Artist uses many techniques
With poetry and his wife guiding him in his work, Texan artist and sculptor James Surls spoke to USU students Monday in the Eccles Conference Center about his art and some of the meaning behind it.
Surls said he wanted to be an artist early in life but, like most boys, was into other things. In high school he was the captain of the football team, and if he mentioned anything about being an artist, he said all his friends would call him a “honey gripper or queer.”
When he was young, his father’s work tools were his favorite toys, he said. His father taught him how to work, and to this day, Surls said he works all the time, “almost to the point of being a flaw.”
Growing up in Eastern Texas was like growing up in the old South, Surls said. He loved where he grew up, being surrounded by the woods, trees, strange rivers and slews. There was a lot of space, and he said it was sublime.
He studied in Michigan at Cranbrook and said it was such a formal place with gardens, statues, walkways and lectures. It was like a whole existence he was unaware of, he said.
His first art show was in New York in 1980, and one of his art pieces was chosen by a group of students from the University of North Carolina to be put on their campus.
“To this day, it’s one of the nicest things ever happened to me,” Surls said. “They could have picked anybody’s art that they wanted, and they picked mine.”
Once he finished school, he was still in what he calls “the dumb as dirt” category. He said he was very good at making things, very physically good at producing things. The turning point in life was meeting Charmene Walk, who became his wife, he said.
“I’d like to say it’s been happily ever after. It’s been touch and go, but still very good,” Surls said.
His wife was a psychology major in school and asked him about every piece he created.
“She would make me answer why I made it, what is that for and what does it say. You can’t get off the hook with questions like that. You have to give your work credence,” he said.
Along with his wife, Surls said poetry guides him in giving his drawings and sculptures more meaning and life. He loves poetry, he said, and he reads it, writes it and listens to it as often as he can, especially while driving his truck. Surls said poetry often inspires his drawings.
“I really love to draw. When I draw, I owe no one money. No one is after me. There is nothing there. I am totally unencumbered,” he said. “I love that as a phenomenon. I love that as a feeling, and think that is something that artists have had and have to have a belief in themselves that there is absolutely no question about what you do.”
Surls showed students drawings that he said he drew with both hands at the same time, without ever taking the pencils off the paper. He has also done drawings with his eyes closed, he said.
“You get incredibly good at what you like to do,” Surls said. “I don’t erase. I don’t smudge. I don’t smear. I don’t give up and start over. I never make mistakes.
“You can do that as an artist. You have to be so focused and believing in yourself that you are wiling to walk that tight of a line.”
Surls said that artists, at some point, hear a voice, whether its their own or not, that says “you are an artist,” and they can accept it or not.
“It makes no difference if you come through the front door with a formal degree or crawl in the bathroom window,” Surls said.
Surls pieces are “dreamlike, awkward and impacting,” said a former student of his. “His work stood out to me, especially in the ’80s, at a time when art was very slick and clean.”
To see Surls’ work, go to www.jamessurls.com.
-n.drue.t@aggiemail.usu.edu