I also go through intense periods of color infatuation, which usually translates into my paintings, but not always. At this particular moment, the colors that excite me most are Cadmium Yellow Light and Cadmium Chartreuse. I can almost feel the particles in my body vibrating with expectant anticipation when gazing upon these colors. They feel ecstatic and make me want to run and move and dance. Another infatuation/inquiry of mine at the moment is with red; specifically Venetian Red, Indian Red, and Cadmium Red Medium. These colors feel a bit perplexing to me; I am deeply drawn to them, but they are not in the wheelhouse of colors that are comfortable or easy for me to paint with. They feel ancient and powerful in a way that is mysterious to me. I think a large part of passion about color has to do with enigma, and embracing the inquiry that a color presents without trying to pin it down with specific meaning.
There have been certain colors that have resonated with me more deeply during different periods of my life, and in my mind I associate these periods of time with a specific color family. I am primarily influenced by the colors I see surrounding me in my environment. My experience living in the North East turned my palette almost completely monochromatic, an invigorating exploration of chromatic greys; living in North Carolina brought an intense assortment of greens; and Southern California makes me continually fall in love with sage, ochres, and dusty earth colors. I just recently moved to Sonoma County, so am still becoming acquainted with the light and specific hues of the land in this bioregion.
KP: What role do you think art plays in society today, and how do you see your work contributing to that conversation?
KB: As I have learned more and more about the art world and the market, I have become pretty disillusioned and disheartened about the role of art in society today. At the highest levels, art seems to play a neat role in our capitalist consumer society, with artists generating products for consumption…I have noticed a correlation with artists becoming commercially successful and the loss of innovation or risk-taking. There seems to be a certain level of catering to the market, and once a series or body of work or style becomes recognizable and the demand increases, artists are pressured to create more and more of the same artworks. Experimentation, the spirit of innovation, and pushing boundaries is lost at that point, and art becomes a product. Over time I've seen this happen to some of my favorite painters. I find myself disappointed that what I once thought was so revolutionary, challenging, or provocative seems to resist further development and sits in stagnation. The spirit of the work suffers because of it.
I think one of the most radical things that artists can do today is resist the temptation to cater to the market, and get back to spirit in painting. At its core, I find painting to be a profoundly spiritual practice; it is a religious discipline, and a somewhat magical one. I think one of the roles that an artist plays is that of a conduit, acting as a bridge between the physical and spiritual worlds, and translating communications between realms. Painting itself has always seemed to me to be an alchemical process- taking paint, which is really just colorful mud, and transmuting it into illusionary space that generates conversation with the mind and heart at the deepest levels. It's a miracle that humans are able to do that at all, and I think a lot of people lose sight of that. Recently, I have been thinking that if my work can help others remember that they are spiritual beings, not just physical ones, I will have achieved some level of personal success.
KP: Have there been any pivotal movements or influences in your artistic journey that significantly shaped your style or perspective?
KB: There have been countless moments and inspirations that have shaped my artistic path. I have had several profoundly influential teachers, including Greg LaRock, Victor Lara, Judy Glantzman, William (Bill) Miller, and Craig Taylor, among others. Judy Glantzman was perhaps the most percipient and insightful influence on my painting practice as a young painter. I learned more about rhythms, techniques, and mental strategies to work though "painting problems" from her than any other mentor. Her words and voarcious spirit still resonate and linger with me today.
I have been inspired by a myriad of other artists over the years, all of whom have had a profound influence on my thinking and work. Some of these influences include Andrew Wyeth, Agnes Dene, Agnes Martin, Joshua Hagler, Maja Ruznic, Joan Mitchell, Naudline Pierre, Jenna Gribbon, Doron Langberg, Ana Mendieta, Joan Snyder, Katherine Bradford, Claude Monet, Jennifer Packer, Philip Guston, and Henri Matisse, among so many others. I am also deeply inspired by poetry and literature, and the poems of Rumi, Coleman Barks, Mary Oliver, and Robert Bly have been guiding forces for years.
A pivotal moment that created a shift in my artistic perspective was stepping away from painting for six weeks to take a ceramic course in 2012. I remember devoting myself to clay over the winter, and when I finally came back into my painting studio in the spring, I was awestruck by how two-dimensional all of the paintings were. It was the first time I really felt like painting was falling flat. At the time, dimensionality and form excited me- physical objects in space. That realization really helped me crack open my painting practice. Suddenly, my paintings started incorporating found natural objects and materials such as sand, burlap, sawdust, concrete, corroded metals, and a myriad of other things I would dredge up from my time outdoors. The paintings became more and more dimensional and started building themselves up and off of the canvases until I eventually started engaging in installation work, performance, and expanded my sculptural practice, among other things.
I am an artist that tries to actively avoid any consistent style. I think the adherence to a style is a sort of death of innovation. Every couple months or years I will reinvent my work and the processes that accompany creating it. I think this is the only way to push creativity forward. I do not do this consciously, but rather out of necessity for what a specific idea is calling for. I will admit that this is perhaps not the best strategic business move; I would probably benefit from keeping a consistent stylistic pursuit and subject matter, as this would really help build my particular audience and network of collectors. But I can't seem to bring myself to create and make decisions solely from a business perspective. There is something deeper and more personal that drives the development of the work, and thus the development of the self.
KP: Have you ever thought about pursuing a different profession, or has art always been a central driving force in your life?
KB: I think I am someone who would be pretty unhappy doing anything other than painting. Painting gives me a profound sense of purpose and is dynamic and challenging enough to keep me constantly and consistently engaged. I have tons of other interests and sometimes regret not having more time to fully devote myself to additional practices; in another life, I could be a mountaineer, a naturopathic doctor, a professional cellist, a writer, a photographer, a wildcrafting herbalist, a motorcycle racer, a speed skater, among many other things. I find life to be infinitely interesting. But devotion to my artistic practice takes precedent, and all of the decisions in my life have been towards furthering my progress as an artist. All of my "day jobs" have been arts related. I have held a number of positions relating to arts education, worked in three arts museums, worked as a research assistant for a grant writer securing funding for arts organizations, and am currently working for an art advisor & curator. Art has always been the center of my life.
I am currently developing several monumental and ambitious projects relating to the arts. One is opening a university inspired by Rudolph Steiner and Anthroposophy; it is planned to be an arts, philosophy, and trade school situated in Sonoma County. I will also be developing and implementing an artist-in-residence program on site in conjunction with the school. In the other project, I am assisting a nonprofit in establishing an apprenticeship program related to earth-based professions, one pillar of which is plant artistry. These are multi-year projects that are at the early stages of development. Being an artist allows me the creativity and flexibility of skill sets to help design and envision larger programs like these. Eventually, I will gain a livelihood from these projects alongside my painting practice.
KP: What inspires you to create on days when motivation feels low, and how do you find that spark again?
KB: I am someone who has always had an insane amount of personal discipline. I believe that is a really necessary component of being an artist. There is a quote from Chuck Close I have held with me for many years- “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself.” There is a tremendous amount of truth in his point of view, and I largely live my life in the way he describes. I show up at my studio every day, and put one foot in front of the other, even if I don't feel like it. I've developed strategies to help perpetuate the creative process. Oftentimes at the end of a painting session I will leave the studio with some unfinished progress so the next day I can immediately get to work; I don't have to waste time wondering where to begin anew. Something that took me years to learn was about the day-in, day-out sort of repetitive nature of the job, and how to deal with the monotony. It's a lot of consistent trudging through the mud, and inspiration and mental breakthroughs are inconsistent and fleeting. I think the biggest and most frequent breakthroughs came to me when I was a younger artist; I was developing my voice, learning new techniques, contemporary art was still a mystery to me, and anything seemed possible. As I've gotten older and hone my craft, the breakthroughs feel less monumental, but when they're there, it's terribly exciting. I've found it's best to remain available and open to inspiration, which means committing myself to the time in the studio, regardless of whether I want to be there or not. Unexpected things happen daily. I try to find the joy in small miracles and pull the threads of newness and unfamiliarity.
Sometimes, when I am really mentally stuck and bogged down in the work, I bring myself to leave the studio and hike. I dive deep into my connection with the landscape and spend hours walking, clearing my mind, and trying to find solutions to problems that often only arise when I am not so desperately focused on them. By free association I am often able to find a solution outside of myself in the natural world. Paintings seem to die when they are too self-reflexive and solipsistic, not drawing enough from experience of the real world. Successful painting has to be a balance of both; drawing inspiration from the world, digesting and regurgitating it in the studio, and the eye once again hungering for more material to absorb.
