John is an Artist and a Designer with a background in industrial design, but he is more than that. He's a visionary with the courage to continue to do the work of creating a habitable and inspiring environment in places that other people don't understand or see the possibilities of. He has the ability to not only envision what can be, but to install and curate and build, using recycled and reclaimed materials and bringing out the beauty and structural integrity of a building or any indoor or outdoor space. I wrote about him at the end of 2016 and again in early 2017 when he had another show, and visited with him at 660 Studios for events, performance art, music and spoken word evenings he created and performed in. When I met him my own creative life was inspired and began to grow in so many ways. For a number of years I had been focused on youth and community development work and the creative work that I had done in the past was channeled into that area. After meeting John it was as if something that had been lying dormant awoke, and I was reminded of why I was drawn to a life of art and creativity in the first place. What he had created at 660 Studios, and what he creates in every space he works in, is something that is rarely done. He creates with a vision for making a universe in a space while still honoring the space or place and its own intrinsic beauty and form, and when we visit we are inspired by what we experience above our own imaginings. There have been so many people he has inspired and encouraged and given space and a creative home to, and he continues to inspire me and so many others with his talent, craftmanship and passion for creative life.
Over the past year, his space at 660 has been undergoing renovations, and though he has not had that space to work in, true to his never ending creative spirit he has been working on a project in another location to build a backyard garden and sacred space at a friend's home in Asbury Park. Beginning as a plan to build a deck, with his ever creative spirit that embraces the beauty and art within the environments he inhabits he began to do other work in the house itself to bring to life the inherent artistic sensibilities there and to give new life and inspiration to other areas. It is one of the admirable qualities that he has that he does not impose structural ideas into spaces or create without an eye for being serviceable and practical. The beauty he creates can be lived in and used, is comfortable and sustainable, bringing something of a feeling of having been there always while being entirely something new of his own design. I've been watching his progress through his posts on Instagram, and I visited with him there on Saturday. It seems perfect timing to have seen him in this new place, surrounded by the world he is creating, on one of the last days of not only this year but this decade, for it was in this past decade that I found my focus shifting for a time away from my own creative life and it was through the inspiration of meeting John Fathom that it began to shift back again. When I met him I had not thought that anyone like him still existed in this world that has at times seemed to completely commodify art. John Fathom is one of a kind, a master craftsman, a visionary, and a pure creative force who through his own constant seeking of new ways to give voice to the universe inside him gives life to everyone and every place around him.
John Fathom
In 2016
At Cast Iron Lofts
837 Jersey Avenue
The Bar He Designed And Built
For The Opening And Closing Celebrations
Using Some Of His Signature Pieces
Lightboxes And Sustainably Sourced And Recycled Materials
The Artist Collective Space He Created
At 660 Studios
660 Grand Street
Jersey City, New Jersey
In Asbury Park With His Beautiful Dog Bulleit
Where He Is Creating
A New Sacred Space
His Visionary Moon Gate
With Solar Powered Lights
Blessings,
Jannie Susan
No comments:
Post a Comment