NOTES FOR AN INTERVIEW
FOR VoyageDenver.com - Journal Entry: Feb. 3, 2023
QUESTION: Can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I have had some kind of art tool in my hand since I was in grade school. I mostly grew up in Saint Louis, MO. I often spent the summers in Texas at my grandparent’s farmhouse (photo enclosed) and my grandmother always encouraged me to make art stuff, bought me art supplies and generally nurtured my interest, possibly just to keep me busy during the long hot summers. However, by the time I got to college my only interest was to be an artist, so I have always thought of myself as a 'natural born' artist because I never seriously considered any other long-term idea of something to do with myself and I probably have my grandmother to thank for that.
Of course, in your teens and twenties you and everyone around you tries to talk you into some sort of career idea that will probably make you a living because in the 1970's an art career didn't look that promising. Maybe it still doesn't. So, mostly I just did jobs like being a waiter and later a house painter that would pay my basic living but not with the idea of making a life out of it unless forced into it. Being a self-sustaining artist was always my main goal. Still, you have to do what you have to do in the meantime while you figure it out.
In the visual arts, you really don't need any kind of degree unless your plan is to teach as a university professor. So, at a certain point I didn't really think of college as a place to get a degree, I thought of it as a resource, a place to use as a studio, a place to meet other aspiring artists, a place to have art teachers (older artists) show you new techniques and ideas that you could use to make better art, a library where you could do research. So every time I felt like I was hitting a limit and I needed to learn something new, or needed studio space I would go to college for a couple of semesters and take courses that would fill the gaps and, by the way, slowly take the courses here and there that I needed to end up with a fine art degree. Like this I went to college off and on from 1974 to 2009 in between the rest of life.
In the end, every artist is self-taught anyway. The only things an artist really knows is what he or she learned on their own through curiosity, observation, insight and practice. You might learn some interesting things in college but, to be an artist, you have to figure that out on your own. In reality, to be successful at anything is like that. You have to become self-motivated and self-disciplined. Then you have to pursue your goal relentlessly.
While I always say I retired from gainful employment in my mid 30's (meaning I didn't work at a job as an employee) and while my art sold all along during my 30's and 40's I didn't get to the point of making a reliable living as an artist until in my 50's. Till then we had to supplement our income with other entrepreneurial projects such as owning a restaurant or a bed and breakfast or a vacation rental business. But there was always a productive studio in the mix and art regularly going out to the galleries. Still, it took a long time to achieve relative financial independence as an artist.
QUESTION: Has it been a smooth road? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
To be a full-time artist is never a smooth road. Early on it is often filled with doubt, frustration, wrong turns, wrong approach, misunderstandings, and years of uncertainty because it can take so many years to figure things out, develop the stamina, figure yourself out, find your voice and actually see the fruit of your labors. You have to spend enough time working at your art to be able to look back over your trail so that you can figure out where you are going.
Figuring out the lifestyle of being an artist or a creative and how to make a sustainable living from your efforts is complex and you have to build your own road for the most part and you often don't know to where.
In my own case I had to overcome my own internal chaos, sense of frustration and impatience. I was a real mess early on. Once I got through those early years and things were starting to work out, I came up with a saying: "To be an artist you have to be smart enough to keep going and stupid enough to think something will come of it." Maybe it would be kinder to say 'optimistic enough.' or maybe 'naïve or innocent enough' like still believing that Santa Claus comes down your chimney every Christmas when you are twenty years old - but some would call that stupid. When it comes to being an artist, I am that kind of stupid and proud of it.
QUESTION: We’d love to learn more about your work. What do you do, what do you specialize in, what are you known for, etc. What are you most proud of? What sets you apart from others?
In 1983 I started making collages as a visual diary and just kept going. It became my main way of making images. Though I like working at a small scale, I needed to figure out how to make larger scaled works, so I started using my collages to make larger scale paintings. This made all the difference in terms of eventually creating a sustainable living from my artistic activity so that I could immerse myself in my studio practice full time, which was my main goal.
I have made an average of three collages a week since 1983 so that is over 100 collages a year for the last 40 years. Hence, that is probably what I am best known for. All of my paintings are made based on these collages. I use the collages as studies for the paintings and for the last 20 years I have been making typographic abstractions which are usually found texts like from street posters, billboards or other printed matter that has large enough letters that I can chop up the paper and arrange the bits and pieces into abstract collage compositions made of parts of letters. These collages are the main ones I use to make paintings from. I often refer to this body of work as visual poetry.
This body of work, since I have been working on it for so many years, has found its way onto the Paris fashion runways, into several major motion pictures, seen in homes in interior design magazines or used for illustrations in magazine articles or images for posters for music festivals or conferences related to language and has been an inspiration for multiple clothing designers and I have seen that art teachers as far away as Russia have had their students use the 'Cecil Touchon technique' to make collages in schools. I enjoy that. So, my work has gotten out there in the public sphere.
My work has also been in several international anthologies for visual or concrete poetry and for collage and in international exhibitions related to language such as “Writing by Drawing” at the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, Switzerland that happened a couple of years ago.
QUESTION: What makes you happy? Why?
If I wake up in the morning, I am thankful, it is the start of a good day. That makes me happy. Taking a hot shower at the end of the day, I am thankful and that makes me happy. It is such a privilege to be able to take a hot shower. To go to sleep at night without worry on my mind, that makes me happy. To work all day in my studio that makes me happy. To spend time with my family members and friends, that makes me happy. To get money in the mail from a collector buying my art, that makes me happy. That keeps the ball rolling.
Is there a reason why these things make me happy? Hum... I think because I realize there is so much suffering and insecurity and need in the world that any small thing we can savor and be thankful for and happy or joyful about we should. Who knows what will happen tomorrow. Appreciate what you have while you have it. It is so easy to be complacent and take things for granted.
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