One thing I’d like to do is to talk about the
meaning of the knotwork, because people see it as decorative design and
they see it as Ethnic Symbol for Scots, Irish, Welsh... Celtic designs
have an ethnic association, and it’s used that way in the pop culture
and you see them on everything now. What does it mean, though? Some of
it is just decorative filler that goes in there. What it really does is
show the interconnectedness of all things. It also shows the travel of
life, the ins and outs in the trail or road. It has a couple of
meanings at the same time. Any good symbol works on more than one
level. I think that when I use that interlace pattern on my figures,
which you often see, it can appear confusing. Sometimes it shows that
connection between those characters symbolized in their conforming to
that connecting pattern that’s beyond the visible, where it’s
functioning all of the time but people are unaware that we’re literally
all connected, and so it points the viewer in that direction. At least
that’s how I use it in my own art.
One of the things I like about your art is
that you bring in all sorts of multicultural influences. Another thing
is the energy that comes out of it - there’s a lot of similarity with
the Huichol yarn paintings.
SO: We took a trip to Cabo
San Lucas and I saw some of that in the galleries and went GooGooGaGa.
I have a book with hundreds of them. I just love their linear quality -
that’s in all my work.
FW: There’s a spiritual energy…
SO: …and the colors that
I use together to make the color pop - it’s always been that way. In
that Huichol art they do the same thing where they make outlines by
layering it in. Any artwork that’s linear - Aztec, Chinese, African -
I’m interested in. If it has a pattern, Polynesian, totem
poles…stylization is always fascinating to me as I understand that
language.
FW: Now you’ve been doing public art pieces for a while. How did that start?
SO: I started to work
with the city of Los Angeles on some public work projects. I applied
for my very first one and I got it! I was very excited about that.
These angels are 12 feet high by 7 feet. I carved wood in the Van
Nuys/Sherman Oaks gymnasium there at the park. They look very nice
inside the gym and they’re all coated so that the kids can bang balls
on them. There are two of them, and the whole theme is park things.
I’ve got my little “spirit people” having a barbeque, doing different
things you do in the park, like play music and basketball.
FW: Yeah, your “spirit people” are these little Celtic-interlaced, faceless anyfolks with haloes.
SO: You have to compete for these things.
Sometimes you get ‘em, sometimes you don’t. So then I did this piece
for the fire department. It’s very nice, right? And I worked so hard.
But the thing is when you’re doing public art you always have to
remember not to make it too religious because it just frightens
people…The good thing about it is that I learned a lot, and these are
really good designs. When I go to apply for other things they look at
it and go, “Oh, Jeez! This guy does really good designs.”
FW: It has the look of Florentine or Sienese altarpieces. {mosimage}
SO: Yeah, I was using these
medieval altarpieces for the framework. I had so much fun doing it,
too. Then there’s the Reading Room at the library in Chatsworth. I
started it last summer. That’s four 7 by 2 foot carved wood columns
that arch to the top because the whole building is laid out like a
church, so that whole thing’s going on there. It has kids reading at
the bottom and above it has kids’ reading images in it. Anyway, that
was a hit. That tree piece that you [Brooke Alberts] commissioned from
me, with the mermaid playing whistle in the tree, has the same sort of
idea, and my Tree of Life piece. I was talking to the librarian and she
said “Wouldn’t it be great if we could have a wonderful tree like that
with a library theme?” I went to the school and took pictures of the
kids reading, and here’s the playground, and text in here…Anyway, I
printed it out and put it on plywood using a printing process, which is
new, and it’s not nearly as expensive.
FW: There’s Harry Potter, an Aztec warrior, Einstein, Where the Wild Things Are…
SO: It’s about 7 feet
around, and it’s very nice, and it has all sorts of library related
scenes. Now there’s one in West Covina. West Covina had me use slightly
different themes, same format, and again I do this on the computer.
FW: You’re becoming this Library Art Guy.
SO: Exactly! And the
great thing about it is it goes back to What Art Can Do. The kids come
in here and go “Wow!” and they’re all excited to look at it. Though the
library’s already a wonderful library and it’s doing that, here you
have an accent piece to focus that energy that’s already there.
What I’m currently working on is my first
big collaborative church piece. It’s fantastic. It’s a great expression
of religious outpouring because it has all of these contemporary themes
on it. There’s a Mary figure holding Jesus and she’s giant, right? And
then all around the base of it there’s Father Peter doing the Blessing
of the Animals, and on the other side there’s a couple dancing and
musicians playing, and there’s a food table, and everyone has a halo.
There’s an arch piece, and on the supports we’re putting Gandhi, and
Martin Luther King Jr., and a Muslim woman. There’s a big spectrum of
religious representation going on here, but this does have some Celtic
knotwork in the pattern. Then we use text. One of the interesting
things was that we started talking about the Gay Issue, so we’re going
to represent that in there. We’re going to have two men holding hands.
It’s one of a dozen different themes but it’s intentionally there. That
should be completed before this article comes out.
With public art I really enjoy the
collaboration, where I go to the client, find out what they’d like, and
then run it through my filter. They know what style I do, and it’s a
great challenge for me to visually conform it to my style and make it
really interesting, bright, vivid and exciting. But of course I like a
whole lot of detail and things like that, so it’s great to get this
list of images and text, and involve that client in the artistic
process. Then they feel even more connected to those pieces, plus they
more accurately reflect that community. I just love that part ‘cause
then all I have to do is just Do What I Do. They also have a positive,
light message. There are new influences and new themes, and where they
take you, it’s very exciting.
As an artist I always want to reflect where I
live, and I’ve been in LA since about ’89, and in that time I have
intentionally, as in that Riot piece, been reflecting Los Angeles which
lives around me. Through public art I’m trying to do it more. I really
see myself as an Angeleno holding up a mirror to Los Angeles, but the
prism that it goes through is this Celtic prism. It really has become
my visual language, and there’s a parallel in the music. There’s a
relationship between the music and the art, and who would know that? I
would, because I was not a musician for many years and now I am. When I
started, one of the things that attracted me to Celtic art was the
patterns, the rhythms, the undulations, the color changes, the mood,
the flow, and then I started playing the music and I started to realize
it has its own patterns. “Oh the tune does this and then it goes over
here, then you do it again” and you’re improvising on the same pattern,
and you do the same thing. It becomes a very fluid thing, and you can
riff on this or that, or do your variations on another tune, and the
same is true for Celtic art. I see it’s my responsibility not just to
repeat the ancient, wonderful patterns that we have there, but to make
it so it’s relevant for today, and so that it’s living, and it’s
breathing right now, it’s not just in some medieval bog or some gnarly
forest, its life energy’s alive here in Philippe’s and everywhere else,
and so that is being reflected with some of that Irish enthusiasm, I
guess.
I love doing it but I think that the
interesting thing is that what I really enjoy about my art career now
is that the money making part of the equation is right in with it all
the way, and that’s just as essential as the paint. When I was a young
artist and I went to a junior college (American River College in
Sacramento) I had a great art teacher. He gave me great fundamentals
and was a great colorist, and that influenced me. He was also a Zen
kind of a guy, so he told me this story (he’d tell us all these Zen
stories we’d ponder, it was exotic, back in the late ‘70s) about a
master who has a student who would come and ask him these questions. He
asked the master, “How long does it take to attain enlightenment?” and
the master said, “Well, it takes 10 years.” Then he says, “Hmm…what if
I work harder than all of the other students, I just stick to my
studies and apply myself more than anyone else. How long will it take
me then?” and he says, “Well, then it’ll take you 20 years.” Then he
says, “Oh. Well, what if I just kind of slough off and just kinda take
it easy and let it happen?” and he goes, “Well then it will take you 30
years.” Well, I’m coming up on about 28 years, hahaha!...28 years of
artistic pursuit, and so I think after all those years it’s taken me
this long to kinda connect to society in a bigger sense and to feel
like I have something that they need, and vice versa, and things seem
to work out better. So anyway, that’s my enlightenment I’ve had over
the last year!
FW: Well, thanks for taking the time with me! What a fun field trip we’ve had!
SO: I’m glad!
