Artist Snapshot: John Carruthers

[1]

At what age did you decide to become an artist?

Twenty-five. I had a BFA from Fordham University but didn’t know I would commit to being an artist until a few years later. One night, I literally woke up sweating, and said, “Dammit! I’m going to dedicate my life to art and music, and the world be damned!”

How did your parents react when you told them you wanted to be an artist?

They were happy I picked something, anything. My uncle is an artist, and relatively successful, so the career choice seemed OK.

Who are your favorite artists?

Frans Hals, Casper David Friedrich, Pieter Bruegel, Steve Ditko, Robert Crumb, Thomas Hart Benton, Kelley & Mouse, Joan Mitchell, S. Clay Wilson, Egon Schiele, Franz Masereel, George Bellows, Charles White, NC Wyeth, Howard Pyle, Otto Dix, Käthe Kollwitz, Alice Neel…. I could add a hundred names to this list.

Who is your favorite artist whose work is unlike your own?

Hiroshige, Hokusai—woodcut artists as well, but so precise, so many blocks. I could never do that!

Art book you cannot live without?

Romanticism (coffee table book I had in college, I lived in it, and memorized it), Otto Dix and the New Objectivity[2] (Neue Gallery), Modern Art in America 1908-1968[3] by William Agee (great connect-the-dots look at art, culture, history of the time), Jacques Hnizdovsky Woodcuts and Etchings[4] (a criminally-unknown Ukrainian artist), The Complete Graphic Work of Jack Levine[5]. I worked for Dover books for a while, so I have a lot of their wonderful books, including ones on Dürer[6], Mucha[7], etc. I have a few books on the Romantic movement that I love: Dark Romanticism[8], Awakening the Night[9], Noir. Illustrated books by Arthur Rackham and Howard Pyle, The Art Spirit[10] by Robert Henri, Art for the People, a collection of woodcuts done in Vienna during their fin-de-siècle heyday, Ver Sacrum[11], a collection of the Vienna Secession magazines. They are not art books per se, but I have a lot of books on pirates, vikings, Old New York, and other subjects because of the illustrations and photographs.

What is the quality you most admire in an artist?

I do love someone with really good technical skills—someone who can draw the figure like nobody’s business always gets my attention, but then, of course, they need content to back that up. I’ve always loved a street-level, down-to-earth view: the Ashcan School, NYC artist Duke Riley, German Expressionism, but I also like a certain amount of decorative flair: the Vienna school, and 1960s rock concert posters, Maxfield Parrish. I collect fabrics: scarves, rugs, tapestries whenever I can travel to Europe. I’m always blown away by the intricacies of them. I also love work that has a narrative. I could look forever at the great illustrators from the golden age, 1850–1950. I love stories and grew up with comic books (DC, not Marvel), Tales of Terror comics, Monster magazines, underground comics from the 60s and 70s.

Do you keep a sketchbook?

No, and I feel guilty admitting that. I have started many but rarely get through a few pages. I use them mostly to sketch out a composition, but that’s about it, not an everyday diary. I guess my iPhone took over for that. I do take a lot of photos as research and notes: clouds, trees, boats, sculptures in the Met museum, etc.

What’s your favorite museum in all the world?

There’re a few, of course. The Metropolitan Museum of Art can’t be beat in a lot of ways. I live close to it, and I’m there at least two times a month. The Neue Gallery[12]. The Delaware Museum of Art[13] has a large collection of American illustrators from the school of Howard Pyle and N.C. Wyeth. The Musée d’Orsay[14] in Paris is pretty special. The Belvedere[15] in Vienna. The Palazzo Dei Diamanti[16] in Ravenna has a killer collection of International Gothic-era art of which I’m a huge fan. I never get tired of the Rubin Museum[17] of Tibetan art in NYC.

What’s the best exhibition you have ever attended?

I’ve seen a lot of exhibitions that have inspired me: Austrian and German Expressionism[18] at Galerie St. Etienne in NYC; the Whitney Biennials of 1983[19] and 1985[20] blew my mind because they were a celebration of my NYC punk rock downtown generation: Robert Longo, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holtzer, Cindy Sherman, Eric Fischl. I recently saw a show of American illustrators at Delaware Museum of Art, and I was like a kid in a candy store! Fantastic show at Musee D’Orsay in 2013, Dark Romanticism: From Goya to Max Ernst. I also recently saw a small show at the Met Cloisters—real medieval goth-y carved doorways and decorative items—the real deal! Lots of shows at the old Whitney really inspired me: Rothko, George Segal, Jonathan Borofsky. The original Whitney was the best. The building itself really added to the exhibits. It’s a shame they moved downtown.

If you were not an artist, what would you be?

A musician (I actually am a musician, and have been doing that since the 80s—punk rock at first, then country-punk, then Irish punk). I play banjo. I’m also a teacher, but being an artist and a teacher is the same thing. Being a teacher is also a big part of my art practice. I teach high school, and I really explore and investigate with the kids. I know the lesson isn’t good unless I’m outside my comfort zone, and could look like an idiot at any second. It’s always a journey.

Did you have an artistic cohort that influenced your early creative development?

My artistic cohort early on was my musician and bookstore friends. We were all pursuing beatnik glory, meeting and/or hanging out w/William Burroughs, Allen Ginsburg, Gregory Corso, Herbert Huncke, etc. I was lucky to catch the tail end of that scene in NYC. I was also lucky to be around when the “Pictures Generation” artists were getting established in NYC, so I met, or in some way crossed paths with, Andy Warhol (not a Pictures Generation guy, obviously, but an inspiration for it), Keith Haring (I would see him drawing in the subway), Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, etc.

What is one thing you didn’t learn in art school that you wish you had?

There were plenty of seminars and talks about what to do after art school, but no real instruction or some sort of internship with a professional artist. There’s also no info about the different tiers of the art world. Lots of talk about the gallery world, but not about where you might actually sell art—local galleries, street fairs, artist associations—that’s where the action really is.

What work of art have you looked at most and why?

I grew up a gothy, spacey, bookish kid, and I thought I grew out of that stuff, but I guess I never did. During my classic “mid-life crisis”, I was living in a cabin in the woods, and it all came gloriously back. The winter trees were temples, the ice storms were stunning, so any art that approaches that, I like—Charles Burchfield for example. I got back to my roots—Edgar Allen Poe, Hawthorne, and recently NYC-artist Duke Riley. I look at a lot of local artists from Nantucket where I teach and exhibit my art during the summer. I’ve always loved historical art: scrimshaw, colonial paintings, and anything from NYC of the 1880s through the 1920s: bowler hats, Gangs of New York, that milieu. I guess, it’s not so much “fine art” that I look at, but my passions.

What is your secret visual pleasure outside of art?

Western wear and ornate fabrics: rugs, scarves, etc. It’s not really a secret. I wear that stuff all the time (not the rugs). I love to parade around in my finery. A fellow teacher at my school called me “the school dandy.”

Do you listen to music in your studio?

Now you’re really at the heart of things! I’m a musician. I played in bands in NYC throughout the 80s and into the early 2000s. Early on, it was punk rock, and some art rock, then I picked up the banjo and got into early country music. So the music I listen to in the studio reflects all of that. Ramones, Clash, Suicide/Alan Vega, Can, The Fall, Meat Puppets, Ralph Stanley, Uncle Dave Macon, Merle Haggard, Waylon, Willie, Johnny Cash, etc. I also like classical Indian music and drone-y weird stuff. I try to stay somewhat current as well. My favorite new-ish band is Tinariwen, and I love to see that the kids are doing some of the best music out there: Nora Brown and the Linda Lindas!

What is the last gallery you visited?

Michael Werner Gallery[21]. I was on a trip with my students. I don’t go to galleries much; they’re too intimidating now. Back in my art school days, it seemed like it was no big deal to walk in anywhere. Now, it seems like you need an appointment. Or better have some big bucks to walk in and not get looked at crossways.

Who is an underrated artist people should be looking at?

Alfred Leslie, Jack Levine, H.C. Westerman, Terry Allen, Grace Hartigan. People who need to be re-evaluated: Larry Rivers, Sonia Delaunay, Hans Hofmann.

What art materials can you not live without?

I do woodcuts mostly, so my special woodcut tools and a sweet piece of wood: pine, mahogany, cherry, etc. And Prussian Blue ink—it’s the basis for all of my prints.

Do you create art every day?

No, only when inspired, or when I have a deadline. I tend to want to do art mostly in the fall. Something about that time of year inspires me, Halloween and all that.

What is the longest time you went without creating art?

After I got my MFA, I went back into music and concentrated on that until about 2002 when I moved out of NYC and into a cabin in the woods in Orange County, NY. NYC was just not inspiring me anymore, sadly, but the woods were, especially in the winter—so gothy, so intense— ice storms and fog.

What do you do when you are feeling uninspired?

I have a pretty large collection of photographs I’ve taken in various places, so I’ll go through those, and see what pops out. Sometimes a great book will inspire me; Herman Melville always does it for me.

What are the questions that drive your work?

How can I make my work exciting for the viewer? Can I make it more dramatic? more panoramic? more swirly? Can it hint at an exciting story? Can it explode out of the frame? In comics, you always had a “splash page”— an image that ran over two pages usually in the center of the story that exploded the climax of the story. I always ask myself, “Does my work approach that?”

What is the most important quality in an artist?

Honesty, passion. Technical skill is always a plus, but it can be a dead end, too. Outsider art can be beautiful because of the intensity of the artist’s personal vision. Willie Nelson sang, “You can’t make a record if you ain’t got nothing to say.”

What is something you haven’t yet achieved in art?

A retrospective at the Met Museum. They haven’t called yet. I keep waiting.

What is the best thing about art in the era of social media?

Getting the work out there the moment you make it, or even as you are making it. I was addicted to playing music for audiences because the feedback is so instantaneous (good or bad), and you responded to it, and your music responded as well. It’s nice that in social media, you can do a similar thing.

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JOHN CARRUTHERS[22] will be teaching the workshop Wood and Linoleum Block Printing[23], December 26–29, 2023. His work will be on view at 2Alice’s (Newburgh, NY) from November 11, 2023 through March 1, 2024.