We caught up with the brilliant and insightful John Bauer a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
John , we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
I gained my resilience from a number of places. The timeless chain of craft people those of a bygone era, now dead and by reworking their themes in modern ways I somehow breathe new life into their forgotten souls. I have a sense that they are looking down from heaven and I am one of the last people to acknowledge they have been alive once. In classic literature they say you die three deaths the first death is bodily the second death is the last time somebody who knew you dies and the third death is the last time your name is uttered. These craft doesn’t makers having died all three deaths are alive again as I work with their ideas their objects and the inspiration. What matter to them is a lesson to me. What they strove exhibit I strive to digest to understand to cherish and to propagate. I also gain resilience from fear there are many examples of failed artists examples of artists gone mad.. If I am to be a contributor the greatest contribution I can make is to keep working is to be a good role model and do the very best I can With what I’ve got. The life of an artist is not easy but it is the purist shortest route to making the biggest contribution to civilisation and future generations. So what gives me resilience is hope. I hope to sell I hope to create solutions for my peers. And I hope to be the rollmodel I never got to have. If you have hope you have everything once removed
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I’d like to talk of three things. One my residency program. Two my making career. And three service to the art world.
At the John Bauer Residency we focus on invention and innovation. Ideas are valued and we try and express them in new ways. My philosophy involves taking machines from other collapsed industries and using clay to give new relevance to this redundant object. The machines I collect have lost their relevance in their original context a shipbuilders Press allows us to pressurise the Clay in Waze no other Potter would dream of. A three phase printing roller allows us to explore efforts rolling and what that means. With new potentials comes new ways to be creative a good craftsman never blames his tools, but he does carry a toolbox with him the space is an Alice in Wonderland of tool boxes.
My making career has had some incredible highlights a museum bought a collection of my work before I was 30 I’m now in a number of museums, some years back I was approached to make work for Anthropologie a chain in the states. And my current practice is making Tiles and putting them up in the public arena. I also work with interior designers and create work to hang in peoples homes. Both these practices bring the great joy.
Service to the art world. The greatest gift you can give the art world is to focus on expressing your talent while living a moderate life. Working out strategies and sharing them to be able to create a life as sustainable as it can be. My big dream is to create an old age home for artists were younger artists learn from older artists and care for them.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
By three most important skills are one vision. Being able to see plan and assess what is required to bring an artistic idea to fruition. And doing this one must delegate trust and Have a squadron approach to problems roadblocks and challenges.
Two craftsmanship, this is the ability to personally create something that is unknown to others the discipline to master skill. Ability to understand that instant gratification will trap most of your competition and the ability to stick at something working hard at it long after the novelty has faded, to create something that is a full opera to one senses sushi plate meets cello meets aviation meets piano. And being brave enough as a craftsman to birth something new and to withstand the financial hardship of having to re-educate your audience again and again until they trust you to be the very best you you can be.
My third most important skill is knowing what I’m bad at and working with excellence importing excellence adopting excellence on boarding excellence and paying for excellence. I am lucky that the things I am bad at I am so convincingly bad at them that I need not fool myself into wasting my time and frustrating those around me by trying.
What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?
My biggest area of growth has been learning to nurture and project forward the resident artists learning to use of what they are hoping to find here in Cape Town and being a part of their growth
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Johnbauerart.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnbauerart?igsh=MWwydWFvNTczeWk2eg%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/19JXB35n6B/?mibextid=wwXIfr
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-bauer-2b2aab76?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
Image Credits
John Bauer
Tian Chen
Kate K8
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
