UNION COLLEGE VISUAL ARTS FACULTY ● MARTIN BENJAMIN ● CHRIS DUNCAN ● WALTER HATKE ●
FERNANDO ORELLANA ● CHARLES STECKLER ● SANDRA WIMER
Art inspires Art
FERNANDO ORELLANA ● CHARLES STECKLER ● SANDRA WIMER
UNION COLLEGE VISUAL ARTS FACULTY ● MARTIN BENJAMIN ● CHRIS DUNCAN ● WALTER HATKE ●
Art inspires Art JANUARY 12 – FEBRUARY 22, 2012
MANDEVILLE GALLERY SCHENECTADY, NY 12308 518.388.6004 www.union.edu/gallery
FERNANDO ORELLANA ● CHARLES STECKLER ● SANDRA WIMER
UNION COLLEGE VISUAL ARTS FACULTY ● MARTIN BENJAMIN ● CHRIS DUNCAN ● WALTER HATKE ●
● MANDEVILLE GALLERY
● INTRODUCTION
Marie Costello, Interim Director and Curator of the Permanent Collection Kara Jefts ’12, Assistant Curator
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PHOTO CREDITS
Deep gratitude to Head Librarian, Thomas McFadden for his generous support of this catalogue
MARTIN BENJAMIN
Thank you to the following for exhibition and catalogue assistance: Kara Jefts ’12, Assistant Curator Brittany Gilbert ’12 Jacob Pet’ 12
Artwork photos by artist Inside front cover photo and interview photo by Martin Benjamin
CHRIS DUNCAN Artwork photos by Frank Rapant Interview photo by Aysha Kassim-Voronoff
Thank you to the Visual Arts Faculty for their art and cooperation: Martin Benjamin Chris Duncan Walter Hatke Fernando Orellana Charles Steckler Sandy Wimer
WALTER HATKE
Thank you to the following students for their perseverance and written work for the project: Emily Burgess ’10 Grace Delgado ’14 Brittany Gilbert ’12 Sherry Park ’13 Jacob Pet ’12 Chester Urban ‘93
Artwork photos by Frank Rapant Inside back cover photo and interview photo by Casey Sheridan
Artwork photos by Frank Rapant Interview photo by Vishnu Gollakota
FERNANDO ORELLANA Artwork photos by artist Interview photo by Madeleine Cullerton
CHARLES STECKLER
SANDRA WIMER Artwork photo by Frank Rapant (matches) and (lips-the file itself-no credit) Interview photo by Madeleine Cullerton
Thank you for installation help from Facilities Staff members, Walter Johnson (JR) for structural work and Kevin McCarthy for painting. Thank you to Bart M. Bisgrove and Manuel L. Morales for security. Printed by: Snyder Printer Designed by: Elizabeth Laub Graphic Design
FPO
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he vibrancy of the Visual Arts Faculty at Union College is palpable, and is due at least in part to its diversity.1 These artists differ in their techniques, narratives and even philosophies. Chris Duncan’s steel and wood sculptures express a vigorous push-pull between the linear and the organic, the cerebral and the visceral, but ultimately elicit permanence. The per passo il tempo project of Charles Steckler is ever mutable and uses line to record patterns of nature and to probe the unconscious as the Surrealists did with “automatic drawing.” Walter Hatke’s startlingly precise canvases of uninhabited rooms evoke a provocative stillness. However, all three of these artists do share a regard for drawing, and view it as essential to their work; whether to speed up the idea process (Duncan), slow it down by changing scale and placement (Hatke) or for the experience itself as a vehicle to meditation (Steckler). Other artists on the faculty are tied to technology but from very different angles. Sandy Wimer is a printmaker and has eagerly mastered various printmaking processes whether it be lithography, etching, photogravure and digital; each technology offering the possibility to 1. The last group faculty exhibition “Faculty in Studio Arts/ Department of the Arts” was held in The Union Gallery of Schaffer Library from May 21 - June 13, 1975.
● MARTIN BENJAMIN investigate color, line and paper in different ways. Fascinated with the interaction of computer engineering, conceptual art and sculpture, Fernando Orellana, who teaches 3D computer art and video art, creates virtual worlds critiquing our perceptions and assumptions. Martin Benjamin uses photography to deepen his experience of the real. His work deepens our experience of the real, from taking club shots of jazz and rock and roll, to exploring the cultures within cultures around the world through juxtaposition. The reason for this catalogue is to showcase the work of these artists and also to offer students a chance to question their mentors about their art. The resulting interviews have been remarkable. The students have teased out motivations and interests not always present in the classroom. At the same time, a new connection has been made between teacher and student. Another connection between the artists is revealed through the interview process: they are all dedicated to sharing their knowledge with students and are energized by the continual renewal that comes with each new class and each new student. Art inspires art. – Marie Costello
I photograph to learn and experience things. Photography has been my vehicle into other worlds and other’s lives. I am drawn to photographs that are curious, that ask questions. Much of our culture seems to be morphing into the craving for immediate facts, immediate replies, and immediate conclusions – CNN, Twitter, texting, Skype, smart phones, Facebook, wifi. With technology, information about almost everything is at our fingertips. Information should not be confused with knowledge. Knowledge has to be learned and resides in the mind. For much of America, wonderment has disappeared. Curiosity is dying. Information is replacing knowledge. “Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.”—WALKER EVANS
MARTIN BENJAMIN started making serious photographs in college; photographed anti-war demonstrations and concerts; worked on student publications; awarded 1st Place Professional in Life Magazine’s Bicentennial Photography Competition from 135,000 photographs by 17,000 photographers; Benjamin’s other accomplishments include A.R.T.- American Road Trips project; Leica Excellence in Photojournalism nominee [twice]; co-founder of Annual Photography Regional competition and exhibition in 1978; bronze medal winner Nikon International Photography Competition; New York State Photography Fellowship Award winner; freelance photo-journalist [Village Voice, Black Star Agency, NY Daily News, Wirtschafts Woche, Konkrete, Stern, and many other national and international publications]; contributing photographer for Metroland newspaper since 1980; fine art photography exhibition career with more than 50 solo and duo exhibitions since 1971 with work published in Camera Arts, American Photographer, and Photo District News; solo exhibition, Viewpoint Gallery, Lubbock, Texas; college professor of photography; Rock Shots® – an ongoing series of photographs of musicians; photographer of thoroughbred race horses and horse racing; photography projects about Cuba, China, Italy and Vietnam; solo exhibition at Guibbe Rosse, Florence, Italy; Good Shots: Photographs of and by Persons with Developmental Disabilities project; Ernst Hass Golden Light Award for Excellence in Teaching [Maine Photographic Workshops]; archive photographs for VH1/MTV televisions productions; published in G.O.A.T. – Greatest of All Time, the life of Mohammed Ali, Taschen Publisher; Atomic Age book publication; solo exhibition – Ikona Gallery, Venice, Italy. Benjamin’s ongoing work includes fine art photography and exhibitions, photojournalism assignments and teaching.
MARTIN BENJAMIN Vietnam
MARTIN BENJAMIN Cat Ba Island, Halong Bay, Vietnam
Grace Delgado ’14 interviewed Professor Martin Benjamin in Hanoi, Vietnam while on a term abroad there to study photography. Grace Delgado: Professor Benjamin, what inspired you to become a photographer? Martin Benjamin: I was inspired by persons and events that I observed, and I had an interest in sharing those observations with others. It started way back in my first year in college, and the same desire keeps me interested in pursuing photography now. GD: Would you say that your photography follows a certain genre?
Grace Delgado ’14
MB: No, I have never been a photographer that could put into a neat box regarding my work. In addition to exhibiting in fine art galleries, I’ve shot rock and jazz musicians for over 30 years and even done touches of paparazzi style things from time to time. It is all intriguing to me. Some art directors, gallery owners, and photo editors are surprised at the variety of work I do, assuming one could only pursue one facet of photography or art. GD: Do you allow yourself to do selective cropping on your photographs or do you only shoot in full-frame? MB: I almost always only shoot full frame. It is a discipline that almost all good photographers follow, where the format of the image a certain camera makes is their canvas and they do not crop later. The image either works or doesn’t work.
GD: As a photography professor, do you ever struggle between instructing someone on a technique and allowing them to be creative? If so, how do you balance your personal input? MB: No, I feel a student is only limited by their own ideas or lack of ideas and by their own curiosity or lack of curiosity. That is, by how interesting they allow themselves to become as a person. However I do feel it is important to learn the fundamental aesthetics about making pictures when starting, that usually no one is brilliant from the start, and that technique and craft are very valuable to the process of becoming an artist. GD: I have taken your black and white film photography class, and I noticed that you trust your student’s instincts to choose their best photos. Do you believe that anyone can become a good photographer, or do you believe that there’s more than meets the eye at being a good photographer? MB: To be a good photographer you need a passion for experience, you need patience, you need to see past the surfaces of things, and you need to be willing to work hard at it and fail at times along the way. Clearly not anyone can be a great artist. You need sensitivity, a point of view and a desire to keep doing it. It is not easy, but it can be very rewarding if you pursue it earnestly and with an interesting point of view. I think you do need to be an interesting person to make work that might be important to a wider audience than yourself.
GD: How should a young photographer experiment with compositional technique and point of view in photography? MB: Don’t be afraid to be influenced by great things and seek out the great things and ideas to be influenced by. Don’t live in a cave, don’t be totally self-absorbed and be open to any and all ideas. Don’t reject things just because they make you uncomfortable. Don’t be so sure about everything, allow yourself to be vulnerable, and have some heroes in your life. Certainly there are many possible role models: Edward Weston, Mohammed Ali, Bob Dylan, Dorthea Lange, Diane Arbus, Walker Evans or even some of the great eccentrics like Weegee, Garry Winogrand, J.D. Salinger or W. Eugene Smith. Of course everyone has faults also, but few people can claim the greatness and originality that these folks each possessed.
â—? CHRIS DUNCAN My work is constructed, and the making process is essential to the final form. I assemble and disassemble elements looking for combinations of line, volume, gravity and balance that make sense visually, thematically and physically. I have a rough idea of how a sculpture will look, but a lot takes place during the making, which is a process of finding the piece. I aim for expressiveness and structure, a tension between the raw and the cooked. Working on paper is a crucial part of my creative practice and is directly related to the sculpture in process and feeling. The drawings and collages are complete, not preliminary or dependent. In both sculpture and drawing, I want to find a visual order and coherence, but I know it is essential to remain open to the unexpected; in the end I want to be surprised.
CHRIS DUNCAN was born in NYC in 1952. At a young age, he spent considerable time in museums, fascinated by Dada and Surrealism. At Colby College, a serious interest in photography transformed into a desire to make steel sculpture. Although he majored in English in college, Duncan took many sculpture courses and found David Smith’s work and life very compelling. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine on a Zorach scholarship, and studied with Sidney Simon - that sealed the deal. After Skowhegan, Duncan was accepted to the New York Studio School and studied with Clement Meadmore, William Tucker, and George Spaventa. He then worked for the sculptor and architect Brooks Parker in NYC and for Bill Tucker in London before becoming sculpture technician and later faculty at Bennington College. In the following three years, he produced a body of work that led to a Guggenheim Fellowship followed by appointment at Union. Duncan exhibits regionally and nationally, including New York, Chicago, and Miami. He is represented by RICO in Brooklyn, NY. CHRIS DUNCAN Muffaletta
Chet Urban ’93 took Chris Duncan’s 3D class which inspired him to pursue more studio art classes. He was the first art minor to have a senior exhibition. After graduating from Union, he earned a Third Mate’s license from SUNY Maritime College and became Chief Officer on LNG tankers in Asia, Africa and the Arabian Gulf. Urban works for Royal Dutch Shell in Houston and continues to exhibit his art in NYC. Chet Urban: You came into a teaching position not through the regular MFA route, but by way of a Guggenheim Fellowship that accessed your teaching career. Discuss a little bit your unique path to teaching at a liberal arts college. Chris Duncan: It is probably impossible nowadays, I imagine. I’ve thought about this recently in other contexts too; I think it was just the time period that I was in. It didn’t feel like you needed or even wanted to get authorized by somebody. It didn’t seem like you needed to get permission from some institution to be an artist. I look back to the artists of the 50’s and they didn’t have MFA’s, that kind of organized institutional system of producing artists. A lot of them went to art schools and had lot of training but there was more of a sense that if you wanted to be a painter you painted.
CHRIS DUNCAN Blue Palace
CU: You were an English major at Colby as an undergrad. What do you see as the role or value in teaching art as part of the liberal arts tradition?
CD: I think the answer here, especially a school like Union, is you’re not necessarily training artists but you’re exposing students to things that will enrich their lives. Once you realize that in life there’s more than a career, making money or even having a family, there are broader themes that you can to tap into when you begin looking at painting and sculpture. It makes you feel more grounded in the world when you understand that these practices have been going on forever. Different cultures have different motives but everyone makes art. It’s nice to be able to draw on that as a resource in the rest of your life. Just because you study the arts doesn’t mean you can’t do anything else. That’s a common misconception, which originates in our society’s narrow way of defining value. CU: We have looked at some art over the years together. Who do you find as a powerful artist that inspires you and your work? CD: Yeah, we have looked at a lot of stuff together. Well, I was sort of surprised that I still find [David] Smith so powerful. That show [currently at the Whitney] was really strong. It’s funny, I was looking at [William] Tucker’s stuff recently – he was an important teacher and mentor for me – and I realized how much his work influenced me in the past, but I don’t think it does so much anymore. The sculpture is very strong but I feel like I’m looking for something else in my own work. Of course that’s what’s supposed to happen with your teachers. CU: Travel has always been a part of your life. You traveled Southeast Asia through Afghanistan, and into Europe after college. At Union you have lead numerous terms abroad to Europe and to China,
● WALTER HATKE and recently you traveled again to India a few times to visit Ella, your daughter, who finished high school there. How has this travel influenced your art?
and try to translate or incorporate them. You try and put some of your experience into an abstract three dimensional form. It’s not a literal, one-toone correspondence – but you try.
CD: China was a big influence for me for a quite a few years after our time there. I really did try to incorporate some of the techniques and motifs into what I was doing and I think I succeeded. Lately, I’ve been aware that that influence has retreated a bit. India has been in the back of my mind for a while. The sculpture is fantastic, so sensual, so present, but it’s hard to see how that filters in directly to what I do. I have been trying to get at it – motifs, cultural elements and color – in the collages and that has been a way to utilize some of the imagery. I think travel is crucial and I often come back with ideas or images or even principles,
CU: Do you self identify as an Artist or a Sculptor? Does it really matter? CD: Just artist, even though I am a little suspicious of that term. But “sculptor” – well, I’m doing a lot of 2D stuff as well. I think it’s more useful to think of yourself as an artist and not narrow yourself down too much and stay open. CU: I ask the previous question because we tend to like to categorize too much. But to think of you purely as a sculptor might lead one to minimize your drawings. This is a body of work that has had a huge influence on my work and how I think about sculpture and, more broadly, art. What is your relationship with drawing and sculpture? Do they relate? CD: We do tend to categorize too much. You don’t have to put yourself in a box. Everyone else is trying to do that to you. Drawing has been really important to me once I figured out a way to approach it. I like it for a lot of reasons; for one it’s so much faster and more immediate than sculpture. It can be as physical as sculpture, but I can get an idea or a statement out a lot more quickly. I like working with ink and charcoal and paper. Now I’m making a lot of large collages, and the process is actually not that immediate and can be painstaking and tiresome; nonetheless they allow me to bring things into the mix that I don’t know how to bring into the sculpture yet.
Chet Urban’93
Since early childhood, my artwork has primarily stemmed from direct observation of the subjects depicted. The process is an act of discovery, studying the various features of a subject from many sides and different conditions, not all visible, literally and metaphorically peeling away layers, to record by hand what I see. The element of time is essential. Rarely do I simply jump into a work; it entails more viewing, studying and thinking about subjects over a few months to a number of years. [“American Beech III” and Concert were completed in a matter of weeks but conceived over 25 years.] The process is a continuum. In some cases, I might return to the same subject, which may be a landscape or an interior space, to make more than one painting or drawing. Generally I draw more than is needed, over draw as it were, often using tracing paper, changing scales and placements. If I employ photographic records of a subject, I’ll typically shoot 10 times more than are actually needed, combining several views of the same subject in the same final painting. Memory and invention play extremely important roles in my work. One accumulates a reservoir of visual images and sensations, which in time, generates ideas that occasionally take shape as paintings.
WALTER HATKE has had solo exhibitions at Robert Schoelkopf Gallery, Babcock Galleries , MB Modern, and Gerald Peters Gallery, in both New York and Santa Fe. He has participated in a number of group exhibitions, including those held at the American Academy of Arts & Letters, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Albright-Knox Museum (Buffalo, NY), Baltimore Museum of Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum (Kansas City, MO), Marion Koogler McNay Museum (San Antonio, TX), Pennsylvania Academy of Art (Philadelphia, PA), and the Rhode Island School of Design. His work is in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY,NY), Art Institute of Chicago, National Academy Museum (NY, NY), Sheldon Museum of Art (Lincoln, NE), International Bahá’í Center (Haifa, Israel), Kansai Gaidai University (Osaka, Japan), JP Morgan Chase (New York and London), and Rhode Island School of Design Museum (Providence, RI). He has served as a visiting artist at Dartmouth College, Kansas City Art Institute, Smith College, Swarthmore College, Trinity College, and Yale University. He has been a member of the National Academy since 2004.
WALTER HATKE Blue Madonna
WALTER HATKE Concert
Brittany Gilbert ’12 has taken 6 classes in studio art with Professor Hatke including advanced painting and drawing. She has also been his advisee since her freshman year at Union. Brittany Gilbert: How do your drawings help prepare you for your paintings? Walter Hatke: I consider drawing as a thinking medium. I have found over the years that it is helpful to draw a subject, think about it for a while and then decide whether to go back to it or not. Finally, I decide if it will become a full painting. Once the painting starts, I find some areas need more study to understand how things are put together and patterns and I transfer those drawing studies into the painting. I do draw on the canvas, and it is really essential to my work. BG: Do you ever put paintings to the side to return to them much later?
BG: Who are some artists that you have worked with and how have they influenced your artwork? WH: There are two that stand out. One is Jack Beal who is a realist painter and has done some monumental work and very gregarious work. I was his first apprentice. I learned so much for him, but I also learned that I did not want to continue working like he did. When I first worked with Jack as an undergraduate, his studio was a big gathering place for many artists. There were abstract paintings, realist painters and everything in between. The other towering influence, not so much in medium or style, but more in personality and strong spirit, was Alexander Calder. In that case I painted and repaired his sculptures. He was much older and he was at the top of his career. It was interesting to see someone at that point in his career and also be a natural easygoing person. BG: Do you go to other galleries and museums often for inspiration? What type of show attracts your attention?
WH: Yes, even 10 years later. I can have a painting in the studio and occasionally pull it out to work on, then return it to the racks for later. Other paintings I can work on straight through, but I always have multiple works going at the same time.
WH: I go to exhibitions regularly but not often; several times a year. I like to see what people are doing today and also see what people were doing 500 years ago and that helps me think about what I am going to do tomorrow.
BG: What artists are you inspired by?
BG: What is your favorite part of being an artist?
WH: I like many artists over the course of art history, but I especially like Piero della Francesca and the Dutch painters Vermeer and Rembrandt. I like George Seurat quite a bit and more recently Cezanne. And even more recently Balthus, a Polish artist who was raised in France.
WH: Well I enjoy thinking about the world around us. And what came before and what is happening at the moment and thinking about the things in the world; objects, light, space and art allows one to get at those ideas and ponder them.
Brittany Gilbert ’12
BG: What is your favorite part of being a professor? WH: It helps get me out of the studio, but the main thing is the idea of sharing knowledge and sharing the experience of being an artist and how one can survive as an artist. And at the very least, although I know that my students may not go into art, they will understand more about art and what it is like to be an artist, which I think is very important to society and culture.
BG: What have you learned from your students? WH: Well, I guess it’s a constant reminder of how wonderful art can be and how frustrating and tormenting art can be when trying to make art. It forces a teacher to constantly reevaluate what art is about and how it relates to life. If I were seriously left to myself, I would be fairly quiet and introspective. Teaching forces me to get outside myself and it is very renewing to work with college age students especially.
● FERNANDO ORELLANA It would seem that soon after our fabled expulsion from paradise, things started to get complicated. Birth after birth, we kept filling every horizon of this world, with our collective mantra being more, more, more. Now, it appears we live in the antithesis of our imagined paradise, still lost with the task of filling the void. Yet, we retain a blurry memory of our distant innocence, when we consciously and openly addressed the infinite, the divine, and the invisible.
Currently an Assistant Professor of Digital Art at Union College in Schenectady, NY, FERNANDO ORELLANA uses new and traditional media as a way of transmitting concepts that range from generative art to social-political commentary. He has recently exhibited at the Albany Center Gallery (New York), Texas A&M University (Texas), Cultural Center of Spain in El Salvador, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (Spain), Carrie Haddad Gallery (New York), Espacio Fundación Telefónica (Argentina), Exit Art (New York), LABoral, (Spain), The Tang Museum of Art, (New York), Glass Curtain Gallery (Chicago), The Ark (Ireland), and The Biennial of Electronic Art (Australia). He has been reviewed in a variety of publications and catalogs including ARTnews, Digital by Design, A Touch of Code, EMERGENTES, Art in America, Art Review, Slashdot, We-Make-Money-Not-Art, Today’s Machining World, MAKE: Technology on your Time, Technikart Futur, Wired Online, CNN, and NPR, WBEZ. He is the recipient of a 2009 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Digital/Electronic Arts and a 2010 Full Fellowship Award at the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT. He received a Master of Fine Art from The Ohio State University and a Bachelor of Fine Art with honors at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He was born in El Salvador, San Salvador and currently lives in Troy, New York.
FERNANDO ORELLANA The Red Crowd
Sheri Park ’13 has taken Digital Art with Professor Orellana, and he advised her for the project “Genesis and Dreamtime” during her sophomore year, which was exhibited in the Wikoff Student Gallery. Last summer she worked with Orellana under the Arnold Bittleman Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship. Sheri Park: What advice would you give to aspiring artists? If you could give your twentyyear-old Fernando a couple words of advice, what would they be? Fernando Orellana: My best piece of advice is patience. Nothing of real value ever comes in an instant or when we hurry. Success comes from determination, hard work, persistence, and patience; lots and lots of patience. Also, in all cases, try and do the best job you can do, even in matters that only you will see or appreciate. Excellence should be present on all sides of your product. SP: Who are some authors and musicians that have inspired you? FERNANDO ORELLANA Detail of Paradiso
FO: As a young man, I was what many describe as a science fiction super nerd. I swallowed up anything by Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, or Kurt Vonnegut. Without a doubt, the imagery and ideas I read in those novels have had a profound impact on my artwork, specifically in relation to my robotic art. The music that has the most impact on my development would probably be electronic. Growing up in Miami, at the dawn of rave culture and later in
Chicago, the birthplace of house music, I was exposed to a wide range of electronic music genres, from jungle, to dub, to trip-house. To this day, that is what you will hear in my studio, home, and even my classroom. I love how remixed and authorless it is, almost as if it is the soundtrack to the collective consciousness. SP: You enjoy documenting the process of your artwork, like the video in “Population”. Describe why you are drawn to that. FO: I started doing this a couple years ago, mainly because I love the phenomenon of time-lapse photography. There is something about accelerating and decelerating time, which is infinitely intriguing to me. It reminds me of the liquidity and relativity of time; always moving in every direction. Always. SP: Much of your work is closely tied to technology. How do you see technology shaping art, or vice versa? What will it be like in the future? FO: It really is an exciting time to be an artist. The tools of this age are truly magical, allowing for such delicious slices of our imaginations to surface. Certainty there are some technologies that are on the bleeding edge of that horizon. Of those, I am most excited by the developments in augmented reality and 3D printing technology. Imagine a time when our contact lenses are microscopic projectors, overlaying virtuality directly on to our retinas. In that world, the real and the virtual are combined – arriving somewhere between reality, dreams, and simulacra. The dawn of desktop 3D printing is already here. Before you know it, you
● CHARLES STECKLER DRAWING. I draw for many reasons. I draw professionally and I draw for personal pleasure and out of curiosity.
will be printing your new cell phone, flip-flops, or even pets at home. That is right. You read correctly: pets!
As a theatrical set designer, I draw and use drawing in various ways. There is no leaner tool to convey or work out how a thing looks or what is intended or imagined. Here drawing is both thinking and describing. With the same instrument that I use to write my name I can sketch Willy Loman’s house in Brooklyn in the early 20th century for Death of a Salesman, or Orgon’s house in Paris in 1667 for Tartuffe. I can show what I am thinking for the Theban Palace for Antigone or how Hamlet’s castle at Elsinore might appear through the fog. In other instances of my work, measured drawings, such as ground plans and elevations, describe scale and proportion, where the parts go and how they fit together.
SP: I’ve often heard you describe visual art as a poem. Where did you get that from? Do you enjoy reading poetry? OF: As a young man, I wrote a lot of poetry. It fascinated me, as it was, and still is, a fantastic way to explore complex and rich imagery without ever making a single mark. Poetry is in many ways analogous to conceptual art, in that the imagery happens in the mind. Using poetry as a reference point in art pedagogy is extremely useful, as it is a reference point that most people can understand. By framing art-making with something familiar like poetry, it helps students grasp how to start expressing themselves visually. Without a sense of poetry, art is often meaningless. Would you not agree that Damien Hirst’s diamond encrusted skull “For the Love of God” is at the very least poetry personified?
There is another aspect of my drawing practice that is neither applied nor practical but is purely for the sake of experiment and the unalloyed pleasures of discovery. These works come from a series I call per passa il tempo – passing time – my daily practice of improvised drawing. They emerge out of my hand’s encounter with tools, surfaces, and the energies embedded in muscle memory and subliminal awareness. By this approach I try to subvert preconception in favor of original experimentation. The results are meditative and instructive much like Leonardo da Vinci’s recommendation to study stains on walls, ashes from the fire, clouds and mud to stimulate the imagination.
SP: What is your dream art project? FO: There are too many to note. In many ways, all of my projects are dream projects. I feel lucky and grateful every time one is realized. But if I must pick, I guess one day I would like to put a theme park in the Guggenheim, complete with a people mover, that gently and comfortably taxies folks through all the art candy, just like in Epcot!
Sheri Park ’13
CHARLES STECKLER was born in the Bronx, New York and attended the High School of Music and Art concentrating in painting, drawing and printmaking. He received a BA from Queens College, City University of New York, and an MFA from Yale University. Steckler is a bricoleur who works as a stage designer, collage, assemblage, and diorama artist. His series per passa il tempo is an ongoing exploration of automatic drawing. He has been a Yaddo Fellow, an Associate at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, a Resident Artist at the Vermont Studio Center, a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome, and a Prix de Rome Finalist. His artwork has been exhibited at the Albany Center Galleries, Albany, New York; the Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, New York; the Hooker-Dunham Gallery, Brattleboro, Vermont; and numerous other venues. He is Professor of Theater and Designer in Residence at Union College where he has designed the stage sets for over a hundred shows.
CHARLES STECKLER Chrysalis (per passa il tempo) CHARLES STECKLER Hanukkah Begins at Sundown
Emily Burgess ’10 was a student in Steckler’s Puppet Theater: Design and Performance course at Union College. She is currently attending a Dartmouth College program that integrates painting and literature, and hopes to teach painting at the college level. Emily Burgess: What inspires you to draw? Charles Steckler: I need only the barest of materials, a handy pen and paper, a spare moment and some humility. In the simplest sense I would say that I am inspired by the materials themselves. I like ink and paper. My hand grasps a pen and gets started on its own. When I see what’s happening I allow my eyes to enter the flow. These are improvisations made by hand, eye, ink and paper. EB: What is your philosophy on keeping up a sketchbook? CS: I try to keep Apelles’ proverb in mind and at hand, nulla dies sine linea, no day without a line. Whether I draw, write or merely jot scrap notations, I have a daily involvement with my notebook. In this sense, drawing and writing are the same thing. The regular marking practice helps me to number and value my days. EB: How do you know when you are “finished” with a piece? CS: Ah, that age-old question. These drawings that I call per passa il tempo are the results of my ongoing experiments with practicing drawing lines on paper. Your question suggests the idea of composition, of organizing related parts to form what we
might call a design. But for me per passa il tempo is a meditation and as such cannot be “finished.” It just ends. I stop drawing in order to go to dinner and there’s the end of it, finished or not. Sometimes a drawing seems hardly a drawing at all and at other times it may appear overworked, even ruined. Such judgments of willful determination are academic habits that I try to suspend while I am meditatingexperimenting-drawing. EB: Do any of your drawings tell a story? CS: Not in the usual sense. In these drawings I am not describing or narrating things “out there.” In per passa il tempo, I allow my hand-eyes to try things out by moving around on a sheet of paper. The drawing that results is the record of those movements. Drawing is itself the story. Often my drawings look like forms from nature. While I am not drawing directly from nature, I am deeply influenced by forms, patterns of growth and energies found in the natural world. I look hard at nature. I collect leaves, seeds, buds and bark and the flotsam of vegetable parings, the stems and innards of fruits and vegetables.
EB: Many of your drawings are black and white or use only a select few colors. Why did you choose this palette? CS: Your question intrigues me. As a stage designer I am very concerned with color, with its ability to evoke feelings and establish mood. I pay a lot of attention to color. But the drawings I do for myself are limited to monochromes, often only black. I’m infatuated by the power of the line, its potential for expression, and the ways that lines can be gathered, layered, hatched and pooled to create visual densities and spatial sensations. By limiting such variables like color I am challenged to be more inventive with line.
EB: Have you ever found yourself in a creative rut? If so, how did you get back on track? CS: Rut, block, impasse, dead-end, burn-out, stuck, spent, out of gas, fried….sure. It happens. What to do? Take a hot shower, go for a walk, feed the pigeons, listen to music. Go out and then come back. Drink coffee. Don’t drink coffee. Don’t try so hard. Try harder. Cultivate a heart of gratitude. But most importantly, show up and be willing. That’s all I can do. I saw a commercial billboard once when traveling in Kathmandu: “Life is not easy like noodles.” Art is the same way.
Emily Burgess’10
EB: What other artists informed your drawings? CS: My personal pantheon of artist heroes is densely populated. I revere the master draughtsmen of the Renaissance – Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Botticelli, Durer. Rembrandt’s etchings are special for their treatment of the line as are the landscapes of Hercules Seghers, Rodolphe Bresdin and Alexander Cozzens. I feel a kindred spirit with the automatic writing of the Surrealists and with Andre Masson’s automatic drawings. Recently I’ve been looking at drawings by Klee, Van Gogh, Picasso and Saul Steinberg. And, as always, I f ind unending amazement in the drawings of Arnold Bittleman.
● SANDRA WIMER
Growing up and spending most of my life in the plains states provided an experience of living with a sky that is cinematic. I am charged emotionally and visually when I look at the sky. Most recently my work comes from various constellations of personal childhood memories and my current visual experiences. My goal, however, is for them to be universal – like the sky – but open-ended and suggestive enough that other concepts can evolve for each viewer.
SANDRA WIMER was born in San Antonio, Texas and spent much of her growing-up years in South Dakota, Kansas and Oklahoma. She received a B.S.E.D. in art education from Pittsburg State University in 1974, a B.F.A. in printmaking from University of Oklahoma in 1987 and an M.F.A. in printmaking from University at Albany SUNY, in 1990. She has exhibited her work at The National Academy of Design, NYC; the Munson Williams Proctor Institute, Utica, New York; Wexford Arts Centre, Cornmarket, Wexford, Ireland; Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey; The Arts Center of the Capital Region, Troy, New York; Le Preu, Paris, France; Albany Center Galleries, Albany, New York; Communication Arts Gallery, University of Wisconsin; Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, New York; The Arts Center Gallery, Saratoga, NY; The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, New York; New Walk Museum and Art Gallery, Leicester, UK; Stedelijke Museum, Sint-Niklaas, Belgium. Her work in included in the Center For Innovative Print and Paper, Rutgers University; Archives of the Southern Graphics Council, The University of Mississippi, Oxford; Albany County Airport Authority, NY; the Amity Foundation, MA; the Albany Print Club, NY; University at Albany, State University of New York. She is currently Senior Artist-In-Residence at Union College and teaches printmaking, two-dimensional design and drawing.
SANDRA WIMER Girl Talk
Jacob Pet ’12 is a student of studio art and art history at Union College and worked with Sandra Wimer during a printmaking term in Paris. Jacob Pet: How long have you been an artist? Sandra Wimer: I’ve always loved to draw, and when I was in grade school, you know how everyone was like “oooo – who can draw the best? –” so I remember back to second grade, loving to draw and wanting to draw, and comparing my drawing with others in the class. I never really though about art seriously until it was time to take drivers ed; I was 17, and they didn’t have a spot, so a friend suggested I take an art class. It was my senior year of high school, and the teacher really pushed me to think about art school. I think art has always been a part of me, but probably that moment made me think about becoming an artist. JP: Is there an ideal image of emoting that you find yourself returning to in your work?
SANDRA WIMER Open Book II
SW: Well, I think a memory, like the sky – that’s an old, old memory of being aware of landscape and sky I was a kid. We we were traveling in the car in Wyoming, and I can remember purple velvety hills, and now I realize after being a parent, for someone who is 7 to be thinking about that is sort of unusual. I think visually I was always engaged in that way, and I find that a memory jogs the visual. It is always a way to move forward. For the prints in this exhibition, it is certainly about memory, and chance and songs and games, and things that are from my childhood.
JP: How were you drawn to lithography and printmaking? SW: I’ll first talk about printmaking. I was in a class, an undergraduate class, it was a silk screening class, and I remember being very cool with my teacher; I never wanted him to know if I was pleased with my work. I was using blue ink, a royal blue ink, on a piece of yellow paper, and I had made the stencil. I sat the screen down and pulled the squeegee across it. I remember pulling the screen up and it was sooo cool. My teacher was watching me from across the way and I remember thinking, “oh no, I am found out.” That was the first print I made. Then I remember seeing a show of etchings, and I had no idea how they were made; but I remember being moved by how beautiful they were. The very first class I took in lithography I broke a stone, which is not good, but I was hooked. I loved the challenge. It is very spiritual, and very physical, incredibly physical, very finicky and fussy, but when you get it, when it happens, when it is good, it’s the biggist high of all. It is the most technical of all printmaking, and I think I like facing that. JP: What does text mean to you in your work? SW: Visually, it servers as layer of texture, a formal consideration. When I first started incorporating text, the text was not readable. People would tell me, concerned, “I can’t tell what it says” and my response was, “well I don’t care.” It is really a note to myself, just one more layer of information in each piece. Then, there was a turning point, and I thought, “let’s let the
Checklist
Jacob Pet ’12
text be noticeable.” I just decided to let it come forward and be a part of it. And you have to be careful, because it’s a drawing mark, both visual as well as informational, and picking aspects like font and the placement of the words becomes an even greater challenge. JP: Has teaching changed the way you make art or the art that you make? SW: I love teaching so much, and my hardest struggle is finding a balance for my own work and my teaching. There is that old idea that if you’re always a beginner, if you can always get to that place, you can stay open, which is the best place to be for working and teaching.
JP: At Union you are both artist and professor, what other titles do carry in your life? SW: Well I am a parent, and that definitely affects who I am. I think I get my wisdom from being a parent. I am a spouse, and the support that’s there is incredible; that really helps me as an artist. Someone recently asked me what I liked to do for fun and I mentioned teaching and making art and I stopped. I guess sometimes I really like to jog, but I think I am fortunate that I love the things that I do, and I get to spend all my time doing them.
MARTIN MART IN BENJAMIN
CHRIS DUNCAN
WALTER HATKE
Ferry to Naples & Venice, Italy Archival pigment print 37.5” x 28” 2010
Muffaletta Steel and concrete 28” x 24” x 22” 2009
Blue Madonna (Study for Summer Music, 1980) Oil on linen 9” x 13 3/4” 1979
Vietnam Archival pigment print 28.5” x 38” 2007
Field & Stream Steel and wood 34” x 38” x 33” 2011
Hanoi, Vietnam Archival pigment print 28.5” x 38” 2007
Magnet Steel and wood 24” x 38” x 33.5” 2011
Cat Ba Island, Halong Bay, Vietnam Archival pigment print 24” x 30” 2007
Kali Steel, galvanized steel, cast iron, rubber 17” x 25” x 22” 2011
Family Crossing Oil on linen 48” x 32” 2009-2011
Blue Palace Mixed media on paper 44” x 41” 2009
Commencement Oil on linen 30” x 24” 2011-in progress
Calibration Mixed media on paper 38” x 42” 2010
Rake Oil on linen 34” x 60” 2010-in progress
Le Mat Snake Village, Vietnam Archival pigment print 30” x 24 2007 Hanoi, Vietnam Archival pigment print 24” x 30” 2007 Mai Chau, Vietnam Archival pigment print 24” x 30” 2007 Hoan Kiem Lake, Hanoi, Vietnam Archival pigment print 24” x 30” 2007 Dong Ho Village in Song Ho Commune, Vietnam Archival pigment print 30” x 24” 2011
Concert Oil on linen 44” x 44” 2006-2011 Family Steps Oil on linen 48” x 32” 2009-2011
American Beech Charcoal and embossed on paper (museum board) 37 1/2” x 31” 2010
FERNANDO ORELLANA
CHARLES STECKLER
SANDRA WIMER
Paradiso Three channel live video, wood, dolls, plexiglas, electronics, computer, motors Size variable 2011
Hanukkah Begins at Sundown Mixed drawing media on calendar page 24” x 28 ½” 2007
Intuitive (per passa il tempo) blue Bic pen 10” x 8 ¼” 2007
Girl Talk Archival inkjet 21” X 28” 2010
Population Three Channel Video, 19” LCD screens, solid state media players Size variable 2011
Imaginary Alpine Landscape in a Storm India ink, charcoal, graphite, silver thread 49” x 38 ½” 2004
Aurora (per passa il tempo) Pilot pen 12 ½” x 12 ½” 2010
Homing In Archival inkjet 21” X 28” 2010
Pendula (per passa il tempo) Uni-ball, Bic ballpoint, pencil 13” x 13” 2010
Sky Candy Archival inkjet 13 l/2” X 28” 2010
The White Herd Play-Doh and epoxy on panel 18” x 20” 2011 Population A Play-Doh and epoxy on panel 22” x 28” 2011 The Red Crowd Play-Doh and epoxy on panel 24” x 28” 2011
Chrysalis (per passa il tempo) Silverpoint, pencil, Uni-ball extra-fine pen 18 ½” x 24” 2008 Lacuna (per passa il tempo) Uni-ball and Pilot pens and silver ink 16 ½” x 12 ½” 2010 Fata Morgana (per passa il tempo) Ink and pencil on photocopy with piercings 10 ½” x 13 ½” 2004 Inflorescence (per passa il tempo) Sharpie pen 12 ½” x 12” 2009 Martina (per passa il tempo) Sharpie pen 10 ½” x 10 ¾” 2008
Quotidian (per passa il tempo) Pilot pen 12 ½” x 11” 2009 Pinnatum (per passa il tempo) Pilot pen 11”x 12 ½” 2008 All following drawings are silverpoint on paint chips, 2011 December Starlight First Frost Camembert Creamy White Gypsum Independence Ivory tower Pale Sand Powdered Snow Snow fall Sweet Honeydew Swiss Coffee Toasted Oatmeal Window Pane
Open Book II Polymer photogravure/ archival inkjet/chine-collé 3” X 5” 2011 You Belong to Me Polymer photogravure/ archival inkjet 3” X 5” 2011 Untitled Polymer photogravure/ archival inkjet 3” X 5” 2011 Morning Exercise: A Facebook Diary Single channel video on LCD screen 2009, 2010, 2011