stuff about art: 2024/10

Artist Statement

v The artist’s role in society, and the making of our work, can ~ at times bring joy; other times, other occasions the work produced may be disturbing. It is my goal to prod the viewer to reflect upon what is before them. The foundation for the illuminated text focus on more potent matters. The objective is to have an impact.

v When I was a child, a third grade instructor, Mr. Abel, taught the basics of poster layout and design. A junior high art instructor, Fannie Bufarlie, taught art theory and history while encouraging me to depict what I “… damned well please …” when making art. My mother ~ Mary Selma Evans ~ made certain I was able to visit great museum collections, where docents and security guards would caution against me standing too close while studying brush strokes.

v I learned the craft of typography from a father/son instructor team, the Bonkempers, who made clear that words, as well as images, were key parts to developing a visual oeveur. In college, after studying grainy pictures of air bases, open pit mines, glacial deposits, urbanized sprawl ~ I created maps of NY Finger Lakes region drumlin fields. Afterwards, I managed prepress operations for commercial web press printing and publishing firms; designed and developed materials for music festival, posters and booklets for theatre festival performances’ handouts, interpretive maps, illustrations, creating print materials for concert performances and the production of regional publications. Worked for Northern New York regional planning agencies with mapping, graphs, and typography.

v Some influences that have trained my eye and how I think about making images:

v Freida Kahlo ~ for her strong sense of vision, use of color and composition … and for her tenacity.
v Rockwell Kent, N C Wyeth, Kent Monkman ~ for scale, massing, vibrant color use and visual story telling.
v Herb Lubilan and the magazine U&lc ~ to understand creative use of type, lettering and calligraphy.
v William Blake, Alfred Waud ~ for exquisite detail illustrating narratives, and working in ink and prints.
v Robert Rauschenberg, Bette Saar, Philip VanBrunt ~ instilled a love of making collage and combines.
v David Wojnarowicz, Soviet Era collage artists and others ~ helped to capture social protest on paper.

v I’m also a human rights advocate, further affirming that we are all responsible to convey critical ideals with and between one another, to the obligation to speak out about economic, cultural and social injustices, and to identify paths to just resolution.

v I want to thank the staff at the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health [PRCH], for the opportunity to exhibit examples of my work here ~ including social issues pieces and landscapes ~ intermixed amidst display from the agency’s permanent collection of works of other artists already gracing these walls.