#sparkchamber 042020 — Greg Brown
A wise one once noted that time flies whether you’re having fun or not. Well, artist Greg Brown has no time for no fun, and we are thrilled to have him six feet away in the #sparkchamber today!
“I am an old fart artist who acts like a kid in my work because I never stop playing.” Born in Reno, NV, he grew up in Nevada and California along with his 10 brothers and sisters — “a very lively and wild household.” Greg was a creative, ambitious teenager who thought he’d grow up to be the Pope or Picasso or both. Or maybe a quiet Magritte. He was smart too, and almost went to architect school but instead did animation and cinema — B.A. from USC School of Cinema. He wanted to join Monty Python and Werner Herzog ... but started off to work as a scenic artist and set painter at ABC-TV Studios in Hollywood. He painted sets and backdrops for sitcoms and many award shows, like the Grammys, American Music Awards and Muppet Specials.
“Introverted, and not social enough for cinema, I pursued fine arts painting” — B.F.A. in Fine Arts from Pasadena Art Center — “after seeing retrospectives of Rothko, Guston, and Rauschenberg.”
His own collage paintings became more tactile with fake fur and flocking when volunteering at the Braille Institute. The perfect segue, as Greg currently has a solo show called That Warm Fuzzy Feeling up at the Yard in Manhattan — end date is in limbo [like everything?] because of New York’s “pause” for the coronavirus.
Check it out? if you can? but for sure, drop by his website or Instagram — both virus-free and always open.
1.] Where do ideas come from?
Hm, let me think about that. . . . Maybe I shouldn’t think about it, but let it flow like staring out the window and watching things wiggle in the wind and there’s a gray sky behind the yet-to-leave trees. It’s almost Spring, well, it is Spring but things are barely beginning to grow, like this idea I have about where ideas come from. I imagine or remember myself painting a line or something and decide to try something else and then stop and look at it and challenge my art-making habits and stick a broken piece of tile on top of a flower that didn't belong there anyway. But one piece of tile isn't enough, so I slop more on and stand back and hope it’s okay, but what was my idea about in the first place. Ideas ebb and flow and might swim in clusters like sperm racing for the egg but only one gets in, usually. One idea at a time? I’m not sure. Sometimes I have twins or triplets and they pile on top of each other like when I was a kid and played dogpile.
2.] What is the itch you are scratching?
Scratching an itch is not something to think about is it? Don’t we do that instinctively and re-consider when we’re conscious of it? Anyway, I am driven to create because it nourishes me. Why does a child play? To interact with the world around them, it’s a context for learning, and I guess I play or create to learn about myself, but I don’t really analyze it, and maybe it’s not really learning but it is interacting with my self, satisfying something about being alive.
3.] Early bird or night owl? Tortoise or hare?
Work, work, work! Play, play, play! It’s what I do all day. I don’t know why and have nothing special to say. Sometimes I watch my dogs do play. I wonder what they’re thinking, probably nothing. I am a dog today.
4.] How do you know when you are done?
When I finish number 10. Done with work, or done with a painting? Done with work is easy — when my brain needs a rest. Painting is hard, I guess my brain is working hard while my spirit is leading the play. A painting is done when it becomes itself and subordinates me to worker bee and I must die. My studio is a hive and I am a bee many times, over and over.
