In The Words Of The Artist. . .Remarks By Daniel Roache

Ferris did not waste money on a committee to "Increase the Awareness" of Michigan artists. You did not add a salaried position for someone to run a project for the "Advocacy"of Michigan art. NO, -- you bought ART! It's a great concept that I hope catches on. You now have a tangible that can be viewed, admired, hated or ignored for many years to come.

My former employer, the Detroit Institute of Arts, spent tens of thousands of dollars on their ironically titled "Ongoing Michigan Artist Program" which ended after about three or four years with very little to show for it. There was some Michigan art exhibited, but I dare them to prove it. They did not add to their permanent collection.

The investment Ferris is making in building a collection of art objects doesn't just serve to improve the looks of the school or the mood of the staff and students. As the collection builds in the long run, it will serve as a teaching tool for the creative arts department and for other disciplines as well. It's no accident that many of the oldest art schools in the country are attached to major art collections. I think, however, that it is a major mistake that both the instructors and students of the last thirty years or so have forgotten to look at those collections. Instead, they've often opted for the inbreeding of art instructors that have never had to deal with the art consuming public face to face.

I should probably get off of that subject except to say that you are very fortunate to have Robert Barnum here at Ferris. Robert's a valuable asset to Ferris. He's a productive and respected artist that can teach and, forgive me for using this phrase, but he has been out in the real world of artistic commerce outside the university setting. Although some may say that the art world doesn't qualify as the real world either, the world of commerce certainly does.

The objects and the ideas of an artist will last beyond his or her years if they're lucky. This a part and parcel of the artist's ego, I suppose. We all want to leave something behind. The idea I leave behind in my artwork which I have titled "Practical Academe" is, despite the title, open to any interpretation as all public art should be. In you alumni magazine it was noted that this work is a symbolic or abstract representation of the seven academic schools within the University. I think I put in enough figures to cover that number, but if you still don't see your department in here, please just imagine that the guy at the top wearing the red tie is thinking of your particular field.

By "Practical Academe" I simply mean to communicate that those educational experiences I most admire are those that have immediate utility for the student and are not so esoteric that they can be suspected to be part of a cult. You've all seen such course offerings and I needn't digress on that here.

Those artists who are so opaque and yet insistent on one interpretation of their work that they need to attach a three-page manifesto to their paintings deserve the sparse audience that they get for their work. In my own work, I attempt to reach a broad audience by splitting the difference between my fascination with the purely abstract compositional elements while still providing a bit of narrative content for those viewers that find the raw geometry of the underlying structure intimidating or boring.

Some of the subject matter as well as my design is implied by means of one of those arty catch phrases "negative space." Shapes and subject matter are defined not just by what is there but also by what is not there in those voids between pieces. Even colors that are not physically present in the work can be subconsciously "implied" by means of surrounding those voids with complimentary colors to create an after image with a phenomenon known as simultaneous contrast.

Materially, my wall sculptures as I call them, are made of aluminum for light weight and to avoid rust problems in outdoor settings. The pieces are riveted together and air brushed with automobile paints making them quite durable. Not all, but some of the materials, have had former lives as stop signs and storm doors. I do my best to make sure this fact is not evident in order to avoid having some curatorial type or art critic try to intellectualize the use of recycled traffic signs into having some deeper meaning at a later date when I can't defend myself or my art.

At this point I think I had best close this bit of fuzzy artist rhetoric before you start thinking that all those heads that are represented by negative space are in the art department.  --Nov. 7, 1996

BACK