Tag Archives: mizzou

How Gymnastics Shaped My Art (and Life)

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I’m posting a number of my sketches and paintings – just a few of dozens – of gymnasts that I created long ago (the early 90s up to the year 2000 or so). Back in the 80’s I got interested in the Olympics and several sports stuck with me, but perhaps most importantly was gymnastics.

As I grew up and my interest in art became central, I wanted to get a better understanding of the human form. In those days where I lived there were no life drawing classes or opportunities to really work from the figure at all. I recalled the definition of musculature and the examples of human movement that gymnastics afforded, and began to use them as my models to get a grasp of anatomy and an idea of how to depict the body in action.

The images below are some of my favorites. I’ll have to search for some more of them in my files. I know I’ve done at least a dozen works featuring the great Yelena Produnova alone. The ones shown below are (left to right, top to bottom) Adrienn Varga (Hungary), Mo Huilan (China), Produnova (Russia), Jeanette Antoni (USA), another Produnova, Vanessa Atler (USA), Shannon Miller (USA), and Kim Zmeskal (USA). I’ve got a bunch of autographs, but really like that I got my drawings of Miller and Zmeskal signed by each (Zmeskal wrote a really nice letter as well).

As a participant in the “gymnternet” back in the mid-90s, I bumped into a lot of people on a few message boards. In 1998, after messaging with Atler for a while, she sent me tickets to the National Championships in Indianapolis, IN that year. With questionable reasoning, I took a Greyhound bus from Utica, NY to Indy to attend the Championships and hang out with a bunch of people I’d only ever talked to in text on the internet. I ended up meeting Atler in person there, as well as a few other athletes. I also met the person who I’d eventually marry! Given all that I’ve gained from that trip, I’d say the payoff was pretty substantial.

Probably the biggest thing I ever did with my gymnastics artworks was having one shown at the International Olympic Committee’s Sport Art Competition Show at the International Olympic Museum, Lausanne, Switzerland (March – June, 2000). I haven’t laid eyes on that painting in over 25 years… I’ll have to dig it up sometime.

I still pay attention to gymnastics a bit and watch the main meets each year with my family. We also enjoyed watching the Mizzou (where I teach Drawing in The School of Visual Studies) gymnastics squad go on a good run the last couple of seasons. While I don’t really draw the athletes any more, the many hours of time I spent watching the sport and drawing from them gave me the chance to develop a strong sense of the human form. I credit much of my work in graduate school (Indiana University, 2005), where I focused on the body in tension, to my early studies of gymnasts. Also important were the many skills I developed in portraiture. In a sense, my current work for Mizzou Football has a root in these gymnastics artworks from so long ago.

Some Views of 2026 So Far

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In spite of the horrors going on all over the world, and the constant barrage of idiocy from our leaders, 2026 has been incredibly aesthetically nurturing for me. The roads, fields, night skies, rivers, and clouds of Missouri are rich in color and drama. I felt compelled to leave a few of these views here for posterity. I’m thankful to get to document some of these things, and for the potent experiences and joys that I get to share with my friends, students, kids, and fellow humans.

field with sign
No trespassing sign off Rangeline Road north of Columbia, MO.
Field of purple flowers during a rainstorm.
Field of purple flowers during a rainstorm. Near McBaine, south of Columbia.
Driveway with fire
An evening fire in my driveway. One of my favorite ways to spend an hour.
tree with fence post
A tree grew around this fence post, enclosing it and carrying it along.
Off Forum near the Katy Trail CoMo spur.
light shining through a bridge
Sunlight shining between the two sides of the Providence Road bridge over Hinkson Creek south of the Mizzou football stadium.
night sky with red light
night field with red light

Two views from a night drive with my good friend Jesse. These were south of Columbia on dirt roads near Cooper’s Landing.

horizontal view of a river
Hinkson Creek near the Grindstone Natural Area in CoMo.
kid in creek
My son, Atticus, enjoying some river exploration in the Devil’s Icebox area south of CoMo.

Another road trip with Jesse to find some interesting shooting locations for his next film project. Near Wooldridge, MO.

figure on a ladder in blue light
Newly minted MFA Rain Embuscado at his Thesis Exhibition in Nightjar Arts Collective. Columbia, MO.
sunset over road
sunset over houses

Sunset views in Mid Missouri – left is on I70 facing west – right is off Scott Blvd facing southwest.

Atticus in the Devil’s Icebox cave area, looking up through one of the openings.

I’ve taken thousands of images so far this year. These are just a tiny sampling of my way of paying attention to what my eyes want to see. Many of the photos are just for documentation or to embrace the strange and wonderful things I see around me. I do try to refine some of them into artworks. I think we take for granted how ubiquitous and available photography is now, and most of us are very uneducated about how images work and whether what we are told are photographs are even real.

There’s a wonderful piece of writing by artist/writer/director Johannes Grenzfurthner over at Midwest Film Journal that talks about the importance of imagery that is established by the “physical trace” of real places, sights, and experiences. We now live in an era where images are being crafted “without physical reference.” Our job as embodied human beings is to be firmly committed to the fact of our physical existence. Photography – whether just snapshots, memory aides, documentation, or art – should be about OUR eyes, OUR living experiences. We should not give AI or tech bros authority over our vision of life.

Ten Grateful Blessed Strange Years

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On this day ten years ago I had a cardiac arrest. My heart was stopped for 10 minutes. I’ve written about this event every year on the Traumaversary, and I’m glad I have. Ten years. Every day I’ve been thankful. I’ve tried to make my life and my family better. I’ve tried to become a good teacher. Ten grateful years. Hard to believe that’s about 20% of my whole experience… all after that heart attack.

Above are two of my heart prints. These are two-block woodcuts , each printed in two colors (8.25 x 5 inches). The blocks are slightly de-registered so that they overlay and make dynamic line and color action over the heart. When made into a gif, they pulse like a real heart…

I feel extremely blessed to have been able to carry on, but also to have been transformed in many ways over this decade. I want to make the most of my time, convey a spirit of generosity and kindness, to be a good father and encourage my kids, to advocate for my students, to support my friends and colleagues… and to find more about beingness by which to be astounded. In a time when so much has gone wrong in this country and the wider world, I am still hopeful that when I leave this world I will find it to have become better, because I know that I have gotten so. Every day I find something to love, to passionately explore, to laugh with my family about – and that dual outpouring/indwelling experience is the great joy. I have been rewarded by my practice of attention over these years.

Here’s to ten more.

Colonial Debris, Imperial Fragments – A Catalog

Posted on by under Art, Life, news, Writing

I’m pleased to announce the publication of a catalog about the exhibition that Simon Tatum and I had at Vanderbilt University last year. Working with Oswaldo Garcia at The Riso Room, housed within Mizzou’s School of Visual Studies, I was able to produce a slim volume that highlights some of the work and writing that Simon and I produced for this show. We hope to take the exhibition around to other venues, and these catalogs feel like a great physical supplement to proposals. Click below to take a look inside.

The images show representative examples of the work we include, as well as updated texts that give an overview of the history and context we’re working within. I’m excited by how the risograph process has captured the documentary quality of Simon’s work and the surface development of my own pieces. I love the way the back cover shows Donald Crowhurst’s final coda, “IT IS THE MERCY.” Taken from his logs, this is Crowhurst’s actual writing reproduced.

If you’re interested in obtaining a copy for $25, please send payment via one of the options below:

Ten Years of Seizing the Sixth

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Ten years ago today the great Eric Sweet passed away. It’s right and proper that we keep celebrating him with art and memories, and with hearing his voice reverberating over time.

Today I went into the printmaking room at The University of Missouri and placed a lithophane in the widows there.

The idea for this began a few years ago while playing with my drawing robot. I wanted to try different line modes in various images, and happened to throw in a picture of Eric. One of the resulting works was this small ballpoint pen piece:

Head of Sweet. Ink on paper, 5×3 inches. 2022.

The piece I’ve hung today is intentionally related to Sweet’s MFA thesis works, which featured embossed relief and required specific lighting to be seen. Click here to see examples of these works (and a cool picture of Eric in the very printmaking room where my lithophane is now hanging). The portrait of Eric I’ve made is designed to be somewhat inscrutable unless strongly lit from behind. In the documentary images I’ve posted below, you can see the image is barely visible. I have included some shots with a flash on so you can see the relief dimension of the piece.

Ten Years of Seizing the Sixth. PLA, printed on a FlashForge Adventurer 5M. It’s 7×5.25x.25 in size. 2025.

It’s important to maintain the reality of those who have passed on. This is as much about keeping ourselves real as much as it is celebrating their lives. In reminding ourselves of others’ lives, in being creative in that remembering, we find and define ourselves. Keeping Eric in the world through making and practicing attention is a way of honoring him and the values he held.

Ten Years of Seizing the Sixth. PLA, 7×5.25x.25 in size. 2025.
This is what it looks like with strong illumination behind the lithophane.

Mizzou Football All-American Portraits

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Since 2019 I’ve worked as a portrait painter celebrating Mizzou student athletes. This last year was a high mark for Mizzou Football, with four of the squad being named All-American.

The University has a posh facility located in the south end zone area of the stadium where they hang all of the All-American portraits, stretching back into the 1930s. The great illustrator Ted Watts (1942-2015) created most of the portraits over the course of more than three decades, so I’ve got a big act to follow.

The All-American portrait wall at Mizzou Football’s South End Zone facility.

The display is pretty cool, and it’s cool to have my work extend that tradition. Portraits of Kentrell Brothers and Harrison Mevis are two of my works currently on display, and four new ones will appear soon (Fall 2024).

When I began to create my paintings, I went on a tour to see the previous works up close and to evaluate the aesthetic through-lines (format of names, dates, poses, backgrounds, etc), as well as the techniques prior artists used.

I take a central role in the design process, creating digital mockups which are approved at Mizzou Football before I begin the paintings. I generally work with ink on paper, which is mounted on panel and sealed, then painted over with layers of acrylic. I try to maintain a painterly quality, with texture and dynamic brushwork on display. I also attempt to bring the digital effects which naturally appear in the preliminary studies into a physical realm with semi-transparent washes of paint.

Working on the portrait of Cody Schrader.

As the projects have developed I’ve found my own approach to the portraits. I want them to have kinship with the portraits of Watts and other previous artists, but I make sure to give the works my own unique inflection.

I’m excited for the new crop to go on display. Kris Abrams-Draine, Luther Burden III, Javon Foster, and Cody Schrader are the 2023 All-Americans for Mizzou Football. See images of the works below, but also be sure to stop by the All-American wall if you ever get into the South End Zone building!

Click on each to see the work larger.

Kris Abrams-Draine
Luther Burden III
Javon Foster
Cody Schrader

The Ballou Collection – Auxier, McMurray, Sandbothe

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Recently I rotated a bunch of the art in our home, and so I felt that an update to my ongoing series of posts featuring various artworks I’ve collected over the years was in order.

My most recent purchase is this wonderful gouache painting on handmade paper by Mary Sandbothe.

Mary Sandbothe. Mystery Snowball. Gouache on handmade paper. 7x5 inches. 2023.
Mary Sandbothe. Mystery Snowball. Gouache on handmade paper. 7×5 inches. 2023.

Mary is an awesome artist and educator here in Columbia, MO, and has been a pillar of the art community here for many years. She had a wonderful show at the Columbia Art League late in 2023 that really stood out to me. Called “Heritage Unfolded: Gouache Interpretations of Missouri Quilts,” (you can see the works here), the show featured some evocative, intimate works. I knew I needed to jump on one of them, and I’m glad I did.

Next to the Sandbothe Mystery Snowball piece is a striking print on handmade Yucca paper by Caleb McMurray. The untitled work features a doorway or aperture, something that McMurray has returned to again and again.

Caleb McMurray. Untitled. Ink on handmade Yucca paper. 10x8 inches. 2014.
Caleb McMurray. Untitled. Ink on handmade Yucca paper. 10×8 inches. 2014.

I also have a sister print to this one, but it features an arching opening that is in the distance rather than up close like this one. Windows, doors, and other passageways are features of many of the works I’ve collected over the years.

Lastly, a small painting by Hayley Auxier‘s shares the wall with the two works I’ve shared above. Hayley was one of my stand out undergraduate students, and I love seeing her carry on her artwork as she has since graduating. This piece is one of a series she made celebrating National Parks and celebrating her experiences of them. Hayley shows a strong affinity for gouache, so I’m glad to have an example of her painting in that medium.

Hayley Auxier. Acadia National Park. Gouache on paper. 4 by 6 inches. 2018.
Hayley Auxier. Acadia National Park. Gouache on paper. 4 by 6 inches. 2018.

Acadia National Park is special to me because that’s where my partner and I went on our honeymoon all those years ago, so I like the piece because of it’s connection to my own history. But it’s also got a wonderful note from Hayley on the verso, and so the small work feels like it connects all of these different threads of my life: personal, professional, aspirational, and historical. That synergy of references – those that I bring to the work and those the artist embeds within the piece – is what makes art special.

I’m loving seeing these three works every day as I have a meal or hang out with my family. Art that lives with us is the best kind. Really thankful to have these pieces close to me.

Poltergeist (1982) is really good.

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I watched Poltergeist again this year, and am still so impressed with it. There are a lot of reasons, but a few things really stand out.

It’s not just the expertly crafted and paced music (Jerry Goldsmith).

It’s not just the practical, in-camera, optical effects (Richard Edlund, John Bruno, Nilo Rodis-Jamero).

It’s not just the fantastic physical and emotional presence of JoBeth Williams (an absolute classic performance that should have been rewarded).

JoBeth Willams as Diane Freeling

It’s not just the introduction of one of the most compelling characters in all of cinema (Zelda Rubinstein as eccentric medium Tangina Barrons).

Zelda Rubinstein in Poltergeist.

All of that is great and worthy of note.

But it’s also that the children and women are centered. They’re not “hysterical” nor are they “irrational.” They see and know deep realities, even if they can’t understand or entirely describe them (a theme borrowed from Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind). These characters are the central interpreters. They stand in for the viewer. We don’t dismiss the father as a moron, but neither do we have to make him the hero. Furthermore, we don’t have to MANUFACTURE the heroism of the Carol Anne, mom Diane, or mystic Tangina. The film naturally makes them function in ways that stimulate the narrative arc without BS or montage-based tropes. They don’t miraculously and instantaneously become triumphant; they live through a trajectory of growth. They don’t automatically know everything; they use their innate characteristics to attend to the film-reality in specific and logical ways.

Heather O’Rourke, JoBeth Williams, and Craig T. Nelson in Poltergeist.

Sure, there are other examples of these qualities in popular (and more niche) media. But an average suburbanite mom coming into contact with a situation so physically and conceptually counter-intuitive gives this movie a sense of genuine humanity. Its influence is still palpable in the the horror genre some forty years on, and it’s an experience always worth a revisit.

See it if you haven’t yet (it’s available on MAX)!

The Body as Zone of Incident Guest Lecture

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This past week I gave a talk for The Honors College at The University of Missouri. The theme this fall was The Art and Science of Living, and they asked me to give a guest lecture about the nature of the body in the context of my work. I chose to focus on a number of artists who have shaped my ideas about the meaning of the body. – from Anne Harris and Robin F. Williams to Kathe Kollwitz and Charles White.

To hear the talk and see all of the artists and images I explore in the presentation, click the link here.

Andrew Wyeth. Spring. Tempera on panel. 1978.

A Talk at Missouri Valley College

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On February 25, 2022, I had the privilege to meet with students and give a talk over at Missouri Valley College. It’s about an hour away from Columbia where I teach, and the talk was in support of my exhibition at the college, Digital Art: Exploration and Education. I gave a brief overview of my use of digital tools, from nearly 25 years ago through today. If you’d like to watch the talk, I’ve added in all of the visuals I used, but I also worked in supplemental videos and other support information to bring more background to the talk. Many thanks to Mary Linda Pepper Lane, Sarah Fletcher, and Mike McJilton for their hospitality and conversation during my visit.

Below are a number of the works I showed in that exhibition. Left to Right, Top to Bottom: “Young Joe,” “Cardiac ICU,” “Touched Pelvis,” “Color Figure Study,” “Hitt Street Parking Garage,” “Jesse,” “Self Portrait With Neck Girth.”