Attending the Tom Cramer lecture at Laura Russo Gallery
Oct 21st, 2007 by Brad
Saturday October 20th, Tom Cramer gave a talk about his exhibition, New Work. On the left is Tom pointing to his work “Moon Lake”. It was an interesting talk and he touched on lots of interesting topics. Many artist lectures that I’ve been to lately have not added much to my understanding of the work or the artist, they have been more like “this is what I did during the summer.” Clear exception are the talks of Ursula von Rydingsvard’s and Tom Cramer, both were very worthwhile.
Tom reads and thinks about many things as he touched on topics of the cosmology, the world situation, Miles Davis, Bruckner, pop culture, art history, technique, his artistic trajectory, and many other things. Tom said that two things that have an influence his work is travel and music. He has been doing a lot of traveling in the past several years (India, Austria, etc.).
He mentions that the work on wood has many many layers of paint and it is work that he spends a lot of time to create. These works are multi-dimensional in both form and layers of meaning. I think he is successful in creating works that involve the viewer for a long time as well. Tom said “The work on wood have both a physical weight as well an emotional weight – in a good way”. He compared them to symphonies and his work on the wood burned surfaces more like chamber pieces. In both he wants them to be hyper-alive. Even with the world circumstances being were they are, he choses to create optimistic work.
He also had a bit of great advice for any artist, learn to be a very good editor of your work.
PORT had this preview podcast before the show opened, unfortunately it is nowhere as deep or interesting as the lecture, but it is a bit of a sample: PORT podcast 
ah but that’s why youve got to go to lectures and I was in California so couldn’t make it…
Right now I think of video versions as just samplers and Tom’s a pretty active mind. We might do some really in-depth interviews but that’s a big production and well, artists usually prefer their work overshadow themselves (otherwise they would just persue acting seriously).
Also, concentratating on reviews is still PORT’s prime mission.
The video is a fine thing for PORT to continue to offer, and I think it length is fine. I just didn’t want people to decide if they should attend some future talk just based on it. It was a fine descriptive segment.
I don’t think that PORT should go into long interviews, yeah that would be a big production. More importantly, PORT, and other things are launching points. People shouldn’t be sitting in front of their laptops, they should see art in person, hear lectures in person, and get involved in person.
There are some great lectures in Portland, but my schedule has keep me away from some that were heard were good. …and of course the PSU lectures are a wonderful thing https://www.bradcarlile.com/blog/?p=199
On a different note, I also do think some artists create great work but can’t articulate interesting things about their work. That is OK, great art isn’t usually created by people who are great at speaking AND dancing AND music AND organization abilities AND … and … and…
Yeah the tapdance of being an artist is certainly a balancing act. Tom’s pretty relentless… and that’s the one thing the best artists all share, they never seem to just be “hanging out” to be part of a scene… they seem to be relentlessly curious and working on their concerns. Instead of fitting in they are always at work, even if they are just having coffee.