"I began working in the mid 70’s while in college at Central Michigan University. My intention was to become a history teacher. I never made it. I started carving stone and progressed to becoming both a potter and maker of objects in clay that served no real purpose.
Graduation found me both without a kiln and lacking any really good studio space. I became a basement dweller in Flint just before everything began to fall apart. Flint was a pretty vibrant place to make art in the late 70’s and early 80’s. I worked with Tom Nuzum, John Kotarski, Joe Cunningham, Gwen Marsden, Danny Murphy and countless others. We all were busy making art, teaching or picking up side jobs to make the payments and visiting each others “studios.”
Studio is such a loose term, most of us were hiding out in basements, dining rooms, Mott Community College and old, unheated commercial spaces. Even today, I do most of my work in the garage in the summer. I paint sitting on the cement floor surrounded by piles of wood shavings and dust. It’s pretty similar to the first studio space I used at Central Michigan; an old concrete block building filled with plaster and stone chips with a furnace that functioned when you put two wires together, long since gone but fondly remembered by all of us who worked there.
“Years ago when I was a potter someone described what I was doing as the production of functional junk. At least with pottery you could use it. I look at the benches and tables the same way. They are functional junk. You can at least sit on them!”
Sometime in the late 70’s I picked up my first fish decoy carved by Oscar Peterson out of Cadillac, Michigan. Peterson’s decoys were clean and lacked the multiple layers of paint that would be present on many of the other decoys that I would find as my collections grew. At the time none of my work bore any resemblance to a fish, let alone a bench. At the time I was busy painting and drawing cats with pastels and multiple layers of paint and working on a series of small scale constructions that looked like gutted homes with small scale two by fours and lathe for plaster, windows and doors.
The benches and tables I now build are an outgrowth of the cat paintings of the 70s, the urban landscape ideas of the 70s and 80s, and the small collages from the 90’s. Everything has to do with the texture of an object; the multiple layers of paper, pastels, paint etc. As many of the benches are constructed of found wood (wood others have left at my studio door and scraps of old picture frames and moldings), they fit into the collecting, acquiring, and gathering that seems to be so much a part of being an artist.
Like most of my drawings and paintings the fish benches have layers of paint on them. The application of several layers of paint allows for the removal by sanding and grinding so you have an obfuscation of one layer and an exposing of yet another layer. (If you look at a 50 year old fish decoy that has been repainted several times and had new hooks installed you’d get the idea.) Years ago when I was a potter someone described what I was doing as the production of functional junk. At least with pottery you could use it. I look at the benches and tables the same way. They are functional junk. You can at least sit on them!"
Benches and tables can be found at Freshwater in Boyne, Michigan, at Greta's in Leland, Michigan and at Elements Gallery in Charlevoix, Michigan. Benches and tables are priced in the $350.00 to $500.00 range All works on paper can be found through this website. Prices can be had upon request.
If you are attempting to locate new/current work, you should know that this website adds all work to the end of each list. So new benches/tables show up at the end of everything else. As do paintings, prints, collages etc. While that seems to be a bit cumbersome, knowing in advance may be helpful.
Email me at richardcobbart@gmail.com with any questions. All paintings and benches are for sale and prices are negotiable.