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Neoteric Art: Give us some background information on yourself. Sam Still: I was born in 1953 in Philadelphia, and shortly thereafter moved with my parents and older sister to a small town near my father’s birthplace in South Carolina. Our family would continue to grow with the addition of 2 more sisters and a brother. My mother was from a suburb of Philadelphia. My childhood was filled with alcoholism and violence. Beginning at age 6, we made yearly visits back to Philadelphia to see may mother’s family. On that first visit my father took us to New York City. We rode the subway and visited the Empire State Building. My father stated emphatically that cites were disgusting and dirty and could not understand why one would actually want to live in one. I was mesmerized. My mother’s father was a practicing artist in Philadelphia where he owned a frame shop and offered copies of famous paintings to his clients. He never received recognition for his own work. His 2 sisters, that I never met, taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. There were original oil paintings by my grandfather throughout the house growing up. My mother did draw small faces quite often but they were never discussed or saved. My father was a tool & die maker and owned a small firm where in later years I worked on and off until I was 18. I did torch cutting of metal, welding, milling machine and lathe turning of both metal and fiberglass. Making art has always been with me as a means of closing out the rest of the world. In the first grade I was sent to the principle’s office with a collage I had made. I handed it to Ms. Pauline, she took it, studied it for what seemed like forever, handed it back to me, told me I would be a famous artist one day and to please get back to class quickly. It meant nothing to me. As I got older, I drew cars, houses and maps of imagined cities. Purchased my first rapidograph pen at 15 to facilitate a black for tires that I could not get with a pencil. Was given my first car at 15 with a gas credit card, asked my father if I could keep the car, drive less, but buy art supplies, he said no. Started to cut classes, would drive many times more than 100 miles out of town, stop for a burger and return. I did this for two years without anyone noticing it though my father did inquire several times why my gas charges seemed excessive. Forged a fair number of sick passes, as I look back I realize schools at that time looked the other way when confronted with an uncomfortable situation. Did not graduate, acquired my GED at 18. Did apply to The Art Institute of Atlanta at 18 and Ringling School of Art at 19, was accepted in both, went, dropped out of both within weeks. Married three times. First marriage and frame shop at 19 in South Carolina. To supplement income I would make small drawings using a rapidograph pen with overlays of watercolor and sepia ink. These would be sold at small weekend mall shows throughout South Carolina. I had quite a handsome pegboard display if I may say so myself. The drawings were of barns and other ramshackle structures. The structures always had a “brick” foundation and in each brick I would right profanities, only visible if one knew they were there. Generally, I would take twelve drawings, six with profanities and six without. Without fail, the ones with profanities would sell first and many times those six would be the only ones that would sell. My relationship with my father was strained at this time so I did not sign any work with my first and last name as I our names were the same, instead I used Aaron, my middle name. First marriage failed. Entered my first juried exhibition (in S.C.) with work more abstract in nature, got rejected. Depressed and lonely, overdosed on a variety of medications left by my first wife whom had worked at a hospital pharmacy. Unsuccessful suicide. Fearing another attempt, committed myself to a mental institution in South Carolina, realized that was not the answer for me. Produced two drawings while there, got out one month later. I then naively evaluated where I might find an audience for my work. Looked at LA, New York, Chicago and San Francisco. Couldn’t afford my car, so LA was out, New York was almost bankrupt, Chicago was too cold, so I settled on San Francisco, it is 1975 now. Greyhound had a special cross-country ticket that I could purchase for 75.00. That meant I could travel from S.C. to California and still have 150.00 left over. I had sold all my worldly possessions for 225.00 to facilitate an escape. My mother told me I was running away and I agreed and stated “not fast enough”. After an 80 hour plus cross country bus ride I arrived in San Francisco. Having only spent 15.00 on nabs (type of snack crackers) and soft drinks, I did have 135.00 left. San Francisco was big, scary and exciting. I found a room on California Street for 130.00 (monthly) and the deposit was kindly waived. Now with 5.00 left, I plotted my next move. Purchased more nabs, a soft drink, (and made a pig of myself) some paper and a pen. That first evening I copied ten resumes to hand out the next day. Being very intimidated by the world in general, I didn’t ask anyone how to use public transportation so I walked all over S.F. and hand delivered my hand written resumes to ten frame shops on Friday. No responses. Saturday I pawned my last possession of value, my Seiko wrist watch for 6.00 and purchased an extremely delicious mushroom pizza and a two liter bottle of a root beer. I was depressed again, but at least in a new world. Having no phone, an extremely kind frame shop owner from Noe Valley actually came by the rooming house on Tuesday and offered me a job. I worked that Wednesday and at the end of the day asked if I could get paid. She said yes and I ate that evening. Things were looking up. Unknown to me, the owner was opening a second shop in Berkeley. Three months later I was the manager of that shop and given a company vehicle to take home every evening, all beyond my wildest expectations. Six months later I was married to the manager that had suggested that I be contacted for the job. She was from the south and was not put off my heavy southern accent. As an artist, she enlightened me to the practice of entering juried exhibitions and creating an exhibition history. Within 18 months, her mother passed and we relocated to New Orleans to care for her father. Second marriage failed. By this time I was established in New Orleans with successful frame shop. 1990 and life is bumping along, third marriage to a wonderfully understanding woman, a great family with 2 young sons, great neighborhood and a convertible! Life was good! By 1998 bored with framing and making art in a much more serious manner in terms of contemplating the process. Sold my business in 2000, packed up the family and moved to New York City. I try to make most of my decisions on a deathbed scenario; what would I think on my deathbed about not trying to become a successful artist in New York and staying in New Orleans with my somewhat easy existence. I could not bare the thought, so here I am in Chelsea cobbling together freelance jobs to stay afloat and selling drawings. The draw of New York was a financial one, in a very basic way I felt I could derive more income (even with a higher cost of living) than in New Orleans. This has proved to be true for my work. On the other hand I was extremely naive regarding the art world in countless ways, and it has been the most difficult endeavor I have ever been involved with. Now in my 11th year living here, I finally know my drawings have evolved to a point that I feel very positive about my practice and the future on all levels except age. Closing in on 60, I know that is the biggest hurdle to overcome on so many levels, alas it is too late in the game to turn back so I continue to move forward. NA: Discuss your work/thought process when starting a new piece. SS: I have never felt as if I’m creating new work. The most recent drawing connects to the previous drawing and so on and on. Each work is simply a variation on the previous, no matter what the medium. NA: Elaborate on the overall idea behind your "online" exhibitions. SS: That the work is obviously for sale. I am asking for the sale. At this point, I’m not really sold on the idea of the online exhibitions, but always need to explore. The death bed scenario at work. NA: Discuss your most current online exhibition, "Forty New Drawings". SS: Nothing really to discuss. I make the work and whether it speaks to people is not my concern. NA: Earlier this year you were part of the "An Exchange with Sol LeWitt" exhibition at MASS MoCA. Please elaborate. SS: I enter juried exhibitions that have no entry fee and this was one. Nothing unique re being chosen. I did not know the juror. NA: Who/What has been an influence on your work? SS: Working in my father’s machine shop as a young man. Welding, acetylene torch cutting of metal plates, turning metal on lathes etc. The hard edges and flat surfaces are in my drawings. The very first job I did for my father was sweeping his shop on Saturdays. This was a 4000 square foot building and I did a very sloppy job the first time. He took me around on an inspection and pointed out all of my inadequacies has a sweeper. His lesson to me was to do every endeavor with the utmost respect, no matter how seemingly unimportant, and to do it with the very best of my ability. After arriving in New York I started to read as many art related books, magazines and articles in an attempt to place myself in and art historical context. This did not happen. To place my work in any context is not my job. My job is to make work relevant to my needs. NA: Name a few art magazines and/or online art sites that you pay attention to. SS: None really. I am basically only looking for no cost juried exhibitions to enter. www.samstill.com Images: Top. 5:37 PM April 27, 2011, 2011, ink on paper, 30" x 38" 2. Runner, 1977, pen and ink on paper, 9" x 14" -- Drawing rejected from SC exhibition that proceeded suicide attempt. 3. Sanity/Insanity, 1977, pen and ink on paper, 10" x 10" -- Drawing produced in Mental Institution. Which opening led to what? 4. Psychic Waterfall, 1977, pen and ink on paper, 11" x 9" -- Life is an up-stream endeavor. 5. Second Chance, 1978, pen and ink on paper, 4" x 36" -- Second chance in S.F. Box is up-righting itself. 6. 1:45 PM June 27, 2011, 2011, ink on paper, 30" x 38"

Chicago is famous for its large geometric grid of streets. These streets are the framework for which the city's rich and diverse population has built its neighborhoods. However, there is another network of roadways that is almost as large and almost as interesting as its streets. A secondary lattice of alleys, overlayed and offset from the streets is where the burg takes care of its dirty business. It's a place where garbage is collected, parking is accessed and power is delivered. It's also a place where many acts that aren't meant for public view are carried out. As part of its mission to introduce new art, this winter Neoteric Art will publish a book of studies by William Dolan that explore Chicago's rich and diverse collection of alleyways. Here, we present the second three. [caption id="attachment_1846" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Alley Study 4 | digital markers | 18½"x14½""][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1849" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Alley Study 5 Near the President's House | digital marker | 18½"x14½""][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1853" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Alley Study 6 | digital marker | 10½"x7""][/caption]

I never gave much thought to Mark Rothko or his large colored soaked canvases but with the play Red in town and a planned tripped to Houston where the Rothko Chapel is located I would get my fair share of the man. Red is about Rothko and a fictitious studio assistant during a two year period when the painter was commissioned to create several large paintings for the Four Seasons Restaurant in NYC. The play was fantastic—full of energy. I tend to forget that painting can transcend time and place. Both the act of painting and being a spectator of the work can be a very spiritually moving event. Red reminded me that painting is very human. It was then off to Houston and the Rothko Chapel. I didn't know what to expect except some Rothko paintings and some sort of chapel. The magic was in the conflation. The first thing that struck me was the quietness of the chapel. The stillness was beautiful. I don't know if I ever equated quietness and beauty before but I do now. And of course there were the paintings. The paintings hovered on the walls. As time passed I felt I was becoming one with the paintings...with the stillness. The whole space evoked inspiration. Both of these experiences are making me give more thought to Mark Rothko. A review of Red from Time Out Chicago is here. www.rothkochapel.org

I came to the auditorium at 112 S. Michigan with high hopes for an engaged debate on art criticism in Chicago and expected a lively discussion about the recent book The Essential New Art Examiner - a republication of seminal essays from the Chicago-based magazine which began in 1974 and ended in 2002. I had been a writer for the New Art Examiner in the late 90s until its demise and was rather itching for a conversation. But this was not to be. There were glints of subjects that could have sparked rich topics of conversation - Jim Yood the moderator had started out by saying the NAE had “challenged authority and power” - but for the most part the panel proved that art criticism in Chicago does nothing of the sort today, and worse still would simply have no idea of what this meant. As far as the conversation went the pot never got to simmering let alone boiling. For me this is a rather sad state of affairs. I had to wonder how the “elephant” in the room – major issues surrounding art world power, control and impenetrable art theory - remained invisible to most of the seven panelists. What seemed more visible were the “emperor’s new clothes” - art writing that responded to the kind of and inbred art world thinking that pours out of art schools like SAIC. This is the situation that has displaced critical consciousness and inquiry. Perhaps I was wrong to be surprised considering the style of the media and blog-based writing reflected by most of panelists– Jason Foumberg of New City, Abraham Ritchie and Steve Ruiz of Artslant.com and Lori Waxman of the Chicago Tribune. In saying so I do not wish to overlook the considerable efforts of two of the panelists - Kathryn Born and Terri Griffith- who do not profess art world training but whose indispensable efforts brought the recent Essential New Art Examiner into existence. Students in art departments all over the country retained their old copies of the NAE because they got dynamic art discussions and answers which they could not find on the pages of Artforum or Art in America. We live in a time of commercial and institutional – dare I say corporate - influence which makes independent structures with alternative points of view, like the NAE had once offered, rare and valuable particularly today. Creating the new book is an important step in sustaining this value. One of the panelists, the former NAE editor Ann Wiens, was thorough in discussing the particular 1980s art world background she came from. She was interested in bringing in “lots of peoples points of views” to the NAE and mentioned the time she spent working with the New York art critic Donald Kuspit. Her answers to questions were well grounded and brought a sense of Chicago art history that was useful, stressing the magazine’s importance to the city as the only source “chronicling the work being made at the time “and “interested people who mattered in our community.” Aside from this most of the discussion was lost in space. I could not grasp the basis out of which most of the panelists interpreted art, and perhaps this is because they write for media formats and publications that don’t demand it. There was the sense that the younger writers are looking for answers but do not know where to find them. In an art world lacking critical consciousness and suffering from amnesia about its history it’s easy for writers to cling to self-reference and the centralizing mechanisms of the mass media. This makes the art world boring and complacent. Plenty of descriptive art writing abounds, but there is no stabilizing force which allows coherent meanings or interpretations to emerge. I could not discern how these writers linked art with human experience or life outside of the artist’s self-proclaimed intentions. Most of the writers on the panel had started their careers after the NAE had disappeared, which goes some way in explaining the loss of a “center” for the discussion of art in Chicago. The NAE was a “town square” to use Ann Wiens' metaphor, where artists could meet and discuss – it was a focal point for debate. Jim Yood as moderator was talkative and humorous, but his questions offered no real challenges or issues of controversy. Conversation was mostly anecdotal and nostalgic, ever cycling around details of the New Art Examiner’s past without hitting any target of deeper interest or sparking debate. Finally things came to life during the question and answer session by a few older members of the audience. One question brought up discussion of the time when Kathryn Hixson, the last editor of the New Art Examiner, had mismanaged the magazine to the point of bankruptcy and how this continues to remain a sore spot for many who knew how important the magazine was to Chicago’s ever-fragile art infrastructure. The NAE was originally created as a bulwark against censorship “without fear or favor.” In its last days it looked more like an imitation of Artforum. I was alarmed by the incuriousness of the panel as well as the SAIC students in the audience. The narcissistic attitudes of artists have been deeply inbred by countless art programs over the past 30 years. This has lead, for the most part, to a fairly uncritical acceptance of what is being taught. Donald Kuspit once said we have gone beyond self-censorship to self-ignorance, which makes for quite an Orwellian situation. The framework of power over what is considered art - disseminated from art school to gallery to museum - is effective because it is invisible. For all of the contemporary art world’s claim to being “liberal” and “progressive” it is deeply conservative at heart, and the panel discussion was point in case. Yes the doors to the auditorium were open, but in a sense the public was not really invited. We live in an art world – I would call it a “post-art” world - where meaningful human content and experience is ignored and where the purveyors of culture don’t seem to know the difference and couldn’t care less. That is the real crisis. Diane Thodos is an artist and art critic who lives in Evanston, IL. She has written for The New Art Examiner Art on Paper, and Dialogue magazine among others. She currently writes for Artcritical.com and Neotericart.com and has written numerous artist catalogue essays. She is a 2002 recipiant of a Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant and had a 2009 retrospective at the National Hellenic Museum in Chicago in 2009. She is represented by The Kouros Gallery in New York City where she exhibited in 2011. The Thomas Masters Gallery in Chicago, the Alex Rivault Gallery in Paris, and the Traeger/Pinto Gallery in Mexico City also represent her.