Jason Engelund

Excerpt from the Forthcoming

Snowstorm
Photographing the Sun, Painting the Stars

a memoir on becoming an abstract landscape artist

I noticed the window in back was missing a lock, as my girlfriend who was an art student showed me around the university’s painting studio and told me the place was empty during winter break. I wasn’t a student there. I had a job in the basement of the university’s cafeteria scrubbing enough potatoes, helping to make enough meatloaf or whatever dinner for the thousands of students. My college had pushed deep southern conservatism and my family was similar. Not a healthy thing to be in, so I quit, both. I left. I moved to get a job and teach myself to paint. Shenandoah Valley, Appalachia, Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Motorcycle racing along mountain roads. Down double yellow lines 50, 55. Staccato rhythmic sounds of engine, wheels and asphalt, speeding through open green grass fields. Highway guardrails flickering like the percussion of flamenco music. That's when the idea came. Flamenco’s passionate, intense cathartic spirit was my inspiration for a vision of abstract action paintings. Duende. That’s what I’ll paint about. Duende is the intense aesthetic that seems dark, angry, but it's an intense, authentic, focused expression and in the end it's a release, a celebration. Duende, notably happens in flamenco and the bullfight, but also more artforms. How do the Blues work? How does singing a song about your sorrows make you happier? Aristotle called it “catharsis”. Why flamenco? Something about the sound. Something about the stories in the songs. Not the lyrics. I don’t speak Spanish. It’s like conversing with someone in a language you don’t speak. The tone, the body language, carries the meaning. The story is in the music, like constellations are in the stars. Like the feel of riding, the open fields, speeding down the road. I used to be locked up. Now I’m free. Shooting through this field on this road, on this motorcycle.

Action painting. My two plus years here teaching myself to paint have led to action painting. I need to make these paintings. This feeling has urgency. I had agreed to rent a small apartment when my girlfriend and I moved in together, and so I didn’t have a space to paint. I need to break into the university’s art studio to paint. No one would be there. Why shouldn’t I use that studio space if no one is going to be there? I’ll be there at night, what if a security guard catches me? I look like a student. I should be able to talk my way out of it, but if not, I’ll lose my job. I need to use that studio.

O

I was back at my father’s house, Fremont, California. 1996. First time since I stopped going in summers years ago. I asked to stay a few days while looking for an apartment. Just passing through. He agreed. Fremont is a subway ride away from Oakland. When I applied to art college my Duende paintings were the first in my portfolio, along with artworks showing a range of materials and techniques. I was accepted and awarded scholarships cutting tuition way down. I knew private art school tuition would bring tons of debt. The way I figured it, when I graduated I’d have to get the kind of job that paid well, that came with health benefits. I wouldn’t worry about affording eyeglasses. Rural Virginia turned to a dead end. Ahead, California College of Arts and Crafts. Committing to my future. Staying an artist.

My plan was to get a tattoo right before I started school. Time to commit. A bull head, and under it a banner reading “Love or Death”. A creed from my Duende paintings. My moral compass. I had drawn a draft of the tattoo on my shoulder with a marker to make sure I wanted it. When my dad saw, he disapproved with a low mumble. I calmly gazed back, feeling his lack of agency.

O

California College of Arts and Crafts has transformed greatly since the years of my undergraduate degree. As I write this, the college is scheduled to permanently close in a year. Back then, the campus in Oakland was in a neighborhood full of restaurants, bookstores, art store. A perfect fit for me. Still poor, I couldn't afford a car and I found the cheapest room to rent just a few blocks away. It was actually a large closet but fit a single bed. I walked to school. I could walk everywhere.

The contract. I remember signing the contract. I had worked. I moved across the country. It was a huge financial commitment. The registrars’ office was in the basement of the original Victorian house purchased in 1906 to open the campus. The meeting was formal. The registrar spoke clearly, determinedly, slowly, emphasizing, this was a contract. This was the financial agreement regarding the tuition. Private art college tuition. My portfolio was awarded scholarships. There was no guarantee I would get scholarships each year. I have a crystal clear memory, my white shirt, the fluorescent lights, the teller window with green shudders, the paperwork and pen. I signed.