Roger Williamson - Painter

Roger Williamson

Name:                          Roger Williamson
City/State:                    Minneapolis, MN
Email:                            roger@rogerwilliamsonart.com

Website:                        http://rogerwilliamsonart.com/

MNartist.org profile:     http://mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=32529

Facebook page:           https://www.facebook.com/williamsonart?fref=ts

Twitter: @                      https://twitter.com/rwilliamson222

Tell me about your work? What are you currently working on? How is this different from past projects?

I am currently working on a triptych of three 8ft by 4ft oil on wood panels. The theme of the work reflects different aspects of human awaking and the possibilities that arise when we escape our conditioning.

My past projects have been single works either oil on canvas or pastel on paper and a limited edition tarot deck of the 22 major arcana cards http://rogerwilliamsonart.com/tarot-of-the-morning-star-5/

How did you decide to become an artist?

There was no decision I evolved into it.  When I was sixteen, I sacrificed an opportunity to pursue a career in art to play music which took me through the 1960’s and 70’s.  Because of my adventures in music I feel the art I now create has strength, timbre and vibrancy it may not have had if I had chosen to taken a different path.

What was the best advice given to you as an artist? 

Pass it on, let experiences and learning pass through you so that others can benefit from them.  Nothing is owned, everything is on loan.

Many artists struggle to find ways to sell their art.  How do you sell your work?  How do you market yourself?

Fine Arts America            http://roger-williamson.artistwebsites.com/

Absolute Arts                    http://www.absolutearts.com/roger/

Roger Williamson Art      http://rogerwilliamsonart.com/

Sales through local retail stores

Who are some of the Minnesota artists you enjoy?

Rachel Rolseth  http://rachelrolseth.com/

Margaret Wall-Romana http://mwallromana.com/

Suzann Beck http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=296355

To be honest the painters I like are from the late 19^th century, Jean Delville, Fernand Khnopff, the Fin de Siècle and the symbolist movement in general. 

If I were to follow you around to see art in Minnesota, which places would we go? What would we see?
I would begin at the MIA 19^th early 20^th century paintings. 

Stevens Square Center for the Arts http://www.stevensarts.org/

Gamut Gallery Minneapolis http://www.gamutgallerympls.com/

Altered Esthetics http://www.alteredesthetics.org/

Afton State Park http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_parks/afton/index.html

--Although not an art gallery in the traditional sense I find it extremely inspiring as it has a very mystical and other worldly feel..

In addition to www.Local-Artist-Interviews.com, where do you go online for good art resources, whether to find a new artist, or to see what is going on in the art world locally and otherwise? 

MNArtists.org       http://mnartists.org/

Saatchi                   http://www.saatchionline.com/

Wooloo.org           http://www.wooloo.org/

Aesthetica             http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/

Do you have any exhibits to promote in the near future?  Yes

Chimera at Stevens Square Center for the Arts (SSCA), Third Avenue S., Minneapolis, MN  55404.

Opening: Saturday August 3^rd 7pm through 10:30pm.  Exhibit runs through Sunday August 25^{th, 2013}

What can we expect to see from you in the future?

More depictions of ancient myths.  Myths I believe are tools that guide and encourage us through life’s drama.

SSCA - Install

Image List:

1.         Dance For Kali, Oil on canvas, 2012

2.         She The Flowering Of Ishtar, oil on canvas 2012

3.         She Entered Her Dream And Took Back Her Mask Of Power, oil on wood board, 2013

4.         Io Tells Her Story, oil on canvas 2011

5.         Orpheus: Don’t Look Back, oil on canvas, 2011

6.         He Called On His Idyll And Then She Took Him, oil on canvas, 2009

Margaret Wall-Romana - Painter

"Memento Lucem (Remember the Light)" 46" x 131" oil on wood panel, 20l0

Margaret Wall-Romana

Margaret Wall-Romana
City/State: Minneapolis, MN
Email: m.wallromana@gmail.com
Website: http://mwallromana.com/
MNartist.org profile: http://www.mnartists.org/Margaret_Wall-Romana

Bio -
I grew up just south of San Francisco, and have a BA from UC Davis, and an MFA in Painting from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. I lived in NYC for 5 years after school, making bad abstract paintings and getting no place - but loving it! - before meeting my husband and moving back to California. I showed with a wonderful San Francisco gallery, Bucheon, from 1995 until 2009, when it closed. In 2005 we moved to Minneapolis. We always thought it would be fun to live someplace where it snows, and we haven't changed our minds.

Tell me about your work? What are you currently working on? How is this different from past projects?
I currently have an MAEP show up at The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, through April 3rd, on which I focused all last year. I like the challenge of making big paintings, and having such a beautiful gallery to myself was an opportunity to go to town, size-wise. Now I think it might be nice to scale down a bit. I've been thinking about and working on some pieces that reference (in non-traditional ways) the 17th century Dutch "game piece" genre, as well as thinking about some different, more modestly sized (and perhaps non-rectilinearly-shaped) pieces. I've surprised myself by thinking I might be ok with working on 2 different bodies of work at the same time, something I've never done before. That's all I can say right now - time will tell.

Detail - "Memento Lucem (Remember the Light)"

"What is Art?" is certainly too big of a question to ask here, but what do you hope your audience takes away from your art? What statement do you hope to make?
I'd like my viewers to be surprised to find that engaging with a painting can be an absorbing, immersive experience. In the centuries before the moving image, people knew that paintings could provide a visual experience capable of transporting and thrilling them. We know how to surrender to the screen-based arts, and we love to do so, but do we still know how to surrender to paintings? Do we realize what feelings they are capable of provoking?

Unlike a movie, which ask us to invest a set amount of time, a painting releases us (if it ever had us in the first place) when we turn and walk away. But if it's the painter's ambition, I think the act of looking at his or her painting can share some kinship with watching a moving image. I want my work to invite sustained viewing, and if people do spend the time required for the paintings to unfold and reveal themselves, I want them to feel like they've gone someplace, experienced something very particular that could only be gotten at through that exact experience, and through the spending of actual time. And if the viewer were to notice that having the experience required a register of looking that felt a bit like the one we give ourselves over to when viewing screen-based arts, I'd like that a lot.

"Towards and Away" 46" x 116" oil on wood panel, 2010

What was the best advice given to you as an artist?
1. Most valuable, hardest to learn from grad school:
When a painting is at an impasse and you can't get it to work no matter what you try, 9 times out of 10 it's because you're holding onto a beloved spot/area/thing that you are really proud of having made. You love love love that special spot and refuse to give it up even though it's killing your painting, and you tell yourself lies about it and spend tons of time working around it and trying to make it fit and guess what it never will, so get over it! (What, like you're incapable of painting another beautiful spot like that? Bite the bullet, you weenie, your special spot must be destroyed! Cut the darn thing out and frame it if you love it so much, fer cryin out loud!)

2. Most valuable of the easy lessons: Varnishing will improve your painting by 10 to 20 percent. (So true!)

3. Most wounding, yet true, lesson from a fellow student: "What you know about color would fit on the head of a pin! Are you ever going to do something about that?" (Ouch. And yes, I think I will!)

detail 2 - "Towards and Away"

Tell me about your work space and your creative process?
Workspace: I've painted in lofts/garages/basements and bedrooms, but I now have a dedicated studio at home in South Minneapolis.

Creative Process: I paint in oils on wood panels that eventually get bolted together by 2's or 3's. When I start a body of work, I can't foresee what it will grow into. Over the course of a year-and-a-half to two years I slowly find out what I'm really interested in. Year one is the polymorphous phase. If during that time I claim to know that any configuration of 2-3 panels will remain together, that will turn out to be a lie.

For instance, the left-side panel of a given piece may turn into the right-side panel of a different piece, only maybe upside-down and sideways. The panels pair up, get painted on as one, and break apart to pair with others and be painted on as one - many times over. Five weeks before my MAEP show opened, I had a crisis with one of the paintings, which I had convinced myself was 98% finished. I took the panels apart, turned them sideways, 86-ed one of them and then substituted another that I had previously rejected. After putting those panels together and painting some more, I ended up with a very different (and finally satisfying) work. I hardly ever make a painting where something crazy like that doesn't happen.

I have a costly way of making paintings in that I often spend a good chunk of time painting something in great detail and then painting over it. (When I say "something" I mean area/field as well as thing.) In truth, that kind of sacrifice might be the most important thing in the development of each piece. Often it's not that the image/area is wrong, but that I am not smart enough at that point to recognize it.

detail 1 - "Towards and Away"

Things happen on the painting because other things don't feel right - everything's connected to everything. During the process, which could be described as one of accretion, the paintings are like compost piles of paint-incidents and images layered on top of each other, and images can be resurrected from below the picture plane to rejoin it again through scraping and sanding.

Something painted a year ago may suddenly appear next to something painted yesterday; it's quite wonderful and surprising. So sanding and scraping are subtractive and additive processes, and when I'm lucky this adds up to an interesting feeling for me, and the viewer, of the painting having captured some kind of time.

Who are some of the Minnesota artists you enjoy?

I was lucky to be included in ARTmn 2009, at the Hennepin County Central Library, and I fell in love with some of the other artist's work. Interestingly, they're sculptors.

Alison Hiltner: A mind for the potential of materials like no other! http://www.alisonhiltner.com/
Sam Spiczka http://www.sculptorsam.com/index.html
Karl Unnasch http://www.karlunnasch.com/

Sam and Karl and I found intriguing resonances between our works and practices, and have put together a proposal for a 3-person show called "Landscaptures: Dissect, Salvage & Reassemble". We're currently looking for a venue for it.

I've become fond of Peter Happel Christian's work - his show "Ground Truth" is in the MAEP gallery next to mine right now. http://peterhappelchristian.com/

Amy DiGennaro's work is amazing. http://amydigennaro.com/Drawings.html

Michael Kareken's MAEP show last year was my favorite Twin Cities painting show.

http://www.michaelkareken.com/Michael_Kareken/Home.html

If I were to follow you around to see art in Minnesota, which places would we go? What would we see?
For current shows (Spring 2011), you just go where the work is! I'm not venue-driven - I tend to go out specifically to see a single show, and that could be anywhere. As for museums, I gravitate towards the MIA because of my interest in the broad history of painting, but the Walker has a beautiful collection and interesting shows when I'm not longing to see "Old Dead Guy" paintings. I like to visit paintings over and over, and having a concentrated, solitary experience with the permanent collection at MIA, where if one work of art/artist makes me think of another, I can follow that thread right then… well, that's super energizing. Also, the reference library there is a fantastic place - I'm not sure everyone knows about that.

Lastly, if I want to celebrate an excellent art experience in town I might like to finish it off by going bowling. Bowling, of course, is the painting of sports.

"Painting Painting with van der Weyden" 58" x 75" oil on panel, 2009

Where do you go online for good art resources, whether to find a new artist, or to see what is going on in the art world locally and otherwise?

Besides your site, I like the following:

James Elkins'(author of my favorite book about painting: "What Painting Is") essays on The Huffington Post are fantastic, and reader comments are often of surprising quality and thoughtfulness.

MNArtists : http://www.mnartists.org/
The Highlights: http://thehighlights.org/
Two Coats of Paint: a great site, with a long list of painting blogs

http://www.twocoatsofpaint.com/p/about.html
Notes on Colour Mixing http://www.notesoncolourmixing.blogspot.com/
Art Scene: -subscribe to their newsletter, it's great. http://www.artscenecal.com/
MPR's Art Hounds http://minnesota.publicradio.org/projects/ongoing/art-hounds/

MPR's State of The Arts http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/state-of-the-arts/

Quodlibetica http://www.quodlibetica.com/

detail -- "Painting Painting with van der Weyden" 58" x 75" oil on panel, 2009

Do you have any exhibits to promote in the near future?
As I said, I'm hoping to find a venue for the 3-person show with Karl Unnasch & Sam Spizcka, which I'm very excited about. And since my long-time San Francisco gallery, Bucheon, closed in 2009, I'm without representation, so I'll be trying to do something about that.

2011 "Best Interview"

Charles Denton - Painter

“Here’s Johnny” – New Piece for Paparazzi Series: Episode II

Charles Denton

Charles Denton
St Paul, MN
Email: ChazDenton@gmail.com
Website: storyofdim.com
MNartist.org profile: mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=188144


Bio~
Beginning life in central Wisconsin and moving to the Twin Cities some time after 2001, Charles Denton attended college with the intention of a Fine Arts focus. Working as a freelance artist, Charles began commissioning paintings, murals, tattoos and any form of art he could manage. Once residing in the Twin Cities, Charles helped co-found the artist collaborative Dim Media. Still involved in the organization, Charles continually paints and writes whenever time allows.

Tell me about your work? What are you currently working on? How is this different from past projects?
Currently, busy with multiple projects, Charles is contributing to the continuation of “The Birthmarks” series with Dim Media. This original twelve-piece series is expanding to include another ten abstract paintings. Working on this series has been a fun challenge. Rather than being one artist working on one individualized concept, the process of creating “The Birthmarks” has been much like the analogy of creating a themed music album. Each painting is orchestrated and formulated like a band would compose their songs. Together, the entire “Birthmarks Series” encompasses each artist’s contribution to the agreed upon final image.

This technique of working as a group is very contrasting to creating personal or commissioned pieces. When working individually there is less surprise and the outcome is rather controlled or expected. Working in collaborated efforts, the results vary from surprisingly good, to disturbingly conflicting, but most of the time, unexpectedly interesting. It’s like, “Wow, I would have never thought of doing that.” Seeing what the other members of Dim Media create is an exciting process.

“Window Bunny” – Bunny Series

"What is Art?" is certainly too big of a question to ask here, but what do you hope your audience takes away from your art? What statement do you hope to make?
When viewing other people’s art I tend to study it for details, techniques, color usage and compositions. Finding interesting subject matter and themes in other work adds to my personal inspiration. I would hope others, after seeing some of my work, would feel the same way.

What was the best advice given to you as an artist?
“Hide your brush strokes…. I think it needs more yellow, and when you paint a landscape, think of an alien planet.”

“The Good Doctor” – Part of the Paparazzi Series

Tell me about your working space and your creative process?
My working space is often near a window during the winter months and in a garage/studio in the warmer seasons. When collaborating with the Dim Media crew, we have a relatively secure location where we routinely immerse ourselves in the painting process.

At the moment, I am enthralled with the ability words have in animating a scene. A painting takes hours, days, months, even years to create a single image or idea. Writing allows a flow of interactive images, concepts, and movement that helps a particular scene come alive.

By writing short story sequences or ideas, I later regurgitate certain scenes to compose on canvas or paper.

“Skull” – Current work in Progress

Who are some of the Minnesota artists you enjoy?
I recently saw Margaret Wall-Romana’s work at the MIA (Interview) and was blown away by her technique and ability to manipulate the medium. I found it very refreshing and inspiring.

I also like Brian Fink’s “Poor Farm Studio." Though, I have never been there first hand, nor have I really had the chance to see his work, I like the concept of the lifestyle and studio atmosphere. It would be nice to find isolation for some time and work continuously without any distraction.

I also have to give props to fellow Dim Media members:
Joe Lipscomb: http://storyofdim.com/category/artwork/artists/joe/
Blaine Garrett: http://blainegarrett.com/
Ivy Sendrijas: http://storyofdim.com/category/artwork/artists/ivy/

“Tentacle Love” – Current work in Progress

If I were to follow you around to see art in Minnesota, which places would we go? What would we see?
I like common areas, streets, old buildings, and the natural or unnatural environment. I enjoy the cracks forming in structures, fliers accumulating on telephone poles, the graffiti on trains, or how the creek cuts through the ground. We’d probably take a trip out to Lilydale along the river or a quick stop at the MIA to check out some Egyptian artifacts.

At least once a month, I’ll hit up the occasional art show that catches my eye in the City Pages. Other than that, I don’t usually seek out too much art besides the stuff hanging in coffee shops.

Where do you go online for good art resources, whether to find a new artist, or to see what is going on in the art world locally and otherwise?
I don’t really. Maybe it’s laziness or lack of time. My browser home page is either set to “creaturesinmyhead.com” or “explodingdog.com” other then that I receive mnartist emails or news from distinctionart.com.

Do you have any exhibits to promote in the near future?
“The Birthmarks” series will be on display at Hopkins Center For The Arts June 2–July 10, 2011 in the Redepenning Gallery with an opening reception: Thursday, June 2, 2011 6-8 pm.

I will also be at a table with Dim Media for the 2011 MCBA SPRINGCON CELEBRATION- MAY 21 & 22 located in the Grandstand of the Minnesota State Fairgrounds.

Sometime this summer I will likely be under a shaded tent at the Red Hot Art Festival.

Charles Denton

Peter Happel Christian - Photographer

Black Holes & Blind Spots, No. 8 , chromogenic print, 2010

Peter Happel Christian

Peter Happel Christian
sekondsight@yahoo.com
www.peterhappelchristian.com

Bio~
I grew up in eastern Iowa and spent some great times living in Oregon, Arizona and Ohio over the last ten years. I’ve lived in St. Cloud for about a year and a half where I teach at St. Cloud State University.

Tell me about your work? What are you currently working on? How is this different from past projects?
I make a lot of photographs where I’ve staged objects or situations to be photographed. I also make objects when a picture won’t work for what I am after. I have also done some collaborative projects that take me outside or become installations.

The materials I use can be really varied, but I always seem to come back to photographs in someway or another. I struggle with the idea of just going out and taking pictures; that action seems so passive to me at times, but I still do it—it just usually isn’t the end point for me. So I guess I keep making photographs because I keep having different questions about them; what they can and can’t do. I’m interested in referencing that natural world in my work and looking at how people think of the landscape and experience it.

I draw a lot of motivation from my own experiences of being outside, as well as scientific information and historical accounts of the natural world.

Black Holes & Blind Spots, No. 13 , chromogenic print, 2010

I just finished up preparing for an MAEP show that opens Jan. 20, 2011. I spent the better part of the last year working on the show, making all new work except for one piece. My MAEP show really isn’t all that different from my past projects. Except I think I’ve approached some of my work from a broader perspective, and at the same time a much narrower perspective, regarding popular thinking about the landscape and natural world. Also, with this one I knew exactly where it was going to be shown as I was making the work and how much space I would have to work with. That was really unique; usually I am making work and not sure where or when it may be shown.

In the Black Hole and Blind Spots images, there is a big black hole burned into the center of the image. Is there a hole in the print or a big spot on the image? What idea do you hope to get across with this technique?
No, there isn’t a hole in the print. I’ve digitally applied a black spot roughly in the center of each picture. The Black Holes & Blind Spots series is about me being curious, confused, and sort of desperate in a residential landscape. Almost all of the pictures were taken while on walks in my neighborhood in St. Cloud. I usually set-up things to be photographed and this series is a departure from that approach; I haven’t staged anything in the series, everything pictured is exactly how I found it.

What I’ve photographed are things that seem like evidence of peoples’ relationship to the landscape – sometimes a loving or curious relationship, sometimes a pretty boring one and at other times a seemingly aggressive one. For instance, in image No. 14, I photographed this plant in my backyard. It is a beautiful, flowering plant with succulent-like leaves. I would see similar plants in my neighborhood, but I have no idea what it is called so for me that plant exists in this wild, unknown space because it doesn’t have a name (at least to me it doesn’t have a name). I don’t know what to call it and I think that is really exciting. To know this plant in a way that has nothing to do language, but to know it because I see it often, through repetition – in my backyard and around my neighborhood. I can only point it out and describe it, and so the act of photographing it is out of curiosity and desperation.

The black spots on the images are applied digitally afterwards. I first made one while giving a demo in one of my classes about using tools in Photoshop beyond what they are intended to do. So, I had an image on screen and put a large, black spot on the demo image with the burn tool, almost obscuring the whole picture, and mentioned, really off-the-cuff, that if you wanted to make work about black holes this is a way you could start. It was a completely intuitive thing and it really stuck with me. I didn’t save that demo image, but I started putting black holes in images I had taken while on walks, of things in the landscape I had noticed that had made me stop and think.

Black Holes & Blind Spots, No. 14 , chromogenic print, 2010

I was also reading a lot about American Transcendentalism (mostly about Emerson and Thoreau) at the time so I was in this mode of thinking about what these moments of pause and contemplation while being outside might mean on a grander scale beyond what the subject matter was in the photograph. So my thinking was primed in a certain way while I was experimenting with applying these black holes. The addition of the black holes became a way I could also cancel or negate the actual image and better characterize my experience of being outside photographing. The subject matter is stuff I’m drawn to, like a black hole, but the act of photographing is really inadequate at conveying my experience of it to my viewer. As blind spots, the black spots cancel the images; acting like a blind spot in my field of vision as well as the viewer’s. I really enjoy how one black spot could have two very different, and really engaging, connotations and become a metaphor for me being outside, walking, and looking around.

What was the best advice given to you as an artist?
I don’t remember a specific quote or anything, but over time I’ve learned to just keep making work no matter what—to keep some sense of momentum in the studio and to keep asking questions. I think I learned that indirectly from past teachers and other artists/friends. I’m confident that one idea will always lead me to another if I let it happen.

Tell me about your working space and your creative process?
I have a studio in my home that I spent last summer really getting into shape. It’s a good little space where I can really focus, leave messes and test out installing work. I also end up working in my garage and back yard when it makes sense for what I am doing at the time. My wife and I have a young son so I don’t usually have big chunks of time to spend in my studio. Between my family life and teaching, I sneak in studio time whenever I can. Beyond working in my studio, my creative process includes a lot of reading and note taking and sketching/drawing – sometimes those activities directly factor into new work and other times those things just keep me on my toes.

Organic Action, prescription eyeglasses, 2010, Image Credit: Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Which Minnesota artists do you enjoy?
I’m pretty new to Minnesota and don’t know too many Minnesota artists quite yet. I have to say, I work with about half of the people listed below at St. Cloud State and they were a big reason I wanted to move here. However, there is a slightly larger batch of people I am familiar with, some much better than others. I enjoy all of their work and how they seem to think about making things. I’m excited to meet more people over time.
Julie Baugnet
David Bowen
Allen Brewer
Adam Caillier
Keith Christiansen
Jan Estep
Bill Gorcica
Hardland/Heartland
Alexa Horochowski
Shana Kaplow
Paula McCartney
Justin Newhall
David Petersen
Justin Quinn
David Sebberson
Joe Sinness
Alec Soth
Bruce Tapola
Margaret Wall-Romana
Rosemary Williams

If I were to follow you around on an “art day” in Minnesota, which places would we go? What would we see?
It’d be an epic day: MIA, Walker Art Center, Midway, Soap Factory, Franklin, They Won’t Find Us Here Gallery, and Dressing Room.

I’d also have us check out Kiehle Gallery and The Gallery Vault both up in St. Cloud (Gallery Vault is a new student-run space in downtown St. Cloud). I’d also probably ask you to take me a couple places that I didn’t know about or haven’t had a chance to get to yet. Sometimes smaller historical society museums are pretty great.

A Time Remembered, chromogenic print, 2010

Where do you go online for good art resources, whether to find a new artist, or to see what is going on in the art world locally and otherwise?
I check these resources pretty frequently. Each one does something a little different and helps me find new work or points me in a direction for more information.

I Heart Photograph
http://iheartphotograph.com/

Little Brown Mushroom. LBM has a ridiculously good amount of photo-related links.
http://littlebrownmushroom.wordpress.com/

BLDGBLOG
http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/

Conscientious
http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/

e-flux
http://www.e-flux.com/

Hyperallergic
http://hyperallergic.com/

Art Fag City
http://www.artfagcity.com/

Eyeteeth
http://eyeteeth.blogspot.com/

MPLSART
http://www.mplsart.com/

I Like This Art
http://www.jordantate.com/blog/ilikethisart/

Nate Larson – Nate keeps a good list of links without trying to be exhaustive.
http://natelarson.com/links.htm

Witness Tree, archival pigment print, 2010

Do you have any exhibits or any interesting things going on in your life or coming up in the near future?
I mentioned the MAEP show that opens in January. I have four photo-based books in a show called Small Magic: Photographic Transformations at Maryland Art Place in Baltimore. I’ll be heading out there to do a talk at MICA (Maryland Institute of Art) and a workshop at Maryland Art Place in February. I’m also headed to Atlanta for a photography conference in March where I’ll be part of a panel talking about how photography, science and suspicion connect together. And my son turns two in the spring, which seems like a big milestone for him and for my wife and I.

Shots Magazine