We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ladislav Hanka. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ladislav below.

Hi Ladislav, thanks for joining us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

Yes, I do earn a living at this and fine art is by no means a simple calling from a financial standpoint. You must cast a broad net and indeed have something to say and then care deeply enough to stay with it for decades and the bar has, historically seen, been set pretty high. A certain degree of humility is appropriate while just doing the lonely studio work over the long haul and thus readying one’s self to accept opportunity when it shows its glowing face in your life. I wasn’t too proud to design beer bottle labels for a local microbrewery, which at the time was small and had no real name recognition to speak of but, it did well eventually. I accepted some shares of stock in the company instead of demanding money they didn’t have to spare and that level of accommodation to their needs served me well as that modest investment became my nest egg, later allowing me to build the studio I wanted and indeed, needed. It was Bell’s Brewery and many of you might know the Two-hearted Ale with its Brook Trout logo in every bar or restaurant in the country and emblazoned on beer trucks passing you on the highways. It was just one such label of many I have done over several decades. It takes a certain level of modesty to accept those commissions and live with this perhaps being the extent of one’s ‘fifteen minutes of fame’, if unsigned and anonymous. And we learn to accept that the real work of the artist will probably not be so well rewarded and that it’s OK. You never really know and move on to make that for which you were born— wherever that ends up taking one — perhaps like the now beloved poet and painter Basho, who wandered about medieval Japan and posted his poems to bridge abutments and left his drawings in country inns as payment for his meager meals. He did however ultimately enjoy far greater freedom than the emperor himself.

Ladislav, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am quite simply an artist who works mostly in line because that kind of clarity and precision seems to suit me – mostly as drawings or etchings. Many trees – no leaves – just gloriously twisted branches — as skeletal structures are to muscle — without all the fur and feathers and leaves or clothing— undisguised and naked. Lately I have been working with honeybees in artistic collaborations that involve my placing drawings and etchings into the hive and allowing living bees to chew on the artwork and build accretions of beeswax upon it. You’ll see that in some of the reproduced works here. Ultimately it’s been about my interactions with nature as both artist and years ago as a scientist, as a fisherman, forager, birder and so forth. The natural world seems to be the crucible within which one can hope to glimpse a meaningful reflection of that within one’s self that is so much more than just a frail and feeble ego construct but a distillation of that which has been poured into one’s head by society…. conventional conditioned responses to what we might think we should have been or perhaps even are. It is all in truth so much more or, conversely, profoundly simpler, with but the merest of shifts in perspective. Art has been a good journey in coming to some deeper synthesis — as much unlearning as it has been learning and the rewards have largely been quite private…. learning to love silence and perception… and of course the produced artwork has occasionally been memorable — even popular within a limited audience — as signposts along that journey.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

For me it has largely been a spiritual quest– a melding of soul and material—exploring through the visual arts what meaning is to be found in this earth-walk . That which lies behind all the superficial allure of self-aggrandizement, consumption, money-making, ego-gratification and all else ultimately irrelevant has a way of dropping out of the equation as one ages and finds them to be passing fancies that become progressively less compelling with the years as this bag of bones, flesh and thoughts (that weren’t ultimately so original or brilliant as I once thought) is all eventually recycled and mostly soon forgotten. What do you know about your own ancestors — the ones you never actually physically met? Typically, very little. You remember personalities with whom you actually interacted. If I will have been gently led, through the discipline of art, to be more fully present to that which is eternal, that will in itself have been a worthy way to spend my days.

That said; one does need to earn a living and evolving skills as an artist does require this being more than a hobby. Thus, an income is generally implied for most of us. That economic side of the arts can be a cross to bear, but is also a force for self-improvement that is undeniably compelling. No getting around that. Don’t talk it to death or overthink it. Just show up and do the work, day in and day out as a way of life. You will improve under that pressure or discover that there are other ways of living that are more your own path —no shame in opting for a simpler, humbler and more elegant solution to being creative in a low stress environment without the economic complications that making art into a livelihood inevitably present.

What I have to pass along in that area of almost universal concern among my colleagues and especially for those entering the field is that, I have seen a vast array of creative efforts that people engage in and others find worth owning or supporting. It’s pretty amazing what a variety finds its niche— enough so, that I believe most anything of almost any sort, in any medium can ultimately find an audience — if it is done with heart and is therefore genuine. You know which they are and when you have sold yourself short as a true artist— i.e.; true to yourself . Others mostly respond to that as well. You don’t need a lot of customers from among those 9 billion people on planet earth to get by, nor do you need to live extravagantly.

The simplest of advice I tend to have for the young artist is nearly banal in its directness. Stay humble but also be realistic. You should price your artwork somewhere in the neighborhood of what couches and TVs cost—perhaps a well-used car. It should cost in the range of the stuff anybody who has a job buys and could afford, if it matters enough to them. That admittedly sounds strange and oddly calculated, but that is also an honest exchange in the absolute, rock-bottom real economy of actual human beings simply trading in the goods each of us needs or wants, whether cash is involved or more simply, as barter. You make something for those who cook for you or repair your car and they, in turn, provide you with the means to stay in the studio and off the job market doing that which is truly your calling. And in the beginning, stay humble in the recognition that you’re still learning and will be doing so for some time to come. So price your early work, such that your aunt Hattie and the neighbor can afford to help Nancy or Bob’s kid along on that journey and make a modest purchase without busting the bank for their charity. It’s not so precious and does its work for you by being out there among people rather than gathering dust in your drawers,

Let go of it all at modest prices, thereby expressing belief in yourself. That level of faith in your calling will be required of you all along. Looking back some years from now you’ll discover, that it’s unlikely you’ll be creating anything crazy different with the passage of years. You are who you are, but what you do will simply have become far better for the time invested in yourself and doing the work continually – skills gained, sophistication earned through false starts, pratfalls and successes, foolish excess, reassessment of your very motivations, time spent in meditation, in art museums – gaining the experiences that feed one’s art and soul, giving one something to say. All of it requires time — lots of it. Money can, to a certain extent, buy that needed time, but there’s also some discipline involved in simply being present in the studio and staying with it. Others are often willing to help when they see an honest effort being made, especially when they can associate what you do with a real name and a face.

Among those efforts is staying out of debt, paying off loans fast as you possibly can and not spending what you don’t have. Debt is a monkey on your back that eats away at you continuously and like rust, it never sleeps but just keeps accruing interest even as you sleep—hardly conducive to maintaining the relaxed focus and altered states that art comes out of. It’s common sense and seemingly obvious but, we all make those mistakes anyway. By your attitude, you can do much to make it easier on others who might wish to be helpful. My own experience tends to confirm what so many of the sages tell us— that when you are on your dharma path or doing that which you were born to do, you will indeed get the help you need. It comes from somewhere, somehow. It will not necessarily be what you think you want but, it tends to be what you actually need.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

There are many goals that attend an engagement with the birds, bees and trees or fish as I have largely done and those relationships change and deepen with time. Under it all there is, perhaps, an ulterior motive in the help I may provide others in awakening to the sentience of the beings with whom we cohabit this blessed green earth. That which you learn to use judiciously and interact with enters the realm of the beloved and is treated better for that level of recognition— and no longer to be seem as mere commodities. Go for walks and observe, eat the mushrooms and fruits encountered on walks—go fishing— chew on tree buds and stare in awe at a sunset. I have been doing this for some four decades and what I thought I had to say continues to evolve and no longer seems so self-centered nor unique or insufferably, self-consciously ‘original’. So many things one might do and then there is that which is intuitively inspired and yours to do.

Artwork that goes beyond mere personal glorification and exploration of one’s self and ones motivations does seem to communicate enough to awaken subtler and rewarding feelings in others and that is a worthy goal, but also just a first step. As the awakening progresses, far deeper levels of awareness arise and they typically get progressively harder to communicate as they enter subtle realms and push one into silence and awe. With enough engagement, every preparatory drawing becomes simply what it is and done with the same awareness that enters into those works destined for exhibition. Eventually, even the understanding being so gained, begins itself to drop away into pure consciousness and when such blessed moments arise, one is well rewarded — enough so to move along and go deeper and eventually into an acceptance of that too being incomplete and yet rewarding as you do what seems to be your lot in the time you have here. That is something you’d not have guessed when entering the vocation, but perhaps closest of all to the motivations of a child taking up the crayon to face off with all creation—the creature you once were living outside of time and intellect, eternal and in the moment.

I think we all realize in time that those of our works that have been done with a customer in mind and the earnings we think we need are those that fall well short of the mark. People are fond of the old Oscar Wilde quote that; “when Bankers get together over dinner they talk about art and when Artists meet, they talk about money”. Well, it is clever and conveys a certain ironic, surface truth, but ultimately it profoundly misses the mark of what goes on when you are truly among kindred spirits, exchanging at a soul level. You become that with which you fill your days — and the company you keep matters. I like to bring up Flaubert at such times who tells us; “be regular in your habits and modest in your day to day affairs , so that you may be immodest in your creative aspirations and wild in your art.”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Ladislavhanka.com
• Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3W5qXUuQw8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnChRikbWzk&feature=youtu.be https://vimeo.com/216893460
• Other: Film trailer
  A Two-hearted Tale
  A documentary film about the artist behind most of the Bell’s Brewery Beer labels The development of the Two-hearted Ale label and a lot discussion of fine art as opposed to design or commercially applied arts and similar matters

  https://www.woodwardoriginal.com/work/atwoheartedtale

Image Credits

Anna Ill Zalisnkis Marovich