REVEN MARIE SWANSON: Colorado is Calling Me Home

Reven Marie Swanson has had a lifelong love affair with the beauty of Colorado and the beauty of art.  The two loves merge seamlessly in her works of public art, installed and exhibited across the state and around the country.  For a part of her career, she worked at her day job, came home, and then got to work on her art until the wee small hours of the morning.  Now, she is able to focus on art, along with the occasional horseback ride and trail hike in her beautiful Colorado.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hi everyone, I'm Blessed, and welcome to Travel Treasures Across America, a series of conversations with people whose work in towns big and small across our country, enriched applies for locals and visitors alike. In this episode, we are focusing on public art across America with artist Revan Murray Squatson. Colorado has been calling Revan Murray Squatson her whole life. Born and bred and still lives and works there. Her work is seen in public art installations and exhibitions throughout Colorado and across the country. There was an early love of art and an early love of what she called the rhythm of the natural world. What role do you think the state of Colorado plays for you in your formation as an artist?

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Well, it's a pretty big role. I was born here. So I I've lived here all my life. I mean I've lived a few other places along the way, but I've always returned back to Colorado. I think that the part about Colorado is that um I really am inspired and I love the the mountains. When I get really stressed or have a lot of anxiety, I say that I'm going to to my church, and that means I'm gonna go get on a trail somewhere and go hike or bike or ski or something and just be in the woods.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Do you think it has a tangible effect on the art that you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Um 100%, yes. Um I'm very inspired. Um, you know, I grew up in a very rural area in Colorado. It's not rural anymore, but it was rural back then.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

Where was that?

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Uh it was on the what would be now considered the very south end of Highlands Ranch, which is now a huge community. Um and but we my sister and I, we had a run of the entire ranch property, um, just us and our dogs and cross-country skis, and we'd uh walk all over the place and chase horses, and um she even would uh she got excited about you know catching lizards because we could grab onto them and they'd run away and and uh hold them by the tail and eventually the tail would break off. I know that sounds morbid, but not really common for two young girls doing that. Um I loved the rolling hills, and um the weather is just really phenomenal here because of the front range. Um if you don't like the weather in Colorado, just hang out for an hour because it's gonna change. And it can be so impressive, like um two days ago, we got hammered by a huge hailstorm, and then an hour later it was sunny and everything was fine. You know, and so um in my work that those impressions um really play a big role, such as um the dancing aspens, that series has been very popular. Um, I was inspired, I was riding my bike um on Kenosha Pass, and um I had just gotten these clipless petals, and um I tried to stop for some hikers, and I fell over with the bike attached to me, so I was like a turtle upside down with the bike stuck to my feet, and I finally got it loose, and I just laid there, like, oh my god, I I'm free, and I looked up and I looked at all the leaves that were flicking around in in the aspen trees, and I thought, well, there's a sculpture. And um, so I I immediately came home and started drawing. So I find inspirations like that, they just come out of the blue, um just out of nowhere.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Is there a sense of when you go out, perhaps on one of these trails, I wonder what kind of inspiration I'm gonna find today?

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Um no, uh I think the inspiration comes when you relax and you open yourself to possibilities. Um so sometimes when I'm just sorting things out, um I would say my my I'm not as open to the possibilities, but eventually after I work that all out, I gain an impression and I start to relax and I start to observe and I start to see colors and shadows. And and um I I just get impressed by the the life force that's out there, the a struggling columbine flower, you know, to to get out of the ground and how a tree gets twisted um from so much you know weather and and wind and rain and snow.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Uh I I I read a beautiful quote from you that said a childhood experience that that ran with the the rhythms of the natural. So is there a notion as you're growing up of that this uh this has a tangible effect on you? And and was there an early uh love of art uh for you in which you thought uh this is what I'm going to do. This isn't just something for fun.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Um you know, the art chose me, and I have been a vessel all my life. Even in kindergarten, I got in trouble because they had a whole row of easels, and I just took over the whole row, and I had several paintings going on at once, and the the the teacher said, you know, you're gonna have to give up one of these because other kids couldn't paint. And um, I brought home just rolls of these um paint paintings, and every single one of those paintings was a painting of a house. Um, I have no idea, they were all different colors, some of them had perspective, some not. Never really had any people in them, just the house. And finally, to get me off of the easels, the teacher said, You're coming with me, you're gonna learn how to read. And so that's how they they got me out of there. So it's been something I've just I've never I've never thought of what it would be a life without um creating, without making art.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

As opposed to the teacher who said, Come with me, we're gonna teach you how to read. Is there a teacher that um that you felt uh is there a teacher that really saw your love of um of art and and and helped inspire you to keep on going?

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Um I think I could give you a whole list of names, um, because it just seemed like the right person came along at the right time. I've had a very fortunate circumstance of working with uh what I would consider three three very serious masters. And the one master I worked with for I started in 1993 and I worked for him um uh for 30 years until he passed away in 2023. Um it uh he his name is Robert Mangold, and he was really uh uh supportive at the cusp of me launching out away from just my studio and my work into more of a public art arena. Um he taught me how to weld, he did monumental sculptures, and um I worked for free, you know, I all those years. Um but I got to work with his studio and we had a lot of adventures building I helped him build a lot of big sculptures, and in fact one of them uh was uh exhibit at the Rose Garden in Washington DC. And we got he invited me to go with him to meet Hillary Clinton and that was kind of fun uh making that trip. Uh but he um he really made me believe in my art and believe in that I wasn't crazy, that um I uh there is um um some basis to it. He also made me contemplate why are you doing something? Don't just add detail to half detail, don't create brick-a-brack. Why you're doing this? You know, what what drives you? Um what is the meaning of it? And he um encouraged me to go deeper and explore the material um to make it work the the best, the fullest it could. He also introduced um a lot of tools and the right tool for the right job. And that really spawned um a lot of technical knowledge that really helped me build sculptures like I just installed one yesterday that is 26 years old. And um it's she's it's Delilah, and she's still strong and healthy and and still out there. I mean, that's that's quite an accomplishment.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Where'd you install it?

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Westminster, Vicki Bunsen Sculpture Garden. Um uh Delilah has been part of the Art on Loan program since 2001. So she is this this lovely creature has collected an honorarium for 25 years, and she's she's she's earned I I call her my little prostitute, you know, so she really feeds the studio.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Well, ever every piece of art has to have a nickname, I guess. So exactly. So there you go.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Uh is there a particular point along the way when you feel like, okay, I'm doing it, I'm an artist.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Um, well, you know, people ask me all the time, you know, they say, Oh, I hear you're an artist. Oh, how do you make a living as an artist? And my response is, Well, I'm trying to be an artist. Um, I feel that uh the moment you declare yourself an expert, you're not open to the possibilities anymore. And there are times where I just continue to seek to be a b beginner again and really take material such as a pipe, and I don't want it to look like a pipe on in the end. So how do I take that that that pipe and how do I manipulate it and how do I use it so it actually has meaning and doesn't look like a pipe?

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Uh when you went off to the University of Colorado, uh was the thought I'm gonna pursue art, or were there other ideas, were there plan B's, or were you just kind of going and let's see what happens from here?

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Um I had to graduate with plan B. Um because uh I I was very close to getting a double major in in um with fine art. And I hadn't declared a um a degree until, you know, or uh what my degree was going to be in until my very last year, and I got a letter saying I had to declare a degree if I'm gonna graduate. So I did I I decided to to declare a degree in journalism. Um because I thought that I could get into the the world of advertising and which I did, I was a creative director um for different entities and an art director and and did advertising work. Um it was because that it was in um I graduated in '88 and in Colorado we had uh OPEC and the whole Silverado scandal. And there was Denver was in a major recession, and I am not a trust fund baby. Um I cannot graduate with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. I mean, what am I gonna do with that? How am I gonna make a living? So um I thought that you know, getting the journalism degree, I was at least employable. So that was plan B. Um in the meantime, why I worked as an art director, um at night I'd always maintain a studio and then I would um like I worked at the Art Students League and stuff like that. I would carve stone or you know, uh do do my artwork at night till about one or two in the morning, and then get up and then go to work during the day. So I really honestly had two jobs.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

This once again, um pointing up my theory, or it proves the point again that none of this comes about by pure happenstance. You gotta put in the work and also follow your passion. It would be easy to have come home in in any field and okay, I'm I did my work, I'm gonna eat and I'm gonna sit, maybe watch TV or read. But that passion that you had for it, okay, I'm getting that was that work. Now there's this work. There's there's a beauty in that.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Yeah, and you know, I even I feel a little bit of the bite now because you know, I I'm you know, I I I've uh you know, I I own my own house, I own my own studio, I I've I've got myself financially set, but I'm still working, and pretty much all of my friends, they're all retired. So excuse me, um, but I'm the only one that's actually still working, and I kind of envision that I'm gonna be working until um the day I drop, I'm gonna be making sculpture.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

And the notion of calling it work, I would imagine, is oh it's work. There's no question about it, but it's passion as well, true.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Oh, absolutely. I mean, most people wake up in the middle of the night and they get worried about certain things. I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes, most times, thinking about, well, what kind of bolts am I going to use on that? How am I gonna, you know, uh how am I gonna mount that? You know, how is what's the weight gonna be about? Well, how do I lighten the weight? How do I make it heavier? How I I mean, I start I start problem solving, you know, what's going on in the studio.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Uh there's the creative end of it, the creation of the piece of art, but then there's the logistics. Uh early on, when you're bringing a piece that's not just to the town right next door, how does one learn that process? Do you learn that from other artists, or how does one learn to bring a piece of art hundreds of miles away?

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Uh well, um, it's something that becomes a little bit of trial and error.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Okay. You want to share with me maybe one early error?

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Well, uh, in fact, I'm uh scheduled to give a talk in St. George next spring, and they wanted me to talk something about the artist's experience, and I wanted to actually bring up this conversation exactly about the artist experience. You make the work, but then how do you get this thing to a place nine hours away? Or and you know, I've even I've even brought stuff from Denver, Colorado to um hunting in in uh Long Island. So I know not next door. So there are adventures along the way. Um things like um when we were driving um out to um Huntington, um, my trailer that I was hauling all the work on, the one of the axles, the leaf spring kept flipping on on the highway, and the whole trailer would start to shake and shake the whole truck. And so we'd have to pull over, take a piece of wood and jam it and get it back up, and we'd be fine until sudden we'd hit some sort of butt um bump and the the trailer would, you know, the leaf spring would slip on us.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

I think Michelangelo had that problem also, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Oh, yeah, leaf springs, yeah. Um, and the one experience was I was coming through Kansas and I had this sculpture that had it was a moon creature, and it she was holding, you know, had a star for one of her wind catchers because it was a kinetic piece. And so I got all the way through Kansas and um I got out just to um you know take a break and check the straps. And I'm like, uh-oh, I'm missing a star. And I I thought, oh my gosh, I need to call the state patrol because I'm pretty sure I put that star through somebody's windshield. No idea where the star went. I need to turn myself in, you know.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Here you go, officer. Don't you you don't even have to need to put the cuffs on. I've already got it. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Yeah, uh it was my star.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

That's very funny.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

There's another story, it was just hilarious because we were in my board truck and you know, we had to get to Lampas, Texas. And um, because for time-wise, I'm hauling the mail, going through Colorado and the Panhandle, Oklahoma. And the minute we got to Texas state border, I got out, and the gentleman I was um driving with Robert, I said, okay, you drive now. And um we're driving, and we were gotten this Texas. We were in Texas for about 30 minutes, and we got pulled over. And um, because you know, we had all this bizarre stuff coming out of the back end of the truck, and um he got pulled over, and the guy goes, You know why I'm pulling you over? And Robert's like, I don't know. And he goes, You were doing 67 in a 65. And he started laughing. I'm like, he just wanted to see what these freaks were doing from Colorado with this stuff in the back.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

That's classic.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Well, on the flip side, is there an early experience he can tell us about when you've made a piece that you've worked on for a while, and you deliver it to a place, be it in Colorado or beyond, and there it is. It's installed, and people are looking at it, and people are intrigued by it, and they're talking about it. And maybe they know you're the artist, maybe they don't, but it's gone from that initial, huh? I saw that on the trail. That looks interesting. Let's do a sculpture about that, and then however many months later, or maybe years, there it is.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Um, you know, it it is a great experience. It's like a sigh of relief when you get it if when you get it down. Because I can no longer, by the time I install it, I can no longer see the peace. I I I am done, I'm so done with it. I I just can't experience it. All I can see is maybe one little place I missed, or or something, I can see all my mistakes. And you know, people will will, you know, say, oh aw, and want me to talk about it, and I'll talk about the experience and things like that, or sometimes I won't say anything. Um, kids are a really great um reaction. Um, yesterday when I put Delilah up, two kids came by, little kids came by on the bicycle, and they went riding back to their dad and said, You gotta come see this statue, you know, and um this is a great big statue, you gotta see it. And I thought, well, that's awesome. That's a nice compliment. Um, I usually have to have um time away before um so when I come to pick it back up, I'm like, oh, I like that sculpture. Oh, or you know, or you know, I visit it later because I I no longer can remember um um all the imperfections that I was dwelling on.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

Right. Uh have you had the notion of looking at one of your pieces of art and people are looking at it and they are talking out loud about what it means to them or what they think it is, quote unquote is. Do you have the desire to go up to them and say, actually, I'm the artist, here's what it's supposed to be about? Or do you just kind of, once it's out, it belongs to them, and whatever, however they interpret it is just great?

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Um, no, I I really try to talk to people, I really try to engage them. Um, I try to make myself really available, um, and they can ask questions and I can explain. Some people ask about how did you do that? You know, what did you use? You know, what kind of welder? You know, because they look at my size, and I'm not a very big person, and how did I create this big heavy thing? You know, and um, you know, so some people uh uh occasionally I run into that there's a little bit of disbelief that I actually made the work um because of that very reason that I had somebody fabricate it for me. I'm like, no, I I I I do it. I I I I I build them like Mr. Potato Heads. I have all the parts and I assemble them. I never make anything too heavy that that can't be moved. Um but uh I feel like that uh when you engage with people and you talk with them, the work is accomplishing what it's meant to do. I I would like to um I I just don't believe in plop art where you just stick something down on the ground and hope that it somehow matches the site or somehow fits the bill and and creates its own story and it it has a tambourine tapping in the background. I really believe that you know I art needs to advocate um it needs to create stewardship. It needs to provide at least for a moment a vacation. So when you study it, when you look at it you take a breath and you stop thinking about your emails and your texts and and you know what you have to do your to-do list that you actually take a little mini vacation and you contemplate something. And you know I I really strongly want to create art that um makes people contemplate makes things people try to figure out what the story is. And they can make up their own story. It can be totally different than mine. And you know I I like work that um people are interested I have some work that people love to take selfies with because it has holes and they can stick their head in it or crawl inside you know and one of my pieces was part of the the Wii games so it got visited um something that I was told like 50 people a day were coming taking pictures with it. So that was that was kind of cool. I um no I I try to be as successful as possible um because it is unusual to have a creative experience. It is unusual to be an artist and um I think that it brightens someone's day by giving them an alternative view. It it it it's a gift to um talk to them about the art. Kind of leads into my next question which is your thoughts about the importance of public art oh public art creates culture it creates a sense of place it it it does have an economic impact. A neighborhood that has very tasteful um artwork and and and tasteful is very subject to opinion um people decide they want to live there they want to shop there they they they people enjoy being around it children like it uh they like to explore it touch it feel it so they're a little bit more engaged with it you know adults generally don't reach out and touch the sculpture um but it it creates a little bit more of a um a gathering space and um that's why I don't agree with Plop art because I feel that as artists that we have a certain responsibility to to build a culture to mend a culture after things like you know 9-11 to um to make sense of things that are complicated and most people uh have a difficult time being able to get to galleries get to museums and so when you bring art to the streets and and put it out there in a public venue you're you're bringing it out to where they are where they can experience it. That's a beautiful thought I just want to ask you briefly about some of the pieces that you've done or are currently are showing let's start with New Moon Dancing which I believe is in Evergreen Colorado yes that one was uh purchased uh quite a while ago I I couldn't remember the exact date um that one um is really a fun series uh and it there was actually uh nine of them and all nine have sold uh of that series so I'm happy for that that's a pretty good batting average nine for nine that's nice and um the the fun part of that one is is it was uh spawned out of a ri a series that I I was always making figurative work and and it was very complex to make figurative work and you know because if you don't have the head then that's another statement but I kept wanting to do something that has very very simplified. So I started working with this round shape and I'd heat it up and bend it and tension it so it was like a spring. So you could just tap it with your finger and you can get it to kind of bounce. And it made me think of the the the phenomenon that we call here in Colorado I'm sure it's other places but it's called a farmer's moon where in um you can look up at the moon especially a full moon and if it has a rainbow or halo around it it means that water's coming um that you're gonna get some moisture. And so that that quivering and with the the glass you know disc inside of it and the quivering was a reflection of the new moon that it was it was a farmer's moon. How about the piece uh Rogan and Highlands Ranch yes Rogan um Rogan was originally created by a a a for a group called the Center of Wonder in Jackson Hole Wyoming and they had a um an old gas station marquee you know big sign you know with big open square in it and they I got the proposal and they said what would you do with this and I said well I would put a a a flying a jumping horse through it so I built the horse you know with wings and um we um got it up there leveraged it up there and so it was it was there for about four years as you drove into Jackson Hole on Highway 50 when you came into town you were greeted by the jumping horse and um so that was that was really neat. Rogan is my only horse I've ever done. I I am a horseman I've competed with horses and um after we finished today I'm gonna go ride my horse um Rogan was uh it was a horse that saved my life and he he he caught me at a time of my life that was very very difficult I was going through a divorce and um he literally provided me sanity he was he was he was the the the thing that kept me on this side of the world um and he so but he was he too had he had parts that were broken and um so I made them all out of recycled metal and because he was just we were both kind of being recycled and so now he's um I love to show him he's in Farmington now and um I just love to uh show him because uh people just love his character.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

The word moon is in many of the titles and coming back to that that quote about you know learning early on the rhythms of the natural world it all kind of fits together and I'm curious if there are times even while you're working and busy at it because it seems you're pretty busy uh when you're able to step back and think oh I had this kind of early inspiration from the place where I grew up and I had a natural tendency to create art with the easels across the room you know in kindergarten and it happened I I'm I'm living that life yeah I I it it's it's it's a little astonishing sometimes that I I often get the question are you really making a living as an artist?

SPEAKER_01 30:12

I'm like yes I am um and you know no I don't drive a BMW you know but I don't need to that I I write my own schedule I I I am my own boss and um I'm if I decide that I'm gonna spend an hour drawing or an hour riding my bike to get some inspiration I can do that and that is um rich onto itself that's something really wonderful and I feel extremely blessed that of the universe has the cosmos has really aligned very nicely for me to have this kind of career.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Well having seen your work online and hopefully someday in person uh the universe is blessed too the work is absolutely beautiful and uh I really appreciate your time with us today.

SPEAKER_01 31:09

Absolutely but I I'm glad we we put this together it it's uh it's really a treat um to talk about art and I really appreciate you know um the creative venture that you're doing I mean it it it really helps um it it really helps get our story out it really helps be more accessible to people and it helps people understand the the meaning behind the work but also it falls fosters stewardship and when when people start to have stewardship have some sense of you know belonging to a sculpture then that's that's really the most awesome feeling because when you're deinstalling they're saying you're not taking that away are you where are you taking that?

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Awesome that's what I think artist Revan Marie Swanson there are always new projects that she is working on including a study of the importance of water in the West to learn more about Revan Marie Swanson and her work you can go to her website at www.revan that's r-evswanson.com and you can find her on Instagram and Facebook as well I'm Bud Mitchkin thanks for listening to this episode of Travel Treasures across America