Abstract
Mansfield native Kevin Everson discusses discovering his artistic ability in college and his interest in photography and film. He recounts attending the University of Akron and the masters program at Ohio University. He taught art at Akron and Oberlin College and is currently an instructor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Art films are his main focus at the present time. His subjects are people and objects that represent black working-class culture. Everson worked with a Widelux camera, taking street shots of people and scenes and manipulating the photos to create art, not to recreate reality. He collaborated with fellow art professor Michael Loderstadt on a project using a pinhole camera in the back of a truck. Everson discusses a current film project that he shot in three black neighborhoods in Mansfield while riding with snowplow drivers. He admits that finances are the biggest challenge for him as a working artist. He credits word of mouth for promoting his work. This interview contains language which some listeners may find objectionable. By accessing the audio file, the user acknowledges receipt of this message.
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Interviewee
Everson, Kevin (interviewee)
Interviewer
Busta, William (interviewer)
Project
Cleveland Artists Foundation
Date
1-13-2009
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
45 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Kevin Everson Interview, 13 January 2009" (2009). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 901032.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/227
Transcript
William Busta [00:00:13] It’s amazing. These microphones actually work. Oh, yeah. I’ve grown up on speakerphones, so. Cell or office? Does it matter? Let me see the- I have absolutely no idea. Try the office. Not the office. We’re going to try to-
Kevin Everson [00:00:57] Hello?
William Busta [00:00:59] Hello, Kevin, this is Bill Busta.
Kevin Everson [00:01:01] Hey, what’s going on, dude?
William Busta [00:01:03] I’m getting pretty tired at the end of the day.
Kevin Everson [00:01:06] I hear you, player.
William Busta [00:01:08] I should have another cup of coffee. I’m in the studio at Cleveland State University and we’re being recorded as we speak.
Kevin Everson [00:01:16] Yeah, I can barely hear you.
William Busta [00:01:18] Okay, can you take care of that? Okay, good. The technician will take care of that. If you’re not hearing me a little bit later on, just say something and they’ll come in and they’ll change it again.
Kevin Everson [00:01:32] All right, cool.
William Busta [00:01:33] Does it sound good now?
Kevin Everson [00:01:35] Yeah, it’s a bit about the same. I can hear you, but, I mean, you know, my office got these fans on, so it’s kind of tough. But, yeah, we’ve been signed the whole afternoon, I think.
William Busta [00:01:44] Okay. We can make some adjustments. Make some adjustments, please.
Unknown Speaker [00:01:47] We’ll work on it.
William Busta [00:01:47] Okay, good. Kevin, I’m going to go through sort of a format that I have, and it’s- A lot of the questions I’m asking everybody are pretty much the same, but it of course changes as we go along. But I’m going to start with the question that I asked- Oh, I should mention will take about an hour. Is that too long for you? Is that gonna be-
Kevin Everson [00:02:17] No, it’s cool.
William Busta [00:02:18] Okay. So you can sort of, like, look at your own clock, and if there’s things you wanted to say, you can either move up or slow down or whatever. When- Let me- Excuse me a second. Where were you born?
Kevin Everson [00:02:34] Mansfield, Ohio.
William Busta [00:02:36] And what year was that?
Kevin Everson [00:02:37] 1965.
William Busta [00:02:40] And with every artist, I start by asking, when did you first sort of realize that you were an artist?
Kevin Everson [00:02:50] I don’t know. Maybe, like, probably. I don’t know, maybe last year or second junior year as an undergraduate, I think.
William Busta [00:03:01] Well, when you were a child, did anybody say, Kevin, you can draw, Mister?
Kevin Everson [00:03:05] I didn’t start doing art until I was in college.
William Busta [00:03:08] And why did it suddenly start in college, do you think?
Kevin Everson [00:03:14] I guess I was focused and, I don’t know, I went home and worked in the factories and realized that I didn’t want to do that. I don’t know. I just. I don’t know. It all started to click for me, I guess. I don’t know.
William Busta [00:03:26] Well, when you were in high school, then, what did you think? You’d go to college for?
Kevin Everson [00:03:31] Oh, I don’t know. I was lucky to get out and go to college. Although my grades were low. I didn’t do nothing but played sports. Yeah.
William Busta [00:03:40] And so you didn’t know what you were going to study, but you thought it was-
Kevin Everson [00:03:44] I kind of like botany and political science. That’s about it.
William Busta [00:03:49] And so how did you get involved with art?
Kevin Everson [00:03:53] Well, I had a camera, and then I figured I’d major in photo or something like that. I mean, I didn’t know what to do in college because nobody ever went. I mean, you know, like, you know, my uncles and. A couple uncles and aunts and stuff. Cousins. But I didn’t really know the cadence because my grades were so low. I didn’t know what to do. I was all freaked out. So I tried to. I thought art was easy, but it wasn’t. But I liked it, though, so it became cool.
William Busta [00:04:21] And you went to the University of Akron? Was the University of Akron the only place you went to college?
Kevin Everson [00:04:31] Yeah, yeah.
Wlliam Busta[00:04:32] As an undergraduate?
Kevin Everson[00:04:33] Yeah.
William Busta [00:04:34] And did you live in Mansfield all that time?
Kevin Everson [00:04:36] No. No, no, no. That’s an hour away. No.
William Busta [00:04:42] And as you were- So you started to take courses at the School of Art there. Was there anyone who influenced you?
Kevin Everson [00:04:51] Oh, yeah. Michael Loderstedt, Don Harvey, Andrew Borwiec, Penny Rakoff, Bob Huff. Yeah, I think. Is that the sculptor guy? Bob Huff, Yeah.
William Busta [00:05:01] Bob Huff was the sculptor guy.
Kevin Everson [00:05:03] Yeah, yeah, those.
William Busta [00:05:10] Was there any particular moment that you can remember that you said to yourself, well, I can do this?
Kevin Everson [00:05:22] Give me a minute on that one. Yeah, I guess I start making interesting photographs, but I can’t remember when. I think I won the student show one year or something or won a prize and that was about it, I guess. I don’t know. Yeah, I can’t remember.
William Busta [00:05:50] Can you think of anything that in particular you learned from any of the people that were your teachers?
Kevin Everson [00:05:57] Oh, you know, they had good discipline. You know, they were like, you know, they were making art. I mean, I didn’t know anything about it. New York and an Andy Warhol factory, or move to New York. I wanted to, like, get out of school and get grants like Michael and Don and Huff, Penny and Andrew. I mean, they were getting like OEC grants and shit like that. I thought that’s what you had to do and teach and shit. And then so I taught like a course at. I told. A papermaking course at Cuyahoga Community or something. Cuyahoga Valley or Cuyahoga Community College? No, a Cuyahoga Falls Community Arts Center, like a little thing downtown, you know, Cuyahoga Falls.
William Busta [00:06:40] Yeah.
Kevin Everson [00:06:40] And so I like that teaching stuff. I taught papermaking to these, like, housewives and stuff. That was pretty cool. And then so I figured, like, when these guys were teachers and making art, so that’s what I wanted to do. And plus also I was a father as a teenager, so I figured I had to get a job. So I figured, like, being an art professor and then making art was the best way to do it. But I like their discipline. They’re always making art and showing and stuff. I thought that was pretty cool. So that’s what I try to do. I try to show a lot and then so the students can see it and they get hyped from it too, as well. So yeah.
William Busta [00:07:23] Did you go to Athens right out of University of Akron?
Kevin Everson [00:07:27] Yeah, pretty much took me four and a half years to get through Akron U. So I graduated in December. And then I went to grad school in that fall. That’s the only school that accepted me, I think. So I didn’t really have a lot of money to apply to a bunch of schools. So.
William Busta [00:07:49] At Ohio University at that time, did you know that you were going to go into video or film?
Kevin Everson [00:07:56] No, I did film as an undergraduate. I shot Super 8 junk and did some film installations, and then I shot. I may have shot a few films in grad school, but not that. No, I mean, it was all hardcore photography, sculpture and painting and stuff. Printmaking and stuff. Film’s just part of the dance now. I mean, now this is what I do mostly now.
William Busta [00:08:24] Well, you happen to, though you were going photography. Ohio University is the only state university in Ohio which really had a focus on video, at least particularly at that time.
Kevin Everson [00:08:39] No. Didn’t know we’d do that stuff then. No. Hollywood University had a film program, but that wasn’t in the art department. Oh, yeah. Can I put George Danhires was like a big influence in art school?
William Busta [00:08:52] Well, there was something about George Danhires was good. Art departments among the state universities and Athens got the video stuff.
Kevin Everson [00:09:02] Not in the art department. Not when I was there. Nobody’s doing that stuff.
William Busta [00:09:05] But it wasn’t in the art department. So that really wasn’t part of what you were doing.
Kevin Everson [00:09:09] No, no. They had a film school, but they were shooting 16. They weren’t shooting no video. I don’t think nobody was shooting video then, like in the early in the late ’80s. No, nobody was shooting video.
William Busta [00:09:23] When did your, you know, after you finished at Athens, you came back, you got a teaching Job in Akron or it was just a place to move or? How did you?
Kevin Everson [00:09:35] Yeah, I got. I think Borwiec took over the. The what you call it, gig. The. Yeah, the chair department. So I took some of his classes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was fortunate to get into that, but once I got out of grad school. I like grad school because I was, like, cranking out the work. And I mean, it was just like. And I remember I never missed school when I was an undergraduate because I was paying for that shit. Then, as I remember, just when I was in grad school, I was teaching, actually, I was in instructor status, I think, for maybe a quarter or two. And then I was making art, and then I was just ready to go. I mean, I couldn’t sit in the class. I had to stand in front of it from then on.
William Busta [00:10:23] And how did that feel?
Kevin Everson [00:10:26] I mean, I felt like I was ready to go. Feels like I was ready to make art professionally, I think. I guess I just wanted to get the studio practice going. Yeah.
William Busta [00:10:37] And as you got- You taught at Akron for how long? When was it that you finally left? You taught at Akron for a number of years then?
Kevin Everson [00:10:47] I think like two or three years. And then I taught at Oberlin for a year. Yeah. I remember moving up to Hodge School was the big thing, though. Michael was there. He got me introduced to that place. Dominic Brown, you know, Nick Charles, Khalil Pettici were all in there. Yeah, Hodge School was awesome.
William Busta [00:11:07] When did you live at Hodge school?
Kevin Everson [00:11:12] Halloween, 1990, to think. June or August ’96. Yeah. So I got about six years in there, I reckon a little less than six years.
William Busta [00:11:27] And then you left to go to Knoxville, Tennessee. Knoxville, Tennessee. Let’s talk about that period of time of the development of your work, because I know that when you were at Akron still, and Michael was teaching there for a while as well, though Michael kept moving around.
Kevin Everson [00:11:48] Yeah, he was at Kent, yeah.
William Busta [00:11:51] And he went down to Worcester for a year.
Kevin Everson [00:11:52] That’s right, yeah.
William Busta [00:11:55] What was- How did your work develop and change from being- Well, let’s start with what interested you about those panoramic photographs that you’ve-
Kevin Everson [00:12:09] Oh, yeah, those wide, Lux things. Yeah. I started shooting that Widelux for about 10 years. Yeah. I just, like- I was always a street shooter, so I like street photography. And then I like the- I like that camera because, you know, people didn’t know what it was because they didn’t really have a protruding lens, so people could kind of approach it, you know, so it was like, so, like the so it was kind of an invitation to people kind of to get closer to me instead of kind of moving away. And then I liked it because it was kind of movement like, you know, I never really think, like, you know. You know, like I was always, you know, photographing like African Americans or posing or performing with objects of representation or people African descent. Because I went to London and shot stuff too. And- And I never, you know, I never liked like the, you know, I never like when people say, oh, you know, you know, photograph Black folks. It’s real or it’s a day in the life and all that other shit, you know. But this camera was like. It was never real because it was just like 31 little pictures and the can lens always moves. That was so- It was so- It was a complete falsehood. And I like that. So look, it was totally like painting and sketching to me. Or you like painting and, you know, sculpting out there, you know, so could just- Because whatever I was going to photograph what was not going to be what it was out there. So I did like train my eye to kind of look at it like differently. So I was in my own little world and stuff.
William Busta [00:13:49] Why did you start? Was it a camera that you just seemed interesting and you started working with it?
Kevin Everson [00:13:55] No, I remember Andrew Borwiec. He took us up to New York. I went to kind of summer New York trip. And this cat named Michael Spano, he was showing his prints. He made one of those. And that was pretty cool. So I kind of liked- Was kind of a gimmick, but I tried not to make it like a gimmick, you know, whatever. I never had it for its Widelux look or something like that.
William Busta [00:14:21] Right.
Kevin Everson [00:14:22] Yeah.
William Busta [00:14:24] Well, the film. I know I was looking at some of those photographs recently and it seems that a lot of times toward the center of it. The people- You do have people sort of approaching the lens.
Kevin Everson [00:14:39] Yeah. I mean, because I think at the time, like, I liked. I mean, still. I write this still in my little statement is that I like for the work to have formally, like have it kind of an art smart reference. And also I like to have objects and elements that look like it comes from, like, kind of, I don’t know, black working class culture or whatever. And then so there. So I always make sure that there’s a snapshot element in it. There’s always somebody kind of looking at the camera or maybe even posing. And I’ll even yell at them like, hey, hey, turn around, hey. So I can get that. Whatever. So the Whole thing’s all fabricated, and I like that.
William Busta [00:15:28] Well, I think I remember when I first was looking at Michael’s work in the late ’80s, and not so much about yours, but I remember one of the characteristics that I, as I was still learning about art at the time. I guess I still am a little bit. But I think that what impressed me about Michael’s work was that he had this- He was able to take a snapshot that somehow looked like art. And it seemed to me to be something enormous to accomplish that. I had sort of been used to the idea of the photograph as a finely crafted object of something like Ansel Adams, where you would spend years sort of figuring out the right way to zone things.
Kevin Everson [00:16:22] So Michael, he’s probably the most talented artist I’ve ever met in my life. So he. You could get in any genre and just fucking rip it, you know? So, I mean, I was just. I mean, he was just. I mean, like that. Like. Like that’s just the loader toast there. I mean, like, that’s rare. I mean, Michael’s the only person I know that I could, like, jump into a discipline and just fucking roll with it, you know? But other than that, man, don’t take- You know, like, it took me years to figure out film and photo, you know, I think. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. But there is a distinct language to it, though, for sure. Yeah. Is that what you’re getting at? Like, the distinct language of it?
William Busta [00:17:02] Yes.
Kevin Everson [00:17:03] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
William Busta [00:17:05] And when moving text and image together. And I remember there was some book that his work was in about Cleveland, and they did these.
Kevin Everson [00:17:18] Oh, he did those large pinhole ones or something like that.
William Busta [00:17:20] Yeah, well, the large pinhole. How did that project come about?
Kevin Everson [00:17:26] Oh, the one that we did. Oh, I thought about, like, Michael, he had made that pinhole camera at one time. I think we were just applying for some grant or something like that, so we decided to build that pinhole in the back of his pickup truck.
William Busta [00:17:39] Right.
Kevin Everson [00:17:39] I think it was- I forgot what was- I forgot. It might have been for the library or- No, some hospital in Akron or something like that. I think so, yeah. I can’t remember.
William Busta [00:17:54] And Michael seemed to feed off of working with. I mean, working with other people energized him a lot. He’s done a lot of collaborative work.
Kevin Everson [00:18:02] Yeah. Yeah. But Michael’s, like, super- Like I said before, he’s like one of the most talented artists I’ve ever met, ever.
William Busta [00:18:13] He influenced you a lot when he was your teacher?
Kevin Everson [00:18:15] Oh, yeah, big time. Oh, even afterwards, too, as well. Yeah. I mean, because he had discipline. Always making art all the time in the studio. You know, by hook or crook. I mean, I do that now, and I try to instill that to the students. I mean, the idea of studio practice. And even I go to Europe. We always talk about the European artists. Talk about studio practice and that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, in fact, those are the most conversations I usually have with other artists. I was like, yeah, it’s financial, studio practice, time, discipline. You know.
William Busta [00:18:54] That series of work that you did with Michael, the large pinhole photographs, what was your part and what was Michael’s part in it? How did you just divide it conceptually?
Kevin Everson [00:19:05] Well, Michael is mostly the engine. Michael is mostly like the kind of engineer, and we kind of built that thing, and we just go around and look for, you know, things that were essentially Cleveland, like school bus stuff. I think, you know, like, the whole idea of changing the facade because they’re trying to build the stick, the, you know, the gateway, you know, I mean, he used that text. I mean, like, I’m not a big text man, right? I mean, I think some films have text, but I think the photograph usually hold. Holds on his own. But I got text putting on there. It’s like kind of a printmaking device. And Michael’s a kind of a trained printmaker. And then. So the idea of, like, it having the surface, I think, you know.
William Busta [00:19:50] When did you start. When did your work, the principal part of your work, start to move to making films, making videos?
Kevin Everson [00:19:58] Just like, I was making those kind of furniture, sculptural things that were in that blackmail show.
William Busta [00:20:05] Right.
Kevin Everson [00:20:06] And then. So I like that kind of stuff, but I think. But what. I mean. But I mean, still, at the time, I was doing all those street photography. Those, like. I mean, like, that. That was the main body until I probably. Until 2002. And then. But then when I went to. But then, like, you see, like, those end tables were kind of, like. I kind of kind of mimic things that my parents and people had back in Mansfield. But what I really like. And I like the kind of sculptural thing of that, because it was just kind of a moment, you know. But I think, though, what I liked is that people would, you know, go to work, come home, you know, go back to work, you know, and then Saturday, you know, go out to Bing’s Furniture and select the end table to make their own home beautiful. And then- So I thought. And then, like, bring it home and then. Or, like, arrange it into their house and then put A photograph on it, you know, and a lamp. And then. So I. I like that better because that’s more time based, oriented. And then so I think from the result of those kind of- Those kind of sculptures, I wanted to kind of make. Make film, you know, and then so, like, I was into the gesture of. Of labor and tasks and condition, whatever.
William Busta [00:21:32] Like I say, you had that, the piece you did at my gallery.
Kevin Everson [00:21:39] Oh, Adult Material?
William Busta [00:21:41] Yes.
Kevin Everson [00:21:41] Oh, yeah, that thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it was just like this kid cleaning up and shit like that. Yeah, like that kind of stuff. I forgot about that. Yeah.
William Busta [00:21:50] And when you started to work on that, I think even that show was. Johnny Coleman worked with you on that?
Kevin Everson [00:21:58] Oh, he did the- I think he might have did the audio. Oh, he did the voiceover, too. Yeah, that’s right. Who did the music? Oh, no, this cat in Columbus did the music here. God damn, that was so long ago. I can’t even remember that thing. What was that thing about? Oh, yeah, yeah, I remember that. Yeah.
William Busta [00:22:21] So that was at a transition stage for you between.
Kevin Everson [00:22:25] No, it was kind of the same. No, I mean, for me, it was the same thing. It was kind of the same thing. I mean, you know, I mean, like, the thing, the bitch was about doing, that thing was that, you know, like everybody in Cleveland was like, talking smack how they did film and stuff. And then once- But nobody finished anything. So I was on the island, Jack. Nobody knew what to do. We went out of the Wexner Center and cut that. Me and Dominique and Austin Allen. Yeah, yeah, like that. Yeah. I mean, those guys helped out big time. And Johnny was doing all that sound and stuff at the time, so he was hooking it up.
William Busta [00:23:03] He still does that incredible sound work.
Kevin Everson [00:23:06] Yeah, yeah.
William Busta [00:23:09] You’ve continued to work.
Kevin Everson [00:23:10] I was just surrounded by talented individuals. Yeah.
William Busta [00:23:14] And you’ve continued to work with- You said you continued to work with him through the years?
Kevin Everson [00:23:22] No, that was it. I mean, I shot his son last winter, and that film’s playing at Rotterdam next week. In fact, I think I go to Germany on Thursday. I got a show in a museum in Stuttgart. And then I got two films in the Rotterdam Film Festival.
William Busta [00:23:41] How did you- Let’s ask the question a different way. What were your favorite films? I mean, are there any filmmakers that you admire?
Kevin Everson [00:23:54] I don’t watch films. Look, I just look at art.
William Busta [00:23:56] Huh.
Kevin Everson [00:23:57] I don’t really like- I mean, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t think about filming. I know about filming, but I mean, I don’t like. I mean, I don’t I don’t look at, you know, movie. You know, like film directors and all that kind of shit-
William Busta [00:24:08] Yeah, yeah.
Kevin Everson [00:24:10] Nah, I don’t wait- I used to like those War Kai wire films back in the day, but. But I think I like- I. I think I like more- I think I like the set designer and editor like the William Chang more than anybody else. Man, I realized that later. Yeah. But no, I don’t- No, I don’t- No. I mean, nah. I mean, I was at the Carnegie International a couple weeks ago because I just left Ohio because I was in Mansfield shooting another film, and I just got back Thursday and then like, I saw that Fischli and Weiss piece at the Carnegie Nationals. That’s the shit I like looking at.
William Busta [00:24:56] I’m sorry, which piece was it?
Kevin Everson [00:24:58] The Fischli and Weiss. You know, the Swiss couple?
William Busta [00:25:02] What were they doing? I saw the show, but the name’s not familiar.
Kevin Everson [00:25:05] Oh, well, they did that. Like that. You know, they had that- That room you had to peek in and then had all those objects that they carved. Yeah, yeah, I like that. That’s my favorite shit there. I sit there for about 20 minutes, write notes the whole time I had taken pictures when I wasn’t supposed to.
William Busta [00:25:24] Kevin, what appeals to you about that?
Kevin Everson [00:25:27] I mean, there’s- Okay, I just like- I mean, like, the backstory is amazing, you know, like they like fucking carving those things, but also those are like [inaudible] sitting there. I mean, it’s like totally narrative and then it’s abstract, like at, like at the same time. And then it shows the craft and the impatience of the studio practice. But also it tells a story and stuff too as well. I mean, it’s got it all. You know, that shit works. And I remember first seeing that stuff. This one had a piece at the Wexner called the Room behind the Stairs. That was about- Shit. That was over 10 years ago when I saw that, I think. Yeah, maybe ’90. I don’t know. Yeah, it was a while ago. It was about 13 years ago. Yeah.
William Busta [00:26:12] So you show your work in the context of film festival?
Kevin Everson [00:26:16] Yeah. Museums and stuff now.
William Busta [00:26:18] Yeah, but it’s really- You don’t really- I mean, the way that you think about it and the way that you approach it and the way that the art that you look at is not really film, but it’s the traditions of contemporary visual art then.
Kevin Everson [00:26:35] Yeah, yeah, yeah. It has nothing to do- Yeah. I mean, I just use film as the medium of choice or time based medium, whatever. Film, video.
William Busta [00:26:47] As you’ve been and you’ve been to do this, you’ve drawn a lot from your life.
Kevin Everson [00:27:01] Not life in general, but just things I see in certain conditions. Yeah.
William Busta [00:27:07] And how do you anticipate how the viewer is going to respond to the work? Or do you. How conscious are you of the viewer who is going to encounter your work? Do you try to sort of like with. With an artist book, for example, you sort of, like, do something on one page and do something on the other page, conscious that the turning of the page makes something happen?
Kevin Everson [00:27:39] Yeah. Film, you do the same thing. Yeah, I mean, it’s the same as that. I think when I first started doing film as an undergraduate, like, artist book, him making was actually similar process. Yeah.
William Busta [00:27:53] I know Michael was very. That sort of sequencing.
Kevin Everson [00:27:57] Yeah, yeah. I mean, just any photo book, I mean, like. I mean, that’s the history of photography was, you know, like Robert Frank’s, like, America. That’s totally narrative, you know, So, I mean, it comes from that kind of tradition. Yeah. You know Gary Winogrand’s books. Well, those were put together by- But no, but Frank’s book, like the Americas, I think. Yeah. More so than anything else. Yeah.
William Busta [00:28:23] And so your work is- When you start to develop your- When you start to develop a film, do you have a concept of how long it’s going to be to start with?
Kevin Everson [00:28:35] Normally, like the one I’m working on now, I have no idea. Although now it’s got to be 40 minutes because I had to send in. Because I have a retrospective look at the Pompidou coming up in May. That’s gonna be fucking cool there and then. I didn’t know that they wanted three separate programs. I thought it was gonna be the same program shown like three times, but. Fuck. So actually I had enough to fill, like, three programs. But the last program, I want to show this new film, whatever, and then it could be either three minutes or 50. So I think it’s gonna have to be 40 just to fill the time.
William Busta [00:29:16] What’s the subject of the film?
Kevin Everson [00:29:19] It’s vaguely based on the first three black neighborhoods in Mansfield, Ohio, but it may be based on one, but maybe based on the three. So we’ll see. I mean, I shot like seven hours worth of shit, or almost eight, I think. Yeah.
William Busta [00:29:41] And this is this film or this tape?
Kevin Everson [00:29:44] No, I shot a little film, but mostly tape because I was using all these snowplow truck drivers, so I had to be a little bit more athletic. Plus, I shot at night and stuff too, as well.
William Busta [00:29:54] So you were in these. Well, tell me a little bit about the film you’re in the cab with the snow?
Kevin Everson [00:30:02] Yeah, that. And following it and just fucking running behind it. I needed a device to kind of, you know, the film’s going to be about these three neighborhoods, whatever the Camps company line and watchworks. And then so I think each neighborhood is going to represent something. One is stability, the other one’s complacency. And I forgot another one settlement, I think, you know. So I got these other segments to kind of go with them, but also to drive us through the kind of narration. I rode around with about four Black snow plow truck drivers. And then I thought when it was snowing, and I think it just snowed hard. Like Friday, right? Yeah. But I had to get out of there. So it did snow. It snowed New Year’s Eve and it snowed like Tuesday night. So you did get snow Tuesday, Wednesday, I can’t remember. Tuesday, I think. Yeah. So I got some good shit that day. Yeah.
William Busta [00:31:07] Has most of your work been about Northeast Ohio?
Kevin Everson [00:31:11] I did some films down here and in Tennessee, but no, not really. Mostly, I guess.
William Busta [00:31:24] And how important is that? I mean, what is the effect. What is the effect on you as an artist of growing up in. Well, two questions. Growing up in Northeast Ohio and also of growing up in a small town.
Kevin Everson [00:31:44] First thing is, like, going to a small town. Like, I can’t be all. I mean, you know. I mean, the work’s got, like, really conceptual art, smart stuff in it, but I can’t be all high and mighty now. I got to, you know, So I like to use, like I said, like, I like to use craft and other devices to invite viewers into it, you know, and sometimes language and just kind of storytelling, whatever devices, you know. So that invites all kinds of viewers. But, I mean, you know, I think this is. I mean, I don’t know. I mean, I just like all the kind of- I mean, I like the conditions up there, like, kind of economic as, you know, weather. I don’t know, just like, you know, how conditions kind of create kind of character in a weird way, you know?
William Busta [00:32:41] Well, you’re. You’re. One of the things that’s in your work is there’s a sort of. And I guess I’ve noticed this in Michael Otterstedt’s work as well, is that there’s. There’s a sort of. What almost to me seems to be an offhand precision that with the film you did of the man folding the map.
Kevin Everson [00:33:01] Oh, yeah, yeah.
William Busta [00:33:02] In the Wind in Front of Lake Erie seemed to. That one short film seemed to say a lot about what we’re Trying to do in this part of the country to kind of hold on and organize.
Kevin Everson [00:33:18] Not quite finish. Not quite get it right.
William Busta [00:33:22] Not quite get it right. And no matter how hard you try.
Kevin Everson [00:33:26] Was it always like some kind of force that. Like the wind or something like that, you know, not going to quite get it? Yeah, there’s opposition somehow or another.
William Busta [00:33:37] Right, right. As you’ve been developing your career, what does. Has something. I mean, have you. What is the, you know, have there been an obstacle or has there been something that you felt that you could have been more successful if you did something differently or the conditions were different or what?
Kevin Everson [00:34:00] Man, I’m always broke. It’s always money and never enough. Can’t seem to stay afloat, not just artistically, but personal reasons and legal reasons, whatever, so to speak, you know. So it’s always like a struggle, you know, I mean. I mean, that’s about it. Just financial concerns.
William Busta [00:34:30] Have you had to work hard to bring your work to public attention? Or is it just. Is it. Has people just responded to it? Kevin?
Kevin Everson [00:34:38] A little bit both. I mean, I think I like. I mean, I, like, make work all the time, but I think I got kind of. I mean, I think a couple times I got lucky. Like, you know, this friend of mine brought back in 90. This friend of mine brought Nick Charles over to my house, and then he ended up coming to my studio with this woman named Thelma Golden. Just like, having to walk into the door. I didn’t know who she was. She was like, looking around that art. I think I got out of grad school at the right time, I think early 90s. But I mean, I just been making a ton of stuff, you know. You know, I’m always like- I mean, you know, it’s funny, like, when I make films, like, every year I only give it to, like, about five people in the world. And then it’s going to push it out for me, I think, whatever. Five or six people in the world. Yeah. And people were seeing it, you know, I mean, he had that retrospective at moma because I just happened. Yeah, I mean, I mean, like, I don’t know. I mean, just. I mean, I tell the troops and students here, like, you know, like, I mean, you get it out and then I don’t know who’s taking a look at it. You know, it’s just out and about.
William Busta [00:35:58] You know, that philosophy that you make the work and you put it out in the world and you let it have its own. You let it have.
Kevin Everson [00:36:06] Yeah, yeah, you have its own thing, you know, Then you know, I think even just when I was applying for grants and shit, you know, like, I was in some show in Florida a couple years ago. I was like, how did you see this work? You know, she. And she said she was on a committee, you know, or something, you know, just took down the name, you know.
William Busta [00:36:24] That’s a lot of it.
Kevin Everson [00:36:25] You know, that’s something that- And then- Yes. So I don’t know how the people at, like, I can’t- I- My agent told me, but I don’t know how people at the Pompidou found out about me. But they’re all excited about this stuff.
William Busta [00:36:39] That’s incredible, Kevin.
Kevin Everson [00:36:40] Yeah, that’s gonna be- Yeah. I mean, like, I went up there for Thanksgiving, but just to do a series of interviews.
William Busta [00:36:48] They flew you in just to interview you?
Kevin Everson [00:36:51] Yeah, that in school helped me. Yeah.
William Busta [00:36:54] Okay.
Kevin Everson [00:36:54] Kind of weird interviews, I think, because of the language. And then, like I said, they want me to talk over the films. Yeah, they’re showing every fucking thing, too. It’s incredible.
William Busta [00:37:09] The- If there’s something that your work has to- I mean, do you have- Is there any message your work wants to say? You don’t know?
Kevin Everson [00:37:21] Like. I don’t know. I mean, you know, because I’m just like, you know. I mean, I’m just sitting here in the office cutting stuff, so I don’t- I mean, I’m just- I mean, I should be more conscious of the viewer. Like, the last feature, like, it was- It’s unwatchable, I think, sometimes, and I can barely watch it. But, you know, I don’t care. You know, like, I’m always apologizing for- But the people are liking it. But I was like, oh, man, sorry. I mean, I just, like, trying to, like, create all this kind of. I mean, I mean, like, it depends on what year and what kind of formal device I’m trying to exercise, I think.
William Busta [00:38:04] What sort of formal devices do you work with or think about?
Kevin Everson [00:38:10] Oh, man, I’m still trying to, like. I mean, like, I’m still trying to, like, I’m still trying to, like, have like, some sort of some slightly narrative structure and then, like, interrupt it with these moments where, like, people know why it’s being interrupted, except for they can only think of, oh, because it’s art. And that’s pretty hard to do. And then I’m trying to, like, drop sound out, you know. Fucking Alexander Kluge, this German filmmaker, man. He does it so effortlessly, and it’s so hard to do. Just sitting here, just trying to figure.
William Busta [00:38:48] Out that you know, I mean, take the sound out of the movie.
Kevin Everson [00:38:50] Yeah, take the sound out at the right time. That’s hard. So, so difficult.
William Busta [00:38:56] People always want to hear something.
Kevin Everson [00:38:58] Well, not only that, but there’s a time when and where it should happen. And I haven’t quite figured that out yet, you know, so I’m working on that. And then like the last three, four years I’ve been like. And it’s kind of like in the photographs. I kind of like imperfection of camera equipment and stuff and then editing and film and an imperfections of the medium. So I try to like recreate those and stuff. So, I mean, so for me it’s like almost like a brushstroke and stuff sometimes. Yeah. You know, so I just work on those here. And like every. When I’m in town, like every Sunday I make a film. Either people will see it or they don’t. I just experiment with stuff.
William Busta [00:39:50] What’s up ahead for you? What artistic projects are you going to be getting into in the future?
Kevin Everson [00:39:54] Well, I’m trying to like. Man, trying to raise money with these features. Like, we got all these meetings. Well, not all these meetings. We got some meetings with these French folks when we get to Rotterdam about. I’m trying to do that film about Alexander de Medici and the TV show Mannix, you know, But I’m just, I don’t know, I just like making the short stuff. Then I got another feature about teenage school bus drivers and 1959 Mississippi. Then I got another film about like an African American soldier in Germany trying to buy a car in Germany.
William Busta [00:40:38] How did they. I know this is a question that writers always hate, but I’m going to ask you anyway. How do you get your ideas?
Kevin Everson [00:40:45] I don’t know. I just. Fuck. I don’t know.
William Busta [00:40:49] I guess we all have lots of ideas, but I guess the question is more from all the ideas, how do you select which ones get moved into becoming projects?
Kevin Everson [00:40:59] It’s financial time. Do I have time for stuff If I have money, like school bus driver one, that’s $600,000 to. To the penny.
William Busta [00:41:11] Oh my gosh.
Kevin Everson [00:41:13] Yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s like. I mean, that’s a period piece, so that’s going to be muscled. And then the one that I was in, the Medici, I can probably do it for 12 to 20. And that’s just. We just can’t even get people to even blink at that. Some of these Italians, but they want to- They think I want to put some stars in there, something like that. This is an art film. But we don’t tell them that. I mean, the script reads, you know, like a normal script, but they don’t know that when the protagonist is trying to unravel the phone cord, that. That could take seven minutes, that kind of thing. But it’s written in a script as like a. You know, as like, like two lines.
William Busta [00:42:07] Right, But-
Kevin Everson [00:42:09] And then what this one about the German soldier. The soldier. I mean, that’s basically like a theater piece where- Because when I was, like. I think when I was, like, in high school, whatever, like the. You know, like. Like, I tried to go to the college recruiters, but they wouldn’t let me. So I’m going to all these, like, military recruiter things, whatever, and the guy keep- You know, because they figured it’s all Blacks is. Weren’t gonna go to school and shit. And so they just, like- The guy was just, like, saying, it’s easy to buy a car in Germany or South Korea and ship, I think, Germany and shipping it back. Or Panama, some shit, like, you know, some kind of Cold War outpost.
William Busta [00:42:57] Right.
Kevin Everson [00:42:58] So. So I wrote this film called the Flack, which is based on this military base outside of Munich where the South African American soldier with minimum German is supposed to negotiate prices for a car. But, like, Germans don’t negotiate price.
William Busta [00:43:19] Right.
Kevin Everson [00:43:19] So this kind of clash of culture or whatever. Yeah.
William Busta [00:43:24] And do you do research to write something like that?
Kevin Everson [00:43:27] Oh, yeah, yeah. I got all this research. Yeah. I mean, I had cousins and uncles that were in the military. So that’s all based on kind of things that they saw and did or something like that. Yeah. And then, like, I was in Dominici. I was in- Just- When I was in Rome, I was working on that, doing some research on that, you know. But that’s all based on paintings by Bronzino and Portomo. Paintings. And then, you know, like, Mannix is that old TV show.
William Busta [00:43:57] Right, right. We’re getting toward the end, Kevin. Is there anything else that you want to say?
Kevin Everson [00:44:07] That’s about it. Yak your ear off.
William Busta [00:44:11] Well, you know, if not, I’d like to. Thank you very much.
Kevin Everson [00:44:16] Oh, cool beans, dude. What’s going on up there? Is it still snowing up there? 11 inches in Akron.
William Busta [00:44:23] It’s still snowing. It’s still coming down.
Kevin Everson [00:44:26] God damn it, man. We got about three inches that one night. Yeah, but that was good for plowing. I mean, it was good. I think any more, it’d probably been. I couldn’t have got there or whatever, but, yeah.
William Busta [00:44:39] Okay, well, thank you. Thank you very much.
Kevin Everson [00:44:42] All right, thanks. Dude.
William Busta [00:44:44] See you next time you’re around.
Kevin Everson [00:44:45] All right. Go, B.
William Busta [00:44:46] Okay, bye. Bye.
Kevin Everson [00:44:47] Bye.
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