Britt Fairchild / Features Writer | Posted: Saturday, January 22, 2005 12:00 am
For Harrell Fletcher, art gives him the freedom to explore the entire scope of human expression. He doesn/t feel bound by the notion that painters are painters and nothing more; that sculptors desire to create only what they can mold from their materials; that photographers who write, filmmakers who take photos, or those who do all three, risk diluting their talent.
He does all of those, and more.
"To just do one thing is sort of an aberration," said Fletcher while sitting in his parents/ living room Dec. 23.
The Santa Maria native, perhaps a bit tired, having arrived in Santa Maria just an hour or so earlier, had spent the previous couple of days driving from his home in Portland, Ore., to be with his father, also named Harrell, and his mother, Betty, for Christmas.
His generosity in spending as much time as he did answering questions about his life and his work was appreciated.
For more than a decade, Fletcher, 37, has worked collaboratively and individually on a range of interdisciplinary projects.
A combination of gallery exhibitions and public art projects, his socially relevant work has been displayed internationally, including exhibits at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the de Young Museum in San Francisco; The Drawing Center and Smackmellon in New York City; Gallery Here in Oakland; Center On Contemporary Art, Seattle; Signal in Malmo, Sweden; and more.
His work is represented in galleries in San Francisco and New York, and within the next year will also be in galleries in London and Paris.
Fletcher has also taught in a variety of settings from public grade schools to Stanford University.
Yet, there was a time, Fletcher described, when he felt restricted by and rebelled against a general directive from his teachers who felt that it was important for him to just select one medium and style.
"I thought it was inevitable," he said. "Then I realized I didn/t have to pick one."
His refusal to believe that art was so limited as to preclude him from participating in more than one medium has notably contributed to his artistic presence, versatility and success.
More and more, Fletcher said, he is noticing more of a general acceptance and understanding towards those artists who work in multiple media.
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Art has long been a passion for Fletcher, who attended Miller Elementary School, Fesler Junior High and then Santa Maria High School.
He first started drawing when he was a young child. At 10, he became interested in photography, and from there kept trying new things.
As he was growing up, his inclination toward pursuing art was not stifled at home, but rather supported and encouraged by his family and friends, Fletcher said.
"It just seemed like a normal option," he said.
"He/s been a good kid," his father said.
Fletcher said he was influenced during childhood in much the same way by his immediate family/s association with, and attention to, social issues.
His father was interested in politics. His mother was a teacher. Both were involved with nonprofit organizations.
After high school, Fletcher attended Humboldt State and the San Francisco Art Institute, where he got his Bachelor of Fine Arts. He received his Master of Fine Arts at California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland.
After receiving his master/s, Fletcher also studied organic farming at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
"It had always been another interest of mine," he said.
During graduate school, he started Gallery Here in a vacant retail space with fellow grad student Jon Rubin.
They borrowed a vacant retail building that was in the neighborhood where they lived.
For a year and a half until the building was rented, they put on a series of shows about people and places in the neighborhood, including one about garage sales.
Instead of looking to San Francisco for ideas, the men found inspiration in this smaller neighborhood.
That project not only fostered an interest in those living in peripheral communities, but also in collaborating with people to produce projects about aspects of their lives that might otherwise be overlooked.
Since then, Fletcher has worked on several similar projects, including ones in peripheral communities in Minnesota and Texas, and Portland, Ore., where he said he hopes to do even more work.
While compelled to do projects that are relevant to social issues in the world, Fletcher said his art isn/t necessarily political.
"I don/t have a specific agenda when I start a project," he said, noting that he doesn/t have a predetermined idea about how each project will unfold.
He noted, however, that "that has begun to change as I do more work directed at the problems I have with the Bush administration."
Some of his current work, he said, is a reaction against Bush and his administration.
"I feel strongly that the Republicans stole both the 2000 and 2004 elections and that democracy has eroded in the U.S.," he said.
Fletcher learns from the subjects of his art, how they relate to their surroundings and spaces, and draws inspiration from the location of where the project is displayed.
His art, he said, is meant to "help people evaluate their everyday lives in more significant ways."
That said, Fletcher was reluctant to generalize how his work might affect people as a whole.
"(It would be) presumptuous to suggest it does benefit society," he said. He noted, however that perhaps he does feel some guilt that, as an artist, he should be doing something to benefit society, and maybe that influences the projects he does.
A recent major milestone for Fletcher was participating in the 2004 Whitney Biennial, an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, which included works from 108 artists and collaborative groups.
Artists exhibited at the biennial were selected by curators, who did studio visits of their choosing and then contacted the selected artists to let them know that they got into the show.
While most artists have specific pieces chosen, in Fletcher/s case they did that and also allowed him to come up with two new pieces especially for the show.
In addition to the showing of his two videos "Blot Out The Sun," and "The Problem Of Possible Redemption," based on the novel "Ulysses" by James Joyce, Fletcher created two new works.
One was based on an assignment from Learning to Love You More, a articipatory Web site he started in 2002 with artist Miranda July.
Learning to Love You More is both a Web site and series of non-Web presentations composed of works by the general public in response to assignments given by July, Fletcher and various guests.
For the Whitney biennial, Fletcher said he combined various reports from Assignment #29 on the Web site, which was to make an audio recording of a choir.
This mix played in the Whitney Museum elevator when it rose.
Fletcher noted he liked the idea of a choir-like sound leading visitors up into the museum.
For the other biennial project, Fletcher made a free newspaper called "This Container Isn/t Big Enough" that people could pick up at the museum.
The newspaper/s main function, he said, was to describe and show the work of 10 artists whom he had met in various parts of the country.
He had worked with volunteer students from a class he was teaching and had them find exhibition venues for each of the 10 artists. The venues ranged from furniture stores to senior centers. The newspaper had directions to all of the exhibitions.
Fletcher is currently teaching a lower division sculpture class, an upper division sculpture class and a MFA seminar class at Portland State University.
For more information about Fletcher and his work, visit ww.harrellfletcher.com, or www.learningtoloveyoumore.com.
The Story of the Lawn Sculptures:
While on a walk one day in Portland, Ore., according to his Web site, www.harrellfletcher.com, Fletcher saw a set of three lawn sculptures in one front yard: a frog, a boy and a man, which he found "really striking."
When he returned a few months later to see the sculptures, "the boy was gone, and the man had his head and legs broken off."
Months later, he met the owner Joan Williams, who told him she had brought the boy sculpture inside for safekeeping, and the two came up with the idea to create a whole new set of lawn sculptures just like the original ones, except based upon real people who lived in the house and the neighborhood, including Joan, her husband, Cleveland, and their son, Craig.
He and several artists and helpers worked on the sculptures, using photographs of the subjects. Fellow artist "Michelle (Clary-Gallagher) wound up doing a lot of the sculpting; I came in and did final touch-ups," he said. "When the clay was hard I painted them and they were shown as part of my show at PICA (the Portland Institute For Contemporary Art).
"Afterwards I worked with Jake Scharbach to make molds and cement casts of the sculptures, which then went into the Williams/ front yard along with the originals.
"I've been slowly painting them. As a curious side note, I ended up buying a house from the Williamses a few blocks away from their house. That's where I live now."
* Staff Writer Britt Fairchild can be reached at 739-2220 or by e-mail at bfairchild@pulitzer.net.
Jan. 21, 2005