SIUSLAW NEWS | WEDNESDAY, JULY 24, 2019 | 9A
ARTIST from page 1A
“Kyle lives in this cabin
across the lake, immersed in
nature, and nature grows on
top of it and absorbs things
until it becomes something
new again,” Szalewski said.
“All of his work, if you really
look at it, is organic. To him,
nature is abundant, so every-
thing in it is worthwhile and
nothing is garbage.”
There, Lind connects to
the natural world, practic-
es yoga and meditation and
works on his art.
“Inspiration can’t be any
better than that. There are
a lot of natural forms in my
work,” he said, including an
“element of beings” that show
the energy swirling around
things like his cabin, land-
scapes and people.
One of the highlights of the
retrospective for Szalewski is
a piece called “Spirit Man,”
an assemblage made from
found natural and manufac-
tured materials. The figure
normally resides in the cab-
in with Lind under special
lighting.
“With ‘Spirit Man,’ his
original intent was to be an
observer or witness to it all,”
Szalewski said. “He feels like
a presence all on his own.”
She initially met Lind 30
years ago when Mindpower
Gallery showed the artist’s
work for the first time. At
the time, Lind was working
on his Home Series of tiny
painted houses.
“I was young, and abstract
art was not something I was
overly fond of. I just didn’t
have a lot of knowledge
about it,” Szalewski said. “It
wasn’t until I actually went
up in the air in a plane that I
went, ‘Ah! I get it!’”
After working with Lind
for so long, she is now able
to both understand his art
and display it to advantage.
Still, the two had to do a little
work to reach the accord.
According to Szalewski,
Lind visited the gallery after
his first show with a piece
called “Rio.”
“It is really realistic in the
middle, and then the fanta-
sy animals take off into the
style of the spirit world that
he has,” she said. “I was quite
taken with it … and asked
why he brought it to me. Kyle
looked right at me and goes,
‘It’s because you think I can’t
draw.’ So we had our moment
and connected. Ever since
then, we have a fun relation-
ship.”
Later, Lind said the gal-
lery is a great place to hold
a show, and the Szalewski
sisters “know an awfully lot
about me and my work.”
After agreeing to work to-
gether on the retrospective,
the artist brought his art to
Reedsport in a semi-truck-
sized U-Haul. Luckily for
Szalewski, it wasn’t crammed
full, but she was still sur-
prised to see the amount of
work he was able to bring.
She is using all of her skills
as a gallerist and curator, as
well as their 30-year rapport,
to curate Lind’s collection to
fit within the gallery’s walls.
“He’s going to have room
after room in the gallery.
We’re talking five major
rooms in here, as well as the
window displays,” she said.
“Never before have we done
this massive of a show. This
is pretty daunting.”
It took three days just to
unwrap the art pieces, one
week to prep each piece for
display and another week to
hang the show.
For Szalewski, it was a
“monumental task of trying
to sort according to styles and
era” for an artist whose work
is as diverse as the more than
200 self-portraits Lind has
made in his life. One room of
the gallery will be dedicated
solely to these portraits.
Szalewski is also limited by
the space of the gallery com-
pared to the size of the works.
One piece is eight feet by 13
feet, and several other large
canvas rolls nearly match it
in size.
“That’s what makes it chal-
lenging: I only have certain
walls to hang certain pieces.
Then I still have to create a
room around that,” she said.
Szalewski described a gal-
lerist’s job as selecting and
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hanging works that are then
presented to visitors to the
space. “We’re that go-be-
tween for the artist. We have
to try and introduce the pub-
lic that has no information
and get them to understand
this person. And you do that
in how you curate a show and
how you present it.”
In order to display an art-
ist, Szalewski said she needs
a minimum of five pieces, or
“enough to show consistency
and style.”
“It’s like, how do you say
hello to somebody in one
sentence and know that per-
son?” she asked. “With this
show, I can say, ‘This is Kyle.
He is a very unique artist
who in his life has been able
to sort of shelter away and
very quietly be who he is.’”
As a curator, one of her
jobs is to go into a studio and
look through all of an art-
ist’s works. She will then be
able to sort the main body of
work from the “one-hit won-
ders” that artists often create.
Those explorative pieces of-
ten fold back into and influ-
ence the main body of work.
“Look at any of these piec-
es, and you can definitely
see Kyle in there,” Szalewski
added.
Thirty years ago, the first
show with Lind almost didn’t
work because his expecta-
tions differed from Szalews-
ki’s. As a young curator, she
stuck to her instincts to best
showcase his work.
“I had to explain my vi-
sion for how this was going
to work. He stopped, looked
at me and said, ‘Oh, I get
it. You’re trying to sell the
work,’” she noted. “I present
the work like one piece that
you can take away, whereas
he’s trying to do a show, the
whole entire thing. … In his
mind, this is an experience,
not something that you’re
marketing to people. This is
living, breathing art.”
However, for Szalewski,
curating is itself a form of art.
“It’s the process,” she said.
“It’s an art in and of itself. I’m
just using other people’s work
to try and tell a story — to try
to tell their story. I’ve known
Kyle long enough that I think
I know his story.”
Lind’s story will be shown
through the displayed piec-
es — many in frames, some
on loose canvas and some so
fragile that the materials are
crumbling.
Szalewski said the urge to
create strikes the artist, and
he uses whatever he has on
hand, from paper boxes to
cardboard. That leads to yel-
lowing paper, torn edges and
a mix of media in splashes of
color.
“Sometimes I’ll do a paint-
ing in five to 10 minutes, but
PHOTOS BY CHANTELLE MEYER/SIUSLAW NEWS
Mindpower Galley curator Tamara Sza-
lewski said Kyle Lind’s finely detailed
hatch marking in his work ultimately led
to the creation of “Atma” or “little soul
spirits,” as evidenced in 3D with “Spirit
Man” (right).
usually it takes years,” Lind
said. “I work on some things
a long time.”
Even natural disasters
don’t set the artist back. A
large fire consumed some of
his works, but later allowed
him to push his damaged
media into further works of
art, even creating transfor-
mative works out of burned
pages from old artbooks.
For Lind, surprise while
making the work keeps him
going. Creating brings him
“pure joy.”
“It’s important when you
express yourself that there
are no bad things. It just
makes me happy. I smile
when I work,” he said.
Szalewski also sees joy in
Lind’s work and continues to
marvel at the new things she
discovers in pieces that she’s
seen many times over the
years.
“What fascinates me here
is this style of drawing,” she
said. “Look at that hatch
marking. It is his signature.
It’s mindboggling how much
of his work is built on that
hatch mark. Over and over
you see it in his work.”
In the artists’ world, hatch
marking is a series of finely
drawn lines used to create
shading and texture. In Lind’s
works, the hatch marks re-
semble finely wrought topo-
graphical maps, with differ-
ent values nearly lifting from
the surface.
“That hatch marking is
what I call his signature.
It is just unbelievable,” she
said, looking at a series of
five drawings she had yet to
frame. Those hatch marks
eventually led to the tiny
faces that are
part of many of
Lind’s works.
Szalewski said
he calls them
“Atma,” or “little
soul spirit.”
“It kind of
came from this little whirl-
wind figure that he started
creating from this style that
advanced into these faces.
It became this figure that
he uses quite a bit,” she said.
“If you look at it in 3D with
‘Spirit Man,’ it’s like creating
that whirlwind of atoms in
the three-dimensional world.
… Looking at ‘Spirit Man’
in conjunction with the oth-
er works and the little hatch
marks, it becomes almost
graspable. You kind of go,
‘Oh!’”
“I try to find myself,” Lind
said. “I don’t mean my shal-
low self, but the real self,
deep down. Art helps you
understand you. If it’s paint-
ing, photography or poetry,
that makes God happy.”
People who experience
Lind’s exhibit can expect to
find newspaper clippings,
dozens of photos of his his-
tory — everything that goes
into retrospective — and
tons of his work in a variety
of genres.
“Museums and even gal-
leries today are so regulated,
that this is almost an impos-
sible show anywhere else,”
Szalewski said. “It is unique
to our area, and is kind of
a wonderful way to look at
something from an artistic
mind that has, because of the
nature of where and how he
lives, been able to live the life
he has. Look at what he’s done
with it. There’s the journey of
the soul right there. He’s left
his mark. He has managed
for nearly 80 years to live a
life totally as an artist, and he
hasn’t been dillydallying. He’s
been doing the work.”
At nearly 80 years old,
Lind said he is slowing down
and has a bad shoulder. This
is his last planned exhibit,
though he hopes another
gallery might later show the
collection, or even a museum
that can take it on for perpe-
tuity.
“People often forget that
every artist has their Mona
Lisa — and we have Kyle’s,
the big drawing he spent 55
years on — but not every
piece that a master does is a
masterpiece,” Szalewski said.
“I do think Kyle is one of
those modern-day masters.
There’s so much about who
he is as a person and what
he’s accomplished with his
art in a lifetime that makes all
of that work. You have to be
Kyle Lind to have that unique
set of circumstances to create
someone like him.”
The Kyle Lind Retrospec-
tive Art Show takes place at
the Mindpower Gallery, 417
Fir Ave. in Reedsport, from 5
to 7 p.m. on Friday, July 26.
The work will be on display
through Aug. 22.
For more information, vis-
it the gallery’s Facebook page
or call 541-271-2485.
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