Richard Brinn and Andrea Brinn Wolfe

00:03 My name is Andrea Wolf by age of 33. Today's date is September 26th 2009. I'm in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and I'm interviewing my father.

00:16 And my name is Richard Dorian Bren. I am 63 today's date is also September 26th and in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and I am Andrea's father.

00:35 First question will start now.

00:40 Well, the reason why I want to interview you was because you're an artist and I thought that would be great to ask about.

00:48 And basically because I've always thought of you as an artist and in discussing with us or the alley, she said that you were many more things than being an artist. So I needed to maybe focus on everything, but I thought I was but

01:03 So that at least the first question and that's what are your most important rules that you've had in your life?

01:09 Yeah, well, we all wear many masks and

01:15 I think for me obviously being father's was the most important.

01:22 And the most overwhelming wrong.

01:25 And then

01:29 Be an artist as well as a teacher.

01:34 And

01:39 After that there weren't as many though that were all important. It was it was all family in art. So that's it.

01:50 Can you remember the moment that you realize that art would be your calling?

01:56 Oh, yeah. Yes. How old are you I was

02:02 I was probably 12:11 or 12 and

02:06 I went night. I went on a field trip to the Institute of Arts in Detroit and although I was doing our tonight and I enjoyed it.

02:17 It impacted me tremendously to they had a van Gogh exhibit there.

02:23 Maybe 200 pieces huge exhibit and

02:28 So going to the museum as well as seeing that really impressed me and then I kind of knew after that encourage you to follow your love of Art.

02:47 Well in high school, I had a couple a couple of our teachers that were encouraging.

02:58 You know, they they didn't do art themselves very much, but they were very much involved in the Arts. And so the better students that were making work that was decent they encouraged in and I had a couple of them and Miss. Mr. Nadel was one. He was quite entertaining did Grandma and Grandpa encourage you to follow your passion and grow as an artist.

03:32 No, they they encouraged us to be whatever we wanted to be. I think your grandmother grandmother cough. I think she

03:43 She enjoyed heart is a as a hobby drawing occasionally, and she said she had a brother that was a commercial artist and did the painting on the side and she kind of helped him a little bit on some of his paintings. So she was very excited about it that your grandmother was I do know Grandma was really proud of but I was wondering what Grandpa thought of you as an artist and if he was proud of you

04:14 Well, I think so. We didn't talk about it that way but

04:19 You know, he he was very successful for not having an extensive education. So I think he was most pleased that we went to college and got a college education and

04:36 So the fact that I was a teacher and an artist was

04:42 It was sort of.

04:44 This is just who you are. This is what you do and

04:51 No different than than my brother who is an engineer accepted him as an engineer. I don't think the family was not particularly culturally oriented.

05:04 So they didn't have a broad exposure either my mother or father to our torture music those kinds of cultural things. So they were just happy, you know normal parents.

05:20 When you first enrolled in undergrad College was it as an art major? I wouldn't have gone to college if I wasn't studying art there and how did your undergraduate studies influence who you would be as an artist?

05:38 Well, I went to art school at Wayne State with like 300 art students are.

05:45 And

05:47 A lot of seasoned instructors full-time instructors that

05:54 Have been teaching for a long time.

05:57 So there was so many influences in terms of the instructors in the teachers that you can't single out one I couldn't

06:07 But I think the fellow students all the way through when I started, you know, I was interacting with students all the way through grad school that were in the department. So they influenced me just as much as as a teacher's then probably advanced students at some point.

06:33 Well, I think you were in college when you met art says hello, and I was wondering if you could tell me when you two met.

06:41 We met and drawing class in 1966 and he was one of the best dressed men in in the department on his level in a second or third year.

06:59 And

07:01 That really impressed me. So we got to be friends pretty quickly hot. I wanted to be as good as he was you no answer I said this guy's got it on the ball and thread to become friends or a few other people in the department, but he and I hit it off. We're both similar ages. We're both the middle, son of three sons and a relationship relationship has influenced your artistic expression through the years.

07:46 Well, we're just best friends to begin with.

07:50 So as you know, it was more extensive than just friends and arts artists families were close together to and

08:04 So so we had a lot.

08:08 Going on between us but in terms of Art.

08:13 We both have similar personality and a similar.

08:19 Outlook on what we do so we communicated real well and kind of supported each other and what we were doing and criticized each other and so on and 550 years and out of all of those years. I wanted to know if you could tell me a favorite time spent with him.

08:49 Are we talked about that just yesterday was the four years when we were undergraduates in school together there. It was the most formative time New Life New Life new learning experiencing was exciting and new and

09:09 And we we hung out together. We rented a studio apartment together and and travel together and

09:22 And drank together and did a lot of a lot of wild things together. So yeah, we were that close. Yeah, you didn't think your friendship with Laster. There was a short. When I was still at college and then going

09:50 With your mother and getting close to two getting married and he had already gotten married and had to move to Indiana for work.

10:02 So I lost track with him for a couple years through all the the changes that go on during that time and and he was starting a family and adapting to work there in another state and

10:17 So there was a little. There were I lost contact with him and with all the artist that I knew that to gone through the program there, but it didn't take long once you start the Mission Gallery.

10:31 And 73 it didn't take long to renew acquaintances with lots of different people mentioned her what Drew you to her. What did you find attractive in her mother when you met her

10:54 She was

11:00 Very much involved in creative things.

11:03 In Arch and really kind of appreciated what I was going through and

11:11 Was very friendly and kind of bubbly and outgoing in a way.

11:24 But you know she was

11:29 Living across the street. So we interacted a lot during that time casually and then that was just that was a late sixties and you know a bunch of hippies living on campus going to college in.

11:46 So

11:49 For a long time we were not we were not dating or going out or anyting was just acquaintances and

11:59 So it was attraction, you know like that attraction in creative things.

12:13 And that was important to me at the time.

12:17 Well, I wanted to know how did the machine Gallery influence here at work and what you learned through that experience?

12:29 I don't think the Mission Gallery influence my artwork much at all.

12:33 Michigan Gallery was a labor of love in the Arts Community separate from your own work that you're doing and

12:46 In a way when we first started it interferes with my painting because we had to invest so much time into the building and getting the startup going of of the facility and everything.

12:57 And it was our Studios to begin with.

13:02 So what I did in art and a my painting was influenced by so many other things that the Michigan Gallery was was more like a hobby. It was a sideline.

13:16 Where are we?

13:19 Interacted with the art community

13:22 And a lot of people that were interested or making art

13:27 But there was nothing there that influence the what I was making.

13:32 When you left that partnership with the gallery, I was wondering if you had any resentment towards the family that kind of contributed to you having to leave.

13:47 At the time now

13:51 No, I didn't leave because of that.

13:54 I bowed out because of.

13:58 I was

14:01 I was making a effort to to get teaching jobs and get hired as well as working teaching several classes and working a side job and raising a family.

14:16 And on top of making artwork and the gallery was a demanding place it it required a lot of time.

14:26 And I decided that I you know with all these other demands I had to invest my time in a serious effort of looking for teaching jobs outside the part-time schools that I was at part-time teaching so

14:43 It it had little to do with our family and relatives and you know the demands there it was it was the overall like everything. Yeah.

14:56 What were you thinking when each of your daughters are born at Sally's question?

15:03 I was probably scared to death when Ali was born and thrilled when you were born. Well, I was in 08 and inexperience naive new father with a 4 lb 12 oz, baby.

15:23 I'm the head of a couple of minor physical problems.

15:29 And just the delicacy of such a small infant on top of never having a child before or raising one was scary business and

15:41 I think I think I adapt a pretty quickly to us after you know, two or three months. I was feeling very comfortable.

15:52 And you know she went on to be fine and have

15:57 No trouble whatsoever. And then when you were born, it was so different with such a healthy, baby.

16:07 And

16:09 Always you were healthy that I was just ecstatic because I've been through a little bit of problems with the first so that was

16:24 Well, it was a happiest of times.

16:28 What a my earliest memories with you as an artist is being in a field and I think you were painting a barn. Maybe you were picked taking pictures. I don't know but I recalled being in the gray van and trying to pass the rhyme and sitting on your lap and you letting me fake Drive in a field. I don't remember I'll your mom being there. But I only can remember you having her as a child like in a playpen and taking care of her while you're trying to do your artwork is why I was kind of wondering if you could tell us something in the alley and I would typically do while you were caring for us and trying to create artwork when Mom wasn't around.

17:11 Other than that

17:14 I went to graduate school and for a while I was

17:20 Watching alley by myself during the day. Your mother was working part-time.

17:25 And I took her to my studio and

17:30 So she was about a year-and-a-half to two years old and she should be really good.

17:37 By yourself for a while and give her toys and things and and to play for 5 or 10 minutes then come out and bother me and I go back in and play with her a little bit and get her settled on she play some more and then after about maybe a half an hour she get really bored. She wasn't old enough yet to really do it by yourself for long periods of time. So she start crying and

18:03 And that was a learning curve for me cuz I had to figure out how to time it so I can get more done and get her to take a nap in there and

18:15 So that doesn't last too long maybe 6 to 8 months and

18:23 And I'm not sure how much he remembers that but it was it was.

18:28 Now there's a pretty good bonding time.

18:33 So

18:36 And what was it the other thing with with you when we went out there was an Oxford and

18:45 I just want to do some painting on a plane are on site and I'm going out in the country was.

18:53 Very easy was only a few blocks away to get out there and or maybe less, you know mile to to drive and it was a gray van.

19:02 And I took you I took a lie, too, but you want more than once and so yeah, I would I would do a quick painting out there and you would wander around the field. You're old enough to enjoy being there when you know Chase the bugs in the and there was nobody to bother us and that was fun limitations of of painting with kids around has affected your work.

19:34 No, I don't think so. In fact, you know, I I use the family for subject matter to do paintings.

19:43 And sketching I sketch them a lot and they even modeled for me and

19:51 So

19:55 Well, yeah. Yeah, it did help you. Learn how you learn how to work quicker when when you got a 8 or 10 year old modeling for you when I get a large portrait of Andrea.

20:12 It took a lot of work a lot of sessions and she had to set but she could only even with her ear phones are listening to music. She gone except for about 20 or 30 minutes in that was it and that was fun though. And that was one of my questions that you girls were always at times part of it. It went down to Michigan Galleria spent time with me down there. So I shows down there and we're in studios with me and out painting and so it was just sort of part of the life, you know.

20:56 What has being a father meant to you?

21:03 Well, it's a lot of responsibility.

21:19 I can't put that into words. It's it's the most important thing is your children and

21:28 When you'd when your father.

21:30 You watch them material watch them go through their lives and and grow and change and do things and

21:38 So

21:41 It's so

21:46 It's so complex and so overwhelming.

21:49 To participate in that that there are no words that can explain it. It's just it's just fantastic and it be

22:04 I have always thought of your art is something you needed for an outlet for your expression. And also wait for you to understand yourself.

22:12 Besides winning how you felt when you finish a piece and how would you describe that feeling when you come to that point?

22:22 There's a

22:24 It's kind of an old saying or an old understanding between artist.

22:29 That

22:30 You never finish a piece you just stop on it. So we don't know in many cases wind to finish a piece or how to

22:40 You just keep working on it and you keep working on it and at some point either get mad at it and quit or you get tired of it and quit or you decide you have to stop with it or you let it lay around and you work on it for years and I'll just pick it out then. Yeah stopping. This is a tough thing to feel a sense of loss when you sell a painting.

23:08 On a rare occasion, maybe yeah.

23:14 They're all your babies. Just like your children. You know, it's something you brought in the world and it's it's nice that somebody wants it.

23:25 But

23:30 You do a tremendous amount of learning from the stuff that nobody wants that hangs around for 20 or 50 years looking back and it's a it's like learning to also it's pretty rare though because she

23:46 You do so much. I've done hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of paintings and

23:54 You can't feel that way about anyone that much now pretty rare question. The one that you are most proud of.

24:07 I don't know if there is one cuz I don't think about it that way. Yeah, I don't think so.

24:22 Remember

24:24 First piece of artwork that you yourself dead

24:27 You really identified yourself as an artist with.

24:31 Well

24:37 Yeah, I remember it kolaj. I did assignment in school. I don't know what might have been the 10th grade or something 9th or 10th grader, maybe the 11th and it was a collage.

24:52 As accurately as you could

24:55 To create a face a well-known face by cutting up hundreds of pieces of magazine pages and gluing the pieces together and it kind of Mosaic to

25:11 To do that face whether it was a politician or a musician or some well-known face, and and I did that and it turned out referred for the age that I was at. It turned out really well and

25:25 I realized then that you could do almost anything with art his face like it was.

25:37 I think it was a Dizzy, Gillespie.

25:41 Yeah, I think I'll get a beret honor remember that and I know dizzy always had that that lip that grow hair under his lip and

25:51 So I took that photo out of a magazine and I had to make it look like that.

25:58 It's sticks in your mind when you do something then that works.

26:03 Cuz failures

26:06 So that would be good about Eve. Well, that's my next question is really has a piece ever left you feeling like you failed to measure up to your own expectations.

26:18 Or hundreds not just 100 cuz I think Allie and I would like to keep every thought most of my friends my artist friends and myself don't think that much that we do meets our expectations.

26:40 Can you describe the satisfaction that you feel or how you feel about being able to go to work everyday now as an artist finally as opposed to an electrician?

26:53 It is.

26:57 You know, the most rewarding thing that you can do in life is to do something that means something to you.

27:07 It's not that people don't have to do other things to survive and and in a modern culture, but

27:18 When you can like Joseph Campbell says when you can turn your bliss into your work, then there is no work.

27:29 It doesn't exist anymore.

27:32 So

27:35 Yeah, I'm looking forward to a couple decades of continuing to work at and I'm and I'm growing in and doing so much more than I expected. So it's it's wonderful. I think it's been a lot of joy for Allie and I to see you to be able to retire now and do what you've been trying to do our whole lives and the ultimate goal and do the answer that question anyway, but right right now, but it is kind of falling into place I think.

28:12 It's been really great to see you're doing that. And now it's Dan living with you too. And you know, we feel like it's all falling into place for you. Now, you have love and you can have your arts and you have retirements and really fun to see other problems, but that's always the case in life. We all have them how would you like to be remembered?

28:46 You know, that's something I haven't really given any consideration by who or whom are you?

29:00 Oh, I would say is somebody that

29:04 That was a hard worker.

29:07 That worked hard at the at the craft.

29:12 What do you want to do with all of your paintings? Eventually, please? Don't tell me want to burn them the old ones. I don't care. I don't care. If you're not here. Is there anything else that I haven't asked about your artistic life that you would like to share?

29:43 Will you know it pretty well, so

29:51 I had I don't think there any surprises.

29:56 It's been a struggle. There's no doubt about that. And I've probably had 20 different part-time and other job side jobs.

30:06 As well as teaching all those years.

30:10 So

30:12 That should be I think it's more typical than a typical from OC artist that I know.

30:21 And

30:24 Yet those that succeed with with the work itself are those that?

30:29 Put the effort forth to do that to go with the flow and do what they have to do to get by on.

30:38 So that's where the hard work comes in you have to do it. Do you think Allie and I will be able to learn but the clay that we've been trying to to see well I told Carl today I said I don't think with their busy lives that they have enough time to to do as much as they would like to do with it. But these are all choices you have so many interests.

31:06 Only so much time.

31:10 And that's something I I did understand early that I couldn't do a multitude of things and still do a lot of artwork and growing it. So I gave up a lot of things. You know when you are very young.

31:25 I I watch more Sports I play golf while I gave all that up in and watch them then many sports after that things got really busy and

31:37 I remember you watching a lot of sports when I was little. But once but when I had to it to work full-time jobs and teach 3/4 classes and participate the Mission Gallery.

31:54 And do art work and raise a family. There was no time left for all these other things and see you leave them by the by the wayside.

32:09 No, no taste very colorful. I never found that the way people do people have a favorite color and you'll see that their house or in their clothes or whatever and they're all your favorite color.

32:33 Subject

32:35 Write your your entire career as an artist you have returned to over and over again.

32:47 I got a tremendous tremendous education and drawing and the figure.

32:56 So I returned to that over and over but if he'll long periods when I didn't use it.

33:02 It's hard to deny something that you can do. So well.

33:07 And move on to other things and examples is Picasso. I mean one of the best at 14 years old one of the best drafts man that ever existed and doing academic perfection.

33:26 And he moved on and he did other things and he went back to the figure, but he never tried to use his skill to draw perfect accurate figure any longer.

33:39 But anyway, I that's the one subject matter that I've gone back to and

33:45 I'm back to it now again after 15 or 20 years, but I've done a lot of landscape to I started out doing landscape. The first oil paintings ever did were landscape in and I do love that. It's it's a

34:06 It's a Unity that's tied through all of painting an art over. The centuries is landscape and

34:16 So

34:18 There's a history on a connection there with that and the problem today is that

34:26 There are about a gazillion people that are painting landscape and selling landscape paintings. And so it's hard for anybody the public and even maybe our professionals to differentiate between what is good and what is mediocre and

34:48 So it's a it's a very difficult subject matter to be working in order to sell and not not to work at.

34:55 I think your art is phenomenal and has grown through the years of course changed dramatically, but it's wonderful and you know, your daughters are big fans of your artwork.

35:13 Yeah, I appreciate that. Do I have a favorite painting? I love them all. I think probably my favorite painting is just because I remember the time so vividly as a child is a small painting I have that is of me sitting in the red chair. Hello. Scott's red upholstered chair that my dad had a studio in this Big Red Barn in our backyard up top.

35:45 And he painted me on that chair. So I think that's my favorite portrait that was in the show in the setting for that though. The big one I think you know for me as a prepubescent teenager, I was a little mortified that you wanted to he did a big portrait on my face and it landed on the front page of a paper. I was proud and yet embarrassed. But when you went to the show with me people, yeah, they were asking you about it. They were in our house my husband and I the first thing dad brought over was that painting that was pretty funny, but we're almost done so

36:42 I think that our behalf Ali wishes she could have been in here too. So yeah, as long as you know, we both love you and your Artistry and as a father your exceptional as well. I couldn't imagine having anyone else. You've been our nurture and our teacher and

36:59 Everything we could need. So we're going to ask for some words of wisdom to put on tape.

37:13 I would I would say well first of all, I'm proud of my daughters.

37:19 Because I have had acquaintances and people have met that have had so much trouble.

37:27 With their kids

37:31 And you know of histories yourself that you heard about.

37:37 So no matter what you do in life.

37:56 I've had said nothing. Nothing can disappoint me ride in your problems, but

38:13 You make my life fun and

38:18 And I really have a wonderful family and salt enjoyable to watch you go through your your life and do things and have a grandbaby soon. Hopefully pregnant today, but no luck. Sorry.

38:41 It's been a joy watching you grow to throw our lives and that's all I want to do this.

38:47 And it's nice that I'm done. Thank you.

38:54 So we didn't even.