Vic Goldsmith Finds the Rhythm

 

 

The theme of this issue of The Maine Arts Journal, InnerVisions, has presented me with a quandary of sorts. It implicitly asks for the reasons and motivations behind my creative process, not something that I have spent much time thinking about.

 

Art has been a part of my life from birth, and for all I know, it might be fixed in my genetic identity as well. When I was a small child, I had the good fortune to spend every afternoon following school in my father’s studio at what was then Potsdam State Teachers College in upstate New York (now SUNY Potsdam) where he taught painting, sculpture and history of art to aspiring teachers.

 

 

 

I was set up at a table with paper, pencils, crayons, watercolors or clay and each day proceeded to create whatever came to mind. Throughout my life, even before I thought of a career of any sort, drawing and doodles filled the margins of my notebooks. When I finally decided on a direction, it was toward architecture, with its own satisfying mixture of structural discipline and artistic expression.

 

It was also during this time that I was more fully exposed to the human history of art and architecture, with Bernini and Anthony Caro and Jack Squire my sculptural influences. Looking at my father’s work years after his death, I have to admit that there is more than a little of him in my own work as well.

 

Another powerful force defining my aesthetic has been Jazz. At ten years old, I discovered Jazz…so many artists, so many different pallets. Miles, Ella, Brubeck, Adderley, Ellington, Rollins, Mingus et al; each with their own interpretation of a world seen through music. My inner vision has always been informed by the structure, counterpoint, rhythm and improvisational nature of this music. Having a framework and vocabulary is just as necessary to my work as it is in jazz.
Defining and refining this vocabulary has been an ongoing effort, as I believe it is to all artists.

 

 

A third force in developing a personal aesthetic has been my love of and awe in the power of our natural world and its landscape. I see the same kind of rhythms and counterpoint in nature’s creations as I find in jazz, from the small micro-world found in a square foot of meadow or the patterns in a Trilobite fossil to the most expansive vistas.

 

How does this all translate into an examination of what moves me and what motivates me to create my art? Combining the rhythms of the visual world and the discipline of design with my soundtrack is, I believe, how I produce my art.

 

 

While at times a sculpture or drawing might be drawn from a specific subject, more often it begins as an improvisation, with no conscious thought or idea of where it will go or how it will end. The forms and vocabulary have been accumulated over the years, while the composition rises out of my subconscious as each partly developed piece merges with another, often in surprising directions.

 

 

I have no sense that I am pursuing any emotional goal or that I am satisfying any deep psychological need. I make art because that’s where my creative spirit takes me. It would be interesting (to someone) to find out what is going on in my brain while I’m in the process, but I can say with absolute certainty that at least two-thirds of the process for each piece is fraught with uncertainty and a lingering frustration; much like starting a jigsaw puzzle without a guiding picture.

 

 

It isn’t until I can clearly see the rhythm of a piece that a sense of satisfaction begins to creep in, a sense that increases as the piece is refined to completion.

—Vic Goldsmith, Cushing, Maine, 2017