Brewtifully Made
Here, Tracy Dawn Brewer shares creative insights, discussions with creative souls who are invited to doodle along with her and share their creative processes, and more.
Adding a twist, each episode begins with a doodle prompt and you can catch the final pieces from the episode on her YouTube channel, linked on the website! If you choose to also create along with her during an episode, share your work with the hashtag #brewtifullymade so she can shout out YOUR awesome creativity too!
Brewtifully Made
The Art of Resilience and Spiritual Exploration
Unlock the secrets of a life dedicated to art and spirituality with our special guest, Tom Wachunas, a recently retired art history teacher and a vibrant force in the Stark County art scene. As a creator and critic with decades of experience, Tom shares his journey from a young fourth grader experimenting with mixed media to a respected artist with a powerful voice on his blog, ArtWach.
You'll be inspired by Tom's reflections on how art and spirituality intertwine, lending depth and meaning to his work, including his current exhibition "Spiritual Tableaux." His journey is a testament to resilience and passion, offering valuable insights for both budding and seasoned artists alike.
Join us as Tom takes us through his transformative years, from his days as a self-defined “hippie” art student to a period of artistic hiatus, and ultimately, his triumphant return to creating. The episode offers a rich tapestry of stories, including a heartfelt realization about a song lyric meant for a former lover that now speaks volumes to him personally. We explore how Tom's art makes powerful use of found objects, giving them new life and context that evoke emotional and spiritual narratives. Don't miss the chance to learn about Tom's dynamic career and find out how you can connect with him and his work on various platforms.
Links:
Tom's album on Spotify: Spare Changes
Catch the doodles on YouTube
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Portfolio website: Brewtifully.com
Instagram: /Brewtifully
Facebook: /brewtifully
TikTok: GettingSmallwithGrandma
LinkedIn: Tracy Dawn Brewer
Hello everyone, welcome back to a new episode of Brutally Made, and I am super excited to have our February exhibiting artist with us today on the program. Tom Wachunas. Tom, thank you so much for joining me today. You're welcome.
Speaker 2:Thanks for asking. Oh, yes, I am so much for joining me today.
Speaker 1:You're welcome. Thanks for asking. Oh, yes, I am so honored for one. I have to say that you approached and asked if you could have an exhibit at the gallery at the shop and it is beautiful and I love it and I really feel honored to be able to show the community your work. It stops people in their tracks and I've had so many people from all over Northeast Ohio ask about it.
Speaker 2:Great, well, I'm just that's. I'm tickled to hear that that's. Thank you for that.
Speaker 1:Sure. So I would love for you to do a quick introduction about yourself and tell everybody what you do.
Speaker 2:Okay, tom Wachun is here. This past May 2024, I did retire after 17 years of being adjunct faculty in the art history department at Penn State University, the Stark campus. Yes, I'm an active artist still and I'm also a writer. I love writing about and are commenting on it, sometimes as a critic, sometimes as just a colleague artist getting enthused about another show or other artists' work, and I'm still very much involved in writing about art and making. And now that I'm retired, well, yeah, I have devoted a lot more time to reading and to just thinking and viewing as many art shows as I can locally, I mean, most of my concerns are in the general Stark County, canton Massillon corridor and that's what I've been primarily involved in. And I really felt like I missed showing my work, my work, and so you know it was a, it was just a a wonderful, um, a wonderful response on your part when I yes, I, I outright asked you hey, you got any slots open? Let me show my work.
Speaker 1:No, I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um. So yeah, I'm very much still um. You know that's very much in my life making, looking at and writing about art.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I ran across your writing in the Stark Facebook, the Stark Artist Group's Facebook page. That's where I first kind of was introduced to your work and then found out that your blog Art Watch, a little play on your name was available, out that your blog Art Watch, a little play on your name was available, and then started reading some of the critiques and the visitations that you've had at multiple shows and galleries and that's kind of how I found you, yeah the blog is now in its 16th year, which is hard for me to believe.
Speaker 2:I mean, I started it after I'd been at Kent for about a year, something like that. I mean I started it after I'd been at Kent for about a year, something like that, and it's still going. I don't write as many, I don't post as many entries as I, as I did up until a few years ago, but that's but it's still. It's still very active and I still have every intention of of sustaining the blog.
Speaker 1:So good, good. So how long have you been an artist? Because I feel like you've been an artist in many forms.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you're right about that. Many forms, many media, you know to be really serious and this is no exaggeration. I just I think I've been an artist since about fourth grade, you know, making my pictures on my terms and just expressing some original, well, two-dimensional painting on paper, cardboard, canvas. After I went to started college, I started stretching canvases and I was a painter all the way through college and beyond, so, but it got serious as early as fourth grade.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can relate to that.
Speaker 2:I was dissatisfied with coloring books and art classes in grade school and I just started messing with it on my own at home, on my terms.
Speaker 1:So that's great, and I love when you're talking about medium because we were pleasantly presented a beautiful kind of like review of over two decades of work that you had created and to see the different substrates and things that you have used over time to create your pieces. You know you really do a lot of mixed media. I love that you brought up cardboard. Do you have a favorite medium?
Speaker 2:You know that's a tough one to ask. In the last just couple of years I've kind of flip-flopped, kind of I returned to working, you know, incorporating cardboard, corrugated board, but somewhere in there too. And again, within the last five, maybe 10 years, I got fascinated with fabric clothing, the material. That's foldable and I can wrinkle it, I can stretch it, I can crumple it up, but generally then stiffen it, you know, make it hard. It looks soft and folded and malleable, but to the touch it's more like, you know, stone. So I wanted a sculptural kind of treatment going on and then paint on top of that, maybe, or collage on top of that. But so there, lately there's been this you know, I'm kind of dealing with both, depending on the idea or the particular concept I'm embracing on on a particular work, but, um, so just a kind of democratic distribution of of these materials. And then of course there's the found object thing, adhering, adhering things I didn't make, uh, incorporating that, uh within the textures of the fabric and or the torn cardboard or something, something of that nature.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I was just going to bring up the commentary that you infuse to the pieces that you find or repurpose electronics and just it's amazing the story that they tell that you've developed using that piece as the base object, but giving it a whole new context or try to, you know, use it as a symbol of some underlying emotional slash, spiritual messaging that I want it to impart.
Speaker 2:So take it out of its ordinary setting and I always did love that word, I don't know when as a culture we started using that vocabulary but repurposed. I kind of like that what's the purpose of clothing, what's the purpose of packing material or cardboard? And we're going to change its purpose or open it up, repurpose it for something completely different. But that material never forgets its original purpose or its original use or function. And I depend on that for the viewer to try and make a connection, like not forgetting what it was why is it here now? What's it for now? And then the two can be kind of melded together, which, you know, I'm open to the possibility that the viewer will kind of make their own conclusions. I'm not trying to bang you on the head with only one meaning or one message. I want to invite a kind of open-minded approach, you know, engagement on the part of the viewer.
Speaker 2:So I'm very fascinated with found objects of different kinds if they're appropriate to what my emotional or spiritual state is when I'm making the work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I was just going to ask about your inspiration, because sometimes for me when someone says I never thought of that, that's almost like one of the biggest compliments I could get. So is there a place or a source of inspiration that you seem to always? You know, start from Well that is.
Speaker 2:You know, that's such a loaded question to me and I and it's true, I mean sometimes when artists direct that and when I read about other artists talking about their inspiration. You know, I do encounter this a lot. You probably have to like I don't look for inspiration. Inspiration finds me. It sounds a little bit like a cliche and a kind of cutesy, but you know what? Bit like a cliche and a kind of cutesy. But you know what? There's a lot of truth in that and for me Inspiration is pretty consistently grounded in my sense of relationship with God.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And then the many, many layers and applications that that can have. And as time goes on, the older I get, I'm finding more and more grounding in biblical content and more grounding in biblical content. Whether old, you know stories, or the narrative that we call the Old Testament, or the Gospels, and the appearance of Christ and the establishment of his community. You know his purpose, what we call the New Testament. Okay, it's all of the same reason and purpose and meaning to me, whether you're opening the first words of the Bible in the beginning God made, or in the beginning the earth was. Okay, fine, all the way to the end, it's all fair game. As far as I'm, where I want to focus or where I'm being drawn, that will vary in season to season, but that's the groundwork.
Speaker 2:And then, many times, on private prayer and meditation, yes, a visual image, an image or a thing will come to mind. It's just that's what I mean by. It comes to me. How can I share that effectively in a visual work, a picture, an object or both? You know what I call my mixed media assemblage. You know that kind of thing and take it from there. So, um, you know, long periods of time can happen between one piece and another. Uh, I don't pressure myself to be in the studio six hours a day and if I'm not like, I'm not being a serious artist, no, so there can be periods of time when I'm just more about reflection and reading and and and gratitude for that. But something happens and I don't understand necessarily how or when or why it happens. When it does, but it does, I have to follow up by making a work of art.
Speaker 2:So the show we have up at Beautifully Now is a range at. Beautifully Now is a range. It does cover a number of seasons and that do span about 20, I don't know 20, 25 years, something like that. Yeah, Representative of the different seasons and focuses that I went through in that time block.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but there's a consistency through all of those years.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm hoping that that's yeah, and I'm definitely, and to me that's a good thing, I mean a good sign that there is a consistency of content or implied content, some more specific and clear references to scripture, the Bible, some a little more subtle or symbolic, but all of the same source, all of the same root. So yeah.
Speaker 1:So all of these years, what's been your biggest challenge being an artist?
Speaker 2:You know and that's a great question too and very loaded I just, I want, I want to stay trusting of my own intuition um to have faith that that my vision is going to be somehow engaging or meaningful to another viewer.
Speaker 2:Um, it's not like I'm setting out to say and do only one thing by making this one piece, but at the same time I want to feel that I'm faithful to the nature, the essence of my message and that it will be somehow meaningful or engaging for the viewer. To have confidence in that and not give up hope or faith in the fact that I really do believe that. You know, god can communicate through art. He can.
Speaker 2:Oh absolutely, and that's not the case for every work of art ever made, and that's not the case for for every work of art ever made, and it's not the case for every artist, necessarily. I understand that. I'm just um. I want to stay um, very um, connected and and and related to my relationship with god in making my art Now this is not to say that every piece I make has something to do with my relationship with God.
Speaker 2:No, sometimes I make commentaries on worldly things, but from the attitude of someone who loves God and knows that it's a mutual relationship. It's not just an abstract belief. So when I do veer off into some territories some might call political, some might call fun it's still driven by knowing who and what I am in relationship to. What in the world am I looking at? So I hope that makes sense.
Speaker 1:It does make sense, yeah, and I think that also the communication that someone expects to hear from a spiritual feeling and being that's interpreted many ways, yeah, so I think that that can be infused even in your political message or your fund message or I'm doing air quotes those different pieces still could carry. You know that base, that general, you know inspiration and feeling and where your work drives from. So I agree there's a lot to be said of having that as your source, your core, and then having your message shared in different ways. But I wish that I had your slideshow so I could show all the pictures that you shared, because you started from your very beginning until some recent, very recent work and it was just fascinating to see. And it was just fascinating to see. And then during your opening reception I had a mutual friend share that you were also a musician.
Speaker 2:And so I played your music that I found on Apple Music. You knocked my socks off. Total surprise, unexpected.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it was beautiful. Eyes, unexpected, yeah, and it was beautiful and it was just stunning to hear that, on top of seeing the visual work and then knowing your written work, I mean you're just so diversified in all of your talent and we really are very lucky to have you here in stark county sharing that you're very kind.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Thank you so yeah.
Speaker 1:So I think that there's the your seasons of you know, if your hands are in the paint and in the fabric, that's great. But then we're blessed with hearing your views on other people's work and your, you know, sharing of galleries and work around town and Northeast Ohio, and then, yeah, I'll definitely share the link to that music because you can hear Spare Changes. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:That's the name of the album. Yeah, it's also, I think, one of the songs, but yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:That goes way back to 75. Unbelievable 1975,.
Speaker 1:I know that's incredible.
Speaker 2:You know there's a and those were in my. Those songs were from my hippie long hair art student days. I did the album right after graduating, getting my master's at Ohio State and you know there. But when you, when I walked into the gallery and you had been playing that, I came in on a song and I hadn't heard the line in years. There's a line in one of the songs and it seems, you know, it was so sweet of you to decide let's have that as some atmosphere background. But there's a line in one of the songs that just knocked me down and it said how to hear it in this place with that work on the walls, and I'm singing the song to a lost okay lover, a lost girlfriend, like we're parting ways. But the line was I know God's son is the only one who can help you now to see, and I thought in the song I wrote that for the attention of some young woman Right Now. It's ironic, you know. Wow, it's like it was a line written to myself.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And, by the way, I think people might know this, but the work that you have on this that we put up in the gallery, and when I say work of the last 20, 25 years, yeah, it's all work done in Ohio, ok, after. But I had lived in New York City for 14 years and in Miami, but I don't have any of that work. City for 14 years and right in miami, but I don't have any of that work. And and then when I came back to ohio at the end of 1991, I wouldn't, I didn't make another work of art for like eight or nine years I can't believe that you?
Speaker 2:um, eight or nine years had passed now. I was writing about art and getting published in a few different magazines, whatever, whatever, but I wasn't making any. So all that stuff represents me making art, but not until about the year 2000, something like that, after a hiatus. I hadn't made art for eight or nine years after coming back to Ohio from New York.
Speaker 2:There are many reasons for that. That's a whole nother story. But so yeah that this I was. I'm just so happy that you helped me hang that and select that that group of pieces, because it does tell a pretty consistent story of my life in Ohio as an artist and but after all my art making of years before.
Speaker 1:And it's called Spiritual Tableau. We have the show name.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so if anyone is interested in having you show in their gallery or contacting you, is there? A way somebody can do that Tom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they can, you know. The other thing is, if you my blog, it's called ArtWatch. It's one word, but it's watch without the T, so it's A-R-T-W-A-C-H. Yes, so it's wwwartwatchblogspotcom. That's the site. Okay, the platform for my writing, so you can leave comments there, but I don't mind telling people my email too, if they want to make further inquiries or comments.
Speaker 2:I'm Tom Wachunas and the email is twachunas one word t-w-a-c-h-u-N-A-S at yahoocom and I don't mind releasing that to anyone who's interested or wants to maintain or start some new contacts. Plus, I have a Facebook page and basically I use Facebook to announce whenever I put up a new blog post and I'll run some photos or in that blog post can be. You know more often about somebody else's work or some other show, but when I make a new work or new series of works, I've often done posts that inform people of that, and that's via Facebook. So if anybody wants to message me on Facebook, they can do that too. That's open to all possibilities.
Speaker 1:That's great, and I'll make sure all of these links are also in the show notes. They're easily accessible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and let me thank you again, within earshot of anybody tuning in to this podcast. Yes, you are a real meaningful and industrious and ambitious addition. I think, communicating with the energy and the variety, I mean it's really important what you're doing, not that you're showing my work, that's not what makes you important. I'm just really appreciative to be in the context of what you're doing and how you're doing it at Brutifly Gallery. I mean, it's not just an art gallery at all. It's much more. It's a work center, but it's also a communication center in a very spirited way of staying connected to the public, another avenue for people to go experience. You know what art is. You know and the people who are making it and the joy it can bring in the making and showing. So and you're really good at that and I you're an agent.
Speaker 1:That means so much to me.
Speaker 2:No, you're an important cultural agent and it's just a pleasure. I'm glad I followed my heart in asking you like can I be part of this wall, part of that, what you're doing and getting people?
Speaker 1:to be a little braver to say I would love someone to see my work. And that's exactly what I'm so glad that you did, because I don't know if they feel offended if I'm like I want to show your work and it's like what are you asking me to do? If you felt comfortable enough to approach me and ask me, that makes me so happy.
Speaker 2:Well, part of me was it felt awkward. I wondered if, if like, am I being too forward or or or or too egotistical by by just going to somebody knocking on the door and say, hey, can you show my work? It's like, well, I do miss showing work because the only other time, locally, I don't travel a lot and I don't enter a lot of shows. I simply don't have the time, energy or wherewithal to handle that kind of logistics. So when there's, you know, juried art shows in Stark County there's a couple every year I'll enter those and you always cross your fingers.
Speaker 2:It's like right they may not get in. You know that kind of thing, but otherwise you know it's having a solo show on uh. It became important to me and I missed. I mean, the last one I had was uh at patina downtown canton. Yeah, and I'm really appreciative of that, but that's been like a couple years I at least two and a half years or something. I just missed, um, letting people know I'm still active and and you know I want my art to be appreciated, you know. But, um, and so I had to get over my nervousness when I know I, you know, am I being too bold by going to you? No time Can I put my stuff on that wall.
Speaker 1:No, not at all, and I'm glad because maybe someone listening is going to hear this and know that they're much. You know, that's what I want. I want that so much. The year is already booked for this year and I have five already for next year. It's blowing my mind, tom.
Speaker 2:Well, this is good. This is good. I just love it. You know you're a really good link to the art community, but also to the public, and I don't mind shouting that out to whoever's listening.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you. Thank you so much and thank you for taking the time to talk to me and sharing all of this with everyone today. I'm so glad they got to meet you virtually through the episode and I will make sure everybody has all the links so they can reach out if they would like. So have a wonderful day.
Speaker 2:You do the same kiddo Stay warm. Be careful in this cold, icy weather.
Speaker 1:I know you too.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Bye.
