Arts in Focus on PBS Fort Wayne is funded in part by the Community Foundation of Greater Fort Wayne.

Coming up, we'll talk with local area artists Nigel Roper and Hannah Burnworth.

It's all next on Arts in Focus.

Welcome to Arts in Focus.

I'm Emily Henry.

Nigel Roper is a self-taught artist who has been creating art since early childhood.

Currently, Nigel produces a variety of drawings and paintings using different kinds of inks, including sumi ink, micron pens and even printer ink.

We recently visited Nigel at his studio space, inside TekVenture, here in Fort Wayne, to learn all about the process behind the creation of his work.

Nigel, thank you so much for inviting me to your little corner of the world.

That is really fascinating because you are a multi-talented individual.

Tell me what you describe your artwork as, say.

Most often my artwork is a release of some sort of contemplation normally hoped to bring benefit to somebody, something that pushes positivity out into the world.

So can you think back to a time when you were first starting to use art as a way to really express yourself?

Was it back in childhood or has it?

I've been doing art since childhood.

I remember in kindergarten, a teacher told me, wow you're really good at that.

And it kind of solidified a theory that pretty much as a young kid anybody that tells you you're good at something, you're just going to keep doing it.

Positive encouragement.

Yeah.

But it wasn't until about 2011 my dad died and I had the blessing in my life to run into a family that I got to spend a lot of time with.

Waldschmidt Brennan's so many wonderful people in Fort Wayne and that through them as well.

But staying with them, I got to just focus on artwork for a while in a an environment that was creative and wonderful.

And through that, I was kind of just like almost healed second hand.

That's maybe the coolest story I've heard from an artist.

So thank you for that.

Tell me how you choose your media, because I know that you oh, my gosh, you dabble in a little bit of everything.

It's all exploration.

Yeah, every bit of exploration, science, art and science on each hand.

It's always like this.

Here is printer ink that I just found here at TekVenture.

Yeah.

And the way I just figured I'd see how it worked, but then the way it just blends through the water and stuff is amazing to watch and there's a bit of a chaotic element.

So I put that into all my artwork really.

Yeah.

Just letting the mediums work and explore how different ones work.

That's what's always pushed it.

So then do you find something that you sort of love and really dig in to that, or is it an exploration every day?

It kind of goes back and forth.

There's the exploration every day and then there's kind of the exploration of self, which pushes me to practice things such as like discipline, to actually be able to focus on those things.

Because I have a very squirrel like artistic A.D.D., so it's really It really is just exploration.

Yeah.

And then continued and how to get better.

I mean, what's the worst it's going to happen.

Somebody is going to say, I don't like that.

You know, you meet the right person and they absolutely abhor what you're doing.

Maybe just because you're you, and they're them.

Yeah.

And that's enough.

Yeah.

But I've been blessed many times to find that I can just create, which is the most important part of the process and I think the most healing for many people.

And somebody out there might love it.

That stack right there underneath the pieces that I actually like a little bit, is all the stuff that was an exploration that did not go so well.

I want to dig into the process that you've used for some of these pieces we're seeing here.

It's like watercolor, but it's it's not.

Or is it?

I don't know.

So tell me all about it.

Okay.

So these are it's actually a lot like watercolor, but it's Sumi ink.

Okay.

This is the old bottle that I've had for years.

And this is the newer one.

I like the old stuff.

Of course, I don't know, maybe just because of familiarity.

And I'm a very sentimental creature, but the stuff just blends so well and I.

These paintings here are done.

Its a three or four step process So you take the this is a background and when I'm creating these, I'll do nine or ten at a time.

Oh really.

And well, because they take time to dry.

It's something I learned in oil painting.

Oil paints to three weeks to a month to dry.

Yeah, sometimes.

Especially if you get really thick.

These take 10 minutes.

Which is one reason why I've been working on them more.

Because it's a medium I can just throw chaos at the page, see what happens.

Do my little fix or, you know, make my effect on the chaos that's happening there and set it aside.

Let it be its own thing for a little bit and dry and then come back to it.

And whatever happens, I'm inspired to do something or I'm inspired to put it in that pile back there.

The that didn't work out pile.

The that didn't work out pile which are all lessons, you know?

Yeah.

So from here, would you add an image on top?

Is that okay?

Most likely.

So.

I normally try and stick with the same type of thing per painting because this ink the India ink and even just between these two types of sumi ink, they all dry differently.

Just different have a different sheen or they mix differently.

This stuff just blends so beautiful.

When did you realize that you're good at this?

I suppose a little while after I decided that I was going to take the time to get good at it.

Okay.

I hope I'm still working on.

I don't.

It's not like I'm good at this.

And so there's there are those moments that I chase where it's like, Holy cow, I just did that.

Yeah.

And that's inspires me and motivates me to do another.

Does it happen more and more often?

Do you find or have you kind of always had those moments even when you first really started diving in?

It happens more and more.

You got to wrestle the ego down and just try to remember to stay humble and keep coming from a place of learning.

So I think a lot of times when I'm painting, it's kind of an exercise of challenging or channeling, okay?

And also challenging myself.

Sure, that's in there.

But it's just whatever is going through or flowing through or the world needs or I can create, happens and whether I'm the one that did it or not isn't super important.

I don't sign a lot of my work because that's not what it's about.

It's not about me.

It's a piece that has an effect on the world.

It's a stone in a pond of ripples.

I heard you say earlier that there was a particular piece that you regretted selling.

Does that happen a lot?

Yeah, it does.

Sometimes I always want to make things affordable to people because I. I recognize that sometimes what takes me a couple of hours or a day to create somebody spends a week or a month of their life saving up for it.

And I just really want to honor that.

Is it hard to sell pieces that that have been cathartic to you, that do feel personal?

Or are you able to kind of divorce that feeling and let them go into the world?

The practice of doing the painting brings the catharsis.

Yeah, yeah.

Seeing the I've done it afterwards isn't really all that much of a like a boon to me.

It's just I've done that.

It motivates me to try and do more or inspires me to push that design further.

But I have created the piece.

I am done with it or the piece has been created and I am done with it.

It goes on to someone else now to live its life.

Yeah, I'm really interested in seeing this type of piece juxtaposed with your India ink that because the style is so different, the detail in those is like.

Oh these?

Yes.

So these, these are really fun.

This is Micron actually.

It's these are actually collaboration pieces that I've done with my buddy Michael trying to get my name off of artwork to where it can just be more of a beneficial thing everywhere for everybody.

Okay, we started a business Blue Wizard Co., so this is it's kind of some people would call it a Zen tangle or something.

It started out of just playing this game, which actually kind of helped me get back into drawing.

Yeah, because I'd spent a lot of time in tattooing and painting, but you just scribble and scribble and scribble and scribble and it really helps with the thing you're talking about of like being afraid to do the piece or what's going to happen.

You just scribble and then pass the page and somebody else adds to it and scribble some more and then pass the page.

And you through this piece, I can see multiple things that I drew here for the first time because he made a squiggly line over here.

Mm hmm.

That inspired me to do that.

And now there are techniques that I use, and it's going back and forth.

It's a great way for artists to really grow, working with others.

I mean, how much thought goes into what this scribble is going to be in relation to what someone else's scribble was?

I just I mean, this looks so intricate and incredible and I just can't imagine, you know, doing a little scribble and then passing it to my buddy.

It's very much what it is.

It's a reaction to chaos of what ever just happened, where each line pushes like you can draw one little line on a piece of paper, and all of a sudden it in itself is inspiring the rest of that piece of paper, and it floats through to every edge and bounces around.

And if you can see that, follow it and just start making lines.

There it is.

Nigel, I truly feel like you are one of those wizardly people.

I think that your work is so beautiful and it's really inspiring how you bring beauty into the world.

So best of luck with with everything you do, not just your artwork, but your travels and all of that.

Please keep keep finding new, beautiful ways to express yourself.

I'll try.

The world needs it.

So thank you very much for sitting down with me today.

Thank you for your time.

For more information, find Blue Wizard Co on Instagram.

I'm joined now by mixed media artist and educator Hannah Burnworth.

Thank you for being here.

I can't wait to talk about your work because it reminds me of my grandmother was an artist and it reminds me some of your collage stuff of of my grandma's work, which just holds such a special place.

When did you start expressing yourself artistically?

Well, thanks a lot.

I'm I love being here.

I'm excited to talk to you.

Good.

I, I always loved creating.

I don't think I ever thought of myself as a creator artist till later in life.

But that's how I spent my time.

That's how I spent my time as a kid.

I would go to my grandma's house with all my cousins and she would say, Cut up these seed catalogs and rearrange them into a bouquet for me.

And so those are the first real collages I remember making.

And then my grandma was kind of hardcore.

She was like, I'll give everyone a grade when they get done.

And I would get an A and my cousins would get like Cs and stuff.

And was like jeez Grandma, I must be good at this.

So that was one way that I remember connecting to it as a kid and then just being successful in that in school.

I think one of my first art teachers that I can remember, Mr. Hochstetler, he was my elementary school art teacher, and he just encouraged me.

And I painted some, I think, watercolor eggs or like three eggs on a page.

I have no idea where the painting went.

I just know it got hung in the hallway and he told me how good it was.

And, you know, I think when you find something that you really have a passion in and you feel like you're good at it and you feel encouraged by someone that's like a really formative experience.

Yeah.

You know, so.

So what medium did you initially kind of dive into or were you always kind of dabbling in various.

I started by drawing, which I think is the foundation of of most things, being able to take your ideas and put them somewhere and put them down physically.

Yeah.

And so I kind of started with drawing and that quickly transitioned into painting.

And so most of my undergraduate work was mostly drawing and painting.

I'm more comfortable in a two dimensional world, although that's changing, and I have to teach everything.

So that helps to inform it.

But yeah, that's where I started.

And then when I was pregnant, actually, I had done many drawings and paintings by that time, but I wanted some little tiny things that I could cut and snip and take with me and take in a bag.

And nothing was toxic and I didn't have to clean it up.

And that's actually when I made the shift to cutting a lot of paper.

It's just easier and accessible.

There's always paper around.

Yeah.

So that's kind of how it was out of necessity that I switched to mixed media collage and stitching on paper.

And so I was going to ask you about that.

At what point did the stitching come in?

Yes, that is a whole different layer.

Yeah.

So I kind of went drawing to painting to paper, and then the stitching was at first a solution.

It was just a solution to holding two things together with, you know, thread.

And then the thread became a real element of the piece.

And then the thread became both of those things, the physical part, holding it together in this kind of figurative story.

And then, you know, when I became a mother and you're stitching everyone's lives together and holding everyone's lives together, binding yourself together, it's just becomes a good metaphorical tool.

Yeah.

And so, I don't know the that's.

Yeah, that's kind of the progress it took.

And now it's just a lot of paper and some paint and that stitching and everything I've done.

And I think each year it becomes more layered.

So I'm actually working out into space more and more.

And so when you are going to put together a mixed media collage, how how does that start out in your brain?

Is it do you see it sort of first as a drawing and then and then you're.

Well, there's two ways of working.

Please articulate for me Yeah, no, I got it.

You can have a plan and follow that plan.

And oftentimes if I'm doing a commission or if I've done a piece before that somebody wants something similar, I'll follow that plan and I'll cut the pieces to shape and whatever.

That's rarely how I work.

I usually work intuitively, like I have this giant box of stuff or somebody bought me a piece of paper I really like, or somebody mailed something in this envelope that I really like or whatever.

And I have this piece that I'm like, Ooh, that looks like a or that could be on a table or that could be this, right?

And so I like the material first and then I will just arrange and design and I like to design.

I mean, most of my work kind of comes from that, like designers sort of base where you kind of arrange and rearrange.

And really a lot of the paintings I cut up are mine and a lot of the paintings are I cut up for my students that they put in the recycle bin.

A lot of fabric I have or old paper I have is given to me predominantly paper, but really, you could say that most of what I move around is created already.

I'm just designing and designing and redesigning.

So is that is everything you look at like potentially a piece of art?

Is that how your brain works, that like, oh, that could be this or kind of like my like the cork.

You know what?

I don't have the authority to give you that but I'm going to give it to you.

Yeah.

No, the cork could be so.

Yeah, I mean, really, I'm always on a scavenger hunt.

Yeah, but like, you might think, oh, she's a hoarder.

She's got.

She's going to.

But I actually I really intentional about what I save and how I save it and where I put it.

Because, you know, think about all the brushes that you have with paper every day.

How many times you see paper, your gift wrapping you, you're getting your mail, now you went and signed, you know, a receipt somewhere.

You there are so many opportunities to accumulate which, you know, from your, you know, kids bringing things home.

Yes.

There are like the the possibility of papers infinite because it's cost effective.

Right.

And it's it's used all the time.

So you have to be kind of careful if you're going to be a paper artist or you're going to have so much material that you know you'll never.

So do do you have rules for yourself?

Like, if you do, you have to have an idea for it to save it, or how does that work?

You know, I kind of have rules.

Like I keep this big drawer and I separate it by color and then I keep a box of things I've already pre worked that I know are already super textured and they've been stitched on and I hated them and I chopped them back up or like because those are like the frosting.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

So like if I can kind of color work and respond to these things in my drawers and then I take my big box of things and then those are my frosting.

That's kind of how how I do it.

Okay.

That's fascinating.

Yeah.

Do you have certain things that you prefer to create when it comes to collage?

So subject matter for me has always been sort of tough because I am so into the material and the way the materials created and how it holds together and what these papers are that I honestly could create anything.

Somebody could be like, Hey, I want a portrait.

Ooh, I want this.

Yeah.

Scene from nature.

Oh, I want this.

I think my favorite things to create though, really, if I'm trying to do recognizable subject matter are vessels and kind of like what what's held within them and growth, and I just think it's like one of the most maybe cliche, but also just accessible for everyone.

You know, every mother has felt like a vessel.

Everyone uses them.

They all carry some kind of significance.

You know, it's part of daily life to use a vessel.

You anoint with them, you feed with them, you fill them up, you empty them out.

You, you know, we are all metaphorically vessels.

You can make them.

Every artist ever has painted a still life.

They've looked at things they, you know, and so kind of taking that really common thing and making it my own.

How do you find time to work on your personal art when you're also an art teacher?

I used to feel really guilty about working in the classroom like this is my students time.

Over time and through experience, I learned that they learn when they watch me.

They learn when they see me persevere.

They learn when they see me not give up.

They learn how to make an actual body of work, you know, 50 things instead of one thing, right?

And so with my upper level classes, particularly my AP classes and my advanced placement classes, they are so self-sufficient anyway, they're working toward a portfolio anyway, so I kind of have studio time with them.

I can make, they can respond, I crit with them, they can crit me.

Students are fabulous critics because they're not pushed in by the ways of the academic world yet, and they can just respond to really what's there.

Yeah, so I love that.

So I actually get to create a little bit during class time, sometimes during my prep time, sometimes after school a little bit, and then usually if I have a show coming up like one night a week or one afternoon, I'll just kind of grind for like stay up really late one night or I'll do a whole Sunday afternoon into the evening.

So what do you hope your students take away from your class?

Well, I hope they share what they learn with somebody like they I hope they share it with their children or their friends or their family.

You know, I teach in a really a rural environment where really the only diversity is socioeconomic diversity.

You know, you have to bring the world in a lot.

You know, when a kid tells you, oh, I ran out of puzzles to do, we're not going to Walmart for two more months because it's a special trip, you know?

Whoa.

You know, that happens.

Yeah.

And so you you really have to bring the world back into that.

So if they can take that and they can share that with some someone else, that's something I want to happen.

And then I also want the kids who are the art kids, you know, where that is, their passion.

What happened to me with those three eggs?

You know, I want those kids.

I want them to find their place there.

There are a lot of students who come to school and don't necessarily know their place.

School is not school is a consistent place that feeds you.

And there are a lot of great things about public school, but it's not real easy place for a lot of kids to be.

And so also I like the art room to be a place that's like that, you know?

And I give them this speech every semester.

Like, you may not like the people that are in here, so you need to check that at the door because this is your new community.

Who you're sitting with is going to be.

And it's cool.

It's cool.

And they make friends outside of their own friend group, you know?

So I like that too.

Like in a safe space.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It doesn't matter who you are or what else you've been successful in or not successful in, you're in here now, and we're going to make this a time where you learn something new and and you have choices.

Get to make choices, and there is no right or wrong.

You know, that's so refreshing.

Spend a lot of time testing and hammering away at and that's part of life, you know?

It is.

But it's nice to have a reprieve from that.

What a gift you give to those students and what a gift you give to the world with with everything you create.

It's so beautiful.

Like I said, as soon as I saw your collage work, I was like, Oh, that reminds me of my grandma.

And it's just exquisite.

So thank you so much for everything you do and thanks for coming over today.

Thanks so much.

For more information, visit Manchester Milk House dot com Our thanks to Nigel Roper and Hannah Burnworth.

Be sure to join us next week for Arts in Focus.

You can catch this and other episodes at PBS Fort Wayne dot org or through our app.

In the meantime, enjoy something beautiful.

Arts in Focus on PBS Fort Wayne is funded in part by the Community Foundation of Greater Fort Wayne.