2018 – TIMCAREYSTUDIO

ON MY MIND…

November 30, 2018

Always Say Yes

In 2001 I was asked if I was interested in taking on a mural project that would span 48’ surrounding an atrium at a private residence in Orange County, Ca. This project would have me painting 25 feet up in the air, on a very teetery lift. I’d be asked to paint in a foreign medium, a subject matter that I knew nothing about and in which I wasn’t particularly interested. And I had just met the owners, and had no idea what they were like or how it would be working in someone’s home for such a long period of time. Though I was terrified on all fronts, I said yes. Above and beyond the concerns just listed, my biggest fear was that my blossoming career as a gallery artist would be snuffed out by such an all consuming project.

I was right. RIP gallery career…

Doing commission work, by its nature, comes with limitations. Please paint this subject, in this medium with these colors, for that space. Oh, and do it really fast. As artists we hate this. We are asked to put aside our personal jar of proprietary and uniquely brilliant ideas, and use our “talents” to shape a foreign block of marble. In this we often feel like we are selling out, especially considering that money is usually the driving force behind accepting most commissions. “A portrait of your grandson with the family dog?” “Sure!” “Yes ma’am I think that’s a great idea, I’d love to paint the view from the beach where your husband proposed.”

This doesn’t sound awesome.

But I have learned to truly love it.

I love it because I have learned and grown more doing work for hire than I have doing my “own” work. The great stained glass artist Henry Holliday once said “to an artist, like a poet, limitations are full of suggestions”

The limitations in the case of commission work are the forced acceptance of input from people who we don’t deem worthy of input. So many times I have been asked to add, subtract, change, and distort my ideas. It’s the Pastor who requests something seemingly ridiculous, or the company owner who has an idea. Even my wife, far from being an artist, has corrected me and given me input that has truly enhanced my work. And for some reason when an art piece is all said and done, and you can point to those contributions from others and acknowledge their value, there’s nothing better. It’s the kind of satisfaction that feels so much better that the direct type you feel when you do something you are solely responsible for. In the words of author and pastor Tim Keller, “on our own, we can only be so much of “ourselves.” We require exposure to others to unlock certain aspects of ourselves that are uniquely us. In other words, It takes a community to know an individual.

And as artists, as humans, that’s what we want. To be known.

The mural commission took me 2 years to complete. And while it killed my gallery career, it gave birth to a wealth of opportunity that has led me to now. I not only learned a tremendous amount about site specific painting, perspective, and American History, but I created lifelong friends in my commissioners and their family. That mural led me directly to my job at Judson Studios. At Judson I discovered glass, a medium that has become my passion. All of my work at Judson was commissioned work. I had to study scripture. That led me back to my faith. I was tasked as the gallery assistant, where I met my future wife at an event. I was “forced” to learn to paint in an old style with a new medium in order to replicate windows of the past. This gave me an enduring passion for glass painting. And ultimately, designing the Resurrection Window in Kansas forced me to learn how to melt glass into images. Something that has led me to an exciting time where I find myself the owner of a fused glass studio in Los Angeles, pursuing projects large and small around the globe.

I have learned that it’s important to say “yes” when someone gives you an opportunity. Whether it’s an invitation to an event, an opportunity to try something new, or simply an offer for a meal or a drink. Commissioned artwork is an opportunity. To be something that you can’t be on your own, to do something that will create relationships, and to offer a community experience that is unique and infinitely satisfying.

…..read more about me here…..

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ON MY MIND...

October 31, 2018.

Make Your Mark

“You see so much,” said artist Luis Serrano. I looked at him, annoyed, and asked him what he was talking about. “It’s my hand, holding a flashlight,” I said. “Isn’t that what you see too?”

I had just met Luis, as we were part of a small group of artists invited to a 6 week residency in Maine. I watched him draw and paint outdoors, and he showed me his amazing portfolio of detailed landscapes. What felt like hundreds of drawings and paintings, dedicated to his subject and his style. He was incredibly focused and certain of what he wanted to do as an artist. I, on the other hand, had no clue what I wanted to do.

This was a recurring problem in my young art career. It was actually a problem that had plagued me since my youth, when my mother gave me the title “glorified xerox machine.” It was a loving title meant to make me feel good about being able to “copy” things I see. But it served to reinforce the already nagging self perception that I was an artist who had no original ideas. But only could copy what I saw.

So I spent my youth copying pictures of my favorite athletes. Eric Dickerson, Steve Garvey, and Magic Johnson…to name a few. The athlete was my muse. And then I went to art school, discovered the old masters, and copied them. First it was Rembrandt, then Velazquez. I had a short Vermeer phase, then got interested in contemporary artists like Jim Dine, Lucian Freud, and Richard Diebenkorn. I always did a pretty good job of making my work look like these great artists, but I always felt guilty that I hadn’t developed an original style.

I graduated Art Center and started showing my work in galleries. People seemed to like it and I sold a lot. But I never felt great about it. Always felt I was chasing rather than leading. And gradually my work went from phase to phase, to eventually “phased out” of the art scene.

Back to Luis and the flashlight. My first week in the residency was frustrating. Luis was outside drawing nature like his life depended on it. Another artist was preparing 8 foot canvases to create a new body of work. And the other 2 were just as confident about what they were doing. I went from painting a tree, to painting a figure model then a small watercolor of the harbor. And then one day, completely out of ideas, I just grabbed a flashlight, turned it on, stuck out my hand, and started painting.

When Luis told me “you see so much” what he meant was that I look at my hand, and see what only I can see. Veins rising and squiggling like worms, casting soft blue shadows, subtle turns in the knuckles and stiff tendons. It’s still just a hand. But he would paint it differently. Because he sees it differently. The concept is trite I know, but for some reason it never occurred to me that no matter what I draw or paint, what I copy, it comes out of me. It’s my interpretation, and my marks that are made. And that’s actually enough to make it original. Luis’ comment and the conversation that ensued really took a load off me. It freed me up to enjoy painting whatever I wanted for those remaining 5 weeks in Maine. It also allowed me to look back on all my copying when I was young and throughout art school and consider it not only “ok” but actually good. A vital part of the pathway to where I am now.

When I first started working at Judson Studios in 2004, I got a visit from my mother. She was curious about my new job, and I gave her a tour of the historic Los Angeles property. It culminated in a visit to the design room, where I had just recently started doing some design work. There were probably fifty drawings in various styles at various stages of development. My mom pointed to a large black and white drawing of a monk, in a stiff neo-gothic style with sharp features and very stylized linework. “I like that one, when did you do it?,” she said. Shocked, I looked at her and said “how did you know I did that?” Of all those drawings up there, that was the only one that was mine. And it looked nothing like anything I’d ever done before. She laughed and said “I know your work. It doesn’t matter what it is. Those are your marks…”

We all have a mark. And our marks are always changing, always developing, and always becoming more “our own.” On this website I feature a quote by Robert Henri from his classic, The Art Spirit. He writes “Nature reveals to him, and, seeing and feeling intensely he paints, and whether he wills it or not each brush stroke is an exact record of such as he was at the exact moment the stroke was.” We are all unique individuals with unique experiences that inform our marks. It may be a simple and unoriginal thought, but I remind myself of it every day.

…..read more about me here…..

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ON MY MIND...

September 13, 2018

A Christian Artist?

When I was putting together my portfolio of works for this website, I had a dilemma. What do I do with all of my religious art works from my time at Judson Studios? I had been advised by some of my artist friends: “you can’t show these works of Jesus” “Even though they are beautifully made, all people see when they see this work is Jesus. “ “You’ll be pegged as a Christian Artist.” Pegged. That’s never good. So I thought long and hard about it. I had been working at Judson Studios for 14 years. Not only did I fall in love with glass as a visual art medium through stained and fused glass, but I also credit this time to my Christian awakening.

I had spent so much time with the scriptures during my research for narrative imagery, that Jesus’ Gospel of forgiveness was able to explode into my life. The culmination of my time at Judson was a fused glass project that essentially was a massive illustration of the entire Christian story, with a 30 ft Resurrected Christ in the middle. Was I really going to put this work aside so that I wouldn’t be “pegged?” Take a look through my site to see what I decided.

We live in a world where critically admired Christian artwork is virtually non existent. Unless there’s some subversive religious overtone, or a commentary on religion, you just don’t see it in mainstream art. It’s ironic considering that many of the works that most figurative artists studied and obsessed on during art school were straightforward Christian pieces. DaVinci’s Madonna and Child, Rembrandt’s Supper at Emmaus, Velazquez’ Crucifixion. The list goes on and on. But not any more. Now to make Christian themed artwork in our politically charged culture means to risk being labelled old fashioned, rigid thinking, and sometimes hate filled and bigoted. Not what you want if you’re trying to gain traction in the art world.

To me, however, being a Christian is being hyper aware. Aware of my mortality, aware of my weakness and aware of my desire to love and be loved. Most importantly being aware of my standing, on equal ground, with every one who has ever lived, in the eyes of God. Not because I’m a great person or a great artist, but because Jesus was great, and God the ultimate artist, creating us in His image, giving us this beautiful world, and delivering His forgiveness through the death of His Son.

So there it is. I’m a Christian Artist. I’m also a Christian Father, a Christian fisherman, and a Christian Yahtzee player. The Christian in me doesn’t slide into a separate compartment when I’m living my life, making decisions both simple and complex, or making my art for that matter. It’s who I am, much more so than being an Artist. If I lose my arms in a tragic golf accident tomorrow, and can no longer make art, I’m still a Christian. But as long as I still have my arms, my faith will always play a part in my artwork. Not to say that the subject matter of my work will always be related to my Christianity. But sometimes it will. And maybe that will be held against me in the art world. It’s definitely a risk that I’ve thought and worried about. But I think we live in a time where artists can transcend these labels. Once upon a time if you were a musician, you were a rock star, country star, rapper…etc… If you were a painter, you had to have a consistent “body of work” in a predictable style. But now? All bets are off. We as artists through the internet have a unique way of controlling our own messages and presenting ourselves in a comprehensive, intentional way so as to allow our audience to see more than just our work on a gallery wall. What we think, what we like, who we love, and what we believe are now all on display.

I don’t want to be “defined” as a Christian artist, considering all the baggage that comes with that term. But I don’t want to deny or hide my faith either. And so as I move forward with my new studio, I am open. I will do work that I believe to be worthy and beautiful, that honors the medium of glass, and that is free of any self imposed restrictions that my artistic and societal fears might place on me.

…..read more about me here…..

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ON MY MIND...

August 6, 2018

Staring is Caring

I’ll never forget when I first saw Rembrandt’s “Night Watch” at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. I had seen this piece many times in books, but never in person. The experience for me was visceral, and I still to this day remember everything about it. It was in the summer of 1997 while I was an art student at The Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Ca. I was on a Europe backpacking trip with my best friends, and I insisted we take a break from our binge consumption to go see the work of my favorite painter.

Once in the museum, I got my bearings and ran upstairs to where I knew the piece was hanging.I turned the corner and saw the massive painting from 40 feet or so away. I was afraid to approach it, as I knew I’d only get one chance to experience this piece in person for the first time. It’s that universal feeling we all have of sadness in a moment of joy, because you know it’s going to end at some point. So you do everything you can to prolong the moment. My first instinct was to look around me, almost feeling guilty, incredibly exposed and self aware. There was a lot of rapid blinking and a smile that I somehow awkwardly contained with my mouth out of fear of not looking cool. I walked slowly toward the piece, at certain points blurring my eyes, or looking away, anything I could to delay the initial explosion of visual pleasure I was about to experience. Then I got up close and there it was. The Night Watch. So tactile, even sculptural in the paint application in certain passages. You could feel Rembrandt’s physical experience in the surface of the canvas. What a crazy mysterious story in it’s crowded composition of figures. A story that I’d never bothered to learn about. I didn’t particularly care about the narrative (and still don’t). What I cared about was that looking at, more importantly staring at it made me feel inspired and alive.

I got extremely close, then stepped back, then got close again. I kept doing this for what seemed like hours, constantly asking myself “how did he do that?” I knew my friends were getting frustrated with me, longing for our next “coffee shop” visit. So I tore myself away from the painting, and went to stare at other Rembrandt classics like “The Jewish Bride” and “Syndics of the Drapers’ Guild.”

This is what I think about when I ask myself why I am an artist, and now specifically a glass artist. What am I doing? Why am I doing this? It’s very simple to me. I want to create work that gives people an experience like the one I had in Amsterdam. There is nothing as satisfying as an artist as when your work has a real effect on people who look at it. I was incredibly lucky in my 14 years at Judson Studios making stained glass to witness this on a consistent basis. Whether it was a small residential craftsman window or the massive Resurrection Window, I got to see how meaningful and personal people’s responses could be.

I think glass art, and fused glass imagery in particular, has the potential to make people feel something. To make them stop and stare. To come close, back up, and come close again. Like Rembrandt paintings its about light, surface, and transparency. But unlike in the 17th century, today we have the technology of glass fusing, and we can do things to manipulate light and marry it with imagery like we’ve never seen before. The magic of melting glass into images has completely captured me. I look forward to taking on artistic projects and collaborations that will challenge me and allow me to grow as an artist and hopefully capture some of you along the way.

Please stay tuned!

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