first, Houma artist Brian Pontiff was doubtful about starting a new airbrush shop in Houma. He’d been in the business since 1980, spending years on the road decorating shirts at fairs and tourist destinations across the country before working odd jobs over the last few years.

But then he says God gave him a little nudge toward getting back to his original passion, and pointed out a small white rental building in Houma.

“I didn’t send you to earth to deliver pig lips,” was the gist of the heavenly message, Pontiff, 57, joked this week in his new studio, now brightened up with a purple coat of paint and colorful flowers. “I sent you to be an artist.”

His faith has been rewarded: Customers have flooded him with work, including custom jobs like a giant embellished mirror, a large saw blade and a pair of pirogues to customize with his unique designs.

The shop, the Wild Side, is at 6623 W. Main St. in Houma, and provides a wide range of airbrushing services including T-shirts and license plates as well as custom work. It’s also a gallery for Pontiff’s own artwork, created over his long and eclectic career.

His first art experience was in grade school, he recalls, when he was supposed to paint a dish towel as a Christmas gift with a design the teacher would draw. Pontiff wouldn’t have any of that: He was well into making his own image of Santa Claus landing on a roof before the teacher got there to outline the prescribed design.

“I was born that way, unfortunately,” he said. “I couldn’t wait.”

As he grew older, he got more experience drawing in school — when he was supposed to be paying attention during his math and geography classes.

As a young man, he first worked as a firefighter but took a job in a store where he learned to airbrush, eventually branching out into his own business in downtown Houma. That venture went south amid Houma’s oil bust of the 1980s, and a bounced check landed him in Pensacola Beach, Fla. He offered to pay off his debt with a T-shirt shop by working for the owner.

He loved that gig, he remembers, wearing cutoff shorts and flip-flops while airbrushing beach scenes and the names of sweethearts on tourist T-shirts. That job eventually led him to the county fair circuit with that family business in the off-season. He’d come back to south Louisiana for awhile, but when money got tight he’d head out to county fairs from Miami to Chicopee, Mass., where he found his perfect jambalaya sausage at the town’s now-defunct festival devoted to kielbasa, an eastern-European sausage most often associated with Poland.

Eventually he tired of the itinerant life and headed back to the bayou, where he found work airbrushing shirts at Laser Copy in the Southland Mall.

That was where he met Hans Geist, who would later become well-known for his historical murals around the Houma area. Recognizing his talent when the two worked together, Pontiff encouraged him to pursue his art.

“He really taught me a lot about attention to detail,” Geist, 34, said. “He taught me a lot about being the best as an artist and putting everything into your work and not settling for less.”

Later on, he teamed up with Dennis Dupre, owner of Hot Wheels Custom Motorcycle Painting of Houma, to work on motorcycle art. Those designs proved very popular with judges at regional motorcycle shows, landing him a raft of awards and placing eighth of 5,000 bikes at Daytona Bike Week in Daytona Beach, Fla. about three years ago. In the early 2000s, Harley-Davidson also commissioned him to do work that was featured in a promotional magazine.

Though the players have changed over the years, airbrushing has retained its popularity and profitability despite evolving automated printing technology, those in the business say. Airbrushing still can make you a good living in Houma, with Mardi Gras and the holidays providing for a steady stream of work that people want customized.

“There’s something about just human hands a machine cannot duplicate,” Geist said.

Kelly Pierre, owner of the True Colors airbrush shop in Southland Mall, said he’s long admired Pontiff’s work, particularly his calligraphy. He’s not concerned with another contender in the business.

“There’s plenty of enough fish for all of us,” he said.

Pontiff is also using his new shop to exhibit a range of paintings and other artwork made over the years. They include both airbrush and hand paintings, as well as three-dimensional painted mirrors and symbolic bayou and swamp scenes. They evolved over time as he came across scenes in his travels, like Niagara Falls, and memories that inspired him, like planes flown by pilots of yesteryear.

“Art is not just painting,” he said. “It’s like cooking a gumbo.”

That is, combining different materials and inspirations like ingredients until you find the right mix, he said.

The store is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Pontiff can be reached at 232-7185 or at brianpontiff@yahoo.com.

Staff Writer Kathrine Schmidt can be reached at 857-2204 or Kathrine.schmidt@houmatoday.com.