This interview was done as part of an on-going series of podcasts with the artists of Cape Ann, Gloucester and Rockport, Massachusetts. We are indebted to Jeff Weaver who invited us to his studio in downtown Gloucester, MA on a glorious indian summer day this past October.
Stevie Black: Hi, this is Stevie Black with McDougall Interactive and I am interviewing local Gloucester artist, Jeff Weaver. So tell me Jeff, which artist would you say have influenced your work the most?
Jeff Weaver: Well, I'm thinking I have been influenced by a lot of different artists over the years. In my early years, I would say I was primarily influenced more by classical-type art which was founded on good drawing, good draftsmanship. I studied quite a bit of that when I was in the museum school -- I used to go to the museums quite a bit -- everyone from Rembrandt, even to Van Gough. I can't cover the whole spectrum of what I thought was strong drawing and in graphic kind of strong imagery.
So without going through a whole list, which would be quite lengthy, I think that stayed with me in terms of influences. Obviously there are others. Of late, I have been more interested or influenced by a number of 20th century painters, even people that are not so well known, perhaps like Gustav Klimt, whose composition was very strong, Egon Schiele, another Austrian painter, whose drawing was very powerful.
So, of course, people may think of Edward Hopper (when they look at my work). Yes, I do paint buildings and houses, and he also did that subject matter in a very strong way, even in Gloucester. So I think, as a whole I have been influenced by a lot of different artists, but I think primarily ones whose focus or whose strength was good draftsmanship in drawing as mentioned at the beginning.
Stevie: So, as a result of these influences, do you see yourself carrying on any particular tradition of art?
Jeff: I think if there was a tradition I follow, it would probably be American realism. I think saying that means that the subject matter carries a lot of weight in the final product. The subject matter has a lot to do with what I do because perhaps it's unique to this area, especially in this New England area, of a certain Vernacular Architecture. Things that speak of New England, the way the light is. These kinds of things take a lot of precedence in what I do in my choice of painting.
Stevie: That's a nice segue for me. The next question I have is - Are there any particular early or contemporary Boston-area artists of particular interest to you?
Jeff: You know, again, I think they were a lot of outstanding artists in this area. Of course, Winslow Homer is a very outstanding artist in terms of representing the power of what he did - the ocean - as well as other things. He did other things besides crashing waves.
But again, when I look at these different artists, I am influenced by how they are able to extract and represent something powerful or with certain -- I don't want to use the word "dramatic" -- but something dramatic out of the subject matter that they chose to do. That, for me, is as important as any other part of the work.
Even the Wyeths, to me I think, have been a bit of an influence in the finer points of really being able to -- for me, a lot of it is also being able to make, when I choose a subject matter, I am trying to really go as deep into that subject matter as I can. Sometimes I do the same building or the same scene over and over again. I feel like I can keep pulling out and kind of go deeper into it each time I treat it. I see things that I haven't seen before. So I think I am really trying to get the depth of personality, as it were, out of these different subjects that I choose.
Stevie: So does a painter like Charles Sheeler make any waves for you?
Jeff: Yes. Charles Sheeler is -- I am definitely very aware of what Charles Sheeler did in terms of that sort of beautiful clinical draftsmanship. I tend not to have the kind of clinical side and ---
Stevie: Your painting technique, your painting style is not at all like that.
Jeff: Not really, but there is feeling of Sheeler in that. He was able to see that the careful treatment of all of the shapes, because you see, a lot of what I do, it's about shapes on an abstract level. And Sheeler recognized the graphic strength or whatever you want to call it, of all of the interlocking shapes, which present themselves in any given subject matter. And that's what he was highlighting, was all these highly-refined interlocking shapes and design on a two-dimensional surface.
Stevie: I want to step away from the street scenes for just a moment and having talk about the fishing series that you have done. They seem to capture the ocean in a way that really makes one feel like they are part of the scene. I think for most of us, even if we have never been on a boat in heavy seas. We get the idea -- idea about it. And I am curious you always been interested in the ocean and how is it that you help us get so close to it?
Jeff: I always have been. I have always spent time in Gloucester since I was very young and, of course, I moved to Gloucester when I got out of high school. Yes, so I have spent my time on the ocean. I think it's part of the artist's craft to be somewhat of an illusionist and sometimes you can give the viewer an illusion of experiencing something through - not so much through a type of a photographic realism, if there is such a thing. But it's more through the power.
Again, it goes back to that power of design. If you look at someone like Homer's paintings of the ocean, they are often not particularly realistic if you really would analyze it on that level. But they are almost more powerful, than real. He finds within the imagery, the power - that's what the viewer sees, and that's why the viewer feels as though, "Wow, I feel like I'm right there." It's not so much of the realism aspect of it. It's more of the design aspect of it that gives you that feeling of power that the ocean exudes.
That's what the artist has to do: find what in this whole world that we look at, visually, all the things... How do we condense all of that into something that gives us an essence of an image, or of a feeling of something?
Stevie: You talked, just a moment ago, about a "photographic realism" of sorts. We can see here in the studio, the canvas you're working on now, on the board. You use photographs as reference material. What, in the photographs, do you use as reference points? Clearly, your canvasses don't show a photographic realism, so I'm just curious what you're using in the photos.
Jeff: Yeah, it's more or less technical details which have to do with machinery and rigging and where things go, and that sort of thing. In all of that, I also have to put all of those technical things through that filtering process, where they have to be in the right place, because, in and of themselves, they don't necessarily say anything.
But if those fine details are, perhaps, in the right place, or they're used as a vehicle to give the viewer the feeling that they are seeing the real thing, even though they've been adjusted and filtered in such a way that they add to the design. It's that place in between the two,the real and the imagined. These fisherman paintings that I do - they border on imagination and exaggeration, as much as they do realistic representation.
I was just painting outside and I'll get to that question in a moment. I was just painting one of these fishing draggers, the modern fishing draggers with all the pulleys and the wheels, and all of this kind of stuff. I've always been drawn, and I'm drawn, to these kinds of details.
So, what you're asking me about... I look in these books and I can see old photographs of the rigging of schooners, and that sort of thing. But it's somewhat akin to what I do today in looking at all of these little nuts and bolts. The way those catch the light, and the way those dance around in the image have always been things that have been very interesting to me in my work.
Stevie: You mentioned just now that you were painting outdoors today. What's your favorite time of day to paint?
Jeff: Probably my least favorite time - could be the very middle of the day. Although, truth be told, I think I would be able to find light and shadow that was doing interesting things at any time of the day.
What I usually do is, I may have a painting that I work on in the morning, then I'll have another one that I might work on at midday. Then I have another one for the end of the day. I usually have three or four, five, six, seven, eight unfinished paintings going at any given time.
If the light's right, the tide is right, the boat's not out fishing, or whatever it might be, I'll go after that one. I usually paint on site for maybe two hours, even an hour--two hours, maybe three hours, pushing it, until the light changes. Then, I go to something else.
Stevie: What aspect of your art training remains with you today? What's the most important aspect?
Jeff: My most important aspect, in terms of training... I guess I would say that, when I was in high school, I had a very good art teacher who was a student at the museum school. She was a sculptor and a graphic artist. She always instilled in me the idea of the drawing.
Drawing doesn't necessarily mean, perhaps, the same thing to me. For me, it means "line." It means the use of line, whether it's contour or some other type of use of line. That has been a pervading thing for me, throughout all the artwork I've done throughout my life, from the time I was younger. She solidified that in my mind, and I've stayed with it.
Somebody looking at my work may not pick that up. It's not the kind of thing that everyone walks in, sees the work, then are going to understand something about line, but I always try to be very, very conscious of it. I think that line is, ultimately, something very powerful, in terms of conveying an image. That's how I would summarize that.
Stevie: You mentioned the teacher that really supported you and mentored you in high school. Speak a little bit about your family life, and how that may or may not have contributed to your becoming an artist.
Jeff: I grew up in suburbia. I grew up in Framingham, Massachusetts, and then we went to Burlington, MA. That's where I went to high school.
Prior to that, from the time I was a very young child, I used to draw incessantly. I would draw members of my family. They would sit for their portrait. [laughs] I would draw the dog. Mostly, I was interested in people. I would always do people, and I would invent people, like kids do. They draw these invented superheroes, and all that kind of thing, too.
The good thing about my youth, growing up, was that my parents recognized that I had ability in this area, and they were always very supportive of it. They were supportive of my spending a lot of time, as a younger person, and my quiet moments, doing all my artwork stuff, and also going to the museum school in Boston. They were always very, very supportive.
My father took me to visit Norman Rockwell when I was 12. I liked that sort of thing. I liked this highly illustrative work when I was a kid. Most people do. I took my little paintings under my arm. I had all these paintings of different things I had done, of people, and so forth. My father trucked me up to Stockbridge. We knocked on the door, and Norman Rockwell gave me 15 minutes of his time.
They were supportive. I guess the point is that my father was very supportive of what I was doing.
Stevie: That's great. That really is important, I think, for a lot of artists. What would you like to be remembered for in your work, or your life as an artist?
Jeff: That's a good question. Well, I probably on one level, I guess, on kind of a simplified level, a lot of the subject matter that I do has a sentimental quality to it in that I do often depict this kind of disappearing world. Like in Gloucester, I think that was always the thing that drew me to Gloucester, as I say; I was so interested in coming here, living here. I came here when I got out of high school to live here.
The thing that I liked about Gloucester is that I always felt like I was--it kind of bridges both worlds. You are in the 21st century, but so much of the 19th century sort of all around you was still there although in a state of great decrepitude. Whatever kind of emotions that elicits in a person when we see that, when we can walk around and amongst, it's kind of pervading. It's a feeling of history all around you, and Gloucester does have this great rich history, the sea-faring and fishing and so on. I end up painting a lot of that sort of thing and these old buildings and old houses and old waterfront scenes and stuff.
What I think what I'd like to feel is people would enjoy that I was in some way able to capture a moment in time. Then, when it's gone, well, then you go back and look at the painting and that's part of it. That's on one level; do you know what I mean? Art has to function on a number of different levels aside from the art stuff, the painting stuff.
Yes, I'd like people to look and think I was a good painter as well, obviously, but on the purely literary level, you'd like people to think that the images also had kind of a poignance to them, that they would enjoy looking at for a long period of time.
Again, as I said before, I delve into the subject. I go to it to a level. I don't just superficially use the subject as a vehicle for some type of impressions that are very quick, a very quick view of the thing as if it was not important, whether it's there or isn't there. I think the subject again is a pretty strong element in what I do, so I think people do enjoy it from that standpoint and I'm sure they do.
As far as remembering me somewhere down the line and all that stuff, well, I don't know. We'll have to let that take care of itself.
Stevie: An outgrowth of that particular question and answer; I am just curious. Has your work entered into the secondary art market, and can you comment at all about your feelings? You've sold paintings, and they have been sold again to others. Maybe, they have been on the auction blocks.
Jeff: Well, this kind of thing, these are issues that one thinks about. There is the business end of it, and you think about those things. Basically, in terms of when I am painting, I have to focus on the work at hand. That's how I feel. I don't get too worried about all that kind of thing. I have to just focus on the work at hand. My intent is to make it the best that I am able to do. What happens at that point, where it goes from there, these things are difficult to pin down.
What do they mean? How important are they? Awards, are they important? Are they not important? What do other people think? What are they going to think five years from now? All of those things are things one entertains in the mind, but I don't focus on it. I just have to focus on my imagery stuff and what I see when I see the things in the landscape and where I am going to take this whole business of making pictures. That's how I see it.
Stevie: Would you say then that some of that last answer would also constitute advice that you would give to an artist just starting out?
Jeff: Yeah, I think something that's a rule of thumb that is not a bad thing to adhere to - is to do the best you can. If you discover what you do best--you know, a lot of people would like to take lessons from me and all this stuff--I think the best lesson you can learn, would be, work at it until you find out what your strength is, what you do best. And then, do that, focus on that strength of yours.
With me, it's really the drawing. Focus on that. Make it work for you. Work at it until that strength is working for you. Don't be too concerned about what other people are thinking. If you do what you feel good about, then there'll be other people, too, that will also respond positively to that. You're not alone in this world, you know?
Other people will see what you see, and they'll say, "Hey, I see that, too" or "I see that now in different way because the artist has helped me to see that in that way, so I see it that way now." I'd like to have that in my house so I can continue to be reminded of that type of experience. It's not Jeff Weaver's experience, or it's not someone else's experience. It's your experience. It's the individual's experience.
When you can figure that out, that's a huge thing. That is what the long and short of it is, I guess, to encourage someone to try and figure that out. It's not always an easy thing to find, but when you work and work and work, you find it. That's where you should be at in terms of...
But, again, if your motivation is to sell things, if you're a sales person and that's what you are about and you want to sell things to people, then what I am talking about here is perhaps not really that meaningful and it's not making sense.
Stevie: I have one more question, if you'd entertain it. You spoke a moment ago about working and working and working. It's clear by the amount of work that's in your gallery space and also your comments earlier that you are working on six or eight canvasses at one time. You are clearly a working artist. What does a working artist do for fun? What kind of hobbies do you have?
Jeff: What kind of hobbies do I have? Well, actually religiously I am one of Jehovah's Witnesses, so that consumes a certain degree of my time with visiting people and so on at a religious level.
In terms of fun, actually painting is pretty fun, so I don't have a whole lot of other hobbies, I afraid to say. Maybe, I should. I actually had been out and shot a couple of baskets this afternoon down the street here, so I like a little sporting activity once and again.
Stevie: Well, I just want to thank Jeff Weaver for sitting with us for a few moments and answering a few questions. We'll look forward to catching up with his new work as he moves forward into the winter season which obviously will keep him very busy as we can see some snow scenes right here in the studio.
So, thank you very much, Jeff.
Jeff: OK, Stevie.
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