We recently connected with Norman Kary and have shared our conversation below.

Norman, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

There was no approximate moment that I can think of that made me realize I wanted to make Art and be an artist.I was always interested in drawing from that time I was 8 years old.My sisters were alway asking me to draw things for class projects of theirs.When we were studying the various parts are the country like New England, Mid-Adlantic ,Southwest etc we had to put it all in a booklet and do a cover.Doing the cover was always a challenge for me.So, I cheated and had an buddy of mine whose Dad was an artist do the cover. But after coming to him for the second or third time he challenged me to copy one of the works he had done and do it all by myself.Amazingly enough I did a great job and he pushed me to to the rest of the cover s all on my own. I persued a teaching degree at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond Virginia.While there ,I was impressed at the artwork that the students in the Art department exhibited in the school gallery. So much so I used an elective to take an Art History course and fell head over heals for likes of Robert Raushenberg, Louise Nevelson , Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Jim Dine, Claus Oldenberg and countless others.I copied their work and covered my tiny apartment with all of it.
I created my won work as the years went on using found objects that I aquired and assimilated into the assembliages that I now sell in galleries that represent me.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a visual artist who works primarially with found objects and collage to produce thought provoking work that challenges the viewer to rethink what objects represent and the history they convey. I have been fascinated with the process of art since collage.I attended Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond Virginia pursuing a Bacheolrs degree in English education.While there, I became enthralled by the exhibitions the students were showing at the school gallery.I was the early Seventies and an anything-goes attitude among the art students showed me that any material, idea, or whim was a bases for creating art.I used my few electives available to me to take an Art History course and it opened up an whole new world of possibilities that art could become.My early influences were Louise Nevelson, Kirt Switters, Robert Rausenburg and Jasper Johns.I copied their work and soon created my own work with the obvious influences showing.I made these works for my own viewing and for friends. never intending to sell them or approaching a gallery for representation. I moved to Texas after collage and frequented the openings at galleries in the emerging Dallas are scene and befriended the director of the Edith Baker Art gallery. I got the courage up to show her some of the work I had produced the year before and she offered to show a couple. of them in a group show that Spring. She was able to sell them and my work as an artist took off from there.it was an extremly proud moment for me and one I will never forget.

Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

I see NFT’s as just another way to sell art and garner enthusiasm for purchasing and collecting art. It’s like Bitcoin is for the monitory system. Art only has value if people want to buy it.Andy Warhol said Art is whatever people want to pay for it. the big difference is that NFT”s are vertual. Unlike work that you can buy from a gallery. take home and put iron a wall, NFT’s are a token of the real thing.Not much different then selling a concept. Conceptualism was the philosophical theory that the application of general words to a variety of objects reflects the existence of some mental entity through which the application is mediated and which constitutes the meaning of the term. Like it or not NFT’s are here to stay but may change in a number of ways in the future.We shall see

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The obvious rewards from being an artist are the satisfaction a realized work brings. Some works can become a struggle to finish and others come easily. Both produce pleaurable results even though the road to completion may be rocky and difficult. When I describe my work to people that don’t follow art or show much interest I try to convey to them that art is not alway pretty, or colorful or understood immediatly. It’s rewarding to me when some looks at my work and suddenly realizes that what they thought they were seeing is not what they saw at first sight.

Contact Info:

• Website: normankary.com
• Instagram: normankary1. hand_out_project
• Facebook: Norman Kary
• Youtube: https://www.you.tube.com/watch?v=8bHTzFL90w4&t=11s

Image Credits
All images taken by the artist –Norman Kary