NWFLAA - Northwest Florida Arts Association » Artist Interview

Photojournalist and Guest Speaker: Savannah Chastain

Angel — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 04:49:42 +0000

I am very excited to announce the guest speaker for our Photo Club meeting on Wednesday. Savannah Chastain, an artist who is part of a non-profit organization called Photogenx, which uses media (mainly photography) to bring awareness to social injustice issues around the globe. She and 10 other student photojournalists, just spent the past year traveling the world encountering situations of poverty, human-trafficking, misused refugees, and many other injustice issues.

Savannah says, “During our trip we realized that it was not so much the shock of injustice that we wanted to address, but instead the truth that daily actions of love and justice can make a change in the world. We have written a book, called ‘Act Here. Love Now,’ that is full of personal stories from people living in dire situations, to our own reflections on injustice. The book is full of photos and art, and our message is that you don’t have to take an epic trip around the globe to make a difference… you can start in your own neighborhood.”

Savannah will be sharing stories of her journey, excerpts from their book and exhibit some of the photography they captured along the way.

Check out more information and view their photography at:

www.actherelovenow.com

and

www.photogenx.net

This is an event you won’t want to miss! It is FREE and open to the public on Wednesday, Sept. 14th at 6pm in the Art Lair.

Artist Interview – Marcus Ranum (Part 1)

admin — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 19:26:51 +0000

Marcus: I’m an executive at a computer security software company, and have been in technical jobs (programmer, project leader, consultant, executive) most of my life. I’ve done a fairly wide variety of things – I used to describe my career as “having held all the possible jobs in a high-tech start-up from janitor to CEO” and it’s pretty much true. I got into doing photography in the early 1990s, working with film (of course) and doing black and white darkroom work. Photography is an art-form that works well for the geeky mindset; it’s technical, involves complicated doo-dads, and takes no eye/hand coordination. I think a lot of technical people are attracted to photography because of the doo-dads and some of them never graduate past that. I do photography because it’s a wonderfully imprecise way of expressing myself when professionally I have to be extremely concerned with precision, politics, and butt-covering. As far as my work goes, I see it as an extension of my sense of humor more than anything else. I love the absurd.

Brandon: I agree with you actually in regards to technical people being drawn to Photography. I’m a computer programmer myself and I have this driving urge lately to get my first SLR camera. Mainly as you said: it comes with doo-dads!

Marcus: The trick is – eventually – to see if you have a message beyond the doo-dads. That’s when things get interesting. I mean, the doo-dads are nice, but I eventually got to a point where I found I wanted to try to play with concepts a bit. Like most black/white photographers, I invested a few years studying The Zone System and the whole “fine art” mindset (you can’t avoid it if you take any classes past beginner level) – I had to learn it and enjoyed doing so, until I got to the point where I thoroughly understood it and then realized it’s pretty sterile. That was when I decided to not really care what other people think about my work. And, 20 years later, I still don’t

Brandon: Alright, so first off, tell me about yourself. If I knew nothing about you, how would you describe yourself and your work?

Marcus: I’m an executive at a computer security software company, and have been in technical jobs (programmer, project leader, consultant, executive) most of my life. I’ve done a fairly wide variety of things – I used to describe my career as “having held all the possible jobs in a high-tech start-up from janitor to CEO” and it’s pretty much true. I got into doing photography in the early 1990s, working with film (of course) and doing black and white darkroom work. Photography is an art-form that works well for the geeky mindset; it’s technical, involves complicated doo-dads, and takes no eye/hand coordination. I think a lot of technical people are attracted to photography because of the doo-dads and some of them never graduate past that. I do photography because it’s a wonderfully imprecise way of expressing myself when professionally I have to be extremely concerned with precision, politics, and butt-covering. As far as my work goes, I see it as an extension of my sense of humor more than anything else. I love the absurd.

Brandon: I agree with you actually in regards to technical people being drawn to Photography. I’m a computer programmer myself and I have this driving urge lately to get my first SLR camera. Mainly as you said: it comes with doo-dads!

Marcus: The trick is – eventually – to see if you have a message beyond the doo-dads. That’s when things get interesting. I mean, the doo-dads are nice, but I eventually got to a point where I found I wanted to try to play with concepts a bit. Like most black/white photographers, I invested a few years studying The Zone System and the whole “fine art” mindset (you can’t avoid it if you take any classes past beginner level) – I had to learn it and enjoyed doing so, until I got to the point where I thoroughly understood it and then realized it’s pretty sterile. That was when I decided to not really care what other people think about my work. And, 20 years later, I still don’t.

Sally Mann's Artwork

Brandon: That sounds similar to a musician trying to learn every scale and chord instead of focusing on the music. The theory behind it can almost overpower the importance of the art itself. Which, actually out of curiosity, are you a musician as well?

Marcus: I played trumpet in high school and was drummed out of the band (so to speak) when they discovered that I had been faking to cover an inability to read music. I just played by ear. I don’t miss it. But I suppose if I could go back and rewind the tape of my life, I’d like to have picked up a guitar at about the age of 3. Then, maybe, I could play like Mr J.J. Cale. But probably not. But really, the issue is mastering your tools. A lot of good artists achieve mastery with a tool and then deliberately step off in another direction – but they can only do that because they really really really know what they’re doing, underneath it all. For some reason, I am thinking specifically of Sally Mann, here – why did she suddenly start doing glass-plate negatives and alternative processes? Well, I can’t answer that – but it sure works. Because she really really knows her stuff, she’s just having fun working with the medium in a different way. For me, music is probably the most broadly-understood art-form, so I often use it as a way of talking about other arts. See, I can say, “once you’ve mastered the piano, then you can play jazz.” and you’ll know what I mean. It’s the same with the photography.

Brandon: I absolutely agree. The majority of my work is themed after music. I have 2 pieces that feature your stock, “Silver Future” and “Vogue.” Named after the Monster Magnet and KMFDM songs, respectively. Which brings me to the next topic, what motivated you to get into the stock world?

Marcus: (laughs) You won’t like the answer to this one!

Brandon: Oh but now I have to know. It’s my role to play the curious cat, after all. =)

Marcus: People kept taking my finished art-works and hacking them up without asking me. So I started getting Emails – sometimes 3 or 4 a week – from people saying “I’ve used your photo such-and-such and, to make it better, I’ve added animated sparklies. Here. What do you think?” So my head would regularly explode. Finally, I got into an email exchange with one artist who was really nice and we had a fairly long and friendly debate about it and she, basically… um. She wore me down. Anyhow, it’s hard to get really really mad at someone who likes your stuff. It’s flattering. So I’d get this horrible split personality thing going on; I was flattered and furious at the same time. So, she was an art student who wanted to do some work “in the style of…” Bougereau. And I shot a bit of custom stock for her – largely as a way of saying “it’s cool” and, also, defensively. And it snowballed from there. From then on, whenever I’d get a model in the studio, I’d also stick a costume on them and shoot some kind of stock. I started to discover it was fun! Shooting stock like I do, I’m basically playing “art tennis” with the entire planet: I get to serve stuff over the net and see what comes back. So I started coming up with my own ideas that were intended to stretch the artists – like my ninja santa claus – or my zombie beauty queen – just to see if anyone would pick up the challenge and play with me. And then I started getting people saying “hey! how about some guys!?” Personally, I have no great aesthetic appreciation for males, but – sure – why not? So I started doing costume stock with guys and it turned out to be fun, too. So I pushed the community by giving them stock that would bend their minds a little bit and they pushed back at me by dragging me into new creative channels I’d never have explored otherwise. We all win, that way.

Brandon: You’re one of the most supportive high-profile stock artists I have ever seen when it comes to credit/rights. What was your thought process in going into such an open policy?

Marcus: “They’re gonna rip me off anyway. I may as well just get over it.” That was my first train of thought. But then it made me think a lot about some other things – like: “why am I doing this anyway?” I don’t do this for money; I am fortunate that my day job pays me well enough. So I suddenly realized “hey, maybe I can define ‘winning’ as ‘being all over the place’!”

Brandon: Has anyone ever made something using your stock that offended you in any way?

Marcus: I’ve had a few images that were just plain poor quality. At that point, I’m genuinely supportive of the artists. After all, if I go back to my first negatives they make me want to cry. One of my stock images was used by an artist to produce something that managed to offend the model. So she emailed him and told him he was an idiot. I’m sure it was a huge surprise for him! But I’ve been doing this for about 3 years now and I’ve only had 2 minor problems. Meanwhile, my imagery is everywhere. You can’t pick up copies of advanced photoshop magazines without seeing my stock, and there’s about a daily deviation on deviantart.com every week based on my stock. So, I guess that “being all over the place” as a victory condition is pretty good. There’s also “being ripped off”- I used to get upset when someone would take one of my images and upload it to one of the 4chan or spank sites. My cat-girl images are especially ripped off; they are everywhere. So I wrapped my brain around it and decided, “being the most-ripped-off artist on the internet is a worthy goal.” Besides, when I started using myself in my own stock, I got some added benefits. I can now say I am the only internet security consultant who has been on the cover of more than 4 albums, and whose likeness is flying as nose-art on predator drones, who has appeared as a ninja on t-shirts around the world, and a couple book covers.

Deviant Art

Brandon: Speaking of Deviant Art, you’re now coming up on 2 million views on dA. I can’t imagine how many comments and notes are sitting in your account right now. How does that feel? Have you accomplished your goal of internet celebrity?

Marcus: I keep two accounts on deviantart – one for my stock and the other for my personal art. I manage to keep up with the notes on the personal art account, because it’s a lot less overwhelming – and I have a blanket message on my stock account saying, basically, “you can message me if you like but odds are I won’t see it.” I get nearly 100 notes/day, 250 comments/day (mostly links to art-works created from my stock) and thousands of activity notices. I just batch delete them. I’d need a staff of 5 to keep up.

Brandon: I have to admit that on more than one occasion I have looked at popular dA members pageviews and felt very underwhelmed at my own success. Do you think one can judge talent or value by numbers? Do you think one can judge how appreciated they are by numbers?

Marcus: That is a profound and wonderful question.

Marcus: I’ve worked with a couple artists who wanted to do workshops with me, and that’s item #1, every time: “what are you trying to accomplish?” I think of it as defining your victory conditions. And it’s something you need to do carefully and honestly. I’ve seen artists whose idea of victory is, literally, self-contradictory! They want to be popular and widely seen, but they do art that is upsetting or obscure. Or they paint beautiful still-lifes but complain because the people who do erotic art get all the viewer’s attention. See the problem? If you want attention – go where the attention is. If you want to do what pleases you, then give up on the attention and do it for the joy of it. If you want to make money, then do market research and see what’s selling then try to carve out a niche and become a crank-turner like Anne Geddes or William Wegman. But decide first. If I wanted 10,000,000 page views, I’d do the research, see what was getting the most page views, and start turning the crank and churning it out. So I think an artist needs to take a cold hard look at what they want to do, then think it over and decide. You can’t have it all. You can have a heck of a lot of it, as long as you’re methodical and honest with yourself.

Brandon: Do you think art is as simple as looking at market research and doing what is popular? Do you believe there are artists that do that? Do you think someone doing that could achieve wealth by exploiting popular trends in art?

Marcus: No, I don’t think it’s that simple. But if I wanted to do it for a living, that’s how I’d start. There are, absolutely, artists who do that. It’s the only way that I can explain – for example – Thomas Kinkade. He must have realized that there is a deep core of people who want that kind of pseudo-nostalgia. And he was banking it like a rapper, for a while there. If you’re a music fan, and you recall the Dire Straits song “in the gallery” (from their first album) – that says it all. There are some artists who are compelled down a certain path. It’s in their breath and in their bones and they can do nothing else. And there are others who, I think, have a bit more distance on it and can aim more for likely crowd-pleasers. This is a topic that I’m really interested in, because as a photographer who does nude art, I periodically get someone whining at me that “you guys who shoot nudes are just doing crowd-pleasers.” Well, um, if your objective is to PLEASE THE CROWD, that’s not a bad way to do it. By the way, I am not dishing on Kinkade. He’s really good. He chooses to do what he does, and he does it well. I wish I had some of his skills and I’d LOVE to do a few paintings like his, only with weird-eyed goony people sitting on the porch, or a pair of hands drowning in the pond – stuff that was subtly wrong.

Brandon: I guess as a 24 year old starting artist, I would like to imagine the art world as a more sincere, personal place, not something so easily exploited. So going down this line of thinking, does Deviant Art exploit art in a way? Deviant Art could essentially be the Hot Topic of art; taking culture and mass producing it.

Marcus: I’m sorry to give you a dose of cynicism but everything is exploitable and there are people who never have any shame about exploiting it. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, either. The word “exploit” is so negative – you can think of it more as “giving the people what they want.” Again, you need to decide what you want to accomplish and how – do you want to be wealthy? Start a religion. Do you want to be famous? Be annoying. Do you want to reach for greatness? I can’t answer that one, because that’s the tough one. I don’t see how Deviant Art really could be said to be exploiting anything. Certainly, the people who run the site are too busy to be doing art themselves; one could say “they are parasites” or one could say “they are giving us a home.” I think it’s neutral, really. Was the pope exploiting Michaelangelo when he paid him chump change to do the ceiling of the chapel? Or was Michaelangelo exploiting the pope’s religiousity? I look at those questions and think “they are meaningless.” Unfortunately, a lot of the time when approached with philosophical questions about non-objective things, I tend to find them meaningless. It’s a bit of a problem for me, since it makes it hard to talk to people who believe strongly in things that they cannot defend or explain. I want to just shrug them off, but – unfortunately – that doesn’t work, either. Often they hold their views very strongly, even if they don’t know what their views are or why they hold them.

Brandon: Yeah, talking to you I’m starting to doubt why I am an artist, but inward thinking is always good. I’m totally my original line of questioning at this point, but do you think artists have to have a purpose? Or a message?

Marcus: I like to avoid things constructed in the form of “artists should…” ”you have to…” The arts are one of the few bastions of pure freedom! Nobody SHOULD tell you that you have to have anything, or should do anything. I think that, in fact, some very brilliant artists do nothing but play with the message or the need for a message. That’s how you get guys like Jeff Koons and Andy Warhol. However, I find that having a message (or a few messages) and an overall direction – gives me strength. It makes my work a bit more consistent. It is what I suppose some people might call “style.” Indeed, I think that “style” is really a lot about how you deliver your message – do you do it consistently or haphazardly? Note that I am trying to avoid value-laden or judgemental statements, here. Artists can/should do whatever they want, unless they’re doing it as a commissioned work for a client who has told them what they’re supposed to do. Some artists do have a clear purpose and message. For example Lenny Bruce was absolutely adamant about freedom of speech. Everything that Bruce did was about that purpose, and comedy was how he carried that message forward. I suspect there were a few people who didn’t see what he was trying to do, and just laughed because he said “cocksucker” and that was so so naughty. Picasso had a message when he painted “Guernica” and its purpose was anti-war. I’ve had people ask me what the “purpose” of my cat-girl photos is, and all I can say is “I think the ears look cute.” Messages can be little or big, I guess.

Brandon: Did you have a message with the desert dancer series that I obsess over?

Marcus: The purpose is “they make Marcus happy.” So, when I was a kid I grew up reading stuff like R.E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs – fantasy worlds all populated by beautiful princesses. I guess that’s a kind of a general fantasy-theme with me, and when I found a place that made those outfits (they’re awesome, aren’t they?) I used the “I’ll shoot stock” excuse to buy a couple sets. I enjoy watching the pretty girls wearing them, spinning around the studio. And I get pictures, and share them. What’s not to like about that?

Brandon: You know, my work features women as the main focus as well. I often tell my fellow artists; “People who do abstract paintings have no idea what they’re missing.”

Marcus: Yeah, I don’t get abstracts. But there is something for everyone – that’s what’s cool about art. I have a friend who really really likes the Mondrian and Pollack-style art, which is really all about putting colors next to eachother to create a mood. More power to ‘em. I can walk though a museum full of Mondrians and Pollacks, but you can hear my neck-bones crack when I catch a glimpse of a work by Frank Frazetta out of the corner of my eye. People’s response to art, and their tastes, are so varied and different – it’s fascinating. That, to me, is the most interesting thing about art. Some stuff has very broad appeal and some very narrow. But whether the appeal is broad or narrow has nothing to do with how good it is. And don’t ask me “what is ‘good art’?” because I don’t know.

Brandon: Do you think art history is important for an artist to study? Do you think one can be a brilliant artist with zero knowledge of the past? Same thing goes for “proper” technique as well.

Marcus: I think art history is INTERESTING but I can see how an artist could do just fine without it. But, seriously, how can someone say “I want to be a photographer and do beautiful work” and not be fascinated by Caravaggio’s lighting? How can you say you want to understand portraiture and not wonder why it is that people travel around the world to see the Mona Lisa? (I’m still puzzled by that one!) The history of art is the history of culture; they are entertwined – you can’t do art without making reference to your culture. Unless you’re one of those really rare cases like Jackson Pollack who manages to somehow get there without making reference to anything but color. In other words, I think it’s possible to create something that’s entirely new but someone wanting to do that needs to ask “why?” We are all products of our culture; divorcing ourselves from it seems to me like it would be weakening rather than strengthening.

Admittedly, I’m biassed. Some of the most fun photos I’ve ever done were the ones where Sarah and I started reproducing our own takes on famous artworks. Like my self-portrait as Caravaggio’s Bacchus and my portrait of her as Vermeer’s Girl with a Pink Bunny Earring. Those images were fun to make simply because they are all about art culture.

One other trap I see a lot of beginners fall into is that they want to create something new – something that hasn’t been done before. Well, the sad news is that unless you step completely outside your culture, you cannot and will not create something completely new. And, even if you do, it’s probably the case that it’s completely new to YOU, not someone else. For example, I did my image of myself as Death pushing a lawnmower. Immediately after I posted it, I started getting comments “ah! ha! I’m also an Eddie Izzard fan!” Who? Eddie who? Wow – well, it turned out there’s this wonderful comedian who had that idea years before I did and I’d never heard of him – but since then I’ve watched a few of his shows and loved them. The point: even if you think you’re doing something new, there’s someone else who probably did it someplace else, long before. When I realized that, it totally opened up my attitude toward referencing other artists’ work and I felt this huge creative power-surge. That was when I started going on Deviantart and, if I see an artist who’s work I like, I’ll do a deliberate riff on it. So I did a few shots of models with panties on their heads, after Teruchan, and even completely copied one of Teruchan’s images of a rabbit-girl. I had a blast doing it and the model and I loved it, and so did everyone else.

In the immortal words of Tom Lehrer:

“plagiarize! let no one’s work evade your eyes! plagiarize! …only, please to call it ‘research’ …and always give credit where credit is due.”

Mannequin 2 by MJ Ranum

Brandon: You have had some issues with Deviant Art in the past over “maturity” issues when they deemed a photo of a fiberglass mannequin as containing adult content. How do you feel about Deviant Art in general?

Marcus: Deviant Art is a forum for sharing art, and I don’t treat it as much else. In fact, I wonder what Deviant Art’s founders would say they were trying to accomplish when they started the site. It’s nice to have a place to put stuff and interact with people, but it seems to me that people take it very seriously – it’s just a website. My issues about “mature content” are a bit more complicated than the fiberglass mannequin incident; they run much deeper than that. Essentially, what Deviant Art has done with the 18+ flag is given artists a horrible choice between self-censorship, and being censored by anonymous individuals in the mob. We get the 18+ flag and, supposedly, if we put it on an image, it means only people who are willing to see possibly upsetting things should see it. You’d think it would be done at that point – but it’s not. Suppose I post something I’m pretty sure isn’t offensive – like a photo of a hunk of lifeless fiberglass – and someone honestly thinks that fiberglass buttocks are going to emotionally scar some poor child, and flags it anyway. Well, then, what was the point of having the 18+ flag and asking me to put it on my image? It’s going to get censored by some random prude in the audience? I find the idea shocking that anyone would be shocked by fiberglass buttocks. I mean, seriously. There are important issues in the world – and protecting some kid from seeing fiberglass buttocks is not one of them. Those prudes’ kids that they think they’re protecting? They’re watching the “girl and the goat” show or Saddam Hussein getting his neck stretched on youtube. I seriously think that these people have their priorities deeply confused.

Brandon: Did you fight the mannequin/maturity thing with the dA staff?

Marcus: I responded by marking everything that I do 18+ and challenging any of the people who felt that my images weren’t 18+ to “report deviation” to correct them. Of course, nobody has. The whole point of that exercise was to illustrate how rapidly any censorship – even the slightest bit – pushes everyone to the lowest common denominator in terms of freedom of expression. Of course, sooner or later someone says “we have to protect the kids!” (eyeroll) Again, I have to wonder about people’s priorities. Right this minute there are 200,000 kids in war-zones around the world. They aren’t going to be traumatized by fiberglass buttocks, they’re wondering if the man with the gun over there is going to shoot mommy – or them. If someone wants to worry about protecting kids, I strongly suggest they start in the Sudan or Rwanda.

Brandon: Do you think there is such a thing as obscene art, and art that shouldn’t be shown to kids?

Marcus: I think the word “obscene” is meaningless. I don’t think there is anything that shouldn’t be shown to kids.

Often, when I say that, people are shocked. But what they don’t want to understand is that our attitudes toward childhood are based on a fantasy of how upper-class victorian kids were raised. While those kids were nannied and went to private schools and were protected from the great big awful world out there, working-class kids were already in factories pulling 10 hour days loading bobbins on textile machines, digging coal, serving in the navy, etc. The upper class were able to sort of vacuum-bag their kids, but that was a tiny percentage of the population. And, because, in the US, we looked up to the victorians (after all, they ruled the world) we wanted that fantasy childhood experience for our kids. So, once again, wealthy and middle class american kids get treated like precious little vacuum-bagged glass baubles while kids in the rest of the world are cheap labor, child soldiers, child prostitutes. Frankly, I think it’s deeply sick that we try to “protect our kids” from the horrible reality of the world and what it’s like for 90+% of the children on earth. Whenever that topic comes up, I like to ask people, “what’s wrong with a 16 year-old seeing a penis?” and they say “they’re not ready for it.” Well, half of the children on earth can see a penis by looking down in the shower. Telling a child that a vagina is a horrible thing that they need to be protected from sounds – bizzare – when half of the children on earth have one of their own. This just leads to weird situations like that 16 year-old girl who was arrested for producing “child pornography” because she sent a topless picture of herself to her boyfriend. Meanwhile, the prostitutes in Thailand are a million years old by the time they turn 16. Now, on to “obscene.” I say the word is meaningless because if you look at the definitions of obscenity, they’re always subjective. Which means that what is “obscene” to me may not be to you, and vice-versa. So how, then, can we meaningfully regulate it? In the United Kingdom and the US they both have obscenity laws that make “sadomasochistic torture” a controlled form of expression. Well, guess what? Those kids that are being protected from all that horrible bondage photography are constantly exposed to christian iconography of poor old sadomasochistic jesus nailed to a cross. It’s hypocrisy. That’s all. Pure and simple.

Brandon: What do you think of free-speech advocates like Howard Stern or Larry Flynt? Do they help or hurt the free speech movement?

Marcus: I think Stern is an asshole and Flynt is a jerk. But they’re some of the people out there sticking up for free speech. I prefer to think of the people on my side as being philosophers like Voltaire: “I may not like what you say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it.”

Brandon: Out of curiosity, why do you think Stern is an asshole? I’m 24. I’ve kind of grown up with him as one of the faces of free speech, at least in my youth. Nowadays he is nothing more than a Don Imus who says “fuck” every now and then, but do you think he did any good for the free speech movement? Or did he hurt more than he helped?

Marcus: I think Stern is an asshole because he’s a lot smarter than he acts. He’s got a terrific sense for social commentary, but he hides it by playing stupid; I think that someone can be cutting and vicious and be clever about it. That’s what I’d rather see. I’m more a Christopher Hitchens fan than a fan of Howard’s I prefer the infighters who can take their opponent apart subtly and totally – Howard’s style is more to just badger them and interrupt them. But, again, I will defend Howard’s right to do his show his own way to the death. I do wish that Howard had taken on the FCC instead of running to satellite. He was high-profile enough that he would have been a great test-case. But it was his decision to make, not mine. So, Howard says “fuck” and gets fines from the FCC. But someone on conservative talk radio says “fudge” and we all KNOW he means “fuck” but it’s OK to say “fudge”? How stupid is this? If the MEANING of the word is offensive, then everything that carries that meaning should be equally offensive.

Brandon: I agree with you completely in that regard. While I think he knows very well what he was doing by hiding his intelligence (after all, since when has intelligence made anyone a celebrity? Show me one Stephen Hawking or Carl Sagan and I’ll show you 40 Paris Hiltons) I agree with you in terms of the meaning of a word. I have always been a big supporter of saying words like “fuck” because I personally find the idea of making certain words taboo silly, including cunt. What are your thoughts on that?

Marcus: At the point where someone can say “this thing or action offends me; therefore you shouldn’t do it” what they are doing is demanding control – in part – of your life. Well, if you want to assert control over my actions, I think you’d better have damn good justification! Not just that you don’t like it! If I started listing all the things I don’t like, we’d be here all night – and I have just as much right to insist that people not do the things that offend me as anyone else has. So, unless they can show actual harm or threat to health, I reject their attempts to expand their control over my actions. For example, it drives me completely nuts the way young people say “like” every third word. I think the FCC shouldn’t allow it, because it makes me grind my teeth in aesthetic annoyance, and that gives me a headache. My reason for disliking the replacement of “um” for “like” is just as good as someone’s reason for disliking the word “fuck.” Ultimately, I see the whole thing as a control game. It’s people who are uncomfortable with the realization that it’s a big, bad, world out there that doesn’t give a fuck about them – hanging in a solar system that utterly doesn’t give a rat’s ass about them – and they’re grasping at tiny little straws of control to make themselves feel better.

Brandon: You brought it up, so I’m curious. What does offend you?

Marcus: I am not sure I really am offended by much of anything. I’m extremely annoyed by hypocrisy, because it’s lying to oneself (or taking up a position one knows to be a lie) – I am extremely wary of people who aren’t intellectually honest because I understand them to be capable of doing absolutely anything and making themselves comfortable with it. There are a lot of things that I think are stupid – I guess it’s a question whether there is a sufficient level of stupid that I could say was “offensive.” Probably not. I think that people who get “offended” are implicitly accepting that they can’t do anything about whatever it is that annoys them. So they go around, basically, crying that they’re “offended” instead of leaving, or dealing with it. I had a wonderful experience back in 1997. I was taking the AMTRAK to New York and the train was fairly crowded and a guy took the seat next to me. I was reading Playboy (actually, I was just looking at the pictures) and the fellow next to me very graciously asked me if I could, please, close the magazine and perhaps read something else. He was extremely polite about it; I was fascinated. So I asked him “why?” and he explained that his religion didn’t approve. Well, it turned out that he was studying to be a rabbi. And we had a rousing debate about the question of obscenity for the next 2 hours until we got to New York, and parted friends. We both learned a bit. I learned that religious strictures on obscenity (at least in judaism) are incoherent, illogical, and unfounded. And I hope I left him with a few scorch-marks on the logic of his faith.

Marcus: Oh, yeah, and I asked him if he’d stand on his head while we talked, because my faith said that all rabbinical students were supposed to do that. It ended up he didn’t respect my faith as much as I respected his.

Johnny Rotten

Brandon: Haha! On the topic of truth, did you know Johnny Rotten said “I never lie. It’s too easy. The truth is much harder, but far more worthwhile.” I have tried to live with that in mind.

Marcus: Johnny Rotten is a perfect example of someone who understands the confusion between popularity, one’s message, mass appeal, and when to call someone a wanker.

Creashun Garden of Eden

Marcus: Some people use their art as a way of communicating a message that’s important to them. Something they are angry about. That’s a perfectly good use for art, and more power to ‘em. But I think there’s also something to be said for art that’s just pretty. I try to create photos sometimes that are completely meaningless but pretty. For example, “Rael IX” is one of my most popular photos but it says nothing – carries no message – unless it’s that “wow, some women’s backs are really pretty!” I do enjoy poking fun at bad ideas, which is why I’ve done a few photos making fun of religious concepts. My favorite of those is my creationist garden of eden photo – my sweetie and I spent a delightful afternoon coming up with ideas for that, and making it happen. We were giggling like kids the whole time – simply because it’s so dumb! What better way to say “your myth about the garden of eden is so dumb, we made a dumb photo about it, and your myth is even dumber than our dumb photo, you dumb dummies!”

Marilyn Manson

Brandon: This is slightly random but back on the topic of obscenity/religion, what do you think of Marilyn Manson? I personally think he is a brilliant business man and knew exactly how to manipulate the masses. A perfect example of someone that would have 0 power if the religious community didn’t try to control everything everyone said. Had he been ignored, no one would know his name.

Marcus: I agree completely. Although I have to say his cover of “Sweet dreams are made of this” shows that, under the slick exterior, there is talent and a heck of a fun mind. Yes, he has done a good job of establishing mass appeal, and the people who have tried to shut him down are a big piece of his marketing. I think it’s brilliant.

Whenever they get upset about something, they make it more attractive. I remember the huge kerfluffle about Andres Serrano’s “piss christ” – which is one of the least interesting photos that he ever produced. Or Robert Mapplethorpe – one of the least interesting photographers I’ve ever seen. But thanks to the outrage of the prudes, Mapplethorpe’s body of work is – legitimately – an important cultural item. I wonder if they knew that it’d get them into The Metropolitan Museum Of Art, how many photographers would have shot and posted self-portraits with whip-handles up their asses? I wouldn’t but that’s ONLY because getting into a museum is not one of my victory conditions.

Brandon: Do you think pornography can be art?

Marcus: I don’t know what “pornography” is.

Whenever you look at a definition of “pornography” it says something like “intended to cause excitement or prurient interest in the viewer.” Well, that’s a useless definition. Because, if you’re looking at some random picture on the internet, you can’t tell WHAT the artist’s intent was. Sure, you might look at it and think “it looks like he was trying to get me turned on; therefore it is porn” but – what if you’re wrong? Oh, you could say, “well, it DID turn me on!” in which case, fine, you’re turned on. But what about “it disgusted me!” if it disgusted you, it can’t have turned you on, so it can’t be “pornography!” The whole idea of “pornography” is simply nonsensical; it’s just a shorthand for “I don’t like it!” Which is fine – everyone should feel free to say “I don’t like it!” about any art that they don’t like, any time. The rejoinder, of course, is “….then don’t look at it.”

What is “art”? Again, I think it’s not objectively defined, so I’d say it’s nearly a meaningless word as well. I, personally, prefer to say that “art is short for artifact” – i.e.: it’s something that a person made. That’s it. Is a beautiful car “art”? Sure. Is a turd on the street art? Sure. Is Marcel Duchamp’s urinal in the gallery art? Sure.

So, “can pornography be art”? The question boils down to “can an ill-defined statement about individual tastes be used to determine whether something is art or not?” – a meaningless question. That is why I define “art” as I do – because that way it IS objective. Just don’t ask me to define what is “good art” or “bad art” – those are entirely subjective and we get into the problem of victory conditions. Is Thomas Kinkade “good art” because he has sold more copies of his work than Michaelangelo ever did, and has made more money (adjusted for inflation) besides? If we try to answer such questions all we come away with is nonsense unless we anchor “good” on our victory conditions. Michaelangelo has more viewers than Kinkade. Kinkade has more money than Michaelangelo. Kinkade has produced more work. Michaelangelo’s David weighs more than everything Kinkade has ever done, all put together. You can only make comparisons if you narrow your axis of comparison down to something that makes sense for a comparison.

Brandon: Do you display your art in galleries or in art festivals? Or do you just do it for the kicks?

Marcus: That’s another one of those “decide what is ‘victory’ for you” things. For some people, having a gallery show is a great pleasure. Or selling pictures at a festival, or whatever. I’ve done a show, and I found it didn’t do much for me – it was a lot of work and the value of seeing my stuff hanging on a wall was not much higher (or different) than seeing it online. If I wanted to get “eyeballs” I get more online. I’m not particularly concerned with selling my work, so I don’t need to market it.

So, yeah, I just do it for fun.

Brandon: How do you find your models?

Marcus: I usually find them on modelmayhem.com or onemodelplace.com. Sometimes, I get referrals. It’s important to me to always pay my models for their time – as someone who works as a consultant, I understand that our lives are short, our free time is little, and spending a day working to accomplish someone else’s vision is giving them a great gift. I’m intensely grateful for my models – they get up early, drive a long way, and get home late.

Brandon: On that subject, how do you compare working with a model you are paying to working with, say, a friend who is modeling for you for free?

Marcus: I don’t generally like to shoot friends. If you’re shooting a friend, you can’t tell them “nonononono! that’s all wrong!” – or, at least, they may feel they have the right to pout and complain. When you’ve hired someone to come work, it’s a whole lot easier to have clarity about what you’re doing. I’m not saying I’m rude about it, but it’s a very different relationship. I remember, once, a friend of a friend said she’d come and pose for me – and then started the whole “I feel fat this week” and “I have a pimple on my nose.” If it had been a professional model, I’d have been able to say, “OK, well, thanks. I’ll take you off my calendar and shoot someone else.” Honestly, free models are hardly worth it. The exception to that is my sweetie, the wonderful Sarah Ellis. But I’m insanely careful not to waste her time. I am pretty sure that if I started just hauling her over to the studio and shooting half-assed stuff of her, I’d lose her as a model and maybe more. So, when we shoot together, we make sure that we’re both in the right frame of mind and we’ve got an idea we’re both going to have fun with.

Brandon: Is your studio in your home?

Marcus: No, it’s a separate building. One of the reasons I live out in the middle of nowhere is that real estate is pretty cheap out here. So when I was looking for a space to build a darkroom, I looked into renting a store-front in a nearby town. Well, the rental agent dawdled and screwed around with the rates, and I decided, instead, to talk to a real estate broker. I explained what I wanted, and she said, “why not the old elementary school?” It turned out there was an old 3 classroom elementary school from the 1950s that had been sitting empty for a few years, and I got the place for less than the rent for the storefront. It’s insanely cool – 5,000 square feet of space in my own building, on 9 acres, with a commercial kitchen, bombshelter basement, basketball court, offices, classrooms, closets, etc. I’ve turned one room into a killer photography studio with a built-in plywood sweep (the background you see in most of my photos) and I can construct and tear down sets in any of the other rooms, if I want to. I’ve restored the principal’s office to look about like it did in 1957, and I’m thinking of turning the nurse’s office into a victorian living-room with a fake fireplace and whatnot. This spring I am going to get the water system repaired and turn the girls’ bathroom into a wet-plate darkroom. It’ll be the coolest darkroom, ever – the walls are already tiled, there’s a drain in the floor, and I’ll haul in the gigantic stainless steel sink from the kitchen and get that plumbed in. It’s pure awesomeness and I find my creative energy start to overflow every time I go over there.

(Note from Brandon: See pictures of Marcus Ranum’s studio
here.)

Read part 2 here:
http://www.nwflaa.com/2009/12/30/artist-interview-marcus-ranum-part-2/

Artist Interview – Marcus Ranum (Part 2)

admin — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 19:25:38 +0000

Brandon: Have you ever worked with underage models?

Marcus: Who needs the trouble? I always said that if I managed to get rich enough to defend myself, I’d push that issue. Because I think that the legal environment regarding art photography of minors is “undue prior restraint” on freedom of expression. But at this point in my life I don’t need the headaches. I’ve had a few requests but I’d only shoot a minor if the parents were not only there, but in the photo as well. I have an idea for a shot involving a kid and parents but I haven’t found the right kid and parents yet. I want to do a shot of a pair of loving, proud, happy parents, sticking a burning stake into their kids’ eyes, so the child won’t see anything offensive.

Brandon: When you have one of your shoots with a hired model, do you have makeup/hair people? Or is that the models responsibility?

Marcus: The kind of stuff I do doesn’t require a lot of make-up and hair styling. So I am careful to explain to models in advance that I’d appreciate it if they’d do that part of it. But, honestly, I don’t need much – a bit of foundation and do something with the hair. I work with what I have.

Brandon: Do you find male models or female models easier to work with?

Marcus: I think that it’s about the same, except that I have more of an eye for how to represent females as beautiful and sexy because that’s what I’m into. When I shoot some gorgeous young guy, and he fits perfectly into my old clothes from when I was in college, I sometimes get a bit wistful. A lot of the time, models are nervous about getting molested by photographers (and, with good reason!) but strangely I’ve found that hasn’t got much to do with gender lines. Except that a muscular young guy who can kick your ass hasn’t got as much to worry about. Most of the female models I know have had at least one horrible experience with a photographer – so I make sure that they all see I lead a very public life; I make it easy to tell which other models I’ve worked with – and they can always ask whether I was OK or not. I find I don’t see male beauty as clearly; but I’m getting better with it, I think.

Brandon: Do you have any model horror stories, without naming names?

Marcus: I’ve had a few, but generally my experience has been fairly good. The only really annoying experience I had one was loser photographer who apparently has a bad habit of getting very possessive about “his” models and falling “in love” with them. Apparently one model blew him off to come shoot with me, and he took that as a machination on my part, and a mortal insult. So I smoothed that over (or so I thought) and it happened AGAIN about 6 months later! So he went around telling some tall tales about me and – well – models talk among eachother, too – they pretty quickly figured out what was really going on and that was the end of that. I guess my worst experience with a model was no fault of either of ours. I was shooting this young lady on a hot summer day and I didn’t know she had been up all night the night before, and had driven 3+ hours to get to me. So we were shooting in the woods on a hot day, and I was drinking tons of gatorade, and she wasn’t. We got back to the house and she lay down on the couch for a bit – and passed completely out. Apparently she’d gotten quite dehydrated. But I had no idea if it was something more serious, so I picked her up and carried her to my truck and took her to the emergency room. I come walking into the emergency room carrying this sexy little lady who is wearing a really thin dress with nothing underneath it, and the admitting nurse turns to one of the others and says, loudly, “make sure that you get a swab on her, and don’t let him leave until she comes to.” Sitting in the waiting room with a state police trooper glaring at me was no damn fun, and fortunately the model came to just fine and told them everything was fine. I keep wondering that if she’d had a wicked sense of humor, I’d have probably been pretty badly beaten “resisting arrest” while they took me into custody.

Brandon: What advice do you have for beginning photographers?

Marcus: Wow – I could go on all night about that.

First off: think about how you learn best. Some people learn by studying and then trying, others by taking classes, and others by just experimenting. I’ve found that I learn best if I try something and fail a bit, then go do my research; that way when I’m reading, I have already got some practical hands on with what I’m reading about. Taking classes is a huge acellerator if you learn well by doing, but – again – I find that if I try (and fail a bit) before I take a class, when I take the class I’m mostly reinforcing and fixing what I’ve already learned. Anyhow, you need to think about how you learn and get out there and get going.

As one friend of mine once said: “hours in the darkroom can save you minutes in the library”

At the time, I didn’t realize how right he was. Now I realize that was a really profound observation.

And, of course, don’t worry too much about your gear. The same friend who said the “hours in the darkroom…” thing is an absolute photographic genius – and he loves experimenting. He got into an argument with some guy online and the guy was basically saying that you couldn’t really do good photography unless you had a “pro” camera and blah blah blah. You know the type. Well, my friend started posting these gorgeous scans of platinum contact prints – mostly flowers; they kind of looked like Imogen Cunningham’s still lifes of flowers. Beautiful stuff, simply wonderful. This went on for a while and my friend finally told the guy that he’d been shooting them with a Nokia camera-phone duct-taped to a light stand.

The point of that story is: if you know what you’re doing, you can accomplish amazing things with low-end gear. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can be using high-end gear and still fail. But there’s a “sweet spot” where the complexity of your gear matches your ability, and then you’ll upgrade your skills until you get to the point where your gear is irrelevant. There is this weird contradictory thing that if you’re seriously good you can make great shots just the same if you’re using duct tape and a cam-phone, but in order to GET to the level of experience where you can do that, you can’t get there with just a cam-phone.

Most of the serious awesome photographers I know have all the fancy gear because they got it on the way to getting where they are. And now that they’ve got it – they may as well use it.

Another point about gear is to think of your gear in terms of dollar per year. That’ll get you in the habit of asking yourself “how long will I use this, anyway?”

I bought my Hasselblad in 1991 and paid $6,000 for the whole thing. It’s now 2009, so I paid $340/year to have a camea that was perfect for my purposes. It still works fine. In the meantime I’ve gone through 4 digital SLRs. Because they keep getting better. So, I bought a great lighting kit, and a great film camera, and I buy my digital gear used, about a year after it first comes out, which saves me about 20% of the cost.

Why do I care so much about that?

Because – and this is a really important point – do NOT try to talk some model into doing trade for prints if you’re carrying a $4,000 camera. Just don’t do it.

Buy a $2,000 used camera of the preceeding years’ model, and pay your model. You’ll find that you’ll get much better pictures because your model is going to be working for you/with you. If you’re Irving Penn or someone like that, then “trade for prints” might mean something, but you really need to ask yourself if your prints are worth trading for. Most models would rather have next month’s rent in their pocket when they leave your studio, than your earnest experiments with lighting technique.

And, of course you should shoot a lot. But if you want to improve quickly, shoot with a sense of purpose. Give yourself an assignment, and complete it. Then review your work and assess it coldly and clinically. If you’re just shooting because you have a camera in your hand, you’ll wind up with thousands of “tourist photos” or “look! tits!” glamour shots. There’s nothing wrong with either of those, but ask yourself first if that’s what you want to be doing.

Last, but not least: do not tolerate censorship. Censorship, in any form, is establishing the basis that someone can arbitrarily say “I don’t like your art, so you can’t show it publicly.”

Fuck that. Fuck them.

Brandon: Have you ever worked with underage models?

Marcus: Who needs the trouble? I always said that if I managed to get rich enough to defend myself, I’d push that issue. Because I think that the legal environment regarding art photography of minors is “undue prior restraint” on freedom of expression. But at this point in my life I don’t need the headaches. I’ve had a few requests but I’d only shoot a minor if the parents were not only there, but in the photo as well. I have an idea for a shot involving a kid and parents but I haven’t found the right kid and parents yet. I want to do a shot of a pair of loving, proud, happy parents, sticking a burning stake into their kids’ eyes, so the child won’t see anything offensive.

Brandon: When you have one of your shoots with a hired model, do you have makeup/hair people? Or is that the models responsibility?

Marcus: The kind of stuff I do doesn’t require a lot of make-up and hair styling. So I am careful to explain to models in advance that I’d appreciate it if they’d do that part of it. But, honestly, I don’t need much – a bit of foundation and do something with the hair. I work with what I have.

Brandon: Do you find male models or female models easier to work with?

Marcus: I think that it’s about the same, except that I have more of an eye for how to represent females as beautiful and sexy because that’s what I’m into. When I shoot some gorgeous young guy, and he fits perfectly into my old clothes from when I was in college, I sometimes get a bit wistful. A lot of the time, models are nervous about getting molested by photographers (and, with good reason!) but strangely I’ve found that hasn’t got much to do with gender lines. Except that a muscular young guy who can kick your ass hasn’t got as much to worry about. Most of the female models I know have had at least one horrible experience with a photographer – so I make sure that they all see I lead a very public life; I make it easy to tell which other models I’ve worked with – and they can always ask whether I was OK or not. I find I don’t see male beauty as clearly; but I’m getting better with it, I think.

Brandon: Do you have any model horror stories, without naming names?

Marcus: I’ve had a few, but generally my experience has been fairly good. The only really annoying experience I had one was loser photographer who apparently has a bad habit of getting very possessive about “his” models and falling “in love” with them. Apparently one model blew him off to come shoot with me, and he took that as a machination on my part, and a mortal insult. So I smoothed that over (or so I thought) and it happened AGAIN about 6 months later! So he went around telling some tall tales about me and – well – models talk among eachother, too – they pretty quickly figured out what was really going on and that was the end of that. I guess my worst experience with a model was no fault of either of ours. I was shooting this young lady on a hot summer day and I didn’t know she had been up all night the night before, and had driven 3+ hours to get to me. So we were shooting in the woods on a hot day, and I was drinking tons of gatorade, and she wasn’t. We got back to the house and she lay down on the couch for a bit – and passed completely out. Apparently she’d gotten quite dehydrated. But I had no idea if it was something more serious, so I picked her up and carried her to my truck and took her to the emergency room. I come walking into the emergency room carrying this sexy little lady who is wearing a really thin dress with nothing underneath it, and the admitting nurse turns to one of the others and says, loudly, “make sure that you get a swab on her, and don’t let him leave until she comes to.” Sitting in the waiting room with a state police trooper glaring at me was no damn fun, and fortunately the model came to just fine and told them everything was fine. I keep wondering that if she’d had a wicked sense of humor, I’d have probably been pretty badly beaten “resisting arrest” while they took me into custody.

Brandon: What advice do you have for beginning photographers?

Marcus: Wow – I could go on all night about that.

As one friend of mine once said: “hours in the darkroom can save you minutes in the library”

At the time, I didn’t realize how right he was. Now I realize that was a really profound observation.

Most of the serious awesome photographers I know have all the fancy gear because they got it on the way to getting where they are. And now that they’ve got it – they may as well use it.

Another point about gear is to think of your gear in terms of dollar per year. That’ll get you in the habit of asking yourself “how long will I use this, anyway?

Why do I care so much about that?

Because – and this is a really important point – do NOT try to talk some model into doing trade for prints if you’re carrying a $4,000 camera. Just don’t do it.

Last, but not least: do not tolerate censorship. Censorship, in any form, is establishing the basis that someone can arbitrarily say “I don’t like your art, so you can’t show it publicly.”

Fuck that. Fuck them.

Brandon: Thank you very much for your time, Marcus.

Marcus: My pleasure.

—

Check out Marcus Ranums art work here:
http://mjranum.deviantart.com/

As well as Marcus’ stock work here:
http://mjranum-stock.deviantart.com/

Picture of Marcus courtesy of Michael Helms. Check out his work at
http://pelicanh.deviantart.com/

Thanks again for your time, Marcus. It was a truly enlightening experience.

Lonnie Rich – Artist on East Bay

Charlotte Snyder — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 04:15:14 +0000

I met Lonnie, a local artist, a few years ago at an art festival and fell in love with his wood and stone sculptures. Not only is Lonnie an award winning sculptor but his two dimensional art work is also crazy good. I would like to thank Lonnie for taking the time to do this interview.

nwflaa – Tell us a little about yourself.

Lonnie – I grew up in the Tennessee River bottomland in a little river boat town called Savannah, TN. We lived way out in the country and our road was just a dirt/gravel road when I was little. I recall the day that the county paved it and how the smell of asphalt wafted in the air. It was a fine road once it was topped, really great for bike riding. I would ride up to the top of the hill and start down with as much speed as I could muster. Then, I’d let go of the handle- bars and hold my arms up in the air over my head. It was always a fun ride. I suppose my childhood was about like any of the other kids living in the rural countryside. My friends, cousins and I would run and romp through woods, skinny dip in the river in the summers, build forts in the hay barn and enjoy the snow-cream in the winters when we had big snowfalls.

Lonnie Working in the Studio

I Am Soul in the Wind

nwflaa – When or how did you first know you wanted to become an artist?

Lonnie – I’ve always loved to draw and even today drawing is one of my favorite creative activities. Mom would cut pieces of brown paper bags for me, or give me the white pieces of cardboard from her stocking packages that I could use for my drawings. My first drawings were of birds, chickens, and other animals. Living out in the country I focused on the natural things around me that I saw everyday. When I entered into high school I majored in art. It was there that I decided to choose a career in the visual arts. I knew it was unlikely that I would be able to put food on the table and pay bills as a young working artist, so I chose to go into the field of art education. That way I would be able to further develop my artistic skills, work with other people interested in art, serve the community, and provide a decent living for myself. Then I planned to retire and become a full-time artist. It’s amazing, but my childhood dream of being a working artist has come true.

nwflaa – Who or what is or has been your greatest inspiration?

Lonnie – I’ve always been in awe of nature and how life operates best within a narrow point of balance between forces. The motion and movements of plants, animals, birds, fish, and people are fascinating to watch and to interpret in visual art forms. I have also found that “listening within” has become a tremendous creative resource for me. The gentle nudges of spirit are a significant source of energy and inspiration that I try to incorporate in my artwork.

nwflaa – Knowing that you are not only a sculptor but also a painter, what is your preferred medium?

Lonnie – My preferred creative activity is still drawing, though I don’t do it often enough. I enjoy it most because of its directness and its sense of immediacy. Holding a drawing tool and making marks that are a reflection of my inner feelings is a way of working in the moment, and I love that. One can achieve that through other mediums too, but with many other materials there are usually additional processes that can become a distraction for me in my work. I’m sometimes not very good with delayed gratification.

Fair Lady Walking in the Wind

Young Family

nwflaa – Which of your pieces are your favorites and why?

Lonnie – I do have certain pieces that I enjoy being around more than others. They seem to embody a spirit that I connect with on many levels of awareness. Some of them are my current wood/stone sculptures, some are drawings, and some are paintings. Perhaps they are my favorites because I achieved a stronger sense of balance in those artworks. By balance I’m not just referring to the physical equilibrium of the materials, as much as the total experience of energies that are involved in their creation, and that they emit as art forms. Quality artworks help to extend the viewer’s attention beyond the ordinary by encouraging a viewer to visit various levels of their own consciousness. The appreciation of art requires a variety of thought processes and is not a passive activity. However, most viewers do not understand those concepts and simply expect the artwork to do something to them as they look at it.

nwflaa – How do you know when a piece is finished?

Lonnie – It’s not always easy to know when to stop working on a piece. As with life, there’s always another level of awareness to explore. Sometimes the medium dictates the stopping point and other times the artist’s skill level is the determining factor. Especially in my wood and stone sculptures, I like to leave a little for the viewer to finish in their own consciousness. There’s a distinct relationship between the artist, the artwork, and the viewer. That’s another level of balance that must be considered in the crafting and the appreciation of an artwork. Each art form that I am engaged with speaks in a different voice and I find that I have to listen very carefully.

nwflaa – As an artist, who has won countless awards and accolades, what advice do you have for aspiring artists?

Lonnie - Creativity is not something that can be turned on with the flip of a switch at any point in time. An artist must have time to develop skills in using materials, to explore ideas, to make mistakes and learn from them, to build a sense of confidence and certainty about their work. I was told a story by one of my art professors in college. He knew an artist who was commissioned to do a brush and ink drawing of some fish. The customer, who had made a down payment on the work, waited for a year on the commission and still had not heard from the artist. Finally, out of frustration, the customer went over to the artist’s studio and demanded the artwork. The artist pulled out a piece of paper and in about five minutes created exactly what the outraged customer wanted. “Why have you waited a year to do this when it only took you five minutes to make this one?” the customer asked. The artist calmly walked over to a drawer and pulled out a stack of over 100 papers filled with brush and ink drawings of fish. “It took me a year to develop my skills and to explore the possibilities for the artwork you wanted,” said the artist. I’ve never forgotten that story, and I have often used it in my art classes as an example to students about what it takes to be a working artist. Our customers and patrons are not just buying our physical art forms– they are also paying for our years of knowledge, experience, and skills as artisans.

Lonnie in the Studio

Check out some of Lonnies other work at
Artistoneastbay.com.

Artist Interview – Sarah Ebear

admin — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 01:44:50 +0000

Sarah Ebear is a 27 year old artist based out of London, Ontario, Canada.

Sarah specializes in several mediums; from digital art to painting, Sarah Ebear has been very adventurous and experimental in her art career. She has been on both sides of artwork both as a model and an accomplished artist.

The founder of Stormwing Graphics, Sarah joins us today to discuss her work and the art world in general.

NWFLAA – Tell us a little about yourself.

Sarah: I am an acrylic artist in London, Ontario, Canada. I specialize in depicting the strength and beauty of the female form and being. When I originally broke out into the artistic world, I was acting as a graphic artist. I worked primarily in photoshop with a more gothic feel to my work.

I had always been a traditionalist at heart. I started drawing with my aunt when I was little and my passion grew from there. I found beauty and solice in being able to express my emotions, hopes and fears through my art. I took a few art classes through highschool and fell in love with the paint brush and canvas. I started in oils and moved into acrylics because I found them easier to work with considering the speed with which I like to work.

When my children were born though, my art took back burner to bills and diapers. So when a friend introduced me to photoshop, which allowed me to be able to work and leave what I was doing with ease, I was hooked.

I worked for about six years in photoshop, painting only on occasion. Then earlier this year I felt a very strong draw to get back into my niche with the acrylics. I am a firm believer that once one falls in love with the paintbrush, there is no turning back.

So with a friend, I opened an art studio in the local market and started doing my paintings on a full time basis. Now, with the economy being as unfortunate as it is, the market studio has closed and I work from my home studio again.

NWFLAA – What is the Canadian art scene like?

Sarah: I guess a question like that is really dependant on where you live. Here in London, there are a lot of artists in a city that can tend to be too conservative to properly support them.

NWFLAA – So the mediums are more traditional?

Sarah: At least here in London. There are a lot of graphic artists, however the city is more traditional in nature. However, if you were to move into the larger cities such as Toronto, you would find a better market.

NWFLAA – You did some work for the Canadian government, right? What were the details of that project?

Sarah: Well, I was working for Member of Pariliament, Irene Mathyssen. During the Fall 2008 Federal Election, I designed the election brochures that went out to the voting population. It was a very exciting experience to see my work in print as such and watch it be mass produced. It was even more exciting for me when Mrs. Mathyssen, won the election for the riding.

NWFLAA – Why did you switch from digital art to paintings?

Sarah: I switched from my digital work into my paintings more because of my draw and passion to the brush and canvas. Traditional work is in my blood. It to me, provides more of a personal touch that I do not get through digital work.

NWFLAA – As someone who does both, do you think either is more valid as an art form than the other? A lot of traditional artists are hesitant to embrace digital art as an art form. Your thoughts?

Sarah: I believe that both digital and traditional works are valid in their nature and expression. Digital work has its issues in the mass production area, however traditional works have their own challenges as well. Namely, the time and money used in creating them, and the fact that there IS only one when you are finished.

If it is a popular piece, you move right back into the digital realm when prints are created.

However, in the expression of self and creative identity, both forms are both equally valid in the skill and forethought that goes into the pieces.

NWFLAA – Do you still work as a digital artist? Or have you completely switched to traditional art forms?

Sarah: I do still at times work as a digital artist. I find the background that I have in the digital arts really helps to move me forward in my traditional work. If I need to see what a painting will look like before I begin the piece, I will work it up in photoshop first. I do also on occasion still create digital pieces on their own, especially when there is an effect that I would like to create that speaks directly to the piece that I cannot create with paint.

NWFLAA – Does anything or anyone in particular inspire your work? Do you find different things inspire your digital work or your traditional work? Different people?

Sarah: My digital work is inspired solely on emotion. My piece, “Hurt Like Me”, was fuelled solely from the emotion felt after a particularly nasty break up. My traditional work however, is more motivated by an original idea of my own, sometimes from a particular emotion. My style and technique have been largely influence by the works of the pre-raphelites.

NWFLAA – What was your reason for starting Stormwing Graphics, your design firm?

Sarah: My prime reason for starting Stormwing Graphics was to be able to bring my work to the people. I envisioned being able to create the works I had been creating for myself, for others.

NWFLAA – Would you describe the venture as successful thus far?

Sarah: No, not particularly. I have had a few commissions thus far in regards to my digital work, however, I find that London is much too conservative of a city to support such a venture without having the financial means to back yourself up.

Unfortuantely, caring for two children on my own, did not afford that financial means, nor the intense amount time necessary to push the business forward.

NWFLAA – What advice would you offer artists looking to start their own firm?

Sarah: Do your market research. It is a great necessity to have the market for the services that you are offering. If you have a particular niche that you work within, it would be wise to widen that niche so that you can offer more services to a greater variety of people.

NWFLAA – So how did you get into modeling?

Sarah: I had met a gentleman from a town nearby who was a photographer. He asked me to model for him. It was all downhill from there.

NWFLAA – Downhill?

Sarah: Yes, downhill. I fell in love with being in front of the camera, as well as soon finding that I love being behind the camera. Each shoot that I did, it came easier and easier until I was able to convey an emotion, a thought, a concept with little to no difficulty at all.

NWFLAA – And you got into stock modeling to fulfill your desire to be behind the camera?

Sarah: No, actually. I started doing the stock modelling because I was having troubles finding the poses, quality or facial expression that I required for my work. Unfortunately, good stock models/photographers are hard to come by.

NWFLAA – Describe the feelings you experience when you put your pictures online, knowing people will manipulate them.

Sarah: It is quite a mixed blend on the emotional level, really. In some part it is exciting and exhilerating to know that some of what you put up will inspire creative energy in another. For the rest, its the constant self questioning as to whether or not it WILL invoke a reaction as such.

NWFLAA – Are the results people make usually good? Would you say that the self questioning is worth it in the end?

Sarah: Yes, I defintely would. There are a lot of really great artists out there, both digital and traditional. I have seen some amazing pieces made with the aid of the stock that I post. There are a lot that most would cringe at, however, it is really about taking a step back to look at the skill level of the individual, where they are in their artistic journey and seeing beyond that to their vision.

It is very easy to be a critic. It is a harder and more rewarding experience to look past your own point and view and see through theirs.

NWFLAA – How do you feel about people selling artwork featuring your image?

Sarah: I have absolutely no problem with it and in fact, encourage it. I do not put restrictions on my stock, except however for the child stock that I post. For which, of course, I require permission before such sales are made. The only reason for that is just because they are my children and I need to be sure of the images that are being put out there with them in it. However, on the whole, people are very respectful of that fact.

NWFLAA – Do you think using stock diminishes the originality of artwork? Do you think its a crutch?

Sarah: I think it really depends on the person. Everyone needs to judge that one for themselves. I find that in digital work, stock is a necessity. Sometimes acquiring that perfect image is something that is beyond a persons control. For example, living in Canada, during January or February, finding a beach scene near by that isnt covered in snow is impossible.

NWFLAA – So what’s next in store for you?

Sarah: Currently I am working on a series that I am hoping to have completed by February 2010. At which point, I will be bring the portfolio to local and some outside galleries in the hopes of a gallery show.

NWFLAA – What is the subject of the series?

Sarah: The pieces will be primarily focus aroung the topic of the empowerment of women, particularly those who have survived abuse in intimate relationships.

NWFLAA – What, for you personally are the pros and cons of being an artist?

Sarah: I find that there are many pros to being an artist. I love being able to create and show my vision to the world through my work. However, it is definitely hard to be an artist on a full time basis while attempting to maintain the responsibilities of daily life with children. Starving artist is not a term that has been coined lightly.

It can also tend to be difficult when people ask what it is that you do. More often then not, when you tell someone that you are an artist for your career, you are immediately dropped into the category of the hippy airhead who can’t hold a “real job”.

It can come across that you just play rather than the hard work and dedication that it does actually take to be an artist.

There are times in any job that you do, that you do not want to work. It is those times that make or break an artist, in my opinion.

NWFLAA – How does your job as an artist and designer influence your life? Do you feel that you see things around you differently for example?

Sarah: Most definitely. Being an artist and designer affects every part of your life. It is a way of being. An accountant will see the world in logic and numbers. An artist sees the world for its possibility.

NWFLAA – Do you have any closing thoughts?

Sarah: Only the encouragement to those out there who strive to create. When people tell you that you can’t, do it. When you believe you can’t, work harder. It will come with time, dedication and the desire to make the dream live.

NWFLAA – Thank you very much for your time.

Sarah: Completely my pleasure!

Again thank you to Sarah Ebear for her time. Please take the time to look at her work online:

Stormwing Graphics:

http://www.stormwinggraphics.ca/

Below are some samples of her work.

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