Creating Art from Literature

Local artist Tad van der Weele draws on his background as reader and writer.

by Cathy Goodwin
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DESERT EXPOSURE December 1, 2004
Monthly Regional Magazine
edited David Fryxell

Tad van der Weele's studio echoes with the sound of hammering. He's pounding frames that will house his next series. On the wall are installations, metalwork, clay, canvas and mixtures of all these media, all molded into abstract, quasi-geometric shapes.

Yet when Tad talks about his work, he doesn't focus on material, form or structure. He talks about themes derived from his lifelong interest in literature and philosophy.

"The more I do," says van der Weele, "the more I have a theme in mind. Someone once called me a conceptual artist ­ I liked that. Art isn't just about pretty pictures or even pretty shapes. Nothing against pretty pictures ­ I have some in my home. But my own art works better if I have a framework."

Van der Weele's themes tend to the abstract and he likes to work in series. Silver City residents may not realize they've already seen one series: the Dot lamps displayed outside many local homes. Each handmade, one-of-a-kind object contrasts the rough clay texture with the smooth glass and creates a splash of light on the adjoining wall.

One of Tad's favorite themes, Alchemy, drew from many traditions. "The intent may be to transmute base elements into precious metals or to transform the individual into spiritual gold," he explains. Van der Weele was inspired by El Sueño, a poem by Sor Juana Iñes de la Cruz, the maverick nun from the seventeenth century. For the Seven By Nine Squares, he also drew on Spenser's Faerie Queene, Canto IX:

"And 'twixt them both a quadrate was the base,
Proportioned equally by seuen [seven] and nine;
Nine was the circle set in heauens place,
All of which compacted made a goodly diapase."

For his history theme, van der Weele found grainy black and white newspaper photos with "weird" texts. He covered the photos and added symbols resembling hieroglyphics. He wants to raise the question, "'What would those people think of our interpretation of their world?'" And he makes a statement. Sure, the hieroglyphics make no sense. But, he points out, the photos make no sense either.

Van der Weele's themes typically draw on multiple sources, crossing literature and cultures. For a painting The Empty Heart, he refers to "a famous Buddhist teaching on emptiness, 'The Eye Is Empty of the Eye.' I extrapolated it to 'The Heart Is Empty of the Heart' after reading Plotinus and a Sufi I'bn Arabi along with a je'Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Dalai Lama's sect, Gelupa."

Another series, Red Rock Road, offers the studio visitor a glimpse into the way van der Weele works. He wants to show geology and give the sense of layers of earth, a concept reinforced by painting on clay. And he draws inspiration from the Cantos of Ezra Pound, who "made a statement about words no longer being able to convey his visual images. I think Pound's images in his poetry are very powerful and his attempts to picture history and turn it to sound sheer genius."

But van der Weele's themes can also be whimsical. For example, "The dark matter collectors are really a joke. We are still looking for dark matter -- no one knows where or what it is --- yet it supposed to make up at least half the matter in the universe." And the piece Score, where ceramic notes are strung along wire, reminds van der Weele of an alien music score. "How will music be written down in an Alien culture?" he asks.

Van der Weele originally studied English literature at Indiana University, Bloomington, with the goal of becoming a writer. He still writes poems, but professionally found a home in the visual arts. But, "when I need new ideas, or I get stuck, I go back to reading," he says. His exhibit notes typically include poems, often from unexpected sources. But the real challenge, van der Weele says, is to "create a visual language that explains something or shows some emotion, because that's what we're about: communicating an idea," he says.

Van der Weele began his art career as a potter, working out of a studio in Vashon Island, Washington, for eight years. Tad still feels at home working with clay and he maintains a ceramic studio next to his main workroom today. He now incorporates clay into his theme-based art forms.

Tad's pottery career was interrupted by a car accident. He returned to school for a Masters Degree in Social Work and spent six years as a medical social worker in the Emergency Room of the University of Washington Medical Center. Later he directed the social work department of the center and taught in the university's School of Social Work. And he made a full recovery, resuming his lifework as a professional artist.

Van der Weele moved to Silver City, New Mexico, in 1999, with the goal of "doing art full time in a more committed way." Silver City was affordable and he liked the community ­ and the weather. After living in the rain of Seattle, he recalls, "My first New Mexico show was called "Seven Suns and Nine Moons."

Unlike most artists, van der Weele has been "mostly self-taught," taking only a few workshops and auditing classes. "My best art teacher was Ann Simonsen, here in Silver City," he says. "She doesn't teach you to paint. She teaches you to see."

And unlike most artists, he's a self-described computer geek with a track record in software design for social work and medical records applications. He sometimes creates art through computer programs, designing one-of-a-kind algorithm-driven shapes. "Square," part of the Akkadian series, includes a sample of cuneiform writing that has been altered digitally, complementing such images of time as a planetary system and four circles that could be seasons or phases of the moon. With the computer and mathematics, "you're seeing things that you maybe would never have seen," he says.

Does he integrate left and right brain in his work? He's surprised by the question, but acknowledges, "I've always been a generalist. I never understood closing the world down. I like seeing how things are related. In my studies of social work, I was fascinated by systems theory, which studies relationships among parts to each other and to the whole."

Van der Weele's art may be a system that integrates diverse components of his own life. Growing up on a dairy farm in Indiana, he recalls, "I saw my father doing all kinds of things in one day. He would be welding or building or taking care of the animals. We had cows, pigs, chickens, horses and dogs. And I saw that you didn't have to do just one thing all the time." He also learned to do the work of the farm, and as an artist he remains comfortable with all sorts of tools.

And that's why visitors to van der Weele's studio often hear sounds of hammering and why his art ranges from canvas to clay to metalwork. It's the ultimate integration of abstract themes, abstract shapes and solid representations, delivering a strong message through visual images.

(c) Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D. Please email author for more information. NOT available as free content.

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