Oregon Art Beat; #424; Rick Bartow

cancer, but you know what hit the liver was what was so jaundice yeah and it was jaundice beyond belief I had I had hepatitis when I go back from numb and my jaundice wasn't anything like that terminal jaundice appearance and so I really once again I went on a little yellow hiatus because I just absolutely couldn't use a damn color now I'm kind of liking it in the birds because that there's a weird yellow that those guys get that it's really really something and back in Rutgers just before the holidays I didn't know it at really

something when I met her and found that she'd lost a husband and and was beginning another life and sort of and it sort of you know worked listen to her and find that my terror was really a kind of a it was really good being at least bit shy why you just hit it with your best shot and things take off I mean pretty good is this typical of how you work you maybe start three and then see which one completely I just walk up and down but then I'll get into one like that that hawk that really presented himself usually it starts over here but I thought the light was better there so but yeah this is

just not for the camera this is just kind of the way I work and I mean there's only so many ways you can draw anyway it works out pretty good it's been a wild week I picked say up on picked say up on Sunday Monday we have ceremony to Sweat House and say he's been up there before so he he was rare to go so we went up ceremony on Sunday our Monday night and I got home in time to get a call from Joe Federson up at Evergreen saying Rick I thought you're coming up here today you got that lecture tomorrow morning at 930 did you forget well hadn't I just was doing things differently so anyway say each and I got up at

two thirty in the morning and headed to Evergreen it was the Tuesday evening after visiting around a little bit we got home about nine o 'clock and washer blow up so I didn't have to be there so actually say each and I got worked on over at the studio and then tomorrow on night go to the Halley Ford Museum and have a public dialogue with the writer very low -pads and so say and I can really look forward to some untrampled civilization work time come get up a little bit what moves you more movement

or color oh a little of both mostly I think a suggest real mark that leads me down the road because I can come in and the colors will disappear just like that green over that rather non -descript gray black of the the compressed charcoal but if I really wanted you know it's sort of a more of a horrific view then I would come in here well then it begins that blending where people get caught saying oh are you a shamanic artist no I'm just an artist who thinks that people and animals share the same bed and if the bed isn't comfortable for them it's not going to be comfortable for us very long

so it's not combining man and animal parts and it's nothing new that pointed out in lectures and talks as I was taught broigle and I think it was broigle in the garden of virtually the lights and we see a hawk with a human body so I was informed by a young black artist back in Philadelphia James Dupree that he was trained to draw like this in a classical situation from a Dutch teacher who drew his inspiration from the paintings of broigle and bar or some of the Altamiri images in Spain I think some of the oldest

things like that maybe Africa or something I don't know but I know that it's not it doesn't belong to any anyone group of people but for me over time that's kind of what I think it says is just that they are us and we are them and as such we're all in this in this world together and I was talking to students up at Evergreen State about indicator species that I always thought it was kind of funny I think all species are indicator species on the system starts breaking down maybe go the other way here I

kind of think all arts shamanic just it's really a strange thing how you can evoke so much anger and so much emotion out of people by simply making a line a mark you know and some people I've had people locally who prayed for me because they thought I was the devil worshipper you know because of the strange images and because of only using the color black maybe that's why I like like to use bright colors now to maybe it's because I think maybe they'll feel better if I don't even know if I use some bright colors they won't think I'm being bad or something has an alcoholic I worried a lot about what people thought about me and on but I could only afford graphite at the time and that made a black drawing on a white sheet of paper but in the end what a wonderful spiritual sort of symbol you know light

and dark you know it's it's the dance you know and but really I did one show locally years ago and I never did it again because for two years I received Bible tracks in the mail and got calls from people praying for my soul I didn't feel like I'd been that better person just made marks on paper so I don't show locally but I do use bright colors well see maybe all that praying change you maybe it worked or maybe it was a financial thing but yet in all sincerity I'm not making fun of anyone because I I just don't I got other things to think about in on and I think that you know I do believe in and darkness I do believe that

it's too obvious in these days and times that that there's darkness and it's real you know but only what I've tried to do is go the other way and try to find something I love the line from and I've used it thousands of times in interviews and talks and you know artistic statements that you know Mark Shagall he said let us try to find something that's authentic and you know find within ourselves something that is authentic and that's kind of what I do is try to find something that's authentic that relates to my life or the life of friends

or you know and that the last the last three nearly three years or so or maybe a little more have been have been really intense because of the sickness and eventual death of my late wife and and now you know the now the being being remarried and and now suddenly finding that there's you know a child is expected and so a lot of the work has been pretty wild from you know from one side of the block to the other it I've been doing lots of different kinds of images and things but it was so hard to do anything that didn't relate to death I mean for the obvious reason you know and so I just kind of quit working I could write music but the lyric I said the lyric

remained but I couldn't make lines because it was just it became so personal and the the show at Tacoma and in the show at the exhibition there at the Halley Ford Museum in Salem I mean there's some drawings that that maybe shouldn't have been out that you know are so intensely horrific you know basically about the last few moments of my wife's time here on this place and and yet you know they had to be made for some reason or I wouldn't have done it and it didn't mean to make anybody sad or make anybody cry or make anybody do anything it was just simply a very sort of animalistic answering my my creative needs my creative desire drive I just do those things you know and oh it was really

sad up in Tacoma when I gave my gallery talk because I hit there and then I you know and I broke down I didn't mean to you know but then there you know there was women there had their own trouble there were men there who lost people and you know and then I started realizing that you know it wasn't it wasn't mine it was everybody's you know we all have trouble we all face loss and so you know perhaps in the work though I'd faced it a little more squarely or something and it made people very uncomfortable and I apologized you know for go from this new direction oh you bet you you bet you I'd be a I'd be a darn fool to say that that I wasn't you know it and I know just as I was talking to the students up at Evergreen State that that you know it's in there and it's going to come out you know and

I'll be darned and so yeah you know I think there's I think there's something new coming and I mean I'm sure of it this this whole situation wouldn't be that one if it wasn't something new coming and I'm hopeful you know um and of course it's been the season of of a lifetime in you know I got this uh I got this flintridge fellowship for for $25 ,000 and uh so it gives you a whole new slant on life where

used to make do with a lot less you know but I'll tell you something and it's something that I told them back in Indianapolis when I received that that idol jerk fellowship I said you know it's the nature of money as as Benjamin Franklin pointed out the joy of monies in its use and as an artist or as artists I think we probably all of us here know that you know we need money just like everybody else does we have bills we have to buy food and it's sort of something that sometimes people tend to forget about an artist is it you know we got places to be in people to see and we need to get there somehow you know it takes money so even as we create something that may echo down through time bottom line is as we're you know we still need money to pay bills to put food on I got a 16 year old you know there's never enough money for a teenager there all is as adults you know that it's going

to take uh take money to do that and so with this idol jerk fellowship and with the front ridge you know the honor that that were paid by these fellowships or the honor that were given to work in this way that I see it as an honor and a privilege to be able to do this before I didn't really understand that until my wise demise and my late wife always pointed out was a gift you know and I didn't really understand it but through her death through her absence looking at what she did and realizing that there'll never be anything else quite like that you know at very finite and suddenly I realized the creator had given me something to do and whether people understood that now didn't matter I have to do this this is my job if I don't want to I can turn my back and it'll go someplace else you know you'll do it or you'll do it or you'll do it somebody else will do it but if I want to here's my gift

and I can use it today you know and so I use it and I draw a picture maybe a silly picture of myself talking too much here or I was about to say that is a little self -portrait on that you know it can change it can it can quickly change you know from this sort of intro retrospection but today's quite a day you know finding out that at my age I can still I can still have a child with a beautiful woman who loves me again you know and that no I had a life that I love before and it went away that happiness is still possible and that the gift is still here even though I couldn't really use it for a year or so and so in thinking about those things and looking at this image I'm having this thought now

and I can go in four directions to the northeast south and west I can spiral all around I can do anything I want because it's my drawing I really like these eyes the way they were working something going on there and just recently series of interviews and things conversations one with Bob Hicks of the Oregonian I told him there can be nothing worse than watching the light to go out of the eyes of one that you love nothing more horrific or being with a child and loss who realizes the loss finally and nightmare epic nightmare proportions in yet ways and we agreed that the

loss of the mother was not the loss of the son or the loss of a husband but in seeing that light go away there was suddenly a unifying thing that happened that made me understand that I'm part of something so big that I can't comprehend it and that we're all part of that same thing this giant circle because we all have births and we all have deaths and crying out loud here I'm 55 years old and here comes another little birth and I saw it this morning a little tiny thing with a heart beating and I'm part of that you know and now at 55 I have friends who have come from Japan to spend five weeks working with me here and I'm always welcome there in July I believe it is if everything goes right I'll probably be going down to New Zealand to spend some time with my Maori elder and his his wife down there and work at his place so I travel the world all by making marks

but I mustn't become too self -absorbed because as I was saying in a roundabout way you know the old the Lord give us and the Lord take us away creator gives you something if you don't use it it can go away or the creator gives you something I'm terrible about keeping things I've been giving many many many many treasures by native friends and by non -native friends and I give them away because if I'm to receive something then I have to you know and if I want to receive something good and do I want to give somebody some cheeseburger you know I mean I think that that uh treasure as they call it treasure will will become larger you know if I have it it's nice it's wonderful but if I go to New Zealand and with

other people not from New Zealand and feel that that's true that that there is something and it gets bigger and and that there's a there's an indescribable joy in being able to present somebody with something that just just really shakes and you know shakes and moves that there's a wonderful thing we'll say fox because fox you know he's a he or she is a real character most I think female in in in Japan and so how do you know when it's done I mean do you just feel it because you can work and work and work and layer and layer and layer yeah you know it and sometimes it's not done

when I think it's done either sometimes um oh I could give you all kinds of answers and then I'm would be true I don't know I really don't know except that you know I'll stop at a place and I say oh you know I like that and then then I'll just simply forget and spray fix it even and turn it in somebody will buy it and be happy and I will too or sometimes I'll stop in a week later I'll look at it go holy count I'll drag it back out and do something completely different because there was something obviously said there was something that didn't quite work and so um and

just this time around it would be a little more painterly or free with the with the pigment it's just something that kind of struck me you know that it was maybe time to do something a little differently and yet not so differently you know that I tried to well he wasn't trying anything he was just in motion he was just moving and well I never move very far but what I returned to where I was um mentally and spiritually I'm trying to find something I'm trying to get something that that I know irrevocably to be true and to always be true and and of course we find that

sort of what I'm talking about and find it in in spiritual practices but also in creative practices um you know to look for that image to look for that one thing that'll say so much it's sort of like I remember one time reading about all -time artists in China and Japan who would study Pwack Bam you know they went right after it because they dreamed it sort of looked at the paper until I the old man I love the story the old man they interviewed an old guy that carved decoys and they asked him about it and he said all you just removed the wood till you have something it looks like a real good duck and that's how he carved you know and that's kind of how I draw as I just keep fucking now I mean I love everything you've been saying but oh yeah no I have I'm thinking oh hell I don't need to do an interview I got it all now

first ten minutes it's about rages net sounds yeah oh yeah let's get a little more Hey hey hey hey that where the I'm going to do a little bit more of this.

I'm going to do a little bit more of this. I'm going to do a little bit more of this. I'm going to do a little bit more of this.

I'm going to do a little bit more of this. I'm going to do a little bit more of this. I'm going to do a little bit more of this. I'm going to do a little bit more of this. I'm going to do a little bit more of this. I'm going to do a little bit more of this. I'm going to do a little bit more of this. I'm going to do a little bit more of this. I'm going to do a little bit more of this. I'm going to do a little bit more of this. All right ,夫. I'm going to do myuri guys sagipan and thats what I want there.

And I have that one. Where's your guys -us -what house house -at? Is that the -mole idol? Oh yeah. I know where I'm alive. That one's really... And I am going to leave that alone. We are dancing with Tromba because I know... No, I've been, I've been taken down about as low as a person wants to go, and I know it'll, I know you, I know you're thinking anything's done, because it's only begun. Okay, okay, there are a couple ways here, but it's so old, this kind of mark. Australia, New

Zealand, Chaco Canyon, making your hand print on the wall. Now, the other morning, I went up to pick up C -G. That's Ravens all the way to Portland, usually there's hawks all the way between.