5 Things We Learned... Mark Cazalet
MARK CAZALET, ARTIST AND LECTURER
LONDON, UK
Mark Cazalet attended Chelsea and Falmouth College of Art before being awarded two postgraduate scholarships with The French Government at L'Ecole des-beaux-Arts in Paris (Christian Boltanski's Atelier), and subsequently at MS University Baroda, West India with The Association of Commonwealth Universities (under Prof Gulam Mohammed Sheikh). Cazalet has completed large-scale glass and painted works for many ecclesiastical settings including Worcester, Manchester, and Chelmsford Cathedrals. He works with fabricators in materials as varied as mosaic, mural, stained glass, etched/engraved glass, textiles, and lino woodcut limited edition books. Each year he also undertakes a small number of portraits. Cazalet's studio practice is based around drawing, painting and printmaking, usually concerned with landscape themes, informed by particular qualities of light, colour and presence. In the spring of 2012 and 2013 he was artist in residence at The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in Connecticut.
Here are 5 Things We Learned about Mark.
What made you...you?
Dyslexia and early intervention of psychotherapy both of which I am grateful to. The Dyslexia really set schooling back but it is actually necessitates a creative thinking around what you cannot do. Like a crab one tends to move sideways rather than think in linear or direct manner. The Psychotherapy introduces, when in collaboration with a deep practitioner an appreciation for listening, subtle signs and searching for what lies beneath the surface feeling and story. The joy of complete absorption in looking and making, memories of childhood play.
When are you happiest?
I am going to be pedantic and alter the term happiest to be fulfilled. Making art can be emotionally turbulent and not necessarily always a happy experience. The moments of deepest confusion or anxiety about the risk are about to take are often those of greatest fulfillment, to feel on the edge of something new, yet without any certainty that it will work. John Keats called this negative capability, a deep persistent creative faith. To find a new language might mean being misunderstood but it is where the deepest joy comes from for me, to sing a new song.
Would you rather have a muse or be a muse?
No artist comes out of nowhere, inspiration is essential, whether drawn from nature or in my case a series of inspirational teachers. I would resist dualism. Inspiration means to breathe in, and breathing out must follow. A creative life must be a synergy of searching, receiving and then giving back. I love teaching because it is often where I learn most.
Who do you admire?
Artists who have struggled against the odds to find their voice and remained humble and true to themselves; Agnes Martin, Cecil Collins, Horace Pippin, Frances Davison, Gwen John, William Blake…
What is important?
To retain what Zen thought calls Shoshin, beginners mind. Always to approach each day as completely new with unlimited possibilities and your materials and ideas as if you are encountering them for the first time. Fresh, simple and direct.
Portrait and all images provided by Mark.