Today we’d like to introduce you to Mike Turner.
Mike, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
When I was in sixth grade there weren’t art lessons in my area. My mom drove me to a town forty minutes away after school so I could take painting classes in the basement of a hardware store–I learned to paint watercolors in a room full of old ladies. Even before that I was drawing floor plans and superheroes; in high school I took drafting and 3D rendering classes. So, when I went to college, I made the obvious choice to study psychology. (Joke) Eventually I polished off what I started at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, not without running a restaurant and making electronic music along the way. I like to learn and wanted a diverse base of subjects in order to connect the pieces, solve problems, and think critically as well as abstractly.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Do I have a great support group of friends and family, and been lucky to have had the opportunities I’ve had? Yes. It is always easy to change a person’s perspective? – Fuck no.
Here’s the rub: not everyone in charge is capable, or got where they are on smarts. Not everyone can think ahead. Not everyone wants to think ahead–people get comfortable or fear change. People sometimes don’t even care about the right answers in front of them. Recently I looked at a study on how people’s social affiliations affected their problem solving. It’s always an uphill battle against human psychology.
Without the ability to play, explore, experiment, or even act decisively, we’re doomed to mimic, and repeat the past.
gravelplayground.com – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I try to showcase as many different ideas and forms of those ideas as possible. I think architecture, psychology, design, music, painting or drawing are all the same tool for interpreting, testing, and understanding the world. Whichever discipline I’m engaged with at a given time, I try to apply a scientific methodology to it and create something that allows a person to think, or question how their behavior affects their environment or vice versa. I also try to showcase other artists that I know, and that think in this manner as well.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Hearing that Nick Warren was playing my music. People always asked what kind of music we made and I’d say stuff like Nick Warren would have at track 3-4 on his mixes. Then it happened that way. It was storybook. It was also a lot of work and sacrifice coming to a head. I spent years collecting records, synths, computers, to teach myself how to make music in my parents basement. I would go to Guitar Center and pay someone in beer to come show me how to set stuff up. It was a lot of effort finally paying off. It was also the idea that music can spread in such an epidemiological way between people.
Pricing:
- Music – Free – Download it.
- Prints- $40-$200
- Instagram- Free give-a-ways and $10-$20 items
- Art and Design Commissions – email me
Contact Info:
- Website: gravelplayground.com
- Instagram: Iron_mike_turner
Getting in touch: VoyageChicago is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
