Local artists, John King and Suk Choo Kim bring Motian to the Upstairs Art Gallery.
John Motian, turning 80 this week, began to draw as a teenager and never doubted his calling. Throughout his life, Motian has made a living as an operating engineer and driving heavy equipment but he’s always known he was an artist and has worked every day of his life drawing or painting.
John came to Humboldt in the early 1970s, living first in a cabin in the redwoods above Moonstone beach. “It was like a hippy community,” he laughs, “We got our water through a pipe from the stream.” He later lived on 3rd street in Eureka during what was an exciting and productive period in local art. He was moved by a show of paintings by Richard Case at the Cultural Center in 1972, and they became fast friends. Mel Schuler, Martin Wong, and Floyd Bettiga were all working then, earning deserved accolades and growing their reputations, while John Motian, an unnaturally shy man, kept on working quietly at home.
In the 1990s, Motian went to Cleveland to care for his mother and has only recently been able to return to Humboldt, where he lived first with his daughter in Hoopa and now with his son in Eureka.
“John Motian is the finest artist I’ve shown in the gallery, maybe the best working in Humboldt today” Kim said in a phone interview. “I think he is a genius, a man driven to produce his art.” Motian echoes that observation, “Sometimes I’d get discouraged and think ‘I’ll stop drawing’, but I can’t.” He knows it is his gift as well as his vice. “All artists are addicts to making art,” he laughs. “I’m addicted to art.”
Motian’s imagination allows for no rest, and he pursues his own visual concept with diligence and joy. He rises early and draws thru the morning, one drawing leading into the next. He favors the female figure and never tires of drawing its variations. He studies and reads and looks at the work of others. His commitment to art is absolute, yet he has never cared about showing. It is art, not ego, which drives him.
Says Suk Choo Kim, “When I met him I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. His small room is filled with drawings, so is the closet and the bathroom. And much of his body of work isn’t even here, but is in Denver or Cleveland. He deserves an audience, a large and appreciative audience.” For Kim, sharing John Motian’s pictures with the public has become a kind of calling all its own. He has selected and matted images for the gallery, confident that when the public sees the work, many more showings will follow
A reception for the artist is being held this Friday, March 8th as part of Arcata’s monthly arts celebration, Arts! Arcata from 6-8:00 pm.
Regina Case’s paintings are usually warm interiors where the outdoor views of mountains or ocean are equally important. Her new work, showing in May at Upstairs Gallery in Arcata, focuses on similar tranquil domestic spaces, but wolves or other wild species are now part of the story. “My paintings have always been intimately connected to nature,” Case says. “These are rooms I’d want to be in, quiet but filled with life- a book, a dog, with doors looking out on untouched river and ocean expanses. There’s open space to walk in and breezes blow leaves inside. The paintings in this show may still include a reading chair and sleeping dog, but a wolf may meet your gaze, or bear walk through, bringing another level of wild presence into consideration. Paint and light and image interweave the astounding wild planet around us with the quiet personal space of home.”
