We were lucky to catch up with Shane Guffogg recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Shane, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

I think just the mere act of being an artist, and by that I mean wanting to dedicate a certain amount of time to expressing yourself, is a risk.
I say this because our society doesn’t really promote self-expression
and especially in the form of the arts. I drew as soon as I could hold a
pencil and by first grade had been plucked out of the group as the class
artist. But really, I was able to incorporate some sense of perspective
into my drawings. I digress. I think the biggest “risk” I have ever
taken with my art and career was signing a lease agreement for 3 spaces
on the corner of fifth and Main in downtown LA in 2004 and creating a
non-profit called Pharmaka. With the help of some fellow artists, we
were able to create some great exhibitions and events which expanded
into the art scene of downtown, and created a monthly art walk that
transformed the area. But when the economy collapsed in 2008, it was not
possible to keep the doors open and in October of 2009 I closed
Pharmaka. But then I refocused all my energy back into my own career.
Pharmaka put me on both sides of the art world, creator and dealer. This
gave me great insight into how I wanted my career to be managed.

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.

I was born in Los Angeles in 1962. My family moved to a small town in
central California in 1966. On a side note, my dad was from Northern
England and started working in the coal mines at the age of 15. He came
to Los Angeles in 1957 looking for sunshine and the American dream. My
mom was a native Californian but from a poor family that would migrate
to where the crops were in the summer in the San Juaquin Valley. In 1975
we (my mom and dad and I) moved to the neighboring town of Strathmore
where they bought an exotic bird farm. Exotic as in pet birds, some
parrots, canaries, etc. The house on the property was a former
schoolhouse that was built in 1904. A family from Oklahoma had bought it
at auction in 1945 when the area’s population exploded due to the dust
bowl period. The family moved into the 5,200 square foot structure and
made do with how it was. When we moved there 1975, I was 12 and my dad
and I had to redo all the electrical and plumbing and I designed the
layout of where the bedrooms would be, fireplace, etc. It was a family
remodel and construction project that lasted through my teens. Rarely
was there a day of rest and I would usually work after school until
8:30, then dinner, then homework, then bed. I was raised with a strong
work ethic that has served me well as an artist. The area is all farming
country, and the only culture is agriculture. There were no art
galleries or museums. My only access to art was through books I would
get from the library. From a very young age I was mesmerized by the
images of religious scenes or landscapes on the glossy pages, and I
thought the people that made that art were magicians. I decided at 5 I
also wanted to be a magician. My art teacher in high school was a
godsend. It was his first year out of college and he saw what could be
described as talent. and took me aside to create a special curriculum
for me. I saved my money through high school and the day after
graduation, I took off for Europe with a backpack and sleeping bag with
the intention of seeing and experiencing all the great works of art. On
that trip I had two revelations. The first was at the National Gallery
in London standing in front of Rembrandt’s second to last self-portrait.
It was as if his technique of painting was somehow downloaded into my
brain as I stood there. The second revelation came a month later
standing in the chapel in Milan where Leonardo’s Last Supper is painted
larger than life on a wall. At that time, it was not a popular place to
visit and there was only one guard in the room, and he was asleep. I
spent half a day imagining I was Leonardo and I had returned to finish
this commission. At one point I walked up to the wall and pressed my
body against it. The bottom portion is missing, and the actual scene of
the Last supper is higher up the wall. Just so readers know I didn’t
touch the actual painting. But on that day, I was certain that my
destiny was to be an artist.
When I returned, I enrolled in a junior college and began painting
daily. After a couple of years, I applied to Cal Arts, the only college
I applied to because I was so naive about the world. I didn’t know a
person should apply to a few colleges. But I was accepted and off I
went. For my third semester I was offered the chance to spend it in New

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Self-worth is something I had to learn. As I wrote for the first
question, my parents were very working class with little education. What
they did know how to do was work extremely hard — work equates money so
the harder you work the more you make, or so I was taught. I remember
bringing home an art magazine when I was in Junior college to show my
parents the auction results for a Warhol painting, which had fetched
$40,000. My father said it was impossible for people to have that kind
of money to spend on what, a bad painting of some soup cans? When I sold
my first painting for $900, I felt guilty because I hadn’t worked hard
as in physical labor, to make it. It took me many years to get past that
and feel that my paintings are worth what I am paid for them and that my
work is worthy of a museum exhibition. It’s very important to understand
what you are worth and own that.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

On more than one occasion, I ran out of money due to a sale falling
through, or some emergency expense like car repairs. One time I was
getting ready for a studio visit with an important LA art person, and
suddenly my electricity went off. I heard someone outside where the
meter was, so I ran out to see what was happening. It was the DWP, and
they shut off my power because i hadn’t paid my bill. I pleaded with him
to turn it back on, but he said he couldn’t. So, I asked him to come in
and look at my paintings and explained I had an important art world
person coming shortly and this studio visit could change my career. As
he stood there looking, the daylight began to fade. I use multiple
layers of semitransparent glazes to build up the surfaces of my
paintings. The technique is similar to the old masters. What this does
is allow light to enter the surface and reflect out, giving the illusion
that the paintings are lit from within. That is, if there is light. on
them. This explanation coupled with the fading light convinced him to
turn my power back on and he reported that he couldn’t get access to the
meter. The studio visit was a success, and I got my electric bill caught
up. There have been many other situations but this one is like a funny
Saturday Night Live skit, except it’s not so funny when it’s real.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.shaneguffogg.com
• Instagram: @shaneguffogg
• Facebook: Shane Guffogg
• Other: Another Instagram account that is about the global exhibitions that are or will be underway is #Guffogg_Global

Image Credits
First photo is by Jim McHugh, the second is Victoria Chapman