Bruce's Interview with Artscout e-Zine

Hi folks! Many of you have asked, upon finding the link for ARTSCOUT’s site inactive. Well, it’s sad but true, the ARTSCOUT e-zine has gone to the big recycling center in the sky. Editor Len Daniels however was a fine interviewer. So, since you’ll no longer find this interview there, I’ve included it here for those of you who may have missed it during its tenure on the ‘Net…. The complete transcript follows:

Artscout: Hello Bruce, Thanks for taking the time to do this. Your answers don't have to be real long and you don't have to compose anything. Just write the way you would speak.

Bruce: Well, Len, if you think you’re going to get any brief answers from this "doctor of Verbosity", you’re in for a bit of a disappointment. Hope ya got a lot of coffee…..I pretty much never shut up especially when I discuss art and ThirdStone Gallery. Hey, didja know that ThirdStone is the coolest place on the planet? Oh, I guess of course you did!

Artscout: Before we talk about your gallery, tell us a little about your work, especially the Assembloids.

Bruce : Ahhh, yes, the "’Bloids… I studied painting/drawing/ photography and graphic design in school in the early 70's and once I finished school I practically abandoned art altogether. A bizarre chain of events led to me working as a designer/engineer for over twenty years. It was my job that brought me to Michigan in the early eighties. After meeting many of the outstanding artists working here, I finally started to work again myself, initially doing collage and strangely enough, jewelry design. In seeking out a new direction, I started to build bizarre assemblages out of my lifelong collection of cool junk, constructing little altars or reliquaries to honor and enshrine my beloved junkstuff. The approach was much the same as with my old collages only I was doing the same thing in 3-D and was finally utilizing my love for painting and color in completing these pieces. Since that time I've done many gallery shows with my "ASSEMBLOIDS" and a huge one at the Grand Rapids Art Museum, and have continued to evolve the process. The core concept of "ASSEMBLOIDS" is to "liberate" some chosen bits of mass produced effluvia of our modern society back into "art" or at least, expression; the point being that all of the products in our world began with the efforts of an artist's mind somewhere along the way. By taking bits of this and simultaneously focusing/obscuring/ enshrining/poking fun at them, it forces us to take another (often bizarre or humorous) glimpse at these things we see every day. By incorporating bits of nature and parts I make myself from hot-glass, metal, clay, wood, etc. they become something else entirely. I guess it's basically about altering (altaring?) context....

I also love to draw and just published the first two collected volumes of the sick and twisted drawings I would do in my weekly staff meetings during my working career to combat my chronic case of narcolepsy which would recur everytime I would find myself trapped in a corporate conference room. The drawing would keep me awake and alert. The first two volumes are called "YA BLORTADA! And "EX-BO GEEZA!! and of course I’m not gonna pass up this opportunity to plug ‘em here and tell your readers that they can be ordered by mail for only $10 apiece (or both for $16) postpaid. All proceeds from the sale of the books are earmarked for marketing and promotion so I can tempt more people to come and experience ThirdStone. So tell your readers (Oh, Hell, BEG THEM!) to please buy these books and to get extra copies for all of their friends and all the kids they know (they can color in ‘em!) See, I’m gettin’ pretty good at this shameless self-promotion thing!!!

My other main art endeavour is flameworked glass which is like painting AND sculpting with colored glass rods in a torch flame, It’s based on the age-old Venetian/Muranese glass beadmaking techniques developed about 700 years ago.

I gotta say though (even though my friends are sick of hearing it) that, since buying this building and starting up ThirdStone, I sorta feel like "the Bruce formerly known as artist"!! Studio time is hard to come by lately with all of my other tasks. I’m working hard to get it back into the schedule though. This project and it's related duties preclude anything resembling a normal life which I would like to have at some point also but, hey, ya can't have everything I suppose....

ARTSCOUT: Can you tell us about the chain of events that led to your becoming a full time artist?

BRUCE: Fulltime artist, MY ASS! Don't I wish!! But,yep, As I said, I'd done Engineering & Design for over twenty years (which I loved!), but the last several years of it, had me spending way too much time sitting in conference rooms arguing with buttheads (and some unspeakably huge egos) instead of doing design. It was almost )at least in my twisted brain!) like being punished for being very good at what I did. In recognizing my strengths in good design, project planning, management, and people skills, my employers had me doing way too little actual design.

When I decided to leave the prisonwomb of "Korporate Amerika" I was just leaving a paycheck because what I loved had already been taken away from me. It was a damned easy decision to make at that point and I guarantee you I'll never go back. I'll wait tables, mow lawns, whatever before I'll subject my psyche to that crazyshit ever again. It's just too depraved and sick to even want to think about. Gee, do I sound bitter? Well perhaps a bit. Modern industry has become very adept at brutally sucking the creative lifeblood out of the human spirit and what the dumbfucks are incapable of realizing is that without that, they really don't have a damned thing!!! Pardon my French, but if this continues at this pace, the new Millenium's gonna be a really bleak place........

Sorry for the long screed but, I really think to survive the coming age, we need to re-address the creative spirit and de-emphasize our obsession with homogenizing everything into some neatly managed metaphor of conformity. All people have creative elements in their spirits, but most, thru society's sick conditioning, have been trained to deny this. I want to reopen that discussion before it's too late.

ARTSCOUT: What made you decide to open a Gallery of your own?

BRUCE: Well, my own creative spirit was powerfully reawakened after moving to west Michigan in 1982. I kept meeting the most amazingly creative folks I'd ever known which, to me, was an astounding anomaly because in general, this was a very conservative, uptight, sometimes even repressive atmosphere. (Gee, maybe that's why there's so many creative spirits working here, as a response TO that atmosphere...) Anyway, as I got to know these folks, they encouraged me to start working myself and (GOD FORBID!) actually even show my work!!!!! I'll be eternally grateful for that encouragement, by the way... Meanwhile, I also observed that these terrific artists were winning awards in all of the regional group shows but really didn't have local galleries in which to show their work on a continuing basis. Consequently, ThirdStone was conceived to address this very real need with an important part of its charter being to find ways to develop a local market for the great work of these talented West Michigan artists. Much of the rest of the country has already realized what great work's being done here, I thought it high time we let the local population in on the secret!

ARTSCOUT: Did you ever have doubts about how successful Thirdstone Gallery would be?

BRUCE: Sure, youbetcha-youbet, si, Oui, okay, ja, yep, certainly, and DAILY!!!!! I'm strongly commited to showing only work I like by people I really like. My job is to spread the word and find a market for this work. If I were a more typical businessman, I'd have selected work I was sure would sell easily, you know, bottom-line, blah-blah, woof-woof, etc...

I don't wanna sound like a TeeVee evangelist for the arts, but I believe this to be a spiritual mission as much (or perhaps even more so) as a business venture. Sure, I need to make ends meet but, I'm a lot closer than I thought I'd be after only a year. And, I AM finding a solid market for work of some of my all time favourite artists with new ground being broken regularly towards finding a market base for the rest.

Regular folks often don't feel like they belong in galleries and will seek out the supposed safety of their local Art Van Furniture store to buy that mass produced $300 ceramic jug. They'll put it in their homes, say "isn't it purty?" (once!) and then put it in their garage sale in two to three years. If regular folks knew they could come into a warm, fun, funky, super-friendly place like ThirdStone here and buy cool stuff for their homes that they would keep forever(and probably spend less money as well) do we actually believe they'd ever go back to Art Van? Of course not! Because once folks realize they can surround themselves (within the budget they already have) with real things made by the Hearts , Heads, & Hands of real people, there's no way in Hell they'll ever seek out mass produced nonentities again.

So the mission is clear to me; make it fun, make it friendly, make sure the work is of absolutely the highest caliber humanly attainable and reasonably priced and, pretty soon, the old options will no longer make sense to people. See how easy it is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Now that I can see thru actual practice that this does work, I feel THIRDSTONE is a huge success already.

ARTSCOUT: Tell us a little about the artists and artwork in your gallery collection.

BRUCE: Wow, I'm just staggered by the quality and diversity of the work I get to show here. I show a lot of mixed-media work of the highest order. I show painting that's very unlike typical West Michigan gallery-fare . There's a lot of photography here including a great deal of it in the experimental realm, Sculpture in stone, clay, wood, and mixed media that is absolutely mind blowing. I think these incredible abstract pastel drawings by Amy Packard are some of the most gorgeous renderings ever seen on this planet. Grand Rapids artist Gretchen Pfleghaar-Deems works in a broad variety of media, and masterfully. We have wood and metal sculptures from her, outdoor steel pieces, the most amazing mixed media "shrines", her handmade paper, jewelry and more. This woman is truly a wonder!

Our July ’97 feature show filled the entire main gallery with the work of one person, Grand Rapids artist Cathy Pilling-Marashi. Cathy's work encompasses beautiful and mysterious acrylic and mixed-media paintings, wood carvings, mixed media sculptures and box constructions, large carved-cedar totems laden with images and symbols, and oil pastel drawings. The coolest thing about this show is that people can see the interconnections between all of these pieces because of the common lexicon they share.

Tom DePree's imaginative oil paintings have caused quite a stir here during their recent show and continue to amaze me with each new batch. Tricia Chatary's ceramic sculptures are like forms from another planet and her wonderfully eclectic functional pottery is another ThirdStone success story.

I have a great fondness for "outsider" or visionary Folk Art and show some of it's finest practitioners here such as Tom d., Reb Roberts, and Wesley Merritt. Donna Collins' window painting constructions have captured the attention of visitors. Charisse Halstad, a very talented jewelry maker and mixed media artist shows a broad range of her works here. Pop artists Peter Mars and Carl Hayano represent another dimension of what I show.

There's many other artists I should mention but in the interest of preserving your bandwidth, I'll just suggest that folks visit here instead or contact me thru ThirdStone's web site at "http://www.thirdstoned.com" for more info.

ARTSCOUT: How did you pull together all the elements required for a gallery with such a rich and diverse collection?

BRUCE: Again, it's primarily thru making contact with the folks I show. The quality of their work really helped clarify the goals of doing this. The rest, I just stumbled through a step at a time. With my background in the business world I apparently picked up a lot of useful information over so many years. Who knows? It's mostly all magic anyway, I think...

ARTSCOUT: Could you tell us about the classes you offer at Thirdstone?

BRUCE: Several years ago I taught myself to do Flameworked glass (sculpting and painting with colored glass rods in a torch flame, an age old Venetian technique). Finally I was able to locate a class that could help me go further. I realized then that opportunities to learn unusual art techniques were hard to come by so that's one of the things I wanted to address here at ThirdStone. Both novices and artists will find that we offer a variety of things that can be learned in single session workshops offerred here, all taught by artists who show here. Besides my flameworked glass and assemblage classes, we offer handmade paper, stained glass, drawing & painting in many media, jewelry making, and more to come soon. All of the classes are very affordable but yet the artists who teach them actually get paid well. Wow, what a concept, huh? We've got classroom spaces here in the ThirdStone catacombs and have gotten well equipped to teach a variety of skills.

ARTSCOUT: What do you see as the biggest obstacle for artists who wish to open a gallery of their own?

BRUCE: Aside from the obvious answer of funding such a venture, I'd say lack of business and marketing skills. You know, the art schools teach techniques, but many seem totally afraid of ever addresssing the issues of how to make a living as an artist. I find that appalling! I'm fortunate to have those skills thru my many years of working in industry but those skills were acquired over a lifetime. I think some basic business skills need to be part of the art education process in a meaningful way that can actually relate to making art AND a living.

ARTSCOUT: On a scale from one to ten, how happy are with the income you make from your artwork and the Thirdstone Gallery?

BRUCE: I guess I'd have to say about five. It's clear to me that in less than another year or so this place will be self-sustaining. That's pretty good for a new business to be on solid ground in a couple years. On the other hand, I want my favourite artists to be selling a lot of work so they don't need to have so many other jobs. When I've accomplished that, then I'll really be satisfied. I'm determined to crack the code on how artists can actually make a living doing art. When we finish solving that puzzle, we'll all be a lot happier! To that end, we have discovered that it's at least posible to "grow" new art buyers. About a third of the folks who purchased art here this year were making their very first art purchases!

ARTSCOUT: What advice would you give as both an artist and gallery owner to aspiring artists?

BRUCE: Develop your skills to the highest level you can but mainly get to know yourself; why you want to be an artist, why you do the work you do. Stay true to your goals and THEN try to find a market for what you do.

And don't ever lose your sense of play and experimentation. Sure it's important to have a salable product but we all know that doing our art is about much more than just that. Really push yourself to do what's in your heart as much as what's in your hands and head.

Anyway I really appreciate the chance to do this interview. I think it's important for artists to know that a new improved climate for making a living is brewing both here at ThirdStone and in other part of the country as well. I think the bottom line is that art has been traditionally marketed to the wealthy only and that makes very little sense to anyone anymore. More of us can make a living as artists if we develop more art buyers and to do that we've got to use our heads and our hearts to connect with folks. I think the current trend towards artist-owned galleries is a very healthy one. I'll be glad to keep you and ARTSCOUT'S readers informed on how it's going!!!

THANKS TO LEN DANIELS FOR CONDUCTING THIS INTERVIEW. ARTSCOUT’S NO LONGER ON THE WEB, BUT THANKS TO ALL THE KIND FOLKS WHO DID EMAIL COMMENTS ON THIS INTERVIEW. IT’S GOOD TO KNOW THAT THERE’S LOTS OF FOLKS WHO SHARE AND SUPPORT THESE OPINIONS AND THAT WAS INDEED A PLEASANT SURPRISE !!!