Interview with:V. H. MacEwan [assemblagist]
CREATIVITY
 | Your mind is your work tool. How do you take care of it? It receives the necessary ingredients for successful transition from ordinary to exemplary.
1. Caffeine.
2. Sunlight.
3. Small dogs with accepting ways.
4. Profoundly extraordinary spousal unit support.
5. A good rheumatologist.
6. Continuing education.
7. A safe car (Volvo).
8. MacOS or Linux only.
You following me, Camera Guy? |
| What cultural sources do you draw from the most? As assemblagist "draws" from dumpsters, parking lots, abandoned buildings, second-hand stores, the kindness of strangers, ephemera and the occasional estate auction. Long walks on the beach at sunset; people who make me laugh; and holding hands in the rain. My own hands. |
| Who have your teachers been? Everyone I ever met, saw, or considered. |
| "To give birth to ideas." Is this only an expression, or are there really parallels between giving birth and creativity? Ick. Does that mean Liquitex is a metaphor for a placenta? Is gesso amniotic fluid? |
| Does spirituality contribute to your creativity? God only knows. |
| It is possible to fall in love with a bad idea simply because it is yours. How do you avoid this? By only having good ideas. Silly. |
| Must someone be the leader or boss in order for a creative team to function well? Teams are stupid. |
| The armchair psychologist: Is creativity an act of rebellion for you? No, it's an ecological imperative. Assemblagists are the ultimate recyclers. |
| What is the best advertisement you've seen recently? It is a magazine ad for Dos Gallos antique furniture. In it, a Hispanic man, middle-aged and a bit dumpy, is shirtless and holds a large rooster under one arm. He stands in front of a magnificent Spanish-mission-style credenza. It is genius. |
ART
| What do you do? How do you define yourself as an artist? An assemblagist compiles ephemera, abandoned springs and sprockets, little doobiehickies and glues/nails/screws them together.
I create a new whole from disparate objects and then tell people what it all means. |
| Do you upload your work to the web? If so, where could we see it? Mental Kudzu -- http://www.macewan.net. My photography is all over the literary journal I publish: The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature at http://www.deadmule.com. I am developing an assemblage art online presence on other sites but I have to check my evernotes for all the URLs... so -- for now, it is -- more online work coming soon!
My new portfolio site is http://www.assemblagist.org working site with little content, just started it. |
| How is an idea born? For you, what is inspiration? Take today, January 1, 2009 for example. This was today's creative process -- today's inspiration came from me initially balking at the thought of going to see Momma because I'm tired and she's probably napping --
I knocked over a sewing basket purchased a few weeks ago as part of a boxed lot from a nearby estate auction. Dozens of wooden spools of thread flapped around my studio floor like gasping fish in a tidal pool. The mannequin head, perched for over a year in balding splendor on top of a rescued wooden fruit crate, spoke to me -- well, actually, she hissed -- "sssssst... ssssst! Those look like curlers. Glue them to my dome... turn me into your mother." That was over six hours ago. |
| What role does technology play in your creative process? Roles. Plural. Both primary and secondary. |
| When and how did you begin to see yourself as an artist? In the third grade, at Echols Elementary School in 1962, when Mrs. Brogley told us to bring a lightbulb and the cardboard tube from a roll of toilet paper to school for an art class project. She gave us each a paint brush, a small bowl of Liquitex, sheets of colored tissue paper and then told us to cover our lightbulbs. I didn't take a routine every-family-sized 60-watt bulb like the rest of my classmates. My mother let me get an 8" diameter floodlight bulb from the carport for the project. No ordinary toilet paper roll would do, either, I took a paper towel tube. To me, discovery occurred when my projects began to differ from the rest of my friend's.
(*wow* I just googled "liquitex" and found out its history. Every collage artist and assemblagist should read the company's "50th Anniversary" website pages. [http://www.liquitex.com/50thAnniversary/50th_timeline.html (...)] Truly -- read this -- This new artists’ color was formulated with an acrylic polymer resin that was emulsified with water. The new color could go from thick to thin and everywhere in between; it would adhere to anything – from canvas to paper to metal to wood to plastic– and it dried quickly for easy re-working, layering, and masking. Most important, it could be thinned and cleaned up with water. Henry Levison went on to create Liquitex in 1955.) |
WRITING
| What is your favorite genre? Can you provide a link to a site where we can read some of your work or learn something about it? |
BLOGGING
| What is your blog address? What subjects do you deal with? |
| What blogging system have you adopted and why? WordPress |
IDEAS
| Did God create the world in seven days, or do you believe in the theory of evolution? Wow. . Evolution is not open to philosophical debate... or... wait... is the earth flat? |
CULTURE
| How do you kill time? Like any good Pro-Choice person - with a double-edged sword. |
POLITICS
| What matters more in deciding your vote: the party, the candidate, or the ideas? Please read the answer to the next question...
Ideas?
Come on here. How about the word "policy" here. Politics = Policy. Get it? |
| Two-party systems are on the rise: is this good for politics? Whoever wrote the political questions for whohub obviously never studied political science. Ya'll need to get someone who is somewhat educated in the field to create a new series of questions here. Really... I mean it.
The same is probably true with your philosophy questions. The Theory of Evolution is not a philosophical discussion. It is scientific. Creationism - now that's philosophical as in Religion is Philosophy. Religion is not science. |
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716 visits Whohub
V. H. MacEwan
Southern US
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| Richard Stansberger | |
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| William D. Harrison | |
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