#sparkchamber 062920 — Nathan Beard
A motivating force for #sparkchamber is to reveal insights about the creative process in all walks of life. Since our first post in January of 2017, we’ve seen and heard that it never happens in a vacuum — instead influenced and impacted by what’s going on in the creators’ head or heart or daily life.
These days, it’s hard not to be shifted by what’s going on in the world. Shutdowns and stay-at-home orders forced by the COVID pandemic refocus priorities, obligations, and the day-to-day routine. For some, that offers more time to ponder, respond, react, produce. While for others, the change in everyday responsibilities puts “free time” or “me time” on a back burner — creative expression redirected, forced to the sidelines … for now.
Visual artist [and #sparkchamber alum] Nathan Beard is in the first group. Nathan creates multi-layered abstract paintings using thin strips of hand-cut tape to make rhythmic patterns that repeat across the entire surface. He then applies coats of pigment to form a deeply textured, wave-like pattern of saturated, interlaced ribbons in unexpected color combinations. “Even though the lines are dead straight, they appear to bend as they interact with the layer of lines below.”
His latest work, Exit Music #97 [Brigid’s Flame], was conceived during the stay-at-home period at his Saint Petersburg studio, gestated in the following weeks, and born on the Summer Solstice. The subtitle references the goddess in Irish mythology known for her fires of inspiration, hearth, and the forge. “I wanted the surface of these forms to crackle and burn, to have the feel of lava rushing just under the surface of the earth.” Master of both healing and smithing, of both serenity and passion, Brigid was a goddess full of contradiction.
And a relevant muse for these times — cases of domestic violence have surged during the pandemic. “This painting is a meditation upon keeping the flame, forging strength through community, and resiliency in general.” Nathan will donate 20% of the sale of this painting to CASA St. Pete in support of the outreach, counseling, and shelter the organization provides to thousands of survivors of domestic violence in Pinellas County, FL each year.
We are all in this together. Let personal responsibility plus empathy shine the way forward.
Nathan’s thoughts on the creative process, originally posted April 15, 2019.
1.] Where do ideas come from?
Ideas come from everywhere — reading, conversation — but my most interesting ideas come to me as I wake up. They dawn on me, pun intended. But it’s not ideas that come so much as it is connections between different ideas. They really are Ah-Ha! moments that allow me to move forward on a project where I didn’t know how to visualize my intuitive understanding of something prior to that moment. Other ideas come as malleable answers to questions I’ve been asking myself about notions of meaning, purpose, self-similarity, and interconnectivity.
2.] What is the itch you are scratching?
I use my work and creative process to meditate upon the connective patterns underlying events at vastly different scales, the all-too-human tendency to reduce complex relationships to contrasting dualities and the potential congruity between human will and natural forces. I seek a deeper understanding of the intricate relationships between matter, space, energy, and time. Ultimately, I want to know for myself where we come from, whether or not I am actually scared of dying, and to fully understand the paradox of the inwardly infinite.
3.] Early bird or night owl? Tortoise or hare?
I mainly work in short stints and work best in the early and mid-morning hours. Though when up against a deadline, I will work for extended periods of time at any hour I can. The reason I work short stints is due to my constantly changing art-installer schedule, my daughter’s school schedule, and my wife’s schedule. She teaches GED in the evening and is pursuing pre-med studies. When I feel unmotivated, I remind myself how fortunate I am to do what I do, how little time I have on the planet to do it, and how numbing any other alternative might be. When I think I can do no more and that I have reached my limit, I think about the field-day race I lost in 2nd grade. With a large lead and the finish line in sight, my legs became weak and I fell down. Instead of getting up and doing the best I could to finish, I cried. At least that's how I remember it, anyway. I won’t be that little boy.
4.] How do you know when you are done?
Because of the nature of my process, it is easy to know when I am done with a painting: when the last piece of tape has been removed. It is harder to tell when I am finished with a particular body of work or series of paintings because there always seems to be more to explore.
