Making Humorous/Horrific Art: Karl X Hauser

Bay Area artist Karl X Hauser joins Jen for a conversation about his long career in art. Karl creates narrative drawings and sculptures that are quirky, playful but also a little dark. His characters spring from his imagination, and seem to be up to childlike antics, but always with a slightly sinister edge. 

Working in materials such as cast metals, kiln formed glass, wire and nails, and keeping them in a raw unpolished state, Karl’s materials tamper any overly playful sense of innocence or purity. This contrast creates a yummy combination of slightly sinister and sweet, and encourages the viewer to ponder just a little longer. 

Check out Karl's work on the gallery website:
https://jentough.gallery/collections/karl-x-hauser

On Karl's Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/karlxhauser/

On Karl's website:
https://www.karlxhauser.com/

Become a member of the Artist Alliance! We offer stay-in-place residencies, exhibitions where artists earn 100%, challenges, workshops and a friendly community of artists of all levels! Join today: https://artistalliancemembership.com/

Transcript

Jen Tough: 0:00

Welcome to Tough on Art, the podcast for artists interested in ways to get ahead in today's art market. I'm Jen Tough owner of Jen Tough Gallery and the Artist Alliance community. Join me for some down to earth. Talk about the best ways for artists to navigate this new and different lands. Hi everybody. I'm Jen tough. And today I'm super excited to be speaking with bay area artists, Karl X Hauser, Karl creates narrative drawings and sculptures that are quirky playful, and always a little bit dark. The characters he creates spring from his imagination and seem to be up to childlike antics, but always with a slightly sinister edge with titles that allude to these adventures such as head on wheels, rice cake version. Describing a beast with three heads waiting for your turn in the hole. That one cracks me up and carsick his creation, spark, curiosity, and joy to all look at it. He usually works in materials, such as cast metals, kiln formed glass. Wire and nails, and he keeps them in a really raw unpolished state, the materials, tamper, any overly playful sense of innocence or purity. And this contrast really creates a yummy combination of slightly sinister and sweet and encourages everyone to ponder and look just a little bit long. So let's begin and thank you for joining me. So hi everybody. This is Jen Tough. I hope everyone's doing well. And today I'm really excited because I have Karl X Hauser with me. Karl is on my roster. And currently right now you are aware Karl

Karlx: 1:37

San Mateo, California.

Jen Tough: 1:39

Nice. And is your studio at home?

Karlx: 1:43

Yes, for now, it is probably for the foreseeable future. Yeah. I mean, real estate in California is just ridiculous. I've evicted. I had two studios this year and I was evicted from both of them, kind of like. I, I took that to be a very serious indication that I have no business at this point, trying to be rent, some other studio someplace else. So I'm just confining myself to the garage and backyard for the most part. And it's kind of, I don't know. It's interesting in the sense that on the one hand it's really constrictive and limiting. But but the flip side of that is I think for my speaking for myself, a lot of my art artwork, this, some of the better things that I've done, I think have come out of being so restricted and limited as to what I can do. It's never been a deterrent for me, you know? Always, you know, when I got out of art school, I, even, when I was in art school, I knew I had a very tough row to hoe ahead of me, you know, that it was going to be really difficult to be an artist. Because I knew I wasn't going to make any money at it, but I still, that was the thing I was called to do. So, you know, I took jobs mostly doing trades, working in the trades, doing construction because it was working with my hands building things, you know, it was, you know, as Terry Allen said, it, it ain't art, but it ain't bad. So that's. Yeah. And I just kind of thought, well, you know, I just keep plugging away. I make art when I can and you know, no good. The other upside of that was that I had money, so I could make art. I had a steady income, was able to, you know, you know, it was, it was a good way to, to, to, for me to continue making art.

Jen Tough: 3:51

Yeah. And that's always the hardest thing, isn't it? I mean, you get out of school and you, you know, you have to find a way of making money that isn't going to totally destroy your creativity or burn you out creatively. So it sounds like you found a good solution because that's, I think that's the first problem that artists run into. Right? When you get out of school, you're like the big crushing issue of making money. And can I still keep making my art sounds like.

Karlx: 4:20

I had a conversation with a good friend of mine. And she's we talked about this a bit. When she was first out of school, she had a job working at a photo editing lab or some kind of photo lab where she was basically looking at images all day. And she said, I got to a point where I had to quit because I couldn't, I couldn't look at images all day and then come home and work on. Yeah, just too much. It was just too. And that was always a way I felt in some ways, that's the way I felt about working in the trades. You know, it wasn't art, but it was an activity that I could do. And it didn't seem to interfere with my art at all. You know, it was in some ways it kind of augmented it a bit, you know, it was like, you know, that, that, because when you're working in the trades, there's always this strict adherence to craft. Right. And, and for me, when I, when I would come home and work on some sculptures thing, it was always like, Ooh, how crude can I make this? You know, it was like, that was a real important drive for me. So it was kind of, it was also kind of a reaction against my, my regular job, you know, it was kind of like, you know, it's like, oh yeah, but, but, but the regular job, the working in the trade. Also really complimented this stuff that I was doing because not only did I want to make it crude, but it also had to be well crafted, crudeness the

Jen Tough: 5:47

right amount. Yeah, totally.

Karlx: 5:51

It's still kind of impresses me to some degree every once in a while, somebody, somebody will comment on how well crafted my work looks and I always think, wow, really?

Jen Tough: 6:05

Yeah, well, it is well crafted and I, and I totally know what you mean. You have like a raw, there's a rawness to your work, you know, and, and you can see the you can see the intention, but without it being sort of overworked and, you know, slick, you know,

Karlx: 6:20

Yeah. I mean, that's pretty much, I think that's pretty much what I'm trying to aim for most of the time when I'm, when I'm working on a piece is, you know, there's other factors that factor into it. It's kind of like, I think somebody was suddenly on the artists Alliance group. I can't remember exactly what they said. They said something about. I CA I, I should. I think what I wanted to reply to them was that it's not about, you know, they were asking if my work rule was like self portraits, you know? And, and, and it's kind of, well, I don't think of them self portraits so much, but they do express things that I feel like there's a lot of self-expression in that work. I think not, not so much about. It's not a self portrait per se, but you know, it's expressing something that I'm feeling, I guess.

Jen Tough: 7:13

So tell me about early days of Karl x

Karlx: 7:17

well, I, I grew up on a farm, very small farm in Northwestern, Indiana. And my, my great-grandfather was the one who actually worked the farm. I know you a draft. Me and my, my two siblings. So I got my, I got my start with, with a hoe at a very young age. I always thought, oh, this is so I was driving a tractor when I was six. So I thought, well, it was really cool when I got to school, I was thinking, oh, this is really cool. I can drive a tractor. And it turns out, well, I'm going to a school in the country just about every kid can drive a tractor now. So I kind of grew up, my mother was a self-taught artist. She didn't really like the idea of me wanting to paint, even though that's what she did. And I wanted to do that too, but she got she would always encourage me to draw. I was pretty good. I was pretty fast style was a pencil and she got me lots of books. I'm basically, it was kind of a. She would, you know, I'd want to know how to, how to, how to make things look more realistic than I was able to. She would she'd go when she would go to buy art supplies. She'd give me a book on like how to draw perspective. So, so there was a lot of that kind of back to you know, I had a lot of that kind of exposure too. And they were really simple, pretty, pretty simple books in a lot of ways, but you know, just like, oh yeah, I can do this. And it was, you know, So there was a long struggle in art school, especially not an art school, but you know, growing up in school to want to do things, draw things that looked realistic. I mean, everybody goes through that, I think, regardless of what you end up finally doing, I think we all end up at some point. I realize all, I don't have to draw everything realistically, you know, it can be more expressive or it can be more, this can be abstract. It can be, you know you know, and it took a long time for me to, I think when it really changed when I got into high school. I had a pretty good art school or art teacher there. I got, I just decided I needed to know more about art in general. So I would go to the library and check out books on art and art history and kind of did a lot of. Self-studying that way. That's how I first found out about Mark Rothko. Well, when I was in high school and I've always been a big fan of his work, you know, really his paintings are amazing, you know, especially, I think the first time I ever saw a Rothko was it was the art Institute was at the art Institute of Chicago. There was one of his paintings there and I was completely stunned by it. I was really unprepared for how it would look in. And that was, that was very significant to me to know that, you know, seeing a reproduction and seeing actual artwork were completely different experiences. And that really made a huge impact on me in that regard. And I can remember later actually, when I had the opportunity to to go to the. National gallery in DC. And I, first thing I went to look for where the Vermeers and it was the same, same experience there. I mean, I loved looking at the Vermeers and reproductions, but seeing the girl in the red hat with your own eyes is incredible. You know, it's just, you know, reproductions just don't do it, you know, and plus it's right there in front of you when it's,

Jen Tough: 11:03

so is this in high school when you got to do these trips and you checked out these?

Karlx: 11:08

Yeah, the one I saw where it was in DC, it was when I was in, I was in art school, high school, high school was mostly, you know, trying to go to museums. I think I went to a few art galleries. I remember my high school art teacher encouraging me to go see a. I think it was a, it was a group show and one of the suburban galleries. And I was like, oh, this is really, I was, you know, and it was kind of more, that was in some ways, a little bit more interesting to me because it was people, they weren't like big famous artists. Like they weren't museum people. They were just people who were. Like who I am now struggling to get their work out there in front of eyeballs. I think that was, that made an impression on me as well. You know, the fact that there was an, it was obviously a way more contemporary than a lot of the stuff you would see in a museum as well.

Jen Tough: 12:06

Right. Yeah. And those were the days too. When I remember when my parents, I grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and there was an art gallery, not far from our house. And they, you know, when they bought their house, when I was like two or something, they went to the art gallery to buy art. You know, it's like such a, yeah. It's such a different thing than now. So anyway, I can see why that would have an effect on you going to that gallery local gallery. So, so then you went to art school. Where did you go for your undergrad?

Karlx: 12:35

Well at first I didn't at first my father said, you're not you, you know, he wanted me to go to school to be an engineer. So he said, no, I'm not going to go to art school. I'm not going to pay for that. So I was like, you know, I spent a year working and trying to save up money. And I think at that point, but my father, my father was so desperate. Cause I was on the first. So he was really desperate for some, for someone, one of his children to go to go to school and get a college degree. And he was so distraught that, especially me, the firstborn, I was just going to, you know, that my plan was, oh, I'm just going to work and I'll make art. And I did that for like a year. And I realized that the art I was making wasn't I wasn't at all happy with, I didn't know what I was doing. I wanted to know more. I had saved up enough money. My father by that point was desperate and he said, here's what I'll do. I'll pay for your first semester of art school. Great. And so I did that and once I got there, I realized, oh, there's there's money. I can get, so I can continue. And this was in the seventies and I was going to, I went to the, I ended up at the Heron school of art in Indianapolis, which is part of the Indianapolis Purdue, Indiana Purdue university at Indianapolis. This was a private art school that got in, I think, in the late sixties. It was bought up by Indiana Purdue university and they, they have a big con it's basically a big commuter school there in Indianapolis. And you know, they have other schools there and the Heron school of art is one of those. And so I ended up there and the tuition was incredibly cheap. It was, I think, six.$600 a semester.

Jen Tough: 14:37

Oh my God really was that for like in-state students. Did they have that kind of deal?

Karlx: 14:44

And it was, and you know, that was something I had considered it. When I went to high school, I was living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I looked at art schools in Pennsylvania. And even with me, and I only paid out of state tuition, I think for one semester, because I had been working in Indiana and living there independently. So I was able to, after a semester, Can I get my tuition cut in half. And then I was getting at that time, I think they were called basic educational opportunity grant. There's like a thousand dollars a year. I could pay for a year's tuition and had money left over. So at a certain point. Well, I was in art school and I fell in with a guy who was opening up a neon shop and he decided to take me on as an apprentice for whatever reason. I'm not sure how I managed that one, but, you know, I kind of looked at it and thought, well, this is kind of an opportunity for me to be able to. Do stuff with my hands and make money. So you know, I did, I made neon signs and you know, that, that was great. Cause that guy got me into, you know, for better or for worse got me into the sign trade. And you know, I did that for like almost 20 years. I think, you know, paid for art school, paid for graduate school, paid lot of stuff. So, you know, and as well as did afford me some opportunities to make some art. So the problem I always had with it was people would always want to call me a neon artist. And I always know I'm an artist. I'm not a, you know, I'm using neon because I have access to it. That's it, you know, truth be told when you know, in the early nineties I had a studio in San Francisco whenever I would do open studios, people would come in, they'd look at them, they'd look at the neon stuff. They'd look at my drawings. And inevitably somebody would turn to me and say, so you must share the studio with somebody. So, which do you do? Do you do those the neon or the drawings? The drawings were so much more expressive. Yeah. I mean, you know, because it was, you know, it was more spontaneous. In fact, I always think of drawing is a lot of ways, even though I do finish w you know, it's always a finished piece, the drawing itself. I always think of them as, as these intermediate steps, when I get, when I'm working on sculpture, it's like, it's kind of maddening in some ways. Cause there's some times you just can't go any further with it. You have to wait for things. And so it would make me kind of crazy. Okay, I'm going to just draw. So, you know, it was, but it got to a point for me with the neon, I realized that a certain point that I had to quit doing neon just as art, because. Yeah, it was, it wasn't really expressive enough for me. It wasn't you know, it was, it was, it was, it was, for me, it was much too craft oriented and it was what I was always struggling to get away from. Was that, that sort of slick craftiness of, of, of how some things can be. And for me, it really inhibited the expressiveness of my work. So, you know, as, as time went by, I became less and less drawn to. To wanting to work with neon. And, you know, it was, it got to a point where it was like, okay, I have to figure out how I'm going to put the wires in this, how neon is going to Mount to it and all this stuff. And I just kind of thought, why, why am I struggling so hard with this? Shouldn't be this hard.

Jen Tough: 18:36

I can see how that would be really hard to express herself because the, the tools seemed so limited. You know what I mean? Like what you can do,

Karlx: 18:43

but there's, but like I say too, there's this, you know, the limitations also gives you something to push up against. And it felt like in a certain sense that I had kind of pushed as hard as I can and when, as far as I could with it, you know, and also, like I said, people kept calling me a neon artist and it was making me crazy. So

Jen Tough: 19:04

yeah, I can totally see. And it's kind of like,

Karlx: 19:08

I kind of did I kind of, I liked glasses and material and I loved working with it. The sign trades are really, I think are a difficult trade to be in. There was certainly for me at least, I mean, I know a lot of trades people. I know a lot of. A lot of other neon artists and they're doing fantastic and I applaud them and try to support them when I can, because I think it's a, it's an interesting medium, or just didn't seem like it was for me. So, I mean, I did what I did. I felt like love the stuff I did was really pretty good. So, but that's, I needed to move on from that. So,

Jen Tough: 19:50

yeah. So after you got your BFA, you went to, did you take some time off before you got your master's or did you.

Karlx: 19:58

Went straight ahead and got my MFA. Cause I just kinda figured well, though, and also the other thing that that's interesting about my, and this, I think this kind of is played out throughout my whole career as an artist, is that I've always liked. Playing around with different media. So when I was also, when I was in undergraduate school, I was exposed to a lot of stuff. I was, I fronted a punk rock band. I was the guy who was screaming, doing, you know, You know, jumping around acting weird writing lyrics for these songs and stuff like that. It was, you know, so there's, there's always been a kind of a performer part of me. I think there's always been a performer who lived in me sometimes he, he creeps out. So I'm always tempted in situations like this to, oh, I should turn this into a performance. But I wisely refrained from that. But anyway so I. I got exposed to video art and undergraduate school as well. We had no half inch studio equipment, so we didn't have any PortaPacks we couldn't, which is the thing I always wanted to do is like walk around and record things. And we didn't have that ability, but, you know, but it was, again, it was those limitations pushed up against it's like something sometimes comes out. That's really good that, that limitation hadn't been there. Yeah wouldn't have happened, you know, so, so there was that. And so when I was applying for graduate schools you know, one of the schools I applied to was the school, the art Institute of Chicago. And I was interested in their video program that they had there at that time. It was pretty interesting. And in the mid to late seventies, People were doing lots of stuff with Dan San Dean image processor, which was, you could take a black and white video image and colorize it. It was never really very realistic, but you can do other things. You can do compositing or what we would call Matting. Now. Then we called it Matting. But now it's everybody thinks of it in terms of composite. And then you could do stuff like that. And it was always. So, and that also involves some performance as well. So it was kind of like, I that's, what I ended up doing was switching from being a sculptor, primarily to going in and getting an MFA and video and performance art. So, you know, the whole thing of going to graduate school was I kind of saw it as an opportunity to be, to get qualified, to become a teacher and be able to teach. You know, university or college. And once I got there and had to do a little bit of it, I realized I was not going to be a very good art teacher. Well, I didn't particularly like having to do it. And it was kind of also, there was nobody there to give you instructions on how to be a teacher.

Jen Tough: 22:59

Right. Well, is that, I mean, that's sort of seems universal for art school, right? Like there's not much about teaching and the right.

Karlx: 23:10

And then yeah. And the way I looked at it was I had no, my sculpture teacher. Oh, God, you know, may he rest in peace? He was here at Heron. He was, he was a wonderful, wonderful man. And and you know, and I think everybody has at least, at least one teacher that made a huge difference, regardless of wherever they are, whatever they're doing in life. There's always, at least one teacher that was, that was It's instrumental in getting them motivated to do things. And Gary Freeman was one of those guys. He was, he was an amazing, I remember one point I wasn't doing, you know, he was basically a Foundry guy, which where I got started with metal casting and you know, and he. But I was doing a bunch of work at a particular time where I didn't have wasn't hardly ever going into this Foundry to, to work on things. I was doing stuff in my apartment and stuff, and he said, well, I need to see your work. And he came over to the apartment to look at it. I probably will, you know, being the nervous student that I was, I'd just probably just talked insensitive incessantly. Gary's kind of always very quiet and a lot of ways. And you finally, at one point he said, well, you know, I'm not really sure what to tell you about what you're doing here, but, you know, I think you're really serious about it. And I think you should keep doing it. It was, you know, like the thing that, the best thing that anybody could ever say to anyone in a critique yeah, it's not wrong. What you're doing. I don't understand it. But you seem to, you seem to have, you seem to have it, whatever it is, you seem to have it and you should continue, continue doing it. And, and you know, it was, it was that. And also my friend, Sam, who encouraged me to paint my sculpture, those two guys were like, Stellar in a lot of ways. And it's like, how can I, how can I even be half as good as those people? That was, those were my, my models. And I knew that I couldn't be nearly as good as either of those two people. So I decided it was probably wise for me to. Not be a teacher. So, you know, because we have, we've all had really bad teachers. I didn't want to be, I didn't want to join those people at all. So I just kinda thought, you know, but looking back on it, I mean, that was my primary motivation for going to art school. But looking back on it now, if I had to do it over, knowing what I know now, I would still go to art school. I would still do. Video and performance stuff, even though I don't do, I mean, I shoot video now and I kind of play with it, play around with the idea of like, oh, maybe I could turn this into some video work. It just, it just it's, it's one of these things that I'd really have to change, focus to do that. I feel right now, my focus is mostly toward the artwork that I'm currently working. I want to continue that with the sculpture and for me, that's, that's, I really, I'm really enjoying where I am right now. It's been a long time. I've been making art for, you know, some, you know, I kind of considered my. What is it when I really, when I fit, I got my MFA in 1981. So I've been, I figured I've been practicing as a professional artist for like 40 years now. So, yeah. And what's interesting to me is that I feel like now I'm at a point where it's not effortless, but I certainly don't require any kind of inspiration. I just it's I've been doing it for such a long time. It just seems to be a natural act in a way for me, that's that's exciting enough, you know, that I can I, knowing that I can just go out in the garage and pick up a piece of styrofoam and start carving on it and go, oh yeah, this looks like something. Or maybe a carve on it. And I throw it in a box with the other stuff that I don't know what I want to do with, but. It's there, you know, it's kind of how my process works these days is that I just work on things. And at a certain point I'll look, I'll tell, I'll pick up a couple of different things and I'll look at them and I'll go, oh, these need to go together. And you know, and most of the materials I'm working with these days anyway, Mostly free, be honest. I mean, I pay for, I pay for a pox. I use a lot of uProxy resonant and I pay for that and the proxy's not cheap, but that's, that's, you know, a gallon of poxy reservoir. It lasts a long time for me. So it's just, but the stuff that I really use is wire, cardboard, styrofoam, all of this stuff is pretty much free.

Jen Tough: 28:23

So, what is the, what's the attraction to those types of materials besides the free aspect? Do you, do you like this? Because they're kind of like humble and you know, not complex they're, you know, they're, they're, they're things that people castaway you know, and you're making something really valuable out of, them.

Karlx: 28:45

One of the things that was this goes back to when I was undergraduate school we did what was called direct burnout styrofoam. So we would get styrofoam cartons. Gated. And then we take it and bury it and sand, and we tamp the sand sharp sand. So it would lock, you know, we tamped it, vibrate the sand and we'd keep heat up a crucible aluminum pour it. Right on top of the styrofoam. Styrofoam just burns out instantly. And I'm bumping on stuffs. We didn't, you know, this was in the seventies and this is about the time that. Material safety data stuff became important, more important than the art world. Certainly, especially in art school, we didn't know how toxic it was to burn styrofoam. And it smelled bad with a huge clouds of black smoke. We were in a Foundry regardless what time of year it was. We always had the doors open in the place, but cigarettes smoked cigarettes. My instructor smoke cigarettes. We'd be on pours. We'd be, you know, usually the course took place in the evening. So, so we'd all be standing around smoking and drinking beer, you know?

Jen Tough: 30:00

Yeah, breathing in all the toxic

Karlx: 30:02

fumes and the worst part was wasn't so much. I mean, it was bad when we were doing actual. But the worst part was probably when you were digging it out of this, where you're digging your when the sculpture was cooling enough. You could take it out of the sand because what would happen is a lot of them really, I think a lot of the really toxic stuff stayed in the sand and then you'd be digging out your sculpture from the sand. You should get hit in the face. I can remember my eyes tiering. It was so nasty and you couldn't see it. That was the other thing. It wasn't like, you know, when you poured it, there was big gusts of black smoke, you know, it's like, we knew that was probably not good. The invisible stuff that I kind of feel like, oh, I don't know. I have some health issues these days. And mostly my immune system seems to want to kill me most of the time and I can't help, but wonder did that factor into it somehow, you know, just one of these things, it's like, you know, I grew up, you know, I spent nearly 40 years working in various trades, you know, most, you know, being a carpenter wasn't too bad. I was, I always loved the smell. Of sawdust thought that was terrific. It wasn't necessarily toxic. I mean, carbon carpentry I was doing was more rough carpenter. I did a lot of framing and remodeling and stuff, so it wasn't so much that we were on was doing well, you know, working in a wood shop where you're dealing with. You know, exotic woods hardwoods and stuff, which can be really bad for you. So I saw it as fallout part. Most of the stuff I was doing was Redwood. Probably the worst stuff was pressure treated lumber. You know, it was supposed to kill things.

Jen Tough: 31:58

Yeah, exactly. So tell me about why did you move to California? Tell me about that journey.

Karlx: 32:05

Well, I've been, I've been in Chicago for awhile after graduate school and I had had, I was doing actually, I was kind of working in a video post-production house for a little while. It was a not-for-profit place for independent producers. Well, I was sort of their technical director there, which was once it was funny title. So what I did, but anyway I got, got laid off from that job and I was working, I was doing some AV stuff for SIGGRAPH, which is a computer graphics, special interest group. And this would have been in 1985. I worked the contracted me to work for them. And they were doing the conference in San Francisco at the Moscone center. It was my first trip to San Francisco. I had a good friend who was from also from the art Institute who was originally. I believe he was originally from San Rafael and gone to the art Institute in San Francisco and then the graduate stuff, school, the art Institute in Chicago, he was interested in moving back south. That was our plan was we were going to, I did the conference, came back from that, and then I was like, I'm ready. I'm done with. I live next to an L. That was okay. In some ways I needed summers, summers were horrible. Then I just decided, you know, months later I packed up and I was out here in San Francisco. So. Things changed or quite a bit. Also my wife, my current, my wife, who I knew who had started dating before I moved to San Francisco, had moved to Portland, Oregon at the same time. So we tried having a long distance relationship for a couple of years. She ended up getting a job in Santa Barbara when I had gone to visit her. And she insisted that we continue seeing each other, that we had to be married. So I kind of, I went along with it. We'd been married and we actually, it was yesterday was our 35th wedding anniversary. So it's been, it's been. That's been a terrific ride. There are parts of it that are why man, it's like, everybody's married. I'm sure. There's really mostly, I think for me, it's been really terrific. I've loved my wife terribly, so it's been really great. She's been very supportive of my artwork thing. I love most about that for aspect of supporting my artwork. Tell me what kind of art I should make, but rather what she does is she gives me ideas about how to come up with ideas, much more ma Metta thing, you know, where it's kind of like lead to give you ideas, but I'll give you ideas about how to have ideas.. Way more important and or strategic. So initially I'm like everybody else, I can't do that. I'm going to resist. I'm going to resist. She's right. I should try this.

Jen Tough: 35:22

Is she a creative person

Karlx: 35:24

too? She got her MFA at the school of the art institute. I met her actually at the time, the very first time that I met her, she. In a relationship with one of my professors there to school. Well, but also by the time, by the time we connected up, they had their relationship. So it wasn't, it wasn't any big wasn't any big thing about nobody. Nobody had a big fallout over any of this stuff. People were surprised. Janes 11 years older than me. And I think that's, that's probably the thing that surprised people more than anything else, our age difference. But 35 years later, we're still here. How it's working, you know, it's it's, it's great. So I couldn't have asked for a better partner in this.

Jen Tough: 36:24

Yeah, well, the mess. What, what has, how has COVID been for you? Like the whole thing the last couple of years, how has that

Karlx: 36:34

good and bad? Yeah, it's good in the sense that I'm a shut in anyway. So it's kind of like, oh, you mean I don't have to go out and see people problem, but then also too, I do, but I do have to say, I miss going to art openings. I missed, you know, like miss that part of it quite a bit. But the other thing, the other thing that's good about that as well, as you know, now that there are some openings and stuff like that, and people are starting to come out more, you know, it seems like most of the people that I know who are in the art world more, they're all like behind it. I don't think, I don't think I know anybody. Who's really vehemently against vaccinations. If they are, they keep it to themselves in a mask for me. Cause I have some health issues, especially in guarding my immune system. It's really important to me that, that, you know, I haven't had a cold in two years. And now cold calls can be just the worst thing for me. It's not just, it's, it's really, it can be really, really rough when I, in the past, when I would start to feel a cold coming on, I would just stop whatever I'm doing. Go home, get into bed and then, you know, get sick. But hopefully, usually it didn't seem to be as bad as if I decided, oh, I'm not really getting sick. And I'm just going to power through. That was always a real mistake for me. So, you know, given the fact that, you know, when the whole COVID thing started out, I remember reading an article written by a woman that had a bone marrow transplant and she was like saying you have, when you get a bone marrow transplant, you end up with no immune system. No. So she talked about the whole whole hand-washing routine, which I took very seriously. If I couldn't remember when I washed my hands last, I would wash my hands. If I wanted to scratch my face, I would go wash my hands. First, when you have no immune system, you get sick from things. If nobody's heard of.. You know, so it was kind of, I took that part, that aspect of it I've taken very seriously. So I'm very, I've washed my hands almost way too much. Probably. I don't know. I don't think you can.

Jen Tough: 39:12

So probably having the studio in the garage at home is probably then, you know, probably a good thing. Cause you've got everything home.

Karlx: 39:26

To storage spaces. One, which pretty much contains my whole sculpture studio as well as a lot of old, older, large artworks that are just being stored when it's not shipping container in San Francisco, where I used to have a studio and I'm still renting from the same guy who rented me, my studio, which is now in a shipping container. But can work there. The, then I also have another storage space. It's a little bit closer to home. That I pretty much, it's pretty much storage for my artwork at this point. In fact, I think I'm going to be moving my flat file out of my garage because it takes up way too much space.

Jen Tough: 40:09

Yeah. Those things are huge.

Karlx: 40:11

And I think I can move that into the storage space with all my other sculpture and stuff, and I'll know where all my drawings are. Stuff like that anywhere. So and then I'll, that'll give me a lot more, well, for me, a lot more workspace now.

Jen Tough: 40:26

Yeah. So in, in closing up and closing, what, what are your goals still? What do you, what do you like focusing on right now? Or where do you want to go still with your work with the career? What do you, what are you thinking.

Karlx: 40:47

I don't really, I've never, I've never really thought of myself as having, I mean, I do have an art career, but I don't think about it that way. You know, for me is it's artists having it's something that I kinda, I have to do exercises a lot of demons.. Through my psyche, which is I find to be great relief. And so I just kind of, I mean, I don't know, you know, I've got a solo show coming. Sometime this year, probably late summer, early fall. I've got a solo show is a transmission gallery. Yes. I think the Pence gallery is doing its annual emerging artists thing. And I'll try to apply for that. I do like applying for shows and trying to get into them. I'm not really sure how things are going to play out. I mean, just. You know, I just kind of figured, well, you know, what's worked. I always think of you know, I've always been, I think I've been a lucky person in terms of art career stuff, and I'm kind of thinking that's going to continue going forward. And what I mean by lucky is when it got your can't remember it, I don't know if it was Seneca who might've said this, but, you know, luck is just nothing more than being prepared. An. You know, so it's kind of like, and I remember somebody asked me once how I got, how I was able to get representation at transmission gallery. And I basically said it was basically just luck. Really. It was I'd happened to meet Brian Cameron, the, one of the co-owners of the gallery. He looked at my work. He liked it. He didn't really say much about it at all. And then I kind of went to the gallery a few times, met the manager there and they said, oh, we have Brian or Cameron talked to us about, about your work. W we, we, we really like your work. We'd like to see more of it. And so, you know, I talked to them and then they said, we'd like to offer you a solo show and, and representation. And that was like, great. But this guy was when he was asking me about it. And I said, you know, basically that's what happened. But part of it was too, I was really prepared for that opportunity. I have a large body of work, which was exactly, you know, whether I know how much of it was really good. How much is mediocre and how much of it was bad? I don't know. I don't, I don't make those judgements because every time I think something's really good. Those are the things that people seem to gloss over.

Jen Tough: 43:27

Yeah. Isn't that weird? I find that with a lot of artists.

Karlx: 43:31

And so I just kind of go, well, you know, it is what it is. It's like people are going to make their own decisions about it. So basically but that was the opportunity. That was the opportunity, but I was really well-prepared. I was really well-prepared. I had a lot of large body of work. In fact, Ruth Santee, the other owner of the gallery. First thing that she said to me, she asked me was, are you prolific? I don't know. I don't know how to answer that question because that, that requires me to compare myself to others. And to me that I started to do that. Everything just turns to shit, you know? Just goes to shit. Cause I had this one friend, I don't know how she can be as prolific as she is. She's just, I I'm in awe of her, you know? And I there's another sculptor. I know who's the same way. And I'm like, how did these, I mean, I know I have a lot of free time. I, I was forced into retirement early because I. Really bad shoulder and I had to have it replaced. And once my shoulder was replaced, I wasn't able to do construction work. That was it. So I went on to just, I was on disability for a number of years now. Now I'm just retired. So, cause I'm old enough to be retired now, but you know, all of a sudden it was this opportunity. It's like, wow, I can make hard full time. Now this is this. Yeah. So, you know, I still can't keep up with these people and it's amazing to me. I mean, so when Ruth asked me that question, I was kind of taken aback a bit because I'm thinking, I don't know how to answer that question. You know, I really don't. All I know is I just it's probably this Midwest. Work ethic thing. I just think, you know, you just put your head down and do the work. You don't think about it. You just do the work.

Jen Tough: 45:30

Yeah. Very, very, yes, it's true. There's that ethic in the Midwest for sure. Definitely. I mean, I can say that from being raised in the Midwest, everyone's just no nonsense, you know, no nonsense, just

Karlx: 45:43

work I mess around and just do the work. And I've always felt a really strong kinship to the harry who. Know, you know, from most of those people were, have been students at school, the art Institute. So I was like, yeah. And I felt really close and I felt a very close affinity. Those artists, you know, and are kind of tried to, you know, even though I was mostly doing, when I was at the art Institute and in Chicago, it was mostly doing video on performance work. There was still some kind of, for me, I could. Sort of kinship there because my, my performances were not really serious. Lot. My like my artwork is kind of there's there. You could look at it and you can see that there's some serious stuff going on in there, but there's also a bit of comic relief, you know, because if it's too serious, it's depressing.

Jen Tough: 46:34

It's not fun. It's not fun to make. It's

Karlx: 46:36

not fun to me, even though when I'm making a lot of this stuff, I can feel those a lot of depression. There's this other part of me that has to go, I need some relief from this, you know? So what can I do to kind of, in fact, that was a criticism. I got more than a few times about some of the videos stuff that I did when I was in graduate schools, you know, it's like, well, this is going along being really sort of serious and dramatic. And then you did this. And it was not, and it was, it wasn't serious anymore. It's like, can't you ever be serious? So, yeah, kind of, but that's, that's just how, I mean, so going forward, that's kind of, I think that's kind of where I'm trying to head is like, how do I keep, how do I keep with the sculpture? I think, how do I keep. How do I keep that, that sort of tension going, you know, between the serious, the serious side of it on the more goofy side, you know? So that, for me, I think that's. That's pretty much. I think how I want to think about things going forward is just trying to figure out more of that, trying to figure out, I mean, I'd like doing figurative work. Trying to figure out different ways of expressing the figure is a real challenge for me that I really kind of like a bit, I think it's, you know, I look at a lot of outsider art. It's where I'm really at right now, these days looking at outsider art Just that kind of stuff is really inspirational to me because it's like these people, maybe I always also try to think of my work a little bit as someone's who's who's, you know, trying to be an outsider, but informed, but being informed by my art school training. Right. So it's kind of like, you know, I understand how color works. I understand that, you know, for me, the most interesting blacks are the ones where you don't use black at all. When you're mixing colors, it's like, how can you make black? I mean, I think it might've been van Gogh who had like a whole huge number of ways of making black without using black, you know? So the color aspect of it. It was really important. Interesting to me. I just, I, so I don't know where it's going is your guess is as good as mine. I can pretty much say it probably still be fairly figurative. You know, as much as I appreciate abstract works, I really like abstract work quite a bit, especially sculpture. I just don't feel. Confident or comfortable enough to do it for myself. So, you know, I'll stay, you know, I'll stay the course with what I'm with what I'm good at, I think, which is my weird figure figurations and semi realistic. I don't know how to describe it really. You know, it's just, my stuff is kind of. It's not very realistic, but I liked the idea that it's looks somewhat haphazard and some were poorly formed and put together strange ways stuff, stuff looks like it's going to fall over. I, you know, for me, that's, that's, that's all that tension in there. You know, that, that tension is what's. What for me is, what's really interesting, you know, so. So, yeah, I guess maybe going forward, I'm going to try to press that tension is as hard as I push on that as much as I can.

Jen Tough: 50:38

And that's what draws people to the work too. I think,

Karlx: 50:41

I think so too. I mean, it's just, you know, it's kind of one dimensional if there's just, if you only have a, but if you have a and B and they seem to be opposing a bit, it's like way, way more interesting, you know, it's like, why is that there? How is it. Really shouldn't be, or, you know, I don't know.

Jen Tough: 51:04

Yeah, yeah. Your work. Definitely. I can see that in your work for sure. And, and the, definitely the inspiration as well from you know, more outsider artists, because that's where that realness comes in. You know that raw realness and then, but then you have the art school you know, background informing it, that kind of education that you can examine the A and the B right with, without it losing its you know, appeal it's it's it's realness, you know, Yeah.

Karlx: 51:35

And the color stuff for me, the thing that I'd like and most about the work that I'm doing now for up until just a few, couple of years ago, I was doing a lot of metal casting because I had access to where I could, I could do work in a Foundry. You can do most of the work yourself. You save a huge amount of costs on labor. I just recently finished up on a commission that I wasn't able to. I basically, all I did was make the waxes for it. And I took it to an art, local art Foundry. They cast it for me. They have a service called cast and blast where they cast the things that sandblast parts given back to you. And then you get welding and patination are all lift up to you. During that process pretty well. I think in the future going forward, what I would like to try to do if I'm going to be doing more casting is to be a little bit more strategic about it in some ways, by taking, by doing small maquettes models, having them scanned in three-dimension. Laser scan have the, and then, and then what's nice about that is you can scale. It makes it really easy to scale up. So that's kind of my, my, my next project that I would really like to try to work on. I'm not sure how I'll get to it financially is to, is to take a small sculpture and get it scanned, blow it up, have it printed. Take it to a Foundry and have it cast. So that would be a really cool, that would be very much fun, very expensive undertaking, but, you know, so it's something there that's on the, always on the back burner, because that's going to be an easy thing that for me to do, to come up with, come up with a small, small sculpture. That'll be, that's like, that's, that'll be a walk in the park, you know? So, you know, the thing I liked about casting and working in a Foundry was I was kind of freed of, you know, I was allowed to be able to just. I would just, I have a huge library of molds. So I would cast lots of waxes from those molds. And then I would sit around and play, be like playing with tinker toys in a way, you know, cut things up, waxes, wonderful medium to work in. glue them to solder them together, do all kinds of strange things. And if I didn't like it could just go right back into the wax pot and melt down and use it over again. So it's a wonderful process that part of it for after that point, it gets to be real serious labor.

Jen Tough: 54:13

Yeah, I can imagine.

Karlx: 54:14

And it's hard work. There's nothing about wax work is probably the easiest or mold, some mold, some aspects of mold making and the wax work are probably the easiest things and foundery, in terms of, of having to do physical stuff, you know, when you start making ceramic shells, There's that then there's the actual pouring of the metal. There's the divesting of the shells. It gets to be heavy and hot and I kind of feel like I'm so out of it these days, I have not had to do physical labor now. I don't know, seven, eight years or something like that. So I feel like I'm really out of it.

Jen Tough: 54:55

Yeah. I bet. Yeah. It's definitely a lot of work for sure. Well, Karl, thank you so much for,

Karlx: 55:04

thank you. I appreciate this. This is so great to be able to talk to you and you know, it was a great opportunity. So thank you. I've enjoyed spending the last hour with you. It's been really nice and. Yeah. I mean, take care and have fun and, and we'll chat soon. All right.

Jen Tough: 55:21

All right.

Karlx: 55:21

Good talking to you.

Jen Tough: 55:22

Thanks Karl. Thank you so much for listening and supporting this podcast. Your support means everything. If you'd like to learn more about the Artist Alliance community, send me a question or learn about other events or projects coming up, please visit my website at www.Jentough.gallery. See you next time.