In the latest installment of our “In-Depth” interview series, our very own Rex Thomson sat down with the great artist Bean Spence. Anyone who has been to Suwannee Music Park will recognize the name, as Spence is the artist and live painter in residence for a number of great festivals in the beautiful locale, including Wanee, Magnolia, Hulaween, Purple Hatter’s Ball and so many more!

Read on to find out about Bean Spence’s inspirations, motivations, and more!

L4LM: Thanks for taking the time away from your painting to talk with us!

Bean Spence:  Thank you for having me.

L4LM:  I like to start at the beginning.  Were you the kid who just never stopped drawing?

BS:  I’ve always been drawing, or sculpting or something….yeah, I never stopped.  Licked a whole bag of Hershey’s chocolates and put them up on my wall when I was five…(Chuckles)…Haven’t done that since!

L4LM: (Laughs)  That’s a medium that in under-rated…chocolate.

BS: (Laughs)  I’m very experimental with my artwork.  (Laughs)

 

L4LM:  I’ve seen a lot of your work on different mediums, but never any of your three dimensional stuff.  Do you still sculpt?

BS:  Yes I do. 

L4LM:  I’ve seem some of your “Wood Painting” stuff…

BS:  Wood, brick, the stucco heads and the pot heads.  Lotta different stuff.  I like switching it up. 

L4LM:  What mediums are you most comfortable in?

BS:  Oils and acrylics.  I do an oil background just to get that “Marbelization” look to it and then acrylic on top of that.  It gives it a different depth and dimension, and that helps with the “#-D” aspect of what I do.  It’s a major layering process.  (Chuckles)

L4LM:  What was the original impetus for your free standing wood images, like the characters we see around the Spirit Of The Suwannee?

BS:  I worked really long on a canvas piece and I was setting up my EZ-UP and the leg EZ-UP went through the canvas!  So I forbid myself from using canvas.  It’s always recycled wood now…driftwood…just…wood.  I can use the grains in it or, y’know, I just like the wood look.  It’s all about the wood!  (Laughs)

L4LM:  (Chuckles)  Your style has a strong element of whimsy and the fantastical to it…would you say you just let your imagination run wild? 

BS:  Yeah…it depends on what I’m listening to because music is my muse.  If I pick up something out of a song or something and I just roll with it. 

L4LM:  Do you have any formal training?

BS:  Naah, I’m self taught.  I’m a self taught painter and sculptor. 

L4LM:  I love to hear that from artists of any genre.  There are a lot of intricacies that it could help to learn, but the great thing is, art can just be art.  You don’t really need to learn from somebody how to express yourself.

BS:  Exactly!  Anyone can do it.  Stacking rocks is an art form.  Anything is, or at least can be.  It’s art!

L4LM:  Certainly there’s some technical stuff that it might help to learn, like how to work with oils and and so on…

BS:  Oh yeah, and your primary and secondary colors as well.  Focal point, stuff like that are things you should have a little knowledge of, but you can just teach yourself that. 

L4LM: How’d you get your start in the music poster business?

BS:  It was just something people have asked me to do.  Album covers poster and all that.  Actually the first one was for the band moe...

L4LM:  I’ve heard of them! [Editor’s Note: Rex was voted Mayor of moe.down Festival 2014!]

BS:  (Laughs) Yeah I did a “Static” sticker for their “Dither” album.”  (A static sticker uses a thin polymer layer with the inks cast as part of the plastic, enabling it to be affixed to glass and plastic surfaces like car windows, so that the image gains a glowing aspect in the light) Everyone was like “Wow! That’s really cool!”  And then I got into the music festival scene about 16 or 17 years ago at The Spirit Of The Suwanee Music park and I did a Bear Creek poster in ’08 and it took off from there. I just love doin’ what I do!

L4LM:  Do you remember how you got that moe. gig?

BS:  It was a contest, and I don’t like entering contests…but I just love moe. so much!  (Laughs)  So I sent the art in and they said that I had won and I was a happy camper. 

L4LM:  Have you always painted to music?

BS:   Yeah, yeah.  I mean…when I’m painting in my studio…wherever, inside, outside…onstage in the crowd.  I love painting at live shows.  I love feeding off the crowd and the live music itself.  The studio is nice, but the crowd, just being in it is just phenomena…just a great experience to create to…and with…to be part of while you’re doing it.  

L4LM:  Do you have a music preference..like…a style or genre that you prefer to paint to?

BS:  I like bluegrass but I don’t like country.  I really don’t listen to rap.  I don’t do raves or anything like that…I like electronica music.   I love reggae and jam bands..(Chuckles)…depends on my mood.  (Laughs) 

L4LM:  Do you ever reach for a certain type of music to evoke a certain feeling in a piece?

BS:  Sometimes. Sometimes I’ll have something prepped up to possibly I song I know they’ll play…something like that…but then sometimes I’ll just do it on a whim.  It just depends on my mood.  If I’m super stoked about something and I’m ready to go…then I’m ready…paint brushes and beard, I’m all in!

L4LM:  I love that energy in you.  You’re a fixture at the Spirit Of The Suwannee Music Park.  The place is so beautiful.  Do you have a favorite part or place there?

BS:  The beach.  I got married there in 2000 so every time I pull up I unload and then I go to the beach and hang out at the water for at least an hour.  Then I get to work for the next six days…(Laughs)  I love the whole place though..It’s just so amazing.  And going on Scallywag adventures…(Laughs)

L4LM:  To a lot of people,  you’re a part of the park yourself.

BS:   I love goin’ there.  It’s a very spiritual place.  Yep…I will be there…i do ’em all…except the country jam.  

L4LM:  Your studio work is beautiful…but you also do some live in the field painting at shows.  How do you do that with some of the delicate painting techniques you use?

BS:  Well, I do all my oil work prior because I don’t wanna use spray paint or chemicals around a big crowd or where there might be little kids ’cause if a lil kid comes up to me and wants to, I’m gonna let them paint on my painting.  It’s fun.  So, I don’t use oils live, I pre-prep all my back grounds and I am an official “Hoop” magnet…all the hula hoopers seem to find me as I’m painting so that’s always…fun.  (Laughs)   

L4LM:  So if I’m hearing you right, people are accidentally bashing into your easels with hoops and such?

BS:  Oh yeah!  I’ve been hit in the head and when working all the time live it just happens.  When you work shows sometimes you might get whacked by a hooper or ball spinning people, you know what I mean.  It’s fun…you just gotta be on your guard..(Laughs)…and still enjoy the music…and paint!  (Laughs)    So…it’s a threesome!  (Laughs)

L4LM:  Do you every worry that since you’re focusing on the music and the art at the same time you’re not giving it your best?  Like you’re not giving your all to one or the other?

BS:  Naah.  I listen to the music and I FEEL the music when I paint.  I watch the bands sometimes…but I’m focused…I’m focused in on my piece.  What I want to do per set…per show.    Depending on the band…whether they’re doing two sets or just one. 

L4LM:  I admire and am blown away by some of the stuff I have seen you accomplish with all that craziness going on around you.

BS:  There’s a whole lot of live painters out there now, amazing painters, and it’s a whole different story painting live than in a studio.   In the studio you don’t have to worry about anything, like your hands, your stability…do you know what I mean?  But it’s so much fun and rewarding…that’s why I do what I do. 

L4LM:  Do you remember how the idea of live painting began in you?  Did you see someone doing it?

BS:  Yeah, Scramble Campbell was doing it when we started going in ’99.  He did it for a couple years down at the park, we’ve actually done a collaboration.  I was painting a little bit live before that, but just not so main stream.  I’m not influenced by him…our work is just different, y’know?  I just like to paint, y’know?  (Chuckles)    And you can make money at it!  (Laughs)

L4LM: (Laughs)  The money part never hurts!  Your style and Campbells are VERY different. 

BS:  Yeah.

L4LM: I believe similarities people might see come from the way you go about the act of painting live. 

BS:  Right.

L4LM:  Would you recommend trying the live painting experience to other artists,?

BS:  I really do recommend it.  I’m the visual arts coordinator for the Spirit Of The Suwannee Music Park, basically I do most of the festivals there outside of the Aura Festival and the Country Jam.  I get a group of artists that are live painters and get their thoughts…I put a lot of thought and effort into putting that together and making that tribe go.  And there’ll be other people who come in and paint to, not just the featured artists.  It’s not like I would ever tell them, “Hey you!  You’re not allowed to paint!”  (Laughs)  Anybody can paint!   Anybody can. 

L4LM:  Do you have any PRACTICAL tips for artists trying their hand at painting live?

BS:  Just stay with it, and always watch your back!  Hula hoopers are everywhere!  Really though, just keep doing what you’re doing.  Every one of them is practice.  Every single one of them is practice.  The next gets easier, then again gets easier…so…that’s about the best tip I can give you. I set everybody with a power strip.  That’s why we go stage right instead of in the middle, because the sound guy actually needs it kinda dark to do what he does.  If you’ve got twenty five painters, that’s pretty bright!  (Chuckles)  

L4LM:  Are there any bands you’d like to work with that you haven’t gotten to…yet?

BS:  I really get into Charles Bradley…he’s incredible.  I did him at the Purple Hatters Ball…he was amazing.  The whole place changed when he came on and played.   I’ll be painting with Derek though, Derek Trucks.  Hopefully be painting with the Avett Brothers at the Magnolia Festival as well…  I’ve got a portrait I painted of him that he signed.  It’s hanging on my wll…right next to Willie Nelson.  (Laughs)

 

L4LM:   I’ve noticed you do a lot of charity work there at the park.  You donate a lot of pieces to auction.   

Every show that I am at there I donate something to, and I try to get the other artists to do as well…donate it to the Magnolia Arts Foundation, or any charity that’s come up there.    You gotta give, you gotta be a giver. 

L4LM:  Have you ever had an image in your head that you couldn’t make work on the page?
BS:  No, never.  Well, I don’t consider myself a portrait artist, but I just did 28 images for the city of Tampa’s trolleys.  (Chuckles)  So now I guess I’m a portrait artist!  (laughs)  I can do ’em, but preferrably I’d rather not.  (Laughs)

L4LM:  Your style is rather personal and unique, I could see how it would be hard to be bogged down by a likenesses.

BS: Yeah…it’s boring is what it is.   I like crazy colors.  Kinda tellin’ a story right in someone’s face…

L4LM:  That’s a perfect note to end this on!  Thanks so much Bean for taking the time to chat with us.  Look forward to seeing what you dream up next!

BS:  Thanks!  See you at Suwannee!

You can purchase your own piece of Bean’s incredible art HERE

Here’s his poster for the upcoming MagnoliaFest, in the spirit of Suwannee Music Park!

 

And check out a full gallery of artwork from Bean Spence below: