Journal of Creative Arts & Minds - Vol. 8, Fall 2023

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JCAM – Fall 2023 – Vol. 8

Fall 2023 – Vol. 8 An Original Publication of Jumbo Arts International Onancock, Virginia, USA

Jumbo Arts International 2023

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Journal of Creative Arts & Minds Published by

Margie Labadie, President John Antoine Labadie, Editor & Graphic Designer Larry Arnold, Board Member

Electronic Links https://www.facebook.com/JournalofCreativeArtsandMinds http://www.jumboartsinternational.org

Editorial – John Antoine Labadie & Margie Labadie Design – The JCAM Team of Jumbo Arts International

The Journal of Creative Arts and Minds is a publication of Jumbo Arts International. This electronic publication is free. The views and opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of the publisher.

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Hello and welcome to the Renaissance edition of our international arts journal. Our first since the Spring of 2021.

We put our publication on hiatus more than two years ago due to complications brought about by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. That was such a difficult time. So much about our lives had to be postponed, stopped, or just quit altogether. And, as we can all recall, creative activities of many kinds were not immune to that circumstance.

In fact, when we regretfully halted the publication of the JCAM in the summer of 2021 we already had a number of accepted submissions for our projected Fall edition of the journal. To make a long story short, everyone was contacted and assured that, at some point down the road we would again publish. When contacted in the summer of 2023 several artists agreed to update to update their submissions. These articles, along with a number of new submitssions, are what make up this new edition.

As with all but two “Special All-Student” editions, our Fall 2023 artists come from a number of countries: India, Holland, Bangladesh, India, China, and the USA. These international creatives produce their work in a variety of ways: Painting, mixed media, textiles, digital photography, and graphic design. And, as you might imagine, their creative approaches, styles, and subject matter vary widely.

Much has changed in our lives since 2021 too: Retirement from university teaching, a major move to another part of the USA, the launching of a new physical studio, and the ongoing renovation of our new home on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.

We’ve also made some changes in the format and organization of the JCAM. Much of that is subtle and everything has been accomplished to make your experience with our publication smooth and efficient. We hope you enjoy reading about the artists whose stories and works we bring to you in our Fall 2023 publication.

John Antoine Labadie

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John Antoine Labadie Soild Geometry Series: Untitled #210 2022

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Carole Böggemann Peirson I was born in the Netherlands (Holland) and moved to the United States in 2000. Being from Europe and moving to another continent gives you a different perspective on your life and culture and in my case specifically on art.

I was raised with an appreciation for art and would visit many museums with my parents and through school programs, but becoming a professional artist was a completely different ballgame.

When my parents asked me what I wanted to do after high school, I asked them: “What can I do with drawing?”. We came to the mutual agreement that graphic design would be the way to go forward. I was happy I could express myself creatively (despite the commercial application) and my parents were a bit “reassured” I would likely be able to provide for myself.

After graphic design school, I was able to enroll in another college and study Marketing & Communication and during this time I had the opportunity to come over to the States and work at a local newspaper as an intern for half a year. During this time, I met my now-husband and after graduating I moved to the United States permanently in 2000.

In Holland, I had bought some oil paints to play with previously and now, on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, I found a fabulous new teacher. Adamo, an older gentleman who lived nearby taught me the traditional and classic oil painting techniques (i.e. glazing on a monochromatic underpainting) and he also showed me how to become a “visual storyteller”. My paintings at that time were representational and almost considered photo realism.

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After his death in 2008, I found new teachers who painted “en plein air” and these contemporaries of mine showed me a completely different approach. In the beginning I felt like a fish out of water but slowly I fell in love with this quick way of working to capture the changing light and atmosphere on location. I started seeing the world with a fresh set of eyes and became much more aware of the subtleties of nature, the weather, and the effects of light on objects.

The challenge was to capture the beauty of the moment and touch the heart of the viewer in a nostalgic way. Over the next 10 years, I tried to perfect my impressionistic landscapes technically both on location as well as in the studio and slowly started taking a lot more artistic license. It was less about the actual scene and became much more about the feeling of a certain moment in time. I became a bit frustrated by my perceived limitations of the brush as a tool.

After a few life-changing events in 2019-2020 (that affected me medically, financially, and emotionally) I overcame my fear of change and decided it was time for a pretty radical one when I traded my brush for rollers and a scraper. I wanted to learn to work with oils and Cold Wax Medium and joined the Cold Wax Academy online. Working with oils and CWM presented me with a whole new set of challenges, but after a steep learning curve it allowed me to express myself in even more interesting ways because of the versatility of the medium.

My work in oils became completely abstract and I immersed myself in the many different aspects of creating abstract works that evoke a certain feeling, solely using color, shape, line and texture. The technique lends itself to layering many, many layers on top of one another and sometimes you must cover up gorgeous areas to achieve even more interesting layers. This “history” of layers creates a piece that is super “rich” in textures, and it keeps your mind engaged when looking at the work and makes you want to explore it again and again.

This technique also confronted me with fundamental questions like, “Is it done?”, “Is it beautiful?”, “Does it have to be beautiful?”, “Is it interesting and does it engage the viewer?”, “Am I willing to lose this result in my quest for an even better end result?” and the most important question: “What do I want to achieve with this piece or is it just an exercise of being completely present in the moment and expressing myself spontaneously?”.

These were questions I had never really explored before, and they kept my mind actively engaged throughout the creation process. Recently I realized I don’t have to choose between being a landscape painter OR an abstract artist when I enjoy doing BOTH! Therefore, my latest pieces are a combination of the techniques with Cold Wax Medium and inspired by my love for nature and these abstracted landscapes feel truer to me.

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Over the years, I have had many role models who have inspired my works…from my early teachers (Adamo, Roger Dale Brown, Tracey Frugoli, Scott Talman Powers, John Brandon Sills and many more) to some of the big masters such as George Inness, Anton Mauve, William Turner, John Singer Sargent and Rembrandt. I did not necessarily want to paint like them, but I wanted to learn the “tools of the trade” so I could express myself properly, even though I did not know yet exactly what I wanted to “tell the world”. I needed to learn the vocabulary first and felt that the message would show itself over time.

My inspiration has evolved as well and continues to evolve, from the beautiful scenery of the Eastern Shore of Virginia peninsula to less tangible things like universal emotions and spiritual experiences.

There are contemporary artists who tug at my heartstrings like no other, such as Rebecca Crowell, Fred Cuming, Christian Hetzel, Sam Lock and Sophie Cape, but over the last few years I realized that in order to create truly authentic work and express myself in a satisfying way I have to go deep within. My daily meditation practice helps a lot and I find that it quiets the voices of doubt in my head. I still get thoughts about the imposter syndrome, but I become aware of them more quickly and can change them to more positive and productive thoughts.

A famous Dutch artist, Henk Helmantel, told me years ago to “Dare to make mistakes”.

An artist is not someone who only aspires to create while paralyzed by fear of failure. An artist just puts one foot in front of the other, draws one line after the other and creates one piece after the other…because we cannot NOT create! Perhaps that is the biggest lesson I have learned over the last few years as a professional artist, that one can choose what to focus on and that we are our own worst enemies if we continue to think thoughts that are not helpful along the way.

And we need to learn to celebrate our mistakes because we learn a hell of a lot more from them than from our successes. I am slowly starting to realize it is all about enjoying the artistic journey and that is not a straight line between the occasional successful pieces or shows. I hope this exciting journey I am on never ends!

Contact information: Carole Böggemann Peirson P.O. Box 1, Townsend, VA 23443 (757) 678-3340 (cell) E-mail: cpeirson@earthlink.net Web: https://www.artworkbycarole.com/

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As far as I can see it, oil & CWM (Cold Wax Medium) on cradled board, 2023, 18”x18”

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Awareness, oil & CWM on cradled board, 2021, 18”x18”

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Moved, oil & CWM on cradled board, 2022, 18”x18”

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The Space Between, oil & CWM on cradled board, 2022, 18”x18”

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Moonlight Sonata, oil & CWM on cradled board, 2023, 36”x36”

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Two of a Kind (diptych), oil & CWM on cradled board, 2022, 18”x36”

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Mahjabin Imam Majumdar JCAM: Where were you born and does that place still influence you?

MIM: I was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Although I am living and practicing my art in India for a long time now, my early life was spent in Bangladesh. The desire to create an alternative space where one can belong, can rest, is perhaps born out of my memories and associations with the two places at the same time, the co-existence of my immediate surroundings, what I see, feel, the everyday with the memory and the bitter-sweet sense of loss and dilemma of homeland are caught between the overlapped spaces of estrangement and togetherness, I continue to straddle the two worlds. I want my work to live in such a twilight zone of sensibility.

JCAM: Where do you live now and how does that place influence you?

MIM: I came to India to study art at Visva Bharati University in Santiniketan, which is founded by the Indian poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore. My Idea and perception of creativity has been greatly enriched by the idea and spirits of Tagore. As an educationist he emphasized that the illusion of geographical barriers should disappear from creative ideas to bring diversity in one’s respective creative field. Since Santiniketan (the university campus) is nestled within natural surroundings, it helped me to grow as an individual in the vastness and beauty of nature. Santiniketan has one of the oldest and the most important art institutions in India which is known as “Kala Bhavana”. As a student of art, I had the opportunity to see the magnificent art works done by its masters. As David Hockney said, ‘’Teaching people to draw is teaching people to look and then see, an extremely useful education as it develops the pleasure of looking, and then one notices how beautiful the world is.” I believe Santiniketan and Kala Bhavana has taught me a lot on being able to do this.

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JCAM: Do you have family, friends, or fellow artists who support you in your work, life and art making?

MIM: Yes, my family supports me in my work. My husband is also a visual artist and teaching art at the University, so we support and understand each other in our work, life and art making. I consider the support and often critical assessment by my family, friends and fellow artists, extremely valuable for my creativity and art making.

JCAM: When and how did you start making art?

MIM: I was inclined to make art from a very young age. Like any other child I had a private universe of my own, which was full of imagination. I did not like school much. I think the primary reason behind it was mathematics. I was absolutely petrified of maths and numbers and I found school as a very regimented and gloomy kind of place. So I used to concentrate mostly on the subjects like art, literature and history. My parents loved and appreciated art. I often used to observe my mother when she would draw or paint. Although she was not a trained artist she had a knack and interest in art. The thick consistency of paint and the strong smell appealed to me immensely.

JCAM: Why do you make art now?

MIM: Why do I make art? Well I think that is what I can do better compared to most of the other things in life. Art helps me find balance as a human being, and with time I have realized that making art is something I truly want to do. The process of making art is not just a manifestation, but a revelation of the workings of the mind; therefor I find it absolutely meditative, my practice is my time to stay calm and connected.

JCAM: What are you trying to communicate with your art?

MIM: To me art is not just about representing the physical entity of an abstract concept.

It is a space where you question, speculate and entice dialogue by using a language of narrative investigation which is not essentially naturalistic in their representation. With my art I try to contest and renegotiate boundaries found in social and political spheres where the underlying thread is an attempt to decipher binary concepts of space. I am essentially a figurative painter; the body as both object and subject has a central place in my work. The organic growth of form, the innermost secrets of their body, be it a human or a bird or an anthropomorphic creature, they all deal with the duality of life and death, conformity and contradiction. Obscurity and identity overlap each other within my work space.

JCAM: Do you have any creative patterns, routines or rituals associated with your art making?

MIM: I start my day quite early in the morning so that I can go to my studio, as I prefer working in day light. Although I doodle and draw images and make rough sketches before starting a new work, I keep changing them often while in the process, until it makes me happy. Before starting a new work I prefer to look at the blank surface, either paper or canvas, for a period of time which varies between a few days to a few minutes.

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JCAM: What is your most important artist tool(s) and why?

MIM: Mind, eyes and hands are the most important tools for me, because without their help I am unable to make all those marks on the surface to create visual language. After that come paint, brush, pencil etc.

JCAM: How do you know when a work is finished?

MIM: It is not possible to define a moment when you can say that the work is finished, because it happens quite often that you feel happy and satisfied with whatever you have done so far and you leave the work alone and then you comeback, and find it unfinished. I believe for an artist creative satisfaction is the most illusive thing, and this feeling of dissatisfaction keeps you alive and motivates you to move on to your next work.

JCAM: What new creative medium would you love to pursue?

MIM: I would love to work with video, installation and soft sculpture made with fabric and fiber.

JCAM: What strategies could you share with other artists on how to become successful professionally?

MIM: I do not like to see life in terms of success or failure; to me life is a very interesting journey full of surprises. We should enjoy this journey of constant search and discovery and continue doing meaningful work.

JCAM: What interesting projects are you working on at the moment?

MIM: I am working on upcoming exhibitions at this moment, also preparing for India Art Fair 2024.

JCAM: What are your artistic goals for the future?

MIM: I am not essentially the kind of person who plans for the future a lot. I believe one should focus on the creative process and keep working sincerely, and everything will eventually fall into place.

JCAM: What or who inspires you?

MIM: Apart from visual art; poetry, literature and films inspire me a lot. Films by Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, and Sergei Parajanov are some of the most favorites from a long list. There are so many diverse examples of creative expressions all around the world; it is quite natural for a creative person to become inspired by them.

JCAM: Do you have a favorite – or influential – living artist?

MIM: I think it is impossible to mention any single artist as inspiration, art has a very long history. From pre-historic cave paintings to Greco-Roman art, Egyptian art, or miniature paintings, they all inspire me and amaze me as much as the Renaissance

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Book of Allusion-3 Medium: Digital Print, Water Color, Dry Pastel on Acid free paper Creation date: 2017 Physical size: 18’'x12''

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Book of Allusion-4 Medium: Digital Print, Water Color, Dry Pastel on Acid free paper Creation date: 2017 Physical size: 18’’ x 12''

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Adorned with Words 1 Acrylic on Canvas 2017-18 60” X 36”

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The Night Journey 2 Acrylic on Canvas 2022 60” X 48”

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Lost Tooth Acrylic on Canvas 2014 24” X 20”

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Bestiary 2 Watercolor on acid-free paper 2022 30’’ x 22''

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Cloudland 1 Watercolor on acid-free paper 2022 30’’x 22''

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Cloudland 2 Watercolor on acid-free paper 2022 30’’ x 22''

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Recounter of maladies Watercolor on acid-free paper 2022 30’’x 22''

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Masood Hussain JCAM: Where were you born and does that place still influence you?

MH: I was born in the Valley of Kashmir, in India - a place that has, for recorded history, been celebrated for its raw natural beauty, mild climate, a slow pace of life and a tranquil environment.

For centuries, it was not only kings and emperors, but poets, scholars, intellectuals and artists alike, that travelled to this valley to seek a respite from the burdens of court life, to foster intellectual dialogue and to allow their creativity to thrive. It is not surprising that this small valley produced some of the finest arts and crafts and that those were the primary means of livelihood for its population.

My childhood was spent in a home built by my ancestors in the 1880s, who, like other Sufis, scholars, before them, had migrated to Kashmir from Central Asia. The neighborhood in which I grew up was a well-known and bustling part of Srinagar, the capital city of Kashmir. Our neighborhood was what we would now consider very crowded, with narrow lanes that are ill-suited to the overwhelming number of vehicles that clog the streets of Kashmir. But, those narrow lanes served as the vital channels that fostered an intense closeness between the friends, relatives and neighbors whose homes bordered and surrounded those lanes.

As a child with an artistic bent of mind, the natural beauty of my home and the many arts and crafts that surrounded me was a key influence in my artistic growth. But, more than that, it was the peace, harmony and love that existed among my community that had a more profound influence on me. And yes, despite the changes and the loss, it continues to influence me today.

JCAM: Where do you live now and how does that place influence you?

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MH: I still live in the same town that I grew up in but now I live in, what we now consider a desirable neighborhood where the houses are not as close to each other and where the lanes and streets are wide enough to allow a steady stream of vehicles, blaring their horns, in all hours of the day and night. It was a newly developed neighborhood where my father moved his family after our ancestral house was sold. Unfortunately, that house was completely destroyed by the devastating floods of 2014 and we had to rebuild the home that I now live in.

The state of my current neighborhood, the changes in the social fabric in Kashmir and the decades of political and social turmoil, have failed to overcome the beautiful and profound influences of my childhood on my art. However, the continued onslaught of commercialization in my new home has influenced me with a deeper appreciation for the simplicity of the world that was my childhood. While I mourn the loss of that world, the struggles of the world I live in today influence me to strive even harder, through my work as an artist, to express the beauty of what was lost and to offer a hope for a better future.

JCAM: Do you have family, friends, or fellow artists who support you in your work, life and art making?

MH: My father, who was a very well-known physician and radiologist, was part of a generation that expected their children to take up professions that would guarantee a lucrative employment. So, when I expressed my desire to study art, his first reaction was less than supportive. But in time, he grew to appreciate my skill. Unfortunately, he passed away before he could see me grow in my profession.

But I was very fortunate in being married to my wife who has always allowed me the time and opportunity that my profession demands and supported the quirkiness and unique work style of an artist. My children have been equally supportive and have never demanded anything that, as a father, would comprise my dedication to my craft. I am also fortunate that I have a very loving and supportive family as well as relatives and friends who appreciate the work I do. The artist community in Kashmir, in other parts of India, as well as writers and artists from other countries, have been very generous with their support as well.

With that said, it is neither feasible nor possible for any of the members of my family or friends to actively help with the creation of my art. It is a process that I have to undertake on my own.

JCAM: When and how did you start making art?

MH: As a child I used to flip the pages of journals admiring the illustrations in them.

When I was nearly six or seven years old I started drawing the illustrations that I liked.

I remember the first painting that I made on canvas, was the portrait of a man with a bandaged head. The bandage was slightly stained with blood near the temples. It was inspired by a violent political protest that I witnessed as a child.

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JCAM: Why do you make art now?

MH: You might as well ask me, “Why do I breathe, now?”. I create because it is the only way I know how to express my feelings towards the world I live in and to give a form to the experiences I have had in life.

The art that I create now is an expression of my intense and lifelong desire to offer hope and to bridge the gaps that have been created between people by decades of political strife. Through the artworks that I create now, I hope to remind people of the peace and harmony of my childhood, where Hindus and Muslims lived like brothers and shared every joyous occasion as well as moments of sorrow or loss. I see my effort as a flickering light of hope and prospects for a better future.

JCAM: What are you trying to communicate with your art?

MH: If I were to identify a common theme in my art, it would be Kashmir, my home.

Whatever I try to communicate through my art has its foundation in Kashmir.

Part of my art simply reflects how I see the beauty of Kashmir, its people, its environment, the changing seasons, the everyday life of the Kashmiri. These are mostly watercolors and oil paintings that depict what might be considered mundane but they showcase, in a raw, unglorified format, what gives Kashmir its very unique identity.

With a more somber expression, some of my artworks, particularly mixed-media reliefs, communicate my view of the impact of the political turmoil on the Kashmir of my childhood and on the people who are caught in its crossfire. At the time I created these reliefs, I was reflecting on the inescapable reality of the world I saw around myself. It was neither a complaint, nor a protest – it was simply a universal truth of the impact of violence on an otherwise peaceful society existing in nature.

One of the ways I found an escape from the claustrophobic environment of Kashmir’s darkest days was in the words of Sufi writings. This was an apt remedy, considering Kashmir’s long association with Sufis. Partnering with like-minded writers, my art communicated the beauty and hope embedded in the words of the Sufis, both past and present.

As the daily violence has abated and glimmers of hope have started to shine, I am seeing the beginning of an expression of a more hopeful future, in the art I am creating now. I hope to communicate, to the younger generation, that despite the suffering of the past, there is hope for a better tomorrow.

JCAM: Do you have any creative patterns, routines or rituals associated with your art making?

MH: When an idea or an inspiration hits me and I feel ready to execute it, I grab my sketchbook and head out to one of the many Sufi shrines in my city or in the countryside. I try to get there early in the morning and sit in one of the latticed window boxes that are a architectural element of Sufi shrines in Kashmir. The sense of peace

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and tranquility that permeates these shrines, seems to cleanse me of everything except my creative thoughts and I begin to sketch the idea.

JCAM: What is your most important artist tool(s) and why?

MH: I feel that the most important tool that I possess and use, as an artist, is my sketchbook. It seems to be a tool that is universal among my fellow artist, be they painters, sculptors or graphic designers.

JCAM: How do you know when a work is finished?

MH: After I feel that I am done with a piece, I purposefully cover the piece, close the door of my studio and do not return to it for a few days. I then go back, open the piece up and if I feel that there is something in the composition or color or structure that does not quite feel complete, I continue working on it and repeat the same pattern, until I am satisfied that I cannot add or change anything.

JCAM: What new creative medium would you love to pursue?

MH: As shared in my answers above, my art reflects and communicates what I experience and feel at a particular point in time. I also like to stay current with new and innovative media in the world of art. With that in mind, I would like to start creating in audio visual technologies that are currently available.

JCAM: What strategies could you share with other artists on how to become successful professionally?

MH: For any art form to thrive, it is important that the artist is able to find an audience, and hopefully in their own lifetime. But that does not imply that an artists should create simply to cater to an audience. Doing so, might have a short-term advantage, especially in our current world of instant social media success, but it fails to create a lasting legacy.

My advice for other artists would be to first be true to their art – create and reflect what impacts you. Let your art tell a story and let that be the story that reflects your unique perspective. That is critical. Once you do that, I would recommend that you create a presence on social media or in other such forums and in doing so, not simply list your paintings for sale but actually speak to the paintings, articulate what it conveys, encourage a debate on your perspective. That will give life to your painting and if you have the skill, are sincere with your art, and can convey its essence, you will find professional success.

JCAM: What interesting projects are you working on at the moment?

MH: I am in the process of creating a series of paintings on the writings of one of foremost Sufi saints of India called Kabir. It is in partnership with the Irish poet, Gabriel Rosenstock, who has compiled a Gaelic translation of some of Kabir’s poems in the book,“Songs of Kabir”. The book was written by Rabindra Nath Tagore, the Nobel prize

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winning, poet, writer and artist of India. I am also working on a series of reliefs based on the cultural heritage and history of Kashmir.

JCAM: What are your artistic goals for the future?

MH: My near-term goal is to establish an artist residency in Kashmir, where artists from around India and the world, can find a place to interact, debate, discuss and create in a calm and peaceful environment, in the shadow of the Himalayan mountains and overlooking the beautiful Dal Lake of Kashmir. I have decided to title the residency as “Samanbal” – the Kashmiri word for a ‘place to gather’. The building, that I designed and that I actively participate in building, is nearly complete. I hope to have the program up and running with the first group of artists in residence by no later than Spring of 2024.

JCAM: What or who inspires you?

MH: What inspires me is my home, Kashmir. I am fortunate that I live in a place where a simple walk by the river’s edge, a few yards from my home, can inspire me enough to begin to create. My inspiration has continued to be fed as Kashmir has gone through significant changes from one decade to the next. The events and situations that have occurred are enough to inspire the least artistic among the people — not to speak of myself as someone who sees inspiration in everything that touches me.

JCAM: Do you have a favorite – or influential – living artist?

MH: My favorite living artist is a fellow Kashmiri artist, Raqib Shaw. Shaw's paintings suggest a fantastical world full of intricate detail, rich color and jewel-like surfaces.

JCAM: What work of art do you wish you owned and why?

MH: The painting that I admire most is Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica.” Not surprisingly, it speaks to me with the same message that I want to convey through my art – the horror of political violence and a yearning for peace.

However, I do not have a desire to own it. I do not believe in owning art. I believe ownership of art, especially a work like Guernica, implies a sense of materialism and ego. It is as if you are trying to own the creativity of someone else only because you can afford to. For me, I am perfectly happy in knowing that it is preserved, and I can look at it and continue to be inspired, whenever I want or need to.

JCAM: Where do you find ideas for your creative work?

MH: A lot of my creative ideas have come from my observations and experiences in my native land. Because Kashmir has experienced an unprecedented degree of change within my lifetime, it has continued to fuel my imagination and it continues to inspire me.

JCAM: What does being creative mean to you?

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MH: Although creativity, in its essence, has a universal definition, historically, for the Kashmiri artist, creativity has been more than the act of creation. It has included the ability to create without expectation of a just reward or any recognition for their creativity. The shawl weavers of Kashmir, whose creations adorned princes and queens across the world, were never able to put so much as their initials on their creations. Not to mention, the exploitation they endured, ironically, for their very creativity. Following in their footsteps, as a fellow artist, for me creativity means the ability to rise over tremendous odds and break barriers, challenge the status quo, raise questions, initiate debate and show courage in one’s convictions. It also means to create not simply for the purpose of creation, but to convey a message, a concept and a thought.

JCAM: What is the best advice you ever had about how to be more creative?

MH: The best advice that I received from one of the teachers in my college was to deliberately challenge the norm and look at every experience and observation from your own, unique perspective.

JCAM: What Is Creativity?

MH: For me, the definition of creativity is both universal and relative. My understanding of creativity is two-layered. One is the ability to think beyond the obvious, experiment and deliver a physical product or an idea that either solves a problem or has aesthetic and intellectual value. The other is the ability to use non-conventional, unexplored and innovative ways to overcome the challenges of expressing one’s creativity and sharing the message it carries, with the world.

JCAM: When Does Creativity Happen?

MH: In my opinion, there is no single or universal answer to this question. If I were to attempt an answer I would say that sometimes creativity occurs when one is faced with a challenge that does not have an obvious response. This is when the creative among the people rise above the crowd to show courage and try novel ideas, regardless of whether they fail or succeed. In other times, creativity can occur when a creative person experiences or observes something that they can no longer contain within themselves.

Creative pours forth in what we call art. In my own case, not every observation or experience results in a creative expression. But without reason or explanation, sometimes there is something that does and I cannot contain it within myself. I have to express it in one medium or another.

JCAM: How was your art practice affected and/or changed by the COVID pandemic?

MH: The pandemic has changed my approach in a number of ways, When the city locked down, my studio shrunk from a large, shared space to a desk in my home.

Unable to lock-down my creativity, I began a series of paintings titled “A prayer and a love poem for our stricken world”. It was, again, the outlet that let me speak to those that I could not see or meet.

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If there was a silver lining in that cloud of COVID, it was that it gave me time to experiment with my interest in modern audio-visual media and I worked on several digital images that became my entry into the world of social media.

Contact information: Email - hussainmasood.h@gmail.com Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/masood121 Instagram - https://tinyurl.com/33wu5tzu

History Distorted Mixed Media 2008 24” x 48”

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Trance Relief in Mixed Media 2008 30” x 36”

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Blossom Mixed Media 2011 30” x 36”

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The Journey of Mankind Mixed Media 2013 18” x 24”

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Transcendental Meditation Mixed Media 2014 30” x 36”

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Right to Dissent Mixed Media 2020 36” x 48” X 5”

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Missing Fragments Mixed Media 2023 48” x 48”

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The Hunt Mixed Media 2018 36” x 48”

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JCAM: Where were you born and does that place still influence you?

Where do you live now and how does that place influence you? Do you have family, friends, or fellow artists who support you in your work, life and art making?

PB: I was born at Jorhat, an important town of Assam, the easternmost state of India. Since I was born and brought up in Jorhat and am still continuing my life here it is obvious that the place has an impact on me.

The pace of life in a town is not quite as fast as in a city and as such my approach to life too is easy. Now of course times have changed and the neighborhood is no longer the same; the sprawling premises giving way to high rise commercial and dwelling complexes. Interaction among the neighbors has become reduced over the years.

My parents who have been long dead encouraged me in my interest in drawing and painting but not to the point of taking up art as a career. I can't blame them for in their times people down here could hardly imagine that art could be a source of livelihood. So I drew and painted in my spare time and a few of us artist friends even formed a society in 1976. Our persistent efforts to make the society a viable unit paid off and now we have a building which houses an art gallery too.

JCAM: When and how did you start making art? Why do you make art now? What are you trying to communicate with your art? How has your work changed or developed over time?

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PB: I started drawing very young; in fact before I could read or write. In our childhood, we had to write on slate boards framed in wood. Once you drew or wrote something you had to wipe it off to be able to draw or write again. I was four or five when I started out thus. I make art now first to please myself. It is a medium of expression for me.

I try to respond to things, situations, nature that stirs my emotions most through my art.

It is difficult to say how my work has changed or developed over time. But people who have been seeing my work since my younger days say my work has developed, probably subject matter-wise and technique-wise.

JCAM: Do you have any creative patterns, routines or rituals associated with your art making? What is your most important artist tool(s) and why? How do you know when a work is finished? What new creative medium would you love to pursue?

PB: Well in my case, it is kind of meditative. Sometimes an image will disturb my vision for sometime and I feel at ease when I can deliver it on paper or canvas. For example a particular tree had always attracted me. The tree, a big banyan, is still there spreading its many branches to form a canopy and on the side of the highway amid tea bushes. I had been wanting to paint it for long until one afternoon on a holiday I grabbed a board, paper, watercolors and brushes and boarded a bus to my destination. Within an hour I did a watercolor to my satisfaction; I saw my vision transported to the paper. There was another such instance. So it is an impulsive act on a long thought out subject!

For an artist, all his tools of the trade are important, depending on what and where he wants to paint or draw. Still I carry a sketch book while traveling for I might like to draw something that catches my fancy.

I know a work is finished when I am happy with the outcome.

So many new media to express yourself have come up in the art scene that until you have a good grasp over the techniques to apply them it is pointless to try and use them.

Besides where we live you do not have access to these new media. Still I would love to have a go at digital and printmaking.

JCAM: What strategies could you share with other artists on how to become successful professionally? What interesting projects are you working on at the moment? What are your artistic goals for the future?

PB: As for sharing strategies with my fellow artists to make us successful, well I am afraid, I have none to offer. Like it or not one's success as an artist is measured by how much one is worth; I mean if one's work is sellable or not.

Here in the North East of India we don't have a buyer's base. We have two or three private art galleries in the whole region. Usually corporate houses are the ones who

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patronize art and we don't have such corporate houses here. Strategies to lure them to the region may be worked out so that they may invest in art. The North East is an economically backward region and as such there are no funds for art.

A Baroda based gallery, in a bid to give exposure to work of practicing artists of Assam, has organized an exhibition in October. They have selected my work too and I am sending two of my recent paintings: Cosmic Quilt and Solar Blanket. I am seventy and I have a few works disturbing my vision at the moment. I am hopeful of executing them in as near future as possible.

JCAM: What or who inspires you? Do you have a favorite – or influential – living artist?

What work of art do you wish you owned and why?

PB: Nature has always been inspiring me. Nature has never ceased to excite me. I have many favorite artists — both international and Indian. But none of them has been an influence on me. I paint my inner visions out. It is like exorcising the idea out and I find the form in the process that best expresses it.

I would not mind owning one or two of Matisse's work. Henri Matisse is my most favorite followed by Howard Hodgkin, Paul Klee and Mark Rothko.

If given a chance, I would love to own late Indian artist Ganesh Pyne's Harbour, the print of which I saw many years ago in a magazine. In this work, the artist who mostly painted in tempera created a dreamlike atmosphere with anchored ships in a quiet harbor whose stillness is almost palpable.

JCAM: What does being creative mean to you? What is the best advice you ever had about how to be more creative?

PB: Being creative means being able to teach people how to look at everyday things differently.

People would be more creative if they try to be not in the rat race and try ways to be one with nature and thus find peace of mind. This definitely will transport them to newer realms where they can possibly have subjects of their interest.

JCAM: Has the COVID pandemic changed the way you make your art?

PB: The pandemic definitely has impacted people's lives in more ways than one.

Although life came to a standstill during the pandemic, strangely enough artistic practices flourished as did appreciation for the visual arts. Confinement gave a newer meaning to art. Looking back I find that the work I did during the period tended to become more poetic.

The pandemic definitely impacted the way I looked at my surroundings. I found myself more and more attracted to nature and some of the nature related ideas I had planned I

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would paint someday appeared on my canvas. I think it is a positive change in my art practice.

Even so, for me my art has been like a quiet river flowing in the same direction. There has been no other such event in my life that affected the way I create my art.

Contact Information: Social media - https://www.facebook.com/pronab.baruah.90 email - pronabkumarbaruah@ymail.com

Clouds II Watercolor on Paper 2000 20” X 15”

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Nahor Oil on Canvas 2004 23” X 19”

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Dialogue Watercolor on Paper 2004 20” X 15”

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Flowers in a Vase Watercolor on Paper 2006 30” X 23”

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Flute Player Watercolor on Paper 2006 30” X 20”

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Lilies Oil on Canvas 2004 23” X 19”

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Peacebird II Oil on Canvas 2004 23” X 19”

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Shelly Jyoti JCAM: Where were you born and does that place still influence you?

Where do you live now and how does that place influence you? Do you have family, friends, or fellow artists who support you in your work, life and art making?

SJ: I was born in a small town in Haryana called Rohtak, and my father was one of the chief technocrats working with the government at the time. We soon moved to Delhi and then Chandigarh, and although I haven’t visited very often, Haryana is where my family roots lie.

Most of my schooling was in Delhi, which, you know, is one of the main centers of culture in India, as well as the seat of national politics. I now live in Gurgaon, and being this centrally located in the Indian artistic and cultural spheres has made many opportunities and collaborations possible. I am fortunate to have received support from the Indira Gandhi National Centre the Arts (IGNCA) and the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA).

I have also had the chance to collaborate with and be commissioned by some of India's best-known design houses, like Good Earth. In terms of individual artistic collaborators, I have worked closely with Professor Laura Kina at DePaul University. She is a Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist and academic, and our interests and "projects" (to borrow from de Beauvoir) often align.

I have also been blessed with an incredibly supportive family - parents, husband and children - who see the value of my work.

JCAM: When and how did you start making art? Why do you make art now? What are you trying to communicate with your art? How has your work changed or developed over time?

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SJ: I started making art at a very young age, five to be exact, although I did not recognize it as art then — art being such a loaded, context-heavy term. The walls in my childhood room, my home and my school notebooks were always replete with various sketches of eyes — some quick and cursory, others well-detailed. I did not understand the significance of eyes as a motif at that age, but in retrospect, I do wonder if it created a degree of watching, observing and reflexive within me. Without any theoretical underpinnings, my study of eyes was my way of understanding and being in my world.

Of course, now that I am older, I have a better sense of the world — spatially and temporally, and how it works. I am more aware of the relational experiences of people, of the experiences of others and my own over time. I have come to learn and assemble cultural and artistic theories that ground my work, and have continued to learn the multiple dimensions of these.

I maintain that M. K. Gandhi's theories relating to community and nationhood have a massive influence on my artistic practice. In his time, these were radical theories for communal organization and resistance, and I attempt to maintain their contemporaneity in a different era now, since I believe that they contain eternal and immense potential.

In this growing understanding of the world and my place in it as an artist, my artistic tools and techniques have definitely changed. I was always a multimedia artist, and started out with acrylic on canvas, dry pastels and pens. I was never really afraid of an assortment of art media. However, my work really settled and gained focus once I began to work through Gandhian theory, through Khadi and Ajrakh. Since then, I have explored the materiality of textiles and the Ajrakh craft. I think textile crafts call to me since they have always been used communally to narrate culturally and historically significant stories. They mediate, and perpetuate these narratives.

JCAM: Do you have any creative patterns, routines or rituals associated with your art making? What is your most important artist tool(s) and why? How do you know when a work is finished? What new creative medium would you love to pursue?

SJ: Since I have explored my craft for more than a decade now, I have identified certain creative patterns. It takes me about two years to create a body of work. This begins with identifying the inspiration that will inform the techniques and details of this collection, ruminating on and clarifying what I wish to express with a new body of work and creating mock-up designs on paper. I then fly to Bhuj, where my Ajrakh artisans live and work. I communicate my concept to them, following which my printing and dyeing process starts.

Ajrakh is a 4,500 year old textile craft that uses resist printing techniques and natural dyes to create intricate, wrought canvases, filled with blues, maroons, blacks and whites in culturally significant motifs and arrangements. The nature of the craft is such that, while I can be reasonably assured of the end-result, I can never be too sure if my experiments with textile and the alchemy of natural dyeing will turn out exactly as I envisioned.

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As such, this process is never finished for me as an artist. I do have to draw the bottomline though when I begin structuring the artwork, that is, to finish its raw edges, and provide some supportive linings. In effect, it is equal to crossing my t's and dotting my i's on the project.

I am able to maintain openness regarding my media and final forms of presentation. I have already used multimedia forms to create my work, diptychs and triptychs to structure them, and various forms of installations — some interactive — to present them. With each project, I am unafraid to explore media, regardless of their constraints, which I only see as opportunities for newness.

JCAM: What strategies could you share with other artists on how to become successful professionally? What interesting projects are you working on at the moment? What are your artistic goals for the future?

SJ: I think all artists should be passionate and driven about what they are doing — their convictions should move them and flow through their bodies of work. I am inspired by building moral and peaceful societies and am extremely observant of the participation of the self in a collective consciousness. Although the principle being one for many and many for one is cross cultural, they were first executed towards action in Gandhian philosophy, mobilized for the freedom of a nation. It is these philosophies which I attempt to contemporarize in my work.

My work, themed around swavlambhan, or self-dependence was recently installed in the New Parliament House in New Delhi. This body of work features Ajrakh print on hand-loomed, handwoven Khadi fabric, gilded with golden Zardosi embroidery.

I want to continue within this line of inquiry and practice, telling stories of India and its people through the textile traditions of Ajrakh and indigo printing. With one installation in the Parliament house, which I believe was an empowering feat for the artisans I work with, I want to continue to bring craftspeople and craft narratives into more institutional settings.

JCAM: What or who inspires you? Do you have a favorite – or influential – living artist?

What work of art do you wish you owned and why?

SJ: When I was a student of literature, William Blake was a poet who first inspired me.

Studying his work led me to the artistic dimensions of his work and offered an introduction from the literary arts to visual arts. As I mentioned, folding in a larger sense of the world as I moved along in my life, I found Blake to be a genius of his time and form — in the way works were grounded in his particular philosophy and his human response to living in his time.

I also began reading about Gandhi decades ago, and in a similar tune, found him to be a living artist as well — a revolutionarily successful one at that. His philosophies,

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suffused in every way of life, including the Arts, influenced an entire generation of people to take charge of their societies and administrations, which not only changed India's destiny, but also touched the world.

JCAM: Where do you find ideas for your creative work? What does being creative mean to you? What is the best advice you ever had about how to be more creative?

SJ: M. K. Gandhi is one of my biggest influences, as I have mentioned. I find his philosophy to be perpetually relevant to my society and the global society at large. On a similar note, I draw my ideas and sense of place from history, and historical accounts with contemporary relevance, as in my Salt March exhibition and the Indigo: Blue Gold exhibition. Creating based on Gandhian philosophy, for me, is meditative — a process that involves my focus and devotion to the artwork in a sense. I studied art peripherally during my education, as an elective while I studied English Literature. Outside of this, no one taught me art. I have this approach to thank for my easy willingness to embrace new media and formats, because, in my experience, those who learn art at an institution can often become defined by their chosen medium.

JCAM: How was your art practice affected and/or changed by the COVID pandemic?

SJ: I spent the time during the pandemic at my most reflexive and creative. I created art, experimenting with multimedia at this time, for a solo webinar show, called Epoch 2020.

The lived experiences of COVID made us all familiar, overly so in some cases, with emotional, psychological and spiritual trauma, making us ask deeply existential questions about ourselves and our relationships with the others that occupy our time and space. Epoch 2020 was conceptualized to process this fractured temporality, and Gandhi's philosophies became particularly relevant, in the present tense, at this time.

His emphasis on community care, and reliance on oneself as a source of strength and reservoir or resilience, resonated with me and followers of my work at the time.

Folding in Gandhi's philosophy of swadharma and swadeshi all the more into my process, I believe, aptly reflected my journey as an artist in the decade prior.

JCAM: What other events in your life, if any, have affected the way in which you make art, or changed the direction of your art?

SJ: I suppose one of the other events within my lifetime that has had an immense impact on my outlook as a practitioner was the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai. They occurred in 2008 and debilitated the metropolis of Mumbai. While the media was quick to recognize the resilience of the city and it's multi-cultural, multi-modal inhabitants in the aftermath of this attack, there was an overall sense of being stupefied that such a thing could happen — that organizations could infiltrate and invade a space and take away a city's sense of stability and peace. I underwent an awakening as a citizen,

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recognizing the importance of communal resilience and activation. This shaped my subsequent work as an artist, and strengthened my convictions in Gandhian philosophy.

Contact information: Shellyjyoti12 @gmail.com | 91 9582252062 | www.shellyjyoti.com

THE BLUE GOLD Indigo Trade Influences, 2023 Ajrakh printing, dyeing, and needle work on khadi, 66 x 64.5 inches

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THE BLUE GOLD The 18C Merchant Ship, 2023 Ajrakh printing and dyeing and needle work on khadi, 90 x 102 inches

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THE BLUE GOLD Urbanization of Indigo Dye, 2023 Ajrakh printing, dyeing, and mirror work on khadi, 64 x 67.5 inches

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Dominion: Red and Whites, 2023 33 x 30 inches, ajrakh printing and dyeing on khadi fabric

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Fragmented: Red White and Black Make Blue, 2023 Ajrakh printing and dyeing on khadi fabric, 33 x 30 inches

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Indigo: Deeper than blue series. 2023 Ajrakh printing and dyeing on khadi fabric, 33 x 30 inches

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Around the globe: Black and White series, 2023 Ajrakh printing and dyeing on khadi fabric, 33 x 30 inches

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Tony Ragusea JCAM: What is your professional name?

TR: The full name printed on my business card is Anthony Ragusea, PsyD, MSCP, ABPP. My day job as a psychologist helps support my photography habit.

JCAM: Where were you born and does that place still influence you?

TR: I was born in Waco, Texas, USA, but my parents moved to Pennsylvania when I was a toddler so I have no memories of it and it’s not even an indirect influence on me.

JCAM: Where do you live now and how does that place influence you?

TR: I live in Lewisburg now, which is a small, historic town in rural central Pennsylvania, USA. I grew up in Pennsylvania so this area is a large part of my life experience, but I do not think of it as having much of an influence on me (though I am probably wrong.) I take a lot of photos of the area because it is what is most available as a subject, just as I have in other places I have lived in my life. But I adapt to what the location offers no matter where I am. For example, in Pennsylvania there are lots of wide open spaces and rolling hills, giving me a lot of room to experiment with kites. When I lived in Florida, I focused more on water and clouds because those were the dominant features.

JCAM: Do you have family, friends, or fellow artists who support you in your work, life and art making and how do they make a difference in your life?

TR: My family has always supported my artistic endeavors. We are a moderately creative family so it is a part of the family culture. My father was an actor when he was young, my brother, Adam, was an accomplished composer, now he is a chef and YouTube star. My wife, Lynne, has had a number of artistic interests including making glass beads. My mother was an artist her whole life and a grade school art teacher. I

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think I get most of my artistic sensibilities from her. She is an eclectic and she tends toward the more abstract and stylized than the realistic.

JCAM: When and how did you start making art?

TR: I became interested in photography as a teenager, and I grew up during the transition period between film and digital. I had my own dark room for a few years but I also wanted to master the new digital tools like Photoshop, which I did learn to some degree in college. My bachelor’s degree is in Film/Video from Penn State, class of 2000. After college I did not have the money to invest in the software and hardware tools that at the time were extremely expensive and still in the early stages of refinement. So between those obstacles and my decision to go to grad school to study clinical psychology — I earned my PsyD from Wright State University in 2005 — I gave up on art for a long time. I only returned to it recently, and returned to a totally different ecosystem. Not only did I have some more money to invest in the tools I needed, but I started to really appreciate how much had changed since the late 1990s.

Computer hardware is finally fast and affordable enough to keep up with programs like Photoshop, and Photoshop, Lightroom, and other photographic/video tools are now far more sophisticated and responsive. The quality of digital camera images is far beyond what it used to be, and storage space is cheap enough to make working with large files practical for the non-professional. Even my phone has more capability than you could get with $5000 back in the 90’s. So I found that I could create much more efficiently, and that gave me the freedom to try ideas that a couple of decades ago would have just been too difficult.

JCAM: Can you describe the time when you first realized that creating was something you absolutely had to do?

TR: I would say the first time I made my own photographic prints. I loved how both magical and scientific it was at the same time. I was attracted not only to the creative potential, the ability to make remarkable images, but also understanding all the science that goes into making those images possible. I liked exploring how changing one factor, like an aperture size or a chemical dilution, would affect the image, sometimes in strange or distorted ways but in ways that were understandable and largely reproducible.

In retrospect I realize how therapeutic photography was for me as a teenager — I struggled with depression and at times dissociation. But a camera requires you to pay attention to the real world, to stay connected and present. You really can not be lost in your head while trying to compose a shot and pay attention to all your settings at the same time, and I found that very helpful.

JCAM: Why do you make art now?

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TR: I make art now not because it is therapeutic, but because it is fun and challenging.

Creativity and problem solving are required, and at the end I (hopefully) have a product I am proud of. And just as I was as a teenager, I am still motivated by the question: What happens if I do this?

JCAM: How has your work changed or developed over time?

TR: I have always been more focused on landscape and nature photography than human subjects. And while I still take conventional nature shots, lately I have been shifting more toward experimentation and abstraction. It started because I was doing nature photography at night, and I was doing that because I have a day job, a house, and a family, and night time was the only time I had free to go make art. I started learning about light painting and how to take long exposures of moving light, like fireflies and stars.

Then I had a moment of inspiration one night when we were camping and my family was playing around with a string of LED lights. I took a long exposure to see what it would look like and I was really impressed by how bright and fun the image was. There was no person, just swooshing lines of color. So I had the obvious next thought, What else can I stick lights to that moves? And that is when I thought to combine my photo hobby with another hobby of mine: stunt kites! I have been a stunt kite flyer for decades, and I started to experiment with what I could achieve with LED lights and long exposures. That led to more lights, brighter lights, bolder flight patterns, and more complex layering and adjustments in Photoshop.

I do not fly kites much over the winter, so most recently I have been exploring the possibilities of slit scan photography using just my phone. Again, it is about abstraction and experimentation, but it is also about working creatively…with boundaries. Whether it is shooting in the dark, kites with lights, or slit scan software, I have an environment, a tool or a set of tools that I have to work with, and I like to see what creative options there are within the restrictions of that environment or tool.

Some people do not like software because they think it is cheating or fake. But I see software as no different than a paint brush or a potting wheel: it is a tool with a limited range of functions and abilities, and my job as the artist is to see what I can accomplish using the tools I have at my disposal. Jon Stewart used to have a similar sort of philosophy when he was running The Daily Show. Rather than let his correspondents run loose and do whatever they felt inspired to do, he would give them restrictions, rules, deadlines, and he found he got a much higher quality product as a result.

JCAM: What are you trying to communicate with your art?

TR: Nothing in particular. Even so, I mean, I do have a skill set in high-minded art criticism that comes from college, but the work I do now is all about pretty colors, interesting shapes, and striking compositions. Art is my fun time, and if it is interesting to other people as well then that makes me feel good, too.

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I remember a long time ago going to a talk given by Andres Serrano. Some people thought his photographs of bodily fluids mixed with religious iconography were meant to be intentionally political or at least had an explicit message. That certainly seemed obvious to me. What struck me was how he explained that his most scandalous photos had no message of any kind, and came about purely because he was interested in how different bodily fluids looked under different conditions, including with objects, and the objects he chose were because of their appearance only and what they contributed to the aesthetics of the final composition.

He seemed surprised how anyone could think otherwise. Regardless of his true intentions, I appreciated his unapologetic defense of aesthetics for aesthetics sake. I realized that simple experimentation with light and medium and subject without any deeper agenda or message could lead to art that was just as interesting or provocative — as worthy as art inspired by deep thought or feeling. He and I seemed motivated by the same question: What happens if I do this? And more so the question: What do I want to say?

As a psychologist, you learn that it is not the thing, or the experience, or the intent that matters. It is the meaning we make of it that matters — whatever it is. And in that sense we make our own reality. It just so happens that people generally make the same meaning from the same sensory information, so reality feels like a shared experience.

Art is the same. And so while the artist’s intent is always worth considering, ultimately it is subjective meaning-making that will rule the day and decide what is being communicated.

JCAM: Do you have any creative patterns, routines or rituals associated with your art making?

TR: Not really, mainly I just try to keep my eye out for interesting textures, colors, subjects, and locations. When I find something that catches me I try to think out what I would need to do to make this subject an interesting photograph in a way that seems new or creative (e.g., what lighting conditions, composition, depth of field, length of exposure, or other techniques). I might ask myself: What is it about this subject that intrigues me most? How do I emphasize that element best? What element(s) of this subject can I alter, isolate, or manipulate to make it seem more abstract or surreal? How do I take something ordinary and make it seem perplexing or novel?

JCAM: What element(s) of art making do you enjoy the most and why?

TR: With photography, it is always about what I call the big reveal. Unlike most art which is typically created slowly, photography has an instant moment where you get to see what you created. Setting up or refining that image may take hours. But you will have a good sense for whether you have a quality image or not the first time you look at it on a screen. And that is always fun.

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JCAM: What are the art making tools you use now?

TR: With my kite pictures, I use a Canon M6 Mark II on a tripod. I set it to continuously take 30-second long exposures while I fly a kite that is mounted with various versions of LED lights, usually powered by a small Li-ion battery taped to the kite. I process the photos in Photoshop and sometimes use other software to help remove low-light noise or refine light trails. And I choose a few exposures that seem to fit well together compositionally and then blend them in various ways. I made a couple of videos for YouTube to demonstrate the process.

With my slit scan photos, I am actually only using my phone. There are a few apps out there. The one I use is called ScanCamera for iOS. Subjects rotate on a turntable to create the twisting effect, but the subject, the rate and direction of rotation, the angle of the camera in relation to the subject, certain parameters of the scan itself, and the lighting can all be manipulated to create different effects.

JCAM: What interesting project are you working on at the moment?

TR: My goal for this winter is to create some kite compositions in the snow. That is a big project and a lot of things have to work out. There needs to be snow — increasingly rare with global warming. There needs to be the right amount of wind. The temperature has to be cold — but not so cold that at night I can not expose my hands — because working with the kite and camera requires fine dexterity at points. And I have to have enough time and energy to put myself through all that on a dark winter night! I am not sure if it will happen or if it is even worth it. But I am curious what it would look like with lights reflecting off the snow… Once the pandemic is controlled and it is safer to travel, I would like to go around the country and do kite compositions in more varied locales with different backdrops.

Contact information: Email: tony@ragusea.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tony.ragusea Instagram: @artbyragusea website: https://ragusea.weebly.com

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Blue Stunt Kite Digital Photograph

Graphic Kite Digital Photograph

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Kite and Fox Digital Photograph

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Kite Over Boats Digital Photograph

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Red Stunt Kite Digital Photograph

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White Stunt Kite Digital Photograph

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Kite and Milky Way Digital Photograph

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Kite Vortex Digital Photograph

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Mountain Flowers Digital Photograph

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Xuwei Zhang JCAM: Where were you born and does that place still influence you?

XZ: I was born in Haining, a small city in the south of China, where the climate is clear in all seasons. It is a typical water town in the south of the Yangtze River, known as the land of fish and rice, the capital of silk, and the state of culture. Since I was a child, I have been influenced by traditional Chinese aesthetics and local culture. Until today, the local customs have influenced my creations.

JCAM: Do you have family, friends, or fellow artists who support you in your work, life and art making?

XZ: My maternal grandfather, an influential calligrapher, taught me to write Chinese characters when I was three years old. He was my inspirational teacher towards art and design. My wife is also an artist, specializing in sculpture and painting, and we often exchange the topics of traditional painting and modern art in our daily life. My friends around me are very supportive of my current work and art creation.

JCAM: When and how did you start making art?

XZ: When I was 13 years old, which was a playful age, I saw my sister drawing ink and watercolor paintings at home by chance, and saw the ink and watercolor under her brush turn into various animals. I remember it vividly, and I fell in love with painting at that moment. I had a collection of my grandfather's paintings at home, and by copying the characters, animals and landscapes in the paintings, I slowly tried to create my own paintings. I continued to learn painting for 30 years. Although I successfully completed my Bachelor's Degree in Visual Communication from Ningbo University in 1997, painting has always accompanied me in my growth.

JCAM: Why do you make art now?

XZ: I was introduced to art and design in 1997, and joined a newspaper group as a typographer in 2000. However, my greatest passion was graphic design and poster design. So I left my job in 2002 and created my own design studio to help companies and organizations solve some visual communication design projects. In my spare time, I

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am passionate about creating posters on a wide range of topics, including social issues, public welfare, environment and climate, and cultural promotion.

JCAM: What are you trying to communicate with your art?

XZ: The inclusiveness of Modern art and design for culture, and accepting diversified cultures to be displayed in various exhibition halls, galleries, and museums, has made me think about whether I can accommodate more cultures in my field with a broader vision to serve as a vein for creation. I am interested in the collective memory shaped by people in the city nowadays, how to respect the group, balance the trauma and the negative emotions brought by urban change, and I want to be able to preserve the memory of life in a warmer way, to salve the historical wounds and preserve the traces left by history. I hope to create works that can soothe the heart through the art of design.

In addition, I think that posters are a global context and a diversified art form, and I would like to use posters as a carrier to let my foreign counterparts and friends understand more about Chinese culture, art and social development.

JCAM: How has your work changed or developed over time?

XZ: I have been working in the graphic design industry for 29 years. I know that artists and designers are not only applying the design itself, but also learning and designing other knowledge, such as philosophy, history, science, marketing, etc. Meanwhile, as a designer, you need to love life, because a lot of inspirations come from your own feelings in life.

From my initial commercial design work, I gradually turned to art design. This process took about eight years. Starting in 2016, I accepted commissions from the government department to organize and plan exhibitions. These included the Zhejiang City Art Biennale, 2019 Lithuanian “Chinese Character Phenomenon" International Poster Design Invitational Exhibition, and the 2019 Beijing International Design Week Ink and Wash Exhibition; also in 2022 the First Sericulture International Poster Design Exhibition and many other influential international design exhibitions. For each of these, I designed the main image for these exhibitions. I feel honored that my creations have been recognized by the public.

JCAM: Do you have any creative patterns, routines or rituals associated with your art making?

XZ: I am very passionate about handmade creations. There is no fixed way of poster design, only the feeling that is suitable for the eloquent exposition of the theme and selfknowledge, which is most often carried out through handwriting, hand-drawing, papercutting and collage, and then finally through photographing, and then utilizing software to make the final adjustments and arrangements.

JCAM: What is your most important artist tool(s) and why?

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XZ: There is no doubt that for me the most important tools for creating art are the pen and the inner mind.

JCAM: How do you approach making an art poster and how long does it take you to complete it?

XZ: Creating a satisfactory poster requires a deep understanding of the theme. Before I create a poster, I read and understand the theme from many angles and look for the viewer's point of view as the main line. Then I try to make sketches.Depending on the situation, it can take as little as 30 minutes or as long as a couple of days to complete a piece of artwork.

JCAM: What new creative medium would you love to pursue?

XZ: The emergence of AI does not replace the existence of the artist, nor does it replace the designer, it only makes creation more efficient and brings us more creative inspiration and tools. By collaborating with AI, we are able to open up new areas of creativity and unleash unlimited creative potential. Whether you are an art lover or a professional creator, it is worthwhile to master AI painting technology and open a new chapter of creation!

JCAM: What strategies could you share with other artists on how to become successful professionally?

XZ: Do not work in isolation, be a collaborator. It is important to involve your client early in the project process so that you can work together to form the best possible outcome.

Try to avoid surprises in communication that can lower your client's confidence in you. It is also important not to think too highly of your work but to have the mindset that you are working with your client and not just for them. Keeping in touch with clients is one of the most important ways for designers to succeed.

It is also important to have a work-life balance, but we have to take on a variety of different projects. Separate work into love, money and charity. Many designers seek a balance between their love of work and money, but few think about contributing to charity.

JCAM: What interesting projects are you working on at the moment?

XZ: Currently, I am planning a "Chinese Tea Culture Design Exhibition" project. This is a commission for the tea picking region of ancient villages in the mountainous areas of Yunnan Province, China. There the tea trees are more than 800 years old. Through this project, I want to help the local tea farmers to spread their tea and their culture to the whole world, which I think is a very interesting and meaningful thing to do.

JCAM: What are your artistic goals for the future?

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XZ: My future goal is to continue to promote traditional Chinese culture to the world through the medium of modern posters.

JCAM: What or who inspires you?

XZ: Learning to look closely at the people and things in your life can give you a wealth of inspiration for your creations.

JCAM: Do you have a favorite – or influential – living artist?

XZ: Yes, Niklaus Troxler. Mr. Troxler has been interested in jazz since he was a child.

Now he organizes jazz festivals and makes jazz posters himself. Troxler is a sincere and simple person. His design is characterized by naturalness and authenticity. He combines the nature and spontaneity of a small town with the sharpness and tension of jazz in his poster designs. Troxler enjoys the small town life and believes that keeping an open mind is the most important thing. Niklaus Troxler designs posters in his hometown, but his work is universal. That is why I admire him so much. His personality and the sincerity of his creations have touched me and influenced me a lot.

JCAM: Where do you find ideas for your creative work?

XZ: From my life.

JCAM: What does being creative mean to you?

XZ: Creativity, unlike what we commonly think of as coming from people with unusual ideas, is any idea, action or thing that changes an existing field or creates a new one.

Creativity will make you happy, let you have a life you like, and let you do things you like, as if your soul is singing. It ultimately allows you to find purpose and joy in an uncertain state of being. This is the key!

JCAM: What is the best advice you ever had about how to be more creative?

XZ: There is a famous saying in ancient Chinese painting theory: To learn from the outside, to learn from the inside, which means that artistic creation comes from learning from nature and generalizing it, boldly taking away or reconstructing it. The beauty in nature cannot directly become a work of art. To transform natural beauty into artistic beauty is the pursuit of self-enlightenment, which requires the integration of the artist's inner emotions and skills. Art originates from social life and is higher than life. Artists are no longer reproducing and imitating social life when creating art works, but rather, they need to go through the artist's aesthetic consciousness and aesthetic creation, which is a high degree of unity between the subject and the object, and between reproduction and expression.

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My teacher Mr. Jiang Hua (member of AGI) once told me that "the unity of knowledge and action" is the same interpretation, and that only when the artist's thoughts and practical actions are highly unified can he or she solve problems efficiently.

JCAM: What other events in your life, if any, have affected the way in which you make art, or changed the direction of your art?

XZ: I have a great interest in Chinese characters. Every morning I look for a Chinese character and create it in a graphic way, which I call "One Character Zen". The Chinese characters have evolved over 5,000 years, and you can see that today's characters are completely different from those of 3,000 years ago. They are the distillation of scenes from the daily lives of the ancient people. It is also my reverence for the Chinese characters that has changed my perception of them through years of creation.

Contact information Social media - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100059071346381 Web: https://tinyurl.com/2pvuzm66 / https://tinyurl.com/yc6rj3my

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Climate Impact Medium or Media - Paper Poster (digital printing） May 2020

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Guess Who I Am Medium or Media - Paper Poster (digital printing） July 2022

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Future Neighbor Medium or Media - Paper Poster (digital printing） August 2022

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Journey To The West Medium or Media - Paper Poster (digital printing） 2022 The First International Poster Biennale of Peking Opera Art May 2022

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Green city Medium or Media - Paper Poster (screen printing） The 6th Lublin International Poster Biennale August 2022

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THE SORCERER AND THE WHITE SNAKE Medium or Media - Paper Poster (digital printing） 10th Sofia International Theater Poster Triennial September 2021

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The Waking of Insects Medium or Media - Paper Poster (digital printing） 2021 Bolivia International Poster Biennial & The 5th International Poster Biennale in Leipzig, Germany September 2021

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Peaceful Coexistence Medium or Media - Paper Poster (digital printing） NO WAR International Poster Exhibition – Warsaw 2022 November 2022

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Rodchenko 130 years Medium or Media - Paper Poster (screen printing） Bolivia Poster Biennial 2023 July 2020

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Imaginary Nightmares Medium or Media - Paper Poster (screen printing） INTERNATIONAL BIENNALE OF THEATRE POSTER Molière 2022 July 2022

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The Last Word Fall 2023 – Vol. 8 This issue of the Journal marks the 8th year since our first JCAM publication. We are proud of this milestone and humbled by the trust put in us by the visual artists, creative writers, and project creators who have allowed us to publish their work and share their stories on our online platform.

We began this digital publication with the idea that we (two university art professors) could, without significant funding, or a large staff, reach out online, mostly through nocost tools, to connect with creative visual creatives internationally. For the most part, we have been able to make that happen and, in the process, a community has been built around the efforts.

For example: Over time have heard from a number of JCAM artists who have collaborated with each other in some creative way(s). We also regularly receive updates from previously published artists and writers whose work has later been presented in significant venues some place on planet earth. This is very gratifying indeed. These kinds of activities are exactly what we hoped might be kick-started when we began our preliminary planning for the Journal back in the summer of 2014. It is wonderful to see our ambitious plan produce such positive results.

We are already planning our next issue which will be published in the Fall of 2024. This publication will feature JCAM alumni and be focused on updates to the creative careers of a number of international artists working in a variety of media. We already have a number of commitments and look forward to bringing in even more alumni for this special publication.

Finally, the JCAM staff is always interested in how we might betters serve the online visual arts and writing communities. What other kinds of features would you like to see in future issues of JCAM? What are the names of the contacts to whom you might direct us? Let us hear from you: jcam.jal@gmail.com

JCAM Editor

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