Dark Friends Series
Zen Sutherland
If you’re a creative soul in Asheville, NC, you will undoubtedly have met or at least heard of Zen Sutherland. His work pops up in the most interesting corners (not the dark ones) of this art-loving town. I had seen Zen at various events over the years, and we have mutual friends, so I knew he was someone I’d like to know. But I hadn’t ever had the chance to meet him.
When he graciously agreed to this interview, I went to his Facebook page to learn more about him and to see his art. I have to tell you that spending time on his page is a lot like walking into your favorite toy store or playing games with a friend.
With so much gloom and doom over the past year, it was a pleasure to immerse myself in this shower of good vibes! I know that’s surprising, being a lover of the dark and all. But just this once, I’m going to step out of the shadows to share a bit of light with you.
The Interview
Although you have had other jobs, including programming for a cardiologist’s office and now delivering ice cream part-time, it would appear that art, in some form or other, has always been a part of your life. At what point did you consider yourself “an Artist”?
The funny thing is I haven’t had that moment. No pivotal epiphany where I became Artist with a capital ‘A.’ My interests have been so varied that I never felt like I’ve
achieved Artist status, though I consider everyone an artist to some degree. Some are artists of talk, artists of paint, artists of theft, artists of complaining, artists of love.
In my lazy teens I wanted to be an artist, and I also wanted to be a scientist, but I’m pretty sure I was romanticizing them both. Like the famous kind – not the struggling kind. I had no struggle, I was a ‘good’ whitebread kid, male and middle-class, so didn’t have much of a story to tell or a sharp dedication to mine out scientific discoveries. But I have always been creative–from drawing to music, to poetry and writing and exploring in nature. I love true random acts that are kind and have a loving intent. Still though, I’m lazy and
eclectic. I leave doors open and the wind blows thru my open windows. If I’m an artist at all, I’m a very distractable artist. I’m a bit of an enigma even to myself. Not having a definite ‘art’ per se, I became more deeply interested in the process of creation itself, the place where artists tap into the universal, into the dream or the alpha state or whatever it is. I’m fascinated by creation in both myself and others. How ideas unfold like flowers and mutate along the way.
Do you have formal training in the various media you create or would you consider yourself to be self-taught?
I don’t have formal training. I loved school and paid attention, but bristled at being tested. Plus being lazy, I didn’t study. I did go to Community College, but changed majors every quarter until I got kicked out of my parent’s house.
I took piano lessons. My dad could draw. My previous wife took a photography course and she sucked at it,
so for fun I did all of her assignments and did pretty well, but disliked all the darkroom dealings and chemical baths. I didn’t pick up a camera until twenty years later when Apple came out with their digital Quicktake 100. Then I was hooked.
What people and/or events have been the most influential in your development as an artist?
Undoubtedly, my parents first and foremost. Beatniks when they were young, but like Hippies of the ’60s, they finally relented to stability and the ‘American Dream,’ whatever that was. Dad was an electronic engineer with a tested IQ of around 170 who built specialized computing machines for the government, and my mom started a graphic artist business when women-owned businesses weren’t much of a thing. I’m very proud of
both of them as they were supportive of unconventional thinking and let me be a part of their processes.
As far as formal art influencers, I’ve always loved the Surrealists (Duchamp, Tanguey, Magritte, Dali), music (The Beatles, Harry Nilsson, James Taylor), writers (Joyce, Thoreau, Carlos Casteneda) and if I had to pick one person to emulate that isn’t mentioned above, it would be Richard Feynman.
Your art manifests itself in many ways. Do you have a favorite medium?
That’s a very interesting question. My favorite part of my art process is conception. Then comes medium, the process. What would best express this idea and would it involve me learning something I don’t know how to do or
force new techniques and creative compromises to get there? So naturally, I photograph the intermediary stages of my creations. So probably photography. I almost always have two cameras on me: my iPhone (with Moment lenses) and a Sony HX-90 for long range.
How much of your photographic work is simply capturing striking images as you find them and presenting them in unique ways, and how much involves the manipulation of an image after you’ve taken it?
Photography is one of the hardest arts to have a recognizable ‘style,’ I guess because you have to both know what the camera is capable of and position yourself to get the right angle, lighting and speed to fold the image in the right way into that little light-soaking box we call camera.
My mom taught me the art of seeing so I’m continually struck by unique views. She showed how to scan a scene peripherally in ways that I have a hard time describing. And from years of photographing, I can mentally flatten a scene to a 2-D image to discern if there’s a photograph to take or whether it’s just eye candy.
My wife and I have an agreement that either of us can request that we stop the car to take a photo of something we ‘see.’ She has a great eye. Mine is just a little more divergent. But for me the object is to get the image in the camera and have as little post-processing as possible (I’m lazy, remember?), so other than perhaps some brightening or darkening and cropping, I don’t manipulate. I don’t own a Photoshop-like program. I’m not some sort of purist though, just expedient.
You also seem to have a great appreciation for graffiti. What is it about this form of art that especially appeals to you?
I began documenting graffiti twenty years ago when I moved to Asheville because while exploring Asheville’s urban back areas, I’d find these gems of art tucked away that seem to be born of the need to express, not necessarily for ‘show.’
Also, places like Chicken Alley where there’d be little art installations and shrines to the mundane meant for no one in particular yet for anyone to discover. I am fascinated by graffiti as an art that both tries to obfuscate its meaning (pseudonyms that are difficult to decipher so the authorities can’t trace it back to someone) and yet be public announcements of a sort to be seen by as many people as possible. It’s that show-yet-hide contradiction that adds a fascinating element to a bold, beautiful art form.
I got to know many of the early Asheville writers (as many graffiti artists prefer to be called). A bunch of interesting characters. I helped some owners of the River Arts District properties set up freewalls, which is where graffiti and mural artists manage the graffiti ‘real estate’ themselves. Interestingly, many of the early writers have become muralists and provide not just beautification, but a kind of street cred that most writers are respectful of and won’t tag over. So some businesses now will contract a muralist or previous writer to do a piece to help prevent others from continually tagging their building.
Making art accessible to people appears to be something that is very important to you. Can you explain what “Free Art Fridays” is and how it got started?
I think that as a result of my keen interest in the creative process itself, the object, the actual art that is my result is of less value to me than the time I spent creating it. So what to do with things I create?
There was already a Free Art Friday movement in SocialMediaLand and I just glommed on to it as a way of keeping the junk in my home to a minimum. Now I’ve come to love the idea that art can be matched with someone who really wants it in a connective but happenstance way. I like sharing my happiness and I’d rather my objects be in the hands of those that appreciate them, whether or not they can afford art.
I’ve sometimes been at odds with artists who are trying to make a living at it as typically they are underpaid and expected to trade art for prestige and see my acts of giving it away as losing a potential customer. But I don’t see it that way–I think art appreciation builds with having more art.
I’ve had several art shows (painting, photography, objects), and do price the pieces to keep people from just walking away with my show. Besides, my attempts to sell
my photography have met the expectations of buyers who want to pay less than the cost of the frame for the art that they like, but feel they could’ve taken a similar photo themselves if they were in the right spot.
So, I avoid the whole mess and give stuff away. Except for pieces that Helen insists we keep.
I think you have a partner in some, if not all, of this wonderful madness. Would you share a bit about your life with Helen? What role does she play in your creation of art? Is she the muse, the co-creator, the critic, or perhaps all three?
Yes, the sweetness of my world, Helen really reset my life. I had come to Asheville in the ‘90s for many reasons, but love was not one of them.
After my young sweetheart marriage dissolved, I’d lived with myself enough to begin to know who I was, liked myself, and basically “project dated.” You know, date fixer-uppers, kind of. Good people who maybe just need a little more confidence or love and support until the point where they no longer needed me. Or perhaps I was just too flighty, I don’t know.
But then I met Helen and was struck dumb with the possibility that I was the one that may need the fixing up. She found me as the Resident Gardener at Asheville Botanical Gardens living under the gift shop eating McDonald’s food and beenie-weenies. I loved it there–10 acres of native plants attached to the UNCA campus–and it took the diamond brilliance of a person like her to get me to move off that spot. We had met on a bulletin board called FreakinAsheville and she originally wanted a print of one of the photos I took. She got the whole artist instead, and neither of us can remember which photograph it was.
Getting back to her as my muse, that’s definitely true. She shares my whimsy absolutely. And she’s sweet but strong-willed with what she likes and thus serves as my critic and editor. She’s always present in some way with my creations and she and I will discuss ideas and usually take them to unimaginable ridiculousness. After that, I go and create the thing on my own.
You also are known here in Asheville for your ROMP project, that is, the Random Object Magnet Project. What is the story behind that?
Helen again. A judge she knew was running for judgeship and had distributed political magnets and had a handful of them left over after the election. She simply gave them to me and said “You should do some art on them.”
We talked about it and came up with the idea that I could art them up and then slap them on random cars as a kind of art gallery in motion which appealed to me.
At the time I was heavily into spray paint and stenciling and so wanted to come up with a theme of Asheville, and those black and white European oval location stickers were big. I wanted to add designs and color and our designation of AVL. The problem with stenciling “AVL” though was that pesky “A” cross that formed the very unstencilable–if that’s a word–triangle at the top, so I kept reworking the design without it and found that the A and the V and the L could all be the same shape just turned different angles and that became the logo. I’ve put over 1000 on local cars and friends have even taken them to other countries.
After the free magnets ran out, I began buying blank oval magnets, and Helen and I put out hundreds of them wherever we saw a car that seemed to need it, generally local with already bumper-stickers of a liberal nature. This got kind of expensive quickly, though, and I asked around and Henco was willing to part with the magnet trimmings from larger print jobs and that worked for a while. But it turned out that making rectangles was a more efficient use of the partial sheets, which is why the project was renamed “Random Object Magnet Project,” versus the O standing for ‘Oval.’ Nowadays I work from donations or buy a small roll of magnet material to keep the project going.
I think it would be a fair assessment to say that you have a fondness for gadgets, especially those that flash and make noises. You also apparently have an affinity for making them. What are some of your favorite gadgets that you’ve made and what do they do?
One would be the Haiku Ray Gun, a toy ray gun with a speaker in the front so that when you pull the trigger, it randomly generates one out of a possible six million haiku.
(Note from DAV: Click the link to see it in operation.)
Another is the Beeble Crawler.
(Note from DAV: I can’t decide if this is “creepy but cute” or “cute but creepy.” Either way, I’m pretty sure I need one. You REALLY need to see the video to get the idea.)
(Click the link.) (Seriously. DO IT!)
And then there’s the Encephlafon, a device that generates ‘music’ from the user’s EEG signals using Mattel’s Mindflex.
Wait…what? A gadget that makes music from your brainwaves?
Yes, the Encephlafone polls brain waves at about one-second intervals.
The music is generated by an algorithm that changes pitch/tempo/phrasing based on different intensities of Alpha/Beta/Theta/Gamma waves.
Could you make the music change by altering your thoughts or mood? Like getting really mad?
If your brain makes large enough changes when you’re angry, then, yes, you’d hear the difference.
It sounds like you’ve got the makings to be a terrific mad scientist! Is there a dark side to Zen Sutherland that secretly likes spooky, scary stuff?
Funny thing, but there isn’t. I don’t enjoy horror movies, except perhaps real kitschy versions that aren’t spooky or frightening. Both Helen and I feel that life is scary and dangerous enough without zapping our amygdala or hyping up the hypothalamus just for a shot of adrenaline. Probably the closest I’ll come to that is watching Forensic Files to see murders solved, but it’s the triumph of science that is the thrill there. Guess that makes us pretty boring, eh?
Uh…okay. If you say so. But that Beeble Crawler seems pretty creepy to me, which is why I love it!
But seriously, one thing for certain is that if someone takes the time to peruse your Facebook page, they cannot help but be filled with a sense of whimsy and delightful absurdity. To what or to whom do you attribute your fun-loving nature? Were you born with it or is it something you acquired along the way? Do you ever get down in the dumps, and if so, what brings you out of that state?
I slow down on my happiness, but have never much gotten even mildly depressed. There’s too much to learn, do, see. Millions of moments I don’t want to miss, even if I might anticipate they’ll turn out badly.
I think we’ve been taught to fear our mistakes, or certainly avoid them if possible, but fear can prevent us from being fully engaged. Literally, the Sutherland motto is ‘sans peur’ which translates to ‘without fear.’
I keep a plethora of projects ongoing so that I never seem to want for something to work on. It’s been the driving force of my retirement.
I’ve noted that your creativity has also been expressed not only in visual media but also in wordplay, as evidenced in this clever video performance about “thinking outside the box.” Do you often express yourself in writing poems, essays, and songs?
As moments strike me I make little videos of whimsy, and sometimes that’s a song or a poem or me just being silly. I want people to know it’s ok to be a goof, to laugh at ourselves and to be loving despite no obvious reason to do so. Sans peur.
(Note from DAV: treat yourself and watch this video. It’s hilarious.)
What advice would you give to anyone who would like to try their hand as an artist?
I do my best art when I have no idea what I’m doing. Really. I think we should all learn as much as we can about art, art history, technique, practical things repeated, and then just let go. Be afraid of yourself for a moment. Backflip into the unknown clutching heart-in-hand and cackling madly. If it takes a little something (flavored brandy, smoke, Christ, knock-knock jokes, sex) to unhinge you, then do it. Work feverishly like you’re gonna be rich and be absolutely prepared to fail. Miserably.
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