Visiting artist James “Jay” Fuhrman has been playing with fire. Fuhrman gave a follow-up lecture and demonstrated his incendiary technique when making some of his art pieces during the “Painting with Fire” event outside of Elizabethtown College’s Leffler Chapel and Performing Arts Center last Friday, Oct. 20.
Furhman’s show in the Lyet Gallery will be present until Nov. 2, but he has plans to continue his time as visiting artist for a while longer with a gestural water piece that will be placed in Lake Placida in late November or early December. Fuhrman hopes that his gestural water piece will become a point of interest for the College, using it as more than just a sculpture. He hopes that Etown will utilize his sculpture in the lake as integration for art, science and poetry classes, among others. For instance, students can study the sculpture in a variety of ways as well as the environment in which it is placed and admire its beauty with the written word.
“These pieces are the result of 50+ years of experience,” Fuhrman said. “Each piece is an expression of who I am at this moment and all the things that have came to me over the years.”
All of Fuhrman’s art pieces are “completely free” and are made with found materials, including surfaces of cardboard and plywood. Fuhrman expresses interest in understanding the materials as well as making a work of art that represents him as an artist. This is reflective of his interest in eastern art, including the works of Li Cheng, a painter during the early Song Dynasty. This painter’s works that include mountains highlight his understanding of shape, color and texture, and Fuhrman utilizes the same type of understanding in choosing the plywood that he uses for his work with the “enso” shape. Understanding the grain of the wood corresponds directly with the creation of the piece itself, as an artist should fully grasp every material’s full potential and what it can add to the work.
Dr. Patricia Ricci, associate professor of art history and chair of the Fine and Performing Arts Department, asked Fuhrman how he became interested in Eastern art, and Fuhrman replied that it was simply “by chance.”
“I knew nothing about Zen topics,” Fuhrman said. “I then found out about the great long history behind this art form and it fit me perfectly.”
Fuhrman has continued his direction with painting in Zen shapes in the tradition of the Zen paintings in history about “the moment” in which they were created. He utilizes an unrefined calligraphy technique, stating that, “imperfections are part of what makes [the art] good.”
During the “Painting with Fire” event, Fuhrman demonstrated his technique in using flames to paint the Japanese “enso.” The enso, a circular shape used by Buddhist monks to symbolize spontaneous expression, inner-strength and enlightenment, took center stage in Fuhrman’s show in the Lyet Gallery. This Zen shape is difficult to create with Fuhrman’s initial flame technique because of the essential impulsive nature of the enso. Fuhrman demonstrated first with a piece of plywood and a blowtorch, running the torch against the wood and slowly burning it into the enso circle.
“What this doesn’t do is have the spontaneity because I go over and over it again,” Fuhrman said. “Let’s change that.”
Fuhrman then brought out his preferred technique for painting with flames, which involved black enamel paint, paint thinner, a hand-made, elongated wooden instrument with three thick brushes attached to the end and a propane tank. Fuhrman then coated the brushes in paint and paint thinner and set them aflame, tracing an enso shape onto the plywood in what is, essentially, a single stroke.
“This is more successful than before,” Fuhrman said, explaining the importance of using three brushes to complete the shape. “The idea is to do it in the first stroke so that the burn boils it visually with texture.”
As an artist, Fuhrman spent time watching the fire burn the paint, oxidized, as it affects the texture on the plywood’s surface, paying attention to the grains of the wood, saying that it went “from smooth to something a little different.”
Fuhrman also used the burnt brushes to drip-paint without the flames onto large sheets of cardboard, letting the environment affect the direction the paint drips onto the surface.
“The wind did the painting,” Fuhrman said, excitedly. “There’s no way I’m going to change that.”