THE RURBAN FRINGE

Exploring Rurban Art – John Andrews

Posted on | September 15, 2009 | No Comments

John Andrews – the fifth artist in The Rurban Fringe’s limited online series – is proud to explore, sustain, and raise the profile of creative rural art by understanding ‘community’ as a place from which one can create (and find!) meaning and culture.

Tell us a bit about yourself and your work.

RavenI’m a graphic designer who’s been working in the book and newspaper industries for the past 15 years.  Most of my life and career has been based in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, until my wife and I moved to a small community two years ago.

How would you define your art?  What are the influences on your work?

I’m still a youngster in the art world so I don’t think I can clearly define my direction as an artist … meandering, I suppose.

I started doing photography about ten years ago.  I loved the darkroom process but was never a fan of the chemicals.  During that time, I also started experimenting with other forms of printmaking.  I was always drawn to the stark images created by woodcut artists so I eventually tried my hand at that.  Many stabbed fingers later, I moved on to linoleum – a medium that’s a little kinder to a knife-wielding newbie.  

Imagine PrintI continue to make linocuts, I dabble in painting, and do a monthly editorial cartoon for NLPress.ca.

Living in a rural area, how do you promote yourself and your work?  What is the local response to your art?

I dipped my toe in the big digital pond of online art sales a few years ago when I started my Etsy shop, Linopalooza.  It was an exciting process and was my first real art sales effort.  It was thrilling to see the page views climb and have inquiries coming in from art enthusiasts, but even better when pieces started selling to people from across North America.

Once I saw that online art sales were a real possibility, I explored other online options to point people to my shop. 

Organic BeefI started my blog, Doodlepalooza, nearly a year ago.  Though I originally expected it to be strictly a marketing tool, I soon realized that I loved posting and sharing my art experiences (successful and otherwise).

I started taking part in online art initiatives such as Karin Jurik’s ‘Different Strokes From Different Folks.’  The art challenges and the community spirit surrounding them were fantastic. 

It began to be a little less about page views and a lot more about interacting with like-minded folks.

In the real world, I’ve been submitting pieces to the Newfoundland and Labrador Provincial Art Competition for nearly a decade.  Making it into the final exhibit is a real privilege considering the number of talented people that take part.

Is there a plight of rural artists?  Do you see any perceived challenges or opportunities as opposed to working in an urban area or as an urban artist?

I don’t believe there’s been a better time to be a rural artist. 

BirdUsing the internet, a rural artist can create an online portfolio, blog, take part in art challenges, see what other artists are doing, reach out to galleries, etc.

Before the internet, rural artists probably had to do a lot of legwork to nearby cities to make the same connections that are possible today from home.

A gallery owner contacted me out of the blue a few months ago after she came across my blog and thought my work would be a good fit for one of her upcoming shows.  As a result, I’ll be taking part in a group show at Argyle Fine Arts in Halifax, which I’m pretty excited about.

The only major artistic challenge from my rural environment at the moment is that I’ve recently become a gardening addict.  It’s a problem, for sure.  We’ve barely harvested this season’s crop and I’m already daydreaming about what I’m going to grow next year.  It’s deeply cut into my time for art during our short growing season.

But that’s okay!  I’m happy that my life has been filling up with a wide variety of activities.  I spent way too much of the last decade in front of a computer screen. 

Do you have any suggestions as to how rural and rurban communities can support a thriving local arts & cultural scene?

Budget Band-AidSome friends of mine in this community have suggested we start an art group. 

Although we haven’t tried that out yet, perhaps that would be a good first step … I suspect our community has a lot of creative people.

***

To find out more about John and to view samples of his work, visit his Doodlepalooza blog at http://doodlepalooza.blogspot.com.

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