ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: ARTIST INTERVIEW
Bryant Holsenbeck: Mixed-Media Diva
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ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: ARTIST INTERVIEWBryant Holsenbeck: Mixed-Media Diva |
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| by Noelle Backer | |||
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This Durham, N.C., artist sells her unique mixed-media sculptures and baskets through a handful of galleries, retail shows and word of mouth, and has been commissioned to do a number of large public installations. She has run used-object art workshops at a number of schools and has received a grant from the North Carolina Arts Council. Her work hasn't made her a millionaire, but she makes a decent living. ... And considering she does no advertising, she must be doing something right.
TCR: How did you first get involved with basket making?
BH: I majored in sociology in college, primarily because I thought it was what you ought to do at the time. I didn't know you could make a living at art, so it never crossed my mind as an option. But one year, [my outlook changed while] I was picking oranges on a kibbutz in Israel. I thought, 'This is fun!' and I realized that you should do what you want to do, not what you ought to do. I had always wanted to make beautiful, functional objects.
I studied pottery, but then I took a basketry course on Nantucket Island, where basketry is really big. I began transforming the form I used in pottery into baskets. I started gathering my own materials, since I wanted to do everything the way the indigenous people did. I guess my sociology background had some influence on me.
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TCR: When did you begin to recycle found objects in your work?
BH: I realized as I was looking for materials for my baskets that the original inhabitants of this country didn't have all of the choices for materials that we do -- we have so many man-made and recycled materials to choose from. I began to take my basket making to the next step, using these man-made materials and objects. I started making hats, using basketry techniques, out of car parts, buttons, whatever I could find. I was written about in Fiberarts magazine for that.
Somewhere in there, I began making sculpture -- that was just another next step for me. Once I have something figured out, I have to go beyond it. I also started making baskets the way a bird would build a nest, out of different materials, like sticks, pencils and chopsticks.
TCR: How did you begin moving your career forward?
BH: In 1991, I wrote a proposal to attend the Headlands Center for the Arts in California (the North Carolina Arts Council sponsors a grant to go there), and I got accepted. While I was there, I didn't make objects, but collected and documented discarded objects.
After that, I began doing installations chronicling stuff from our waste stream. For example, I did a project for Duke University's History Department, called "10,000 Trees," where I collected all of their discarded mail over a period of time and used it in an installation. I made sculptural trees out of all that paper.
Also, in Raleigh, the United Arts Council has a residency book that you can put your information in; people from schools and organizations read it, and if they're interested, they'll call and ask you to come give a workshop or a lecture, so I started doing that at some schools.
When I do a residency at a school, the students I am working with are asked to gather junk from their homes. They gather all sorts of stuff -- old shower curtains, broken things, cereal boxes, whatever they want to get rid of. That's the thing about my sculpture -- everybody has the material to do it, and it really addresses the whole message of recycling.
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TCR: Through what venues do you sell your work?
BH: I did wholesale shows for three or four years, but I like retail shows better. I still sell through a number of galleries, like the New Morning Gallery in Asheville, but I've replaced the income from wholesale shows with the work I do with kids in the schools. I still do a couple of retail shows, like the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show and the Washington Craft Show in Washington, D.C.
For the last three years, a very talented local artist who makes ceramic tiles has been holding a small show -- with four or five artists -- at her studio, which I've been participating in.
I also do some large-scale installations, like a 19-foot mandala (a geometric design symbolizing the universe) made of 20,000 bottle caps and jar lids for the Bank of America in Charlotte. This was sponsored in conjunction with the new Tryon Center for Visual Art. I like doing shows in the fall and installations in the spring.
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TCR: How do you get commissions for these types of installations?
BH: I seek them out and they seek me out. One, for example, came out of a talk I gave at a university; someone in the audience was in charge of a new installation project. People in North Carolina know me now too, so a lot of the installations come from word of mouth and from talking to people. The North Carolina Arts Council is very supportive and has a very supportive audience.
I don't do any advertising. I was featured in a birdhouse book, and one of my pencil birdhouses was in The Wall Street Journal, so that helps people get to know me. Maybe I'm blind [to the fact] that I should be marketing myself in another way, but I do okay.
TCR: What challenges do you face in your career?
BH: It is a very scary business ... but I'd rather be doing this [than anything else]. I had a job for a year at a local recycling company, teaching recycling education for tours and other visitors who came through; I loved the subject matter and the kids, but I hated the 9 to 5 thing. I love working for myself.
I still have a part-time job now, with the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics [a public high school for juniors and seniors with high intellectual ability]. I teach art -- wheel throwing, sculpture, tie dye. It provides a little bit of a regular income and enables me to do what I'm doing. Plus, I love working with the students -- they are so creative and smart. We often figure things out together.
This field just doesn't provide you with as much of a financial cushion as someone who has a regular job; I wish health and dental insurance were more affordable.
RESOURCES |
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Headlands Center for the Arts 944 Fort Barry Sausalito, CA 94965 Ph: (415) 331-2787 http://www.headlands.org North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM) The Scrap Exchange Tryon Center for Visual Art United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County |
TCR: Where you see your career going from here?
BH: I would like to travel more through what I do. That's why I love doing craft shows. I would like to lecture and do installations on a national level.
FOR MORE INFORMATION |
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Bryant Holsenbeck |
TCR: Where do you get the materials and objects you use in your work?
BH: Through a lot of different places. I get wooden crates which I use to make dragon flies and other things from the grocery store. I get some materials, like plywood and Plexiglas, through the Scrap Exchange, which I helped found a number of years ago. It's a place where you can buy recycled materials from various industries.
Also, people are always leaving something really great they just could not throw away on my front porch. I'm lucky my neighbors have a sense of humor!
I also meet people who connect me with a lot of my materials. For example, a couple of years ago at a local show, a guy came up to me and said, 'I'll bring you something, and you'll make me something out of it.' And I thought, 'No way,' because usually when people bring you things and ask you to make something from it, it's just not worth it. But this guy does volunteer credit counseling at a local women's center, and he had a large jar filled with cut up credit cards; he continues to give them to me, and I use them for mosaics and earrings.
TCR: Do you have any plans for a Web site?
BH: I'm new at this Internet thing. Maybe I should have a Web page. I don't really want a mail order business, however. It would probably be a good idea as a way to introduce people to my installation work and general philosophy. Maybe in a year or so. ... I'm just learning to use my own e-mail.
Noelle Backer is senior editor of The Crafts Report.
OCTOBER 1999:
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