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Click Here for Part One “Bouncing in the Artist’s Bubble”

The womb of an artist’s bubble reflects one’s spirit; the exoskeleton can expand with joy and contract in pain. A new project ballooned into bliss. I was having a chat at Coffee Talk in Kaimuki with friend Janetta Napp, one of the most interesting and accomplished artists living in Hawai’i. We were arguing about modern fiction, plotting and characterization. We both have great respect for the well-devised narrative. In my louche SoCal thinking, I concluded plot was less important than an author’s skill to “just keep it interesting.”

No gauntlet was thrown down, but it stuck as a challenge. I had never scribed a work longer than a novella. Napp was encouraging, and rumination, like water on concrete, is invasive. A character sketch turned into a chapter. As a story developed and ran off with itself, I was all in.

Screenwriting is a matter of permissions. That creative bubble must offer an open door, as film is a highly collaborative medium. True fiction invites no one but the author. This project, the narrative challenge, absorbed my life. I cannot recall when I’ve ever had as much fun. My bubble was getting crowded with characters that I loved; I could not imagine hanging out with anyone else.

Just keep it interesting. Waimea Uprising is a pop novel, devised with the sole intention of fun and amusement. Someone else can write the Great Hawai’i Novel. I wanted to write the best beach book ever.

The project was absorbing. As the narrative was forcing a conclusion, I could not stop. Never a borrower or lender, I held my hand out and a client-friend loaned me rent and ramen money.

The End. The book was appropriately well-designed. Reviews were good! The 544-page novel attracted no attention but my own.

Creative satisfaction has no scale. Winning a Pulitzer and mixing a perfect color are equally great victories. Working for others can often be as satisfying as producing for oneself. I had to quickly focus on jobs and income. All projects are valuable and one in particular was a gas. The female winner of the 1957 Makaha International was publishing a book about her mother, a pioneering OG surfer. Vicky Durand’s Wave Woman: The Life and Struggles of a Surfing Pioneer was a success. The New York Times Book Review told me so.

Waves kiss the shore. The trades blow. From Point Panic, one can watch the sun set behind the horizon, and a few months later, fall behind the Waianae mountains. Nature’s cycle keeps repeating. The creative bubble keeps bouncing.

There is but one thread that connects all of my friendships and that bond is laughter. Tulsa Kinney is the editor and publisher of Artillery, a sixteen-year-old, print art magazine devoted to Los Angeles. This feisty redhead can always make me howl and I would move heaven and earth for her. Five years ago, the American advertising market was melting down as Google and Mark Zuckerberg were snatching the milk from smaller babies. To this day, their larceny, unabated, has not stopped. What could I cook up that might help Tulsa?

I sat down to take a hard, cold look at our worldwide arts and culture media. I expected the survey would be lengthy. The bulb lit with a fast pop, or in contemporary parlance, it was an OMG moment.

The resulting concept was outside of Artillery’s Los Angeles purview. I wadded up a small forest of notes and tossed them. The paper basketball hit the rim and bounced to the floor.

I could not let go of the concept… I could not imagine our civilization without such a grand resource.

My hard look produced several salient takeaways. 1) Our planet earth does not need another glossy, chic art rag. 2) The fine art media is an integral lever of the economic worldwide art machine, valued at way over $50 Billion in 2021. The target market of the arts media is focused on the engine’s fuel, the One Percent who buy, sell, ship, store, and auction art. 3) The fine art media is not in the business of sharing the simple joys, love and appreciation of art with the little people: it just doesn’t pay.

Wary of the concept of a comprehensive arts news platform, friends and family advised that K-Pop, Porn or Pickleball were more popular subject matters for a platform. I countered, “Oh, yeah?”

Fact: Over the last 30 years, the fine arts have been taught throughout the American educational system. Museum attendance has risen dramatically. There is a huge market, predisposed to the arts, waiting to be entertained. (Trust me, my artworld brothers and sisters are far more fascinating than the Kardashians.) Friends and family listened politely and patted my knee, whispering, “Will ya just think about K-Pop, Porn or Pickleball as a topic?”

The shining lightbulb that hovered above my bubble was most influenced by the Drudge Report, one of the stranger success stories of modern publishing. While creating our own content, my behemoth would aggregate news stories, supporting efforts like Artillery, Glasstire from Texas, the Hawai’i Review of Books or Burnaway that covers the Deep South. We would offer the best of the world, all on one fast-to-download web page.

An artist’s imagination may be limitless; our tool kit is not. Damien Hirst can manifest an ancient shipwreck and Robert Smithson can spiral a jetty. Most artists work with what we have, like Francis Ford Coppola who will self-finance his next $125 million film Megalopolis.

Like Francis, I possessed all of the hard skills needed to produce such an internet arts media platform. It did not require the privilege of capital; I could wiggle the start-up costs. Grit and a gallon of hope could pull this thing off.

Art Report Today began to publish daily on April Fool’s Day 2019. The site is the most comprehensive arts and culture news platform in the world. We leapt to the head of the class with an average of 170 articles, images and videos in each issue. Our free weekly newsletter, the “Sunday Lounge,” entertains more than 22,000 as of this writing. The artist’s inspiration is the thread throughout. Art Report Today presents a deep beautiful dive into our worldwide arts and culture.

In the first year, the effort was rattled with growing pains and the idiotic advice to seduce venture capital. The pandemic in Years Two and Three stifled any significant progress. Today, the dark clouds of Covid are parting to reveal more political madness, economic stagnation, fresh inflation and mad despots with fingers on the triggers. Who said art-making was easy?

The Art Report Today bubble floats and bounces above the red earth of Hawai’i and the cool blue of Mother Pacific. Every day I am blessed with a sight, sound or smell of such incredible beauty that I literally stop in my tracks. Every other day, I look at Diamond Head and gasp, just like the first time I ever saw her.

Success is always double-edged. Should Art Report Today attract more attention than my own, I will gladly say aloha to the islands.

Come what may, boon or bane, the creative bubble must always be fought for and preserved.

__________________________

Gordy Grundy is an American artist and arts writer. Born by the beach, he has been influenced by sunny flights of SoCal fancy, the bold stroke and the grand gesture. He makes art daily and shows rarely. As an arts writer and columnist, he has written for the Los Angeles Times, the Huffington Post, Artillery magazine, LA Weekly, ArtNews and many others.

This essay first appeared in the Hawai’i Review of Books.

Special thanks to Editor Don Wallace.

Images were created by the author.

Photo of Diamond Head courtesy of Daniel Ramirez.

Jack Brogan, the legendary arts fabricator, quietly died at home on Wednesday, September 14 at 3:30 PM. He was 92 years old. His long life was exemplary.

Born in Tennessee in 1930, Brogan came home after serving in the Korean War. He drove a truck until the unions shut him down. Then he hauled produce. He studied engineering “here and there.”

His entrepreneurial drive bought him a concrete plant that would pour blocks in the morning, steam-cure them over noon and load for delivery by five. He cast custom architectural parts, invented machinery to produce concrete pipes and made the concrete pads that sit under a phone booth for Southern Bell. Debilitating neck surgery demanded that Brogan sell his concrete interest and move to a warmer climate.

Brogan arrived in Los Angeles in 1958 where he opened a cabinet and furniture finishing shop. He built models and prototypes for Knoll. He solved production problems that the Eames brothers could not configure for Herman Miller.

As real estate was voraciously developed across the Southland, Brogan was fabricating models, designing lobbies, logos and ephemera for the developers.

In postwar California, the aerospace and automotive industries were leading the charge for new materials and high-tech manufacturing processes. The always curious Brogan never missed an innovation.

In the mid-’60s, Robert Irwin asked Lucius Hudson, the legendary stretcher-bar maker, for help with a concept of a large silver disc. Hudson sent the visionary artist down the block to Brogan’s shop in Venice.

Having a blast, Jack Brogan began to work with many artists. His knowledge of new materials and his “can-do” creativity became an inspiration and valued resource. Brogan held many hands. The artists may have seen the Light, but Brogan knew how to create the Space. The Tennessean did not coin the term “Finish Fetish,” but everyone knew that Brogan was fetishistic about the perfection of the finish.

Christopher Knight, the LA Times art critic reminds us, “In the 1960s, fabricators working for artists were uncommon, while now the collaboration happens routinely.”

Was Jack Brogan an artist’s assistant, a fabricator, a collaborator or an artist? The opinion depends upon whom you are talking. Back then, the rowdy artists from Venice, all surfers, daredevils and motorcycle racers, were chest-thumpers. Many times, Brogan was never invited to an opening, lest the cat leap out of the bag.

Tall and lanky, Jack Brogan was always impeccably dressed and was meticulous in his appearance. Mark Schmidt, a Minimalist artist of the Custom Culture school, was doing some work at Jack’s house and recalls, “I used to watch Jack every morning wash, clean and polish his boots. Of course, he had all of the proper equipment.” The Tennessean was a Southern gentleman who took great pride in himself and his work. Schmidt says, “Jack had thoughtful manners. Gentility. His etiquette was impeccable. He liked to do things for people. So kind. That was Jack.”

Brogan was a fun guy with a boyish sense of humor. Schmidt, who considered Brogan as a mentor says, “He was the first guy to make a joke. He liked to laugh. Jack and his pal, the artist Cosimo Cavallaro, were like a Laurel and Hardy comedy team.”

As a gentleman, Jack was never afraid to come to the aid of a lady. There is a wild tale, after a James Turrell opening at the Stedelijk Museum, when a rude German gallerist was harassing a woman. Jack, politely and to no avail, made several recommendations for better behavior. Pushed to his limit, Brogan picked up the gallerist and tossed him in the Dutch canal. LA artist John Eden tells this story of gallantry and humor in great detail.

Brogan was a foodie. Schmidt tells us that he would carry a small spice shaker everywhere he went, filled with his ten herbs and spices. Jack would spread his dream flavors on everything he ate at a fast-food drive-thru, an off-the-alley Mexican café or a Beverly Hills brasserie. Case in point, artist Jan Taylor gives us the recipe for Jack Brogan Chili, which takes only 48 hours and 20 minutes to prepare.

Second to fine cuisine, Brogan loved fast cars. He was a NASCAR fan. Arriving in Southern California in 1958, Brogan found himself in the nucleus of automotive innovation. From speed to finishes, he was very involved in the industry, from paint producers to rod shops to pinstripers.

As his reputation grew and museum handlers continued to drop art objects, Brogan became busier than ever, repairing historically significant art, fabricating new works and freely dispensing advice. Brogan’s client list reads like a Who’s Who of the Blue Chip set. Irwin. Bell. Burden. Benglis. Gehry. Kaufmann. Pashgian. Turrell. McCracken. Moses. Valentine. And so many more.

Jack was a personal friend of mine and I asked him once, “What is your fondest accomplishment?” The answer defines the man. He was thoughtful and replied slowly, savoring the two words, “Irwin’s Prisms.” Robert Irwin’s original piece was four feet tall, but soon grew to sixteen. To create the new height, Brogan had to devise a method to join the clear acrylic pieces and hide the seam. Mortals would fail; Brogan triumphed. The connection is invisible. Most significantly, the joint proved stronger than the casting in a series of stress tests. Like an alchemist with a secret, Brogan smiled silently, rather than divulging the composition of his chemical creation.

Should anyone come close to Brogan’s creativity and knowledge, it would be artist Eric Johnson, a fabricator who created for Craig Kauffman and Tony DeLap. “It’s not only his secrets that are lost,” says Johnson, “it’s his analytical compounding and his circumstantial creativity. You have to remember: Every project is a new challenge.”

Brogan was a lone individual who became an institution. He was the magician who never divulged a secret. Over the last decade, many an artist and curator have wrung their hands, fearing a future without Jack, debating the many issues of succession, process and material. Brogan was an original. There has been no heir apparent. There is no successor. Careful now, don’t drop that Irwin!

Jack had many passions with elaborate cowboy boots being one of them. You can find a photograph of a stellar pair in the essay “The Alchemist: A Profile of Jack Brogan” by Lawrence Weschler, featured in the Brooklyn Rail. The subtitle says so much to the man’s character, “He is thoroughly sure of his expertise and his value. He is very much his own man.” Weschler’s detailed and compelling article is highly recommended.

Jack Brogan is survived by his longtime spouse, painter Edith Baumann, and several children.

GORDY GRUNDY is an artist and arts writer. He is the editor-in-chief of Art Report Today.com