ART MATTERS: Stuart Bigley and the Business of Art

Quirky? Maybe, especially in the way he tips his head sideways in reply to my questions, as if the answers may be in me. Stuart Bigley could have written portions of the Earth Charter. He is that smart and that awake. He is an artist. Now I’m confused. Should I write about this or about that? It’s easy enough to recapture a day at Unison Art Center, an hour with Stuart Bigley talking art, a brief walk to the Center where I join up with a group of artists, the Gallery committee, to discuss upcoming exhibitions. Finally, there is a “thank you” reception for Unison volunteers, with tasty morsels and more art talk. I wonder, should I write an essay - with chapters? Never mind. Let’s just mention that, in fact, Stuart Bigley in the late 1970’s dreamt up an art community, with his friend, Peter Pitzele, Peter withdrew in short order, Stuart purchased the property and continued to craft it into what it is today: a major Northeast performing, exhibiting, and teaching center featuring artists from around the globe. Executive Director and Artistic Director seems full time to me, but Stuart is also an active participant in both his painting studio and evening modeling sessions at Unison. How does he manage all this stuff?
And there is this flair he has for hosting and making artists feel valued. He brings us together for all the right reasons: lively, edifying conversation and debate, exchange of technical information, teaching,, exhibition opportunities and music performances.
How does one build such a strong community of artists and audience? And then get people and organizations to support it? I really cannot guess. He just does it, I think it’s because he cares. I wonder if the visions and the impetus to engage others in these visions is not secondary to a let’s put-it-to-the-test creative process which prods him in his journey to live life a certain way, with certain expectations, whether he is painting, designing a catalogue, choreographing a board of directors and his various committees or cooking chicken soup. If you try to separate all of these offerings, trust me, you’ll be confused.
It is a remarkable shift when Stuart and I enter his actual studio after discussing the history and workings of Unison over a bowl of, you guessed it, chicken soup. On his easel are two acrylic paintings in progress, which he claims are like “cousins, brothers or mashpukos.” Here we can, uninterruptedly, talk about them - his preference to paper over canvas which frees him to mess up, his animated description of arbitrary beginnings and the mandalas that inform his work.
This is a place , his studio and his pictures, where he consults no one. What does this chaos of colors and shapes represent? What am I looking for? He again mentions the Hindu mandala and I search for swirls, color wars, circles in motion or, maybe, symmetry. Then, out comes a series of recent works from his flat file storage, invigorated by dancing shapes in various configurations on perfectly square paper, repeatedly. This is work about integrity, connectivity, fabric, co-existence, networks. I looked for me – for familiar vocabulary that would not oppose what I already think I know. I never found it. What I did find, however, was a spectrum of shapes, a central force on a solid ground of color and a collective of lines making spatial connections, all floating around the paper with hopes, promises even, of discovery. I found me looking for me. Stuart calls this “evolution of consciousness”. Later, I looked up the definition of mandala, which says it is a Sanskrit word for circle, polygon, community, connection.
Back in Cragsmoor, I wander into my studio full of chunky piles of clay, dug from a New Paltz site and I set off to make it usable. Dry the clay. Mash it. Sift out rocks. Give it shape. Stuart would understand my connection to this process: to our earth, the ground of my community, to turning earth into art, but mostly, it’s potential to exchange dialogue: earth to human, human to earth. It’s not like buying clay in plastic bags, because excavating it brings unexpected colors and textures and rewetting it into a workable mass feels noble. It is a proud connection to community and evidence of the sustainable arrangement where working together makes sense and values might be different, but they are level. It’s in the clay. It’s in Unison. It’s in Stuart. (Not to mention, you and me.)
Stuart Bigley was chosen by the Mayor of New Paltz to represent arts and culture in a delegation of ten people that traveled to Osa Cho, Japan in Oct. 1998 for the purpose of organizing a “Sister City” program. He studied at the Corcoran School of Art in Washingtn, DC, graduated from the Silvermine College of Art Ct. and has painted for more than 40 years. His sensitivity to the concerns of artists has been a major factor in his ability to coordinate projects with creative people. For information about Unison’s programs, sculpture garden, exhibitions, or becoming a member go to: www.unisonarts.org. Look for the upcoming gallery exhibits and the 2007 Sculpture Garden exhibition this spring.