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Christopher St. John
188 Plays6 years ago
Christopher St. John is an artist and curator living in Eugene, Oregon. His work touches on the the incredible luck we have in living on a planet with a biosphere, the joy of form, and the importance of listening. Animals make regular appearances in his work.
Christopher St. John’s work has been exhibited and collected across the United States and internationally across Europe, Japan, Canada, and Malta. He received his BFA from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. His work is in the permanent collections of two American museums. He is represented by Row Boat Gallery in Pacific and Galerie Biz’Art Biz’ Art in France.
He is currently preparing for an exhibition in January at Eutectic Gallery in Portland, Oregon, and an exhibition in February at Sidestreet Arts in Portland, OR.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Something Rather Than Nothing'
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host Dan Vellante. Editor and producer Peter Bauer.
00:00:16
Speaker
I always thought Christopher is a great name. My younger brother, who I'm very close with, is named Christopher, so I've always been very partial to the name. Oh, yeah, me too. My family calls me Chris, and they called me Chris when I was growing up. And then, you know, I grew up and did things with my life, and then I decided that I liked Christopher better. And it's on my versatility, so it's like, well, that's me. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Introducing Artist Christopher St. John
00:00:44
Speaker
First question, and of course, we're here with Christopher St. John, an artist based in Eugene, Oregon. We're going to talk to him about his painting, sculpture, and just art in general, some of the other things he might dabble with artistically. But Christopher, thanks for being on the program, Something Rather Than Nothing.
00:01:11
Speaker
And I wanted to ask right off the bat is what were you like as a young child?
Childhood Reflections and Artistic Development
00:01:18
Speaker
That's funny. I was mopping the studio floor and I was thinking about this question and how maybe there's two answers that maybe people give to this kind of question. So there's like the normal answer, which is, oh, I did these things and I had parents and I moved around. But then, you know, if you've had trauma in your life, then there's different answers that you give. And I was like, well,
00:01:41
Speaker
How do I talk about that? And the truth of that and that aspect of my life has been important to my work and my development as an artist. So I was a pretty quiet kid, and my father was in the Marine Corps. He was a career person, moved around a lot. He was pretty abusive, violent, emotionally abusive, physically abusive. I had some sexual trauma in my life.
00:02:09
Speaker
put me in a particular place. And I grew up at a time when, you know, those kinds of things when they were happening to children, especially on the basis that I moved around, weren't really recognized, maybe as much as they are today. And, you know, it's like, I was talking with my partner, before we talked about how people raise dogs now, just so different than how maybe we raise dogs when we're young, our family kick dogs. And that's just what you did. Nowadays, people are like, Oh, my God, that's horrible. So sure, right.
Hawaii's Influence on Art and Connection to Nature
00:02:40
Speaker
But, you know, when I wasn't in those spaces, I was a quiet kid and I like to be alone in nature. I had the privilege of living on Hawaii when I was around 10 and I was really allowed to run around on the leeward side, the windward side of Oahu and Kaneohe.
00:03:00
Speaker
Makapu Peninsula, and that was a real magical experience, just having the run of this whole beached peninsula with forest to be and to explore and to get really connected with the natural world. And it was a real formative experience for me.
00:03:21
Speaker
And when I go back from that, I think about when I was younger and the kinds of memories that really stick with me that are positive or just being at the roots of trees and playing, you know, I've always had a real fondness and love for trees. Sure. Sure. Yeah. And I'd say,
00:03:43
Speaker
You know, my family moved around quite
Art, Trauma, and Emotional Expression
00:03:45
Speaker
a lot. We settled in Tennessee in Memphis, a little town called Munford, spent most of my formative growing up there in sixth grade until I graduated from high school. So I've traveled quite a lot. Yeah, and I want to thank you for, you know, really
00:04:06
Speaker
You know taking that head on as far as you know, how you can approach that question You know just speaking directly with you I've you know, I've I've I haven't always asked that question and I kind of like have that out there because yeah, there can be two very different ways of of answering it and I find for For me that you know when it comes to art in what role art Plays in your life. I think there's
00:04:36
Speaker
connection to strong emotions connecting to trauma or not connecting to whatever the case might be is that Those experiences really inform how we how we see things or how it's impacted or I find that You know, maybe moving away from art maybe being like, you know having difficulty express yourself because of those traumatic
Inherent Drive to Create Art
00:05:00
Speaker
Um experiences, uh, but yeah, I really want to uh, you know, thank you for kind of like bringing that into the for um With the artistic experience, um, you know and doing this podcast it does I don't always get into that and sometimes politics don't come into things and not that they have to with each interview, but um
00:05:25
Speaker
There's a lot that goes into art and I like to try to get the components that make it so necessary for some of us. Do you feel that? Do you feel that it's necessary for you to create art or that you've been compelled to do so over time? Oh, absolutely. I can remember from a very young age really feeling drawn
00:05:51
Speaker
to wanting to make things and even as you know as early as kindergarten you know being disappointed when I wasn't being placed on the finger painting table or the clay table and instead being put with the boys the blocks or
00:06:07
Speaker
you know, some gamer activity. And not being particularly good at it, I remember being frustrated with that. But it's just something that stuck with me. And my family, on my mom's side, there's artistic talent that runs through that. So, you know, there's a genetic component to that as well. But yeah, I definitely would say that it's something that I've been felt called to do and something that
00:06:34
Speaker
It's just in my makeup. It's hard for me to be anything else besides that, besides somebody who just constantly processes
Early Artistic Experiences and Aspirations
00:06:44
Speaker
and makes things. Did, did you have a moment when, you know, you had created something or whatever form where you said, or the reception that you got, you said to yourself, geez, I'm, I'm an artist. Did you have that moment? Uh, yeah, I remember when,
00:07:02
Speaker
There was an experience that I had where when I was in Hawaii and we would go out to recess and I didn't really enjoy playing on the jungle gym with the other kids because the noise bothered me. I found it really confusing and it would put me in a weird place so I just sought out like good quiet places on the playground and there was a tree that I always enjoyed looking at.
00:07:29
Speaker
And I would take my notebook out with me and try to draw that tree. I did that for weeks and I failed miserably. But I kept wanting to do that, even though I really struggled with that. And that experience in particular always just, there was something and there was a recognition, I think, in that moment of seeing and taking that experience of seeing and being.
00:07:58
Speaker
and wanting to put that on paper, wanting to record that, wanting to capture that, and wanting to have the skills necessary to do that, to translate this feeling that I had looking at this tree.
Vibrancy and Dynamics in Art Discussion
00:08:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:18
Speaker
never quite had the connection to the trees as you described until very recently. I had actually arrived at it intellectually and then really just kind of physically started to feel how I felt differently being next to trees. And I think there's probably a dynamic
00:08:35
Speaker
You know you recognized early on and I know in the things that you write it seems to be To be very very important. Um, let me say something. Uh, I think it's tough for folks
00:08:50
Speaker
Whenever I have painters or you do sculpture as well, for folks to be able to see what it is in your work as we talk. When I do an episode with a musician, it tends to be a different dynamic because we play a track and you're like, hey, that's some good hip hop or whatever the case might be.
00:09:13
Speaker
But my way of getting into this and maybe we can get into this kind of the physical characteristics or the symbols within your work is I believe this is your Description of your work and if it's not if you could just clarify when I'm done your work touches on the Incredible luck we have in living on a planet with the biosphere the joy of form and the importance of listening. Yeah That's yours
00:09:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's mine. There's so much in there. It's so vibrant. And those words are so vibrant. But in talking about your work, of course, we'll be doing that conceptually.
00:09:52
Speaker
Your work that I've seen is incredibly dynamic. You can see the life forms come through within your sculpting. The color, the forms, and some of the disruption you use with the depiction of animals, both in sculpture and painting, it's incredibly beautiful and vibrant.
00:10:12
Speaker
And it really engages the viewer. And when I pointed to these words, they're trying to convey some of those pieces. And I had asked you the question as far as, you're an artist, and you're talking about a very vibrant component of your work about living in a biosphere, that we're alive, that we're talking about forms.
00:10:37
Speaker
Can you, as a way of getting into your work visually and what you try to do visually, can you describe those words and why you've used those to try to describe what your work is?
Artistic Process and Capturing Life's Essence
00:10:53
Speaker
Sure.
00:10:55
Speaker
I think the thing that my work does really well is this empathetic connection that it strikes with the viewer. I think where people connect with the work right away is through its feeling. And I've always experienced that
00:11:15
Speaker
that idea of feeling as a listening experience. I think I told somebody once that, you know, I always feel like my ears are more like my eyes and my eyes are more like my ears. When I look at things, there's a listening quality to the way that I'm, you know, maybe processing visual experience and
00:11:39
Speaker
and storing things up to the use and to translate. So there's that component, and then there's this other component, this interior component, which is this sort of door that's open to this big
00:11:54
Speaker
thing. Well, I don't know, but the connection is made when I set my pen down to paper and I decide I'm going to create this animal. I don't usually have a preconceived notion about what I'm creating, particularly the works on paper or the paintings. I just move in that space and let the thing arrive. But it comes out of place of intention. And, you know, I do want to get as close as I can with
00:12:21
Speaker
to that experience of being alive. I think now in particular, that's a really vital question with climate change, with a lot of political unrest around the world, not just in this country. And also with the scientific advances that we've had, we're imaging exoplanets and we're
00:12:47
Speaker
NASA is going to send probes to Europa and to Enceladus, and Cassini found organic compounds in the geysers coming off Enceladus. There's activity on Mars that NASA's not really sure what's creating the methane, what's creating the spikes in oxygen. So this idea about what is life
00:13:10
Speaker
you know, is going to be this next major shift in human consciousness, because we share this experience on this planet, we share this experience with everything else, which supports us in a living, living ecological context. And, you know, so like big picture, well, what's my role as an artist in this picture?
Art's Role in Empathy and Climate Change
00:13:32
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So what is it?
00:13:34
Speaker
Yeah, and so it's it's to move people out of the unconscious forward into the conscious into the world and to make them feel and participate as much as they can in a real human connected way to this thing that we live on and it's the only body that we know of in The universe right now that can support beings like us and everything else that it supports Let me
00:14:01
Speaker
in about about you where I mean, I really appreciate your thoughts there and I actually felt I just learned a whole lot just by listening to your answer, which is my selfish way of why I do this podcast. But a friend of mine commented when she first saw your images and it really stuck in my mind. I think her comment was,
00:14:28
Speaker
It feels like I know these creatures. I feel like they're the friends of mine, or there was a familiarity rate right off the bat. I had that same impression when I saw them. And, and I'm talking about the, the figures, both the sculpt animal figures, the sculpt and the paintings, they seem to come from, you know, a very recognizable universe, you know, our biosphere, our universe.
00:14:55
Speaker
but they seem to have a personality or are connected to a world that I think is coming out in your work. My question to make it a little bit more simple is the animals that show up in your work are those unique creatures that you know or you're really trying to kind of translate what's in the natural world into the sculpture or into the painting.
00:15:24
Speaker
No, I'm just a midwife. I really am. I just put myself in a place to be open, and this is what came to me. So I'll go back. I was doing figurative work for a number of years, just strictly as a painter. I just dealt with the figure. I worked through it in a
00:15:47
Speaker
in an abstract way. I worked through it in a very volatile and expressionistic kind of way. But for a long time, I was just really exploring just human experience and what that meant to be embodied in this human body and how I could use that in my art to explore that sense of being embodied in this particular human form.
00:16:14
Speaker
You know, looking back on that work, it had a real, there's a negativity to it. It was, you know, critical of a lot of things. A lot of, I don't know, traumas that I had, but traumas that were in the world. You know, my ex-wife was deployed to Iraq twice, and there were things that she dealt with while she was there, and then when she returned home.
00:16:44
Speaker
I did a lot of work in response to that, and it was very negative. It was really raw and working that way for such a long time. It put me mentally in a really dark place, in a place that was not great for my mental health. And a couple of years ago, I had a real break with that.
00:17:10
Speaker
decided that I needed to do this differently and I needed to take whatever that downward turn thing was in my work and turn it around and turn it outward. And whatever that switch that I flipped to do that
00:17:28
Speaker
these animals came out of it. I mean, I could tell you it's like, well, I was inspired by koroi and the smile and I was inspired by, you know, children and I love children and I'm thinking about, you know, three generations hence and what people will think about, you know, when they see this work, but really, you know,
00:17:44
Speaker
I don't know where when I made that flip and moving from this body of figurative work, which was a lot darker into this other work, which I've just started a couple of years ago, which is much more positive. There's something that happened that feels much more encompassing than I don't know how much I can take responsibility for, except that I just got out of the way and let it happen.
00:18:10
Speaker
So, well, it feels if, you know, just as far as shorthand, it feels like that there was an incredible amount of energy, right? And if it was moving through you as it kind of was how it manifested, but you notice, I mean, you notice the shift for you when it happened. And so how has that impacted other aspects? I mean, it's a, you know, it's kind of flipped, you know, from one to the other, right? I mean, you ascribe some,
00:18:37
Speaker
You know, like negativity, some strong emotion, maybe some rawness to it. But, you know, you say the animals came from a place where it switched, that energy had gone to.
Transformation in Artistic Focus
00:18:49
Speaker
Was it the same current that was running through you? And it sounds like something just happened at a moment for you. It's like I changed the shape of the hose.
00:19:01
Speaker
You know, we've all got this thing that flows through us and everybody can tap it and access it. But, you know, if the doorway or the hose is a particular shape, it shapes what comes out. And I just changed the shape of that and it just got bigger and it got
00:19:18
Speaker
happier and kinder and more fun. And it's like I started to really enjoy it and I really started to love the sense of play that it was finding in it. And it doesn't matter to me that it comes from my imagination or it's a response to the world art. I feel art is just an exploration of truth and it's a vehicle for finding the truth. So it doesn't need to have the drapings of representation in order to be true.
00:19:46
Speaker
if it comes from a true place and it creates this connection with the audience. Yeah, I want to ask what might sound like a bit of a naive question, but it really comes from my experience. When I see an artist doing two forms, let's say in particular a sculpture for you and painting
00:20:13
Speaker
Um, I started painting a couple uh years ago and i'm Figuring out figuring out that experience, you know for for myself Um, and then there are so i've been doing that for a little bit and then there are other forms Which like I honestly know nothing about like, uh, I I ask artists how they do it and and what it's like
00:20:36
Speaker
My naive question, not really knowing that much about the sculpture, I had one other guest, Claire Papoulis, who was a beginning sculptor on the program. But when the moment comes where you're like, I want to create something or say that energy is flowing through you, what is the experience of painting what that is versus you using your hands and sculpting what that is?
00:21:06
Speaker
That's a great question. So I wanted to be a musician. When I was in high school and grade school, I studied flute. I fell in love with it. I studied classical music. I went as deep as I could to go into it. I went to college for about a year as a music major and was in the orchestra. And I just absolutely loved it. It was like I was using both my hands.
00:21:33
Speaker
I was creating sound, and it was like, this is good. This feels like who I'm maybe meant to be in this world. But there's something missing, right? Like, OK, I'm performing music, but what I want to do is create things. And then things happened in my life, and I stepped away from that path.
00:22:00
Speaker
And then I decided on painting. Went to college, got a BFA in painting, had a really great experience there, great faculty, and spent time just developing my practice as a painter. And then it's like, oh, OK, I get this. But there was always this block.
00:22:24
Speaker
Like, years and years and years, like, I would work on painting, and, you know, like, I was always feeling like I was moving through this wall, and I hit another wall, and I hit another wall. Like, it was, things weren't flowing. Like, there was, and when I took up clay, because I loved Picasso, and I loved that, you know, he started off doing painting, and then he was, like, making ceramic forms, and they're absolutely gorgeous. My, oh, just beautiful work.
00:22:53
Speaker
You know, when I moved into that realm with clay and I was using both hands, there was like this circle that closed in my head and it was like, I had this light bulb when I was like, Oh, okay. So my formative creative experiences where I was really.
00:23:10
Speaker
looking at learning about music, how to play it, how to perform it, how to perform it artistically. I was doing it with both hands. But then when I made this switch into painting, I was only approaching it from a right-hand perspective.
00:23:26
Speaker
And I'm not even really right-handed. My parents say I was supposed to be left-handed, but they kept slapping my left hand when I was- Oh goodness, wow, yeah. So, you know, there's this real disconnect with the way I was processing and the way I was moving through painting. And I did, you know, I loved all the painting work that I did. I think they made a really strong body of work throughout my years doing that. But when I figured out I could use both hands and create form,
00:23:52
Speaker
in the same way that was creating drawing, but realized them in space. It was just like, it was like I had all the cylinders operating. It was like all the lights went on. Did you ever wonder what it would be like if you did develop as a left hand or what type of left-handed painter you would be? Right. Or if I'd just be, I don't know, if I would have been a happier child or something. I don't know. These are these unexpected questions, unexpected questions.
00:24:21
Speaker
talking with Christopher St. John, an artist from Eugene, Oregon, and you listen to something rather than nothing podcast. We've been talking about his art and the role with its connection to the biosphere and getting into some conceptual questions about why we're doing art.
00:24:49
Speaker
But this this begs the question that i'm going to launch right into here again, Christopher is We've been talking about art a bunch, but what what the heck is art?
Art as a Tool for Connection and Understanding
00:25:00
Speaker
Yeah, I you know Art is
00:25:08
Speaker
this thing that facilitates a connection to the world around us. It's a tool for the most part. It's a tool that we as people use pretty effectively to communicate ideas, to communicate experiences, to create experiences. And we can divvy it up and do whatever we want. But I think fundamentally it's about connection and it's about opening up that deep thing
00:25:39
Speaker
inside of us and sharing that with the world around us. Mathematics has that beauty and it exists in that realm as well. So someone don't miss anything as well. It sounds like you might have encountered or tinkered in other types of art. What type of forms of art have you gone into?
00:26:04
Speaker
I mean, I have a pretty robust practice as a painter, so I work in oils, I work in acrylics, I do watercolor, I can do ink. I mean, it's just like being a musician where you just have chops, right? You don't necessarily just devote your life to classical music. If you're a jazz musician, you do all the forms and you can play whatever gig you want. I feel like it's the same for a visual artist. You can do illustration, you can do representation, you can do gouache, you can do...
00:26:32
Speaker
I have a broad base and experience to do that. I've done sculpture work in metal and sort of assemblage, but clay is the thing that I'm spending a lot of time on right now, and it's only been the last
00:26:50
Speaker
year and a half that I've been really exploring and getting in the client. It has picked my ass so much. It's always interesting when you look, of course, I've seen some of you work online, we communicated a bit. We're always looking at what we see and be like, okay, what is it that they do? What is it? I'm always interested in
00:27:19
Speaker
you know, asking about other types of art that an artist may do because sometimes we forget that we do it, not necessarily, but sometimes we forget that we do it or we hadn't thought about doing it. And sometimes I think others see these pieces and they're like, how come aren't, aren't you this? And so I like talking in broad strokes about, you know, how it is that, that, that you, you know, that you do your art.
00:27:50
Speaker
Do I understand it correctly that you teach art as well? Is that correct? Yeah, I teach up here at the Maud Kearns. I teach figure drawing and figure painting classes, which I love doing so much. It is so much fun because the students that come into my class often have no experience with figure drawing, which is great because that means they don't have a lot of preconceptions about how they should be doing it, except for maybe just making a doughnut or an egg for the head. And I can really come in and shape
00:28:20
Speaker
their approach and talk about, you know, observation and, you know, how observation is the same for everybody. And, you know, your experience matters. And I've been teaching some artist services classes there as well, with some art history topics. I taught the seminar class on art from
00:28:42
Speaker
the 1970s. So we looked at, you know, performance art, and we looked at Chris Burden, and we looked at Linda Benglis, and all these like really just, I don't know, a lot of that work from the 70s is pretty obtuse, but I came out of the class with a real appreciation for just
00:29:02
Speaker
What they were working with and especially the time period and there's like such parallels now especially with the impeachment You know, I thought about that a lot teaching the class. But yes, I I do teach there. Yeah, I I was I I made it there Finally my daughter is a freshman at the University of Oregon and I
00:29:25
Speaker
And so I was able to get, I'm able to get to more things there. And what a nice space. I was just floored. It was just beautiful. And of course I was able to, you know, encounter your work in a fan of two of yours just by milling around the grounds. But it's great that they offer classes. And, you know, I asked that because, you know, I always,
00:29:53
Speaker
You know teaching something is is always extremely difficult and you can have a whole episode around the art of teaching or how that Creative process even happens. But yeah, so it's also Not maybe not an additional challenge, but I'm always very intrigued By how art is taught and I'd have to say because I've actually never taken an art class of any form of the history or creating art so
00:30:21
Speaker
I'm really fascinated by how it is that you teach, and it sounds like it's been a good experience for you as well. Oh, it's been a fantastic experience. I've grown a lot in the last year that I've been teaching there, and I just find the mod currents to be a real solid
00:30:42
Speaker
Art hub for the community and just it's they have such a great mission and they have such great support and they're just growing and it's it's I think it's a real exciting time to be involved with What they're doing now and where they're moving into the future And I wanted to I wanted to ask You know kind of the seminal question prior to a couple more questions the seminal question the title of podcast something rather than nothing and
00:31:10
Speaker
And I sent you a note because I really got caught up in really thinking about that statement that, you know, the incredible luck that we have living on a planet with a biosphere, which was intuitive for me, but just hearing it expressed out loud was just kind of just a lovely phrase. And for me, it connects to the bigger questions, the larger questions and concepts of
00:31:39
Speaker
The main question is why is there something rather than nothing? Do you know Christopher? No, I don't know but I know that I'm here for a reason and I know that there's purpose in me being here and that this life that I have matters. I get to make the meaning in this life and I get to create the intention in this life and
00:32:09
Speaker
engaging with that idea that I get to create this and move forward into this world which sees back at me it's not just me but you know things look back animals look back at me people look back at me you know there's uh there's there's a real beauty and excitement in that and it's
00:32:30
Speaker
you know, realizing that, oh, I have things to offer to this. And, oh, we can shape this conversation. And, oh, we can push this in this direction. Oh, yeah. And there's these problems. Is this a negative thing? Or is this an opportunity to do some good and try to change the conversation and then move things forward? What can I do as an artist, as a creative person in that context? You know, it's so
00:32:59
Speaker
You know, people always come up to me like, I do these show, I do booth shows to tend to make a living or help pay the bills and stuff like that. And, you know, people often come up to me and say, oh, this must be so much fun to do. And I kind of groan and go, oh, yeah, you know, it's mostly a lot of work, right? It's just like any other nine to five, except, you know, I may, you know, my days are more like 16 and 16 hour days, you know, usually just get to wake up, work in studio, work all day, make product, do things, you know.
00:33:28
Speaker
It's a real privilege being able to do that. And it's a real privilege knowing that I have these skills that somehow, for some inexplicable reason, were handed out to me through genetics or whatever. And I had the luck to say, oh, I can do something with that. And so when something happens and it delights me and it's like,
00:33:53
Speaker
you know, something I've never seen before. And I can meet that with joy. There's real beauty in that. And there's so much satisfaction in that. And yes, it is fun. Oh, my God, it is so much fun. And I love
00:34:07
Speaker
You know, the idea that as artists, we can convince people to engage with the world in a way that comes from that positivity, that comes from that sense that, yeah, you can do something that somebody hasn't done before and you can do something that doesn't require approval and you can float a new idea and you can struggle with it and love yourself for that struggle and maybe change something.
00:34:35
Speaker
I really appreciate that. I appreciate your willingness to take on these questions, but a lot of why I ask them is I find that questions and thinking about a lot of the things that we've been talking about is
00:34:55
Speaker
is creative unto itself and it kind of it sparks thinking about you know what we're doing and i even said that in a couple answers you're given but i'm i'm getting i'm i'm hosting here but i'm trying not to get lost into the thoughts of you know of what you're expressing so it it is a great um i really appreciate um uh hearing hearing from you and and you taking the time i get a couple
00:35:21
Speaker
uh other other pieces a little bit shorter kind of statements or you know questions, um If you know i've asked you a bunch of these type of questions and uh, you know, uh, uh some, you know thought provoking, um Who would you like to? Hear answer these questions if you had to pick somebody a person or two you'd be like i'd really like to hear Their answers to these questions. Who who would that be?
00:35:49
Speaker
Right now it would be Donald Nalley, the conductor of the Crossing Choir, with whom I've been working. I have a lot of respect for the work that he's been doing with the choir and the composers that they've commissioned for their exhibition, for their performances. And, you know, I think we share a lot of
00:36:14
Speaker
ideas around the role of the arts in terms of in an age of climate change and this extinction event that we're living through. And I would love to hear his response to these things. I have deep respect for what he does. And the choir is just absolutely phenomenal. And it's been a real privilege working with him.
00:36:38
Speaker
Yeah, thanks for that and let me let me press pause right there. You mentioned climate change and um, I haven't asked this question before but uh, it's such a historical problem, um, where we're dealing with right now with what's happening to an environment and the displacement of peoples and death and in what is occurring and the continued battle to try to
00:37:05
Speaker
convey that or express some truths about it. With those things in place, has the role of art or the artist changed because of that fact circumstance at present?
Artists' Response to Climate Change
00:37:21
Speaker
I think so. What I hope changes is that there's less attention paid to human stories and human faces and human presences and more attention paid to the world that they live in. I think that has to be the fundamental shift in terms of our consciousness.
00:37:47
Speaker
There was an exhibition up at Pottery Northwest in Seattle called Unwedged. I was in that show and reading to the catalog, a number of artists talked about their connection to the environment, their connection to this issue around climate change and trying to use their work to address
00:38:10
Speaker
So I think there's a shift that's happening. I think artists are tackling this. I think artists are trying to wrap their heads around these problems. But it's hard to do when you're constantly told that, well, this only matters if it has a human context, if it has a story attached to it. How is this relevant to people?
00:38:41
Speaker
people don't support the health of a forest, you know, the fungi that live in the soil and make all those connections with each other. And, you know, that's what supports the health of the forest, you know, just things like that. Yeah. And I think that kind of what seems simple is a radical refocus. And I think, you know, I think I think it's it's so important and I think
00:39:10
Speaker
for anybody creating or doing anything at this moment with the scale of the problem with what's going on with the climate kind of begs an answer of some of the more fundamental questions. What are we doing? Is what I'm doing helping to improve the situation and those fundamental questions?
Ensuring Art's Impact on Environmental Issues
00:39:35
Speaker
I really struggle with that. And I struggle with, you know, is this enough? What I do as, you know, I have talent and talent just wants to be used. And they're like, is it enough? And I really, really grapple with that, you know, and the things that I'm making. Yeah, though the question might be difficult, at least it's the right question to be to to be grappling with. So Christopher, Christopher St. John, we've been speaking to
00:40:04
Speaker
And finally, Christopher, one of the things at the end I like to do is just to make sure if folks who are listening, they wanna see some of those images of yours, whether in person, whether they're displayed or online. The fundamental piece is how can listeners connect to your work in your art?
00:40:32
Speaker
So I think a great way to connect with my work right now is to go to thecrossinquired.org, their website. I did the artwork for their 2019-2020 concert season, and they really did a great job of pairing my work with their messages and their performances around these issues of climate change and extinction. And I think it's great to see it in that context.
00:41:01
Speaker
rather than to see an image alone and say, OK, well, that's interesting. But it's like, no, but this is the direction that this leans in. And there's collaboration that's involved. And there's a sound component to this. And there's people that aren't moving into the world with this work and this space that I think is much more engaging with the viewer than just by going to my website, although I would not.
00:41:29
Speaker
dissuade people from visiting my website. I'm also on Instagram, which I post a lot of things on there because it happens to be this thing that artists use for promotion right now. Yeah. Thank you for all of that, Christopher. I'm lucky enough to have recently encountered your work and I really appreciate. I've just been enthralled with what you're doing there. I like how just by seeing it,
00:41:59
Speaker
and my engagement with it. It prompts a lot of questions in my mind, which I think are the important ones, or at least if they're not the most important, they're the ones I'm interested in. So they're important to me. I appreciate you taking the time with me and with the program. And I want to wish you the best of luck. And again, it's been a deep pleasure, deep pleasure, Christopher.
00:42:27
Speaker
Thank you, Kenneth. Thank you so much for having me on and allowing me to do this. I was a little nervous at first. I'm like, okay, it wasn't so bad. It was okay. It's hopefully a great experience. And, you know, I think it's something that I found with people that are listening.
00:42:55
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing.