#tomnussbaum

Tom Nussbaum is known for a variety of work including sculpture, drawings, paper cuts, prints, children’s books, animations, functional design objects, and public art.  He is a state treasure, an artist who has designed a number of public projects including a light rail station and numerous other public commissions.

Fans of his work appreciate not only his whimsy and toy-like forms but also his ambiguous expression that makes fans come back repeatedly to his art to search for meanings.

His sculpture has been included in museum exhibitions at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN, the Laforet Museum, Tokyo, Japan, the Nicolayson Art Museum Casper, WY, the Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ, the Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clinton, NJ, the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, Anchorage, Alaska, The Contemporary Austin (Laguna Gloria Art Museum), Austin, Texas and the Wright Museum of Art, Beloit, Wisconsin. In 2003 the Montclair Art Museum commissioned Nussbaum to create "Home Sweet Home", a site-specific mural of abstracted geometric and folkloric motifs. Home Sweet Home was accompanied by a display of twenty of the artist's enigmatic, allegorical figures.

Nussbaum is also known for his design objects. In 1985 he began The Acme Robot Company, producing night-lights and light figures of his design. In 1988 he founded Atomic Iron Works, designing and producing iron hat and coat racks and other useful items, sold in museum shops such as The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Dallas Museum of Art, and The Museum of Contemporary Art. In 1992, Children's Universe/Rizzoli published his activity book, “My World is Not Flat."

His latest exhibition at Aljira, “New Constructions” organized by Visiting Curator Dexter Wimberly, puts Nussbasum’s interests in form and color on display. Here Nussbaum shares his thoughts on cultural connections and his interest in the fine arts, abstract expression, and public work.

ALJIRA: What attracted you to your studio spaces in both East Orange and upstate New York?  

NUSSBAUM: Primarily, I look for space that is affordable, but equally as important, it must be spacious enough so that I can comfortably make my larger-scale pieces, with good natural light that’s necessary for painting.

Untitled basket, Acrylic on ceramic, Ht 8″ (1979) Courtesy the artist  ALJIRA: Were there any early indications as a child that you might become an artist?

NUSSBAUM:  Ever since I was a little kid I’ve made things with my hands.  I was always carving sticks, building models, painting little soldiers, or constructing things out of wood.  When I was in 5th grade I made some free standing sculptures out of toothpicks and Elmer’s glue that I got a lot of praise for. Everybody thought they were terrific, so it made me want to make more. I actually think that the work I’m doing now is directly related to those toothpick sculptures. On my website, under the  “previous work” link, there are a few photos of a couple of these things that I made when I was a kid, like a red and blue painting from 1967 and a carved stick from 1961.

I was lucky as a kid because I always liked to just make things, and didn’t worry about making “art” or drawing pictures of the real world.  I think that’s why I’m a sculptor now.  It’s typical for kids to give up making art because they think they “just can’t do it”, which is often the feeling they get when no one is actually teaching them how to do it.  Young kids draw whatever they want, like fantasy figures, and when they get to be teenagers they want to draw what they can see but nobody is teaching them how, so they give up.  But you can learn how to draw a portrait or a figure or a landscape, step by step, in the same way that you would for example, learn how to play a musical instrument. A lot of people seem to think that the ability to draw is like a magic power, but when art is taught consistently step by step, anyone can learn it.  

Broadway Boogie Woogie, Piet Mondrian, (1942)  Collection of the Museum of Modern Art

East Orange Boogie Woogie, Tom Nussbaum, Acrylic on steel (2015)  Courtesy the artist 

ALJIRA: How does your work reflect your formal interests in art and architecture?

NUSSBAUM:  One example is my construction titled “East Orange Boogie Woogie”. The title is a reference to Piet Mondrian’s painting called Broadway Boogie Woogie that’s in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Mondrian did amazing work with a very limited color palate of red, yellow, blue and white, and in my piece I’ve used red, yellow, blue and black.  Both the colors and forms of my piece refer to Mondrian’s work.  When I’m working I’m not only thinking about the history of painting and sculpture, but also about textiles and folk art and other art forms from around the world.

The free-standing pieces are often inspired by the structures and framing of architecture, and the vessel forms found in ceramics and baskets.  When I was a teenager I got interested in making pottery and doing traditional ceramics like cups and bowls and vases. And when I went to college that interest shifted to making non-functional vessel forms, which were essentially ceramic sculptures using the familiar forms of pottery or baskets.   I also see architectural forms and even the human figure as some kind of container or vessel.   My work refers to these forms and serves as a framework that contains my ideas. That said, I often just work intuitively, and I think the work can reflect emotions and feelings as well. This is happy work I think, and I’m glad to share that with people.

 ALJIRA: When did you first begin creating public art and site-specific work? Why is public art such an important part of your practice?

NUSSBAUM: Public art just enriches the environment in a way that nothing else can.  It’s a way to embrace and engage the community in a civic space. I think that good public art is open to interpretation so that all kinds of people, no matter who they are, can bring their own ideas, thoughts and interpretations to the work, and find their own meaning in it.  It can make people feel welcome and a part of the public space, which I would say is particularly important for Newark and other cities that are trying to make their civic spaces more welcoming to the public. 

I started doing public art in the late 80’s and I welcomed the opportunity to create artwork in the public realm. It’s great to have an audience that is outside of the museum and fine art audience.  I have a concern about art being elitist and the public work is the opposite of that, it’s for everyone, and that’s important to me.  It’s also a different way for me to express my artistic concerns in durable materials and at a larger scale than my studio work.   My most recent commission was for Hinds Plaza, a community space in memory of Albert E. Hinds.

Hinds Plaza Public Art Installation, (2013)   Albert E. Hinds Memorial Gateways,  Princeton, NJ

ALJIRA: What role do folk art, patterns, and quilts play in your work and how are the ideas you are expressing connected to the web?

NUSSBAUM: I often reference folk art in my work and I value it in the same way that I value so called fine art. I’m interested in different forms of visual expression found all over the world.  I look at textiles, quilts, dolls, game boards, toys, signs, street art, and things that are considered folk art with the same appreciation and intensity that I look at art in a museum.  

There’s a tradition in textiles where patterns are connected together in repeating forms. This was originally a practical consideration that allowed fabric to be joined together in a unified way to make clothing.   I’m interested in these patterns as a metaphor for the way things are connected in the world. This can also relate to connections that you find in science and the internet, where the visual expression of the connections is made with a series of hubs and spokes. In some way my work is about these different forms of connections.

Regarding this exhibition at Aljira, Michael Paul Britto and I are working in very different ways but we are both responding to cultural cues. I’m working with abstraction, and referencing the visual cues that are meaningful for me.  Michael is working in a more representational way, and his work addresses culture and politics in a way that’s meaningful to him.  The great thing about the art world is that it can embrace so many different viewpoints.

I think of my work as a non-verbal form of expression. I think the power of the abstract is exactly because it is non-verbal, the viewer can find their own connection to it, through their own associations and experience.  

Flower Power, Acrylic on paper and welded steel, diameter 19″, (2014) Courtesy the artist 

Woman III, Acrylic on plaster and welded steel, 36 x 14 x 14" (2013), Courtesy the artist 

Red Fever, Acrylic on paper and wire, diameter 24” (2014),  Collection of Patricia A. Bell

ALJIRA: What advice to you have for artists who aspire to develop public art and seek commissions?

NUSSBAUM: One way I learned to be an artist was by working with other artists. You get firsthand experience of the day to day life and how to survive as an artist.  Most public art gets made by one artist who is working with a team of people.  My advice would be to find an artist who is doing work that you admire, and get onto their team.  Even if you have to volunteer, you will learn the process and be able to apply that to your own work.  

When I was starting out I volunteered to work for the artist Andrew Leicester. He was installing a public artwork at Art Park in New York State, and I drove there to work for him, lived in my truck, and worked for him in exchange for three meals a day. When he got another project, he actually hired me. In that process I got to see how he worked, how he organized people to make something happen and it was a valuable experience for me.  The goal is to get the work out into the public space, and you have to do that any way that you can.

 “Tom Nussbaum: New Constructions” and “Michael Paul Britto: Something In The Way of Things” organized by Visiting Curator Dexter Wimberly will be on view at Aljira on September 24, 2015 through December 19, 2015.