Route 44 – A Journey, Chapters 9, 10 and 11
Chapters, 9, 10 and 11
Chapter 9
During the massive job hunt, I packed up the studio and stopped working on art. There was no one using the studio space during the summer so I moved most of my large paintings to a back room and brought my paint, brushes and materials home. After talking briefly by phone to the Chair of the Art Department at Pembroke I was very excited to accept the invitation to interview for a Printmaking position. He said they would make the arrangements for the interview and be back in touch with the details. He called a few days later with flight and ticket information and it was set. The truth is I was more than excited about this opportunity. The whole interview thing was a little scary. I had never even flown before and I was about to fly over 1200 miles to interview for the one and only job available for me this year. Scary. . .terrifying! By the time I was scheduled to leave I was a wreck and I had a bad head cold. I boarded that plane determined to do my best. The flight was about a three-hour flight to Atlanta where I had to change planes for the final flight to North Carolina. Remember, this was my first flight and I had no idea what to expect or how difficult it would be to change planes in Atlanta. Well, everything went well except for the head cold. I was so congested that my ears never equalized in the ascent from Oklahoma City and again in the descent into Atlanta. Talk about a headache; in addition to my head about to explode, I lost my hearing. I realized that I couldn’t hear when the plane was on the ground and taxiing to the terminal, I looked over and out the window and saw the lady sitting next to me. She was a middle aged black woman and she was obviously talking to me but I couldn’t hear anything she was saying. In a panic I looked away hoping that she didn’t think I was the biggest bigot in the universe. I got off the plane as quickly as I could and made my way into the airport. I didn’t have a clue as to what I should do so, I just avoided all eye contact and wandered around the Atlanta airport afraid to look at anyone, afraid they would speak to me and I wouldn’t be able to hear them. I found my connecting flight and about the time I was to board my ears finally equalized and I could hear. What a relief but now I was afraid this would happen again and I wouldn’t be able to hear when I reached North Carolina and I would never be able to find or communicate with the person who was sent to pick me up. The second part of the flight was shorter and I started trying to swallow hard the minute we took off to keep my ears clear. It was still painful but I was able to get my ears to pop so I was able to hear. There was more turbulence on this flight so I had other things to worry about, maybe that was a blessing. We landed and I was never happier to be on the ground and to have my first plane ride over. I got my luggage and headed to the gate where I quickly found, or maybe he found me, the Chair of the Art Department. Paul VanZandt was his name and he had a knack for making me feel at ease. I found out why on the 30-minute trip from the airport in Fayetteville to Pembroke and Paul’s house. It turned out that Paul was also from Oklahoma and got his undergrad degree from OSU. Another coincidence, again I don’t think so. I quickly realized that Paul was really trying hard to not only make me feel at home but was also trying to make a good impression. This realization was very odd to me — didn’t he know that this job was the only job in America. Of course, it was not the only job in America but there sure weren’t enough positions to go around for all the recent graduates. The interview was a quick two-day event so there was a tight schedule to follow. As I mentioned earlier I was staying with Paul and his family in their guest bedroom. So I quickly put my things in the room and laid down for a minute to rest. I was informed that we would be having dinner back in Fayetteville with other faculty members and would be leaving for the restaurant in about an hour. Paul’s family was friendly and continued to make me feel welcome. His house was an older two-story house with great southern charm. So far, this interview was going great and not what I expected.
We left to meet the others at the restaurant, again about a thirty-minute trip. I learned that Paul’s art was ceramics and he was very dedicated and passionate about it. That was a good thing and even though I didn’t know much about ceramics, we shared that passion about our art. We got to the restaurant and I met the rest of the faculty. The restaurant was an upscale steakhouse and we were seated a large round table. As the waiter took drink orders he asked why we were dining with them and Paul replied, “We are trying to convince this young man to accept a teaching position with us at Pembroke State University.” OK, now I am really surprised — he doesn’t know they have the only job available in America. I was so surprised with this statement it was all I thought about the rest of the trip. The evening went well and we got back at Paul’s house late and I was extremely tired so I went straight to bed to try and get ready for a full day of meetings tomorrow. The next day I toured the Art Building and the rest of the campus. It was small but adequate and what they didn’t seem to know was it was the only job in America. We had more meetings with faculty and administrators and at the end of the day they offered me the job. Crazy, this was not what I expected at all. I really was prepared to wow them with my abilities, skills and dedication but I didn’t have to do that at all. Well, I verbally accepted and they told me the official contract would be mailed to me. Done deal, I had my first full-time teaching job. I was a University instructor. I couldn’t wait to tell Jo but I had to wait a while until I was alone so I could call her. The flight back to Oklahoma was much better than the flight to North Carolina. Maybe it was because I was so excited about the outcome of the interview or maybe it was because I knew what to expect but I didn’t suffer with the ear problems like I did in the previous flight. Back at home, Jo and I were excited to start our new adventure. Neither of us had ever lived out of Oklahoma and we were ready to move and experience new things and meet new friends.
“Viola’s” -7″x8″ – zink plate etching
In North Carolina my primary teaching duties were printmaking. That plus the local styles greatly influenced my work. These are examples of prints done during my first year at Pembroke. The smaller more intimate scale allowed for more recognisable imagery.
“A Tisket A Tasket” – 10″x12″ – zink plate etching
“Double Feature” – 12″x15.75″ – zink plate etching and collagraph
“Monkey See Monkey Do I” – 12″x18″ – zinc plate etching and relief
“Monkey See Monkey Do II” – 15″x22″ – embossed drawing, graphite and airbrush
“Monkey See Monkey Do III” – 17″x24″ – etching and airbrush
“Byzantine Jody” – 30″x38″ – acrylic and silk screen on canvas
“Artist’s Father” – 20.5″x26.5″ – oil pastels and graphite
“Artist’s Father and Friends” – 20.5″x26.5″ – oil pastels and graphite
“Studio Transition 1″ – 66″x66” – acrylic on canvas
“Studio Transition 2″ – 66″x66” – acrylic on canvas
“Studio Transition 3″ – 66″x66” – acrylic on canvas
“North Carolina Landscape Study” – 20″x24″ – acrylic on watercolor paper hand stitched on canvas. As you have noticed, I usually work on a small scale at the same time I am working on the larger paintings. I use these as working studies for the larger works.
“North Carolina Landscape Study” – 20″x24″ – acrylic on watercolor paper hand stitched on canvas
“North Carolina Landscape Study” – 20″x24″ – acrylic on watercolor paper hand stitched on canvas
“North Carolina Landscape Study” – 20″x24″ – acrylic on watercolor paper hand stitched on canvas
By this time school had started and I was very busy teaching and getting to know my students and my fellow faculty members. If you remember I was hired to teach printmaking so there was a lot of technique I had to brush up on. The instructor that was there before me primarily taught relief printing and that was my weakest area. The school had a single Dickerson combination press that allowed me to teach intaglio, lithography, and relief techniques and I added some screen printing to round out the curriculum. My printmaking classes were going well and the students seemed eager to learn. I started working on some prints to demonstrate techniques in class but I really hadn’t started painting yet. The painting instructor was a very “Southern” man a little older than me from Memphis. His work was nothing like mine, in fact no one here, student or faculty, worked anything like I did. I was definitely unique here. As an undergraduate and graduate student I was strongly influenced by my teachers and the current trends in contemporary art as seen in national publications like Art In America and Art Forum. I naively thought everyone in America that was interested in contemporary art was doing work similar to what I was doing or what I had seen from my fellow students. Boy, I was wrong! The painting instructor at Pembroke worked in a very controlled surreal style, almost a fantasy style, with landscapes as his primary subject. Most of the students also worked in a surrealistic style. I was very surprised, I thought Surrealism had pretty much died as a popular style and was only being used by Salvador Dali and a few fantasy illustrators. Well let me tell you, Surrealism was alive and well in North Carolina and it wasn’t the cool, funny, and clever Magritte Surrealism, it was the crazy, melty clock Dali Surrealism. This definitely had an impact on me. I didn’t particularly like the work I was seeing but I was the new guy looking for approval. It was much easier to adapt images to my prints and drawings so that is where I started, trying to mix my styles with what I was seeing stylistically here in North Carolina. I quickly moved to a larger scale with my paintings. I painted and struggled for a couple of months until I finally lost it on a large painting that just wouldn’t come together. It was stiff, cold, lacked emotion and energy and most importantly, it wasn’t me! In frustration I put the painting on the floor and in anger started pouring paint over everything I had worked so hard and long on. It felt good and I worked at a frantic pace, threw down my brushes and went inside. I went back out the next day and realized everything that was bad with the painting now was better – much better! I learned another important life lesson. You must be true to yourself, you can’t be someone else. Revitalized with the new approach I started a new series of work that I called “Studio Transformations.” They were loosely based on the North Carolina landscape, particularly the view that surrounded me in my porch studio. Jo and I settled into our new “adult” lives in North Carolina. We both worked on campus so we rode together every day. On the weekends we explored the surrounding area. We made some great new friends and really enjoyed our time there. Our new friends were from the area and showed us around on several trips around the state. We bought some nice 10-speed bikes and rode them around our area. It was very flat where we lived which was great for biking. The state was beautiful with the beach and ocean on one side and mountains on the other side. All and all we loved North Carolina, but Jo and I wanted to start a family and the area we lived in was very rural with a pretty bad secondary education system. We really wanted a little better school system for our future children. Jo got pregnant early in the semester of my second year. We had our first baby, Brenan, in May. He was beautiful and perfect and yes, he changed our lives! About this time, I got a call from my friend Dalton Maroney. Dalton was teaching at a small private college in Sioux City, Iowa called Morningside College. He said they had an opening for a painting and printmaking instructor and wanted me to apply. The idea of working with Dalton again was very appealing and also it included teaching painting. That combined with the possibility of a better school system to help raise our little boy was enough for me to apply. They offered me the position with a rank increase to Assistant Professor. I talked it over with Jo and we agreed that it seemed like a good opportunity so I accepted and started planning the move.
April 25, 2016 lhefner Art, Book Collagraph, Etching, Lithography, Printmaking, Silk Screen