FOUNDERS FEATURE: JOHN DEMPSEY
The Founders Feature highlights the Buckham Fine Arts Project and the artists involved from our early days.
John Dempsey has maintained a long-term studio practice focused on large-scale, contemporary landscape painting and interest in observational drawing, as well as working with Flint's FabLab to incorporate computer-aided imaging into his current art practice.
Associate Professor of painting, drawing, and two-dimensional design at Mott Community College for over 28 years, Dempsey has maintained a painting studio in Flint, Michigan for over 25 years. He has also taught drawing, painting and art history as an adjunct instructor at the University of Michigan/Flint, Saginaw Valley State University, Delta College, and the College for Creative Studies.
John Dempsey has maintained a long-term studio practice focused on large-scale, contemporary landscape painting and interest in observational drawing, as well as working with Flint's FabLab to incorporate computer-aided imaging into his current art practice.
Associate Professor of painting, drawing, and two-dimensional design at Mott Community College for over 28 years, Dempsey has maintained a painting studio in Flint, Michigan for over 25 years. He has also taught drawing, painting and art history as an adjunct instructor at the University of Michigan/Flint, Saginaw Valley State University, Delta College, and the College for Creative Studies.
Some Thoughts on My Life Painted and Early Buckham Gallery.
John Dempsey, April 2020.
In 1987 I was writing art reviews for the New Art Examiner (NAE) covering contemporary art being shown in Michigan north of Detroit. Based in Chicago, the NAE focused on the Midwest for an audience that was mostly art students, artists and gallery-goers. There was quite a bit of interesting art to be found in Bay City, Midland and Saginaw but the art in Flint, at the new Buckham Fine Arts Project, had an edge and an energy that made it stand out. Buckham punched well above its weight in the late 80’s and early 90’s with ambitious exhibitions and events that managed to draw artists into Flint from all over Michigan and the United States. I became a regular at the openings there.
Tom Nuzum introduced himself during one such opening and he, and fellow founding artist-member Sam Morello, extended an invitation for me to apply. I took them up on that offer and eventually converted the studio in my Vassar home into a music room for my two young daughters and rented studio space in Flint from Gary Gebhardt, founding artist-member and owner of Buckham Gallery’s building. The studio was situated below the gallery and opened onto Buckham Alley into the thick of downtown Flint’s music and bar scene. Not the best place to get an uninterrupted night’s sleep, but a good place to work. One example, when a painting commission called for work larger than would fit through my studio doors Gary showed up with his Sawzall and cut out a complete bank of floor-to-ceiling windows in order to fit the work out into the alley. Not many landlords extended that type of courtesy.
It is difficult to summarize Buckham Gallery’s history. So many interesting and creative personalities that somehow managed to bring so much art to downtown Flint. Artists loved seeing their work exhibited in the large open space with the barrel ceiling, up the stairs, in Buckham Gallery. Unlike most other spaces, artists were given full control of how their work was presented at Buckham. Installation art was in the air in the 1990’s and many artists were keen to transform the gallery into a unique and immersive experience. One came to expect the unexpected in Buckham’s early shows.
An idea that circulated in the gallery was that once Flint saw how exciting contemporary art actually was, people with business skills more in line with running a gallery would step up and allow the artist members to get back into their studios and work. It was an idea that was certainly altruistic and perhaps unrealistic but there was an authenticity in having a group of artists creating opportunities for other artists. Some non-artist, community members did join-in. The Ruth Mott Foundation and the Mott Foundation, as well as individuals such as Michael Moore (early on) always seemed to be there at the last minute to offer a hand when the financial wheels started to come off the buggy. Even so, the gallery never made that transition from a small artist run, volunteer organization, into a shiny Urban Contemporary Art Center, something that did happen over time in many other Midwest cities. During the first couple of decades the gallery operated on a budget that would put a family of three below the poverty line and Buckham has remained dependent over the years on its artist members to fully function. They have provided the artwork and the effort that has made the quality of shows possible.
The Flint Institute of Arts and the other arts organizations located in the Cultural Center have always been there for Flint, through thick and thin, but except for lunch during the workweek, or for the bars outside of business hours, downtown Flint was pretty empty during the 1990’s and the 2000’s. Buckham Gallery along with the Greater Flint Arts Council, an acting organization for the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs and another local arts presenter, as well as the Creative Alliance, a group of energetic young Flint writers, musicians and artists, kept Flint’s fine artflame flickering downtown through many lean years.
My own studio history is intertwined with my relationship to Buckham Gallery, its artists and its changes over time. My studio practice focused on showing a new body of work at Buckham every two years and although I never sold a major painting from a show there, those exhibitions completed the circle for my work and gave people an opportunity to follow the progression of the paintings over many years. Since early in my undergraduate studio training at Michigan State University and later as a graduate student at Arizona State University and Central Washington University, I considered myself a painter more than as an artist and studied painting as a discipline. My work led me to large-scale landscape paintings that recorded and chronicled Michigan's amazing variety of environments with complex, inclusive compositions. To exhibit regularly at a gallery that provided an audience of people with an interest in the arts encouraged the work and created an expectation of progress and production that was beneficial to me and my work in the studio. Interacting with the artists associated with Buckham contributed a sense of importance for our collective efforts. Buckham acted as an ‘art commons’ where a variety of artists came together to share their work as well as the work of others. Tom Nuzum was particularly influential to me over those years. He had a rapacious appetite for art ideas and conversation. He also had an amazing amount of playful creative energy that might, on occasion, be mistaken for a competitive streak. We goaded and encouraged each other and I must credit him for his friendship over the years. He is missed.
Doing anything consistently since 1970 would guarantee that things have happened. That is my story. I have had relationships with galleries besides Buckham, such as many years with Kidd Gallery in Birmingham, Michigan. There have also been a number of commissioned projects including for Pfizer and for General Motors SPO. The commissions provide an opportunity to work on a large scale and design paintings for specific places. I love those opportunities. There have also been many exhibitions in four countries and on three continents. There have been many rejections and disappointments as well. In spite of that, I feel privileged to have painting as a focus. My studio practice has created not only a personal history of a life lived painting but there are the paintings themselves. For those with an interest to see, those paintings record, chronicle and celebrate a wide variety of our shared environments over our time.
John Dempsey, April 2020.
In 1987 I was writing art reviews for the New Art Examiner (NAE) covering contemporary art being shown in Michigan north of Detroit. Based in Chicago, the NAE focused on the Midwest for an audience that was mostly art students, artists and gallery-goers. There was quite a bit of interesting art to be found in Bay City, Midland and Saginaw but the art in Flint, at the new Buckham Fine Arts Project, had an edge and an energy that made it stand out. Buckham punched well above its weight in the late 80’s and early 90’s with ambitious exhibitions and events that managed to draw artists into Flint from all over Michigan and the United States. I became a regular at the openings there.
Tom Nuzum introduced himself during one such opening and he, and fellow founding artist-member Sam Morello, extended an invitation for me to apply. I took them up on that offer and eventually converted the studio in my Vassar home into a music room for my two young daughters and rented studio space in Flint from Gary Gebhardt, founding artist-member and owner of Buckham Gallery’s building. The studio was situated below the gallery and opened onto Buckham Alley into the thick of downtown Flint’s music and bar scene. Not the best place to get an uninterrupted night’s sleep, but a good place to work. One example, when a painting commission called for work larger than would fit through my studio doors Gary showed up with his Sawzall and cut out a complete bank of floor-to-ceiling windows in order to fit the work out into the alley. Not many landlords extended that type of courtesy.
It is difficult to summarize Buckham Gallery’s history. So many interesting and creative personalities that somehow managed to bring so much art to downtown Flint. Artists loved seeing their work exhibited in the large open space with the barrel ceiling, up the stairs, in Buckham Gallery. Unlike most other spaces, artists were given full control of how their work was presented at Buckham. Installation art was in the air in the 1990’s and many artists were keen to transform the gallery into a unique and immersive experience. One came to expect the unexpected in Buckham’s early shows.
An idea that circulated in the gallery was that once Flint saw how exciting contemporary art actually was, people with business skills more in line with running a gallery would step up and allow the artist members to get back into their studios and work. It was an idea that was certainly altruistic and perhaps unrealistic but there was an authenticity in having a group of artists creating opportunities for other artists. Some non-artist, community members did join-in. The Ruth Mott Foundation and the Mott Foundation, as well as individuals such as Michael Moore (early on) always seemed to be there at the last minute to offer a hand when the financial wheels started to come off the buggy. Even so, the gallery never made that transition from a small artist run, volunteer organization, into a shiny Urban Contemporary Art Center, something that did happen over time in many other Midwest cities. During the first couple of decades the gallery operated on a budget that would put a family of three below the poverty line and Buckham has remained dependent over the years on its artist members to fully function. They have provided the artwork and the effort that has made the quality of shows possible.
The Flint Institute of Arts and the other arts organizations located in the Cultural Center have always been there for Flint, through thick and thin, but except for lunch during the workweek, or for the bars outside of business hours, downtown Flint was pretty empty during the 1990’s and the 2000’s. Buckham Gallery along with the Greater Flint Arts Council, an acting organization for the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs and another local arts presenter, as well as the Creative Alliance, a group of energetic young Flint writers, musicians and artists, kept Flint’s fine artflame flickering downtown through many lean years.
My own studio history is intertwined with my relationship to Buckham Gallery, its artists and its changes over time. My studio practice focused on showing a new body of work at Buckham every two years and although I never sold a major painting from a show there, those exhibitions completed the circle for my work and gave people an opportunity to follow the progression of the paintings over many years. Since early in my undergraduate studio training at Michigan State University and later as a graduate student at Arizona State University and Central Washington University, I considered myself a painter more than as an artist and studied painting as a discipline. My work led me to large-scale landscape paintings that recorded and chronicled Michigan's amazing variety of environments with complex, inclusive compositions. To exhibit regularly at a gallery that provided an audience of people with an interest in the arts encouraged the work and created an expectation of progress and production that was beneficial to me and my work in the studio. Interacting with the artists associated with Buckham contributed a sense of importance for our collective efforts. Buckham acted as an ‘art commons’ where a variety of artists came together to share their work as well as the work of others. Tom Nuzum was particularly influential to me over those years. He had a rapacious appetite for art ideas and conversation. He also had an amazing amount of playful creative energy that might, on occasion, be mistaken for a competitive streak. We goaded and encouraged each other and I must credit him for his friendship over the years. He is missed.
Doing anything consistently since 1970 would guarantee that things have happened. That is my story. I have had relationships with galleries besides Buckham, such as many years with Kidd Gallery in Birmingham, Michigan. There have also been a number of commissioned projects including for Pfizer and for General Motors SPO. The commissions provide an opportunity to work on a large scale and design paintings for specific places. I love those opportunities. There have also been many exhibitions in four countries and on three continents. There have been many rejections and disappointments as well. In spite of that, I feel privileged to have painting as a focus. My studio practice has created not only a personal history of a life lived painting but there are the paintings themselves. For those with an interest to see, those paintings record, chronicle and celebrate a wide variety of our shared environments over our time.