Abstract
Artist Kevin Snipes discusses his life and art. Born in Philadelphia, PA, Snipes and his family moved to Cleveland in the 1960s. Snipes distinguished himself as an artist at an early age in the public schools of Cleveland and Shaker Heights. After leaving Cleveland to attend Carnegie Mellon University, the artist returned to Cleveland to continue his education at the Cleveland Institute of Art (CIA). Although his earliest artistic inclination was toward two-dimensional line drawing, Snipes became interested in clay sculpture and ceramics, into which he integrated his skills in drawing and design. Snipes describes his artistic style and conceptual approach, his educational experience (at Carnegie Mellon, CIA, Penland School of Craft, and the University of Florida), and the impact of Cleveland on his development as an artist. This interview was conducted by telephone.
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Interviewee
Snipes, Kevin (interviewee)
Interviewer
Busta, William (interviewer)
Project
Cleveland Artists Foundation
Date
1-13-2009
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
53 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Kevin Snipes Interview, 13 January 2009" (2009). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 901029.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/242
Transcript
Kevin Snipes [00:00:32] Hello?
William Busta [00:00:34] Hello, Kevin. We’re current- This is Bill Busta, and we’re at the recording studios at Cleveland State University, and we’re being recorded as we speak right now.
Kevin Snipes [00:00:47] Excellent. Can you hear me okay?
William Busta [00:00:49] Can you hear me okay?
Kevin Snipes [00:00:51] I can.
William Busta [00:00:52] Okay, good. Okay, just a moment. Just wanted to get the door closed. We’re going to- I have a series of questions that are fairly similar to the way that I’ve asked, started with other artists, and we quickly tend to meander away from that. But we’ll keep in mind that if there’s something that you want to expand on or want to say, lead the conversation in the direction that you’d like. If you want to. It’ll be about. We have about an hour. It could be a little bit less or it could be a little bit more, depending on how the conversation goes. Kevin, where were you born and what year?
Kevin Snipes [00:01:50] I was born in Philadelphia and during the roaring crazy ’60s. And when I was born, my dad actually was a folk singer in Philadelphia and would play guitar and sing at a local little, like a little club, I guess. And it’s actually one of the places where Bill Cosby actually started. Oh, that’s kind of an interesting family, like, historical bit. My mom thought that Bill Cosby would never make it as a comedian.
William Busta [00:02:37] No. So when did you first realize that you had artistic ability? Was it because you could draw within the lines, or was it much later than that?
Kevin Snipes [00:02:55] I actually realized it fairly early. I think I was exposed to the arts at an early age, and I asked myself that question actually, as an adult. And it’s interesting because I think that my first real creative activity was my sandbox in my backyard. And I love to build things, and it started off at dirt and sand, but I also love to build things. I used to build dioramas just randomly in my spare time when I was a kid in elementary school, I took an old shoebox and I just cut out figures and houses and plants and animals and little diorama.
William Busta [00:03:50] Did these dioramas have any themes or were they just, or was as it a visual thing?
Kevin Snipes [00:03:56] I think it must have been just a visual thing. I don’t really remember exactly any themes, but what’s really interesting is that I’m thinking about my childhood development as an artist. I realized that I got a lot of attention at school not for being a builder, but actually for drawing, because I used to draw cartoons in school. For some reason, I really loved Snoopy, and I would draw Snoopy cartoons in school, and people loved them. They were like, wow, that’s great. And I end up doing drawings for my friends. And so growing up as became myself as an artist, I always thought that was a two-dimensional artist because I got recognition for the two-dimensional art. But I think in actuality I’ve always have been much more in tune to being a three-dimensional artist because that’s what I did at home, in private. But it really is a very early age. When I was in sixth grade, I actually started the Paper Airplane Club, which I suppose is sort of a three-dimensional art form. And all the teachers hated it, but I had a bunch of kids who really loved it. And we would explore unusual old paper airplanes and it was great fun. And then in junior high school, I actually started the Shaker Heights Junior High School Comic Book Club. And we actually produced the comic book and sold it for, I think it was for a dime cafeteria during lunch. And it was really bad. But it was kind of a fun activity just to actually make something and produce it and get it out to people at school.
William Busta [00:05:48] When did your family move to Cleveland?
Kevin Snipes [00:05:52] Let’s see, it was like the late ’60s.
William Busta [00:05:57] So you’re still very young.
Kevin Snipes [00:06:00] Yeah, I feel old. I’m not sure exactly what year, but late ’60s.
William Busta [00:06:11] So you don’t have many memories of Philadelphia then?
Kevin Snipes [00:06:15] No, not very little. But most of my relatives are there. My grandmother and my aunts and uncles and cousins. So when we were young, we would travel back and forth between Cleveland and Philadelphia constantly. And my dad driving across Pennsylvania to the mountains. Me and my sister was in the backseat of the car playing games and fighting and all kinds of stuff. Yeah.
William Busta [00:06:46] And did you live in Shaker Heights all the time when you were growing up?
Kevin Snipes [00:06:51] No, we first lived in Cleveland and I think we lived on Martin Luther King Boulevard. And I think that’s where my first sandbox was on that house. I have very foggy memories of it. But the sandbox was great. Both sandboxes, because they were bottomless, so they didn’t have any place to stop. You kept digging and digging and keep going.
William Busta [00:07:21] Well, I have to ask a question. Did you have construction sand or play stand? The construction sand was the type that would get wet and cling together.
Kevin Snipes [00:07:34] It was probably just play sand, I imagine maybe it was a mixture of the two. I had no idea.
William Busta [00:07:39] Okay.
Kevin Snipes [00:07:41] Although I remember being able to dig tunnels. Like I would actually dig down and then I’d dig across and then up again so I could actually dig below the sand and come up. And that was great fun because I big little traps for my sisters to walk on top of. And they’d fall in the- [crosstalk]
William Busta [00:08:02] That was great fun. When you were in school, were you encouraged to be an artist?
Kevin Snipes [00:08:12] You mean by my parents or by-
William Busta [00:08:14] Your parents, your teachers, whatever?
Kevin Snipes [00:08:18] Well, like I was saying, I got a lot of attention in school for drawing. And you know, for me, like, it was almost a way of escaping from actually doing what I was supposed to be doing in school. My teachers didn’t really encourage it because it was actually a big distraction. I think I’d probably be doing, you know, like rocket science or something if I- I’ve been able to focus more on school. But instead I used art as a way of not getting work done in school.
William Busta [00:08:59] When you were- Did you go to the- Was the Cleveland Museum ever much a part of your life or was it sort of like a school trip sort of thing?
Kevin Snipes [00:09:09] It was a school trip sort of thing. And when I got to high school, there was a few of my classmates who actually took classes at the art museum. And I was always kind of jealous of that, but I, you know, I was a dumb kid. I never even thought to try to pursue it myself. I just felt jealous all the time that they could do that. I just thought it was something that, you know, maybe because I didn’t have a lot of money. I couldn’t afford to do it or something, but I kind of just- It wasn’t really part of my life. My parents were pretty encouraging. I can’t really say specifically, but my dad actually went to art school for undergraduate, and then after he left school, he became an arts administrator. But there are some of his paintings that were up around the house. And, you know, there was a sort of awareness of art. And so, you know, it’s hard to say if they were really encouraging or not, but I think they weren’t discouraging.
William Busta [00:10:23] Okay. And when you were in high school, you started to think about college?
Kevin Snipes [00:10:34] Yeah. There too, when in high school, I always thought that I was much more of a two dimensional artist because that’s really what I got a pigeon for. And so when I first went to school, I thought I’d become some sort of painting, drawing, illustration kind of artist. And so that’s what I started off doing is that of work in undergraduate school. And- But it really didn’t feel right and I dropped out of school.
William Busta [00:11:20] This school you dropped out of, was this Cleveland Institute of Art?
Kevin Snipes [00:11:24] No, this was actually Carnegie Mellon University.
William Busta [00:11:26] Okay, Carnegie Mellon, huh?
Kevin Snipes [00:11:28] Yeah. And I thought I was going to study graphic design or illustration or something like that, but there was this girl I liked and she was taking a clay class, so I decided I would take a clay class too. So I wasn’t really interested in clay at all. But I just thought, you know, well, here’s this cute girl and she’s taking ceramics, so I think I might get a chance to talk to her if I take this class as an elective. So I did that and actually ended up liking clay a lot. And she took only that one class. But I kind of continued on taking clay classes since then.
William Busta [00:12:18] And you left the Cleveland. This was at Carnegie Mellon then, right?
Kevin Snipes [00:12:23] Yeah, my first CLI class was at Carnegie Mellon.
William Busta [00:12:27] And then after a while you left Carnegie Mellon?
Kevin Snipes [00:12:32] Yeah, I was just there for a short time, for a year. And then it took a while actually to go back to school at the Cleveland Institute of Art. It actually took a while before I decided I was going to do clay there. I took classes in photography and drawing, and I actually got a sort of teaching assistant job at the community college in Cleveland, ceramics and so making clay and glasses and being the lab monitor. And I never really even thought that I would pursue clay as a career. I just thought, this is kind of fun to do. But many times as I was working at the college, community college, I was taking other classes and particular drawing and photography mostly, and really loved the black and white graphicness of black and white photography and also of drawing. And I still had ideas about doing something that was more two-dimensional instead of three-dimensional. And it finally got to a point where I just got so involved in just the whole clay process, despite working in it as an employee, that I decided that that was really where my strength was. And when I applied to go to school at CIA, I applied in ceramics instead of what I thought I was going to do.
William Busta [00:14:23] About what time was this Kevin, that you started at CIA again?
Kevin Snipes [00:14:28] Yeah, it was in 1991.
William Busta [00:14:32] Okay. And so Bill Briard and Judith were teaching, and David Alban was there too I think.
Kevin Snipes [00:14:46] Yeah. Was he there then?
William Busta [00:14:49] Yeah, was a TA or he may have left at about that time. I don’t know.
Kevin Snipes [00:14:53] I think, I think he had left at that point. I actually met David and Megan Sweeney because Megan taught at Tri-C when I was working there. And so we became friends. I was friends with both of them, but I think he was actually the TA when I was there.
William Busta [00:15:16] Matthew Courtney then.
Kevin Snipes [00:15:17] Oh, Matthew Courtney, that’s right. Yeah, he was there.
William Busta [00:15:25] Who do you think, as a teacher, throughout your years of going to as an undergraduate or even in high school, were there any teachers that were particularly influential to you?
Kevin Snipes [00:15:38] Well, I had Malcolm Brown as a junior high school student.
William Busta [00:15:44] Okay.
Kevin Snipes [00:15:46] He was great. I mean, just as a personality. I don’t really remember any of the classes or anything, but I just remember him being a really strong presence and very serious about art. I think that he helped me think about art beyond the realm of cartoons. I don’t ever think I was really a smart artist. You know, I- You know, just for me, it was always kind of a very personal thing. And I think that even. Even now I work in a way that’s almost more like an outsider artist. Even though I’m trained, you know, been to grad school, but just my, my, where my art comes from, it’s- I think I try to be very intuitive about it, and I base my art on my own personal life, rather than coming up with a concept that seems socially conscious. It’s more just about delving into my own. Personal is the word I’m thinking about. I guess it’s the word. And I feel like I’ve always had sort of obsessions about art, like things that black and white’s kind of. I love the quality of black in black and white photographs. And I thought of it almost like black ink. And I wanted to make photographs that had mostly black in them, but that would somehow be descriptive anyways. And just every time I would work on painting or some other thing, it was more about becoming obsessed with a certain quality of paint or using the medium in a way that was more personal than conventional. So I don’t know what your question was anymore.
William Busta [00:18:02] That doesn’t really matter. We’re starting to talk about if there were, there were teachers who influenced you and about how the direction the work went?
Kevin Snipes [00:18:14] Well, I had some really great teachers. Both Bill and Judith at CIA, I think are phenomenal teachers. And, you know, when I was in school, we thought of them as sort of mom and dad. They were just very smart and very encouraging and just very supportive as teachers. And then when I went to grad school, I had a teacher, Linda Arbuckle, who is just so smart and just very attuned to seeing and kind of understanding what’s happening under the surface of art. So a lot of my teachers are really good. I think that there’s big gaps in between when I was attending school and I was kind of learning things just by taking classes here and there. And so I sort of consider myself having learned a lot of the art skills just from on the street, not really having. Like, when I went to CIA, I got credit for three years of school, but it was just sort of a portfolio based instead of being credit based. So a lot of things were just personalized investigations outside of school.
William Busta [00:19:50] But still, you know, you still felt that you needed to go to. I mean, like, as intuitive based as your work is, you still feel that you felt that you needed to go to school to, excuse me, advance your practice of art.
Kevin Snipes [00:20:05] Right. Yeah. Well, there’s a couple of reasons to go to school, and one of them is that it is the intellectual part, kind of having an understanding of what makes art function in society. And I’ve always been aware that that’s a big issue. I think that even though I love to make art, I kind of wanted to figure out how to be an artist in the world. And that part I couldn’t figure out on my own, so I wanted to go to school for that. And the other part of going to school is having that environment where there’s other students around you who are at your level and who you can talk with and interact with. I think that’s so important. That’s something that is really a luxury about going to art school. Yes. In graduate school. One of my reasons for going to grad school is that is the intellectual pursuit and also that it would give me time just to focus on myself without thinking about making a living, paying bills. I got a fellowship when I went to grad school, and besides teaching a class here and there at the university, I didn’t have to work and I could just entirely on the process of art and figuring out what it meant for me. Yes.
William Busta [00:21:46] Where did you go to graduate school?
Kevin Snipes [00:21:49] I went to grad school at the University of Florida.
William Busta [00:21:52] Okay, so that’s quite a distance from Cleveland through your career. You seem to have come back to Cleveland for short periods of time, but I guess these days you’re spending an increasing amount of time away.
Kevin Snipes [00:22:09] Yeah, I love traveling and I like the fact that I can learn more about myself through interacting with different environments, different people. And I see that interaction as becoming part of my work. Part of the reason why I make work is I make work about interactions, I think. And there’s more to that, but I’m not really sure what to say right now.
William Busta [00:22:53] Okay, is as you met and when I was after you, did you go direct- You didn’t go directly from undergraduate to graduate school? There were some years in between.
Kevin Snipes [00:23:13] There was. And actually undergraduate school was really difficult. Even though I really wanted to be there. It was a hard time for me. It was emotionally hard and academically hard. And by the time I was done I was just really done with school. I couldn’t even conceive it, going to grad school, even though I really- I knew that I far in the distance, I wanted to go to grad school. I knew it took me a really long time to do that. What I had thought about after undergraduate school was going to Penland School of Crafts and doing a residency there. And that was sort of my dream idea, and I did that. Actually. I was there for several months. I think it was like a year after I had finished my undergraduate degree in, like, 95. And it was a great place. It was out in the mountains in North Carolina. And a very strong sort of not, you know, it’s just a craft school. So it’s not really a school where you have formal education, but there’s workshops taught throughout the summer. Different people come in from different places and they teach workshops. And being there was a really, really good experience for me, just being part of that community. One month I was pot washer, and next month I was a groundskeeper. We just had different jobs to help pay for. A lot of us had different jobs to help pay for the cost of the class we were taking. And the housing was right there. You just wake up in the morning and they ring a bell for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and you go eat. Then you go to the studio and you work. And then after you work, you drink beer and stay up late and go back to bed and do the whole thing over again. So I got a ton of work done while I was there, and I also met some really good people, both teachers and other students.
William Busta [00:25:30] And let’s talk about your work a little bit through the period of time in the ceramics work. How did your artwork change from as an undergraduate through the period in between when you were at Penland and into graduate school? How did your approach to making art change?
Kevin Snipes [00:25:55] Well, actually, when I first started at CIA, I wasn’t drawing on my pots, which is what I do now, and I hadn’t incorporated drawing and building together. And I was just making pots, basically. And I was thinking about form a lot, just like, you know, form of vessels or, you know, and it was really hard for me to think about actually drawing on those forms because I was so interested in creating these, what I thought were pure forms that I, you know, highlighting them with drawings to see them wrong. And so it was my last year that I really kind of struck out with. I knew that I really wanted. I love drawing, so I wanted to kind of combine the drawing and those. So my last year in undergraduate school, I did that. And then since then I’ve been. Everything I make has drawing on it. When I was in undergraduate school, I worked on low fire clay. And I like the colors, kind of the rich tones and the oranges and earthy yellows and things like that. But when I finished school, I wanted to make work that was actually more usable as pottery. So I switched to porcelain and it changed the way I drew because the porcelain is a really fine clay and it takes a line a lot differently than low fire earthenware clay does. So my work got more detailed, I think, after undergraduate school. And so in between undergraduate and graduate school, everything I made had drawing on it. And it was mostly black and white and a little bit of color, but not much and having that real graphic sense, almost like the cartoons that I used to draw as a kid. And I think part of the reason why I wanted to go to grad school is because I kept feeling like there was a way to make functional objects conceptual. I just kept thinking to myself, there’s this way to make functional objects conceptual. But I just couldn’t even figure out, I couldn’t get my mind around that idea. I wanted to, you know, this is a concept that I thought was just sort of a little bit beyond my thinking. But I think to myself that that’s what I really wanted to pursue that idea. And so when I went to grad school, I. A lot of reading that was not art related, but more psychology. Read Freud and Jacques Lacan, a French philosopher and linguist, if you were there. And I started to realize that a lot of these philosophers and had this idea that the world is built on contrast, almost like computers. There’s well, not like computers, but it’s more about this idea of having a self and a non self and that the world is the same. There’s- Let’s see, this is this theory that babies, newborns, think of the world as part of themselves. And that there’s a place that maybe four months where the infant realizes that, for instance, the mother’s breast is not part of himself or herself. That is actually a separate thing in life. When the breath goes away, it’s actually still around. It’s just not right in front of you, right? And that sort of develops the idea of self and non self. And I think that. I still think this, that the world, that everyone develops a self of identity by realizing what’s not part of themselves. And so there’s a self and the other. And I think that that kind of goes under a lot of like, things like racism and issues of male, female. And there’s all kinds of things that. That concept almost explains how the human mind thinks of society, families or cities. Like, I come from Cleveland, my family, I don’t come from New York. You’re dividing yourself up into what you are and what you are not.
William Busta [00:31:31] Right.
Kevin Snipes [00:31:35] And I thought that this idea was so incredibly important and just for myself, just thinking about my own life that I wanted to. Not even that I wanted to, but I think that my work has always tended to be about that separation of the self from the other. And without even thinking about it, that’s what I was working towards or making work about. And in graduate school I kind of realized that was one of my underlying themes in my work. And so I was able to figure out ways of pursuing that more concisely. Before graduate school, I actually remember making some pieces that had figurative faces on two sides of the vessel, but the vessel was just a regular like vase or something. So it wasn’t- The form actually didn’t inform the audience about the concept of otherness, it’s just the drawing did. And in graduate school I pursued the idea of making the forms of my work that built that idea of two sided view of life, not just the drawings. But so then both the drawings and the forms are reflecting that idea.
William Busta [00:33:01] Well, one of the things I’ve noticed about your work through the years is that there’s been- I’ve watched a lot of influences go in and out of it, but I’ve noticed a sort of a progression of ideas, a steady progression of ideas as well. There’s always been a sort of a fluidity to the work. And I guess one of the words, it might even say softness to it. That it has a certain- By soft I mean there’s a certain inviting way that the- A lot of times it almost looks as if the pieces have melted a little bit. Is that part of your idea or am I just making this up?
Kevin Snipes [00:33:53] That’s not really part of my idea. I mean there is an element of- At first I thought you were hinting at the idea of the work being inviting, that it has color and it’s kind of at like things that look inviting. It looks like it’s touchable. And I think that, you know, in my study of design when I went to Carnegie Mellon, I thought a lot about the idea of ergonomics and industrial design and things about, you know, appeal in art. And I think that especially when you make pottery, I think there’s a lot of importance in making the work appealing. And I think that I have these conceptual ideas and so there’s this contrast. It’s almost a subversive way of working that the work is really appealing and it’s luscious and it has these colors that are- But then you get a little closer to the work and it has a little bit of a harsher underlying meaning to it. That’s not what you meant at all, is it?
William Busta [00:35:14] No, actually this is my job is to sort of move the conversation, not to suggest ideas, actually.
Kevin Snipes [00:35:24] But I just, you know, so with the piece that’s for the. For the gun piece that’s at Cleveland State, you know, there’s a toy like quality to the pieces. And I think that when I first made them, and by the way, I made them in secret, I had this, kind of this idea. I wanted to make these guns and I wanted to write on them and have them say things that were more about emotional violence than about physical violence. And so I made them to be like toys. They’re solid play and they’re kind of heavy. So when you pick them up and they’re a little bit large. So that when you pick them up, they feel like they’re- Makes you feel like a child holding an adult-sized real gun or something. That’s my intention, but it’s- They’re different than the work I was making. So I wanted to make them in secret because I wanted to actually make them without having to talk about them first. So I made all these guns and I fired them. And they came out of the kiln and everyone else saw them in the studio and they were like, wow, those are cool. And they started wanting to play with them. Like they were like. And that was fine because I thought, okay, I want them to feel, have this sense of luscious touch. Like I wanted people to pick them up and turn them over and play with them and have that interaction with them. But the idea behind them was this idea of emotional violence and lots of ideas that were just a little harsher than what the pieces were. What seemed like at first, even though they were guns, they were almost like toy guns. And talked about play, but the ideas talked about relationships gone sour always.
William Busta [00:37:31] Where are you living now, Kevin?
Kevin Snipes [00:37:34] I’m living in Montana. I’m at a place called the Archie Bray Foundation. Yes. And I’m a fellowship recipient here.
William Busta [00:37:46] How long will you be there?
Kevin Snipes [00:37:49] The fellowship is for a year and it’s renewable for a second year. Second year for almost three months. A little over two months.
William Busta [00:38:01] And do you see your career as Being like this, moving from place to place?
William Busta [00:38:08] Or do you see northern Ohio as sort of a home base or?
Kevin Snipes [00:38:13] Well, you know, I don’t know where I want to end up yet. I think that’s part of the reason why I enjoy traveling around. After graduate school, I did a residency in Massachusetts at the Worcestercraft for 10 months, and then I was back in Cleveland. And then I went to LSU in Baton Rouge, and I was a visiting artist there for a semester, Louisiana State University. And I left there and I went to Philadelphia, and I was a resident artist at the clay studio for two months. And then I went back to Cleveland and then Cleveland. Then I think I was in Cleveland for a couple years, and now I’m here. And I. You know, Cleveland has lots of great things to it, and it’s a nice balance of things. And being here in Montana, I’m kind of missing, like, things like, you know, cultural aspect. It’s much more of a small mountain city. And finding things like good Chinese food or foreign films at the movie theater are really hard to find.
William Busta [00:39:43] Right.
Kevin Snipes [00:39:47] But I, I’ve never been out of the country. I think I’d like to do residency there, someplace in China or New Zealand or something before I actually decide where I want to stay.
William Busta [00:40:02] Has living in Northern Ohio affected your work at all? Do you think that there’s an effect of the place either by people who are here or by there’s some characteristic of the place in your work?
Kevin Snipes [00:40:15] Well, I think there, you know, I’ve always gone back to. One of my drawing themes in my work is the city. And there was a time when I used to live on the west side of Cleveland, and I would bike downtown to the community college to go to work. And I loved biking through the city and just having that freedom of not having a car around things, just like having the wind and moving almost as fast as the cars do because traffic is really kind of slow downtown. And looking up at the buildings and seeing the architecture and slanted angles and the feeling of speed and architecture and just something that’s really exciting about that. And so that’s sort of this place in my mind or my heart that I really like a lot. And so I’ve kind of done drawings about that experience. Like buildings that are slanting in different directions and skyscrapers, not just little houses of things, not the suburbs, but the actual city. And I think also I really love the colors and textures of decaying buildings like the Flats. It’s not anymore, but the way the Flats used to be. I think that’s influenced my work. There’s something that’s akin to like Renaissance fresco colors. When you see a billboard that’s painted over a couple of times and there’s bricks behind that, and you see all these layers of information that I think has influenced my work a lot. I like that idea of layers of old information and new information that comes through in my work. There’s some layers of things that are barely noticeable and things that are upfront. So I think that’s definitely influenced by Cleveland architecture.
William Busta [00:42:41] As you, you know, I know that your work is starting to get a lot. It seems to be that your work gets more attention with each passing year than that the audience for it except is expanding. Have you felt at different times that there’s been what has helped? Have you expected or anticipated a career that’s more successful or less successful? Has something been in- Have there been obstacles in your way to getting to achieving what you want to achieve?
Kevin Snipes [00:43:16] Well, you know, I, I really like the idea of being a full time artist and I think that would be my ideal life. And I don’t know, it seems like my work is getting a lot of attention more and more. Like you said, these past three years have been really good. And it’s surprising me actually, because I keep thinking I’m doing what everyone else is doing and maybe I’m doing a little more than whatever everyone else is doing because I’ve gotten so much attention over the past couple of years for my work. But I, you know, even though, you know, it’s still, it’s still not enough to make a living from. And I think that it’s partially that I’m working in clay and clay is usually considered the underdog of art mediums. People can make pots, sometimes sell things for 20 bucks a piece. And so it’s hard to work in a medium like that and make fine art, what can be considered fine art and kind of break through that barrier of craft and fine art. That’s been a struggle. And I’m always looking to see, to try to understand how my work fits into the greater scheme of the art world. I think that to be successful as an artist you have to have almost a niche. Like there’s, you know, your people see your work as in a specific place and time that’s not anyone else’s place or time. And I always try to understand what that is. And I can’t see it in my work. It’s just like it’s too close to me. So I can’t really understand how people see my work. I try to, but in the end, that’s just- I just have to make it and just let it go and have other people figure out what it means.
William Busta [00:45:37] There seems to be something about ceramics that although there are a lot of ceramic artists that live and work alone, that it tends to be a process where you interact with a lot of other people who make ceramics, whether it’s in terms of selling the work or sharing a studio or. Or at a national conference like NSECA or like over at the Archie Bray foundation, where you are now, where there’s a living community of artists who just keep progress, who are dedicated, but it’s not people. They’re working alone. But somehow there’s also a sort of community effort or community conversation that seems to need to go along.
Kevin Snipes [00:46:23] I think that’s very traditional in ceramics. I think more so than any other craft or art medium. I think it’s painting as being isolated activity. And the thing that comes closest, I would imagine, is glassblowing. But even that, I think the glassblowers have really big egos. And I think white people are generally pretty friendly bunch, because clay people often are potters, and they make pots and pots hold food. I think there’s lots of potlucks that are involved in clay community, which usually means a gathering of people and fun and conversation, that kind of stuff. And I think that is something that’s special about clay, is that there is that sense of camaraderie and that sense of sharing information. And I think that comes out of a long history of clay. You know, it’s not just a contemporary idea, but I think it’s, you know, historically, you know, potteries have been places where there’s been lots of people working as a team, even if they’re working on different work, but they’re working firing together. And it’s probably mostly about the kiln. You know, firing, loading a big kiln up together. But I think that tradition has been passed along, and even though it’s changed and become more about almost more of an intellectual interaction than it is the physical sharing of kiln and glazes and things like that, I think that’s something that clay people relish too much to kind of do away with.
William Busta [00:48:22] Are there any artists that outside of school or since school or between schools that have been that this sort of conversation that you might have had or dialogue or friendship has had an influence on your work?
Kevin Snipes [00:48:44] Yeah, there’s been a number of people. So you’re just saying, ask me if there’s artists who have been. I think that I always have art buddies, Vinny Mendez, who I worked together, actually, and we probably worked closer than that. Actually collaborated, a lot of them, and. But I’m very interested in looking at painting, and I almost don’t like to look too carefully at play through art and have that kind of saturate my sense of what art is. I’m not just all about the clay work, but beyond that, and think about my one medium.
William Busta [00:50:05] Kevin, we’re sort of getting toward the end. Is there any other thing you might want to say or any subjects that you might want to introduce?
Kevin Snipes [00:50:19] Sure there is, but I just, I don’t know.
William Busta [00:50:35] Okay. Well, thank you very much. I’ve always enjoyed your work and always sort of had a. It’s been nice showing it in the past, and I’ve always, always have greatly admired what you’ve done. And thank you very much.
Kevin Snipes [00:50:59] Oh, you’re welcome. It’s kind of scary, but whole idea of phone interview, I’d never been interviewed before.
William Busta [00:51:14] Really? Well this has been very nice. And it will be archived at Cleveland State University. So when people, decades from now, want to know about what Kevin Snipes sounds like, there it will be.
Kevin Snipes [00:51:27] How frightening for me. You know, I like making art because I don’t actually have to be out there, but I like my art talk.
William Busta [00:51:46] So your art speaks for you?
Kevin Snipes [00:51:48] Exactly.
William Busta [00:51:52] Okay.
Kevin Snipes [00:51:53] Well even you do a better job at it than I do.
William Busta [00:51:56] Well, thank you very much again, Kevin, and I hope to see you soon and enjoy your time in Montana. Joan and I have been there, and it’s a great place.
Kevin Snipes [00:52:05] Oh, yeah, yeah. The mountains are amazing. Okay.
William Busta [00:52:11] Okay. Bye-bye.
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