Artist of the Week: Joseph Kucinski

Sometimes we find inspiration in the oddest places and it is usually when we are not looking for it. In the case of the latest project from Portland artist Joseph Kucinski he stumbled across inspiration, in the form of an old collection of e.e. cummings poems while clean his studio. To the eye of a painter the poems in cummings' collection looked like strokes from paintbrushes, mini-paintings captured beneath the text. Joseph has been working since that time to capture these images on canvas.

Joseph studied at Massachussetts College of art in Boston, and the S.U.N.Y. Purchase Visual Arts Conservatory in New York, from which point he moved to the West Coast. He strives to know and understand multiple creative outlets and that is what makes his work so incredibly engaging.

Recently, Joseph was kind enough to answer a few of my questions.

Orange Alert (OA): I have the same e.e. cummings book sitting on my bookshelf. Your description of your inspirational moment made me want to go back and touch every book on my shelf. Now that you have completed the paintings in your Cummings series was the process what you had envisioned back in January? How did you utilize Cummings inspiration on a daily basis?
Joseph Kucinski (JK): The smell of old books alone is enough inspiration for a series of paintings, the way they crinkle and yellow is intoxicating. I definitely wanted that to somehow make its way into the work, an aged or worn look. When I started this process, I wanted to convey the essence of the poems, to have the same kind of spirit and levity. What’s interesting is as opposed to the aging of the book being an inspiration, the poems seem ageless, almost a Dorian Grey figure while the pages and the world around it get older. I like that about them, their timeless, so I wanted to go for loose compositions that would reflect that on their own. I also didn’t want to set too many boundaries for myself concerning size or even number of paintings, just letting the book be my guide, and in the end I think it worked out. It ended up coming to 35 paintings, from which I’ll put together a book/catalogue with selected writing and essays also inspired by the paintings and/or poetry.

I really enjoyed being immersed in his poems. I’ve enjoyed poetry in the past but haven’t tried dissecting it and really living with it. Through the process of reading it every day, thinking about it, and painting about it I can understand his language and see his world a bit more clearly.

OA: How will Mel Bosworth be incorporated into the project?
JK: Mel has been a big inspiration for me creatively. I love his writing. It has a melancholy to it and a narrative that reminds me of home. We grew up together in Western Massachusetts and having moved to the West Coast ten years ago it’s nostalgic and refreshing. His productivity and work ethic are amazing. I’ve kept up with him over the years and it’s always a gut punch, fantastic stuff. When I was thinking about the project and the subsequent book, I knew I wanted more content than just my vision. Mel was a no brainer, if of course he was up for it. I sent him pictures of the paintings as they were finished and we kept up a dialogue through the process. Having all the paintings to look at and the poems on hand, Mel just went at it and wrote a story based on his interpretation, his vision. It was more perfect than I could imagine. His story seems to dance and move so fluidly, I think the viewer will see the paintings in the story and vice versa. He nailed it!

OA: Have you thought of painting on the words of other famous writers?
JK: I haven’t given that much thought. After this project I will definitely consider it, it was a great experiment. However, poetry makes for a bit easier subject to translate. It’s generally a shorter scale and an abstract nature. I’ve tended to focus on atmosphere rather than subject in my paintings so something as specific as a novel would be challenging but definitely not out of the question.

OA: You have made a reference in your blog to being influenced by jazz? What is it about jazz that drives your painting? Have you tried to paint other genres of music?
JK: Jazz has an improvisational aspect that lends itself really well to painting. I love the movement and freedom in jazz. You have your instruments and chord structures, but beyond that you’re free to move wherever the emotion or energy of the song takes you. Abstract painting is similar in the way that you have your brushes or tools and the compositional elements but within that you can roam anywhere. It also brings a physical nature to painting, especially if you’re actually painting to it and translating it. You can whip your arm across the canvas to convey a horn section or use an oil stick to drum on the surface to create beat. It helps me get inside a painting if I have a soundtrack and a movement to follow.

I definitely paint to other kinds of music that don’t have quite the compositional influence as jazz but work great for other things. I’ve been listening to classical music a lot lately and that’s really fun for atmospheric painting or wash painting.

OA: What is your process like? Your paintings seem to incorporate different techniques or tools applied to them, but I can’t figure out exactly what they are.
JK: My process varies depending on the outcome I’m going for but with these paintings I tried to stick to a specific process. I wanted a minimal composition but a good amount of depth, so I used many different types of mark making to give a sense of space without being too aggressive about it. I started by ragging the background, then doing a light wash of the opposite color value to give it a foggy but aged look. Once I was happy with the background I used a pencil to make quick scribbly lines and then a much thicker oil stick to do the same but with less description. After this I did the strongest compositional element, which consisted of applying a large run of paint in the intended shape then fuzzing it out with a large dry brush. Finally, I went into the painting with small brushes and brought out elements of the background to give it more depth and a bit more contrast. Viola!

OA: You recently launched an Etsy store, what prompted you to do that and do you think the online image, or thumbnail even, captures what your work represents?
JK: Yeah, I really like Etsy. There is a large community in Portland that uses Etsy to sell their work, and it brings it back to the DIY attitude but with a professional structure. I think there are a lot of good opportunities to find on Etsy, it takes a bit of self promotion but with the right amount of work you can find an audience and deal directly with them rather than using a middleman, such as a gallery. I have nothing against gallery’s, they are hugely important, but I think selling directly can be a useful skill to an artist and can create a sense of community, rather than feeling holed up in the studio all the time. Especially if where you live, (like Portland), has Etsy gatherings.

I think with the proper equipment, thumbnails and online picture gallery’s can come close to what the painting or piece of art looks like. It still will never be like seeing it in person and getting the sense of the texture, detail and weight of a piece, but with technology progressing, were getting closer. Taking multiple images from different angles can help.

OA: What’s next for Joseph Kucinski?
JK: I’m in the final stages of layout for the E.E. Cummings Series Catalogue and then it’s off to the printer! Beyond that I have two exhibits this spring, one being a showing of these paintings and the second is of a previous series called “The Ink Test”. I have a mural project to design and execute in Portland as well and after that? I think another series/book/catalogue. Things to do, things to do… Idle hands…..

For more information on Joseph Kucinski please visit his website.

Share