1.What drew you towards this field/or was there a moment when you realized this was something that you love/appreciated or skilled at?
It really comes down to…when I was in 8th grade there was a crappy Macintosh in the AV office. It is interesting for an artist to be on the cutting edge of the art form itself. Even when I was in college, I was inventing it as it was being invented. It is the idea of not only creating images, but with digital it is creating the art form to creating the image.
2. How would you describe your artistic voice or the style that your work takes on?
Grimy, digital-analog hybrid. Orange and blues, too. It kind of feels antique and brand new simultaneously. The easiest way to describe it would be make a painting, cut a hole in it and put a animation underneath. Which is easier to do now that iPads exists.
3. How do you feel about the outlook for the future of your specific discipline?
For incoming freshman, the number of art classes has diminished, which means more work for us; the discipline is changing
4.What do you feel Saint Xavier has to offer in terms of accommodating art majors and students who art interested in it?
We have a better situation than we have had in a long time. We were over crowding the space by CIDAT. About five years ago, we moved to a new location where we could do what we wanted to do. It was gutted and repurposed. The student gallery used to be a chapel, but has been accommodated. You can walk in and view the students’ work and that is really inspiring—many of the pieces on the screens in CIDAT are from students. We can leave the rest of the world and main campus behind. It’s like going into a movie theater and turning off the lights. It puts you into a creative space.
5. What upcoming events would you like to be highlighted?
I would say two events, the first on being an Art Walk in downtown Beverly. SXU students will be doing an exhibit called Body Shop. This is Oct. 11 from 2:00 pm-7:00 pm on 1911w 103rd. The second thing is I’m offering a class for artists and historians next semester. The name of the course is Creative Documentary Filmaking and Historical Documentary Filmmaking. My job is to pitch it everywhere I go. It offers credit for four different areas. You get fine art, history, community based learning, and interdisciplinary studies.
Last week, Chicago based artist Richard Shipps’ stopped by Saint Xavier University to demo his cut paper abstractions during a gallery opening on main campus. The exhibit, “Shadows on the Wall” shows various pieces that are an amalgam of yin yang designs that incorporate both familiar geometric shapes and a little bit of chaos.
Shipps medium of choice is an industrial brand Tyvek paper that he says is “strong, but is like cutting butter.” He is not only conscious of the shapes but the shadows that they create. Shipps seemed particularly enthused about the fact that October is artists’ month, and that a number of local neighborhoods like Pilsen will be holding gallery walks.
After the Q & A, he held a demonstration of his single and double precision technique. Of the mistakes he makes he said, “That accident can become a dominant part of the work…How can I refine it from there and look intentional?”
The Features Staff