Creative process explanation / creation / starting impetus:
Part 1:
My process is initiated while in the street, from simply making my way around the city on foot. The setting in which I encounter the street posters, or ‘carteles’, can vary widely. At times, only a small bunch sit on a wall or electrical box, but more prevalent is when the posters are applied to the exterior of temporary building construction barrier walls where they can remain for weeks, with layers accumulating into inches. But no matter the situation, each spot can hold a plethora of visual possibilities.
I first begin photographing the mass while en situ, then gradually begin subtracting pieces from the surface layers further revealing new compositions and arrangements. The frame of the camera may capture only a small postcard sized composition, or photograph a 6 foot by 10 foot format. I continue documenting during this process until I’ve become visually saturated, then haul the material booty to my studio for further investigation.
Once in the studio, I attempt to ‘live’ with the papers, spreading them out on my studio floor to allow not only for my own weight to aid in flattening them out, but to promote new compositions to form from which I may implement literally, or dissect and investigate further while applying onto custom made wood panels. The style of the panels created has two functions. First to sufficiently support and evade warping from the amount of paint, glue, or found objects, and second to help convey some of the feel experienced while in the streets. During the actual process of orchestrating the work, the energy involved can become frenetic and exhausting, akin to the excitement first experienced when seeing the papers in the street.
As experienced often when previously working with clay, I’ve found that by working on several individual pieces simultaneously the interchange of creative solutions aids in the flow towards each works termination.
Creative process explanation / creation / starting impetus:
Part 2:
The genesis of my current collage work first took flight in 2013, when I had moved from Washington, DC, to also begin living in Chile. I had previously collected street papers from other countries such as France, Spain, Holland, Guatemala, Japan, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic, in addition to Chile, since 2006. The attraction to the papers in the streets was immediate as I was enthralled by the sheer and abundant colors, designs, and happenstance compositions. This was simply no more than a love affair with the hunting and gathering of the papers, which then grew into a formalized documentation with photos and finally manifested into the current works once in the studio. I felt as if I was the only one who was ‘seeing’ these magnificent and ‘natural’ compositions of juxtaposed colors and textures. Quite often during my escapades into the rambunctious streets of Santiago, I became an odd sight to the many on their merry ways. They didn’t know quite what to make of this gringo who was either on his knees with a camera ripping sometimes gigantic sections from the often very dirty and cumbersome temporary construction barrier walls. So often I felt as if I were acting as cairn, or speed bump to their hurried lives, showing them a world of beauty lining the trivial walls.
Pursuit of theme in the work:
If I am to claim a theme, it would have to be the act of raw expression. The current collage work allows me to respond intuitively and act responsively at the same time, both in a very immediate manner. While working with clay has most definitely provided me the same, the inherent process to clay demands a slower flow, requiring time between the stages towards vitrification or termination. I could say that a certain amount of my conversation with clay is impeded by its process, whereas the nature of working with this collage is far more instantaneous, and rather intoxicating much like the rush of meeting a new lover. The act of collecting the material to then the production of the work has an uncompromised subjective freshness brimming with excitement towards future work production. I’ve the giddiness of a child while in the studio, yet the honed eye of working compatible relationships of color, shape, and composition. The found objects come from the streets as well. When I surround myself with my hunted and gathered plunder, a momentum of reactive action gushes from me. I actually get anxious, can begin to sweat, and become besieged with anticipation of the possible next moves. It is shear pleasure to make this current work, and I’m indebted to the streets of Santiago for the indefinite possibilities still coming down the creative pipeline.
Integral factors / parts of my work as an artist:
I’ve been working with clay for much of my career, thus far. The clay material warrants a tremendous amount of due diligence and sensitivity towards paying attention to details. The possibilities afforded when working with clay can be paralyzing, as approaches to making, finishing, and firing all provide consistently new avenues of exploration. Maintaining a focus on any of the latter also promotes a branching of possibilities as the material and process throws repeated and inevitable challenges. A solution, to this inundation of demand, is to keep a fine antenna tuned to discerning the why and how of any particular positive or negative outcome. While process itself isn’t necessarily the mother of ideas or inspiration, becoming in tune with the labor of doing can create a tremendous guidebook to the pursuit of the material, and ultimately a greater understanding of oneself. Learning to pay attention, to split the details into even finer parts, is an integral aspect within my studio and daily life. Bait balling to the surface, if you will, the fruit of keen observation via gestural innovation is the very role I feel I have as an artist, making sense of our world.
Best advice:
Go into the studio each day, or as often as you can, treating it the same as demanded by any other job. Create, make, at least motivate towards any aspect that promotes the manifestation of the art. But above all, produce. Some days you simply don’t feel up to playing the game. Or maybe the intermittent strike of stress weighs so heavily as to block the creative flow. Overcome this, and make. Every day.
More about this artist:
As so often in life, more is to be discovered beyond what is transpiring immediately in front of us. The act of paying attention to this serves the genesis of my currently expanding line of deconstructed collage paintings. The streets, in particular of Santiago, Chile, are laden with posters screaming intentions via graphics and words. Yet it isn’t the designed communication that pulls me in, but the allure of the endless decaying layers of juxtaposed color and texture producing in concert an entirely silent chance of passive composition. Off the street, further investigation of these happenings takes place on wood panel along with paints, drawing, and the occasional found object, reinterpreting the original found moments via gestural innovation. My intention is to bring to light the electrical beauty of which falls silent to most passersby.