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The only thing that
Joseph Glasco and Bed
Long have in common
is their inclusion in
“Fresh Paint: The
Houson School.
Long’s two paint
ings are figurative and
narrative, unlike Glas-
co’s panels, which are
abstract. In “The Fam
ily,’' four people are
sitting on a couch, the
background and the
couch are dark and
solid, but the people
are translucent, al
most ghostly in ap
pearance. “Faceless
America^ depicts a
mother, father and
baby standing behind
a table covered with
food and surrounding
them is a cornfield.
The colors are bright
and the brush strokes
are delicate, making
the subject seem frag
ile.
Glasco’s screen is
impressive, if only due
to its size and intri
cacy: there are ten
panels, each 88 X 48'
and covered with
small, rectangular
pieces of cloth, each
individually painted.
Laura Russell, also featured
in the show, called it the most
fabulous piece.
“It’s phenomenal," she said.
“It could be any place at any
time in the whole world. It’s
hard to articulate it; it’s like it’s
just so right on.
“It works so incredibly on ev
ery level. You have this duality
going on in it, different kinds
of dualities that don’t domi
nate each other. They work. It
has to do with both sides, it has
to do with inside/outside, with
paint verses form."
Glasco has been doing col
lages for about eight years. He
said he likes the way he can
add a piece of cloth and cover
something that was once there,
or subtract a piece and make
something hidden visible.
“It lends itself well to mv
work — collage," he said.
“Changes are often accidental,
which I found I could use in
the composition of the thing.
With the (paint) brush, it's pre-
tty intentional anything you do,
because the mind and the
hand, it’s all one."
Glasco’s work is neither di
dactic, nor political. It simply
is.
“I just do,” he says. “Art is
the reason. I'm pretty much of
the school — art's about art. It
becomes a thing in itself that
takes on life. If it’s good, it
works. If you’re turned on, one
or two other people are going
Bert Long s work is currentlv on exhibit in the Butler
Galleiy. Nine Months In Hell was painted in 1980.
to be turned on.
“It’s the one thing that I’ve
found that 'makes life worth
living. It’s very healthy for ev
eryone."
Glasco in no way intends to
manipulate the viewer’s atti
tude toward his own work.
“No messages, no. causes, no
narratives, no stories as a rule,
tional reaction than I’m going
to get. You’ll see something to
tally different. I’m not plan
ning what you’re going to get
’cause I don’t know when I
start these what I’m going to
get."
Glasco doesn’t “try" to do
anything with his paintings.
People don’t try to make love,
pened and I’ll walk away from
it and it’s finished, as far as I’m
concerned. But it may take 10
years for that to happen, or it
make take an hour, or it may
take a minute.
“It’s a kind of magic that
happens which vou can’t ex
plain. And vet, if you’re moved
by my screen, it’s something
“Visual art is about visual art,” Glasco said. “Its an
experiential thing; its not about issues. Anything you want
to read into them, you’re going to get a different emotional
reaction than I’m going to get. You’ll see something totally
different. I’m not planning what you're going to get ‘cause I
don’t know when I start these what I’m going to get.
“Anything you want to read into them, you’re going to
get a different emotional reaction than I’m going to get. ”
except I use the figure some
times, never with the idea of
indicating a message. I think
that belongs in writing, in liter
ature, in another medium.
“Visual art is about visual
art. It’s an experiencial thing;
it’s not about issues.”
What, then, do Glasco’s
screens say about him?
“Anything you want to read
into them," he said, “you’re
going to get a different emo
he savs, either you do or you
don’t.
“You have in you some
where, in a dark spot, what the
world would call beauty and
you get to that some way," he
said.' “Sometimes I work on a
piece for a year or two or three
or four until it comes alive.
Suddenly, I’ll see something in
it that will turn it on and I’ll
suddenly feel it happen. I’ll
know that something hap
that I didn't intend to do. My
intentions weren't to do some
thing to move vou, I intended
to move mvself. Mv intentions
were to do something that I en
joy and get excited looking at.
After that, I can present it to
the world as something they
might get off to. But first it had
to hit me."
Glasco believes that sending
his paintings into the world
carries a lot of responsibility.
“It is 3 responsibil
ity to send that work
off into the world and
say, ‘This is me. This is
a reflection of me,’ be
cause people are af
fected by art without
them even knowing it.
It affects them very
deeplv without their
even knowing it. I t
gets into their clothes,
into their living
rooms, into their
houses, into their chil
dren, into their
relationships."
Long, on the other
hand, paints with very
definite intentions: he
knows before he starts
what a painting will
look like, and what it
should communicate
to the viewer.
“When 1 go io my
studio, I spend tw r o
days sweeping and
stuff,” he said. “I have
to go through this rit
ual. Once I sit down,
paintings come to me
and they don't come
real subtly. I mean
thev come in the mid
dle of the night like
claps of thunder.
“You know, I've said
this before and I’m se-
rious that I’ve had
paintings wake me up in the
middle of the night because it
was so noisy. So I know what
I’m going to do when I sit
down in the studio. I usually
know the title and everything
about the painting.”
“Faceless America” was a
turning point for Long.
“It was one of these paint
ings that sort of crept up on
me,” he said. “It was one of
those few paintings that was
not a clap of thunder. Techni
cally, I consider the other
painting (“Family”) a much
better painting. “Faceless
America” was the first big
painting I ever did. That paint
ing taught me all the things I
utilize now in my paintings.
“Basically, it’s a giant water-
color because it's all these va
porous thin washes done that
you’re actuallv seeing the white
of the canvas through.”
Rather than painting heads,
Long used mirrors.
“I wanted to bring the
viewer another dimension,” he
said. “Somehow, I wanted
them to spend more than tbe
four seconds that they said
people spend before paintings.
I wanted them to spend eight
seconds. And it happens.”
Long said he’s seen people sit
and look at themselves in the
mirrors. He got a laugh out of
one woman who used a mirror
to make up her face.
see page 13