an interview with jack...

by Stacy Smith - Kansas State University

The sound of chimes floats in from the deck, stirred by an easy Kansas spring breeze. Inside, we sit next to Jack's studio, surrounded by his work, talking about art and how Jack came to painting:

How would you describe your work?

Technically, my paintings are nonobjective arrangements of shapes, colors, and composition, usually with an asymmetric compositional balance and color schemes that convey different moods.

Yet my intent is to tap into something deeper than image recognition or technical representation; to explore something that goes beyond (or beneath) images and is common to humankind: how people experience beauty.

My paintings aren't paintings of something, necessarily; they are paintings that are embodiments in themselves. They're parts of me more than they are paintings of something I've imagined.

I like to sit covertly in galleries or other places where is my work is displayed and eavesdrop on people's reactions to my work. To my surprise, I've witnessed children getting very excited about my paintings - even really small children who don't know a thing about academic abstract art. I've never seen children get that excited about portraits and images of landscapes and so on. I don't understand it, but what a gas that is for me.

What do you enjoy most about painting?

When I'm painting, I feel totally focused in the moment. It's the same feeling I get when I'm participating in some intensely focused physical activity. When surfing, windsurfing, or practicing Aikido, I feel so in touch with the moment that it's a real spiritual experience.

If I can give other people some glimpse into that feeling with my paintings, then I'm connecting with them with that sense of being in the moment. If people look at my art and experience something in that moment, then that's an important form of communication, I think. It's beyond words. That's when I think of the small children jumping up and down and exclaiming excitedly to their parents.

When did you start painting?

I started painting as a child. My first commercial painting gig was at age 8, painting t-shirts with hot-rod monsters. As a teenager I was filmed building Chinese kites out of bamboo and rice-paper for a gallery opening on the Nashville waterfront. The bamboo stretched the rice paper enough to make a nice canvas for me to paint on. The watercolor shrinks the paper, and voila; functional flying art.

At age 19 I went to England for a year, where I fell in with an “artsy” crowd and spent a lot of time at museums - I was getting an art education without really trying to. At the time I was impressed by H.R. Giger. His art is so surreal; he's very sensitive to the darker side of human nature.

These days I'm more interested in the brighter side of human nature; the light arising out of the darkness.

I soon became more interested in the Modernists, the Abstract Expressionists , the Color Field and Non-Objective painters; artists such as Jules Olitski and Robert Motherwell. In those days I was painting portraits and doing figurative work; even though I tried, I couldn't break through and get any more abstract than the surrealists. It was important to me to try: once I'd proven to myself that I could do portraiture, I felt I should be able to release myself into other areas.

How did you manage to "break through" into what you're doing now?

In 2000 I met Winston Branch, a visiting professor at Kansas State University. He helped me to get past the inability to paint or draw without a figure. Branch has been acknowledged as a master of the modern era, and with his guidance and encouragement I was really able to break out and paint what I really wanted to. I've been experimenting with that ever since.

So while I started out painting portraits and other, figure-ground work, I prefer to paint abstract, non-objective works. This is more challenging to me because it's harder for me to make those work, really, than anything figurative or representational. I found that very hard to do; this work is much more challenging - and satisfying -- to me than that ever was.

So while, technically, my tools -- paint and canvas and brushes -- are all quite ancient and the path to color-ground painting has already been paved - each painting feels new to me. I hope my work can offer you the same kind of experience it offers me: that sense of being truly alive; truly in the moment.

From an interview with Stacy Smith - Kansas State University