Chris LaPorte

Chris LaPorte won ArtPrize 2010 with his piece Cavalry, American Officers, 1921.
He also placed in 10th in 2012 with City Band. Both are giant pencil drawings that stir the imagination and make the viewer marvel at the time and effort it took to complete and master. 

Chris is an Associate Professor of Art at Aquinas College. He is modest and introspective and a passionate supporter of ArtPrize. Though 14 years had passed since we last sat down for an interview, it felt like two old friends reconnecting. 

Special thanks to WOOD TV 8 for allowing us to use file video from the stations archives for this episode. 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_02 0:02

Welcome to the official Art Prize Podcast, a limited series going behind the scenes of Grand Rapids Premier Art Competition. I'm your host, Steve Kelso. I'm a former Art Prize reporter for Wood TVA, a former Art Prize artist, and the owner of Kelso Communications, a proud Art Prize sponsor. In this series, I'm talking with the artists, the organizers, and the decision makers shaping Art Prize 16. Thanks for joining me today for this edition of the Art Prize Podcast. I am thrilled today to be joined by Chris Laporte. Chris, thank you so much for coming in today. Thanks for having me, Steve. For those of you who don't know, Chris is the 2010 winner of Art Prize with an amazing piece. We'll get into talking about that piece a little later. He also scored a 10th place uh in in I'm sorry, what year again? 2012, 2012. Uh he's an associate professor for art at Aquinas College, and we're just going to talk about art prize today and all the things that kind of went into that. So again, I'm thrilled to have you here. Well, I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me. I guess the first question, and I was actually there, but I guess the first question I would have that that's a that's a life-changing experience. There are not a lot of artists who get handed a check for $250,000. Certainly. Yeah, there are not many at all for sure. Talk to me about what and yet I I heard somewhere that the very next day you were back teaching your drawing class. So I absolutely was, yeah. So it wouldn't have appeared to have changed you too much.

SPEAKER_04 1:40

No, no, I mean, uh, I mean, uh, I guess there's a couple ways I can go with this. I mean, uh, what I do that uh that is kind of who I am, or really is who I am. So um, you know, I make art, I teach art, and uh, I talk about art, and um I I don't think success in one necessarily means you take a break from it. Like I'm never gonna retire. I'm not gonna retire from this. This is something that is just what I'm gonna do. It's what I get up in the morning to do. And um, you know, that was certainly a life-changing experience, um, and certainly shifted um a trajectory of my career, my fine art career, um, and you know, my teaching career too. It it certainly has influenced everything after, um, and the things that led up to it. You know, this is a continuation of those things.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

It's just in a sense enhanced. I would imagine it gives you a sense of freedom that maybe you don't have to take projects that you don't want to take once once you have that that money in your pocket.

SPEAKER_04 2:56

Well, I think more than anything, it felt um it felt validating. I think that was like the the thing that I got the most out of it. I mean, there's the economic bit, but I think um you know, to have so many people, like when you make art, you know, it's usually you by yourself in a room with maybe a podcast on, or you know, some music, and you know, you're you're having it uh an ongoing dialogue with yourself, you know, and having that next step of like, okay, well, now it's out there and people are looking at it. Um, generally that too is an isolating experience. I mean, you're not necessarily in the gallery when it's up there and people are coming to look at it, or you know, museum or wherever it might be, coffee shop, it's up there and you're not standing by it. Um, Art Prize was a very unique experience where you're invited to be by it that whole time. And in that time, especially if you had a you're at a um very popular venue, that's a lot of interaction. That is a tremendous amount of interaction. And for many artists, um, visual artists, if you're a music, uh, you musician or an or an actor, um you know, the lights on me, right? Right. If you're a visual artist, many visual artists uh default to well, don't look at me, look at it. I don't want you to look at me. I made a thing, so you know, put the camera and the lights on that. I'm just gonna go this way. So to have that all come together and it be uh this intense experience of people asking you direct questions, good or bad or indifferent, and um express how much they appreciate that. Um that was um crazy. It was really crazy and unexpected and required a lot of adjustment in real time. And then to have you know people casting votes and that whole like really unique experience. I mean, you could have a People's Choice Award at an exhibition, it's usually part of a broader ensemble of different awards, but that being the focus, um, and then to you know have things play out the way they did, um it's hard to deny, like, well, I guess people like what I did, which is really a validating feeling. And then we enjoyed it, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Every artist needs a patron, though. Certainly, right? And you're right, as a musician or as an actor, I also need an audience. Yep. As a musician or an actor, what I give away, I get back from that audience, and it changes my art in performance in real time. Sure. How did those interactions with all those people change your outlook on art?

SPEAKER_04 6:16

Um, you know, uh in interestingly, I mean I I think that uh many people might suspect, well, that might shift your decisions towards appeasing an audience. Um my experience was kind of the opposite. Because uh the drawing that I made uh was directly in response to uh my father unexpectedly passing away. It was uh me working through grief that I didn't know what to do with, and uh the drawing was essentially a portrait of him, and it was essentially me trying to draw him back to life, and that's what it was, that's what it is that to me, and as you look at it today, it's is it that same thing? Yes, it's I'll bring my son over to where it is at Aquinas, and you know, it's like we're visiting Larry, my dad, because he was, you know, he was in the reserves and a Dudley Doright guy, and I didn't necessarily put it together while I was making it because I was I was just reeling because he enough so that you didn't know what you were doing while you were correct, but then it took another paternal figure in my life to point it out to me, and that happened like days before I started. Oh great, and um, but it was very, you know, authentic. Like this is this is a thing that I just needed to make, and I didn't know why at the time, and it all came around at the end, like, well, this is obviously why. And then to have that be the thing that people respond to. Like, I didn't make a thing so would win our prize, I didn't make a thing to get people's attention, I just I would like things really sucked, and I was trying to work through that to get to a place where the world makes sense without my dad in it, yeah. And that's what it really was, but then to have people respond to it the way they did, not just you know, with the award and all that, but the way they shared how important that was to them. Like um the guy in the grocery store who recognized me and came up and said, Hey, I just wanted to thank you. I know who you are, and it's a little weird, but I just want to make sure you you I do this and thank you. Um, because I'm you know an art guy and my um my father-in-law's military, and we you know didn't necessarily always land on the same page. But when I took him to art prize and we saw your piece, changed everything for us, and I want to thank you for that. I know that wasn't your intention, but it means a lot to me, and I just won't let you know.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

Man, what does hearing that do to you? That's that's an amazing validation.

SPEAKER_04 9:20

It absolutely is, and it's like, wow, I should make more things that are important to me. And instead of thinking, well, I should make more things that I think will probably make money or uh will uh pease an audience, it was uh it was uh if you just do the thing that's within you, then all that'll come and it'll actually come more because people will sense some authentic element of it and have a broader and more impactful avenue to connect with it.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

I've heard this from artists, I've heard it from uh Bob Dylan talks about how do you write a song? He's like, I have no idea, it just sits there. You just write what you know, it's just yeah, you write what you know, and it came to me.

SPEAKER_03 10:12

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

So yeah, you can't. I guess that's a good lesson for artists to trust that gut. Sure.

SPEAKER_04 10:20

Lean into what is meaningful for you authentically, and that actually gives way to people connecting with it, and therefore it has value, and then therefore it has monetary value. So yeah, that was that was the lesson I took from that and how it affected how I think about um how I spend my time making things, and it still informs you to this day.

SPEAKER_02 10:48

Absolutely, yeah. It's amazing, yeah. Art Prize is an event that has this strange and maybe magical power to inspire people. Uh I remember when it first started, and there was uh I worked in a TV newsroom at the time, and a lot of people were like, Oh, yeah, you're gonna change the world with art. But well, right. I mean, it it does do something to people, to the exploration of the human condition and whatnot, it it's a great part of being alive, isn't it? Sure.

SPEAKER_04 11:30

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're social creatures and we look to each other all the time to you know uh help us uh have meaning in our human experience. And so when someone uh takes the time to create something, which seems, you know, in a broad view, well, that's ridiculous. What does that do? You know, but but it means a lot. I mean tens of thousands of years ago, someone took the time to, you know, put some paint on a cave wall. Yeah, right, and how fascinating that is, and we still like we we don't allow people to go in there now because that might, in terms of you know, the amount of moisture in the air, right, right, because it's so precious, because it has that value, it's so precious, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:24

Yeah, and because it speaks to who we were originally, yeah, as much as today's art does. There's also it says something about us now, too, right, right, that we're still drawn to it, yeah. There's also something about art that makes us think and be nice to each other and uh launch social interactions.

SPEAKER_04 12:48

Absolutely. I mean, I think it's a um it's an avenue for a lot of things. It helps us find common ground, you know. It um it helps us uh it helps people but also groups of people look at things that are difficult to look at, you know, right. It's like the spoonful of sugar. Um a colleague at Aquinas is trying to describe art to me and said that well life can often be like an eclipse, and if you look at the sun too long, it it's it hurts you. It really does physical damage. And if you look at a puddle and you look at its reflection, it's diminished just enough where you can experience it and it doesn't hurt you, and art's that puddle. Art is that puddle, the reflective pool, the that allows us to see through that one degree of separation, the interpretation, the interpretation of a human experience that's like, now I can put this up in front of you. Just like my dad's death, you know, like it was too much. But if I work through it through this process, and perhaps someone who views that can then grieve too. I mean, it's like it's too much to at the funeral, but then when you go watch the movie about the dog and dying, then you're like, you can actually let let it go. And that's the art part. It provides a a service or a function that helps us uh accept the difficult things and accept the like amazing things that it that those two are are too shocking for us. And um, it's often those heightened things we tend to have uh difficulty with the limitations of communication or conventional communication, but an expression about it gives us that degree of separation where we could find more common ground, like more of a Venn diagram of overload.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

Right, right. Here's where we disagree, here's where we agree. Yeah. You know, the the musician, the the actor, the stage fright thing is common. There has to be I've always thought that it once you've painted something, once you've done any kind of an art, it takes a certain amount of bravery of Moxie to put that out in front of people, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_04 15:17

Yes. Uh especially if it's you know authentically coming from you. It's like letting people read your diary or something, you know, or like witness your most vulnerable moments.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

In your case, you didn't even know it was your diary at the time.

SPEAKER_04 15:34

I didn't. I just well, I did once it was up. I mean, it was like a couple days before it went up when you know um Ron Peterson, you know, saw it and pointed that out to me. It's like, that's your dad, isn't it? You've been drawn through losing him, and with what power you have, you you're bringing trying to bring him back to life. That's what that is.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

And you have one of these moments, right? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And then it went up. And then you've got, oh my god, now there's gonna be all these people here competition questions, I'm am I gonna tell these folks what's about my dad?

SPEAKER_04 16:11

I decided not to, and just you know, talk about formal elements and stuff because that was still I was still too close, and I didn't even know how to um share it. And with the competition, you know, just projecting ideas of you know, pity or I didn't want, you know, that's right, you know, I didn't want taint or color or yeah, yeah, because it was a popular vote going on.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

Sure. Like you're only in the second year of art prize at that point, right?

SPEAKER_04 16:40

Still understanding what the the thing itself is, like it's playing itself out in real time.

SPEAKER_02 16:45

We are how many years now into art prize? I think this is the 16th, and I'm still not sure what it is. Yeah, I think that's okay. I think that's okay. Can you help me understand what it is?

SPEAKER_04 17:00

I don't know what you're gonna be able to accomplish that today because I've been mulling this for I I think it's a I mean, in terms of what it's been and what it could be and where it could go, you know. Um I think as well, Joe Becker, who uh curatorial director at Frederick Meyer Gardens, and he wrote a lot about Art Prize in those first probably 10 years, um, articles for the Grand Rapids magazine and M Live and reviews of things. Uh now he's the curatorial director at the Rusine Murphy Museum at the University of Notre Dame. Okay. Joe is a wonderful person, and he wrote um an article, I want to say 2014 or 2015, um, kind of like as a review of the years of art prize so far. And he he wrote, I think the article is Tale of Two Cities. So there was the art event and then the community event. And like as a community event, it's a grand slam, you know, like how you can captivate so many people's attention to wait in line to look at art, like not a roller coaster, but to actively go to a place and wait in line to go look at visual art. Right. That's a city that had never bothered to wander into its art museum. That's right. Right. Yeah, if there's a prize, you know, the a val like an overarching like that is like and they had a say in it. Yes, yeah, all the public had a say in who was gonna win that thing. My voice is valuable too, and I wanna I wanna educate my voice, and I want to go have these experiences because out in front of me, and I I want that, and I want my kids to have that. I want you know, I want this a shared family experience.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

I mean, that's that's a grand slam, you know. Tyler Loftus, the new executive director at Art Price, he is saying um that not only could Art Prize only happen in Grand Rapids, Art Prize happened because of Grand Rapids. I think that's true. Yeah, I'm curious to see where your thoughts align on that because you've been in this city for a long time. Sure. We remember Festival of the Arts, remember a lot of the things before Art Prize, you're involved in the art community. What is it about this community that makes it special that way?

SPEAKER_04 19:34

Uh well, there's a couple things. Um, I think being hardy Midwesterners, it doesn't matter what the weather is, you're gonna go out if it's happening, you know. And I think we have, you know, those months where hibernation happens. So if the window is there, even if it's not perfect, we're going. We'll bring an umbrella. And I think other parts of the country, other parts of the world, it it's gotta be just right. Or I'm not gonna go. That's not true here. Like people go and people want to engage, and that's a um that existed well before Art Prize. That was just kind of a makeup of how people navigate their uh experiences over the year, right? You're just gonna um snowing, snow tires, it's fine. Right. We'll get there. We should not get snow for our price, right? Yeah, but um you get where I'm going. Right. And I I think this is also a place where um you have something new and um impactful and certainly uh family-oriented, then people are uh instantly curious. I think that's part of how Grand Rapids is oriented itself uh as a place for young families. Like this is, you know, we have a great zoo, we have all these. I mean, just looking out the window, this there's there's just stuff happening that uh you can have engagement with that is um accessible and affordable. You know, bigger cities, it's more effort and it's more money, and you are more selective and it's a little bit more of investment. But here, I mean it's 10 minutes, 15 minutes, you're there. You don't have to think too hard about where to park. No, you get to save all that brain power for looking at art, right? Yeah, right. Where if this is in Chicago, it's downtown, like, okay, like where is the parking and how much is it gonna cost? And where's it, you know, like there's more steps involved. Here it's it's pretty straightforward, and um we'll navigate it. It'll be it'll be great. And um, so there's a kind of that sweet spot of of people are game, and uh we just Associate Grand Rapids with had that experience?

SPEAKER_02 22:03

When it first started, it was something completely new. And as the years go by, and unfortunately, you know, we we went through the COVID thing. As the years go by, I hear a sentiment in the community that art prize just isn't what it used to be. And yet, when I look at it statistically, you look back at all the studies that uh GVSU Siedman puts out, uh, which they do an economic impact study every year. Since the pandemic, the numbers are rising like crazy. Close to a million visitors last year, your art prize drew 400,000 people. Right. So we're actually on a pace that's doubling this. And we uh we just kind of continue to grow and it's set against this really exciting backdrop of this city because I've never seen this city like this. Right. There's all kinds of new things going on. It's hard to it's hard to look around anywhere and say, oh, the economy's terrible because amphitheater. Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:07

Yeah. And one of those is brains about the arts. Yeah, there's all kinds of stuff going on. Yep. Art Price's future would look secure. How can we continue to grow those numbers? How can we continue to make Art Price better?

SPEAKER_04 23:24

Well, I think that ties back to I guess one of the lessons Art Prize taught me, which was if you do the thing that's authentic, then all the other things will come. If you do the things to try and make those things come, they can come, but may not be as much. You know. So I think that if art prize and and the community who are benefiting, especially uh invest more in the art and invest more in artists. I mean, it still is a pay-to-play situation. You know, I mean, the people putting on the show, the nonprofits, the artists, I mean, that's that's a tall ask. I mean, it's not impossible. I mean, you're still getting people. And, you know, what if, you know, there's the prize, the prizes that are connected to Art Prize, but like, what if Tanger Outlets had their own prize connected with Art Prize for the mural award? You know, what if there was uh a specific ceramics award that are connected to you know a ceramic studio in the town? Um, if you look at all the you know restaurants and hotels and you know, what if what if they're sponsoring an award that also is part like a purchase award or whatever it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That you know, that you think of it as you know a wheel that you need to keep turning. Um if you know, Joe Becker's article talks about that community event, it's a grand slam as an art event, considering you know, elevating the dialogue about the art, elevating um artists themselves and the opportunities, the clear opportunities, not a few artists benefiting, and everyone else is like glad you, you know, bunch of also rans. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, thank you for participating. Hope to see you next year. Um, if you're gonna get professionals and established professionals, there's gotta be a clear um positive outcome. Or, you know, they're gonna well, I've got fish to fry over here. Right. And it was great I did it that one year, but you know, I hope it goes well. So you can see how you know, if there's equity involves, if you want the it to spin, um I think more equity shared with the people putting on the show is gonna help it become more sustainable and in the end more economically.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

Um yeah, because unfortunately that wheel's gotta turn. It does. That's that's the real sure. Yep. Yeah, I remember no more family money involved here. Right, right. Right. This is a this is a sponsored event now, and it's certainly it's the sponsors and donors who bring this thing to life and the volunteers. For sure.

SPEAKER_04 26:37

And um, and you know, professionals, I mean, you're a professional, you it at the end of the day, you're gonna look at options in front of you, and well, this is a certainty, this is a mystery, and this one, I don't know, like over time you go with you know certainty.

SPEAKER_02 26:59

Right, you've got to because they don't stop sending the bills to my house because I didn't win art prize.

SPEAKER_04 27:06

Certainly, just like the um when the economic impact reports are the you know who w what entities are benef benefiting from that impact, um they can help keep that going, you know, like what what percentage would be beneficial over time? You know, what what investment do you think? As investment, yeah, like as investment, like public art projects, you know. There's some cities that have ordinances where you're gonna make a huge uh development that um is public or a certain percentage of public, then one or two percent should be set aside for the artwork. And then the understanding in doing economic studies of what impact that has on it is something like 10 to 15 percent. So that's a 10 that's money well spent. That's a pretty pretty great return. Right. That's a yeah, that's a real acceptable cap rate. So I think the case can be made in all these other areas where that plays itself out so that if we want this whole economic community thing to be sustainable, then a certain percentage comes back over here to make ensure that it will. And over here happens to be you know the artists, the people who are putting on the show. That are putting on the show. Instead of the artists investing, and likely, you know, their high percentage, very high percentage of artists invest in their opportunity without necessarily a return. Right. And how sustainable can that be?

SPEAKER_02 28:50

Right. I I met artists who were literally sleeping in a tent outside of their van while they were creating a mural on their wall. That's right. And their hope was to win our prize or enough money, one told me enough money so he could he could afford gas so he could get back home to Chicago. Yeah. And so I is that person gonna come back, you know? I yeah, I don't know. Yeah, but he described he described the experience as lovely. Lovely, right? He he had just had thoroughly enjoyed creating in front of people. Absolutely. Uh it was a great experience. You know, there is something we have not talked about, is the peace. Okay. This thing is mammoth. Talk to me about it, about cavalry.

SPEAKER_04 29:37

Okay, sure. Yeah, it's uh eight feet tall and twenty-eight feet long. It's uh so what a 224 square feet of pencil drawing. So um it was in charcoal, it wouldn't seem so big, but it's all in two H pencil. So uh it's not number two pencils, it's two H would be like a number four, so it's really dense. It's like um kind of scratching with a with a the end of a like a stylus or something, right? And it's deliberately that way, and that was uh part of the intent way back when is it I don't know, there was something in me like this needs to be difficult. That was really important, it needs to be difficult. Um and now, you know, ret retrospectively looking back, it needed to be difficult because what I was going through was difficult. Because grief is difficult, yes. And I didn't make the connection course at that time, but uh uh it could have been done a lot easier with pain and a lot easier. I mean, it would have still been difficult, but to do it uh in pencil, it had and it had to be that pencil, like like uh it's like playing golf the whole 18 like whole 18 holes with a nine iron and only the nine iron. Only the nine iron only the nine iron. Um which is ridiculous. Like, why wouldn't you use all the gloves? But I it I don't know, it was I was fixated on it, needed needed to be difficult. I needed to um work through it, and now I you know understand I was working through all of that uh painting photo you found, yeah. So I was actually it was kind of a two-step. So at my father's um funeral, I was you know, in just sitting there, and I kept fixating on a photograph of my grandmother and her siblings. And it was a photograph that I picked from a pile of photographs at her funeral, which was only months before this one. And I grabbed it, and some part of me was like, you know, someday I'm probably gonna do something with this, maybe, you know. And I kept fixating on it, like, gosh, it needs, I need to do it. It needs to be life size, it needs to be in pencil, and needs like needs to be all these things. And as soon as I got um back home, I started on that, and I don't know, I was like, oh, thank, thank you. Like I was doing it, and while I was making that, um I ended up at a uh antique shop in on Century, Victoria's, I think it was Victoria's, uh, on Century, just south of Wells the by 131, and I came across um this photo of all these soldiers, and they were just it was just weird. It was a weird photo. It was one of those things where when they took it, even though the photo is straight across, uh, how they did it was a mechanical camera that moved because of the long exposure time. And so you can find some of these where you have the same person on either end because they ran around right, so it was like that. But what it did because they actually sat in a semicircle because they were the same distance from the camera, the lighting was different from one end to the other. Of course it was, so like it communicated time, like it was it was midday, and at the end, it was sunset, and so like from left to right, it was like here, going, going, gone, and uh, something about that like clicked, and I'm like, I need to do this one, and so um, I did the math, and I'm like, oh, life size on this would be that'd be about 30 feet instead of being daunted and like, oh my god, that'd be uh how many hours would I was like yes, and I use the hardest pencil that I could find to work with.

SPEAKER_02 34:03

Where do I get the paper?

SPEAKER_04 34:04

Like it was um it was and I didn't again put it together till later that that gave me this runway of like working through what I needed to work through.

SPEAKER_02 34:19

Um how many hours do you have in that thing?

SPEAKER_04 34:22

Uh the best guesstimate's like 800, but I mean I I don't know. It was like it wasn't I was you know clocking in or out, it was I had an hour here or a block of you know four to eight hours there, and um it was at probably 800 hours. I I figured it was something like I spent maybe four-ish hours per square foot, like that would and then kind of extrapolating that out.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

So was it made for art prize, or was it kind of I'm gonna make this or I'm gonna make this for art prize?

SPEAKER_04 34:59

I need to make this, and then someone said, Hey, you should probably enter that in art prize. Like, oh oh yeah, that just happened, you know, that would give me a deadline. You know, there's nothing more motivating than a deadline that would add one more layer of difficulty to the whole project, so and I have no idea if I can do it because I had never done anything, you know, that near anything like that scale. So, okay, so then I gotta move back in the calendar and I gotta get this done at this time. And um so it certainly stuck me to it, especially when days are like, oh god, I can't I don't want to do this, but it I gotta get it, I gotta do it. Um as someone said recently, there's nothing less motivating than having plenty of time to do it.

SPEAKER_02 35:51

That's the truth.

SPEAKER_04 35:52

So, anyway, it gave me a hard deadline, which meant you know, we go through it, and you know, I how one gets a venue is all you know being worked out, and um, I only had a panel, like a couple, I don't know, maybe three panels of seven done when I um submitted it to potentially go to the Grand Ups Art Museum. Unfortunately, it was selected. Like, okay, so how do I even display this thing? How do you move it? Well, it's paper, which was that was another thing that's working out sulfur. So, well, it is and it isn't. I I ended up using uh cotton, 100% cotton paper, as opposed to wood pulp paper, which tears pretty easily. So it's cotton, which is relatively, you know, in all media, it's not marble, but it's uh much more resilient than has a durability, yeah. It has a dir durability and uh has a um permanence to it too. So like when you put stuff in cotton paper, it tends to stay. Oh, okay. Wood pulp paper, it stays more on the surface. Okay. This cotton has these strong fibers, so it goes in, which then actually widened the value range of the really dense pencil. So it did all that and um functioned that way, which was great. Um, but you know, my mind was wrapped around those, like, how do I do that? How do you, you know, and deadline. So when I installed it after that experience of being, you know, Ron saying, Oh yeah, you're just trying to draw your dad back to life. Uh now I install it at the gram and figure out how to do that, and I'm like, okay, it's done. Right. And then the next day, uh, you know, art price opens, and Carrie Vanderhoff, uh, at the Grand Earth's Art Museum, she was the PR person there at the time. Yeah. It's like, hey, uh, your artwork's getting a lot of traction. Can you be here like, you know, all the time? Like it's your job. And like be there all the time. Yes. I mean, we got media they want to interview. I mean, you were part of that. I was. Like, okay, uh, how do I even talk about this? And so a lot of it was a blur, like uh just each day, you know, going down and greeting all these people, and people just say anything. And right, um I remember just being so exhausted, like which you know, not that's not a complaint. It was just a new experience of having so much come at you and still kind of processing this thing that you made that was uh You know, I gotta tell you, I have an observation here.

SPEAKER_02 38:57

Sure. I remember interviewing you right after you won. Yeah. And I remember coming down to the, and we were gonna do a live shout-out in the plaza there by in front of the gram.

unknown 39:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

24 hour news 8 Steve Kelso is standing by with a live interview with the winning artist. Steve?

SPEAKER_01 39:13

Yeah, so I'm standing outside the gram on a beautiful Friday evening. Look at this line. They're lined up all all the almost all the way around the block. And of course, one of the things they've come here to see tonight is Cavalry, the art prize winner. And joining me now is the winning artist, Chris Laporte. Chris, congratulations. How's your day been?

SPEAKER_03 39:32

Uh, it's been pretty busy, as you can imagine. Um, uh a few uh private commitments and also some new professional ones.

unknown 39:42

Yeah, I've got to be a good idea.

SPEAKER_02 39:42

And I remember I felt like I was trying to interview someone who was pretty reluctant, maybe a little shy, about being on television. Didn't really seem to care for me poking around with a camera all the time. A reaction I was pretty used to. Sure, yeah. But the guy who walked in my office today, that ain't the same guy. Sure, yeah. This piece played a part in that change for you. Sure. I I think not just in the grief piece.

SPEAKER_04 40:12

No, I I think uh learning how to articulate in this media um certainly has been a process and it's been you know 16 years. Um and in that window, you know, like I said, I was going through some emotional grief and stuff that I was trying to uh I don't know, deconstruct in real time. And uh I think it I I think it was just a mix of so many things I was overloaded. Um now, you know, being you know, so far removed from that, um I think I can be much more present than I was certainly then. Um but also understand how important this is. And at that time, I I don't know that I had the capacity to to really grasp any of that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:15

Yeah. And I bet you were kind of exhausted at that point too. Yeah. Because I remember you were you were almost agog at the fact of what was going on and swirling around you so fast. Yeah, it was just coming at you a mile a minute.

SPEAKER_04 41:29

Yeah, and not having any lead up to that to, you know, our prize is still new, nobody everyone was figuring it out in real time, and um, you know, being on live television, like right daily, like it felt daily. It was, and it was like, here. Hi everyone. Uh so yeah, it was it was a surreal and educational experience for sure.

SPEAKER_02 41:59

We've we've talked a lot longer than I thought we were gonna talk this afternoon. Sure. But before we part company, you are uh an associate professor of art at at Aquinas. Yes. That teaching thing is is in you. It's it's in it's part of how you're called, correct? Yeah, yeah. I if you could give an art prize artist, someone who's on the fence about should I enter, should I not enter, what what advice might you have for them? And what how does that help inform your students?

SPEAKER_04 42:35

Um, well, I would if you're on the fence, I would certainly lean towards doing it. Um, and not necessarily go into it with um expectations uh other than this isn't uh a learning opportunity for me. You know, it is a you still an incredibly unique and important experience to make a thing and hopefully you know make a thing that authentically represents you and is something that you feel proud of and want want to share. And if you do that and you're present with your artwork, like so much is gonna come your way that's gonna inform you about you and your uh process of making how it may or impact other people. Um and I I think there's no price tag for that. I think that's you know, you're not gonna learn that in a class. You're not gonna learn that um in most artistic venues, you know, you're not gonna, like I said, if you put it up in the gallery, most of the people who come and see it, you're not gonna necessarily interact with them. Right. It's a separate experience. This is not that. This is if you are next to or spend some time next to your work, which I would encourage you to do, um you have no idea what's gonna come your way, and that's a good thing. I think that's I think if you look at your art in a similar way, which is you're working into mystery, instead of if you have this is how it's gonna turn out, this is how it's gonna go, kind of leaning more into craft, you know, right? But if you're working into I I the outcomes in doubt, I don't know how this is gonna land, and it's a journey that I'm gonna go with and see how it plays out, then you've imbued it kind of with the hero's journey of like, I I don't know, but I'm gonna do what I can to get there, and no matter what, you're gonna learn something that's gonna help you in the long run. And that in itself is worth it.

SPEAKER_02 44:56

Mount the bravery, go embrace that and go out. That's right. Chris Laporte, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, it was my reconnect. Yeah. Thanks for joining us for this episode of the official Art Prize podcast. Make sure to download the Art Prize app and cast your votes. Visit artprize.org for more information.