 BOY WITH TIRE, Hughie Lee-Smith, 1952 J: I have to attribute that to my friend and mentor, the late Hughie Lee-Smith. I was first introduced to him through an image. I think I was still in high school, maybe in college, but fairly early on in my life. The image was called “Boy with Tire,” 1952. I remember seeing that piece, and ... being moved, and curious as to how he was able to get that kind of powerful emotion into that painting. I would learn later on, it’s a matter of composition, value, tone, etc. I had opportunity to train with him for three years at the Art Students League, and befriend him for 20 years after this. So he’s one of the most influential teachers that I’ve ever had. I had decided at one point to try to become a portrait painter. So, I wrote him and asked for his advice (that was one of his specialties). At that time, I’m living on the Gulf Coast. I see a lot of murals around here, and I think, “I’ll put my hand in that.” I wrote him, he sent me a book (it was also one of his specialties). Everything I came up with, he’d already done it. {laughs} Print making. He’s already done all of this. So I think, “Well, I’ll do that too.” Then, I’m going through divorce. He’d already been there – twice! {laughs again} So whatever I was going through, he’d already been there. But it was, for the both of us: “Art is Life.” So, for 20 some years after I left school, he was a friend and advisor. I’m so glad my wife Gail got a chance to meet him before he transitioned in 1999. One of my paintings that encapsulates most of what I’ve learned from him is a portrait of a young lady, I found her, on Lexington sitting outside a cafe. She’s just sitting there quietly reading, and the shadow patterns, the way she is settled against that dark window, and the shapes, just remind me of his work. He used, not dark tones, but a lot of middle values in his work to evoke strong, emotional feeling. Hughie’s painting “Boy with Tire” has that emotional impact that really moved me and excited me and made me think, “This is what I want. This is what I want to do. I want to get this in my work.” I had no idea how to do that, and I learned later on when I had an opportunity to train with him: it’s a matter of understanding value, composition, color temperature, just understanding the fundamentals. And for years, I never thought I’d meet this man, let alone train with him. I was at the Art Students League, going on my third year, and I heard that he was coming to teach there. This was about six months before it actually happened. That was the longest six months of my life. {laughs} The anticipation. That: “I am gonna meet this man. I’ve admired his work – since I was a kid.” When he started out there (because the teachers have to build their following) there were only two students: me and another guy. By the time I left though, he had a room full of folks. So, when he started out, I guess, I was his best student. {smiles} because during the year, each teacher would select the work of one of their students to represent that teacher’s class. I was selected to represent his class. A while back I had a conversation with an artist friend, where we talked about being influenced by certain artists, especially artists that we train with, and how that affects our work. The question was, “How much of them are we influenced by or are we just attracted to them because we have something in common?” Hughie and my work have both been called “semi-surreal,” because both have an element of isolation, loneliness, like Edward Hopper, for example. My work tends to be quiet, but it’s because I tend to be quiet like that. So, the connection is not so much trying to copy and paint like Hughie. I can’t do that, and I don’t want to. But, because I was influenced by his use of the fundamentals, my own sense of quietness tends to come through my work. It has a similar feeling to what he was expressing in his work, even though his motive was completely different. He’s just expressing who he was. Like this piece behind you. There’s a quietness about it, even though he’s moving. He’s walking. That’s just my nature, which is similar to the influence of Hughie’s work, even though our motives are different. I tend to limit the number of figures in my paintings, depending on what I’m trying to say. Because I’m interested in people, especially on an individual basis. What’s this person’s story? This guy walking down the street here: are they dreaming, or is something on their mind? His body language suggests that he’s pondering something. That’s my story behind it. But that’s what I get from him. So, individuals, the individual story, is what I’m interested in. And that tends to minimize how many folks I put in a piece. And if there’s more than one person, like this piece of a mother with her children, then again, what is that story? What is their relationship? What is going on? That piece is a reflection of my childhood, too. Growing up in shotgun houses. A shotgun house was a traditional, African structure. It is a house brought over from West Africa. They tend to be a single dwelling space and an open space. We call them a shotgun, in Mississippi, Louisiana, probably much of the south. They say, if you open the front door, and open the back door, and fire a shotgun, it would go straight through without touching the walls. That was it.  SOLITUDE, Oil on Canvas 36x30" Joseph Pearson  SOJOURNER This painting is accepted into the Allied Artists of America Inc. Associate members online competition Oil on Canvas 36"x24”  FAMILY MEMORY, Oil on Canvas 72"x48" Joseph Pearson (in reference to the shotgun house)  J: I guess, like any 4 year old, it was my curiosity. I was just mystified as to how anyone could make, what appeared to be a person, out of lines and shapes on a flat page. I would look so deeply and say, “This is not a real person, but they make it look like a person. How do they do that? Why do they do it?” So curiosity is basically what started the whole thing. And out of that came, “Well, let me see if I can do that.” Kids, you know, they have to dive into the experience. They see water. They put their hand in it and stir it around to see it move. A flower blows in the wind. Oh, they have to touch it to understand why. So, seeing those images in the old Sears & Roebuck catalogues, at four or five years old, started my questioning. In addition to that, it is instinctual as human beings to have the impulse to express our environment, our little world visually, through drawing. So in addition to the curiosity, that natural instinct kicked in. And as I began to explore how they did this, I became more and more fascinated about it. And not just fascinated with how they did it – but the challenge of doing it. Because it isn’t easy. And it’s still not easy. I don’t like that term either. If everything was easy, everybody would do it. And I love the challenge. I don’t ever want to reach a point (I probably won’t) where I think I’ve got it all figured out. Because then the learning, the curiosity, the enthusiasm, will probably go away. And just a backstory on the Sears catalogue: in that time, there wasn’t a lot of contact with images. We did not have cell phones or websites. That catalogue was a primary source. It’s how folks took care of business, and it was shared by the whole family. I couldn’t tear the pages out. My folks weren’t to be trifled with. It probably sat right next to the Bible and the phone book. {laughs}.    J: It was a time of social/political unrest, even as you hear of today, of course. But growing up in South Mississippi, ... it was a little bit more personal for me, because I was in the midst of it. I was a sensitive, young child, surrounded by derisive racial attitudes, the war, and poverty. And having had an interest in art from the time I was 4 years old, I just wanted to draw. I had no idea what art was, or how it pertained to all that was happening around me. So I never thought of art for what it was, it was just something I did. At that young age, even though I didn’t have the words for it at the time, I did see it as a form of communication. Because I was shy, it was how I shared my thoughts with the world. I drew pictures of some little girl that I had a crush on (although she never knew about it). {laughs}But it was when I was probably 19 years old that I began to see art for the powerful tool that it is. I realized I could use it to address not only the social/political climate of the time, but how it was affecting me personally. There were at least two artists who helped make that point clear to me through their work. Gordon Parks: the photographer, poet, musician, Renaissance man, ... came of age during the Depression era in Kansas. He was dealing with some of the same social/political stuff that I was dealing with growing up, and in his autobiography he was addressing this frustration to his mother and she said, “Well, why don’t you do something about it?” At some point, during that time frame, he picked up a camera and began documenting the social/political issues that were going on. His autobiography is called “A Choice of Weapons.” The camera became his choice of weapon to address these issues. And also growing up in that same time, was Charles White. He said, “If I could sing to address the issues of our time, I’d sing about it. If I could write, I’d write about it. I’m an artist, so I paint about it.” I heard that, I saw that. And through them, I saw how I could use art to address the social/political stuff that was going on, and at the same time, vent the anger, hatred and frustration that I was feeling. So that’s when art became ... what it is for me today.  Gordon Parks, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information photographer, standing in office with Helen Wool seated at desk  Washington, D.C. Deacons' corner in the Church of God in Christ_1942_gordon parks  Washington, D.C. Grandchildren of Mrs. Ella Watson, a government charwoman_1942_gordon parks |
Joseph PearsonJoseph reflects on inspirations and influential processes that have informed his creative directions. Categories
All
Archives |
RSS Feed