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Bryan Wilkerson | Episode 468
Bryan Wilkerson is a Tennessee Native and Professor of Art and Design at Roane State Community College. Bryan’s creative practices are focused primarily on Ceramics and Public Art but extends into design and drawing. Bryan’s work explores humor, craft, irony, and play through common symbolic references. Bryan is also the creator and director of the ArtMobile traveling gallery and pop up workshop space.
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When you are working with you students, how much do you focus on skill and how much do you focus on ideas?
The college I teach at is a two year school and I feel like at that stage in the game I focus on equal balance of both. At the beginning though I think it is important that you develop some fundamental skills in all the disciplines I teach. I always say if you want to break the rules you have to know the rules first. So understanding all the principles of design and all the elements of art, so I really focus on the technical aspects. I was in some classes in college that were so heavily conceptually based that it wasn’t helpful for me at that time. It wasn’t until later that I understood so when I am teaching a ceramics class I am teaching the fundamentals. But I by no means want them to think that there is a certain procedure in the creative process or to teach them that this is the only way to do something. So the short answer is, I focus on both, maybe 60 percent technique and 40 percent concept and as they evolve we start to shift that a little bit.
You’ve been teaching for a long time. What makes a good art student?
Someone who wants to be there, who wants to participate, and who wants to engage. I have had plenty of students who have come through the program who I have considered have some talent, some natural ability, and I have students who have come through, maybe not as much, but they were so driven and had a really great attitude and those students always seem to get to a good place. For an art student, I think it is someone who is willing to work hard and who is open to ideas.
What helps a person stay a life-long student?
I consider myself a life-long student. I think just the desire to improve upon oneself in whatever capacity that could be. I think you have got to find something that you love. If you love what you are doing or you take in interest in something. Steve Jobs gave a commencement speech at Stanford and I read it frequently, I think it is one of the best things ever. I make my students read it because it really helps you focus on what the priorities should be.
What adjectives would you use to describe your work?
Funny. Quirky. Whimsical. Creative. These are things I hope people find in my work. Twisted. Clever. Maybe those are overstepping a little bit. Honestly, if someone looks at it and smiles or giggles that is so great to me.
What makes your work not boring?
There are certainly lots of people who have made character pots and lots of great people out there doing it now. I think that it is light-hearted. There is the whimsical, fun side of it that hopefully shines through. If anything people respond to it’s that there is some humorous aspect to it that they can connect to.
We all have an inner critic when we look at our work. As your inner critic, when you look at your work, what is missing?
So maybe a serious aspect. I have certainly made work that I think is really lofty goals conceptually. Maybe that it is so dumb at times. Not in a bad way but you don’t have to think very hard when you look at my work. It is like reading a comic strip, it is right there laid out in black and white. Sometimes I wonder, Should I be making work that is more intellectual? And that is probably what I grapple with the most.
If your work was music, what style of music would it be?
That is a great question. It would have to be a mash up I think. Maybe Girl Talk where they blend a lot of different songs together at once. Maybe Mr. Bungle. I think their music was based on the movie Killer Clowns from Outer Space. It was a side project so it kind of feels like a dark weird circus.
Things to Read
Steve Jobs Commencement Speech PDF
Contact:
Instagram: @bryanwilkerson