We recently connected with NICK GILMORE and have shared our conversation below.
NICK, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
I actually just finished a project that turned out to be one of the most personally meaningful ones I’ve done; it’s also outside of the type of projects I typically do. Much of my art practice entails salvaging wood (a very specfic wood commonly called Dade County Pine) from demolished houses in Miami, and repurposing it into artwork such as sculptures, furniture, and installations. The Dade County Pine (pinus elliottii var. densa) habitat covers much of Miami Dade County, particularly atop a geological oolitic rock ridge that extends from the northeast part of the county down through the soutwest, and terminating (or beginning- depending on your perspective) in Everglades National Park. The distinct Dade County Pine was treasured for its durable quality as a building material, and by the 1930s most of this habitat was destroyed- in it’ splace palm trees were planted to. For my recent project, I and a group of volunteers carried, by hand, a very large and heavy Dade County Pine beam about 2 1/2 miles into Everglades National Park and left it there, among other pines which are still standing. This project, called Going Home, was in development for over 4 years; I had to get a special permit from the National Park Service, and several arts and conservation groups were involved. Also, a friend who is a member of the Seminole Tribe gave a Land Acknowledgement at the event. This project, at first glance, appears to be about environmental issues like ecological awareness and Everglades conservation (which it is of course), but on a deeper level it is really about people- and how people can come together…the power of community. I’m not quite sure why but I got really emotional working on it and it was amazing to see it come to fruition. It happened on Sunday May 29, 2022 at Long Pine Key Trail in Everglades National Park.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am a Miami, FL based artist and educator. I have an active art practice, I have taught printmaking at Florida International University since 2015, and I work in technology and innovation at The Cushman School, a K-12 private school here in Miami. My art practice generally includes wood sculpture, architecture-inspired installation, and what I like to call “gonzo printmaking”- wherein I make large paper prints of different features that exist out in the world like cracking pavement, tree stumps, and other textures I find around the urban and natural environment. Most of my wood-based projects entail the salvage and repurposing of an incredible local wood known as Dade County pine (pinus elliottii var. densa). These trees once covered much of Miami Dade county but were harvested nearly to extinction by the 1930s. The wood is extraordinarily strong and beautiful, but I’m equally (perhaps moreso) attracted to the symbolic power it represents as a signifier of our fraught relationship to the natural environment. I collect it from demolished old Miami houses. Sometimes I do larger scale, performance related projects that emphasize community collaboration and complex logistical problem solving. In 2015 i did a project called Paper Pavement where we had a steamroller and a road crew and we drove around making large prints of eroded street surfaces in downtown Miami where Miami Worldcenter is now located. The event and the prints became documents of a changing urban landscape, but alos have this beautifully simple abstract quality to them as well. I mentioned my upcoming prject called Going Home, where we will be carrying a large old wood beam deep into Everglades National Park and leaving it there, as an homage to its history and the complicated ecological baggage we carry as modern humans. Both of these projects required intense application processes and special permits- to me that is a critical part of the creative process even though it seems just like bureaucratic nightmare; engaging with local government and regulatory agencies represents such a major component of functioning within a society- I like figuring it out.
All of this can be pretty directly devised from the majority of my professional background before I pivoted career-wise, which is/was in the construction trades. I’ve worked as an electrician, a carpenter, plumber, I’ve built and remodeled houses and commercial offices, and had to navigate all the planning and permitting issues that go along with it. I worked in NYC for 5 years as a setbuilder for the photo industry, I had a brief (but fun) spell restoring vintage sportscars and motorcycles, and I eventually became a custom woodworker and project manager for megaycht refits and high end residential millwork build-outs. All of that really set the foundation for my current creative aesthetic. I’ve always really like making things, but it reached a point when it started to feel a little meaningless without a deeper connection- that’s when I decided to pursue my art more directly and went to graduate school in 2012 to get my Masters in Fine Arts.
Before all that, I grew up in south Alabama running barefoot through the woods, catching snakes, and fishing. There were a lot of pine trees around, so maybe that helps explain my obsession with Dade County pine.
Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)
Jury’s still out. Earlier this year I was all jazzed about minting some of my own, but the whole thing seems so weird and in some ways meaningless that I’m reluctant to fully engage. I do believe some form of crypto will most likely eventually become the predominant economic vehicle of our world, so I will probably reconsider at some point, but so much of my work has to with engaging in the physical that I feel like it would be a little disingenuous, or maybe more opportunistic rather than authentic, to dip into the NFT world.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
There’s a book called “Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees” about the artist Robert Irwin. It was mindblowing at the time I read it, in terms of developing the idea that art lies in the ability to get people to see the world differently. Sure, a nice piece of art on the wall can elicit no end of meaningful thoughts, and there’s nothing wrong witht that at all, but if an artwork or art project of some sort can actually compel viewers to alter the way they percieve the world- that’s the jam. Another one of my favorite books is The Everglades, River Of Grass by Marjorie Stoneman Douglas. She was a total badass and is largely responsible for sharing the depth and complexity of the Everglades with the world. At first it’s a little hard to read, but as you get into it it starts flowing and soon you’re completely addicted (just like the actual Everglades).
Contact Info:
- Website: gilmoreworks.com
- Instagram: gilmoreworks
Image Credits
portrait by Ivan Santiago