A regular guy in an artist’s world
Written by Michael Harris; Photos by Anthony Rao
Jim Casey, he admits, looks out of place when he goes to art show openings. He sees the “art-type” people there and they see him.
For the record, Jim owns a small ranch near Lake Louisa in Clermont; complete with horses, four dogs, a cat, kids and his biggest supporter – his wife Imke. The road to his spread of acreage is unpaved.
Jim dresses in traditional, Florida ranch garb – work boots, jeans and flannel shirt on a cool, crisp February day.
He’s a regular guy with a regular family making a “different” living as an artist. He’s not what anyone would label an “artist” who, if stereotyped, may be labeled toward the eccentric side.
“Openings are weird for me. When I go, all the art-type people are there. It’s weird because I am an artist and I have a Master’s degree in sculpture and I feel I’m doing significant work that’s interesting,” he says. “But there are people there who don’t think I’m an artist.
“That’s okay though; I want to be interesting on the inside, not the outside,” he adds.
He is very much an artist and what is inside his mind portrays that. His sculptures of various horses are on display at Gallery 17.92 in Winter Park and his latest 3D sculptures earned him the Best of Show award at the Mount Dora Arts Festival two weeks ago.
“Winning the festival was very flattering and it was a great award,” he says.
Jim’s mind is always twisting with his outside. When he describes what’s in his mind as an artist, there’s a complex “artist-like” answer.
“For some reason, it’s like a subconscious geometry of shapes and spaces and it’s like a puzzle that I’m trying to solve,” he says. “I don’t know where it comes from. I’m sure it’s all the subconscious imagery from your childhood that you don’t remember.”
Yet, on the outside, when he talks about his fine arts degree from UCF and his Master’s from Florida State, it’s a very basic, normal response.
“I did okay actually … I mean … I graduated,” he says with a laugh.
He decided on doing sculptures of horses through a dream he had about two kids on a mesa fighting with wooden swords and an angel who swept off the possible loser from the fight.
He originally did sculptures of various people while he was in college at Florida State; in fact the sculptures always had a distinct look about them.
“I was really interested in Renaissance paintings like the ascension of the Virgin or Christ’s ascension into heaven and that kind of stuff,” he says. “What I was interested in were all the people around it that were in this state of amazement. I was basing figures on that.”
Again, the mind of an artist in complex form.
Yet, while at Florida State, the outside of an artist takes on a normal approach. Low on funds for crafting material, Jim saw some debris at a construction site and decided to make sculptures from that. His material consists of wood from old pallets, copper wire and old T-shirts.
As he made one sculpture of a human figure by layering it in cloth, a professor noticed and asked why he was “covering up all his good work.” The professor had an idea.
“I did a large figure and one of my professors was seeing how I was using wires, sticks and things and I was covering them all up because I was still going a Renaissance aesthetic,” Jim says. “He says ‘you ought to try and set one on fire.’ So we did. I mean you’re in college. So we took it to the parking lot behind the studio and set it on fire. And we let it burn to the point where I thought it looked cool and we put it out and certain parts burned away where we lost too much so that’s when I starting cloth and wrapping and binding.”
Maybe not the most complex of sculpting, yet a craft nonetheless.
Jim still uses wooden pallets, copper wire and cloth for his sculptures today. The horses he sculpts look at some points exaggerated in the legs or the body with wooden pieces extending further than the norm.
“Some people look at the art and see the sticks and things and think they’re injured, but I just see it as spatial relationships with the different textures, contrast and repetition of the different materials,” Jim says. “The horse is a vehicle for the expression. When I see them in my mind, it’s like I have to see it in reality as a tangible thing. And that’s always the most thrilling thing, to take something out of your mind and bring it out into our world.”
But with the way he describes himself as an artist, Jim reverts back to basics.
“I just want to work, that’s the main thing,” he says. “I was always taught in college that’s what separates you – your work ethic. Openings are fun, you drink coffee and wine and that type of thing, but what really makes you is accepting the isolation. That’s where the work is going to come from, from you being by yourself and making the work.”
The conflict of what’s inside and outside also extends to that “art-type” world. When he registers for an art show, he puts down Jim. The art show changes his name to James.
“Yeah, I don’t know why they do that – it’s Jim.”
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