ART, WHATEVER IT TAKES

Since the early pandemic in 2020, Rome Art Program has conducted a series of interviews, “Art, Whatever It Takes.”
Artists, Art Critics, and Art Historians living in Italy, the U.S., and U.K., share their insights during these powerful times.

Interview with Jock Ireland

Jock Ireland is a Canadian sculptor,  teaches at the New York Studio School, and is a RAP Board Member.  Jock got a BA, majoring in French literature, from Duke University. He came to the NY Studio School to study with Sidney Geist in 1977.  He’s had one-person shows at the John Davis Gallery in Hudson, NY.   He is been included in the odd -the odder the better- group show.  Jock helped put together a selection of Louis Finkelstein’s writings and (Studio School) talks: The Unpicturelikeness of Pollock, Soutine, and others.   

Jock is also a board member of Christopher Caines Dance.

RomeArtProgram: Where do you live ? And what is your background?

Jock Ireland: I live in Brooklyn, New York. Was born and grew up in Canada, in Montreal. I went to Duke University in North Carolina—my mother’s alma mater. Came to New York after college, spent a year at the New York Studio School, then programed computers for 10 years, then went back to the Studio School in 1990 and have been there ever since—as a student and a teacher—a teacher lucky still to be able to take classes.

RAP: In your opinion is there a “creative method”?

Jock: Can’t say I think method has anything to do with creativity at least for me. Trying to get to the studio every day is as close as I get to a method.

RAP: The “lock down moment” can set you on the path of some important change(s) in your creativity and style… Has this happened to you?

Jock: Trying to teach—and to learn—via Zoom has resulted in changes to my teaching style—but I can’t think of anything beyond that.

RAP: What normally inspires you? Which is the most inspirational source you have found in Rome?

Jock: Dancers inspire me, but I didn’t see any dance performances when I was in Rome. The city itself was inspirational though. It was “real”/complicated—not a fantasy dreamed up by Walt Disney.

RAP: Is there a difference in working in Rome for an artist? What art medium do you prefer to work in?

Jock: I’ve never really worked in Rome. I like drawing, painting and sculpture—can’t be more specific than that.

RAP: Specific events and historical conditions have a significant role in the creative process; how does this pandemic emergency affect the Arts?

Jock: My visual artist friends are kind of used to working in isolation—though they’re not used to the sickness and death and economic devastation. My dance world friends have had a much harder time—but they’re amazingly resilient. It’s going to be a while before we understand the effect of the pandemic on the arts.

RAP: How are you feeling at this difficult moment and what made you feel this way? …are you optimistic for the future?

Jock: I’ve always been a kind of optimistic airhead.

RAP: What can Art contribute to history? Will “Art save us” ?

Jock: Art has always saved us, kept us sane, allowed us to go on living.

RAP: What is your most ambitious dream?…and the greatest sacrifice that you have made for your Art?

Jock: I’m very wary of dreams. I’m a very lucky guy: can’t think of anything I’ve had to sacrifice for art.

RAP: Recently, the artistic and cultural message of Italy and Rome was reemerging as a great “work in progress”, …is this your point of view?

Jock: Yes, I think everything’s going to be reemerging as a great work in progress—with an emphasis on work.

RAP: Which is your favorite Italian, or Roman, place(s) of art (Museum, Gallery, Monument…) ?

Jock: The Roman Forum: the ancient ruins low to the ground reminded me of the goldfish ponds on the grounds of the North Carolina nursing home where I, as a child, visited my grandmother, my mother’s mother.

RAP: Which period of Italian Art do you prefer? What is your favorite Italian work of art?

Jock: No favorites. I love it all.

RAP: How has Rome personally influenced you as an artist and a person?

Jock: Even though I haven’t spent much time in Rome, it has affected me deeply in complex ways. Yves Bonnefoy’s marvelous, recently translated Rome, 1630 gets ,at this depth and complexity. It begins, “Dwelling on a moment in history, suspending its future in our minds so we can consider the forces that grapple with one another then, the tensions that are hidden there, the interplay of necessity and chance: What point of view could be more suitable to the study of Roman art, particularly in the Seicento? For Rome was never, like Florence or Venice in certain periods, a more or less closed world—and as a result, rather simple in its maturation. On the contrary, from one end to the other of its history, Rome has been a kind of crossroads, with numberless passers-by, with unpredictable encounters; and the outcome has been—above all in painting, perhaps—as great a richness in the unresolved contradictions of the moment as in the realignment effected by the future. . .”

RAP: What’s your goal? What role does the artist have in society? Any final thoughts and advice?

Jock: No goals—beyond trying not to do too much damage. Each artist has to figure out a new role for himself/herself every day. Advice: give the Rome Art Program a try.