Today we’d like to introduce you to Jim Boden.
Hi Jim, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Art was not taught in the schools I had attended in grade or middle school. Not until my senior year of high school did I have a chance to take a basic design class. I had always imagined myself a writer and I went to college with the intention to major in literature or history. Near the end of my sophomore year, one of my art professors asked what major I was going to declare. When I responded either literature or history, he suggested I might consider art. In that moment my brain exploded and I never looked back.
I received a BS in Art Education from the University of Minnesota in 1974 and taught HS art for 20 years. In 1994, I attended the University of Cincinnati earning an MFA in Drawing. In 1999 I was offered a teaching position at Coker College (now University). That began a 17-year stint of teaching Studio Arts. I retired in 2016 as Professor Emeritus.
Since then, I have been spending the majority of my time in my studio. I owe a great debt to the professor who suggested I think about majoring in Art.
All along my teaching career I was very active in creating and exhibiting my artwork. Over the years my work has been exhibited on six continents. My work has received several International and national awards.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The road has not been necessarily smooth nor has it been too tough. It has just required a lot of persistence. Having a couple friends that are engaged in the “pursuit” are always helpful. To have a sounding post or another set of eyes is so helpful to talk through difficulties or uncertainties arising in the creative adventure.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My undergrad art faculty consisted of a large faction of Abstract Expressionists and a smaller group of new, young professors that were looking at conceptual and representational art issues. It created an interesting arena for thinking. After graduating I became involved in Fluxus, absurdist, and non-art art.
By the mid-80’s I was itching to return to the figure; to explore figurative, and figuration states. It also happened that German Neo-Expressionism and Viennese Actionism were getting some traction in the US. Their emotional and expressive pieces offered me options of thought that were in synch with my previous works in Fluxus and experimental work and with more tangible figurative work.
Figurative work became my focus. Late in my teaching career I was teaching an art history class. Going through the Mannerists and the Baroque periods caused me to consider what art could do to speak to our contemporary issues via a figurative, theatrical approach. Eventually the Out of Paradise series emerged.
Presently, I have been working on a series – Out of Paradise. The concept is based on the premise of what if Adam and Eve made the existential decision to leave the Garden … not driven out but chose, of their own volition, to go wandering? The work is involved in the tropes of journeys; Inferno, Odyssey, Ulysses, The Wasteland. I began making collages of “actions” set against a watercolor background. I think of them as moments in a play, a captured moment – either a climactic moment of the implied narrative or the transitional “action before the action”. Some of these collages serve as resource subjects for paintings and drawings of the same series.
Incarcerate is another series I have been working on over the last year. The series is my response to the ICE actions that are and have taken place around the country. The pieces are small, intimate, as if the viewer is peeking into the work, peering into an undefined space. The pieces are very gestural and I am exploring the emotional-psychological stress in the “uncertainty of Being.”
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
Success is a very malleable thought. Curiosity is the most important asset we have in any creative endeavor. The continual process of asking “what if …” and following through to discover the answer to “what if …?” Experiments and unexpected results become the playground. Some results are more tangible than others but it is in that terrain that all the wonderment is located. And this leads to a state of success.
Success is having the luxury of a great deal of time to spend on my work. It is a part of art that is so hard to come by. To have the time to contemplate the work, to make false starts, to focus without distractions – so important, so difficult to get.
When only small chunks of time are available we tend to play safely with what is familiar. To spend a whole day in the studio allows taking chances, and though not having any tangible positive results is difficult to embrace, it is an important investment. If the next day is spent in dawn to dusk exploration, the time is well spent. That is success, to be able to work again tomorrow and again tomorrow. It is essential to be passionate about the search. That is success.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://jimboden.net/
- Instagram: @bodenjim7
- Twitter: @JimBoden5
