Inspiration is all around us, all the time, if you look for it. Part of Allan Hancock College fine arts instructor John Hood’s teaching method is helping his students recognize that fact, often taking his classes on walks to absorb as much as possible from what’s around them.
But taking that same awareness and refracting inward, to help understand one’s own individual creativity and act on it, that’s an even more challenging prospect, Hood said, and it’s one that his late mentor Dan Kiacz taught him well. During Hood’s time at University of Oklahoma School of Art’s grad school, Kiacz served as an advisor on his grad committee. Even though he never took any of Kiacz’s classes, the advisor proved a valuable guide in Hood’s creative career.
Having the courage to look inward, commit to creating, and following through were central to what Kiacz taught, Hood explained, and it’s why he named his current exhibition showing at Hancock’s Ann Foxworthy gallery, after the mentor and what he taught. Kiacz, Process, and Progress shows through May 20 at the gallery and features the fruits of Hood’s most recent labors.
“We were very opposite in style, and I tended to be standoffish with certain people, and he tended to be abrupt, aggressive, and in-your-face, which is great, but I put off connecting with him for a bit,” Hood said. “But when we finally did, he was just very genuine. When you were talking with him there was no fluff, it was just, ‘What are you after? What are your big ideas?’”
The work showing in the exhibition is the result of an output that happened entirely during a recent sabbatical from teaching, Hood explained. The break is offered every seven years, he said, and he gladly took it, as being involved in so many classes, art projects, advisory roles, and even community projects can be a taxing energy drain on an artist, leaving personal work undone or underexplored.
During the sabbatical, Hood traveled, visited museums, and experimented with several forms of media. It also allowed him time to research and hone the vision he had for the output he wanted to create with complete focus. Getting to the point of actually making, that’s the challenge, he said.
“The thinking, looking, doing part of it can be so stressful when it comes time to physically deliver, to do for yourself, to resolve that,” he said. “When you have the vision in your mind, it takes an artist to make it actually come down your arm and make it come out your instrument, your pencil, your paintbrush, whatever. Not a lot of people do that. Not a lot of people get past the thinking or the research.”
That was something Kiacz helped him focus on, Hood said, really pairing down what he wanted to say as an artist.
Hood’s work showing at Hancock is what he calls non-representational, meaning it isn’t intended to convey concrete subjects, like people or flowers, but that’s not to say it isn’t inspired by the physical. Hood is fascinated with the origins of life, and seeks to understand the scientific theories regarding how life began, so the cell-level perspective to his work is no accident.
“It’s the age-old question: How did we get here, why are we here, where are we going?” he said. “For me it’s more literal, about science, because I love those backgrounds. It’s pretty trippy to consider that everything is molecular in structure, and everything started with these tiny forms.”
That inspiration paired with the drive to experiment has brought forth a variety of pieces in Kiacz, Process, and Progress, all of which breathe the same inspiration but are achieved with a variety of media. There are pastels, oils, encaustic, wax, and other media at work—sometimes all together.
The varying media allow Hood to create myriad expressions while meditating on one overall idea, he said, which goes back to what his mentor advocated in personal exploration, experimentation, and growth.
“There’s a certain mood or environment I’m trying to develop, and whether it’s more ethereal, wax gives me a gauze-like effect, takes the edge off, and gives it a creamy, dream-like quality,” he said. “Things like turpentine or oil give me a great sense of decay, I can make things look like they are cracking or are old.”
Arts Editor Joe Payne may be starting to crack and look old too. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Apr 28 – May 5, 2016.
