Today we’d like to introduce you to Tom Griggs.
Tom, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
I wasn’t artistically inclined growing up. In my last year as an undergraduate at Wesleyan University, I took drawing classes and they immediately captured my interest much more than my academic classes.
I began taking night classes at Mass Art after graduating from Wesleyan, which became day classes, which eventually became a second, somewhat unplanned, undergraduate degree, this time in painting. During my last semester at Mass Art studying painting, ironically something similar to what happened at Wesleyan happened again. I took a photography class, and it immediately captured my interest much more than my painting and drawing classes. I began to build towards applying to photography MFA programs after graduating.
After looking nationally at options, eventually I decided that the best fit for me was the MFA photo program at Mass Art which I finished in 2009.
Since then, I have worked as an artist and also became an educator.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
I work with photographs and text. At the moment I’m primarily interested in book projects. Both books that I have published, “Herida y Fuente” and “Ghost Guessed,” begin with autobiography as a point of exploration of more universal themes that I hope others will understand and relate to.
“Herida y Fuente” looks at questions of timing, distance, sacrifice, and fidelity in my relationship with my wife which began as a long-distance situation. The emotions of separation from those we love have become increasingly present in our society as we move geographically far from those important to us for work or study and it is that shared phenomenon that I’m interested in talking about with viewers of the work.
“Ghost Guessed” is a collaboration with the writer and photographer Paul Kwiatkowski. It begins with the death of my cousin in a plane accident in which he was the pilot and experienced “spatial disorientation.” The project uses that idea of disorientation to talk about losing your way in the middle of your life in terms of yourself, family, friends, work, and religion. At the same time, it talks about broader disorientations in this cultural moment and within photography.
The sterotype of a starving artist scares away many potentially talented artists from pursuing art – any advice or thoughts about how to deal with the financial concerns an aspiring artist might be concerned about?
As for advice for younger artists looking for a strategy for making ends meet while continuing to create art, I don’t think there’s a correct answer and everyone will find their own way to make it work. I would say to young artists that you CAN make it work, but sometimes you have to be patient as you find the right combination of parts in your life to allow you to keep creating. I would say that you can’t depend on selling art as a way to make a living and should consider sales a bonus.
As I look at the artists I know and how they survive, I would say they fall into four categories: those born wealthy; professors and other types of educators; people who work with properties and use the rent from those properties to “buy” time to make their work; and people who have a job that has nothing to do with art, and who then make their work as they can at night, on weekends, or during vacations. A lot of people mix and match parts of all four of these options to make it work.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
You can find my images from my projects at http://www.tomgriggs.net/. I can be found on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/griggstom/. “Herida y Fuente” can be purchased directly from me for $25 and $5 shipping by emailing me at tom@tomgriggs.net. “Ghost Guessed” can be purchased from the site http://www.ghostguessed.com/
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.tomgriggs.net/
- Email: tom@tomgriggs.net
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/griggstom/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Tom-Griggs-Photography-159583127400843/
- Other: http://www.ghostguessed.com/
Image Credit:
All images: From “Ghost Guessed” © Tom Griggs and Paul Kwiatkowski
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