7/27/2009

An interview with Iowa Arts Gallery founder, S. Richard (Dick) Shook

An interview with the curator and CEO of the Iowa Arts Gallery. S. Richard Shook

No portion of this interview may be copied without the permission of the Iowa Arts Gallery.

IAG-- Can you give us an idea of your background?

Dick--Well, I'm an Iowan. I grew up in Northern Iowa between Manly and Mason City for most of teenage life. I've had an interest in art almost as long as I can remember, but it was my grandfather who first encouraged me, as he was a painter himself. The fact is, that he was also completely colorblind. My brother is also colorblind. Anyway, he gave me some drawing lessons and set up an area for me to paint in in his basement.


Dick Shook
Photo by Lynette Sherer

I learned a lot from him, but I think his love and boundless encouragement cannot be measured.

I spent some time in the military, which was a good thing to help me focus my thoughts on a disciplined future. Before I joined the miliary, my life was somewhat "out of focus". School wasn't going well, I just hadn't adapted to a responsible adult life as I ought to have done. When I was discharged from the Air Force, I determined to return to school and start over and get it right.

I was successful and determined. My senior year I was awarded the Janice Peterson Anderson Award, something I'm still very proud of. The following year I decided to continue on to graduate school and unfortunately seemed to lose my way very quickly. I can't say exactly why, but my studies weren't satisfying to me. I had an interest in law school, so I took the LSATS and was accepted at the University of N. Dakota. Law school was a challenge, but very stimulating, I did very well with contracts, constitutional law, and property law, and I met some great people who were very encouraging. As it happened before the beginning of my second semester a job offer came to me to work as an architectural illustrator for what was then known as Bloogood Architects, in Des Moines.

The Harverster Clubhouse,
Designed by Dick Shook

From there I was offered a job in New Hampshire working as an illustrator and designer for a larger landscape architecture, architecture and land planning firm. Soon after that, unfortunately came the savings and loan crisis which affected many businesses along the east coast and I found myself unemployed.

Knowing practically nothing about how to run a small business I gave it a shot and started a service for architects called "The Graphics Workshop". From that point on, over the next ten or fifteen years, I started several businesses to provide services primarily for architects, landscape architects, and developers. Finally I defined myself as a building designer and had the opportunity to work on some high profile projects with great success. One of those is the Harvester Golf Course Clubhouse , I don't remember the year it was submitted, but it was selected as a finalist as one of the five best new clubhouses in the United States.

i also became a contractor, designing and building homes and other special projects.

It amazes me that my life has taken so many turns, and in the end I find myself doing what I really do love the most and that is making art, writing about, and talking to people about art.

IAG--The Iowa Arts Gallery is a big project. How did you decide to do this, and what keeps you going?

Dick--I was working on a virtual gallery, or more accurately, an immersive spherical panorama of an art gallery I had designed to show my own work in. I was showing it to my sister who thought it was a great idea and from there we've just been adding pieces to it, trying to make it a better fit for artists and patrons. My sister, Lynette and I used work on articles for the Iowa Sate Daily, the student newspaper. I would write the articles and Lynette would take the photographs. I don't think that there is a projecgt that Lynette and I have worked on that hasn't been anything but a profound pleasure and a joy to do. So that keeps me going, and I possess this dogged determination and interest in projects that just won't let go of me. Part of it is that I like to solve problems and I like to keep learning. The beauty of art is that there are always all sorts of problems to be solved, and the Iowa Arts Gallery gives me a never ending supply in a broad spectrum. An example of one problem has been my need to relearn web page design, and expand that to take advantage of database applications and scripting. In many ways, its a lot like builidng in the need to define a problem and then design solutions for those problems. I spend a lot of time working very late, either painting or programming, and I still have a regular job for an important client. Fortunately, Dan (owner of DES Companies) has been very understanding and very supportive.

IAG--Again, its a big project. Do you do it alone?

Dick--Oh, no, no. I do all of the pogramming. We use php scripting and a mySQL database system. But, we have geat volunteers like Louisa Drake who has been researching the materials for our historical exhibits database, on John Singer Sargent. Chris Cox, is our IT intern. and we have a great board of directors. My sister Lyentte handles the business end of things, and we're always looking for more volunteers and partners to make the thing be the best that it can be.

IAG-- So where do things stand now?

Dick--Well, we're making progress, although we still have a ways to go. I don't ever see it being a finished project, however, as I normally might describe a building project. I fully expecgt it to evolve and keep on evolving. But, some of the basic structure is there. We've worked through some very difficult technological issues and my programming comfort level is improving quite a bit more. We're still missing the user account capabilities that are the most essential, but they will come along soon. The main thing is to do it the best we can whatever time it does take.

IAG--What are some of the features you are working on?

Dick--There are quite a few. We've begun to interview verious figures in the arts and from those interviews we're writing informative articles. We keep the original audio interviews and are buildng a library of those along with the articles. Over the course of time, I think we'll have a very nice collection, all of which will be available through the Iowa Arts Gallery.

Then we have the virtual gallery space. In some respects this is much like the virtual tours that people take when they are looking to buy a home. But the idea is to provide the sense of context that is always lost when a painting, sculpture or what have you is put up on the internet as a thumbnail. This is primarily a historical exhibit space. So, we're working on Sargent now, later, we'll see, but I'm thinking of an Impresssionist exhibit. The beauty of it is that the sky is the limit, the spaces can be designed however we wish, and there is an unlimited supply of this virutal space. So with that in mind, we'll be promoting a special edition of the virutal exhibit for winners of a bi-annual competition. Since all the exhibits can be permanently stored, I think it'll become an invaluable library.

Probably the most ambitious project, other than the gallery itself, is the development of a project that I have been calling the value of art. Essentially, this is a tool to give to artists, educators, and the public a way to visualize the world arts market. We'll start small, but by carefully examining certain key, objective, quantifiable data points, I think we'll be able to get a very helpful picture.

We also have news and information about upcoming events. There are essays, and opinons. I have to say that we're getting there, and hopefully we'll be able to set up a search system that will allow all this information to have a very long life.

IAG--What do you think of the competition?

Dick--Competition is good, and I think it shows just how important the arts are to our society. We've been tracking the success of deviantart.com, for example, and last I checked it was ranked somewhere around the 138th most popular websites. That's out of millions of choices, and not far behind all variety of search engines, twitter, facebook, and the like. You can't ignor that kind of influence. But, we also notice certain patterns in websites as they seek to maintain their relevance and freshness, and many fall to much lower rankings (although they continue to have very faithful core followers). I find that while it takes time to update profiles on a variety of sites, the more the better as far as an artist's exposure is concerned.

IAG--What do you think will make the difference for the IAg?

Dick--There are important keys. One of the most important being the need to provide all the tools that make a community interactive. As I've said, I'm working on those. Some others are substantive content, and educational resources. There are some other things that I won't mention now, but they'll be coming as soon as I can get the programming done to support them.

IAG--How's your budget?

Dick--It'd be nice to have money to budget. That'll happen, we just have to keep going, working to make it is the best we can make it. Research projects do take time and money. All of it takes time, expertise, and money. So, we're looking whereever we may be able to find the resources to keep our heads up and work moving forward.

IAG--You're an artist, what are you working on and how do you find time to do it?

Dick--I've been focusing on oil painting, but I also enjoy sculpting. I've been painting portraits, doing some landscapes. I did a couple of paintings for the World Food Prize


"Across Iowa" Oil on Canvas
by Dick Shook

Foundation that were very rewarding. I've also donated a couple of paintings to the community that I really ejoyed doing. One of the paintings I'm working on is a bride who is, along with her family, very close to me. Years ago, I did a lot of things with screen printing, found objects, that sort of thing. Now I find my temperament is more conducive to the traditional disciplines of painting. But I still have a lot of affinity for all forms of art.

IAG--Have you been able to sell your work?

Dick--Sure. But my primary interest is in creating and getting polished up after years of working with "throw away art". I'd love to have a show sometime, but I'm not looking actively to do that just yet. I've given away some paintings, sold some paintings, and donated some paintings. They are hard to give up. I just try to work as much as I can. When the Gallery gets a little further along, I'm sure I'll be able to do more, one way or another. Its not something that will leave me alone.

IAG--What do you think of the current art market?

Dick--It depends on where you are in it. Right now, its all over the place, but there are a great many niches and new ways to find exposure. I just wrote an article called the "Value of Art" and it seems clear to me that artists have to do a better job of understanding their markets, do a better job of articulating the motives for their work, and trying to find new ways to create lasting value for their work. Every art form as its own problems, but there will always be a place for the classics done well, or better than they originally were. The Chinese will continue to influence activity on the low end volume work, with some notable exceptions. If we do our job right, we'll find many examples of artists engaged in a broad spectrum of work and we'll try to make sense out of it.

IAG--Thanks very much.

Dick--You're very welcome!