BORBAY

Any guy will tell you, meeting the father of your significant other can be a moment of great anxiety. Will you have something in common? Will you get along? Will he like you, or grab the shotgun and growl, “stay away from my daughter?”

Fortunately for yours truly, beyond a mutual love for Erin (my girl, his daughter), a quick rapport and mutual enjoyment of scotch, Tom Hessel and I share another love – art. After showing me around his Minnesota-based studio, I immediately realized Tom’s work required a far more significant audience. Therefore, I asked him to put together some images and information about his life and journey as an artist – which I will weave throughout this post.

You can mouse over each picture for the works title, and dimensions. After the jump, find out more about Tom Hessel, his painting, silverpoint and photography.

From Tom: OK, this first part is going to sound a bit like urban-legend or folklore… but I started drawing when I was about five years old. I would go to visit my grandmother and she would have the wrapping papers from the butcher shop that she saved for me to draw on.

She also gave me one of those Eberhart-Faber yellow pencils with the eraser on the end and I would try to draw the comics from the newspaper while she went about her daily routine.

Since this time, I’ve been interested in drawing…I seem to have a knack for it and I truly enjoy doing it.

In my early years, I would draw along with the Jon Nagy “Learn to Draw” TV show. He would take you through a series of steps with shapes and lines in order to create a landscape scene.

Later, I would draw from “Zane’s Anatomy”. Again, basic shapes and lines to create animals and people. In High School, I took all the art classes that were offered. I was fortunate to have received a lot of help and encouragement from my teachers during this time.

I learned about Silverpoint Drawing from an old book called “A Dictionary of Artistic Media”. It’s not anything new, but I’ve never come across anyone else that does it. So, here’s a short description for those who may be interested…

Basically it’s just drawing in pure silver. I bought a short length of silver wire at a jewelry store, straightened it out and inserted it into a mechanical pencil. However, in order for silver to leave a mark, the surface needs to be hard and smooth. So, I painted thinned gesso onto a piece of press-board, then wet sanded it and repeated this process several times until it was very smooth.

It wasn’t until later that I discovered that the silver would mark on a piece of “store-bought” cold-press illustration board, which also has a rather hard and very smooth surface. This really cut down on the time commitment for preparation.

Since the silver leaves only a single-toned mark, the darks and lights of the image are created through overlapping layers of strokes. These are called hash-marks and this is similar to a pen and ink drawing technique. In time, the silver marks will oxidize and give the drawing a patina.

Eventually, I received my BFA degree from the local college and by this time, I had also become interested in photography. So, I bought a 35mm SLR camera and started taking pictures.

I’d use some of them for my artwork and drawings, but I became excited about creating the images within the frame of the camera, so I decided to do my graduate studies in photography.

The Elmdale and Century 21 photo series were created at this time. After this, I had a camera with me at all times and I would shoot something whenever the mood struck me.

Am I a photographer or an artist? Well, I believe either can be both, if that makes any sense.

Most all of my artwork starts as a photograph, but some of my photo images are my artwork.

Ultimately, it’s the image that matters to me and the medium is simply an attempt to find the best way to present the image. So, I guess I’m an image-maker.

For my drawing and painting, my influences would be Michelangelo and Andrew Wyeth. Probably, for their realism and their ability to reproduce their visions accurately.

As for my photography, I was always a fan of Diane Arbus and Ansel Adams.

Arbus for her ability to find the eccentricities in people and Adams for his very graphic light and shadow compositions.

For me, it’s always been about people. The other souls that we encounter during our lives are what I find most interesting and enriching. Almost all of my images are of people. Some might say that I do portraits.

True enough, but my goal is to capture more than just a likeness. My attempt is to present something about the person, themselves, or about their relationship to their situation at that particular time…an instant in a life that may be shared by the viewer.

The only nexus for the series pieces that I have done is the situation that is shared between the principals in the images.

People who have been put together in a particular place for a period of time, so as to have a shared experience or a commonality of purpose.

However, I also try to give each image it’s own identity, based on the individuality of each of the subjects. I don’t really have any single “favorite” piece that I have done. Sometimes, things just seem to flow and come together.

Whether it’s a piece of art or a photograph, the image seems to come to life and I feel pleased with the results.

These pieces will become my “favorites” and, usually, they will also be accepted and liked by others. Sometimes, when I’m not happy at all with the results, someone else may like the piece very much. I guess it’s all in the eye of the viewer.

Whether my work is considered as art or not, I leave up to those who view it. I believe that if something is viewed as having a value beyond it’s own intrinsic usefulness, it may be art. In any case, I hope you enjoy viewing my images. I certainly have enjoyed creating them.

- Thank you Tom, for taking the time to share your work and your journey.