Paul Kane's mother came from an artistic background in Germany, a sculpture studio that was over 100 years old when Paul was born. When Paul was young, she coached him through language difficulties by encouraging him to draw. At the age of six, the Kane family traveled to Germany to visit the relatives, and Paul quickly found his way into the dusty old sculpture studio, where he spent hours. Thus his vocation was born.
Back in Boston, Kane fell in with a grizzled old sculptor who had been teaching art classes for children in a workshop/studio at the Boston Museum Fine Arts for hundreds of years. The atmosphere in the BMFA studio, while not stuffy, was quasi-academic. It provided a great foundation - or perhaps a deep rut; that evaluation might depend on how one views art in the context of today's splintered art world, where new media and conceptual approaches seem to rule the day. Perhaps it was both a great foundation and a deep rut.
Kane's journey continued with various courses at the School of the Boston MFA, Massachusettes College of Art, etc,; but mostly at Yale, where the emphasis was on abstract expressionism, and IU, where the emphasis was on a mystical blending of traditionalism and modernism.
Twenty years later, Paul is still in Bloomington, and still painting. His mother's family's sculpture studio in Germany (bildhauer family Busch) is celebrating it's 150th anniversary this year. Paul has just found a workplace, a corner of an office at the Farmer House Museum (just down the street, coincidentally) and, riding this synergy, has created a set of paintings intended to celebrate movement, color, dance, energy, music and connection, as part of an ongoing series. These paintings are inspired by art historical movements, such as cubism, and broader cultural movements, such as jazz, and street art, such as graffiti; but they are also inspired by many Bloomington memories, such as seeing quilts at the Bloomington Quilt Show, dancing at Bullwinkles back in the day, enjoying yarn-bombed trees around the square last week, exploring Bloomington's multicolored urban landscape, etc..
It's a good time for Stepping Out.