Sam 巴特利特 channels his energy and creativity in many directions at once.
他制作敲击脚趾的原声音乐. He performs unusual feats of physical daring he categorizes as Stuntology. 他的艺术, 与此同时, fuses his many interests into pieces that express action, 想象力和食欲.
巴特利特’s exhibit “Low Stakes: Everyday Comix and Plywood Cutouts” ends its run at the 戈登艺术画廊 after May 6.
巴特利特, 一个布卢明顿, 印第安纳州的艺术家, recently 分享d insights into his life and creative process.
These cutout sculptures are packed with vivid characters — animals, musicians, dancers, lovers. It’s a world of homespun sound and wild physical energy. In your imagination, do these characters lead joyful, satisfied lives?
People seem to see joy in the whacked-out imagery. 我感到受宠若惊, but I will tell you that is not the first thing I’m thinking when I make art. I am mostly trying not to think about anything. I am trying to spontaneously create and trying not to think whether it’s good or bad. 这是一种深深的渴望. You watch a kid make art and they’re just going at it. It’s not about good or bad, it’s just the ITCH. For a lot of people that itch goes away as they become more aware and self- conscious. 我的痒还在!
There’s lots of munching and crunching happening in this exhibit. Is the consumption nourishing or threatening … or does it depend on which side you’re on?
Munching and crunching is definitely from my subconscious landscape. I’ve had recurrent dreams about being bitten by unexplained scary creatures. 这似乎是一场古老的典型斗争. Looking at some of my favorite paintings by Peter Breughel and Hieronymus Bosch I can see that being bitten by the creepy unknown was alive and well in the early 1500s …
Have you ever been tempted to bite a banjo?
I have had an intimate relationship with the banjo since I was 14 …47 years! I strum it, wham it, claw it, draw it … I suppose biting might be next. 我在说什么呢? 我用牙齿弹过班卓琴. 这一定算咬人.
是杂技演员吗?, “Hee Haw”-meets-Cirque-du-Soleil feats performed by your characters related to your passion for “Stuntology”?
I am a great fan of all the possible and impossible contortions a body can pull off. 我特别喜欢群体扭曲. Stuntology is the study of what people do to push tedium aside using everyday objects. I think creative contortion is very Stuntology at its core.
In your work, music and art intertwine —just like many of the characters in scenes you create. Do you find that the two pursuits strengthen each other? Would you ever give up one to concentrate on the other?
I usually bounce back and forth between music and making art. I use one to procrastinate what I need to do with the other. I think of it as creative, productive co-dependance. I will say that the two disciplines really help each other out.
The late folk musician Mike Seeger gets a nice salute with the piece “Young Mike,” in this exhibit. Seeger lived his last years in Lexington, Virginia. Did you know him well or get to spend time with him here in the Old Dominion? 你对他有什么特别的回忆吗?
Mike was a friend of mine and a true friend to old-time musicians. He was the founder of the New Lost City Ramblers and he loved clogging, 参加节日活动，跳对手舞. He was intrigued by the way I played the tenor banjo for old-time music. (The tenor banjo was pretty common in the 1920s but frowned upon in the old-time music revival.) He was only curious and said to me “you get the wildest sounds out of that instrument. 我都不知道你在做什么.” Mike and I also 分享d an interest in the jaw harp. 他是一个了不起的下颚竖琴演奏者! I had a particularly good harp that I bought at a Hungarian flea market in the 1980s and he was always trying to buy it from me. 这成了我们之间的笑柄. 迈克死的时候, Mike’s wife Alexia Seeger gave me a bunch of Mike’s jaw harps, including ones from Siberia and west Africa. 感觉很神奇.
你墙上的漫画标题是“好消息”! 你没什么好担心的!” predicts a 15 percent reduction in suffering if you do something kind for your fellow man or woman. 你创造是为了减少痛苦吗?
绝对! Creating art is a refuge from so many of the things that bother my brain. 它具有很强的治疗作用. My friend, songwriter Bob Lucas, says, “Stories tell us,” not WE tell stories. I wonder similarly about Art creating us, not the other way around.
