5th Place Honorable Mention: United Creators First Annual Online Juried Arts Competition
Charles Grogg, based in Ojai, captures the beauty, poetry and sensuality of floral forms through exquisite and intimate black and white and sepia-tinted photography.
Describe your earliest beginnings as an artist.
I went to the German Expressionism exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1987. I was moved by the woodcuts and drawings by Kathe Kollwitz and Otto Dix among others. I was not a photographer at the time, but the experience shaped my sensibilities. It was very emotional. And there was such beauty in the urgency of the work, notably in the drawings, charcoals and woodcuts — all black and white images, all of them powerful.
What was a defining moment in your early development as an artist?
Around 2000-2001, I took a workshop from Robert Werling, a master printer and photographer from Ansel Adams’ circle. I remember having what I thought was a strong group of images and being eager to hear what he would have to say about them. He said, “Work on your imagery.” And that was pretty much it. I spent three or four years thinking about what that meant exactly and just exploring that advice took me through some great experiences, especially in studying the work of some great master and contemporary photographers.
Describe your driving force or motivation to create artwork.
When I was 20, I took a course in dramatic writing and the author of the text we used wrote that the impulse to write was born out of the urge to create. The implication was that a creative impulse underlies all artistic work, and that it’s a human urge. What bewilders me is how much time people spend in front of TV screens, and how that lack of meaningful activity eats up their lives. I’m a bit ADHD probably, so I constantly want to work and to make something meaningful. That’s what other artists do. I look at others’ work that startles me, and I have to respond.
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