Top Notch Book-Arts of GypsyLuc

I personally work in printmaking and come across a lot of artists that work in altered books. I even took a few bookmaking classes in college but never really did anything exceptional with it. In reviewing John’s work, I honestly have to say that he quickly became one of my new favorite local artists.

I don’t know how I haven’t been acquainted with his work before. His work is crisp, pristinely executed and ultra thought provoking. He literally uses recycled books, which in elementary terms are full of verbal information. But this fact takes a backseat role, as the books at times are used as a canvas displaying layers of visual information. His work shows an entertaining play between the concept of written information and that of visual storytelling.

Conceptually, I found his work to have an interesting weight dynamic as my thoughts were in a constant seesaw of comparison reflecting on content between title and that of visual dialogue. His work questions how various types of information are presented as language-verbal, auditory, visual and (by using recycled found objects) even the relevance history having lingual weight. In my view, he certainly accomplishes the saying of ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’. I hope you enjoy the interview below and I will certainly be following John’s work as it progresses.

For all you art collectors out there John is my Collectors Pick suggestion for this month.
~Stephanie Sypsa - http://www.theartistsinterview.com/

You recently exhibited your work? What was the gallery?
JLH-My 'Altered Library' was on display at Kenosis Gallery for Experimental Art at 14 Park Ave South in Mansfield. It is located on the south side of the Square right next to Park Street Pottery.

How were you able to get into this show?
JHL-Kenosis is a brand-new gallery opened up by my good friends Jason Kaufman & Jenny Lucas. They concerted a downtown storefront into a combined gallery / living space. Jason & I are both heavily involved in the YelloWall Collective - a group of artists, writers, musicians & random creative folk who actively engage the community with cutting-edge art & artistic living. When Jason & Jenny opened the gallery in November, I was honored to be the first artist to display. They are actively searching for other artists specializing in non-traditional media, performance art, highly conceptualized work and anyone who is hovering at the edge of 'art', pushing beyond the established boundaries & has the technical ability to pull it off. Anyone interested can contact Jason @ 567.203.8018 or Jenny @ 440.315.7492

I am really impressed with your work. I mean I wanted to include your whole portfolio on here! What is your current artist statement for your current body of work?
JLH-Since I'm never at a shortage of words, which could take a few pages... The abbreviated version would be:
The main purpose of the Altered Library is to feed our desire for a quick story - an on-the-spot narrative. The pieces serve as a commentary on how our society has shifted from a slow/easy/taking-time-to-read-a-book-under-a-tree culture to one that snatches blurbs/sound bites/blogs/text messages/tweets on the fly.

With impatience, short attention spans & the desire to have what we want right now being undeniable realities of where we are as a culture, I want to create an appealing visual snack to satiate our bent towards immediacy. Perhaps the works are nothing more than another spineless offering to our flaws. Or, perhaps, they are providing the viewer an opportunity to quickly & bluntly experience the equivalent of drive-thru, hot and ready art.

Do you visualize your Art before creating? Do you know what it will look like before you begin? What's your process?
JLH-I would say that 90% of the time I know what 80% of the finished piece will look like. My basic concept behind book altering is to take a used or discarded hardcover book & transform it into something new, alive & different from the original stream of words. Yet, I still seek to retain a ghost of the original book somewhere in the final piece.

For this series, I decided to focus mainly on wall-hung altered books where the book itself serves at both the artwork & the frame. The inspiration can come from the physical aspects of the book's cover design, color, size or title. At other times, I begin the process with a specific concept I want to express. And then there are the times when an idea springs forth from a particular item or illustration I want to incorporate into the piece.

While individual books get uniquely altered based on the story I want to tell, my main techniques include carving niches & nooks in the books, adding 2-D & 3-D material to help the plot develop & finally sealing the pages shut - never to be opened.

Through this experimental process, the final 20% of each piece develops. Serendipity, necessity, chance & 'Eureka!' moments further polish the piece as it is created.

What are the most important influences that have moved you as an artist?
JLH-Always seeing the innate potential & undiscovered beauty in things: pine straw, mistakes, mud puddles, discarded things, overlooked people, dusty old books which smell of time & story & word craft.

You work is so intricate and very unique. Is there anything you consistently draw inspiration from?
JLH-Actually, I'm hard pressed to find something from which I do NOT draw inspiration! It flies at me and bombards me from every side: the sky, conversations, lyrics, thrift stores, literature, friends, emotions, waffles, bumper stickers... the list goes on & on & on...

How is your work a reflection of you?
JLH-Man - I hope this doesn't end up sounding pompous...lol. It is an outflow of my inner life. It is intelligent. It wants to speak - to say something worth saying. It wants to be heard. It wants to move people to think & to change & to affect change around them. I hope my work reflects my burning passion for passionately living a passionate life.

Do you see any emerging local, national, or global art trends that interest you?
JLH-Honestly, other than Juxtapose and Art:21, I have very little knowledge of what's going on in the larger art realm. What I do see & know firsthand is that there are amazing artists all around me who inspire me, drive me to jealousy & push me to push my craft even harder. I am experiencing the trend in my own art community of dissolving the membranes between different genres: music, visual art, poetry, performance. That excites me! The creatives I am connected with are actually beginning to execute the crazy ideas we've been toying around with during special moments when our randomness brainstorming hits critical mass. I feel that our goal of intentional engagement of the community-at-large with the arts [whether they like it or not!] is being birthed right in front of my eyes.

Do you see anything exciting developing within your community that you feel will have and affect on the local art scene?
JLH-Oops! Seems as though I jumped ahead and hit on this one already... I can say that I have seen an increase in public awareness of 'other' art because of the direct actions of some creative folk... I don't know if a huge number of people have converted, but I definitely know that some eyebrows have been raised, some have found out they are not alone & others have decided to throw stones. At any rate, the artists have started to speak & some - indeed - do have ears to hear.

Your work seems very time consuming. How do you balance your personal life as a working artist?
JLH-First & foremost, I have an amazing partner-in-crime who gives me the space I need to do what I was created to do. My wife, Stacie, grants me the freedom & unalienable right to live life creatively. The rest is up to me. I've been pondering this question of 'balance' with both myself & other artists. What I have found is that if something is important to you - no matter what - you blaze a trail to make it happen. While I could go into specifics of calendars, scheduling, sacrifice & the like, I'd rather respond with a greater answer. My personal life is important to me so I make time for that aspect. My artistic life is important so I make time for that aspect. I put worth on each of these areas and try to marry them whenever I can. I'm not sure if I'm writing a book or just altering one I've already had around for awhile. But when it's all said and done I want it to say something worth saying. If that's not a good enough reason to find that balance, I don't know what is.

New Mansfield Gallery Focuses on Less Common Forms of Expression

A new art gallery in Mansfield is inviting local artists of all mediums to showcase their work. Kenosis opened Thursday at 18 South Park Avenue.

“I show art downtown at ArtWorks on Main and I just realized that there’s no place for people to show experimental or performance art, just anything out of the ordinary,” co-owner Jason Kaufman said. “Most of the shows around here just consist of hanging paintings on the wall, but I wanted a space for people to experiment, feel more open and just see what happens.”

Kaufman said he’d like to change out the 196-square-foot space monthly.

GypsyLuc Hargis is the first artist to be featured.

“I am currently working on altered books,” the Bucyrus man said. “Basically, I took old, used, discarded books and transformed them into a work of art. This show is a commentary on how we’re so focused on the immediacy of short text messages & news blurbs. My goal was that instead of fighting against this, show this through art. Each of my books tells a quick narrative. You kind of get this quick little story.”

Kaufman said he hopes to see the community embrace the arts.

“It is my view that artists are important because they guide the viewer toward a direct experience of the mystery of life,” he said. “In viewing art, we learn to directly experience and live in the present."

“Art helps us to look at our world and notice things that we wouldn’t have seen or noticed otherwise,” said Kaufman’s wife, Jenny Lucas.

“There’s a feeling that there is a set way that you have to do art and display it. Some art forms have been given more value than others,” Hargis said. “I think the goal of Kenosis is to expand on where that value is placed.”

Squids a Work of Art

The mystery surrounding the orange and black squid banners on utility poles around the city has been solved.

The banners got people talking and even following the arrows to see where they might lead -- and eventually the secret was out. After a story about the mysterious cephalopod signs ran Friday on BucyrusTelegraphForum.com, an online reader posted a link to a photo album on a MySpace profile entitled "Pole Project."

The MySpace page owner, John "GypsyLuc" Hargis, contacted the T-F and explained his project, adding that he also kept a blog on the subject.

"I was hoping for people's curiosity to be piqued, but I'm quite surprised that the idea actually took root as well as it did," Hargis said in an e-mail. "Too bad the mystery couldn't have lasted a little longer."

In the blog, Hargis said his first idea was to wrap poles from downtown leading to the Crawford County Fairgrounds, to signify the Bratwurst Festival's move

"There was a lot of negative chatter around town about the move and I wanted to make that physical connection between the two places -- show that even with a change of scenery and a different feel to it, it was still the Bratwurst Festival," he said.

Instead, Hargis gathered some bright orange fabric and several masked and hooded friends from the YelloWall Collective to decorate the community. The signs, placed along residential streets including Lucas, Oakwood and Clark, went up before Halloween.

The 34-year-old North Carolina native said he chose tentacled sea life to adorn his banners for a reason.

"I chose creatures with the capacity to grab, to hold, to manipulate, to work with their 'hands,' " he said. "We can dream and hope, but we must also put our hands to work to make things happen."

The sideways cephalopod arrows were meant to be fun -- to give the project a participatory feel.

"One could follow the arrows and see where they led," he explained. "There was no intentional rhyme or reason in the placement, so the randomness would take a follower wherever the arrows happened to direct."

Hargis, who moved to Bucyrus a year ago, thought the city could use a creative new art installation. He said the project wasn't meant to be malicious and there were "no aliens, occult members, a specific band, heroin users, al Qaida, gang ruffians or stupid kids involved in the process. It was simply an art project intended to pique curiosity, cause people to pause and take note and, hopefully, regain a sense of youthful wonder for a moment in time."

Bucyrus police Chief Ken Teets is relieved the mystery is solved.

"I'm glad it's benign, maybe a bit on the mischievous end," he said. "He got publicity and brought attention to his talents. Kudos to him."

Hargis wants to do more public art projects, including performances, an event with the Bratwurst Festival and a permanent installation -- and involve local schools and businesses along the way.

"We're living in tough times and things are changing all around us," he said. "I say let's embrace where we are and move forward from here. What good is a life if you're not living?"

Terricha Bradley • Telegraph-Forum

Bucyrus Officials Flummoxed by Signs

In a small city like Bucyrus, many people know each other. There are few secrets.

But there is one subject that has become a growing mystery in the city. What are all those unusual orange and black cloth banners on poles?

"It looks like a rooster to me," said Tori Robinson, tattoo artist at Image in Ink. "It's not like a prison tattoo or gang symbol we know of. I think it's kids being stupid."

The orange banners have black drawings of arrows above an oddly shaped figure resembling some type of squid. The signs, on residential streets including Lucas, Oakwood, and Clark, may have gone up around Halloween.

Robinson and her co-workers have no idea who could have posted them. She thinks it could be a band using a unique kind of publicity. City officials are clueless as to what the signs mean or who they represent.

Bucyrus Police Chief Ken Teets said the department hasn't received anonymous letters or phone calls regarding the signs and what they could mean.

"They've been up for a number of weeks, and we're hoping it's a benign situation," Teets said. "We don't have the authority to take them down unless they have a threatening message. "We just left them up hoping the purpose might come to light."

Bucyrus Area Chamber of Commerce Director Deb pinion wonders if the signs are a game or a prank. She noticed a sign on Mary Street on Oct. 23 as she walked in the neighborhood with her grandson.

"Once I saw that one, I started noticing other ones," Pinion said. "They're just odd and kind of unnerving. It's not a comfortable thing."

American Electric Power

spokesperson Shelly Clark said no signs are allowed on utility poles and reported that no AEP employee in Bucyrus saw any signs on poles Thursday afternoon.

Chief Teets encourages people with information on the signs to call the police department at 419-562-1006.

Kate Westfall - Loveland

Kate Westfall lived in Loveland from 2002 until moving back to her hometown of Mansfield, Ohio in 2005, however, her brief stay here proved she might have been the most creative person/s to ever hit town.

Person/s?

Yes.

She is an artist in the digital mediums, photographer, songwriter, composer, musician, and poet. It is her mastery of all these arts, and her uninhibited approach of melding her art and herself that sets her apart. She is her own best model and instrument, and reflects back to the world what she sees in a mirror. There is very deliberative method in her zaninesses.

Music Review: Jeff Bell

Bucyrus acoustic guitarist Jeff Bell is an accomplished musician, known from the years he performed as half of the Bell Brothers acoustic duo.

Bell has been making solo appearances recently throughout the area, including in at Sips Coffee House in Mount Vernon, performing songs from his collected body of work, which is influenced by such musicians and bands as Leo Kottke, Son Volt, Steve Vai and Bela Fleck. Bell ties these influences to a blues framework, then leaves room for touches of exotic influence, such as African drumming and Middle Eastern melody.

Newly added to Bell's body of work are two albums released in December on his own Faultline Records label. "Liar's Smile" is a mixture of instrumentals and narratives, while "Pavonia" is purely instrumental.

"Liar's Smile" opens with "Hobet 21," a bleak song from the point of view of a coal miner at the massive, destructive Hobet 21 strip mine in West Virginia. Bell's bluesy guitar-work comes to the fore in the next track, a catchy instrumental titled "Hornet's Waltz." While it isn't really a waltz, it definitely buzzes and broods like an angry hornet. The opening and closing sections of the song are slower and intensely bluesy, reminiscent of the East Texas blues style immortalized in the early 20th century recordings of such players as Blind Willie Johnson and Blind Lemon Jefferson.

"Send Up the Moonshine" brings in a lighter, more buoyant tone for contrast, setting up the plaintive "Sell Me a Story," with its evocatively sung lyrics, "It's a medicine for the dead, I've got the world at my feet and flowers in my head." In the five-spot, "Come People" is a delightful surprise, featuring vigorous rhythms on African hand-drums, underlying French lyrics chanted by Bell and Kate Westfall.

The album's title comes from its sixth song, "Liar's Smile," a song about overcoming past disasters: "I have been down to the bottom, and I have climbed the highest mountain, and I have given back all my commandments, but I won't be down again." Like so much of Bell's work, the song is bluesy and melodically catchy. While most of his songs feature intricate finger-picking, this song is played bottleneck style. The dark and compelling "Slow Song" comes next, the rise and fall of its Middle Eastern melody alternates with a faster section, which itself frames a very slow central part of strongly ambivalent emotions. Another instrumental follows, "Sycamore Road," lightening the mood and interweaving intricate finger-picking like the busy patterns of growth in a garden.

The final third of the album starts with "Walter Rollins," an excellent narrative about a Prohibition-era moonshiner, driven by poverty to a life in the shadows, outside the law. A mellow instrumental, whimsically titled "Chicken Feet" follows, before the last narrative song, "King," struts in with controlled nonchalance. The album closes with the return of the African drums in "Drum I." The track starts simply, then grows in complexity and intensity, propelled forward by vigorous beats. The hurtling drums are joined by an Australian didgeridoo, bringing the track to an exotic peak before it fades out.

The more introspective instrumental album "Pavonia" opens with the lullaby, "Whale Song," which seems to cradle the listener with warmth. A brief flurry of gentle finger-picking follows with "20 Watt," quickly succeeded by the spell-binding "Sleeping," which, like "Slow Song" on the other album, melds Middle Eastern arabesques to bluesy brooding, to very impressive effect. Bell's ability to make his instrument sing makes up for the lack of words. As the song unfolds, Bell also drums rhythmically on his guitar in places, adding a new dimension to an already striking song. The song grows with trance-like intensity as it unfolds over a bass-string drone, sustaining interest for its 10-plus minutes of length.

"Charge of Amber" comes next, mellow and laid-back. A brief continuation of "20 Watt" comes next to perk things up for a moment, before continuing in a meditative groove with the intimate and attractive "Song for Kate." "Engineering Clouds" continues the lullaby-like mood of the album in a more pensive style, leading to "Finding Artifacts," which opens with bell-like harmonics, then continues on its quiet way. The final track of the album, "Pavonia," takes its name from an obscure crossroads village in Richland County, and is more quirky and upbeat than anything else on the album.

The album "Pavonia" features smooth and excellent recorded sound, while "Liar's Smile" has some sonic problems in places. Some tracks or parts of tracks on "Liar's Smile" sound as if they were recorded at a lower resolution, giving some tracks the sort of "digital decay" in upper registers that is typical of lower-resolution MP3 formats. This won't bother listeners accustomed to listening to low-res MP3s, but listeners with high-end equipment and expectations may find it annoying. Also, a few of the tracks suffer from rough edits, though Bell's musicianship carries the day, making a few glitches worth tolerating in order to hear his superb music. Bell's talent and intensity are not to be missed, either in recorded form or live in person.

Westfall’s ‘Vokate’ Fertile Fusion of Vocal Ideas

Kate Westfall is a familiar face in northern and central Ohio from her appearances as musician and poet. Her new album "Vokate" gathers a wide range of influences to create a lush new musical world. Almost all the sounds on the album are directly generated by Westfall, whether it be through singing words, non-verbal vocalizing, breathing, clapping, clicking or stomping.

A track such as "Global Emotion" combines a chanted rhythmic base, not unlike some of the experimental vocal pieces by American avant-garde composer Meredith Monk, with layers of swaying, harmonized melodies and interpolated stanzas of poetry, sounding in the distance, yet read in a completely unaffected manner. Westfall's voice is bluesy in inflection, yet carefully polished and controlled. Her songs tend to build in layers of sweet, ecstatic harmony over a syncopated pedal-point drone, giving them something of a worldbeat/Afropop feel.

Indeed, the international association is apparent, as Westfall's music isn't so much emerging from one place or style as it is an ocean touching upon the shores of many lands. The aquatic element is strong in "Mermaid," featuring a mysterious, Neptunian musical background to a poem from Westfall's chapbook, "Ladies of the Sea." The musical seascape sounds like a cross between The Doors' "Horse Latitudes" and English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams' choral setting of Shakespeare's "Full Fathom Five."

In the anxious but magical "Cloudstep," the main lyric is buried too deeply to discern a lot of the words, especially as another spoken layer covers it in places, and the wordless "background" vocals are front and center. But this all seems very intentional on Westfall's part, using the texts as springboards to creating a lush, seductive musical fabric that sweeps the listener away.

"Bucket A Water" is like a latter-day grandchild of a chain-gang work song, grown urbanized and sophisticated without forgetting its roots. Such skillful fusions provide considerable momentum throughout the album, though a sense of stasis can settle in on a longer track like "Please Don't," where the harmonic base never changes. Westfall can be obscure and remote in places, but it only adds to the mysterious allure of her music. She builds her world in loops and layers, pyramids of sounds and watery harmonies. Her vocal range is impressive, going from a throaty alto to a sweet soprano while at the same time freely traveling along the continuum from folk style to polished poise.

A little bit of distortion creeps into the recorded sound on a few tracks, with all the layering, looping and processing, but it's really remarkably clear for such intricate mixing of layers.

Mark Jordan - Mount Vernon News