Portland Art Gallery Artist: Ryan Kohler

Today I have with me artist Ryan Kohler. Thanks for being here today. Hey, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me. I am appreciating this piece that we have behind us because I actually really love red boats, believe it or not. Me too. It's a random thing to like, right? Yeah, it is very specific thing, but, Well, tell me about this piece. So I think you were talking about Rockland Harbor. Is this actually a representative of a boat in Rockland Harbor or, Yeah. I mean, typically I work from photographs or one I can from life in the field, but this particular one was, I think it was a picture I took last year out in the harbor, and I never really know one of my get around to painting a picture where if I ever do it all, I just take a ton of source materials and I'll get to it when I get to it. But this one came up recently. I do like how it turned out, but what draws me to paint something is, first of all, I sort of have to see it as a painting, especially if it's from a photograph or even from life, actually, I should say both, but I have to sort of visualize it as a painting, and that makes my job a lot easier. Sometimes it's very clear. But the other thing too is color. I obviously, I love color a lot, so again, the red boat thing, it's hard to describe, but I just know what I know and I was like, all right, this is what I'm painting today. I'm just going through pictures on my hard drive and trying to decide how to keep myself busy for the afternoon, and then off I start and hit the ground running, get going. Your technique is a kind of a combination technique. It's not strictly painting. Correct? Yeah, it took a while for me to get to that. I didn't always paint like this. I've gone through several techniques over the course of my development as an artist, I guess you could say, but right now what it is is acrylic paint is the fundamental, it's the foundation of the painting on canvas. I should start with that, but I just do the best acrylic painting that I can and then let it sit for a while and I come back to it maybe the next day and start collaging different elements on top of the acrylic paint. Sometimes letting those collage elements blend in, and sometimes it's nice to know when to let things jump out at you to areas for them to dissolve into the painting and areas for high contrast and obvious collage. If it's text or a dark color on top of a light color, it's always a little different, but that leads to some really unexpected things that would not normally happen if I was just painting and the materials in my studio. The papers are always changing. It just depends on what I've used up or what I haven't used up that day. But yeah, papers come from all over. For example, as I'm looking here, one of the words that jumps out is looks like a part of the word bright. Where did that come from? Yeah, so I should say a lot of the materials that I've been using, especially lately are from album covers or from music. I sort of have a music background, so sometimes I can remember where things come from. Sometimes I can't. In this case, I, I think it was a poster, a promotional poster for the band, bright Eyes, and it fit the color that I was looking for at least was very close to it. And as I'm sitting there painting, I'm just cutting these little bits and holding it up to the canvas and trying things and like, oh, does that work? Does it not work? I have to ask myself a pretty basic question, does it make the painting better or worse? Apparently I decided that that made it better, but I don't really think too much about what does it mean right off the bat anyway. I try not to get bogged when I'm painting. I'm in autopilot mode. I'm like, is this interesting or is it not? And I try not to be too obvious. That's actually a rare instance where you can almost read the entire word. Sometimes I'll cut the word right in half vertically, so it'll flip it upside down. So it's a little more ambiguous, but it's a lot of trial and error. It's kind of a bit trying to put a puzzle together, but I don't really have all the pieces or I have way too many pieces and I'm just trying to make it fit, but the pieces don't even have to fit. So it's a lot of trial and error and fumbling around and looking for that. I'm like, oh, where's that color red? I had that red piece of paper I had last week or something. So I'm goofing around in the studio like that. It sounds like you go forward with kind of a gestalt of how you would like to get to a specific image and then you work to move to that image by fitting things in places and seeing how it works out. It very much takes me for a ride and it's reciprocating and push and pull and back and forth. Pretty much the only thing I'm really in true control of is my composition, which is very much laid out where general colors are, but the rest is free. I can do whatever I want. I can edit things as I go, and that's all what painting is anyway, is a series of adjustments. You almost went down a completely different career path. In fact, your education started you down a career path that is more, I would say linear than this. Yeah, I did a whole semester of architecture at the University of Maine at Augusta, and I think that was pretty important to the development of my artistic brain, thinking about perspective and these architecture, like isometric views and exon metric views. I still kind of think about that, but I mean, not in too detail, but it was a little too, it just wasn't messy enough for me. I like messy paintings and I like coloring outside the lines, and there's paint splatter here, and it's very abstract, I think, and architectural plans aren't normally abstract, so I don't know. This just fits with me better. Did you always have a sense that you were interested in art when you were growing up? Did you have a sense that you liked the creation of messiness and seeing how things worked Out? I did for sure. It's something I've always done. I did sports as a lot as a kid, but I was always interested in art too. I was always drawing, I was always painting on my bedroom walls, and did I ever think that it was a viable career path? Certainly not even when I was going through school. I was like, I'm going to have a degree in art. I don't know what I'm going to do with that. I don't know if I'm going to be able to use this. But eventually, I mean, I did after I graduated, I actually was doing music a lot, playing in bands and recording and producing, but when that sort of ended, there was a major shift in my life and I started painting pretty aggressively and I never looked back and thank God I did. So what was the major shift? What caused you to move from music to something else? Well, I just had to figure out a way to stay creative without music in my life. I mean, it still is, but it's just not actively booking shows and recording. And plus I was playing with a lot of other people too, and I don't know, unless you're with the right group of people, it's tough to rely on other people sometimes. Whereas if I'm an artist, I don't have to rely on anyone. I can always be painting. You had a connection with the Portland Art Gallery from a few years back. I understand. It's kind of funny how life works like that, but my wife and I, when we got engaged in 2017, booked a engagement photography session with a Portland photographer, Tom. I don't know if I'm saying that right, but Tom, shout out to Tom. He suggested that we meet up in Portland, so we wanted to see a show at Portland Art Gallery. So we met there and he's like, oh, well, why don't we just shoot some photos here? And we're like, great. So we actually shot some of our engagement photos in the gallery before going down to the water and stuff. Do you remember who was in the show at that time? It was the Dan Cory show. I don't remember who else, but we were just looking at everything. You actually have suggested in some of the information that I've read that you like Maine artists and in particular you call Colin Page as someone that you Like. Yeah, for sure. I'm not the only one I'm sure, but when I discovered Colin's work, I was like, wow, this guy's killing it. And it's obviously really good. And he's obviously a professional artist. I'm like, maybe I can do this thing. Maybe I can be an artist and find a way to make a living doing it. So that really kind of motivated me to start really painting every day and really trying to improve and thinking about ways to grow as an artist. And thank God I did, because I wouldn't be here talking to you now if I didn't. He's an interesting example because he is a younger artist and in the Midcoast area and really was, I think he worked hard to be pretty successful, but at a relatively young age, I think. Yeah, I think so. I didn't know. I mean, he's a little bit older than me, I'm sure, but he's great guy and he's really helped me over the years. I reach out to him from time to time if I have questions. And yeah, he's a good guy, easy to talk to and obviously extremely talented, so he motivates me. I'm like, just when I think I'm doing something good, I'm like, oh, I got to paint better. I look at his stuff. You also consider Picasso to be sort of the greatest of all time? Yeah, because he is, I think, anyway, when I was real little in grade school, I think I did a project on Picasso. It's like, I don't want to say book report, but something equivalent, something easy. But that was the first serious art that I remember looking at as a kid, and it always stuck with me. And every time I go back to look at his stuff, I just consistently blown away. And he's probably the most talked about artist of all time and is still underrated to me. He's just that good. I don't know. That's such a specific artist to as an 8-year-old. And I guess I should mention Dolly too. Dolly was my second art love, and I was really into psychedelic art for a while too. Because of him. I was like, I specifically remember my dad showing me a dolly book. I think we were at an airport bookstore or something. He's like, Ryan, check these out. And I was like, how is he painting like this? I didn't know this was possible. I'm still a little kid. I'm like, this is so cool. So that always stuck with me. So you're just a little kid, you're in the airport and you're looking at, I don't know, the melting clocks or something like that. And that was your question. So both he and Picasso, they had such a different perspective from one that I think most of us get in early art school classes Probably, but served me well, definitely shaped who I am. I think. Well, sometimes when I'm painting too, I watch a lot of artist documentaries and the painting you're referring to is called the Persistence of Memory. And I'm trying to remember, but I recently learned that that painting originally sold for $250 and it's like this big, it's like 16 by 20 or something. It's not big. And just a random fun fact that blew my mind. Yeah, it's probably a lot more than that now if one we're able to Actually think Purchase it At least Double. You also have kind of a little menagerie at home. You have chickens and a couple of dogs. Yeah, it'd probably be more if my wife had her way. But yeah, we've got two Australian Shepherd females, two cats and a handful of chickens. My wife's parents breed Australian Shepherds, so there's always dogs around. They have a dozen dogs, and it's nice. We get to see 'em being born all the time, which is really cool. And you just bought a house up in your wife's hometown, I believe? Yes. So it's in Skowhegan. We've been living in Skowhegan for several years now. I think we bought our first house in 2016 and just sold it this past year. So the house we came from was just a little in town, in town in a neighborhood house, but we've recently relocated to a place more out in the country, and we've got some more land now for the dogs to run and chickens to roam and cats to get into trouble. It's got gorgeous views. We can see sugar low from there, the biglow range, you can see Mount Washington from the house. So it's quite a place, but it's been a lot of work. It needed a fair amount of renovations that we have a great contractor to help us do all that. But I mean, there's some stuff that's just left to me. So I'm learning a lot in getting my hands dirty and it's opening my mind to, it's kind of cool. I am realizing what I'm capable of. Wow. I didn't know I could build walls. I didn't know I could sheet rock and floor and painting big rooms and stuff, and some stuff's easier than others, but so a lot of hard work, but it's coming along. We're getting there. And you also recently moved into your new studio, I believe. Yeah, I've been in there two weeks. It's brand new and I'm still getting used to it and trying to break it in. But so far it's been really great and I have much more, I have a lot of pride in it now. I basically built it myself is a renovated space above a garage. So before it was completely uninsulated, it was just plywood floors and it was cold up there. So I had to take on that project basically myself. I completely insulated it, built up the walls, we're going to have a washer and dryer in a small area in the corner behind some walls, another half wall for some storage space. So I built that up and then sheet rocked it and said, good enough, I'm moving in. I needed a place to get back to work. So I was really excited to be in there. So it sounds like using your hands in various ways has always been really important to you, whether it's as a musician, as an artist, building your studio. Yeah, I mean out of necessity in this case it's like I got to get this done. I got to get it built so I can go paint. And for better or worse, I totally bashed my thumb while trying to screw a stud into the wall. And of course I slipped off the screwdriver right into my thumb and some words were uttered, but blood, sweat, and tears all going into it. So does this feed into this idea that you like doing art because it's messy, because it is part of really fully immersing yourself in the subject? Yeah, I guess so. If I'm not able to paint for a couple days or something and I look down and there's no paint on my hands, this is weird. I've been out of the studio for too long, but I like it. I don't know. Everyone has their place in this world and everyone's more equipped for certain jobs, I guess. But I guess just the nine to five isn't for me. I'm not as good on a keyboard and in front of a computer. I'd rather be doing something in building, who knows what I'd be doing if I wasn't an artist. I dunno. Well, apparently for some period of time you worked in a party store, so that's what you were Doing. Yeah, I worked there for a long time. Again, working with my hands I guess, because part of the job was literally tying balloons at times. So yeah, there was a whole retail side to the store and we actually did a lot of balloon art. We'd build balloon palm trees and balloon cactuses and whatever else. You name it, whatever. Someone asked, we were like, okay, we, we'll try to build that. But it was a great business locally owned, had a great boss. He knew what I was trying to do. I was always painting before and after work and we had a great relationship. But I am full-time now and I'm glad I am. So Ryan, what was the pivot point for you? What was the day that you said, you know what? I think I need to do this and do it all the time and really fully invest myself in my future? Yeah, it was when we moved, we closed on the house September 28th of last year, and it was basically right after that that I put in my notice. And that was scary. That was terrifying for sure, because I've always dreamed of that moment. But you always had that doubt in your mind, can I really pull this off? Can I be a full-time artist? Can I make a living doing this? And so far, so good. But hard work is completely necessary to get it done. So I paint every day, work as hard as I can. So that is part of what really full-time artists need to do as they need to show up in the studio, whether they feel inspired or not, and put the time in For sure. I don't wait for it. I sometimes think the most productive sessions I have are on days where I don't feel like painting. And every artist has those days. I think a lot of 'em do anyway, unless you're one of those people. I just have to be in my space creating some days you just don't want to. And I'm lucky enough where I can go play guitar and refresh my mind or something, and I have this other outlet, but usually I force myself to work through it and just start to get moving. I used to always tell myself this too, because a lot of the not wanting to work, not wanting to paint comes from a fear of failure. There's whole books written about fear and art. So my way to get through that was like, it doesn't even have to be good. It doesn't have to be good at all. Just go do something. And then I'd be like, all right, well, I'd start get moving and get the hands moving, the blood flowing and the paint flowing and the brushes moving. And then before you know it, you probably got something pretty good and then you're like, oh, this is alright. And then it motivates you to keep painting more. So that was always my little mental trick to kick myself in the butt and get going. Yeah, it's kind of like the idea that if you're a writer, you show up and you put 10 words on the page, you just open up the notebook, any 10 words, Whatever it is that you're doing, you have to jumpstart that and not wait for inspiration. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I'm going to go out and seek inspiration. I think, I'm not sure everybody knows this. GaN really is a very creative part of not only Maine but the world and that there is an actual art school in Yeah, there is. It's kind of a world famous school, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, which I have been on campus but I've never attended there. And it's funny, actually at my old job I used to do deliveries there sometimes tables of chairs or whatever for the students, but it's a great place. And I used to do a lot of outdoor shows at the art fairs and festivals and stuff. And with talking to people, oftentimes people would be like, oh, where are you from? And I'd be like, Skowhegan and one of two things would happen. Either they'd have no idea where Skowhegan is, they've never heard of it and they're like, what? Where? Or they have heard of it and it's probably because of Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. So yeah, it is a nice little artistic community and there's actually a lot of great artists there, but there's also not too much going on where I'm too distracted all the time. I can make sure I get to work. So was that part of when you moved into your new house in a more rural area, was that part of your kind of opening up your mind so that you really had the chance to just be working on the art? Not really. I don't think I thought about it too much. It's just like when we were looking for houses, we were looking in the central main area, and that's just where the right house popped up. So it's one of those fate things. So if there was any thought, it wasn't a conscious thought? No, not necessarily. I mean, we wouldn't still be there if we didn't like it. Maybe it's a character flaw in me I guess, but I'm just pretty passive sometimes. So stuff happens to you in life and that's where the opportunity presented itself and that's where we bought our first house and where we got married and then here we are now. And how did you and your wife meet? We met through friends when I was doing music more heavily, so we just met through a friend's house as I was meeting up with him. It was actually a former band mate of mine and she was there. And does she do art? What is her background? Yeah, she paints too. She doesn't like to admit it, but she's a great artist and she's a great photographer and all around great person. But yeah, she doesn't paint as much as me, obviously. I probably suck all the artistic life out of the relationship probably too much. I just paint all the time. But I like it when she does Well. I think that's actually really interesting because in your case you both understand each other's need to be creative, which doesn't always happen in a relationship. She's always been very good about that. She has known early on that I'm a creative type and yeah, I give her credit for that. Tough. As a young artist, you're not successful at first it's very rare. So she's seen us through some tough times and when I was doing outdoor shows, and especially with those, there's never any guarantee that you're going to make even a sale. And there were many times where I didn't. So I come home all bummed and oh, better luck next weekend or whatever. But she's always stuck by my side and just understands that I just need to push through it. When you talk about this fear of creating this sort of fear of not being able to be perfect kind of the first time out, is this something that you feel like you experienced earlier on in your education? Is it something that you just kind of came to when you went into the artistic field or Yeah, I would say it probably is more prevalent in beginners. I don't know. As you paint more and more and you gain confidence in yourself, so that does kind of disappear. It used to affect me a lot more, but it's always still there. And I wonder if other artists feel that too, just the fear of failure or is this painting going to work out? And usually I just struggle through it and if it doesn't, then oh, well, I'll just flip it around and try again. Or yeah, it is an interesting topic, I don't know, but I feel like it's always there. But when you're younger, it's definitely something you think about more. You just don't have the confidence, you don't have the experience. I haven't done this before as much, so it can be discouraging. So I would think that if you are an artist that has been established, then you at least have this. You can look back and say, well, this person bought my work, this person bought my work. And you can, And when a painting sells, it's almost like it validates that painting in some way and it validates process and your creative workflow and what you're trying to achieve. And it definitely builds your confidence and self-esteem as an artist. Do you ever have the chance to talk to the people who buy your paintings? Yeah, I have lots of repeat customers, which is really nice. I've met a lot of great people along the way. Some of them from the outdoor festivals have turned into great customers over the years and we stay in touch for sure. And have they talked to you about what it is about your work that appeals to them? Yeah, some more than others. I think it's always a little different. Usually it's just a sense of excitement or it can be as, how do I say it? It's just a fleeting feeling, I guess is how it's been described to me before, just a moment in time or often. It's just about the technique too that's just really cool and they studying it and it looks great in their space and that's great too, but it can be as complex as they want. So it sounds like there's a lot of different reasons why someone might buy a piece that you've created For sure mean and a part of me stays with every painting I do. I think that's true of any artist. You literally exhaust energy into that painting and I think it stays there. So I try to infuse as much energy as I can into my canvases, and I think that responds well to people. I've heard it described as a party on a canvas, lots of little splashes or almost confetti pieces. When I look at this piece behind us, I like the fact that there's a w hanging out up on the coastline. There's something interesting about That. Yeah, that's one of those things where I don't remember where that was from. Nope. I mean, you should see my studio. I've got several tables with just papers scattered everywhere. I'm like, I think I was looking for some high contrast, dark bluish purpleish piece to put behind this boat. It's just a series of shapes that insinuate a boat. And that's what came up. And I tried to cut it in an abstract way that there's a bit of white there, which could imply a bit of the rigging or something. But I try not to be too literal. I'm not trying to describe every little, sorry, every little detail of whatever it is that I'm painting. I do want the mind to take over and figure things out for itself because everyone brings their own unique perspective to the viewing experience of a piece of artwork. When you were talking about your father pulling a book out at the airport and saying, Hey, look at this artist. Look at Dali. That's not something every father does. Do your parents have a background in art themselves? No, they don't. My father's an eye doctor and my mom works at a seed company out in Denver, so I'm not really sure where all that came from with me. My grandparents on my father's side are both painters, not, but just enthusiastic painters. And I did spend a lot of time at their house growing up, doing my first paintings. Actually, my grandmother on my mother's side was an excellent pianist, could play anything from ear, could also read and write music. So I guess I got the music from one side and the visual painting from the other. But my parents not so much. I think they're probably more talented than they let on, but they just try to hide it or something. I don't know. I got to get it out of them. Right. Currently under wraps. Possibly to change in the future, Right? Yeah. I mean, when I think of people who in medicine, for example, eye doctors, I mean that's a very visual part of the field. We're both in the visual, we both help people see in some ways. So he's doing it kind of from the inside and you're doing it from the outside. He is actually a really good photographer too, and he's recently getting into bird carvings. So I like seeing what he does in his little wood shop too. So when you're doing art, do you listen to music? Do you think about music? Is there that other aspect? Yeah, I do. It depends on my mood. It changes every day. I used to listen. I still do listen to a lot of music, but sometimes I'll just put on sports radio or I'll listen to documentaries on YouTube about artists, whoever comes up, podcasts pretty much whatever strikes me, I'm thinking you have this visual element, you have this sort of auditory element. You have this kinesthetic kind of full body element. You completely use the space of the world around you. And I'm still figuring out how to do that. But it's funny, there are kind of some parallels between what I do with paint and how I hear music sometimes. How do I describe it? The way the eye travels through a painting is kind of like how a song is presented to you where it's like intro, maybe it goes into a verse and then into a bridge and then into a hook where it's really catchy. So I think about that sometimes. Not too much. I'm not trying to get bogged down by that, but it is interesting. Sometimes I do think about a painting when it's nearly done. I'm like, how can I really add a really kind of catchy little thing that doesn't really make sense, but it's just catches your eye in this case? Whoops. Something that kind of doesn't even quite belong there, but it is just so dumb. But it makes sense. I don't know how else to describe it, but it's like the hook of a song. It just catches you and keeps you circling back to that moment. Is there one of those in this piece? I think so. I keep looking at this pipe. That's what I was going to say. Yes. Okay. I'm glad that is Translating kind of like on the side of these lobster boasts, there's often letters and numbers and symbols and stuff. And I try not to paint too specifically. If I'm painting a street, I wouldn't put on the street sign what name of the street, whereas I wouldn't normally put, I usually leave out the name of the boat or the numbers on it, and I'll try to think more abstractly. Again, I try not to be too obvious. So I was like, that's kind of a funny little logo that I can put on there. And it kind of implies, I don't know, the markings of all these unique boats. And it's also high contrast and on a bright piece of red paper. So yeah, it's like the hook of the painting. It's like the chorus Circling back to it. It's literally a hook. It looks like a hook. It is. It also kind of, I look at it and I think old guys with beards doing ties and Smoking the pipes. Smoking the pipes. Yeah. But you're right. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah, it definitely, it changes the painting. It's Very instinctual too. And I paint with intuition a lot. I never had this idea like, oh, I'll put this pipe on this boat. That's kind of what just came up and was on my surface at the time. And of course I try it out and it's like a gut feeling. I'm like, does this work or does it not? And I have to decide basically right then and there. I have a little bit of time where I can remove it, but I'm literally gluing these to this canvas, so I only have so much time to bail on that idea if I need to. Well, I like it. I think it works. I think I do too. We have, Yeah. And it's funny, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, but sometimes I, I'm like, oh, that definitely works. I'll come back to it the next day. I'm like, no, that's terrible. And at that point, I can't remove it, but I can add over it. So I kind of just bury it in more paper. And sometimes that leads to even more interesting things. Well, I'm glad I can see the hook because we have an artist that I've interviewed and I love his pieces and he told me there's a cat in every one, and I literally cannot find the cat in his Spe