Shyneka Moore Interview - November 15, 2008

Shyneka Moore, a student at a local college, was asked to interview a Maryland artist for an art class. She found my site and contacted me for an interview. The following is an interview for her class.

1. How do you define the word "art"?

Art is so unique. Artists are asked this question so often. Plumbers aren't asked, "How do you define plumbing?" Although there aren't many creative ways to apply plumbing, it is still a valid question. My definition of art? Just to answer the question is part of the definition and is the unique part of being an artist. This may sound selfish, but as an artist, I have my own say in what I let the world see and what my definition of art is, however this definition changes all the time for many artists. I think where art has to begin is from your heart. You have to want to do it and love to do it in order for anything else to happen in your art. Andrew Wyeth had a wonderful quote that summed this up: "I think one's art goes as far and as deep as one's love goes." I think Wyeth was talking about desire - a desire to create, a desire to live. For an artist, creating and living are inseparable. One can't exist without the other. Without love, it can't be done. Well it can be, but it will ring hollow and seem forced.

I think artists have a job to be humanity's thermometer. Artists stay back and observe and when the time's right to say something, they comment on it. History has shown many artists recording the "ups and downs" of their times and their art shows their take on those events. I've always believed that art cannot be created in a vacuum and art of the past always reflects this. It was created at a certain time and place and the artist's reactions to that environment is what we get when we look at art of the past. Artists have an overwhelming responsibility to create art that is true to their own vision and will represent where we are, as a society, at this point in time for future generations to look back on. It's only human to create our own reality and record our history.

2. Do you believe that your definition of "art" has been changed and shaped by the essence of time and why?

Yes, my definition of art has been changed and shaped by the essence of time. Art and time are a slippery concept because I feel that art changes as we change, as we grow, as we age, as we experience the world and live. The art that I create at this moment is where I am now in this path that we call life. It's a collection of my unique experiences and everything that has happened to me up to this point. All of the training, each brushstroke, every experience leads to this one moment when the next artwork begins. It's a daunting task, if you think about it, to start a new artwork. It's like standing on the edge of a chasm and not seeing the bottom. You just have to go over the edge and know that it will work out. Also, I believe that an artwork is never finished. Yes, there is a "point of completeness" you can arrive at, where you look at a piece and say "enough", or just know that if you do one more thing to it, it'll carry it too far, but an artwork is never really finished. An artwork will always live on in the next piece that you create. You may not think consciously about it, but that carryover is always taking place on a subconscious level.

The life of an artwork also lives on through the experience of others. All the artworks that are hanging in national galleries and collections around the world were never meant to be there. At one time they were hanging in someone's living room, bedroom, bathroom, dining room, church, etc. During that time, they were experienced by the intended audience; say a king, queen, banker, friend of the artist, etc. and also surrounded by their intended setting. Now, we go into the museums and we are experiencing these artworks out of context. Yes, we see the artwork and are filled in by the museum curators as much as we can be on the background of the artwork, but that doesn't bring us into the true context that the artwork was intended to be in. However the artwork continues to inspire and captivate us the same way it did hundreds or even thousands of years ago.

3. Where do you believe that your passion to be an artist originated from and why?

This is a tough one. I started drawing when I was about five years old. I remember always grabbing the comics section out of the Sunday paper from my dad and pouring over the drawings, I especially loved Snoopy. I remember going to elementary school and drawing stick figures of little Army men with a friend of mine during lunch. We would have these "battles" where each of us would draw a mountainside on each end of a piece of notebook paper and then populate the mountainsides with the stick figure soldiers. We'd then take turns drawing dashed lines from each one of our stick figures and "hit" one of the other's figures. What better way for two young boys to pass the lunch hour? Remember, this is WAY before video games, about 33 years ago, to be exact...

I grew up in a tough household with two alcoholic parents that would go out to the bar all the time and come home and fight it out. I think drawing was my escape from that. My mom passed away when I was 13 and again, I think drawing help me get through that time as well. I drew a lot of comics at that time and I think that lent to the escapism that drawing provided - art as therapy. I was always introverted in school, never went out of my way to say hello to anyone, as I felt my home life was so different and bizarre from everyone else's that I'd never fit in so why bother. Of course, I look back on that now and think of all the opportunities I missed having that outlook. Not everyone grows up in a perfect household. After my mom passed, I stopped going to school. I failed twice. My dad drank heavier than ever to deal with the loss of my mom. I tried to stay out of the house as much as possible to stay away from him as he wasn't very nice when he was drinking. What little time I was home, I either drew or played guitar. When my dad passed four days after my eighteenth birthday, I was in shock and wasn't sure where to go. I bounced from household to household looking for a place to stay. Finally, my best friend's family took me in. I ended up getting back in school and graduating on the honor roll with perfect attendance. During my senior year, I had one period of English and six periods of art. I spent the entire day in the art room and was more of a teacher's assistant than a student. I got a scholarship to the Maryland Institute, College of Art (MICA). Once again just when I thought things were looking up, during my first semester, my friend's parents decided that it was time for me to pack up and get on my own. My art teacher from high school managed to get me an apartment in downtown Baltimore. This was my first time out on my own, alone, no friends. For the next few months, I squeaked by going to art school, working part-time, and trying to keep it together. Staying up half the night trying to complete art assignments for school. Eventually, it was too much and I ran out of rent money and got booted out. I moved briefly, and illegally, into a friend's dorm room at school until finally I couldn't take it anymore. It just wasn't working. I ended up joining the Army on a suggestion from a friend's dad who said the Marines got him on his feet. The Army did exactly that, put a little discipline in my life and gave me some direction. Now, twenty years later, I look back and know I made the right choice. I have a degree, a family, a job creating and designing, and I'm still drawing and painting.

So the short version answer to your question is that I think it started as an escape as a kid that grew into something to express myself with which, in turn, became a major part of my life.

4. In your gallery online, you have 5 different categories in the painting section. Which one of these categories do you enjoy doing the most, landscapes, portraits and figures, abstracts, old master studies, or still life; why?

I'm torn between landscapes and portraits. I love landscapes, however there are so many beautiful people in the world, and by beautiful, I mean unique, not necessarily the faces that you see on the cover of Cosmopolitan or GQ magazine. I mean the faces that have character, ones that you can tell there is an interesting life story behind them. I ride the train and subway to and from Washington D.C. for my "day job" as a graphic designer and I see so many people that have that "life story" look to them. My immediate gut reaction is that I want to paint them, but how to approach them is an entirely different matter. I find it hard to do that, plus, I'd feel obligated to pay them for their time, which, if I painted everyone that caught my eye, I'd be broke!

5. If you had a choice to do paintings or do drawings, which would you prefer and which one gives you a more detailed feeling when you are creating it?

My choice would have to lean more toward painting. I feel more detailed drawing, but there are times where I draw very loosely and free. Speaking in the context of realistic drawing and painting, I feel drawing is more immediate, which the materials of drawing alone, lend to that immediacy. There is not that separation in time that you have in painting where you have to stop to mix color and then return to the artwork. Plus, in realistic drawing you are using line to represent the edges of forms. In painting, you are using paint to represent the forms themselves. Drawings are created from the outside edge inward while paintings are created from the broad forms outward to the edges.

6. What was the feeling that you had when you made the Army Art Gallery being as thou you were a member of the army?

Painting for the Army was quite an experience. For one, it is odd to put the words Army and art in the same sentence without a puzzled look coming across the person's face that you are talking to. It is an odd combination, but a rewarding one as well. My job, as an Army artist was to create, in art, the story of "today's Army" (then it was 1993-1997) for future generations to look back on. I had a full studio in Washington D.C. and whenever something that required the Army's involvement would come up, like say humanitarian operations in Haiti, Rwanda, or Bosnia, the Army would tell me to pack my bags and send me to go draw and take pictures of what's happening in those operations.

Another unique benefit was that my studio in Washington was located in the storage area where the Army kept it collection of artwork, which consisted of over 15,000 artworks. It was like having my own personal art collection to study and learn from. There were artworks that dated from the Civil War up to today and had artworks by some well-known American artists/illustrators like Norman Rockwell, Harvey Dunn, Dean Cornwell, Frank Schoonover, and Reginald Marsh.

7. Would you call yourself an impressionist and why?

I would have to call myself somewhat of an Impressionist painter. My style of painting leans in that direction and I do like to paint contemporary subject matter, like the Impressionists did, but there are times where I will go in other directions and paint in a dark Baroque style or an abstract style. Again, I think it depends on what I'm looking at while I'm creating. If I'm looking at a lot of Edward Hopper's works, I'll tend to lean toward his style. I think I'm guilty of the same trap that many artists fall into of painting or creating based on artworks they've seen rather than seeing the world through their own filter. I'll go to the gallery and see a huge show of say Monet's landscapes and the next thing you know, I'm out painting stuff that looks Monet-like in style. I think I'm just always learning and will always be a student. It's the way I look at things. I have noticed that the older I get, the less I allow other artists and their work influence my own work.

8. I have read your thoughts in your "Impressionist Corner" and I would like to know why out of all the artists that originated in that time period, did you choose the eleven people you did? What made them so special other than the fact that you believe that you can be comfortable with?

These were the most popular, well the artist we've made most popular or have stood the test of time. There were many other artists that contributed to the Impressionist movement, which are probably known by only a few art historians, but the group I mentioned tended to be at the center, and most influential, of the movement. As far as my being comfortable with them, I think I say that out of them being the first artists in history to come together as a group to create a new vision and style in art. Anytime you can get artist together, I think, is a good thing. It would have been neat to live and create in those times.

9. How easy is it for you to change your art interests in the movements? For instance one week you will be interested in the Pre-Raphaelite movement and the next time around you are in the Gothic Movement.

I think this is one of my biggest faults and I think it has a bad affect on my work. I tend to drift through periods of art and really don't have a favorite. My art library is filled with books on different periods of art from books on geometric Greek art to books on artists such as Chuck Close. I've actually become very selective in the books I'm buying now and tend to gravitate toward more scholarly publications rather than, for lack of a better term, coffee table books. It's the only way I can stop spending a fortune on art books!

10. Why do you believe that "past art" is the " measuring stick for all art that will be produced collectively and individually in the future"?

I came up with this idea a while ago. It seems that the development of an individual artist parallels the development of art through history. If you look at ancient art history, the artist would draw a few lines that would portray a bull or a few globs of clay that would portray a fertile woman, for example. As we move through the centuries and get closer to current art, the more realistic and exact art becomes up until the end of the nineteenth century when modern art movements began turning realistic representative art inside out.

Now, take a look at the development of an individual artist. The young artist starts out drawing art that is simple in design but, just like the ancient artist, holds great meaning. A child's drawing of a house may have a sun with rays coming off of it and lines representing blades of grass. To us adults, the drawing looks simple, but to the child, it hold great meaning and each line is a representation of something greater - just like the cave drawings of the bull. As the artist develops technique, he or she strives to create more representational work until they reach a point where it can't get more realistic looking or technique takes the place of meaning. Once that's accomplished, the artist takes a step back and begins to look for ways to make art that is meaningful and questions how or why to do that - like modern art!

11."The artist, in representing the universe as he imagines it, formulates his own dreams. In nature, he celebrates his own soul. And so he enriches the soul of humanity. For in coloring the material world with his rich spirit he reveals to his delighted fellow beings a thousand unsuspected shades of feeling.... He gives them a new reason for loving life, new inner lights to guide them." This quote by Rodin is one of your favorites. Can you say that you are the artist that he refers to or do you believe that you are not yet at the level given, but soon you will be there? Explain.

I believe my intentions as an artist are what Rodin is speaking of, but how my work is received is entirely up to the viewer. As far as reaching out to "humanity", I think the line, "he reaches out to his delighted fellow beings" is important because it tells us that in order for an artist to communicate and reach another's soul, the other person or observer, has to be interested or "delighted" in the artwork that is created. I think art today is a hard sell. There is so much competing with art such as video games, movies, the Internet, etc. I think many artists are involved in other means of communication than just art. Today, many artists use drawing and painting as a means to another end, be it creating a comic book or a full-length animated movie.

As far as me "reaching out to my fellow delighted beings", I believe that there are times where I've enriched the life of someone else with my art. This is the best experience an artist can have. A few years ago, I participated in an organized art exhibit, "Faces of the Fallen" where artists from across the country volunteered to create portraits of military service men and women who had been killed in Iraq. The portraits were to be delivered to the families after the exhibit. The service members for each artist were assigned randomly and photos were sent to the artists. I received photos and the bio of an Air Force sergeant along with contact information for his family. I received an email from his mother a few days later telling me that she was thankful for me creating a portrait of her son. I told her that it was an honor to create her son's portrait and that I hope her and her family liked it when it's exhibited. I was a nervous wreck creating that portrait! Being a veteran myself, I couldn't help but think about the price that this person, who I've never met, paid to serve his country. It really hit me and it took a lot to complete the artwork. It was an emotionally draining experience. His family loved portrait, which was a rewarding feeling for me. I think this is what Rodin is talking about when he says, "He gives them a new reason for loving life, new inner lights to guide them." My intentions were not to create a portrait for an exhibit, but to create a portrait that would honor a fallen hero and hopefully bring some comfort to his family and loved ones.

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