Alex Rane: Sculpture in the South Bronx

July 7, 2015Garrick Infanger

Alex Rane is a sculptor working in the mediums of bronze, clay, and his main focus marble. He graduated with a BFA in sculpture from the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts where he studied anatomy and the figure. Upon graduating, Rane shifted his focus to figurative sculpture with an emphasis on marble. He was selected to compete in the National Sculpture Society Competition as well as the LDS International Art Competition–where he received the People’s Choice award for his bronze figure of John the Baptist (below). Rane feels that carving with marble has allowed him to find a voice he was not able to express through any other medium. Rane and his wife currently live in New York City and will be leaving later this year for Italy.

Where did you grow up? How did you get started in sculpture? I primarily grew up in Oregon, which is where I met my wife. I’ve always had a strong connection to New York though as I was born here and would make frequent trips with my family growing up. My dad is a painter and so we would always stay connected to the culture that New York had to offer. But my interest in sculpture didn’t begin until college when I went on a study abroad to Italy and saw the great Michelangelo sculptures for myself. Up to that point, I had only thought of art as painting.

You worked as a property handler at Sotheby’s. What did you learn? I started working at Sothebys shortly after graduating from College. My College training was fantastic at Lyme Academy College of fine Arts, But it was very traditional. Everything was about anatomy and representing the figure in a classical way. That’s exactly what I was looking for in a college. I wasn’t exposed to the contemporary art world until I moved to New York and started working at Sotheby’s. This was great for me, but at the same time I have also been witness to a side of the art world that as an artist I think I would rather be ignorant to. The business side has much less to do with art as it does with money and prestige.

What’s your best Sotheby’s story? When I first started working at Sotheby’s I remember un-framing a Degas charcoal drawing and pulling the glass away from the front and just thinking it was the coolest thing ever. After that, even moving around a $50 million Warhol is not that exciting.

You went out on your own as a figurative sculptor in 2012. Describe your experience. Starting your career as an artist is by far the hardest part. There is no time for a learning curve. You have to experiment, and find your voice and make money but not do anything to damage your career. There is no one there to tell you what your next step should be. What I’ve found to be the most important thing is to be patient and take it slow. When you get out of school you want things to happen immediately. Fortunately, or unfortunately I was forced to take it slowly. I had no money after moving to New York, so like so many artist, I got a job as an art handler just to get by. As frustrating as it is to not be making art all the time, I actually think I’m better off for it. As my thoughts on art continue to develop, I would hate to feel like my art was trapped.

Visit Alex Rane’s website.

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Illustration

Natalie Stallings: Knowing There is Something More to Life

July 6, 2015Garrick Infanger

Natalie Stallings is a fine artist and musician living in Utah. She had her work accepted to the Spring Salon at the Springville Art Museum the past two years and currently works a graphic designer and illustrator. When not making art she is writing music and playing vocals and other instruments in groups with her husband, a jazz pianist and composer.

Describe yourself as an artist. As an artist, I’d say that I’m a bit of an eclectic mess. In school I was often taught to find “my tool”, and stick with it. I tried many times, and failed. If you were to imagine a person as a room, I think I’d be a room full of notes (so many notes…it’s a problem), black and white photography, bottles of paints, chemicals, old and new brushes, bags of pens, a few instruments, boxes of fabric, and stacks of paper and canvas. However, I’d like to be a large white room filled with nothing but a piece of paper and pen. I think I have come to find a lot of my work actually might reflect that inner conflict. I am not sure yet.

Your family includes landscape painters, comic illustrators and metalworkers. Why did you choose your particular medium? I don’t know that I can say I really chose my medium! Or what that medium even is. I do tend to work a lot in oil paints; they come naturally to me and I love so many things about them. The color is unbeatable, and they are incredibly bold but not too stubborn (like acrylic paint can be). But I never consciously made that decision. I also work with photography, ink, film, and sometimes a bit of sculpture. I can be a very logical and analytical person — but if there is one place I try to be intuitive, it is in art. I like to think the most authentic works of art were not so much choices as natural expressions; like expressing happiness or sadness in the moment, as it comes, how it feels right.

Talk about your experience working with Brad Holland and Brett Helquist. What an amazing honor; befriending two of America’s greats. I lived in a room about the size of your broom closet along the Hudson River. Every other day I’d travel to Brooklyn or SoHo to study with Brett, then Brad, and on a free day spend time at museums or visiting my uncle (a carpenter and metalworker in Brooklyn). I spent a lot of my time organizing their files and preserving/storing art they’d done, sometimes meeting up with publishers at editing houses that Brett set up for me.

Overall I think I learned three major lessons: 1) I found that the greatest lessons to learn from these men were about who they were as people, and how they lived and thought about life. I was really touched by talking to them about everyday things. They both have incredible work ethic, dedication, sense of humor, and a willingness to give of themselves and their time. 2) Visiting my uncle in Brooklyn was forever and indefinitely valuable to figuring out who I am as an artist. He had posters of Mt. Everest on the walls, music playing, loud machines running… I connected with his world of more hands on work more than any children’s book industry or office I had been looking into. Although I still have a love for illustration and the unique gifts it has to offer there is something about the world of fine arts that is infinitely more satisfying to me. An unexpected result of my time there. 3) Having good time and a good environment is priceless! Using as much time to study at museums or drawing in my tiny dark room as I needed, was unbeatable. And the environment there is so inspiring, full of so much energy; so many amazing art shows, installations, music, and people to meet. Although I come across as pretty quiet, I really thrive off of a certain amount of chaos, I guess.

How does your religion shape your artwork? My religion has everything to do with my art. First of all, I’m not always making art because I’m in love with it; in fact I regularly renounce it. But because at some point I realized it was one of the best ways that I could do my part in contributing to the world and a community. Seriously. I am incapable of really doing anything else for extended periods of time — I go crazy if I don’t make art. Art has, in the best way possible, become a plague. Which is absolutely part of what I believe in – not plagues – but that service (thus joy) is what God wants for us. That being said, the images I make are also very much a part of my religious beliefs; they explore ideas of exploration, and the innate desire humans have of wanting more in life. It has a lot to do with my own history and love of outdoor adventure/sci-fi, but even more to do with my Mormon pioneer ancestors and struggles with existentialism and finding God. I am in love with the ideas that surround such stories — That we are, for some reason, born just knowing there is something more to life… and we will spend years and countless thoughts, dollars, and excursions to find that. Does that not hint that we are more than just developed animals? We want life to make more sense, to be more excellent. There is something inside of us, pushing us further. Perhaps to a point no one will get to in our mortal lives, but at least through art I can contemplate it for a couple of decades. I’d say that’s pretty satisfying.

Visit Natalie Stallings’s website.

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Fine Art

Zachary Proctor: Adventure

July 3, 2015Garrick Infanger

Zachary Proctor is a talented painter with a skill for capturing scenes of adventure, wonder, and adrenaline. Proctor says of his art, “My intent as a painter is to arrest motion on canvas by artificial means, to capture life and hold it fixed.” He lives in Salt Lake City, Utah and holds a BFA from the University of Utah and an MFA from Utah State University.

Describe yourself as an artist. I often ask myself why I spend so much of my time in a studio painting. Many things come to mind, but mostly I think I make paintings because it allows me to meditate on something for long intervals of time. I can choose to focus my attention on something and then study it out while making paintings about it. The process allows my mind to wander as I explore the different meanings I see in my little world. I think I paint, because painting teaches me so many things about my surroundings, similar to the reflecting pool in a fairy tale.

I enjoy painting at night and finding solitude so that I can focus. Without this I find it hard to get in to the proper frame of mind. I am an oil painter looking for different ways to apply paint to a surface. Recently I have been exploring ways to layer paint by shooting air through loaded house paintbrushes. I am a figure painter because I like the challenge of capturing people in complicated settings. It also allows me to explore narratives or themes.

So many of your paintings are in motion. Why do you like to ‘capture life and hold it fixed’? Painting can be such a static medium. I am trying to find ways to imply movement. After visiting the Prado a few years ago, I was shocked at how soft and blurry Diego Velazquez’s paintings are. It inspired me to soften out the subject and take it a step further by showing movement. I am interested in painting people who are trying to better their situation and to do that involves motion. I take a lot of inspiration from Maynard Dixon’s painting, Forgotten Man. I want to paint people similar to that, those who may have fallen through the cracks, but are out there trying to find a way to better their circumstances. Hard working people who are not afraid of rolling their sleeves up and getting their hands dirty.

What do you draw from to create these scenes? A painter cannot shut off his brain, he/she is looking at everything as a possible subject. I am inspired mostly by film, hence the term “motion pictures.” Wes Anderson, the Coen brothers, Kubrick, Terrence Malick and Alfred Hitchcock are a few of the directors I am stealing from at the moment. I grew up as we all did watching movies and getting lost in their stories. Nothing much has changed as I get lost making paintings in a studio as I reflect on those films. I sort of see a painting as a scene in a movie and an “art show” as a movie full of “scenes.” When you reflect on the life of a painter you see the many movies or “shows” they had and one can see the compilation of their life’s work.

I am also finding a lot of imagery from the books I am reading. I have recently read four of John Steinbeck’s novels and those have opened me up to a wealth of new ideas and images. I have dozens of sketchbooks full of ideas that I work with to collage things together. And I am collecting interesting images I find everywhere from photo albums at my grandmother’s house to things I see on the Internet.

Visit Zachary Proctor’s website.

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Design

Colt Bowden: Sign Painter

July 2, 2015Garrick Infanger

Colt Bowden is a sign painter and illustrator in McMinnville, Oregon.In the past he has lived in Maryland, Utah, California, and Hawaii. Bowden worked on the celebrated children’s television show Yo Gabba Gabba! and went to school at BYU. Bowden’s commercial work includes bearded snowboards (below) and he was even hired to do sign painting (and sand-lettering) for a Brian Wilson / She & Him music video by Capitol Records. Bowden says of his art: “It has a Great Depression—1920s to early 1940s look, back when doing things by hand was at its peak. I read a lot of old sign painter books from the early 1900s. My great grandfather was a printer, linotype operator and type professor. I suppose it runs in the family.”

Describe yourself as an artist. I am 75% Sign Painter and 25% Illustrator/Designer. I do mostly commercial work, and spice it up with an art show here and there. I’ve gotten over most of my personal life problems that would drive me to try and express myself as a fine artist and have moved on to a service based industry that utilizes the creativity and artistry that I love. It’s quite fulfilling to be doing artwork for people other than just myself these days. Though things do shift over time, and I may find a creative process or project that may spark something in the future.

Society is so ephemeral now we have become dependent on six-second doses of digital art. What is lost when we lose the hand-made art of yesterday? We lose the connection to the rest of the human race before our generation came. I feel doing things the traditional way points me towards humanity, and that computers and automated design and production point us away from a human connection and into peoples wallets. It’s sad.

Walk us through a sign engagement. Usually when I am coming up with an idea for a sign, I will look at old sign painting books, which had lettering styles hand painted and designed by the author. Traditionally, printers would use Typefaces, and then when computers came along, typographers were able to design fonts to be used by consumers and graphic designers. The font’s were the most dumbed down version of lettering, available to all and meaningful to none.

So, in short, I look at how traditional lettering is formed by the brushstrokes of a master sign painter, and go from there. I will start my design with basic shapes and lines to get a layout, then, depending on the style, I will either create an original looking lettering style or assimilate something else. It all depends on what the client needs, not necessarily what they want sometimes. I try to avoid just painting pre designed logos and graphics, and shoot for something creative and original. Often there is a hint of the past in my design work, but with a spin of my own creative juice in it, which can create something unique. Mostly, I try to have fun with it and not get too crazy with innate detail, but stick to what I have learned up to that point. I use 1-shot lettering enamels and Ronan Superfine Japan Colors, as well as Benjamin Moore Water based paints. Depending on the project, there are assortments of sign painting brushes that can be used. Surfaces range from paper to glass and everything in between. There aren’t many surfaces you can’t paint on besides sand.

How long until you paint the Feminist Bookstore? If they come asking, I’m sure I could make it happen. But I’d prefer to see one of my female counterparts take that job.

Visit Colt Bowden’s website.

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Fine Art

Jenna von Benedikt: Little Bird in Heaven

July 2, 2015Garrick Infanger

Jenna von Benedikt is an English painter with an impressive collection of abstracts and a series on birds. Her “passion for art is inseparably connected to faith and family, and explores the physical, spiritual, and metaphorical landscapes we find ourselves in.” She studied at BYU and the Santa Reparata International School of Art in Florence, Italy. von Benedikt, her husband, and her four children now live in Utah. She and her father support recently promoted Watford.

You grew up in England. I moved to the States as a teenager. People have asked me if that was hard, but I loved the adventure, so no. You could count on one–possibly two–hands the entire number of youth in my LDS ward in England and I attended an all-girls, uniformed school in my village north of London. My family, including our horse, uprooted and transplanted ourselves to Provo, Utah. I was blown away by the massive trucks–you know, anything bigger than a F-150 pickup, because economically-sized cars were the family norm and public transport so available in England.

Homes and architecture are completely different in England, and I have always missed that. I traded emerald green grass for sage brush and spectacular mountains. Needing a place to keep our horse, I soon became acquainted with several cowboys that have taught me to appreciate the American Western culture that is prevalent here. High School was fun and students seemed very patriotic… It was unreal to me that you could actually do seminary during your school time. I used to go once a week, and home study the material. The dating and dances combo was strange to me, and asking people to go out with you in these hilarious, sometimes embarrassing ways was a little awkward, but hey, just being a teenager can be awkward.

What was your experience like at the Santa Reparata International School of Art in Florence, Italy? My experience there was during a semester abroad, where faculty from BYU and from SRIA interacted. We took part in print making, painting, and drawing classes in an incredibly beautiful facility and collaborate in a group show. The most significant part to me was the environment of the school and and its stones-throw distance to many historical sites within Florence and the art we were able to see there. The architecture throughout the city is breathtaking. I spent a lot of time on the streets drawing and experimenting with watercolors. Sometimes it can be easy to focus on producing a specific piece of art and forget to enjoy the creative space around you, and the location facilitated an awareness of the cultural environment. It is a place designed to accentuate every part of the creative process–indoors or outside, even if simply sketching & drumming up ideas in the flowering courtyard, listening to the fountain, and soaking up history.

Explain your bird series. A long time ago I looked up the definition of Jenna. It means ‘little bird.’ Other meanings have referenced ‘heaven’. So I started drawing and painting birds as self portraits, and as characters I read about in the Bible. My painting ‘The 11 tweeting the whereabouts of the 12th’ reflected the apostles and the betrayal of Judas and the things they must have ‘tweeted’ to each other when they found out. This series has definitely sparked an internal study of myself. I liked the idea that birds can go places most humans cannot, or at least look down on a place/situation with a different perspective–which I have to keep working on. It’s as if they bridge the gap between heaven and earth… scriptures often refer to them as messengers. Posing a personal question, what kind of message do I give to others? One of my favorite scriptures (reference Matthew 6:26 and 3 Nephi 13:26) talks about birds in the sense that God knows them and always takes care of them. As His children, God does the same for us, we just have to trust Him.

Your abstracts have such great colour and compositions. Explain your approach when you create these pieces. The abstracts reveal a lot of ideas and provide a place to show bold colours that I don’t use elsewhere, frankly, I find creating them personally refreshing. The lines with the earthy tones in the lower portions of my abstracts reference landscapes–and in a broader sense our connection to the Earth. Above, more open areas can represent the sky… Like the earth, our lives are made up of distinct layers–experiences, choices, memories, etc. The rest of the space I try to leave open to thoughts of change, growth or opportunities, and ideas that we are only a portal or passageway away from another realm or place, be it a more positive place in our lives, or from Heaven–hence the swirls near the top. Like my bird series, these also are about bridging a gap.

Visit Jenna von Benedikt’s website.

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