Interview with Artist Bill Brody

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First, when and why did you come to Alaska?

When I was finishing with grad school I wanted to spend a few years away from the art centers, so I applied to every rural college in the U.S. The UAF (University of Alaska, Fairbanks) position seemed good, so I accepted and came in the fall of 1967, just in time for the big flood. (The Chena River flooded Fairbanks in August 1967.)

All the work in this show was done on location. Do you finish the paintings in the field? Or do you rework or touch-up in the studio?

I try to finish my large paintings in the field, but circumstances sometimes prohibit the ideal. I estimate that 2/3 are essentially finished in the field, requiring only touch-up along the edges and smoothing out the sky colors.

How do you transport the canvas when you are out in the field without smearing the paint?

I take my canvas, cut to size, rolled up in a 4' long, 4" diameter piece of PVC pipe with caps. My stretcher bars are also lightweight and collapse enough to fit into a similar tube as my canvas. I paint with alkyds or alkyd/oil mix. The paint is dry enough to transport 12 hours from the time the paint was last applied. I roll up my finished paintings and put them back into the tube for transport back home to my studio for stretching, inspection, touch-up if needed, and signature.

To what extent do you try to adhere faithfully to the scene? How willing are you to embellish, to add or subtract mountains, for instance?

I try to be very respectful of the quirky details of the scene. I never add or subtract mountains. The placement of close-by vegetation is sometimes a bit shaky. Ditto the placement of close-by rocks, but in general I try for accuracy in both spirit and verisimilitude. The perspective is from my vantage point, so the upper 2/3 to 3/4 of the painting is fairly accurate linear perspective from my standing-up position. The lower portion is more-or-less accurate perspective from a kneeling position.

What do you do about bears?

I use safe camping practices such as no cooking near my tent, no eating near my tent, no food storage near my tent or cook site, and making noise when I move about. I carry pepper spray and leave some near my stored food. I use bear-proof food containers. The past few years I have carried a firearm, but I can't say that I think it serves much purpose beyond reassuring those at home. There is one situation where a firearm is helpful, and which actually came to pass. I was painting details on the lower portion of one of my large canvases, so I had no view beyond the canvas for some time. The wind was blowing about 15-20 mph toward me from behind my canvas. A bear came up from that direction and rounded my canvas just as I stood up to rest my knees. The bear did not respond to my yelling, and I could not use pepper spray without it getting me due to the wind direction. The bear looked at me and kept moving toward me. When it got within 10 feet I drew my revolver, and when it was about 6 feet from me, I fired a shot into the air. It turned and walked away in a straight line until it was out of sight.

In your artist’s statement (LINK), you touch on a number of universals, such as the separation implicit in “man vs. nature,” and the way I read it painting for you is an act of connecting, or an attempt to do so. You also talk about “spirit” vs. “verisimilitude,” which is another balancing act. How does a personal style, or approach to painting, affect one’s ability to transcend these dichotomies?

Much of verisimilitude is by way of learned technique. This can be somewhat dry and analytical. The more spirited comes from a more gestural approach that lends itself to the kinds of exaggerations in scale and mark-making energy that correspond to emotional connection and personal importance and significance of the matter being depicted. I am a rational being, with a strong background in skeptical science. I am an emotional being with passionate likes and dislikes rooted in my genetics, culture and personal history. The scenes that call to me are compelling enough to demand adherence to both sides. Sometimes I can pull it off.

Some paintings appear to be painted with a more heavily loaded brush, more “alla prima;” while some appear more glazed, painted with thinner paint, with glazes and traceries over more broadly underpainted areas. Comment?

I like to work on toned (transparent primed) linen canvas. My general method is to do a fairly careful proportioned drawing in black with some white that is gestural in the way rapid figure studies are done. My drawing is done with charcoal, compressed charcoal, and white conte or oil stick. I seal the drawing in with alkyd medium, sometimes smearing the underdrawing and other times simply sealing by using an atomizer (the latter approach is less than a year old at this date). When the nude drawing is dry, I delineate with broadly and loosely painted lights and darks. I glaze for broad areas of color. When that is dry I alternate details in opaque light colors and transparent glazes of darker colors. The final steps are generally glazing broad areas of shadow, translucent lights for atmospheric perspective and at the very end small details of opaque color to sharpen the experience. Relatively little is painted wet on wet.

Perspective/depth is important. Compositions go from immediate foreground (flowers) to far distance. Skies are crucial. BIGNESS is implied. Any comment?

I try to have the foreground detail what you can see at your feet leading into the vast space, like you could walk into the scene. Immersion is a central theme.

How does your experience as a virtual reality programmer fit into all of this? It seems an unlikely mix.

Immersion is the key. I think that my image making task is to try to convey what it is like to be there, wherever there might be. Sometimes it is inside my neurotic 21st century skull and sometimes it is the amazing wilderness of Alaska.

Anything you’d like to add?

As long as I can put one foot in front of the other, paint with any degree of success, and see at all, I commit to persisting in this task.

The work of Fairbanks artist Bill Brody was featured in a solo exhibition at the Alaska State Museum from February 5 to March 27, 2010.

The above interview with Brody, via e-mail with former museum curator Ken DeRoux, was conducted April 4, 2010.