The San Francisco blog “Art is Moving” is interviewing artists across the country and two of those interviews — with Eureka Springs artist Rebecca J. Becker and UALR artist and gallery director Brad Cushman — have been posted, along with images of their work.
Cushman on his influences:
It really depends on the project I am working on at the time. I collect inspiration from family photos, found photos and objects, weathered billboards, interactions with friends and strangers. I love kitsch too — growing up with MAD magazine, Saturday Night Live, TV Sitcoms, The Rocky Horror Picture Show etc. At the age of five, I swam with the Monkees — literally the “rock” group at a hotel in St. Louis, had a crush on Elizabeth Montgomery on Bewitched, saw Cher tell Sonny to “fuck off” at the Illinois State Fair and went to see Rock Husdon and Carol Burnett in the musical I do, I do in the 1970s. LOL
Becker on how we should react to corporate support of exhibits, such as those backed by British Petroleum:
The article [in the Guardian] raises interesting questions, but shouldn’t we — all of us — be looking at ourselves a bit?
Do we drive?
Have completely plastic-free computers?
Use acrylic paint?
BP could not exist if hundreds of thousands of us didn’t enable them to do so.
The money BP provides the Tate comes from us.
Should I not sell a painting to a couple who walk into the gallery, because they drove to town in an SUV?
Eureka Springs (where I live) spends a good deal of money enticing people to come here — and that advertising allows me to survive as an artist, because it works — people do come. Roughly 2,500 people live here — many of us, artists — and nearly a million people visit every year. Not one of them comes on foot.