Knife and Sandpaper: A Talk with Bud Clayton

Virginia Billeaud Anderson

Bud Clayton reflects on the manner in which man made objects are modified by time--a fence becomes rusty for instance or a street curb is marked by black rubber--and attempts to pictorially capture this quality of time with “distressed fields of color.” I viewed his abstractions in the exhibition On Time at Gallery M Squared through February 24, and concluded Clayton is a courageous colorist. It’s not easy to mess around with lime green or pink, and succeed. Umbers and other dark neutrals can look like manure unless skillfully applied. The arts’ subtle gradations of dark and rust tones are faded and refined. I contacted the artist and learned a few things about his paint handling, and also the reason behind the art’s planar variations and fragmentation.


Bud Clayton, Like You’ve Been Here Before, 2012, Mixed media on canvas, 24” x 24”

Virginia Billeaud Anderson: Describe your use of sandpaper.

Bud Clayton: The sandpaper is a reductive tool. There is a slim window of opportunity when the paint is curing that allows me to employ the sandpaper in an aggressive and abrasive way. That’s one of the ways I distress the fields of color.

VBA: Many of your diagonal forms have a protruding line ridge of paint at their edges, as if you scraped forcefully with a strait-edge tool. Are you using a palette knife or a scraping or flattening implement?

BC: After I’m satisfied with the under painting, which acts as the basic composition, paint starts going on thick. A flat knife is one tool I use to manipulate it.


Bud Clayton, Schedule, 2012, Mixed media on canvas, 24” x 24”

VBA: Comment on the fragmented planes and fracturing in your forms. Are you inspired by innovations in early century Cubism, Picasso and Braque’s 1911-1912 works for example? Do you look to art historical precedents?

BC: A car hit me once, as a pedestrian. The windshield just exploded. The fragmentation in my compositions is intended to appear impactful, powerful, speedy and streamlined. My work may have more in common with the Futurist Giacomo Balla since he used color, shape and rhythm to transmit a sense of energy. The painting Abstract Speed + Sound (1913-1914) could be an example. However, I also enjoy conversation with my contemporaries.

VBA: I remember slide tests on the Futurists. Balla repurposed motion and light, fractured it so it seemed to explode all over the canvas. And his titles tended to tell you precisely what he was representing. Do your titles relate to the paintings? For instance, when you title a piece Can Opener, is the image based on a can opener?


Bud Clayton, Present Flex, 2012, Mixed media on canvas, 24” x 24”

BC: Can Opener has some very large shapes that encompass negative space in acute angles and, to me, seems forceful enough to shear metal like a can opener. So, the title of that piece represents a kind of mechanical concept. Some of the other titles could be more abstract or personal but they are not random.

VBA: There are repetitive dot and check patterns in some of the paintings. Were they “free hand” or do you employ a stencil or other design tool?

BC: The repetition there is meant to be analogous to advertisement murals that become weathered, so in the same way modern advertisements aren’t “by hand,” neither are those patterns in my work.

VBA: You used the word “substrate” in your artist statement. What is that?

BC: The word “substrate” comes from the Latin sub-stratum meaning “the level below.” In the context of the work in On Time, the substrate is miter cut, kiln dried cedar, 1” x 4,” the lumber lending rigidity to Masonite.

VBA: Your statement also said “We are time travelers creeping by at a second per second only able to experience what has already occurred.” Explain what you mean by time travelers and experiencing what has already occurred. Are you talking about relativity?

BC: George Carlin said it better than me. I would like to direct you to his monologue on the subject called “Time.” It’s available by fair use on YouTube, I believe.


George Carlin on time

VBA: Is there anything you want readers to know about you or your art?

BC: I can’t wait to start a new body of work, but I’m not ready to talk about it, yet. I would just like to thank the readers for their time.


Bud Clayton, Identified, 2012, Mixed media on canvas, 24” x 24”

Blogging ARTlies -- March 1994

Robert Boyd


Art Lies #1 -- 19 years ago

About a year after I began blogging about art, Houston's only print publication on art, Art Lies, collapsed. I only read the last few issues, and I can't say I was a huge fan. But it was obviously important--a whole magazine devoted to art published in Houston! I knew it had been around for a while. And the thing about a magazine is that while it's being published, it's journalism. But once it's been published, it's history. The first issue of Art Lies was published in 1994. This is quite interesting to me personally, because I wasn't in Houston for the majority of its existence. I have a vague idea at best of what was happening in Houston as far as art goes in the 90s and early 2000s. But now, thanks to the University of North Texas, I can get a glimpse of what was happening then. They have archived Art Lies electronically, and now it's accessible to anyone with an internet hookup.

So it occurred to me that I could read through this archive and educate myself a bit on this era in Houston's art history. And as long as I'm doing this, why not blog about it?

The first issue of Art Lies was published in March 1994. It's not a meaty publication--24 pages total. And it's all black and white. The "executive director" is Wade Chandler and the editor is  Don Carroll, two names I don't recognize. It has a board of directors, which suggests it was a non-profit right from the start, and the Board includes a few familiar names (Dan Allison, Margaret Bott, Benito Huerta).

The look is anchored its time--when the eye-crushing deconstructive typography of Emigre-enthralled designers. Fiona McGettigan is credited as the art director. In retrospect, it feels unnecessarily baroque, and in the case of an interview with Gael Stack, hard to read.

The issue started off with a bang--a manifesto by Dave Hickey. There were reviews of a performance by Jim Pirtle, shows at the CAMH and the MFAH, and a weird and slightly pointless dig at Coagula. There is a review by Donald E. Calledare of a show at the MFAH, Speaking of Artists: Words and Works from Houston, that hilariously neglects to name a single artist in the show. There are two reviews of Texas/Between Two Worlds at the CAMH. Chris Ballou's is unimaginative and mostly congratulatory. Harvey Bott actually questions the curatorial intent and is a bit more critical of the art--and his writing is far more eccentric.

One of the wistful things about reading an old publication like this is that some of what they write about is gone. There is a review of a show by Kelli Scott Kelley, for example. She's still around, but her gallery in 1994, the Lanning Gallery, is not. What happened to it, I wonder?

There was a degree of "Hey, gang, let's get together and put on a show!" about Art Lies with this issue, but you expect that when a publication is starting. And it seemed quite professional (unlike, say, The Great God Pan Is Dead). And while none of the criticism seems especially blistering, they weren't uncritical boosters either. It was a good start.

The Sacred within the Mundane: The Art of Wilo Vargas

Virginia Billeaud Anderson

While previewing Wilo Vargas’s Hierophany and Pareidolia exhibition prior to its opening at G Gallery, I noticed gallery assistant Bradford Moody appeared fatigued and wondered if handling Vargas’s large canvases had done him in.

Virginia Billeaud Anderson: The art is beautifully hung Brad. Did installation cause this droopiness?

Brad Moody: Good Lord woman, it came with the canvases rolled, so we had to build stretcher bars before we could hang. Wilo and I were stretching canvas until 9:30 to10 on Friday night. After that I had to work at home to finalize the sale of my triptych, and was up late painting, up early this morning to meet Dan to discuss my show, and take promo photos for some magazine, and various other things to please people. Yes, a little tired.

Wayne Gilbert on the other hand looked rested. He wanted me to know that Vargas is a Peruvian who holds degrees in both archaeology and art, and that his acid-trip aesthetic, what the gallery publicized as “a chaotic, psychedelic sensibility,” is derived from shaman-guided use of ayahuasca, an Andean hallucinogen known as “vine of the soul.” “It’s a tool to open your vision, it brings on altered states of consciousness,” Gilbert told me. One important vision ayahuasca afforded Vargas was a spider to instruct him on how to formulate the colorful paint skeins on his canvases.

Moody pointed to their intersections and allowed me to rub my fingers across them. He described the use of small strings to create the elaborate linear patterns, which must have required obsessive layering. The paintings’ spiraling lines serve as ground for iconographic references to the sacred in other cultures, such as a Buddha figure and a Venus.

“He’s responding to Peru’s complex cultural mix,” Gilbert said, which led to a discussion about the numerous cultures that exist in Peru along with its indigenous people, and brought to mind a Quechua speaking merchant near Cusco who sold t-shirts with the image of a llama spitting into a conquistador’s face, the text below reading “two worlds collide” in Spanish.


Wilo Vargas, Venus (Greek Goddess), 2012, Acrylic on canvas, 10’ x 6 ½‘

In one of his artist statements Vargas asserted he is inspired by ancient Peruvian archeological sites, the lines and colors of which “talk to him of a parallel universe.” So I became excited about the prospect of recognizing Moche, Chimu or other pre-Inca visual language in his art. I wanted to talk to him about Peruvian archaeological sites’ mystical role, their significance in accessing otherworldly realms. “Were some paintings’ spirals derived from the Nazca Monkey’s curled tail?” I asked when I contacted the artist.

Vargas replied that although his work is influenced by the ancient cultures of Peru, there is no direct manifestation of them in the Houston paintings. He talked about what inspired this art, and also sent images of himself in the process of creating it.


Wilo Vargas creating paintings for the Hierophany and Pareidolia series

He began by explaining his series title, which came from Mircea Eliade’s Treatise on the History of Religions. "Hierophany" refers to the manifestation of the sacred in particular places. "Pareidolia" is the phenomenon of observing something sacred in ordinary objects, such as a Virgin in a cloud or a sacred animal on the wall. The phenomenon occurs today just as it did in ancient cultures.

“Modern man shares something essential with the ancestors regarding perception and interpretation of reality, with awareness affected by the experience, culture, beliefs and emotions of the observer,” said Vargas. “Those who view the paintings are involved in hierophany and pareidolia and through observation can discover icons related to their culture.”


Wilo Vargas creating paintings for the Hierophany and Pareidolia series 


Wilo Vargas creating paintings for the Hierophany and Pareidolia series

Ricardo Ruiz’s Neighborhood

Virginia Billeaud Anderson

When Ricardo Ruiz paints a javelina, he is pictorially describing a place. South Texas ranches along the Mexican border are overrun with javelinas. On Saturday afternoon I previewed Ruiz’s Love Songs for the Palomia at Redbud Gallery, an exhibition of paintings, drawings and prints which can be seen through February 27. Redbud Gallery describes the Corpus Christie artist as one who “uses imagery culled from religion, folklore and the Mexican-American cultural experience in South Texas,” favorite motifs being devils, angels, El Cucuy, martyred frogs, family members and well-dressed grackles in fez hats.

I contacted the artist to ask a few questions, and his mention of music brought memories of trips into the barrio where the beer bottles were shoved into ice, huevos cost nothing, and I would give the proprietor money to select his favorite ranchera music with unforgettable strings, trumpets and yearning in the voices.


Ricardo Ruiz, El Mero Chingnon, 2012, Oil on Panel, 10” x 10”

Virginia Billeaud Anderson: Your artistic relationship with the frog dates back many years. As the story goes on childhood trips to Mexico with your family you coveted a mariachi frog figurine in the market. Years later you purchased a small frog playing the accordion, and upon close inspection determined it wasn’t a toy but an actual taxidermied toad, so in the mid-eighties you began to celebrate the martyred frog in your art. Is there a similar personal connection to the black bird or grackle which is also an important iconographic element?

Ricardo Ruiz: The grackles have been a constant presence here in South Texas, they follow me around as I cut the grass and they eat the bugs I stir up with the mower. It occurred to me a few years ago that I rarely see a dead grackle. This led to the theory that the grackles that were around in my childhood are the same grackles around today. That being the case, I’m sure they've had time to build some sort of civilization, which would include creation of the type of service organizations we see in every city.

VBA: It required a closer look at the oil painting Vicente (2010) to realize the frog does not reference Vicente Fox. Its flamboyant gestures with legs and arms wide apart and the way the figure takes up practically the entire canvas initially led me to assume you were talking about some El Jefe big shot. Its costume is theatrical.

RR: That frog in Vicente is dedicated to my father's memory. Before he died, he loved to watch the Spanish programming on TV and would always alert me when the mariachis performed. Our favorite performer was of course, Vicente Fernandez and we would sit together every time he came on TV. My oldest son's middle name is Vicente in his honor, as well, so this small piece takes the taxidermied toad from the mercado and brings him back to life and gives him a stage upon which to perform.

VBA: Redbud’s gallery notes described your style as one that bows to the Northern European Renaissance tradition. Please speak about your painting style, and also about your development and influences. Did you study Renaissance art? Who do you look at, what art inspires you?

RR: I do love the subtle way the northern renaissance painters distort their imagery for the sake of the composition and narrative. I didn't have very good background knowledge of artists from which to draw inspiration while in school, I was working full time, in school full time, so I didn't get to museums. Upon graduation in 1986, I started to look to other artists for inspiration and found Frida Kahlo of course, but just as important to me was Gregory Gillespie, the great modern realist.  I also love artists who utilize a narrative so Thomas Hart Benton, Edward Hopper and more recently, Donald Roller Wilson.

VBA: Some of your figures are costumed in the garish style of Spanish colonial religious paintings, resembling the red poofed-out skirts one finds on the archangel Raphael or a Mater Dolorosa. Make a comment about Catholicism.

RR: I was raised Catholic, attended Catholic school and served Mass in my youth, but the biggest effect it had on me was in the great illustrations I found in our family bible. The colors were rich deep greens contrasting with intense reds that seemed to radiate from the page and tickle my eyes. I've never gotten over the pleasure those images gave me and I still have the bible to pore over whenever I need inspiration.

VBA: That must have been some bible. You painted a devil with rattle snake tails for ears, and a snakes head for his nose. Your depictions of El Cucuy are also twisted. Tell me about El Cucuy.

RR: The Cucuy is the Mexican-American version of the boogey-man and growin up, our parents, tios and tias would tell us these harrowing stories of disobedient children being snatched up and eaten by the cucuy. I remember looking out the window in the middle of the night and seeing him flitting from tree to bush to cactus, I guess that's what jump-started my imagination.

VBA: Explain your exhibition title Love Songs for the Palomia.

RR: The Palomia is a local slang that refers to the people of the neighborhood. You can't do anything without the Palomia finding out about it. When someone does something dumb, we say "that's the Palomia!" I consider it a term of endearment for the good people who surround us and live among us.

VBA: According to gallery notes your work “examines the mysteries of life, love and the commonality of the life experience.” Please elaborate.

RR: I hope I don't sound overly Rockwellian, but I am a very simple man with a very simple life and my search in my art has been to find our commonality.

Pan Recommends for the week of February 7 to February 13

Robert Boyd with Dean Liscum

It's Mardi Gras time and there will be partying. Or alternatively, you can discuss public art or go on a long walk or look at a few paintings. It's all cool.

THURSDAY

Slide Jam: Sally Frater and Kimberli Gant at the CAMH, 6:30 pm. It's usually artists who show the slides at CAMH's slide jams, but this time they've handed the projector over to curators to talk about what it is that they do.


Marcelyn McNeil, Crudely Drawn Mimic, Oil on Canvas, 58"x60", 2013

Howard Sherman: Artist's Picks featuring Michael Guidry, Geoff Hippenstiel, Marcelyn McNeil, Tudor Mitroi, Robert Ruello, Howard Sherman, and Shane Tolbert at the Alliance Gallery- Houston Arts Alliance at 5:30 pm through March 26. An artist (with an ego and an opinion and not afraid to sling either) picks other artists to exhibit.



Rebecca Hamm, Ski Hut, watercolor on paper

Toward Substance:Paintings by Rebecca Hamm and Cary Reeder at the O'Kane Gallery, 6 pm, runs through March 14. Rebecca Hamm paints dense underbrush and Cary Reeder paints Charles Sheeler-esque images of cottages--sounds like an interesting combination.

FRIDAY


One of the pieces in Judged and Juried

Judged & Juried with guest juror Alyssa Monks at East End Studio Gallery at 6 pm. Featuring work by Adrienne Wong, Anat Ronen, Angela Obenhaus, Antonio Torres, Aron Williams, Blue OneThirty, Christian Perkins, Claire Richards, Dawn Thomas McKelvy, Diane Gelman, Ellen Hart, Jonathon Lowe, Kevin Peterson, Lacey Crawford, Leslie Roades, Lisa Comperry, Mario Casas, Mark Chen, Marky Dewhirst, Maryann Lucas, Melinda Patrick, Mic McAllister, Rona Lesser, Sacha Lazarre, Saida Fagala, Sam Li, Sarah Cloutier-Houston, Spartaco Margioni, Tatiana Escallon, Tim Walker, Will Brooks. This show seems a bit overwhelming on the face of it--an East Side "Big Show". Look out Lawndale!

SATURDAY


Mac Whitney, Houston, 1982 (in Stude Park)

Public Art and Its Impact Within Houston featuring panelists Michael Guidry (University of Houston), Jimmy Castillo (Houston Arts Alliance), and Cynthia Alvarado (Midtown Management District) and moderated by Paul Middendorf at Gallery Sonja Roesch, 2pm-3pm. Where does Houston rank in terms of public art? And who green-lighted those Jaume Plensa sculptures on Alan Parkway? All will be revealed.

El Rincon Social Music Night at the Art League featuring Ryan Lee Hansson, Lisa Marie Hunter, Josiah Gabriel and Fernando Ramirez at 8 pm. This is interesting not just because of what it is but because it represents a trend I've been noticing recently in Houston--that art exhibits are having continuous related events throughout the course of the show. We saw that with STACKS at the Art League and with Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art at CAMH, and we're seeing it now with Tony Feher: Free Fall at Diverse Works. Anyway, go to the Art League early to get warmed up, then head on over to...


Poster by Sebastian Forray

Otis Ike and The Joanna Gallery Present:MARDI GRAS - An Epiphany of Anal Beads with the World Famous CHRISTEENE!!!  at Numbers, 9 pm til 2 am. Promises to feature Human King cakes! Tranny floats! An unmarried gay Tree! Bears! Cubs! Moms! Glory Holes! Shims! Hymns! Kings! Queens! Beads! Altar boy bathroom attendants! Enron! Elrond! & A Barbara Bush invitation to move to HOUSTON!!!

SUNDAY


Carrie Schneider and Alex Tu will apparently be wearing hazmat suits on Sunday

The Human Tour with Carrie Schneider and Alex Tu, 11 am starting at Natachee's in Main. This is the first of 10 walks to be conducted by Schneider and Tu along the path of the Human Tour, an enormous art project originally created by Michael Galbreth back in 1987. The piece was a map of certain Houston streets that formed a crude outline of a human figure.


Michael Galbreth, The Human Tour, 1987

Bert Long: 1940 - 2013

Robert Boyd

The great Bert Long has died. He was 72. Long didn't become a full-time artist until 1979--prior to that he was a chef. But he more than made up for his late start, becoming one of Houston's most beloved artists. Here are a few of the obituaries and articles that have been written about him over the past few days.

"Houston artist Bert Long Jr. Dies," Claudia Feldman, The Houston Chronicle, February 1, 2013

"Bert Long, Texas Art Paradigm, 1940-2013," Bill Davenport, Glasstire, February 1, 2013

"Iconic Houston Artist Dies," Tyler Rudick, culturemap, February 1, 2013


Bert Long, Field of Vision, 2002

You can see a lot of Bert Long art reproduced on his website as well as that of his dealer, Kirk Hopper.

On Thursday, February 14, the Menil will be screening A Valentine for Bert Long, a documentary about the man. And Houston Baptist University will be hosting an exhibit of Long's work from February 28 through April 18.

Long's work is in many museum collections (for instance, Dama is in the Art Museum of Southeast Texas in Beaumont). I hope these museums will pull his work out of storage and let people see his work. But one place you can always see Bert Long art, day or night, is at the corner of Elgin and Bastrop (one block west of Dowling). That's where the Long's sculpture garden piece Field of Vision is. I will be driving over there later today with a few flowers for one of the great of Houston.

Bert Long, Dama, 2981, mixed media

Questions for Becky Soria

Virginia Billeaud Anderson

When Becky Soria exhibited art based on Paleolithic cave paintings at Redbud Gallery in 2011 she made a few statements, the importance of which to understanding her art I failed to fully appreciate. Prehistoric bison and horse imagery, she said, calls up “profound, hidden, unconscious” parts of the psyche. She also spoke of her deep interest in biology and systems of the body, which dates back to childhood with a physician father.

It was the totemic figures with fragmented torsos and brightly colored entrails she showed at Deborah Colton Gallery in 2012 that helped me realize how effectively her earlier statements illuminated her art. Recently I previewed the newest paintings of Paleolithic cave animals and abstracted human figures that she will exhibit in Signs, Symbols, Sentinels at Archway Gallery on February 2, and, with what I believe is deeper insight into her work, asked Soria a few questions.

Virginia Billeaud Anderson: Your show at Archway opens on February 2 and runs through February 28. How many pieces will we see, and what are they?

Becky Soria: I will exhibit 11 paintings, 8 in larger size, 3 on a smaller scale, all painted on canvas or wood. I will also show 9 works on paper, mixes of painting and drawing, using charcoal, pastel, acrylics and oils. Remember, I will be giving an artist talk at 6:30 pm the evening of the opening.

VBA: On a simplistic level you are an artist looking back at other artists who worked 30,000 years ago, during the Paleolithic.

BS: The thing that is so intriguing is that we don’t know their arts’ purpose, anthropologist can only speculate about its meaning.

VBA: But you are drawn to its properties.

BS: Yes, along with the enigma of their meaning, I’m fascinated by their present look, that is, the plasticity they have today, altered and damaged by time. Some of the drawings and paintings incorporate uneven cave wall surfaces into their design. I take from all of that, and make “my own” contemporary expression. Most importantly I am trying to capture their mood.


Becky Soria, Salto, 2012, Acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 36 x 48

VBA: You’ve used the word “primitive” in some of our past discussions, and also titled your 2011 exhibition with that word. What does it mean to you?

BS: It’s a quality in pre-Colombian art or African art, related to simplicity, distortion, a sort of reductive abstraction that reaches to the essence of something. You know it by its estranging imperfection. The primitive was all around me when I was a child in Bolivia, the archaeological site of Tiahuanaco, for instance, and my father had an important collection of pre-Colombian artifacts.

VBA: That word perfectly describes my Moche statue with a decidedly estranging fan shaped head. By the way, Picasso shared your view of the primitive. Your reds knock me over - crimson, vermilion and magenta. Humans’ use of red ochre dates back to the Paleolithic, meaning red was one of the first colors used artistically. Make a comment about your choice of colors. Are they symbolic?

BS: I have an instinct for reds in all its combinations, they come naturally to me. And they do hold symbolism. I use them to portray strength, passion, mystery, life. In general I am drawn to earth colors.

VBA: As you know I traveled throughout Peru so those reds are not unsurprising. I’ll never forget the red on the relief carvings at the Temple of the Moon in Trujillo, still dramatic after centuries. And the Andean textiles I saw were surprisingly vibrant.

BS: I assimilated it as a child.


Becky Soria, Piedra Y Rojo, 2012, Acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 36 x 48

VBA: Let’s talk about the stylized human figures in some of your works. The stick figures that float through Umbral’s composition appear to have the same gestures as schematic figures in the Toquepala Cave.

BS: Along with Western European upper Paleolithic images that date to roughly 35,000 or 40,000 years, I take inspiration from shamanistic societies such as the African Sand Rock, and others indigenous to the Americas. Some of my works on paper are derived from that imagery.


Becky Soria, Umbral, 2012, Acrylic and pastel on Reeves prepared paper, 34 x 24

VBA: The leaping figure in Shaman has visceral components similar to those in the abstracted figures you showed at Deborah Colton.

BS: He is a shaman. Many believe Paleolithic cave paintings in Europe and North Africa were made by the societies’ shamans, who entered the caves, went into trance, and painted images related to their visions. Their art, like fertility goddess figurines, represents man’s earliest use of symbolism. You have seen many of my goddess figures which are grounded in the mystical. Similarly, I use shamans and animals ritualistically.


Becky Soria, Shaman, 2012, Acrylic, charcoal and pastel on handmade prepared paper, 20 x 26

VBA: Becky, during one of our visits you said our “primordial ancestry as human beings” is central to your art. Primordial is an arresting word. I take this to mean we carry within us collective memory of all that went before. Imbedded and capable of being brought to full consciousness are memories of millions of years of human existence, perhaps even those animal-like instincts that serve us. Our two-million year old human ancestor resides within us in the deepest levels of our psyche. The “profound, hidden” knowledge of your artist statement is the means to self-knowing and our fullest expression.

BS: Yes. Our relationship with these animals is at the root of artistic consciousness, deeply enmeshed in our DNA, which I believe is the reason they became a significant part of totemic, religious ritual for millennia.