Allen TenBusschen is a painter and designer. One review of his work explained, “TenBusschen creates studies and variation of portraiture. Using small elements and distinctions of paint application, TenBusschen’s portraits are not only technically interesting but possess an otherworldly quality by tweaking the familiar form with beautiful, unnatural colors and flowing forms. He was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, graduated from Brigham Young University-Idaho, and now lives in Iowa City, Iowa.

Tell us about your evolution as an artist. I am one of those late bloomers I guess. I spent time as child drawing comic book heroes, and doodling, took a couple art classes in high school and spent more time out of class goofing around than in class. I have always wished I had one of those amazing artist beginnings stories, something like how Chuck Close was my uncle or I saved Jasper Johns from a burning car wreck and he recognized the talent and its been amazing every second since, but when I got to college it took me a long time to figure out what I wanted to do. A lot of failed attempts and a GPA that would make most fast food restaurant managers cringe had me completely lost and frustrated with the arts. I had trouble focusing and developing as an artist, it took a couple of amazing professors at BYU-Idaho (who have the patience of Saints) and some unique classes for me to begin to understand that art could be the path for me. I like to tell people I have a Doctorate from BYU-Idaho because I was there for so long, exploring all the art department had to offer. I eventually settled into the illustration program, all the while taking every 2-D course offered, my major was illustration but I believe my work was more geared towards the Fine Art emphasis. Painting has been an endless source of frustration mixed with the occasional success, but I cannot seem to turn away from it. I constantly devour paintings and I find a deep sense of relief and peace when I find a painting that truly resonates with me.

You often work in black and white. How is your style developing? I was scared to death of color is the easiest way to put it. The theories surrounding color would confuse me to a point of inactivity, so I instead focused my energy on the study of value and the concepts surrounding form. I spent a lot of time trying to understand color from reading theory, I believed that somehow it would magically click and I would be able to completely understand it if I could understand the theory and THEN I could paint with it, which is so backwards for me. It’s funny how sometimes we try to force ourselves to learn differently because the medium or technique is different, that we must learn to paint like our teachers because that is the way they learned, only recently have I been able to look past that and glean the truths hidden behind some of their lessons and weave those truths into a way of learning or thinking that makes sense to me. Color is still a stumbling block for me, but less so as I explore and experiment with it, as I begin to learn the way color affects me and my work I begin to create my own version of a color theory. The figure has always been an interest to me, I also love the ideas surrounding patterns and repetition, my work has a lot of elements that flatten and balance between form and design. My future holds a deeper exploration and a new body of work with these concepts in mind.

What’s next for you? I just recently closed my first solo exhibition, which was just plain fantastic. I applied for a local residency and was turned down but because the director appreciated my work, he offered me a solo show instead and we have cultivated a wonderful relationship because of it. This fall I will be attending the University of Massachusetts – Dartmouth to pursue an MFA in Fine art Painting, working with professors I admire and giving myself the ability to spend 2 years focused solely on the pursuit of my art. I’m excited and oh so nervous about where I will end up, but the journey will be full of self-discovery and hopefully great work.

Visit Allen TenBusschen’s website.

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Clotilde Hulin is a wonderful French painter. She is another honorary Mormon and friend of The Krakens. Hulin lives in France an hour north of Paris by train.

Tell us about your development as an artist. My first memories: I grew up in a very creative background where I spent Sunday and holidays drawing, painting, and building little things with my hands. I have many memories, too, of painting leisurely in my childhood: huge papers (taller than the pupils) on the wall we assaulted with our dripping brush! Creating always give rise to pleasure. I have done photography for many years and digital painting, too!

Capturing pictures with my camera. Drawing and painting are ways to observe and find the beauty in everything. When I paint I let the brush, the fluid, move and dry and then I lay down more colors. I allow space for surprise. I want to paint a jazzman. Another one appears with my brush stroke, it was not my first idea but I can respond by laying down more color on him to let him born on the canvas. I like to paint life and happiness. I like to paint emotions and feelings.

What are some of your favorite themes in your work? My favorite themes are the body in movement and in particular dancers. And the horses—I love to see horses. I love to ride. I love to paint them, too!

Visit Clotilde Hulin’s website.

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Nick Bontorno is a talented painter with a distinctive style and original compositions. He received a BFA from Brigham Young Univerity-Idaho and an MFA from BYU. Bontorno is from New York state and lives in Jackson, Wyoming.

You once spoke about your ‘ability to relate to others’ through your art and specifically your figures. How does art help us communicate? Well art helps us see what we might not on our own. So portraiture is great in that it introduces us to someone via the artist. It’s hard to do commissions for me because I paint people the way I feel about them, which is not always how another would feel. Anyway, we all walk around summing up each other, sometimes too quickly, sometimes too forcefully, and we are efficient at it. If we like someone we are much more generous. I like everyone I paint, even if I don’t know them. It’s like saying “here’s what I think of this person. What do you think?” To connect in this very basic humane way is important for our spirits. A lot of people go days without real interactions, no eye contact, no connections. I want my pictures to be able to be connected to. People need people. I make sure my portraits are looking at you, so that there is an almost real exchange happening. I have a hard time making eye contact with people, so this is kind of a crutch for me too.

What has changed with your approach to your art? I think my color usage has improved in the last few years. Looking at Whistler has taught me that you cannot just use any old neutral or grey arbitrarily; there are functional neutrals. I’ve been looking into what colors work with what greys… its interesting. Also I am less afraid of bright colors. But I am just getting started with this.

How do you feel about the Mormon art community? What would you like to see going forward? The Mormon art community is hard to define. We love trend, as everyone does. We are an interesting micro market. I love the old school Mormon illustrators Anderson and Freiburg. They brought seriousness to their faith. The cute, quirky, or fantastical trends today are hard to relate to for me. As for the fine art side of things, I think there are some great LDS artists. The thing we struggle with is following trends as religiously as we follow our faith. There’s also been all this ‘alternative’ Mormon art going on trying to look intellectual. Being in dissent is not that interesting. Our art should not grovel in politics. Besides all that I am excited for Mormon art. I hope people make their own. I hope it stays colloquial. The quilt show in Springville—that might be my favorite Mormon art. The main thing is that the gospel expands our minds and hearts, and art can assist in that.

What’s next for you? Well I am working in a studio in Provo and doing a lot of side jobs/projects. Having to make money is always the other side of things. As Wallace Shawn says “When I was young all I had was money and all I thought about was art. Now all I have is art and all I think about is money”. I don’t know what is next for me but I am happy to have this experience as an artist and laborer at the same time. I need a life to make art about.

Visit Nick Bontorno’s website.

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Shae Warnick is a painter, birder, and naturalist. She explains, “I draw inspiration from the nature that extends to our doorstep, not a ‘place where we go’ but ‘the place where we live.'” Warnick attended Brigham Young University-Idaho and lives in Indiana.

Tell us how your art career evolved. And how this interest in all in things avian began. Several years ago I finished my first semester in a college BFA program and had a body of work that I wasn’t very passionate about. Most of my images were landscape or portrait based. After a tough evaluation with an astute BFA committee (and my own bit of soul-searching), I decided to scrap everything and start fresh. Up to that point, my art had been battling for attention with the time I spent outdoors. My twin sister and I had been avid birders since grade school, and in college I spent every summer morning exploring nearby trails, watching birds, identifying flowers, trees, and bugs. I realized that nature and art don’t have to be two separate entities in my life. I went back to my BFA committee with some images based on natural history, and everything took off from there. Since then, I’ve been flooded with energy and new ideas.

You have written that finding intaglio printmaking was a turning point in your development as an artist. Explain. In intaglio printmaking, you spend hours subjecting a copper plate to different processes and chemicals to create an image that can be transferred to paper. You might begin with a clear image/end in mind, but for a beginning printmaker, it’s highly unlikely you’ll succeed in recreating it. At best, your final print will be somewhat related to your original idea. But this isn’t a bad thing. The nuances and mutations that can happen in printmaking may elevate your image, giving it a higher level of sophistication than you’re actually capable of. I learned to love this process. Up to that point, my art education had revolved around mastery and control of a medium, or domination you could say. In printmaking I learned a new way of artmaking, not domination but mediation, where a final image is poised somewhere between chance and your own coaxing. It’s an exciting process. I’ve learned to recreate that process with the other mediums I use.

You’re still early in your art career, but what do you wish you had learned in school about the business of art? I wish I had learned earlier to really hone in on what subject matter and methods I resonate with. I wish I had learned to couple art with whatever else I was passionate about instead of trying to keep them separate for so long. I wish I had paid more attention to not only what I want to paint, but how I want to paint. I didn’t realize that methods and process are just as important as subject matter in the satisfaction an artist feels with their work.

What’s next? Lately, I’ve been working closely with natural history museums and herbariums. Most of my images come from the specimens I observe in their research collections, and I’ve arranged to work with some new museums in the next few months. New collections will mean new ideas! On top of that, I’ll be headed to graduate school later this year, so lots of exciting things ahead!

Visit Shae Warnick’s website.

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See another interview with Shae Warnick by Bryony Angell.

Janis Mars Wunderlich is a contemporary ceramic master. She was born in Akron, Ohio and received her BFA from Brigham Young University and an MFA from The Ohio State University. She was profiled previously on The Krakens for her ceramic work. She is spending the summer in Dresden, Germany on a residency studying modern and historic techniques of porcelain figurine manufacturing at the Meissen Factory in Meissen, Germany. Wunderlich lives in Ohio.

Wunderlich writes of her work, “A significant part of my life has been dedicated to the role of nurturer and protector – instinctive duties that are equally sustaining and consuming. I symbolize this dichotomy in my art through the representation of a central mother figure that is often overlaid with layers of small child-like and anthropomorphic figures. The interactions between the mother figure and her living appendages provide social narratives depicting the joys and struggles of family life. The burdens of domestic duties and parental responsibilities result in satisfying pleasure and excruciating pain, both of which ultimately strengthen our character. “

How did your career develop? What worked and what didn’t? What is your work like today? I went to graduate school when I only had one child, because I knew life was not likely going to get easier. I wanted to get as much education in ceramics as I could, as there is so much technical and material information to learn in the field! After grad school, I voraciously sought after any opportunity to teach and exhibit my art, filling every spare minute of my time with art. For 25 years, I have balanced full-time art making with being a full-time mother. I found the best way to balance teaching was to seek short-term teaching opportunities, such as visiting artist/ lecturer events, or to teach short-term workshops at art schools. I had my studio at home so I could work on art while taking care of meals, laundry, and all of the crazy events of daily life. My kids would work on their own projects along side me in the studio. They grew up doing art regularly in their corner of my studio.

As my kids have gotten older, I am able now to teach more, and recently took over the Ceramics area at a university in Ohio. The only unfortunate part of all of this is that despite my 20 years of teaching as a visiting artist, it’s not considered ‘official’ college teaching experience. So, as I go back in to teaching at the university level, I am starting from scratch as an adjunct instructor. I am in a transitional period in my art (and in my personal life!) where I am experimenting, pushing boundaries, and forcing myself to get uncomfortable in the art making process. I am forcing myself to draw and paint, and explore mixed media. We will see where I end up!

Visit Janis Mars Wunderlich’s website.

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