Donald Bracken ART Habens
New York City , I have spent much of the last 35 years living in rural Connecticut on the Housatonic River . I ’ m not fully aware of what ’ s going on in the contemporary art world and what other people are doing . The political atmosphere at Berkeley , along with my newfound freedom , made it hard to focus on my studies in a traditional way . In general I worked very hard at what interested me , but I was rebellious and did not paint during painting class because I wanted to free myself from the limitations of rules , so I worked at night instead . I took great pleasure in spraying silhouettes of organic objects on canvas , a process that formed the basis of my desire to incorporate organic elements that I find interesting in my art . I ’ ve always thought of myself as a painter , so even when I ’ m doing sculpture I approach it as a threedimensional form of painting . At Berkeley I was probably most influenced by George Miyasaki , a well-known lithographer , who was my lithography teacher . He did his own work at night , too , so we would work together . I tend to paint as though I ’ m making prints , working with one color at a time in layer upon layer , and to me creating sculpture and mixed-media pieces entails the same process . Back then students were not taught about how to make a career — the word “ networking ” didn ' t exist . The best career advice I got from George was to learn how to live cheaply on rice and beans , and just work hard and figure it out . Music and playing guitar also became a vital influence and inspiration to me at that time and has continued to be a source of creative vision . I had Jim Melchert as a conceptual art teacher , and it is curious that at the time I was a bit dubious of its relevance , but as time goes on it has become more and more what my work is about .
Now let ' s focus on your artistic production : I would start from Calligraphy Reclining that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article : and I would suggest to our readers to visit http :// donbracken . blogspot . com in order to get a wider idea of your artistic production … In the meanwhile , would you like to tell us something about the genesis of this interesting project ? What was your initial inspiration ?
I ’ m a process artist — the art of process is very important to me . One thing leads to another ; often
I start with an idea , and as I start to work on it , it evolves into something else and often totally different than my original idea . Calligraphy Reclining emerged from a series of evolutions in my work that I can ultimately trace all the way back to that early fascination with organic forms and materials at Berkeley . More recently , around 2007 , after I started painting landscapes using earth from the fields I was painting , there was a natural progression toward incorporating other organic materials . I was particularly drawn to the bittersweet and grape vines that drape local woods with gestural , calligraphic , sometimes suggestively anthropomorphic figures .
The first big vine piece I did , Floating Brain , is composed of large swirling synaptic shapes with a suspended brainlike shape floating in the middle . The piece lives on the side of a barn . But when such pieces are removed from their original context and put in another place , such as an enclosed space , they become something different entirely . In 2012 I had a show at New Arts Gallery , a cavernous barn with some ancillary rooms . I filled the space with installations of vine sculptures , beaver sticks , and clay paintings . Will You Still Love Me When I Am Gone , a large hanging vine piece suspended from a swivel that lets it spin in the ambient air currents , was installed in a smallish room . The piece had one association when it was constructed outdoors at my studio , but when put in the room with evocative lighting it spoke to me of my feelings of a dystopian isolation and the disconnection of a doomed long-term relationship .
At first I incorporated vines into dirt and clay paintings , then around 2011 , I started wanting to work with them as a material unto themselves , in fully three-dimensional form . I started using tetrahedrons made from rebar a few years ago as a means to suspend the vines so they could twist and turn in the air . Last summer I started employing repeated tetrahedrons with the idea that I could make a sculpture as long as I wanted . Calligraphy Reclining in particular is from a series of sculptures that explore what essentially amounts to scribble drawing on a canvas of air . The material itself , an abundant — and , by humans , abundantly unwanted — intruder in the local landscape , also comments on purpose and perception . I should add that the piece is installed
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