Artist Talk: Author/artist Victor Stabin visiting PCA&D to discuss writing
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Thursday, October 17th, 2024
When artist Victor Stabin visits PCA&D, he’ll probably touch on a topic he says he spent lots of energy avoiding — until he couldn’t any longer.
That topic? Writing. Now, it’s just one of the ways Stabin has found to express himself creatively.
Stabin, who’s based in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, visits the College on Tuesday, Oct. 22, for a 10:15 am presentation in the Hafer Room at Lancaster Theological Seminary. It’s aimed at Foundation students, but the full College community is invited to attend.
“Patron Saints of Perpetual Vision,” courtesy of Victor Stabin.
You’re coming to talk to art students about writing. What is it about this topic that interests you personally?
Victor Stabin: I avoided writing until I no longer couldn’t. I also avoided the academic part of my college education by leaving all my academic classes until the fourth year. With the excuse of starting my illustration career, I dropped out of college after my third year. By not writing, I pigeonholed myself into thinking I couldn’t, ipso-facto secretly marginalizing my self-esteem. I blamed it on my dyslexia.
After creating my ABC book “Daedal Doodle”, people kept asking me, What are these characters’ stories? I started to write in my 50s, creating stories for the alliterative characters in “Daedal Doodle”. At the time my kids were just a couple of years old; I loved reading them Aesop’s Fables. The fables were never more than two pages — I got over my emotional hump, wrote five fable-size stories, that have been made into two award-winning animations, and very possibly got me a lecture gig at PCA&D, where I hope to talk about the importance of writing on (October) 22nd.
To answer the question, writing helps grab larger audiences, storytelling is an undeniable hook. Writing and visualizing can only make us stand out as unique individuals. I am interested in sharing my personal journey, and have students learn from my mistakes!
You have created — and continue to create — a center of creativity in Jim Thorpe that embraces a museum, music, food — do these expansive creative outlets “feed” your own painting, too?
VS: It was a once-in-a-lifetime price, I had to buy the building. I’ve been working on it every day for 21 years and consider it an art form. It has enabled me to make larger paintings and meet extraordinary people.
“Nephew Bruce” (2024), courtesy of Victor Stabin.
You seem to be a full-on jazz aficionado. Is that accurate? Do you play music while you paint? Do you work in silence? What’s the atmosphere like when you’re creating your own work?
VS: This is four questions in one. If I answer thoughtfully, it’ll get lengthy, in short. I — play music (poorly), listen to the radio and books from Audible, work in silence, listen to podcasts, and have streaming movies for background noise that I peek at. In short, an embarrassing mess of distractions. When I was 16, I heard the album “John Coltrane Live at Newport 1963” — it blew my mind and I couldn’t listen to anything other than jazz for about five years.
Art has been a priority of yours since childhood. What fed that drive from your early years onward?
VS: It was my comfort and pride, if I didn’t do art I would be drinking in an alley.
And, finally, what are tools you use in art-making that you cannot create without?
VS: Vasari oil paint, Belgian Linen, ballpoint pen, 3×5 index cards, Photoshop, FigHouse Studio Canvas Stretchers, Wite-Out correction pen, pencils, assortments of painting brushes, Canson vellum sketch pads, and Amazon Prime.
Homepage photo: Pearls Before Slime (detail), courtesy of Victor Stabin.