We had the good fortune of connecting with Sam Bartlett and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Right now I am doing a lot of plywood cutout sculptures, both for commissions and to exhibit. I have taken a long path to get here. My brain has always worked best by drawing and making things. That is how my problem solving mind and flow brain kicks into gear. One of the problems as I grew older was knowing WHAT to draw and to make. I began making a zine in the early 90s called “Stuntology,” which was filled with illustrations, descriptions, and explanations of how to do dumb, funny party tricks. Whenever I saw something, I would make a cartoon about it. I published 32 issues of this zine and really threw myself into it. I eventually published 4 books about Stuntology, one with Workman that was widely distributed and translated into German and Finnish. It is a complete fluke that this was ever picked up by a big publisher. I’d tried for years to get published and had really given up when it happened. It did not make me rich but it gave me a weird credential to do speaking engagements and library shows. Right around the same time that I started my Stuntology zine, I was touring as a musician. I play the banjo and mandolin for contra dancing and old-time music events. (I know that everything I do is odd….) We were in Atlanta, and my friend, fellow artist and bandmate, Ann Percival insisted that we go visit artist Howard Finster. I didn’t know who he was, but he was a quite famous folk artist. He had an insane art compound outside of Atlanta called Paradise Garden. Among other things, he made these cool, crude plywood cutouts and painted them. He also played the banjo. I had grown up using a jig saw and playing the banjo, so I could relate to this guy, felt he was kind of a kindred spirit. As soon as I got home from that tour, I began making painted plywood cutouts. I would just fish plywood out of a dumpster and start experimenting. This was very satisfying, but earned me very little money. I still did it obsessively, making figures to sell or to give away.
I made about 300 of these and then kind of stopped. I continued to gig as a musician and as a Stuntologist and artist, and the years passed. When the pandemic hit, I lost every gig along with everyone else, and I started making plywood cutouts again and posting photos on facebook and instagram, and they kind of took off in a new way. I”m 61 years old, and I stopped caring what people thought about my art and damn, and it really helped. I sold a ton of sculptures and was approached two universities to do exhibits and teach classes.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Well, it’s spring right now, so I would first go walking in our neighborhood, gathering poke greens growing in the alleyways that we could eat for dinner. By the time this is published, the serviceberry trees will have their tiny fruit and we would pick enough for a pie. Then, we could wander down to the B-Line bike path and go to Friendly Beasts Cider Company. Bicycling is great here, so I always take people on our many bikes paths. There are huge forests very close to the city with hundreds of miles of hike. No mountains, but the trails go on forever. I would also tell a friend to go check out our fantastic local Irish music session at the Runcible Spoon, a restaurant straight out of a Tom Robbins novel. If you come to the session from out of town, you can meet me, while you’re at it. I’ll be the noisy person with a banjo and a little saw dust on my shirt.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I am indebted to my wife Abby Ladin with being an amazing editor (she is not editing this!), to my neighbor LuAnne Holladay who has written countless grants for me, to Sean Starowitz, who was head of arts for the city of Bloomington, Indiana and gave me many opportunities to do public art, and to Will Mentor and Cullen Strawn who helped me do exhibits at their respective universities. My list is a lot longer than this, truthfully….so indebted to so many.

Website: https://sambartlett.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realsambartlett/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sam.bartlett.79

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGE6wbNXwesOH2n8NLWF2YA

Other: https://www.teepublic.com/user/sambartlettart

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