Aftermath
5 ft X3ft
Acrylic on Canvas
2009 Baptism
aprox 35"x 29"
Acrylic on Canvas
2008
For today's entry, I've decided to interview JB Krost, a painter from Cleveland, Ohio that I became acquainted with on Myartspace.com. He has attended both the Cleveland Institute of Art and Cuhahoga Community College.
JB's blog can be found at:
http://jbkrost.blogspot.com/
and his online portfolio at:
http://www.myartspace.com/artistInfo.do?populatinglist=home&subscriberid=34mu10d0waarpfs1
CB: How long have you been painting?
JB: 27 years, I started out with watercolors then moved to acrylic on canvas. When I grow up I want to use oils on canvas. But I have been creating things since I could remember.
CB: What do you feel are common themes/subjects in your work?
JB: I always attempt to include that little something that makes the viewer ask "The Question" sometimes its hard to know what exactly it is. But I feel you usually know it when you see it, and its usually hard to put into words. Sometimes I don't know what it is until I'm deep into the canvas.
CB: What’s a typical day in the studio like for you?
JB: It's kind of hard to say....
I'm not the guy that runs in there all happy and joyful, saying, "Look at me, I'm creating!" Its' more a cautious entrance, one that edges on "Oh, it's that room, the one that I need to be in", and when I'm finally settled in, I hate to be distracted. I don't even have a radio or anything that makes noise. Usually in the winter months, I get up really early 4:00-5:00 AM when the house is silent, make coffee, and work most the day.
Sometimes I go in there not really to paint. I just look at what needs to be fixed or adjusted, and before I know it there's a brush in my hand.
CB: Are there other artists that you take inspiration from?
JB: I love Joan Miro, he was so free with his colors and lines, and created these little worlds and galaxies from wherever. Marc Chagall is also a favorite, although he was far more romantic that I am. Susan Rothenburg,
but not necessarily the horses, some of her other work is much more powerful, and says so much with so little.
Joseph Cornell- His boxes are the best, Small movable worlds. (Where did he get that stuff?) Alberto Giacometti,
because his long narrow sculptures look as though they have been through a nuclear winter. I could probably go on, but that's enough.
CB: Is there a certain way that you approach the canvas with regard to style?
JB: That kind of hard to say.....
I'm not sure I have a specific style, But I always begin with composition, then gesture, and slowly work in light and dark values. I almost never start with a sketch. I want to explore the mixing of the paint. I think I learn something from every painting.
I have only taken a few drawing/painting classes, and that may have been a mistake, because I know that I must be breaking rules that have been put in place to stop fools like me from gutting canvas and wasting paint. What can you say? Live and learn.
CB: What compels you to make art?
JB: For me, it hedges on a religious plane, I find that I just would not be happy at all if I didn't have the creative outlet for expression. I'm not "happy-happy"; I'm more "as long as things are not too screwed up, I'm a bit more content." The paintings I do are all from a personal nature, I'm not sure I pick them, I think they may choose me from stories I hear about other peoples lives, my own life, or just a theme of some kind.
CB: What do you hope others will take from your work?
Most of my work is a journey, as well as statement of my surroundings. Things happen all around us all the time. Whether we acknowledge them or ignore them are always up to us. I try to record some of mine, but life moves so fast, I just can't get them all. I attempt to nail down a certain Idea, feeling, something I have seen, or story I've been told. We all have similar pleasures and fears, and I attempt to come clean, without spelling everything out. I would rather that you try to figure some of these things out, come up with your own conclusion, and this may make you pay more attention to your own world. At one point or another, we all end up in one of my paintings. What you see here could help you decipher where you are, where you have been, and where you are going, and not all of it is pretty.
jbk
Additionally, JB would like to give a shout out to SHIRLEY ALEY CAMPBELL, who was his instructor from both schools, MARY FRANCE, and of course, his Mom who encouraged him to keep at it.
jbk
Additionally, JB would like to give a shout out to SHIRLEY ALEY CAMPBELL, who was his instructor from both schools, MARY FRANCE, and of course, his Mom who encouraged him to keep at it.
Great post,great artist!! :O)
ReplyDeleteGreetings Aleksandra