Interview | Chris Parent

{Artist: Chris Parent - Store: I am a link - Interviewer: Wednesday Klevisha}

For this article, I interviewed Chris Parent, a local artist and art educator at ActonArt, a program that educates children, teens and adults in a non-competitive, non-judgmental environment. Students go through hour and a half long guided lessons and are exposed to a variety of concepts and materials, including use of oils, acrylics and marker (and many more,) from which they find their preferred medium.

Grief

Have you always been an illustrator yourself?

Chris- Well I actually started out as a sculptor. And I kind of got out of it mostly because it's a very difficult thing to just do. You really have to go in. You have to be a sculptor and have a venue and have clients and with my teaching career it just wasn't something feasible. And also it just requires a ton of space. So a couple years ago I started doing drawings of sculptures that inspired me.

 If I make a sculpture, I'm either selling an original sculpture or a reproduction which is also a process to do.  And if you’re buying a sculpture you have to have a place to put it. Where are you going to put it? Get a big curio cabinet and put it next to your Gundam models? Most people don't have that. So a nice framed print, it takes me less time, so I can charge less money. And as a collector, someone getting the artwork, you probably have a greater likelihood of having a place to put it. At the very least, it's a picture. You can just slide it somewhere.

Queen

You’ve been teaching for quite a while, but what was it like for you when you went to school?

Chris- High school is weird because you're confident about stuff but also like super self-conscious about stuff,  but like the things you're confident about you're like I'm basically the King of the Universe.  And I was the art kid. I basically spent my whole senior year in the art wing doing nothing but art, and I was like “I'm doing art! I'm awesome!”

And then you go to art school. And it's basically… like- all the teachers like, look at your stuff and… like- you're trash. It's so big fish in a little pond you know? And as soon as you get in the big pond you're like, “Woah, these people are way better than me. I don't know what I'm doing.” And it was like that for pretty much my whole freshman year.

I was like, I'm not good at art. Like these other people are so much better than me. But it wasn't discouraging. I wasn't like I should quit because I'm bad. But clearly, they get something that I don't get it.

And there was this one occasion that I was in my sophomore year, and I was in  a light drawing class. And we have this whole still-life setup with some fruit or whatever. Very classic art school stuff. And it was maybe a month or two into classes, and my teacher- the whole time they're trying to teach you how to look at form and look at light and shadow, which is what I do now with my kids.  And you listen to it and you go, “Yeah yeah, I understand those words you’re saying, light, shadow and form... yeah. Those are words and I know the definition of those words.”

And then you try to draw it and then it's like nope- it didn't work. I know the words you said but it didn't work. I think the charcoals broken. I don't know. And so there was one time and honest to god- it wasn't- I couldn't pinpoint any particular thing that happened that day that was any different than any other day. But I sat down and there's the model and we're drawing. And we probably went for two and half hours of drawing. I'm drawing, cranking away- doing the charcoal and I was just going at it and class ended.

They turn the lights on, and I look at it and it was like the matrix. Like everything clicks. Like holy shit did I do this drawing? I didn't even process that that was my drawing that I was looking at it. Cos it was jus there. All the form and everything. I got it. Something from that point. Click. And I got it.

And it's not like I did that and everything I did was amazing. I still had a lot of work to do, but I understood the concepts.

Head of Medusa

How would you describe your teaching philosophy?

Chris- As a teacher, you can do a really great job to provide an environment for learning, and that's basically all you can do.

As a teacher, my job is to facilitate learning. I can't force learning. I can't input knowledge into my students’ head. It just doesn't work. That's testing mentality. Like I'll give you the information, then you'll have the information. Then you'll spit it out on the test, and then you'll pass the test. But nobody remembers that garbage. You forget it immediately after it's done being used.

So what I like to do is create and environment where that kind of intellectual curiosity can happen. What you really want is to have fun. When it's not fun, they're not going to be engaged with it. It's difficult. But it can also be fun. And this is how you make the difficult thing fun, by trying to look for this stuff.

charcoal portait of Bela Lugosi

Everyone is capable of producing satisfying art. Your local grocer may be an adept stone carver. Or that quiet person at work may be deep in thought about their next abstract painting. And though it might not seem much to you, it brings them great joy. And the old man who walks up and down the street at a virtual crawl may have been one of the most formidable banjo player in his day.

You too might become part of this secret subtle order of artists with day jobs. Some produce art as service to others, while others produce to sate their own personal desires. Sometimes that desire is money, and if that’s the case I say, you could have probably picked an easier way to make money. Personally, I find the production of art to be rewarding in and of itself. The sheer act of producing a thing is confusing, challenging and enriching. Do you have any advice for adults trying to get into art?

For people who are intimidated getting into art, you just gotta know what you want to do with it. Why are you getting into art? And if it's just because you like drawing or you like painting and you want to do it better, don't stress our about how fast you get better at it. It's a process. Just try to explore the concepts. But like I said earlier, a lot of it just comes down to the student wanting to learn. At the end of the day, if your goal isn't to be that "I sell artwork for $300,000 at a gallery," why are you going to stress out about it? Art doesn't have to be that. It can be. But it doesn't have to be.

Just know where you're trying to go and get comfortable walking the path to get there.  

Next year, Chris will be featured in the Gulu-Gulu Cafe in Salem, Ma. For our Lowell Readers, Chris will also be hosting a free still life drawing session this Sunday, February 16th from 6pm to 8pm at Coffee and Cotton in Mill no.5. Check out his stuff and maybe take a class!

And as always, stay tuned to The Weekly Eclipse and Martian Radio Theatre.

Upcoming:

• Interviews with band Subpunch and artist Mia Eliopoulos.

• Martian Radio Theatre production of Endgame by Samuel Beckett. (First week of March. See our store for tickets)

• Video shorts of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, slotted for the Ides of March!