Artist Interview: Alan Eaker
Conducted by Geoffrey Peckham in May 2020 during the time of the COVID19 pandemic.
Alan
Let me start by saying that I’m just grateful for the opportunity to have been there at an extremely difficult moment in my life. It was a blessing Geoffrey, a blessing.
Geoffrey
Alan, thanks, I appreciate hearing that.
I invited you to become the first Tusen Takk artist because, as I told your wife Linda when I first met her and she was tell me about you, I replied, “He’s the real deal!” What I meant by that was that you’ve lived and breathed the making of art at the highest levels for a long period of time over your life. What I wasn’t prepared for was the intensity you brought to the task as you worked for nearly three months at Tusen Takk on these canvases. You completed a substantial body of work. What were your intentions back in December when you began and how did things change while you were here?
Alan
Well I didn't come in with any preconceived notions except that I wanted to get together some materials and some options as far as making two dimensional images. I was going to primarily do paintings. Other than that, no pre-imagined ideas. What happened was unexpected. Once I got into the space and saw how it was informed by light, it was analogous to what I was trying to achieve in my work with layers of transparency and the illusion created by the layering of surfaces which all respond to how light changes over time. With that in mind, and the fact that I had a completely open door to explore possibilities without any preconceived notion, I really took off in three different directions. Each direction evolved naturally from 1) seeing the work and 2) seeing the space and thinking about how light changes over time. The combination created the mix for what was to be produced next. That said, each work was built up over time. Being able to surround myself with the work was a way of immersion. One thing leads to another. You try to repeat yourself but in actuality you can’t put your foot in the same river twice. So you find yourself branching out and that’s sort of how it evolved. The result were three different tracks that I hadn’t preconceived before I started.
Geoffrey
What were these three tracks?
Alan
OK,123:
The more phonetic and dramatic pieces with greater contrast of white and dark,
the original layered glazed pieces that we talked about when we first met, and
a third group of pieces that are more subtle, more reminiscent of the modernist tradition that comes out of constructivism.
There were diptychs, different combinations of things that evolved side by side, both in one format. Different possibilities just seemed to present themselves and because there weren’t constraints, I didn’t feel like I had to work in a certain direction. I felt like I could branch out and do one of these and one of those and then see how that benefited the things in the middle. You know, it’s a process.
Geoffrey
What concerns were you expressing in these works?
Alan
Well first of all was the idea how things change over time, whether its walking past a painting on a wall or sitting in front of it and meditating on the image in front of you. What I think was important was to try and transcend the status quo. I’ve been involved in art for 50+ years, 60+ years, and you accumulate a lot of experiences, a lot of knowledge. But that’s insufficient when you’re trying to do something that transcends the status quo. You have to go somewhere where you’ve never been before, where you’re discovering things for the first time. Work that comes from this process of discovery informs the world around you and provides a window for the viewer to make connections, to make transcendent leaps forward to better understand the world around them. That’s where I come from.
Geoffrey
That’s a great answer, I really appreciate your sharing that. While you were here in December a great tragedy occurred in your life. How did continuing to paint remain important?
Alan
Painting, making creative works, is one of the most humanizing, unique activities that we pursue as human beings. When my son suddenly died in December at 46 years of age, it was a tremendous blow to me. But I also felt that the celebration of his life was important. You asked me at breakfast one day how I felt the work might change moving forward and I said to you, “I can promise you they won’t be black paintings.”
Geoffrey
I remember that.
Alan
I really believe that the best way to deal with such a loss, or like now with this pandemic, being shut in, is to find a way to move out into the world, a way that leads to a better place. I hope in some small way that I try and reach for that, not that I ever attain it. The idea of going beyond yourself, outside of yourself, transcending yourself, that’s what can be passed on. Personal tragedies are born by each individual. But how we get through it is a study in the way in which art historically has informed the world. I think of Goya’s horrors of war, and Les Miserables, those haunting, powerful images. I think of different artists and how they have managed to somehow come out of WWI as the Futurists did in Italy. The dynamism of those paintings, where these young Italian soldiers who then became artists…they had been dying in the trenches. So yeah, it’s about how you make lemonade.
Geoffrey
One aspect of how you showed that to me after coming back from that tragedy was every time I came to visit you in the studio… every time you had something you had to show, something that you’d discovered, something that interested you. Often it was a play of light on objects, either objects somewhere in the studios or in a picture you’d found. It always struck me that whatever it was you pointed out was something nobody, no normal person, would see, much less pay attention to….
Alan
(laughs)
Geoffrey
…and here you were as excited as a kid in a candy story, with a smile and a laugh and you pointed these things out and I couldn’t help but be enthralled. Where you always like this?
Alan
Let me just say I have a very well developed child. And by that I mean, mostly out curiosity, I’ve always had a playfulness. I’ve always enjoyed children, I like to get down on the ground and be at their level because they see so many interesting things in the grass. I think life’s a joy and it’s to be lived as a joy. I don't know how to get through life any other way.
Geoffrey
What it reminds me of, Alan, at one of our breakfasts you were describing your granddaughter’s reaction to the one group of paintings you were working on. They contained very precisely drawn shapes and lines and a variety of glazes that were not readily visible from one viewing position - as you walk around the work they changed, they appeared and disappeared….can you recall again what she said?
Alan
She said, “You’ve got to stop messing with my mind.” (laughs). You know when you can get a 15-year-old to respond, you know that’s a success! There’s a lot of precedents out there of artists who retain their childhood curiosity.
Geoffrey
I also think there’s a visual metaphor going on here with that work because at an exhibition, from a distance you see these paintings and they just look like shapes or lines on a white canvas. It’s only when you start to get closer and you invest yourself in spending some time with them, moving around them and experiencing how they change that you can’t help but be amazed at the appearance and disappearance of shapes and lines. But for this to happen the viewer must intentionally invest themselves, their time, in these works and if they don’t they’re not going to get anything out of them.
Alan
That’s exactly right. You nailed it! Because the artist puts the work in, the viewer has a responsibility to invest themselves, as you said, and also to make an effort to not just treat everything visual like a billboard going by at 60mph but instead actually sit down and take the time to let the work reveal itself. These works do not get made instantly, they shouldn’t be viewed instantly. There is a progression that takes place during the construction of the work that reveals itself if the viewer seeks to understand the process used to create it…and then there’s the aesthetic value that the work might have that transcends that.
Geoffrey
I agree. It’s really a choice, one by the artist to create the work and second, a choice by the viewer to spend time and seek out understanding….to be curious….that’s the right word. To be curious.
Alan
Right. It’s an invitation to see the world through someone else’s eyes. I mean hopefully we’re not so egocentric that we believe the world only has a single vision of what’s right - because there’s as many answers as to what’s right as there are people.
Geoffrey
What do you think of the architecture of this place and did you find it helpful to producing art?
Alan
I have thought a lot about that. The space is large but it’s not overwhelming. What you feel when you’re there is a level of intimacy in terms of each different room, each different time of day. The building changes as you move through it and as the sun progresses across the sky. The orientation of the building, the consideration of how light moves through the building, the choice of angles and forms that admit light into the building, as well as the textures, the surfaces, the colors, the physicality of the space, it all adds up to an intimate sensuality. It’s physical titillation - you are constantly being stroked by this information and it’s a delight. It’s like a cinemagraphic experience that evolves. As you spend the day in the studio the studio is performing for you.
Geoffrey
Peter Bohlin would be very please by the choice of words you just used to describe your experience there. I know he would.
Alan
Yeah, I mean for me it was a perfect marriage of sensibilities that, though I didn’t try and replicate them, I was constantly stimulated and provoked in a way to try and match the kind of dynamism that was going on around me.
Geoffrey
Do you have any advice for the future artists that come to Tusen Takk?
Alan
Yes, come with an open mind….. That’s it!
Geoffrey
One last question. Even though the place was in its final stages of construction while you were here, missed contractor deadlines being what they are and all, do you have any advice for me that would help to make this place a better place for making art?
Alan
Let me tell you a story. One of the things that I took delight in while I was there, as the work developed and the workmen passed through the studio, groups of them, two or three at a time would gather in front of one of the walls of the painting studio and they would debate their preferences and discuss which ones they preferred. Meanwhile I was standing in the room painting away like a journeyman house painter, doing my thing just like they’re doing their thing, and because I was working in the space and because it was accessible and I was accessible they actually were drawn to engage themselves in what they were experiencing and I found that delightful.
Geoffrey
Fellow craftsmen, making things; they’re making a building and you’re making art and the two intertwine.
Alan
Right. You know their wasn’t the word “artist” until the 19th century. Everybody was an “artisan.” If you studied to be a painter or sculptor you were also an architect or an engineer. So these were the applied arts and actually something as rarified as a painter or a sculptor was really a modern invention. You know, Geoffrey, you’re going to find that every one of the artists you invite is going to be a unique experience for you, for the community. I mean this is a window to discovery; the website, the whole foundation, the artists coming to add a dimension to the community that was never here before, the seriousness of what it is. It just brings everything up to a new level. The danger is to think one size fits all - you have to be willing to stay flexible for the different artists. The next artist may have a completely different set of needs than I had. Stay flexible.
Geoffrey
Yes, that’s good advice. Thank you.
Alan
It’s all good!
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