We recently connected with Brent Houzenga and have shared our conversation below.
Brent, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Everyone has crazy stuff happen to them, but often small business owners and creatives, artists and others who are doing something off the beaten path are often hit with things (positive or negative) that are so out there, so unpredictable and unexpected. Can you share a crazy story from your journey?
Being an artist I’ve experienced many crazy occurrences. Life usually stays pretty interesting and there have been many brushes with fame and famous people. This one was a whirlwind.
When I first moved to New Orleans I had my work hanging at the pizza place I waited tables at. It was cool. I worked with a lot of cool people. I got to make money while talking about and selling my work.
The restaurant was part of a group of restaurants and they threw a pretty epic Christmas party for everyone. I had already been at the party for about an hour. I’d already had a few beers when I get this phone call. The woman on the other end asks me if I could do a commission for her. She had seen one of my works at the pizza place and wanted me to make her another custom piece, based on that piece. The painting she was talking about was on this very strange piece of driftwood. All of my colorful portraiture took place in the center of the board. The rest was this really interesting wood grain. I told her that I could do it, but that I’d need to see the photograph she wanted me to use, and I’d have to go searching for a similar piece of wood.
The commission was intended to be a Christmas present. When she called me the first time we still had about two weeks until Christmas. This was another parameter I explained to her. It’s going to be a rush job, and if you really want it by Christmas we’ll have to get started right away.
This particular year Christmas day was on a Wednesday I think. She didn’t call me again until the Friday before, leaving very little time to create the piece. Oh yeah, the piece also needed to be shipped to Austin, TX. Oh boy.
She emailed me the photo and called me on the phone. In our conversation I was very hesitant. I didn’t know if I could pull it off with these time constraints. I still needed to find the piece of wood I was going to use! At the time I was also a gigging musician. I had a gig that night!
The email had the subject line: Your Man At Work. I open it to find that the photo was in a folder. In the folder was the photo and the text from a forwarded email. The email was from Matthew McConaughey, addressed to his wife Camilla Alves. Up until that point all I had was a first name and a phone number from her. It also became very apparent that this was a photograph from the set of Dallas Buyers Club. He is emaciated and wearing a cowboy hat.
That night I had a holiday party to attend, and a gig to play. At this point I am bursting with excitement! I’m telling everyone I see what has just happened, and everyone is like “Dude, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be out looking for that piece of wood?” They were right but I still had to play my gig. That night a man in a cowboy hat joined me on stage and danced to several songs.
Getting this piece done by Monday was now a mission. A mission that I was able to pull off by being lucky enough to find the right piece of wood to work on (That Night!!) and working around the clock. Add to that my buddy Stephen having the perfect packing supplies at his place of employment and we were in business. I painted my ass off and was able to have it in the mail by Monday morning.
I also gained the valuable piece of knowledge that FedEx delivers on Christmas eve. Bonus!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
For the last eighteen years my work has focused on painting found people from the 1890s. I rescued these photos from the trash. Although I don’t know who these people are, they changed my life. Initially what they helped me understand is the finite time we have here on earth. Realizing that lit a fire underneath me and pushed me to go after what I love, using their visage as my symbol. Most of my work is somehow related to time, whether that be through the idea of time travel, ghosts, or the subjects, layers, and objects involved in my process. Some other influences found evident include punk rock, street art, comic books, mysticism and psychology. I’m interested in science, but I’m more interested in mad science and experimentation.
Portraying anonymous people in this pop aesthetic almost one hundred percent of the time urges viewers to ask “who is that?” which has led me to seek out stories I can actually tell. Some of these stories have come from local news and causes, historical figures associated with current events, and personal stories taken from my life or people I encounter. Synchronicity is very important to my navigation. Some figures who I believe were drawn to me over the last few years are: James Baldwin, Emmeline Pankhurst, Lucy Parsons, Frederick Douglass, Thomas Edison, George F Johnson, Thomas Garrett, and Louise Michel.
I’m interested in portraiture but I’m equally interested in abstraction and the space between representation and the void. My experimentations with process have led me to think about these two premises often: On the microscopic level, everything is made of energy. On the macroscopic level everything is stardust. My hope is to depict my figures as part of the cosmic consciousness.
I grew up in a small town. The men in my life were hunters and farmers. I was always interested in art. In my grade school days it was comic books. I read a lot. I would make up my own characters and copy pages from my favorite books. When I was like ten years old I dressed up at Robin for Halloween (ya know like Batman and Robin). I still carry the nickname Boy Wonder and actually have it tattooed on my arm. In middle school it was all about punk rock and skateboards. The art from all of these subcultures were very influential.
Going into college I still wanted to draw comic books. I had no clue about how to do that. I found myself at a state school (Western Illinois University) in a fine art department. “We don’t do comic books here.” I ended up studying printmaking and graphic design, while still playing in bands, making zines and flyers and promoting my bands.
I studied Fine Art but really I had no idea what that looked like, or how to do it in the real world. Finding my photos from the 1890s led me to create my first body of work outside of art school. A random road trip to Des Moines, IA with a friend led me to land my first show at a coffee shop. I sold almost the entire collection at that first show. I figured out the rest as I went from there, quickly setting a goal for myself: I’m going to try to have a show like this in every major city. I don’t think I’ve actually reached that goal, but I’ve done a pretty rad job having shown in galleries and done projects across the country and globe.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding part of doing what I do is seeing that I’ve made an impact on other people. When I see that someone is inspired. When I see that my passion has ignited something in another person. I do what I do for a number of reasons, one of them being that I can’t help it. It’s something that I have to do, but making a difference in peoples lives is right at the top of my list.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
I think the big thing to understand, at least from my perspective and what I do as an artist, is that this is not a product. Obviously it’s all for sale. I have to eat. I have to live. This is how I make my living, but unless I’m creating a commission project for someone, none of this is created with the intention of selling. That might be hard to understand. It is all for sale, but that’s not the reason I make a painting. I create art because I HAVE to create art and when I’m painting it is my intention to stay involved in the process until whatever that painting is supposed to be reveals itself to me.
Some of my best work has not sold. It is probably one of the strangest and hardest business models. Sometimes people might say “Well, why don’t you just make some things that people will buy?” The answer is either A. I’m stupid and a bad business man or B. I just don’t have it in me. I gotta make the things I need to make.
Sometimes I make life harder for myself but the bottom line for me is that this is not a job. This is not a lifestyle. This is my life.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.houzenga.com
- Instagram: @houzenga
- Other: Google Me.
