Kordula Coleman, Artist

 

Hello and welcome to the 30th interview for my interview blog 3 Art Questions With Jackson! 30! I am so happy to have the 30th interview be with the wonderful artist Kordula Coleman. I have been amazed with her art from the first time I saw it and now everyone in my family loves it too. We have her art hanging on our Christmas tree right now! She was kind enough to give her answers a lot of thought and I think everyone will enjoy the interview. Thank you so much for reading! 

Jackson: What made you want to use clay for your art? Did being in Germany have anything to do with it?

Kordula: The most important factor for my investment in working with clay was my mother. My first love was drawing and painting, and my focus settled on humans early on. I was obsessed with human anatomy and really wanted to get it right in my drawings. My mother was a potter, and had a pottery wheel at our house. At some point - I think I was around 6 - she introduced me to clay, and showed me the basics of working with it. My mother was never attached to having an impeccably clean house, so whenever I felt like it, I could work with clay, right at the dining room table. I think the supple, forgiving nature of clay, and the possibility to undo mistakes - won me over right away - and I loved having the option to explore the amazing possibilities of showing of showing a figure from different angles. I was often an anxious child, so I'm sure the therapeutic qualities of working with the cool and supple clay - the tactile experience - calmed me down. I drew voraciously at the same time, and as I became a teen, I often sketched my sculptures before executing them in clay. I realized more and more how much I loved having the option to create something in the third dimension - it just added so much more possibility of expression. My mother kept on supporting and encouraging me, and always saw to it that my pieces were glazed and fired. This sent a powerful message to me that was I was doing had merit and was valued. I also remember being hugely encouraged when the ceramic artist who fired my pieces told my mom that he thought I was a talented clay artist. In Germany, that is a big deal, because people in general are a lot more stingy with praise, and to get this kind of compliment from an artist we respected meant a lot to my mother and me. After high school, I became a ceramic journeyman at a company that builds large handmade tile ovens, ceramic fountains, and architectural pieces. I don't know if you know of the artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser - this company made many ceramic columns and mosaics for a famous house he designed in Vienna, Austria. I learned many important technical and artistic skills during that time. After getting my journeyman degree after 2 1/2 years, I took a detour studying graphic design and illustration and becoming an art director for some years, working in ad agencies in Germany for some years. During that time, my love for working with clay was buried under my demanding job and crazy working hours. But after coming to Minnesota in 2000, and being free of the restraints of a full time job, I rekindled my love for clay and have never stopped working with clay since then. While my children were small it was often difficult to find the time or mental focus, but over the years clay has once again become a huge stress relief, vehicle for expression, and island of sanity in difficult times. The possibility to show the human figure from different angles through clay gives me so many tools to express a mood or an emotional process. The mood and expression can be enhanced even more through different surfaces and treatments and glazes. I also love the fact that the pieces I create will outlive generations to come, and might even become beloved family heirlooms. The fact that a ceramic piece literally goes through fire twice - first for the bisque firing, and then for the glaze firing - is also a powerful symbol to me. You have to build it thoroughly and with care - you can't fake any strength or stability. Otherwise it will not survive the firing process. It reminds me of the strength a person will eventually develop, when they go through their life's challenges with patience and integrity. Their defining qualities will have become permanent, and resilient to the encroaching chaos of life.   

Jackson: How has the global pandemic affected your art or your art career? So many artists have had things postponed or cancelled.

Kordula: I am happy to say that the global pandemic has not had a noticeable effect on my art or my career. I have always worked from my home studio in our basement, and loved the solitude and seclusion, but also the closeness to my family and pets. I get my ideas anywhere, and being limited to mostly being at home, walking in nature, watching movies, listening to music or reading hasn’t hurt that. There is a certain lassitude and heaviness in the air because of the pandemic and the hardship it has brought to so many people, and that is palpable to me, but it hasn’t affected my drive to create art. I am immensely grateful to the Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association for setting up an online shop for every interested member artist this year, right in time for Art- A-Whirl 2020. I was able to show and sell my art very effectively during this event and ever since. Also, I am glad that I started taking the role that social media can play for artistic presence seriously some years ago. I started to invest time and thought into how to establish an online artistic profile that would keep people interested and captivated. That way, I had an online following when the pandemic hit that wasn’t greatly affected by my inability to meet people in person at art events. It also enabled me to be an independent artist and sell my work directly and on my terms, such as offering a payment plan for larger pieces. I will have my first solo show at Lanesboro Arts in Lanesboro, MN, in October 2021, and it was admittedly sheer luck that this show will open when a Covid vaccine will most likely have been widely distributed, and art openings and shows can happen in person again. I am immensely grateful that this opportunity for me to connect with people in person, and for people to see my art in person, has not been taken away by the pandemic.

Jackson: If you could meet any artist living or dead, who would it be and why?

Kordula: I found this to be the most difficult question! There are many artists that I admire and have drawn inspiration from, and would like to thank for motivating me to keep on expressing myself. There is, for example, Maria Zherdeva, a figurative paper maché artist working in Moscow, whose work I find mesmerizing because of its storytelling character and atmospheric density. There is Kelly Garrett Rathbone, an American figurative ceramic sculptor whose work I saw at the Northern Clay Center and deeply admire because of her technical mastery and the intriguing characters she creates. Then there’s the Russian born sculptor Sergej Isupov, a figurative porcelain sculptor, whose work I saw at the Museum of Russian Art, and who completely blew my mind. But it’s not just visual artists, but also writers, composers, musicians from all kinds of genres, and film directors that have given me a wealth of ideas and inspiration. What I am most grateful for is when art helps me enter a frame of mind where I feel inspired to create my own work, confident that I will be able to create something that will be genuine and satisfy me. That often works best for me when the art I’m experiencing isn’t too close to what I do myself - otherwise I feel that the danger of unconsciously copying what that artist is doing, or comparing my work to theirs, is too great. So for now, after much mulling over this question, I will pick Cary Joni Fukunaga - the film director who directed the 2011 movie version of the novel ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Brontë. I feel so much at home in this movie - the emotional depth and also heaviness that is so well portrayed through light setting, nature shots, music, and costume design, and the redemption from this heaviness in the end. I grew up in a home that was burdened with my father’s intense mood swings from happy and creative to depressed and anxious. He had been a German soldier and then a prisoner of war in a Russian camp in WW2, and his trauma was ever present and colored the atmosphere in our house with the same bittersweet, changeable, deeply contrasted light situation that I find in this movie. Because of these early experiences, I have always been drawn to stories of survival, and I have always been deeply moved and inspired by being outside in untouched natural environments, and by classical music. This movie offers me all that, and the emotional depth and intensity that I am trying to express in my sculptures. I would like to meet this director and tell him how much his movie has inspired me, and ask him about his own inspiration sources.

 

Petra von Kazinyan, Artist

 

Hello and welcome to the 29th interview for my interview blog 3 Art Questions With Jackson! This time I interviewed the amazing Vienna based artist Petra von Kazinyan. This is my second interview with an artist who lives outside the United States. I've always loved Petra's art on Instagram and her website and she has been nice enough to look at my art too. Petra took the time to give some really thoughtful answers, which I really appreciate! Thank you for reading!

Jackson: What inspired you to make art? Did you have a specific experience?

Petra: Since my early childhood, I had the desire to transform my life into art. I was never not painting or drawing. When I was six years old, I started to sign my works; the first one I ever signed was a small landscape painting, a forest scene. Funnily I wrote my age not my name in the bottom right hand corner....

So to me, art is all about self-expression, coping with reality - it's just something that has always been there and can't be separated from my inner self. Like Christo once said: When you're an artist, you're always an artist, there's not one second in your life when you are not an artist.

Jackson: Has the global pandemic changed your art or your art career? I had some things cancelled or postponed. I think it might be different there in Europe than it is here in the United States.

Petra: It was (and still is) the same here - due to the coronavirus, I also had to postpone a planned solo show to next year. A group show in Venice, Italy fortunately happened to take place, under strict measures for protection and hygiene.

And to sum up my feelings in 2020 so far: being an artist, self-isolation is nothing new to me; nevertheless, I felt different during the lockdown because it is something else to choose isolation of your own free will. So being told to stay in for public health reasons was kind of a new experience - and it was a very interesting, highly creative one.

Jackson: If you could meet any artist living or dead, who would it be and why?

Petra: Lucio Fontana. I'd love to have a philosophical discussion with him about the concept of space in art. What the terms "space" and "place" mean today, in our liquid modernity as Zygmunt Bauman once called it - in a globalized and digital world where the only constant is change.

WWW.PETRAVONKAZINYAN.COM 

Kim Matthews, Artist

 

Hello and welcome to the 28th interview for my interview blog 3 Art Questions With Jackson! This time I interviewed super talented artist Kim Matthews who makes art that is different than anything I've seen before, which is not easy to do. I really like Kim's art in person in galleries and online. She is the 2nd artist I have asked about the global pandemic. Kim took the time to give me some really great answers and I think you will like them too. Thank you for reading!

Jackson: What inspired you to become an artist? How did you settle on your totally unique style?

Kim: I don't know of anyone who just decided to become an artist, although I guess it happens. It's a weird affliction; I suspect you're "born that way," as the saying goes. I started making stuff when I was really little and from the time I was in kindergarten or first grade I knew I wanted to be an artist when I grew up. I drove my mom nuts because I was always making paper cutouts and there were bits of paper all around the house. I grew up in rural Maine, so we didn't have much in the way of art classes or anything else; we shared an art teacher among the three schools in our district, so art class was like a half-hour long every other week or something. It seemed like I never finished my projects.

 

Thanks for the compliment on my "style." I'm not sure if I have a style as much as a way of working that's based on the materials at hand or of interest, available time, whatever skill I can bring to bear, physical limitations, and some mysterious, unnameable impulse that comes from the universe. I'm working on two distinct bodies of work now: the modular sculptures you saw at Minnetonka, and a series of 108 meditation drawings that I started late last year. To maybe answer your question a little better, my first sculptures were constructed of reed or wire armatures covered in paper I made. In addition to being really into materials, I'm a process nerd, so I was working with Eastern fibers, cooking the raw material, beating it by hand, and so on, which is really time-consuming and a fine craft unto itself. And the work was fragile and I got concerned about things getting destroyed in shipping or at an exhibition, because by then I was showing my work at a gallery in south Minneapolis. So gradually I started working with commercial papers, fabric, etc., and kind of went from there. The next thing I knew, I was being referred to as a "fiber artist," which I did not like one bit. People like to label, and as soon as they've done that, there are no more questions to ask and they can feel satisfied and move on. This is also why I gradually moved away from strictly organic forms to the wonky geometry that you know. I'm interested in work that's open ended and asks more questions than it answers, so there's nothing worse for me than for someone to come up to me at a show and say, "I know! It's an ACORN," or whatever...because any reference is a point of entry into the work, not the purpose of it. I mean, you make something, and people respond to it as they will, with their own level of interest, education, expectations, and so on, but the artist has some say in it--so I just moved into a nonobjective approach so viewers were sort of forced to consider the work as itself first.

Jackson: Has the global pandemic impacted your life and how you make art? Has it affected your shows? I had some things cancelled or postponed.

Kim:  This has been the weirdest year ever. I support myself primarily through contract work and have always wanted to work from home so I didn't have to commute or deal with the office politics or the distraction of people having conversations around me while I'm trying to hyperfocus. So I finally got my wish but I suspect I'm going to be looking for work after the first of the year.

 

Deadly plague aside, it's been great to be at home. My home office is my studio, so when I get up to stretch my legs or rest my eyes, I can look at what I'm making or tweak something. Plus my cats are super-happy and I get to listen to music all day without headphones. But I'm sure it affects how I make art because everything affects it. Being in a considerably less stressful environment has given me more time and energy to do my work, so that sure helps with the sanity level.

 

I shipped a work to a university in Tennessee months ago for a show, and by the time it got there they had shut down the campus, and then the work just sat there for months until the gallery director could get back in and send everything back. I was in North of the 45th at the DeVos Museum in Michigan this year, and that had to go digital, but they produced a nice catalog and website for the show that they might not have done otherwise. I have a piece IRL! at the Rockford Museum for the Rockford Midwestern Biennial now. The real bummer has been not being able to travel. I try to go to New York a couple times a year, and my friend and I were all jazzed to see the Donald Judd show among others, and then we had to cancel. But I've also been in some online shows and am part of a pretty exciting project with Odetta Digital, so we'll see where that goes. It's such an odd time--some interesting opportunities that might not have existed without the pandemic, and then economic uncertainty and political turmoil. I have been extremely fortunate to have good health, and as much as I miss my mom, who died in 2012, and my best friend, who died right around this time two years ago, I'm so grateful they didn't have to be subjected to what we're dealing with now.

Jackson: If you could meet any artist living or dead, who would it be and why?

Kim: I think it would have to be Constantin Brancusi. Some of his work hasn't aged well--the figurative things--but he was groundbreaking in the way that he conceived a sculpture and the support on which it rests as a fully integrated whole but using contrasting materials. And he was masterful with all of them: cast bronze and carved marble, wood, and stone. I wish I had a fraction of that know-how...goals! Plus, he was a deeply spiritual man, involved in Theosophy, as were Malevich, Mondrian, Kandinsky, and others, so we share an interest in Eastern religion and philosophy. Isamu Noguchi, another one of my heroes for similar reasons, studied with Brancusi in Paris. There are other important artists too: Eva Hesse, Agnes Martin, Lee Bontecou...and I'm trying to get my hands on everything I can find about Tony Smith who, aside from being sculptor Kiki Smith's dad, was a designer, architect, painter, sculptor, and mystic. I think it's really important for artists to know where they come from, so I read a fair amount of art history, which I love, and which informs my work a great deal.

kimmatthewsart.com 

 

 

 

Dyani White Hawk Polk, Artist and Curator

                 

Hello and welcome to the 27th interview for my interview blog 3 Art Questions With Jackson! This time I interviewed amazingly talented artist and curator Dyani White Hawk Polk. I have always liked Dyani's art in person and online and she is the first artist I've asked about the global pandemic. I thought her answers were really interesting and I think you will too. (David Ellis took the above picture for the Walker Art Center)

Jackson: What inspired you to become an artist? Did you have a specific experience?

Dyani: I've been making things, drawing, and creating since I was little. Making and creating has always been my favorite thing to do! But I didn't always understand that this meant I was an artist. My mom actually used to tell me quite frequently as a teen and young adult, "Dyani, you're an artist, and one day you'll believe me." It wasn't until I sold my first painting as an undergrad that I really started to believe her and truly understand that making art was more than something I like to do, but something I was, something I am.

Jackson: Has the global pandemic impacted how you make art? Has it affected your shows? I had some things postponed.

Dyani: YES! The pandemic has prevented me from being in the studio. I had a show in New York City the first week of March. By the time I got home the pandemic was really starting to hit the States and we were all adjusting to the idea that we were going to have to start isolating ourselves. I came home, wrapped up a few things for my exhibition currently up at the Plains Art Museum and then started gathering supplies and getting ready to stay at home. 

I live with my mother and her husband who are both in their late 60s and have pre-existing medical conditions that place them in the high risk category. Because of this our entire family has had to practice extreme caution and focus on maintaining the health of everyone in our home. I have not worked in the studio since the second week of March! We have had to focus on keeping our folks safe and at home, which means me and my husband have taken on all of the errands that need to be done outside the home as well as sanitizing all groceries and supplies that come into our home. In addition to this, we were faced with the transition to distance-learning for our first grader and senior in high school. Then, our lease ended in May, which means we also had to move! Finding a new home, packing and moving our multi-generational home became an all encompassing effort for a few months. 

I have had to maintain a lot of administrative style work from home, on the computer. Unfortunately, the only artwork I have made since the pandemic hit was finishing a pair of moccasins that were already 75% done and making a necklace for my mom for Mother's Day. Now that we are moved and slowly settling into our new home I will be working on finding a way to start getting back into the studio slowly and safely. 

As for shows, yes, it has. As I mentioned, I have a solo show up at the Plains Art Museum right now. This show was supposed to open in March but the museum just recently reopened with social distancing practices in place. I'm not sure how many people will get to see the exhibition, especially considering how much travelling is still a risk. It is up through October 3rd though so hopefully people will still have an opportunity to experience the show!

I had a residency that was scheduled for April that had to be postponed until sometime in the future when things of that sort can begin again. I had an important speaking opportunity at a conference cancelled, as well as a couple of museum acquisitions of my work that had to be cancelled due to budget freezes. I am grateful though that I still have a few exhibition opportunities scheduled far enough into the future that they are still scheduled to proceed as originally planned. A number of acquisitions have still gone through despite the pandemic as well. 

Jackson: If you could meet any artist living or dead, who would it be and why?

Dyani: This is a tough question! There are so many artists I'd love to speak to, both living and dead. SO many!

I thought about this question for awhile last night and got excited about the various people I'd love to talk shop and life with. But what I landed on is this. I would like to speak to someone in the past, from within my family lineage that was an accomplished beadwork or quillwork artist. I don't have any immediate family members to turn to in this way. But I am certain there would have been someone in the past. Whomever that woman is, I'd love to visit with her!

www.dyaniwhitehawk.com 

Alyssa Baguss, Artist

Hello! This is Jackson and welcome to the 26th interview for my blog 3 Art Questions With Jackson. This time I interviewed the amazing and multi-talented artist Alyssa Baguss. She also sends me cards to let me know when she has a new show which is very nice. I really liked her answers a lot and I think you will too. Thanks for reading!




Jackson: I only make paintings. You make lots of different kinds of art. How do you get your ideas? What motivates you?


Alyssa: Jackson, this is such a great question! There are so many ways to live a creative life. While I would say that at heart I am a drawer, my practice shifts from 2D artwork to installation to public art projects and back again (or sometimes all at once). I love variety and using creative processes to explore things I'm wondering about. It's pretty rare that I get my ideas when I'm in the studio. Instead, I spend a lot of my time talking to people, exploring places and chasing the things I love. If I do this with the right energy (because it makes me happy) I bubble with ideas and wonderings that lead to my artwork. I call it following my joy compass. It rarely steers me wrong. 

I also make a lot of things that never end up in a gallery or art project. I try hard not to judge these makings as good or bad. Making and experimenting with materials fuels my practice - they're little boosts of energy that propel me forward. 


Jackson: What made you want to be an artist? Did something or someone inspire you?


Alyssa: I was raised in a small rural town in Iowa where I wanted to be an artist for as long as I can remember. I didn't know any artists or really know what the path was to become one but drawing always made me feel like my true self. Most of my childhood memories involve drawing in a sketch book or building things with my grandfather and I was always referred to as the creative one. I didn't go to art school until I was in my mid/late twenties after spending years working jobs that weren't fulfilling. People discouraged me from pursuing an art career at that age but I knew that I would live a miserable life if I didn't. I'm so grateful to be doing what I love every day.


Jackson: If you could meet any artist living or dead, who would it be and why?



Alyssa: I would love to have coffee with composer Wendy Carlos. She is so interesting! She's a trans composer who became famous through her pioneering work with synthesizer music in the 1960s. She was born in 1939 and studied physics and music at Brown University. With her expertise in computers and interest in musical timbre, she collaborated with Robert Moog to develop early synthesizers. Some of her early compositions involved a combination of classical music and electronic music and later she created the soundtrack for movies including the A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Tron and many others. Her personal interests include drawing maps and traveling the world to experience total solar eclipses (she's seen 18!). I admire her enthusiasm for anything she puts her mind to and I think it would be fun to listen to her stories about her life.

Bunny Portia, Artist

Hello! This is Jackson and welcome to the 25th interview for my blog, 3 Art Questions With Jackson. This time I am excited to interview multi-talented artist Bunny Portia. I have one of her t-shirts, I really like her art, and Bunny is in WARM. My grandma was in WARM so that is a fun connection. I hope you like the interview! Thank you for reading!


Jackson: How did you know you wanted to be an artist? Did something specific happen?


Bunny: Artist was actually my third choice of careers. Number one was "Cowgirl". Specifically, I wanted to be Annie Oakley, because she got to ride horses ALL DAY. By the time I was 10 it was clear that my second career choice, "Ballerina", was not going to happen either (wrong body type at the time). Although I was interested in art as a kid, my third career choice, "Artist", seemed impossible growing up in Des Moines in the 50s. The only artists I was familiar with were male and none of them lived in Iowa. So I took a typing class just in case my top three choices didn't work out. 

In high school I didn't listen to anyone over the age of 20 but I listened to my art teacher Mrs. Bryant because I wanted to BE her.  She had a newly minted MFA from Drake. She was beautiful and she had that glassy-eyed look that that suggested she had just toked up in the teachers' lounge because it was the 60s and anything was possible. She had it all figured out and seemed to be having more fun than anyone. Yes, I mostly wanted to be her. So I took Mrs. Bryant's advice and went to Drake University to earn a BFA in Graphic Design.

After graduation I worked in advertising for 40 years. It paid the bills and painting was my hobby. I continued to take drawing and painting classes for years but never actually called myself an Artist, even though I was painting regularly.

That changed in 2010 after an event at the Walker Art Center

when a close friend of mine introduced me as "this is my friend. She's an Artist."

It was a memorable moment for me when I realized that she 
saw me as an Artist who had a day job. I saw myself as an Art Director who also painted. After that introduction I finally had the courage to start calling myself an Artist. She gave me the permission that I couldn't give myself.

So becoming an artist was a two-step process for me. First, my (high) high school art teacher convinced me I could BE an artist, then 40 years later my best friend unknowingly convinced me I could CALL myself an artist.



Jackson: My grandmother Linda McNary was in WARM with you. Did being in WARM help or change your art career?


Bunny: I was a late-comer to WARM after spending 40 years working in advertising and only painting at night when I could. When I did finally join the women in WARM definitely helped me on my path. I received lots of support from the group for painting my vision, no matter what it was. The first Bunny Portia show was in Hudson, WI. Many in the group had experienced ageism and "disappearing", the themes that my first paintings address.

Jackson: If you could meet any artist living or dead, who would it be and why?

Bunny: This is a tough question for me. I usually like difficult (eccentric) people because they're the most interesting people and it's their singleness of vision that makes them so interesting. So here's my short list of "Art Heroes" even though I'm not sure I'd really like to meet them. Maybe I'd prefer to continue imagining them as fully formed, perfect human beings who also profoundly changed the art world. 

First, Georgia O'Keefe comes to mind because we share a birthday and she was a maverick. I've read so much about her, I'm not sure what else I want to know. Maybe I'd just like to tell her thanks for being a role model for me, even though she didn't want to be that. Her dedication to art has always inspired me.


I've been fascinated by Andy Warhol since I became aware of the soup cans in high school or college. Was he naturally that fun, eccentric and sometimes mean, or did he dial it up for the media and for fame? Is that a question you can ask a famous artist?

I'd like to meet Edgar Degas just so I could yell at him, "Hey Edgar, stop being such a dick! It wouldn't kill you to be a little nice to people, especially women." I love every aspect of his work (the horses, the ballerinas) but he was reputed to be a misogynist and socially mean to everyone but Mary Cassatt. Maybe if I scolded him in my best Mom voice he'd listen and have a better life. Just kidding, I'd never do that, I'm way too nice. Besides he might yell back. 

Cecelia Beau was a wonderful portrait painter and really had to fight to get educated and recognized. I admire her talent and spunk. If I got to meet Cecelia, first I'd ask her if she knew Degas and was he as big a jerk as he's made out to be. Then we'd tackle her questionable relationships. Maybe we'd even talk about art. 

Perhaps my #1 choice should be John Singer Sargent. I'd like to watch him paint highlights on satin. They always look like nothing up close but are magical six feet back. And those gorgeous hands he painted. I'm guessing he was pretty charming because how else would he have lived off his friends and clients for much of his life? I know he painted great portraits for them, but he stayed for MONTHS with these families. It would take a lot of charm to work that gig as long as he did. I'm sure we'd have a very genteel conversation and I'd probably end up buying him a fancy lunch and then he'd casually ask me if I could put him up for a couple months so he could so he could look for commissions. 

www.bunnyportia.com 

Russ White, Artist, Designer, Writer, and Editor

Hello! This is Jackson and welcome to the 24th interview for my interview blog, 3 Art Questions With Jackson. This interview is different because it is the first time I have interviewed a man. And it's Russ White! He's great! I love his art and he has been very nice to me, he came to an opening for a show I had at Frameworks Gallery with Susan Solomon. I hope you like the interview! Thank you for reading!




Jackson: How did you decide that you wanted to be an artist? What inspired you?



Russ: I’ve been drawing as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, I had a big gallon-sized ziplock bag full of markers and pencils and pens that I would bring with me on family trips — never left home without my “drawing stuff.” I was inspired by comic books especially, first Ninja Turtles and superheroes, later the weirder stuff like Dan Clowes and Evan Dorkin. In high school I was inspired by punk and hip hop albums and started making collages nonstop, cutting up local newspapers and old National Geographics (which I also brought along on family vacations). In college I got really into found object sculpture and fell in love with making things in a woodshop. Once I started working in an actual woodshop after college, standing on a concrete floor over a tablesaw seemed less fun after a while, so I got back into drawing. Full circle. So I guess I never decided to be an artist, it’s just always been a part of my life. Going full-time with an art career, in addition to other freelance work, was a whole other calculation, based on the blind faith that if other people could make an art career work, surely I could figure it out, too. Plus Minnesota is a great place to find an audience and a funding infrastructure. And my wife kicked me in the butt and told me to go for it.



Jackson: I really like how you make different kinds of art. How do you get your ideas?



Russ: Thanks! I try to find the medium that best represents each idea. Sometimes an image works best as a drawing, other times it could be a sculpture or a screenprint or a photograph. I’ve collected a lot of skills in all the oddjobs I’ve worked over the years, and it’s fun getting to put so many to use. 

But as for where the ideas come from, that’s one of my favorite questions. The short answer is “my brain” or “current events” or something like that. But the long answer is that creative people have both a muscle and an antenna for ideas, and they work together. There’s a great book by Elizabeth Gilbert called Big Magic, in which she talks about ideas as these things that float around, looking for an antenna, and if you get an idea but don’t use it, eventually it will move on to someone else. She started writing a novel once, a love story set in the Amazon, but eventually she abandoned it. A year later, in a chance meeting with another writer, she found out that person was working on a new novel: a love story set in the Amazon.

I’ve had that happen several times as well, where ideas I’ve had but not worked on or developed have shown up in other people’s work. Maybe it’s a shared visual culture inspiring great minds to think alike, I don’t know. But sometimes an idea will just arrive, show up out of nowhere almost fully formed, like you just picked up a signal on your antenna.

Most of the time it’s more like a wrestling match. The ideas usually come from practice, from working that muscle of thinking a certain way, of drawing a certain way, of following a train of thought over a long period of time. I also think the stronger your muscle, the higher your antenna will go. Chuck Close famously said, “Inspiration is for amateurs, the rest of us just show up to work.” He’s right, it really is about putting in the hours. But I also like what Maynard from Tool had to say: “If you don’t believe in magic, your artwork probably sucks.”

Jackson: If you could meet any artist living or dead, who would it be and why?

Russ: Oh, that’s a tough one. So many great artists out there. I’m tempted to say Marcel Duchamp because he changed the course of art forever, more so than anyone in the 20th century. Or maybe Lee Bontecou, one of my favorite sculptors, who walked away from her career when the galleries didn’t respect her new direction. One time in college I almost got to meet Winston Smith, the punk collage artist for the Dead Kennedys, but I was too nervous at the time to meet one of my heroes. I think I’ll say Philip Guston, just because I love his work and I bet he was a lot of fun to hang out with, which is really my main criterion.

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