Transcript: John Frame - Sculptor

For arts sake
Episode “John Frame sculptor”

John Frame: Well for me I knew really early on, probably when I was eight or nine or ten years old that there was something different in terms of internally. I could tell by referring to my peers and the people around me that the things that interested them did not interest me. And I just had this really strong sense of being different.
And it wasn’t until I went off to college and experienced a Bergman film actually that I had found, an exterior reflection of my interior world. And that was what sort of launched my awareness that I was some kind of artist. I didn’t know what kind of artist, but from that point on. Which was probably about when I was seventeen or eighteen, it was a search for my particular form of art that my pursuit would take. And I thought it was going to be a write.
I tried writing, I tried music, I tried some sorts of performance and t didn’t happen until actually I was in a graduate program in writing. , That I realized I would never be an exceptional writer. And started turning to two dimensional works. And somehow I had developed a kind of native skill with a pencil. Not a great ability to capture realism, but I was flexible with pencil. And I just thought oh, I will try this.
And it felt right for awhile, then I kind of hit a block again and then one night I discovered sculpture, which was just kind of a fluke. It was just because I didn’t have the materials I ordinarily used for drawing painting and I just picked up a kitchen knife and a block of wood and it was magic. And from that moment on I realized this is the kind of artist I am.
I grew up in the southern California car culture. My dad was a steel worker my mother was a cook for a local junior high school. And neither of them was educated, my father had a third grade education. My mother had a high school degree. But they were both just part of the labor force essentially. There was nothing cultural at our home at all. I never saw a symphony, I never heard music. Um, it was just cars and sports that were the two things in my world. Neither of them were of any interest to me at all.
So I just had this really vigorous sense that there was something else waiting for me. And that I needed to leave home the minute I could and to find it. Really if I get all the way down to the base, the core of why I continue to do it and why I was called to it in the beginning, it was a spiritual question for me. Its, I am here on the planet. I know that I have a limited lifespan in this go round, there may be another go round I am not sure.
But for some reason I think I had an innate sense of purpose that your not here to just take up space, you are here to do something. And you know finding what that is, is the chore. And once you discover what that is, then it is an act of will to achieve that. But I think it is all about a spiritual kind of calling. It is just my job to do the maximum I can do with my life while I have it. And anything less is going to be a disappointment somewhere down the road. For me or for someone I am not sure.
From the very beginning I have believed that is one of the best things to do with a human life. That it is not a frivolous thing to do at all. It is not in anyway a light thing to do with your life. It is actually a very serious pursuit, its ironic living in a culture that treats it as kind of this sideline. Something that, you know, flaky people do. And I have just believed the entire opposite from the beginning. It is one of the most profound things that you can do with your life. And again whether you’re painting or writing. It is one of the great gifts that we can give the world.
A lot of people refer to life as an artist is one where you are only seeking to please yourself. And you’re only communicating with yourself really, it’s about what you have to say and how you get it out there and they don’t acknowledge that the audience plays an important part. I am just the opposite. For me the creating of the object is only completed when the audience is present. Meaning I can spend six months or a year working on something. But it only comes full circle when it is exposed to people.
I don’t do it for them; I am not saying what would the audience like ultimately. But I am sensing as I move along that I am revealing myself in the work. I am putting my interior world into those images. And I need to have other people see them and respond to them to be competed. And it really is a kind of circuit.
And for me there are two points of completion in the work. One is when I complete an image that I am really satisfied with and I guess it’s beautiful, compelling, interesting, whatever it is you want to call it. And I have a moment of joy in the studio, so… catching me quite off guard here.
Um, and I guess certainly the goal here is to put something into the world that can have that impact on others. And I have had that impact. When I had my solo shows both at the L.A. County. And at the long beach museum I had more than one person come to me in tears. And I felt like wow, that’s it. That’s what I am shooting for, and it doesn’t help as I see you tearing up over there as the interviewer.
You will cut all this out right?