Engage with new and returning artists before visiting the Cathedral Square venue to see their amazing array of work. Learn about the artists’ personal stories and creative ambitions through five enticing art-related questions.
This week: Tony Hendrick
Tony Hendrick, Gathering Sap, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 2 x 81 x 64 inches
Tony is a returning artist who has created paintings and murals for many individuals, businesses and organizations. He teaches painting workshops and has lead many public art projects. This year, he returns to ArtPrize at Cathedral Square with his entry titled Gathering Sap. This painting exhibits a rhythm connecting the early spring season with the flow of sap from roots to branches. It has rich colors and bold strokes, but as the viewer steps back and allows the colors to softly blend together, it feels very natural and rhythmic.
1. What is your favorite or most inspirational place?
The most inspirational place for me to create art is inside my heart, and many places support me gaining access. Exploring wildlife sanctuaries around Michigan is a great way for me to restore my aliveness, especially places like Pictured Rocks or Sleeping Bear Dunes. I also enjoy going to art museums and shows with friends and my wife, Mary Ann, who is also an artist. Seeing the many unique ways others have opened their heart to create art, and sharing the experience with friends who look to do the same, is very inspiring and helps me strengthen my own resolve.
2. What themes do you pursue?
My primary purpose as an artist is to develop my expression of living as love and to experience this consciously. Many different themes support this purpose and usually begin as a nudge, something I’ve hidden inside myself, itching to be felt and seen. I find this approach to be very magical, revealing one hidden treasure leading to another. The best theme in a work of art is the one that changes with me as I grow.
3. What is the hardest step in creating work?
The most challenging step in creating art is to move from listening to beliefs I have about myself and expectations I have for my work to focusing on what is happening on the canvas as I work. I often have a vision of what I’d like to achieve, and sometimes make a commitment to that vision, but I’ve found the best commitment to make is to trust my inner sense about what is going on with the work while I’m working on it. This can mean getting rid of something I really liked earlier in the process.
4. What is integral to the work of an artist?
The thing I look for in the work of an artist is whether it looks like the artist is genuinely having fun creating it. What is fun for an artist can be, and essentially is, different for each artist, and different for each person who views the work. However, the place where everyone connects is in the aliveness that opens inside when one is having fun.
5. What is your dream project?
My dream project involves using my experience of working on large-scale mural projects with a community of artists and my ability to magically use vibrating color, rhythm, patterns and light to transform an urban landscape with nature-inspired and deep archetypal images. I see the project
opening the space for people to embrace, respect and celebrate one another’s unique creative genius, inspiring harmony with nature, and supporting healing and living in the active, conscious, presence of LOVE 24/7, 365 days of the year.
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Experience Tony Hendrick's creative process:
View Tony's ArtPrize 2013 entry here.
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