Interview with artist Carey W. Roberson
Carey W. Roberson is an artist and educator who has lived most of his life in Arkansas. He began his college teaching at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 2002 and was there for 16 years. He is currently at Ouachita Baptist University, Rosemary Adams Department of Art & Design in Arkadelphia. Carey combines traditional and experimental techniques to create works that are expressive and deeply personal. More of Carey’s work can be seen at Justus Fine Art Gallery in Hot Springs and at his website careyroberson.com.
AAS: Carey, I believe you are native Arkansan, but where did you grow up?
CR: Actually, I am not a native Arkansan! My parents and family were all from Arkadelphia, AR, but my dad was an FBI agent, so we (Dad, Mom, and my two older brothers) moved around a bit. I guess I was sort of an FBI brat growing up. I was born and lived in Colorado for a while but spent most of my childhood and teens in Louisiana (Moss Bluff, Monroe, and Farmerville). When my dad passed away from leukemia, my mom and I moved to Arkansas to be near family. I have pretty much lived here since.
In 1995 I earned a BFA in Studio Art with an emphasis in painting and photography from Henderson State University. I started as an art education major, then switched to graphic design. Luckily, I had a professor that bluntly told me that I should consider not being a graphic designer. That forced me to seek out what I loved and that was studio art. It was when I finally made that leap, I discovered who I was as a person and as an artist. It also helped that I had such great studio faculty, such as Nancy Dunaway, Ed Martin, and Dr. John Linn that pushed me. I owe a lot to those folks and that program.
After graduation, my wife Carrie (yes, we have the same name, and I’m known as the other one) and son Jacob, moved to Ruston, Louisiana, where I attended Louisiana Tech and received an MFA in Photography. Afterward, we moved back to Arkadelphia, where I began teaching at Hot Springs High School for several years. At HSHS I taught computer graphic design, video, and animation, and started a photography program. While teaching high school, I was extremely blessed to have an amazing colleague, mentor, and friend, Lynda Lyon, help me begin to learn what art education was all about.
While at HSHS, I had also been applying for college teaching jobs that would allow me the opportunity to teach photography at a deeper level and continue my creative practice. Luckily, I got a full-time position at UA Little Rock in 2002, taught photography for 16 years. I also served as the Head of Photography, BFA Coordinator, and even a brief stint as interim chair and I got to oversee the move into the Windgate Center of Art + Design.
Currently, I am an Associate Professor at Ouachita Baptist University, which has been an incredible experience because I get to teach a broad range of courses and also serve as Gallery Director. I think this suits my interests, not only as a person who genuinely loves art but as a mixed media artist and educator.
AAS: When do you think you first got the spark to become an artist and educator?
CR: Oh, man! Those were two separate events. Being a serious educator came way after the desire to be an artist. As for the artist's spark, I think there are several guiding points for every artist that lead us to where we need to be. In my heart, I always knew being an artist was where I belonged, but it took some time and the right people to help figure it out.
I guess I started thinking about “art” as a verb when my mom took some art and photography classes at McNeese State University in Lake Charles. She would bring home these drawings and photographs that blew my mind. I had also never seen art photography, so it just clicked (no pun intended). She was also instrumental in supporting my decision to be an artist. After my dad passed, my mom and I moved to Bismarck, Arkansas for my senior year in high school. The art teacher at Bismarck, Vickie Pagan, really put a lot of energy into me and got me to think about going to college (I was one good recruiter away from heading to the military full-time) and majoring in art at HSU.
As for becoming an educator, well…...? It literally came down to a coin flip. I had taught some classes in grad school and enjoyed it but wasn’t sure if that was where I was meant to be. After grad school, I applied to several different jobs and was offered two of them on the same day. One was teaching computer graphics at Hot Springs High, the other was being an Adobe software specialist for the Arkansas Army National Guard (in which I was already serving as a combat medic) where I would have been designing digital training simulations. Well, I guess we know which side of the coin won!
AAS: You often incorporate several types of media and digital technologies into your work. Tell me about your approaches to creating a piece of art.
CR: In most of my mixed media work, it starts as either a note or a journal entry about a thought, an issue I am dealing with, or even a memory. Then I explore those ideas with a lot of sketches. These sketches and ideas might hang around and percolate in the sketchbook for a while until I can’t stop thinking about them. When that happens, I tend to start photographing all the parts which could be a single image on up to 20+ images. Then using Photoshop, I will create the composite and print them on raw Stonehenge paper or thicker archival digital paper. I find that the photograph is kind of my connection to reality. Even though the final composite image is far from truthful, there is something that connects this idea of reality with me.
Once I have the print, the painting process begins. Depending on the work that I am doing, it is a process of layering glazes of paint to build up the color and luminance or being more spontaneous and simply reacting to the image with pattern and more opaque paint or encaustics.
AAS: Your work is often very personal but not always in an obvious way to the viewer. Would you tell me about I didn’t want to let go and the meaning behind the series I hold onto those seconds?
I didn’t want to let go, 10” x 8”, archival inkjet on mulberry paper, oil paint, cold wax, and graphite
CR: This series is about the loss of our granddaughter, Emerson, and having to see your children go through that experience. In 2021, we found out that our granddaughter had a genetic disorder (Trisomy 13) and could not make it to term, and if she did, she would not survive very long after being born. My daughter-in-law and son made the decision to continue the pregnancy, and she was born and loved on by her whole family for the very few seconds that she graced this earth. I have lost a lot of people in my life, but this was a whole different level of pain, grief, and even anger towards God. But also recognizing the blessing of being able to be with her for the short time she was with us. A blessing that many parents and grandparents don’t get an opportunity to have.
As an artist, I have always looked inwards for the work I created, but this took time to get out. I pretty much shut down any kind of artmaking for a while. So, when I began working on some ideas for an upcoming show, I was blocked. I guess it was because I hadn’t dealt with these emotions, except for writing in my journal. My mind kept coming back to the need to get these emotions out. Which ended up being work that was much different than anything I had done before.
I didn’t want to let her go was from a journal writing that I had written about having her in my arms as we got to love her. In the work, I repeated those lines as a way of working things out in my head. It was then transferred over, which made the text backward and almost unrecognizable. The photograph is of a clear cut near our home. These scarred landscapes became a metaphor for this internal damage that had occurred in all our lives, but also knowing that life would return eventually. Paint becomes an expressive tool on the surface of the paper, but also serves as a way of shielding all the emotions from others.
AAS: Your I wish I would have hugged them more series is a very moving collection of images and videos, which explores the ideas of loss and regret. One of my favorite images is Untitled #7. What inspired that piece?
Untitled #,7, 5” x 4”, archival inkjet, graphite, colored pencil, and acrylic
CR: This work was inspired by Rembrandt Peale’s painting Rubens Peale with a Geranium. It is such a beautiful portrait, but what has always caught my attention is the fact that Rubens has this downward stare as opposed to looking at the artist (his brother). There is almost a lack of confidence in the artist’s presence. While I know that is probably a stretch in terms of my interpretation, I can’t help but connect with him. With this series, I was exploring loss and regret, but one of those losses was dealing with the loss of self. There is a type of mental abuse that ensues when you’re trying to figure out what happened to the person you always wanted to be.
AAS: One of your video works from that series, You’ve got to keep ‘em tucked away, also has a companion painting, which I think is marvelous. Would you tell me about those works?
CR: The video You’ve got to keep them tucked away was created for the body of work I wish I would have hugged them more back in 2015. This series came out of a sabbatical project where I wanted to explore loss and regret and also teach myself how to create time-based art with the possibility of adding it to the photography curriculum at UA Little Rock. What I ended up with was a series of extremely short videos and mixed media works.
You’ve got to keep ‘em tucked away, 10” x 8”, oil and archival inkjet on Stonehenge paper mounted on wood panel
The video You’ve got to keep them tucked away was a way of exploring what we bury internally and are too fearful or unwilling to reveal to others. Memories, emotions, thoughts, dreams, and regrets all get bundled up inside of us, and sometimes if we allow others to see these things it makes us extremely exposed. So to avoid looking weak, we just keep these things inside and create a larger sense of vulnerability.
The painting version of this came much later. I tend to revisit ideas repeatedly. I find that my work is not always a linear progression but more circular. Ideas want to be explored in different ways that allow for even more depth and connection. The painting version was looking at the idea of being fearful of communicating these secrets.
AAS: Two of my favorites from your older work done with painted photographs are I love that she has a good soul and I think Atlas is tired. Would you talk about those two pieces and the techniques you used?
I think Atlas is tired, 25” x 20”, 0il and archival inkjet on Stonehenge paper mounted on wood panel
CR: Both works are painted photographs mounted on wood panels. The photographs are each composited from about 5 to 10 different images using Photoshop. Once the photos are mounted on the wood panels, I seal them in a way that creates a barrier over the surface. They are then hand-painted with glazes of oil paint, using the photograph as a sort of grisaille. So, it is using a very traditional process with a contemporary approach.
I think Atlas is tired is a portrait of my Mamaw, who actually just turned 101 last month. This portrait was done during a rough time in our lives. She was trying to take care of my aunt, who had just decided to quit her dialysis after many years, and my Papaw, who was developing dementia at the same time. I just felt it was fitting to paint her on her couch (I think everyone has a grandmother with that couch) while she was trying to figure it all out and cope.
I love that she has a good soul, 25” x 20, oil and archival inkjet on Stonehenge paper mounted on wood panel
I have been truly blessed with two amazing kids, both are extremely kindhearted and genuinely good people. They got that from their mother. I love that she has a good soul is a portrait of my daughter, Emilee, and her dog Oreo. This portrait was a way of showing this kindheartedness from a father’s point of view. It is composed of 10 different photographs, of which many people think that Oreo sitting in front of her was added later, but it wasn’t! The dog being in the work was by pure accident. While I was photographing Emilee in the living room/makeshift lighting studio, I had the dog in the back of the house. Someone let the door open and she came running out and, right when Emilee raised her hands, plopped down, and looked up. I couldn’t have planned it better. That is definitely one of those “happy accidents.”
AAS: I assume that photographers are by nature very spontaneous or at least adaptable people. Would you agree with that assessment?
CR: I think this depends on the photographer. My good friend Joli Livaudais talked about this in her interview with you, but John Szarkowski discussed approaches to photography as being windows or mirrors. Windows is the artist looking at the world around them and mirrors being the world inside them. I believe in this as well but feel sometimes it can also be a one-way mirror. By that, I mean a photographer can change their approach depending on whichever side of the glass they are standing on. I tend to work both ways, spontaneous at times, and very calculating at others. Each method is depending on the work that I am doing.
For most of my mixed media work, there is a lot of planning and steps involved in that whole process and it works with my introspective approach to artmaking. This process can take weeks or months to create an image.
For my Morning Stroll Surprise series, I approach it entirely differently, and completely flip the switch. In looking at the world through the “windows” I allow for that idea of spontaneity and seeing to come through. It is also an opportunity to laugh at myself. It can be draining at times to always look inward and be serious, so being able to just make weird connections from pretty much mundane objects and places is a release. Plus, I just like to laugh at myself and wonder, “what did I just see?”
AAS: I want to ask about your ongoing series, Morning Stroll Surprise. One of my favorites from that series is Morning stroll surprise in leaky ceilings and social distance directions and really wishing I could have painted this and not found it on my classroom floor. Bummer. These images are all about what I guess I meant by spontaneous and keeping your eyes always open.
Morning stroll surprise in leaky ceilings and social distance directions and really wishing I could have painted this and not found it on my classroom floor. Bummer, 7” x 7”, archival inkjet, taken with iPhone
CR: This series started seven years ago on a school trip to New York. I had to get ready before the rest of the group I was rooming with and would go for a coffee and bagel. While I was out, I started photographing the area around the hotel. Then it became a competition between one of my photo students, Dylan Yarbrough, who is now a good friend of mine, because he was doing the same thing. Apparently, he was going to a different bagel shop so we never crossed paths during our morning photo excursions but would compare images at the end of the day.
As the series has progressed, I would say yes, for me, it has been this spontaneous act of seeing and making. It has also been a way for me to keep creating when I had a complete lack of confidence in my voice and my work. Instead of sketching, using the iPhone camera simply slowed me down to notice what was typically unnoticeable. It is interesting what you see when allowing yourself to, but it is also interesting what keeps popping into view. I could do a whole show on metal silverware or unintentional abstractions.
AAS: Your work has been in so many competitive and invitational group and solo shows and in national magazines. What kinds of reactions do you get from viewers of your work?
CR: I feel it has been relatively positive. I know when I first started working with painting and photography together, it was difficult to even get a reaction. I think that is because at that time people were still looking at art in categories, especially with competitive shows. It simply didn’t fit in. Painters and photographers both looked at the work through the eyes of medium purists. Throw digital compositing in the mix of all of that, and it was discounted even faster. I remember one time I had some work in a Society for Photographic Education show and overheard a conversation on how they couldn’t believe that the work was included in this show because it was too heavily painted. In other words, they were asking, “how is this photography?” Joli Livaudais and I refer to this lack of being categorized as “Slippage.” That bothered me at first, but I believed in what I was doing, and my artist friends were encouraging me, so I just kept plugging away at it. Once I just began tuning out the purists, both the work itself and the reaction to the work grew more and more positive.
AAS: Based on all the experience you have, what kinds of advice do you give your students when they are deciding on entering a juried competition? And what are they most apprehensive about in pursuing a career in art?
CR: My biggest advice for students or anyone thinking about entering a juried competition, especially early in their career, is to simply DO IT!!!! There are only two outcomes that will happen. They will either get in or not. It is that simple. Students need to know that they cannot ever second guess what the juror will select, so put in what they think is their best work. Also, you never know what the juror is wanting for the show. Jurors sometimes pick the best work, sometimes they are curating works, and sometimes they are given directives from whoever is hosting the show. You just never know. But if they don’t submit, they will never have an opportunity. I know students who have graduated from school with three-page exhibition resumes, simply because they tried. That is sometimes more valuable than their degree.
I also tell them to make professional quality images of their work. As someone who has juried shows, awarded scholarships, and looked at a lot of teaching position applications, I cannot tell you how many times poor documentation of great work led to either not getting into a show, a scholarship, or an interview. Selfie shadows, wrinkled bed sheets, and colors that are way off are not good things when documenting artwork and can be so easily avoided. It is not hard or expensive, but it does take effort and time. If they don’t know how to document their work, then ask. Artists are incredibly helpful and genuinely want all artists to be successful.
As for what students are most apprehensive about in pursuing an art career, that would be simply how to start. Which is completely understandable. I feel like I am restarting my career all the time (sometimes it feels like it is a weekly change). I usually ask them what success looks like for them in 5 years. This seems like an easy question, but you would be surprised at how many people are judging success from others’ definitions. The definition of success is deeply personal, but it is needed to understand what the first steps should be. I also feel that personal finance or creative entrepreneurship classes should be built into every BFA and MFA curriculum. But that is a whole other topic.
AAS: Carey, is there a medium or art form you have not taken on yet that you would like to explore? What is next for you?
CR: I have been wanting to learn how to create digital interactive art, but as I get older, I can barely even remember a computer password. So that might be on hold until I can find a collaborator or find a C++ or Arduino for Dummies book. With that thought on the back burner, I have been itching to go back to the “Illuminated Lessons” series style of work. Even though the ideas behind the work have changed, I feel that the series never got completed and wants to be reignited somehow. I have also been exploring the possibilities of photopolymer gravure etching and returning to film photography. I feel both the Illuminated Lesson style and gravures could feed off each other.
