Gallery Talk with Jonas

[Ed. Note: We get many wonderful tour groups visiting the our Asheville art gallery.  The following is a transcription of a recent talk Jonas gave to one such group of avid art lovers during a visit facilitated by The Mosaix Group.]

What I’d like to emphasize is that in this gallery, we are very much into not doing things like everybody else.  We’re very much into making the art form, the concept of art, very accessible and available in a way that awakens something inside of you.

I want people to really be relaxed.  To be open and receptive say, “oh my God, there’s something about this painting!” or, “I hate this,”  “I love that,” “Gee, what is this made with?  Oh, it’s okay to touch!  Oh, good.”

I really want to convey the fact that there’s no such thing as art without love.  Art without love is not art.  It’s decoration.  It’s prettiness.  Looking good.  There’s a whole list – but it’s not art.  Art equals fearless love.  When love is fearless and when the energy comes through the artist without holding back – putting out everything that his or her life is all about, what comes out is inevitably great art.  And if you want to see it, it’s in every museum in the world.  When I go there, I don’t care what it is.  I’m just so moved.

For me painting is not a mental process.  If you already know what a painting is going to look like, then what’s the point?  Art is about discovery.  This is what Picasso said.  Art is about discovering the spirit.  Of what that looks like when it’s left un-held back and it’s allowed to flow out.  And when it comes out, it’s just mind-blowing.

“Pablo” by Jonas Gerard
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Now, not everybody actually likes Picasso – fine!  But I’ll tell you, he paved the way for us to be true to ourselves.  He was a classic artist as a young man.  He was classically trained, academically, by his father, an art professor.  When he was a teenager he was doing Renaissance paintings that you’d think had been done by somebody who had 70 years of experience.  He was just a teenager!  And by the time he was in his early 20’s, he started to break loose and he opened that door – that window of opportunity – for many of us.

Kandinksy in the 20’s actually founded Abstract Art, but he didn’t go from figurative to Abstract.  Picasso went from Classical Representation to what we know him for today.

So from my point of view, making art is like being a choreographer, you know?  Painting a new dance.  It’s about a musician getting on a keyboard or a saxophone, and feeling out what it would sound like of you played this way or that way.  It’s important for the artist to know his craft.

Now, back in the 60’s I did it all. I was experimenting…

You’ve heard of Timothy Leary?  I worked with him many times.  Along with two other guys.  The psychedelic group.  We did a lot of research together.

Some of the expansion of consciousness that I did back then was under semi-controlled conditions because we connected it with Eastern philosophy and concepts derived from all of the religions of the world, and it was good stuff.  It wasn’t kicks, it was really research and it was wonderful.

Jonas enjoys talking about art

But, then I decided to let that go and be totally just on caffeine…

Music is a big part of my painting.  I paint to music, and I enjoy it very much.  It started when I was younger.  I don’t really know how it happened.  Basically I became addicted to allowing the music to work through me.

Detail from Sansara XXXIV by Jonas Gerard
Click for a closer loog

I was a modern dancer when I was in my twenties.  I danced for the Nikolais Dance Company in New York.  Modern moving – working with the body and expressing it on the stage – was fabulous!  I did that for a while, and then I went back to painting.  But music, movement, action, expression, discovering, were all part of my life and still are.

Once or twice a month, I do performance paintings.  I paint live in my studio for people.  We usually pack the house.  We don’t charge anything for it.  I put up a blank canvas and I do it in front of everybody.  I create the unexpected and people see what it’s like to allow that energy come through right before their very eyes.

And, it’s not a three hour painting.  It’s a half hour painting.  A forty-five minute painting at the most.  The music is wild.  The brushes are going all over the place.  I’m dancing and I’m painting!  I’m turning the canvases upside down and right-side up, and I’m throwing the paint.  You expect it to be a big mish-mosh.  And then I stand back and I go, “Oh my God, look at that.  Whoa.”

So, the whole idea of that is for people to see what it’s like when the art is created.  You see finished paintings in galleries and museums.  You hear a piece of music that’s been done.  You go to see a dance company and you see them perform and they’re great, but what was it like when they were actually in the process of making it happen?  What happens is that you’re dealing with an element called uncertainty. You don’t know.  If you know what it’s going to look like, you’re just a crafts person.  You’re just cranking them out.  You’re just decorating.  I feel very strongly on that.  Unless you create in the very moment, you’re just making copies of something that you’ve already done.  Go fresh.  What would it be like if you’ve never done a dance like this one?

So you witness that creative energy at the moment that it’s happening.  I’m dealing with uncertainty.  I’m dealing with not knowing.  And I’ve done that so often that I really enjoy not knowing!  At the beginning it was terrifying.  “Oh my God.  Everybody’s watching! What am I going to do?”

And after a while, that disappeared.

And now I just go up there.  I may not be feeling well, I may have a stomach ache, I may have been up all night – but as soon as I cross that black tape into my painting area it’s like all of a sudden this incredible energy comes in.

Creative energy is universal energy.  And universal energy has tremendous healing power.  It’s the most spiritual thing you can get in touch with.  That’s what all religions are based on, but very few of us understand the process of practicing that feeling.  I’m not talking about religion, I’m talking about the spiritual essence of energy.  When I’m in that space, I’m in total bliss.

Art just is…

I was talking to my lady friend the other day and she was saying “We need to take a vacation!”  And I say, “I’m always on vacation.”   This is my vacation.  I find vacation boring.  “Look at the canyons!  Yes, very nice.  And these mountains, yes.  Okay, what else you got?”  I don’t enjoy being a spectator.  I like to get involved in the process.  So when I go out there and I look at beautiful mountains, I want to have a canvas in front of me!  Because what’s the point?  That’s the kind of creature I am.

So, music is a big part.  And being totally present.  There is no past or future, there is only now.  A half hour ago is gone.  A half hour from now, we aren’t really sure about.  It could go this way or that way, we don’t know.  So we only have now.  And I live in the now.  Naturally I have to plan, you know.  I have to plan things because this is a physical universe.  And rent has to be paid and doctor’s appointments have to be kept, but basically it’s all about being totally present.  And being totally present means taking risks with the art.  How much risk?  I compare it to being at the edge of a cliff and jumping out.  That kind of risk.  I’m not saying you should do that.  That’s a metaphysical cliff.  But I put my life on the line!

“What Goes Around Comes Around”

A friend of mine told me, “Jonas, your art sucks!”  This was 35 years ago.  “It’s terrible, it’s horrible, it’s garbage!  Get out of here!”  And I was shocked.  I was in tears.  I say, “Well, what am I doing wrong?”  And he says, “You’re not putting your life on the line!  You’re making pretty pictures, and you’re selling them like anything.  So what?  That’s not art.  Get the hell out of here.  Take this portfolio, I never want to see you again.”  It was the best wake-up call I ever had.  I realized he was right!  He was right.  And I was crying but I knew he was right.  And I started thinking about what I could be if I could just jumped off.  And what I found out is that as soon as you jump off – with full faith – you instantly sprout wings.  You don’t die.  You go into another world.  You have to take the courage to not know and go to that place that is not written word for word.  So when people watch me paint, there’s a tendency for people to say, “Gee, I’d like to live like that.”  And some try it, some experiment with different aspects of their lives.  Then I get this email that says, “Oh my god, I had no idea!  Watching you changed my life.”

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