JB Bryan in front of his Placitas
teahouse.
Inside the teahouse
Painting (detail), by JB Bryan
Signpost featured artist of the month: JB Bryan
The funky real
—TY BELKNAP
JB Bryan’s vision of life and art come together in a funky
kind of laid-back, purposeful serendipity. He works hard at it,
describing himself as compulsively creative—painter, poet,
potter, publisher, and all-around “putterer.” Take his
recently completed twelve-by-twenty-foot adobe teahouse, for example.
Built by his own hand—with a little help from his friends—from
foundation up, the construction did not go according to a rigid
plan. The hope was to fit a Japanese-inspired mountain hut into
the space available on his Placitas Village property, but to build
it according to traditional New Mexico style with materials available.
The foundation required more concrete than planned, but then it
kept the floor out of last summer’s floods. The floorboards
were too short, but resulted in a one-of-a-kind pattern. The door
was made from leftover decking from the ceiling. Plastering day
ran short of time, but the line where the inside white plaster ran
out mirrors the twisted shape of a post retrieved from a woodpile
at Ghost Ranch, plus the remaining rough wall contrasts just right.
The attic space serves as a hideaway for his daughter.
In Japan, teahouses are given poetic names, according to JB. “I
told a friend that I was thinking of ‘Pine Breeze,’
but she said that sounded too much like an air freshener. ‘Placitas
Tea Shack’ fits well with my New Mexico vernacular approach,
so that will do until the right name comes along.”
As a potter, JB specializes in “wabi-sabi” tea bowls,
which celebrate “beauty of the modest and humble, the unconventional
and asymmetric, and the frugal and elegant ... the funky real.”
He writes, “Wabi-sabi recognizes a beauty found in overlooked
aspects, an inconspicuous detail, or the obvious. Wabi-sabi discovers
a beauty that exists in the pattern of lichen on stone, in furrowed
fields of corn, the bark of trees, a bird nest, or lines on a face
as record of laughter or endurance. Using a tea bowl offers a moment
to appreciate this bare, flawed, fleeting, beautiful life.”
Kneeling in the tea shack, across from a novice to tea ceremonies,
JB explained that his approach was informal by Japanese standards.
He said that whatever authority he might have comes from bringing
it together—from the wabi-sabi authenticity of the tea shack
and the bowl—and from mindful drinking of tea. “It’s
sort of a field of dreams.”
“Art is something that happens in the process of ‘making
special’ with a quality of imagination coupled with hand-eye
coordination,” he says. “As a painter, I’m well-versed
in the art world, but more drawn to cave paintings and pictographs
than art as a commodity created for connoisseurs.”
You can find JB working the acequia on his day to water fruit
trees and garden. “My paintings are inspired by the nuances
of transformation which arrive out of botanical happenstance and
new growth. They’re nondescriptive landscapes that attempt
to reflect the rhythm of nature,” he says.
JB divides his time between a home in the North Valley and the
Placitas studio-house originally built for the late dancer-choreographer
Lee Conner and later owned by the late Signpost columnist and teacher
Carl Hertel.
An old hippie with Grateful Dead bumper stickers still adorning
his pickup, JB would make a fine starving artist, but stays fairly
well fed working as a graphic designer. He and his wife, Cirrelda,
are owners of La Alameda Press (laalamedapress.com),
a small company dedicated to the publication of poetry. They promote
local poets through the Duende Poetry Series, which is in its third
year. (On Sunday, January 21, at 3:00 p.m. they will present a tribute
to Spanish poet Federico García Lorca at Anasazi Fields Winery
in Placitas.)
JB’s recently published Big Thank You, a book of
poetry, speaks volumes about sense of place, attention to detail,
and awareness of natural surroundings. “I sent the book to
friends and people I admire,” he explained. “Their appreciation
is all the critical acclaim I really care about.” He says
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gary Snyder liked it, calling the book
“funny and serious.”
Here’s a poem from the book:
In the Late Afternoon
the emotional drama
most people find interesting to talk about
only causes me to beg for mercy
& run screaming into the street
mostly residue
of fabricated half-remembered events
& sticky gum disappointments
from peevish invalid assumptions
I’d rather opt for useful
be willing to be a mess
to feel the top of my head
& the soles of my feet all at the same time
blue sky against my skin
I—who stand strangely in a strange sense
outside at work on the woodpile
a patriot of gladness
in the late afternoon
hear cranes before I see them
down the river
then they’re gone
—JB Bryan
|
