John Maurice A Serious Seattle Artist and Force To Be Reckoned With

  

  Last week, I had the pleasure of meeting with mixed media artist John Maurice at Capital Hill's Poco Wine Bar. 

 As I fired off a myriad of questions over wine and vodka tonics, John told me all about his past and future projects.

 We talked a lot about what he had been up to lately, and about the influential  people in his life. He told me about his friends at Atelier 206 Studio, (or the Art Lair as they like to call it). About his fellow artists, Crystal Babre,Chris Sheridan and Kyle Abernethy and About his shows at Art/Not Terminal and Krab Jab Studio.
                           

 

                I  told him how moved I was when I first saw his Watership Down inspired drawings. I find them to be emotionally piercing renditions of the rabbit characters, Fiver and Hazel. sniff sniff, sad.

  So after a bunch more drinks, (well I had a lot of drinks) and lots more talking we went our separate ways. I had a lot of time to think on my two mile walk back to Queen Anne, about how I wanted to present my second interview. I figured I would just shoot straight, as is the style of Toffee Andersen. So without further ado my interview with the artist John Maurice                                              

1.) John, I've known you since you were 18 years old, and you were an artist then. So I suspect your love of art goes all the way back to childhood. What was your first memory of art? What did you see that made you want to sit down and create and what was the first thing you ever remember creating?

     Probably my dad drawing this little cartoon rabbit for me and my sister. But the arts were always around. One of my parents friends was a local artist, Don Paulson. He had art openings almost every November/December. My parents always brought my sister and I to them. I still have a piece they bought for me at one of them. 

  My sister, a few of the neighborhood kids and I would having drawing contests that we'd make our parents judge. The house had art books laying around, and we'd go to the old S.A.M. a lot.

 There was this series of books I loved when I was little called Harold and the Purple Crayon, no written words just a kid drawing his own reality. So probably the first thing I wanted to create was my own reality.

I wrote little stories, my father taught me origami, and photography. I built models, my best friend and I made up board games, and wrote scripts that we'd pitch to each while hanging out in my backyard or on the cat walk on the back of his house.

2.) Have you worked in many mediums? Do you have a favorite medium?  And do you have some mediums you want to explore in the future?

     Film, pen and ink, mixed media sculpture, oil. The actual act of production I really like is sculpting. It's the most visceral and physical of anything I've done. I really enjoy editing celluloid.It feels a bit like sculpting to me. Your taking away and putting back to form a complete form. Painting is still very stressful for me. 

3.) Do you feel that your art stands alone? Or do you feel it has accompanying influences, like literature, music, pop culture etc.

       I see my stuff as a frame from a film that hasn't been made or an illustration from an unwritten book. In fact some of the things I've done are almost a story board drawing from my scripts. Just little bits of stories.

4.) What motivates you to work?  Does it come from inside yourself, like a passion ( I hate that word) or a drive or are you more likely to work with more of a social motivation? Or even competitively, the feeling of wanting to win is a huge motivator.

   Motivation is a huge struggle for me. i'm a painter, I like the lifestyle, it's the painting I don't like.I fight with depression and physical pain most days it's hard to get out of bed much less fight through the self doubt to create something. The last painting I finished for fear of letting a friend down, it  pushed me through. I have several friends who are quite prolific as artists. They amaze me with there ability to work.

5.) Tell me about what you’re working on now?

      I started a piece based on Watership Down. Started it a while ago, then got to be in a show based on pain. So I did that piece then stepped away to get that down. Now i'm back on that, and just started to work on some ideas to do a piece/or series putting mythic or spiritual attributes to my old early/ mid eighties punk rock experiences. Angels, demons, saints, martyrs or maybe kachinas. Just started playing with ideas.

6.) What inspires your work more, happiness or despair? Or neither?

      Loneliness, isolation, Island of Misfit Toys. How the world world perceives me. How I perceive myself,sadness. 

7.)  I feel like you are having a personal artistic resurgence. What are your goals, hopes or dreams about your artistic future?

    About two years ago, my friend and coworker at the time, came to work one day and asked if I wanted to take a drawing class. I really hadn't done any work in literally years, was in the midst of one my deeper depressions needed something so I said yes. That brought me to local artist Crystal Barbre's art class for weirdos as it was dubbed. 

  I was pretty much self taught save for a bad high school art teacher, and a couple classes here and there. So any help with technique was a good idea, and just getting me out and picking up a pencil was good. It gave my rusty gears a shove, a bit of momentum. Through it I met some of Seattle's artists, who helped me start to think again. Listening to conversations between Crystal and her friends, who would drop into class to talk about about technique and method, was an amazing learning experience. Being around people who were excited about creating has gotten the creative juices flowing a little more freely again.

8.) Tell me something about your personality and how it relates to your artwork. What can we see about you by looking at one of your paintings? Besides the self portrait of course ha ha .

     I  think actually the thing that is the oddest thing to me is the lack of sense of humor in my art. I've always been influenced by humor, and comedy. the Marx Brothers, Woody Allen, Monty Python. None of that seems to ever find it's way into my visual art. Just my isolation, and darkness which is only a part of my personality. 

9.) How do you feel about art and technology? There is some amazing work being done with computer programs. Do you feel excited by the prospect of exploring such technologies or do you feel the old ways are best?

    I like it for the most part. I don't really like doing it. I took some computer animation classes to see if I could figure a cost effective way to turn my scripts into an actual film. But really i'd rather make stop motion animation. But there are people doing really cool things. My friend David works almost exclusively on his computer. I've also started to learn to use Photoshop to help with reference photos for paintings. Another thing I've learned from my teachers Kyle and Crystal.

But in the end i'm an old school analog guy. I have all my vinyl, I like working with old school art materials, oil, clay, editing movies is funner with celluloid than digital.

10.)  Who are your top 5 favorite artists of all time?

              El Greco, Carravagio, Amano, Titian, Escher, honorable mention  Frank Frazetta.



                            John thank you  for taking time out of your busy schedule, it was fun!