Tessa Chats with Van Caerndow

  Hello Kasbah Friends and Family. Today I was given the opportunity to meet with one of Studio Genre's featured artists, Van Caerndow. His show at Kasbah will begin July 10th in the upper gallery. We decided to have our chat in his space at Studio Genre. It was a fun experience listening to Van talk about his artwork as it surrounded us. Van is originally from New York, but came to Illinois for college. That was some 40 years ago and he now resides in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois. Before he began his painting career he owned and operated a record store. He did all the advertising himself, always the artist. When the record store closed, he was inspired to begin painting, using small strips of 2 inch by 10 inch pieces of glass as his canvas. He used Pebeo glass paint to create scenes for a renaissance fair he was working. He was surprised that people liked them and he actually did ok selling them.  He eventually began working with different sizes of glass, creating paintings of mythology, medieval scenes and eventually old west themes. That first year he did 150 paintings!

    Van shared with me that he actually came to SL for the sole purpose of showing his artwork. Friends of his suggested he try it out, and he cautiously logged in. He began by doing some role playing and asking people how he could go about bringing his art in-world. While here in SL he happened upon the article about Filthy Fluno, another SL artist, in the New York Times. He again began asking around and was given the information on how to bring his works here and how to display them. He even learned how to scan and printout his glassworks on watercolor paper to make them any size he wanted. He had been in SL for about 7 months when he began painting portraits of avatars, the bulk of his SL work now.

     I was camming around a little as we talked, and I was curious to know what influenced him in his art. I learned so much! Van is very influenced by Van Gogh, and yes, that is the inspiration for his avatars name. He has used several of Van Gogh's paintings as a starting point, even using the same couple from a famous painting in several of his own! He told me he likes creating paintings that tell a story, and that he needs to feel moved by something before he paints it. He likes action in his art, and hopes when people see his paintings they can see the story he is trying to convey.... "even with portraits, I try to get to know the person, spend time with them before I begin painting them" Van was so sincere as he spoke about his desire to create art that pushes him to get better and satisfies what others want to see as well. I asked what his current favorite was and though he had several the one that stuck with me was one called ‘Ed is Dead.’ He enjoys painting so much and you can tell in his work. In Ed is Dead, you have to really study the painting to get all that he has included....even down to a painting within a painting the size of a postage stamp!

     Van was excited about his upcoming and current shows and projects. In RL he has some of his SL portraits displayed in a hair salon. Each avie is sporting wild hair and getting great reviews from customers! In SL he has his own gallery, will be showing at Kasbah starting today and has an upcoming project that sounded intriguing. He will be painting portraits of ten SL artists, hopefully including, Filthy Fluno, Fuschia Nightfire, littleone Aries, Rowan Argus, Genevieve Silvercloud, Rag Randt and a few more, and they will in turn paint his portrait. The 20 paintings will be displayed as a series coming hopefully before the end of the year.

    The gallery was proving to be enticing, so I asked Van for the full tour. I was impressed by the detail in his works and we stopped to chat about several of the paintings. I especially liked the one he did of a Unicorn....there are so many I could mention, but I think the best thing is to check them out for yourself. As we came to the top of his gallery I noticed the sim around us. Studio Genre is a very unique place and I asked Van his thoughts about it. "I was impressed" he said, "when Gen and Jacobo first came to me about showing there, I had no gallery, nowhere to show my art full time. I thought it sounded tremendous! It feels like a family here." I was touched by how open and friendly Van was, and how much he truly appreciated what SL and his friends here have given him. I said goodbye to Van and before I tp'd out took a last look at some of my favorite pieces. It's not surprising that he has 7 commisioned works currently and has even sold some of his SL paintings in RL.  It was pleasure learning about this artist and his works. That’s all for now; until next time, Tessa1 Beck.