Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeff Abell.
Jeff, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I refer to myself as an “Artmutt” – someone whose practice is not restricted to a single discipline. So, although I have two degrees in music composition, I’m also a published writer, a photographer, a visual artist, and became well-known in Chicago for performance art.
I grew up in Aurora, IL, and went all through grade school and high school with another kid in my class named “Jeff Abel” – only his name had one el in it instead of two. To make matters worse, our fathers were both named Charles. I like to cite this as the reason my artistic work has concentrated on themes of identity – because I grew up surrounded by people who didn’t seem to know who I was. I am also interested in work that has an inherent ambiguity: is this music or theater? Is it a photograph or a collage? I find that if I begin with work that has an element of uncertainty to it, people tend to lean in and look more closely.
One of my best-known performance works is called “You May Be Tested Later On This Material,” and it’s a parody of myself as an instructor. On a number of occasions, I programmed this work at conferences, where it was listed under a different title. I would get up and begin speaking, the audience expecting an academic lecture, and only gradually realizing that they were instead watching a piece of performance art. Guess I’m a bit of a prankster.
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?
Because I am someone who tends to ignore boundaries, my career has been an ongoing struggle with people who things that (as Robert Frost put it) “Good fences make good neighbors.” I felt that particularly when I was in music school: I had interests in music that extended beyond the confines of Western Classical music, and liked working with theater people and dancers or incorporating projections into my music. This caused many of the faculty to shake their heads and say “But it’s not MUSIC, is it?” Similarly, when I came to Chicago and began writing art criticism, and making visual work, someone confronted me in a gallery about a review I’d written and insisted “But you’re not REALLY an artist, are you?”
I’m very grateful to have been part of the graduate program in Interdisciplinary Arts at Columbia College for 35 years. Being allowed to teach in a context that actually welcomed the idea of the arts interacting with each other helped keep me sane. But justifying that approach in the academy has never been easy. I spent a summer teaching at Duke, where my colleague and I were snickered at by the other faculty because we were engaged in what they saw as something lacking “discipline.” Well, we had much more fun!
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Jeff Abell – what should we know?
I’m not sure how much I see myself as a “company,” as much as an independent producer. I feel like I’ve been able to pursue my interests and beliefs, even though they’ve sometimes gone against the grain of public opinion. I think that adherence to my convictions has given what I do an integrity that it might not have had if I’d been applying it in more commercial contexts. And as for “specialization,” well, that’s kind of the dirty word as far as I’m concerned.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
I’m a Taurus, and we’re known for our stubbornness. I prefer to think of it as commitment. Everyone needs something in their life they can feel devoted to, whether it’s another person, or a cause, or a career. I think that the ability to truly devote myself to my work results in things that, even when they’re playful or funny, evidence a sense of commitment. I often tell students, you don’t learn how to do something by doing it once. You learn by doing it twenty or thirty times, and somewhere in the exhaustion of those last tries, you start to see the beginning of what you can accomplish. Austrian writer Stefan Zweig wrote, “Nothing one has done with devotion is done in vain,” and I genuinely believe that.
Pricing:
- My visual works generally price in the range of $250 – 500.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jeff-abell.com
- Email: jeffwithtwoels@yahoo.com
- Other: www.artmutt.tumblr.com
Image Credit:
All images copyright by Jeff Abell 2018
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