We were lucky to catch up with Jack Massing recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jack, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

The Art Guys. I collaborated with Michael Galbreth in Houston, Texas from 1983 until his passing in 2019. The Art Guys was a meta project that included thousands of artworks, performances, video, installations, and numerous exhibitions over those years. We both set out to make The Art Guise a container for our various projects. It consists of a huge bandwidth and projects that are as simple and complex as could be imagined by us. For example a fast sketch of a few seconds to projects that took several years to accomplish make up our oeuvre. I continue my creative output without Michael to this day in many forms and collaborations with other artists. In fact I have used “our oeuvre” successfully in a sentence. I like the way it “works visually” and in context.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My father was an artist and my older brother Peter is an artist. Being exposed to the visual arts from an early age gave me an advantage that cannot be calculated. However I did not want to be an artist by the end of high school. I then attended a community college and mixed my studies between science and the arts. During my early college years I was an intern at an outdoor park called Artpark in Lewiston, NY. There I was exposed to site specific installation and earthwork art that completely changed the way I thought.

By my mid twenties I considered myself to be a working artist and felt a compassion to try my best. After over 35 years of collaboration as one of The Art Guys; I continue to try my best and figure out which ideas are the best ones to attempt to work upon and complete.

I, like many artists, who work with ideas understand that success comes in the form of good work, not the financial success expected by business. It is important to be sustainable and happy.

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

I think that NFTs are a cynical con job put forth by aggressive internet technicians trying to develop another income stream off the backs of naive creative types.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My mission is to be able to work every day in my studio/office that provide me with the tools to make the things that I get most excited about. As of now I want to solve some of the problems and raise awareness about the degradation of the Earth that we seem to be destine to destroy.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jackmassing.com
• Instagram: diddlyaha
• Other: jamassing@gmail.com

Image Credits

1. Paul Hester

2. Paul Hester

3. Jim Napierala

4. The Art Guys

5. Jack Massing

6. Jack Massing

7. Jack Massing

8. Brian Tietz