Joshua Chambers is quite the prolific artist.
I love his simplicity in composition, color palette, and subject matter.
In addition to being a teacher and father, he also just went through his Saturn Return.
And from the looks of it, did rather well!
Joshua Chambers, Cancer/Leo cusp, Bossier City, Louisiana
2. What are you currently working on?
I'm currently working on acrylic paintings that will be featured at Graphite
Galleries for Dirty Linen Night in New Orleans.
3. Who are your favorite artists?
Laylah Ali, William Kentridge, Mark
Bradford, Matthew Barney, James Turrell, Malcolm Liepke, On Kawara, Monica
Cook, Eric Fischl, Anselm Kiefer, Francis Bacon, Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dali,
Daumier, Claes Oldenberg, Edward Albee, the list could go on and on.
4. What's the best advice you ever received about your career choice?
During a critique in my first painting class, my professor asked "Why do you
all want to make art?" Mr. Hunter tried to warn us of the difficulties it
would bring our love-life and finances. "You better have a day job, and
marry well."
Bleak, I know, but to this day I appreciate his honesty. A couple of weeks
later, I read this in an interview with Harry Chapin:
"My grandfather was a painter. He died at age eighty-eight, he illustrated
Robert Frost's first two books of poetry and he was looking at me and he
said, 'Harry, there are two kinds of tired: there's good-tired, and there's
bad-tired.' He said, 'Ironically enough, bad-tired can be a day that you
won. But you won other people's battles, you lived other people's days,
other peoples agendas, other people's dreams and when it was all over there
was very little "you" in there, and when you hit the hay at night, somehow
you toss and turn--you don't settle easy.' He said, 'Good-tired, ironically
enough, can be a day that you lost. But you don't have to tell yourself,
'cause you knew you fought your battles, you chased your dreams, you lived
your days, and when you hit the hay at night, you settle easy--you sleep the
sleep of the just, and you can say "take me away."' He said, 'Harry, all my
life I've painted. God, I would've loved to be more successful, but I
painted and I painted, and I am good-tired and they can take me away.' Now,
if there is a process in your and my lives in the insecurity that we have
about a prior life or an afterlife and God--I hope there is a God. If He
is-- if He does exist He's got a rather weird sense of humor, however. But
let's just-- But if there's a process that will allow us to live our days
and will allow us that degree of equanimity towards the end, looking at that
black, implacable wall of death, to allow us that degree of peace, that
degree of non-fear, I want in."
I didn't marry wealth, but I did marry a woman who loves the arts, values
them even more than I do, and truly believes they are a crucial aspect of
life. So I tend to believe I married well.
I was also told to "make work, always, no matter what, because one day
someone will want to show it so you'd better have enough to show".
L'Italiano, the Red River Wildlife Refuge, the Gallery Fine Arts Center, the
Bossier Arts Council, and the Library.
6. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?
And while we're at it, what about a different era?
Paris, France. No question, no
hesitation. I don't think I would want to live in any other era. I like the
diversity of the art world, and society in general, of
the 21st century.
7. What do you usually mindlessly doodle? (do you have a picture of this?)
Circles connected to each other by straight lines, kind of like scientific
models of chemical structures. I don't have any examples.
8. First website you peruse of the day?
I wanted to say Daily Serving. It's an art blog that's updated daily.
However, in truth it is Facebook.
9. What's the worst movie you've ever seen, but secretly love?
The GingerDead Man
10. Any pets? Any kids?
pets: two dogs - a Shih Tzu and a Pug.
kids: one three-year-old girl, Sophia
Thank you Joshua!
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