Brent Bushnell

 

Why Are You an Artist?

 

         It’s always been that way. I cannot imagine what it would be like not to be an artist. It started when I was 3 or 4 and my parents gave me some crayons. Rightaway I did a “Jackson Pollack’ on the bedroom wall. Well, I was discouraged (!) from repeating that, but they did supply me with paper and coloring books and I never stopped. Something magic I felt as a kid in making a mark on paper and continuing until my fantasies took visual form. It’s my religion now.

 

Could You Tell Us Some More about The Art You Make?

 

         The last three years I’ve been working with enamels and painting with spatulas. I pour the enamels on a wet ground, add other mediums and spread them around with a spatula in a configuration that I have in mind. I let the paints mix themselves to an extent. This is fast painting, the enamels set up in an hour or so. I like the process, the element of chance, the dynamics of the completed paint surface and the vitality and energy of it. Maybe energy is the real subject.

 

What Made You Decide to Create This Kind of Art?

 

         I have a restless and inquisitive nature and have not been able to sit in one style or type of art. I like to experiment and often add other materials to the paint. I feel an affinity with the old alchemists - mix stuff together and see what happens. I move back and forth between abstraction and figurative work, careful application and loose gestural application. My work is content and idea driven. I don’t paint just to paint. I always have to have something to say/show. Sometimes I think of the paintings as essays, opinions,  poems. Maybe I am not really a painter but one who uses paint instead of words to express ideas and feelings.

 

What Artists Have Influenced You and How?

 

          I’ve been excited at different times by art/artists across the entire history of art. from the vitality and immediacy of the cave paintings at Lascaux to the drawings of William Kentridge. By all those artists, what they did and how they did it, their spirit, example and how they lived. And I’ve had some really good mentors who were tough and generous with what they knew: Doyle Strong, Frank Milner, Al Widenhofer, Steve deStabler, Mel Henderson. My notions of art/artists are grounded in Romanticism and by the example of the Abstract Expressionists and Beat era artists. The book that impressed me most early on was about a musician by a mathematician!: “Beethoven’s Spiritual Development”, by J.W.N. Sullivan. A more recent book is “What Painting Is”, by James Elkins.

         One thing though – I leave all this at the door when I go in to do my work. I want to be clear when I work. I see the artist as a kind of medium - a receiver open to all sense data and information and this is filtered through the artist’s mind and transmitted into his/her own works. I want to paint in my own manner, not in the manner of someone else. But knowledge of what I have learned is in the background.

 

What Inspires You to Make Art and How Do You Keep Motivated When Things Get Tough in the Studio?

 

         I don’t have a problem with motivation or subjects to paint. I occasionally brood about the craziness of being an artist – then I will read about other artists’ struggles and see that I am in good company or I will distract myself in other ways until the mood passes. I sometimes struggle when I feel a style change trying to birth itself but do not quite know what it is. I keep working and alert and sooner or later it happens and I am on to something again.

 

How Have You Handled the Business Side of Being an Artist?

 

         Poor. Terrible. Just Awful. I’ve flunked. I’m bankrupt. I’ve had to take an inventory of all my work over the years, what I’ve sold and for how much, what I’ve lost , given away, destroyed. The story of the numbers is just ridiculous, absurd. I never learned how to schmooz or make friends with influential people, how to hook a potential buyer or close a sale, how to win over a dealer. I just don’t get it. I always thought the art should speak for itself. To spend all the effort and time and money in art the way I have , you got to be crazy or love making it which I am and do.

 

What Do You Do For fun?

 

          Read. Music . Ballet. Sofia and I like to do yoga, dance, swim, get out into nature. I used to do rock climbing and mountaineering. Now I hike, and scramble on the rocks.