Studio Visit with John Haney
Q: Tell us about yourself.
A: I’d like to have been a major league baseball player, but settling for being an artist could have been worse. I’m an Ontario boy, but spent a long time on the East Coast and in in Newfoundland, and that’s where I learned how to grow a mighty beard against the cold, salty spray. I live in Hamilton with my wife, two young sons, and faithful dog. I fear I’m the old man of the program, but it affords me sympathy when my memory wanders.
Q: What are you currently working on?
A: Photography, mostly. I’m working away at a series of photographs made in museums and galleries in the fallow period between exhibitions. I’m also working with photograms, and am sniffing around the base of the daunting and vague and oft-sniffed monolith of abstraction. Also some sculptures — and I’m trying to find a language for the connection between the two mediums.
Q: What are you most excited about for the 2015 Open Studios/Shenkman Lecture?
A: I think Patrick pretty much covered it when he mentioned beer and feedback (though you don’t want to get those two things mixed up or for too much of one to lead to the other). And cheese. But mostly I’m looking forward to this old hermit meeting new people and talking. I’m curious to get an outside perspective; one can toil away at these things in the context of the program and it will be nice to get an outside-outside perspective. Oh yes, and did I mention Michael Snow? That’ll be a treat.
To learn more about John’s work, visit: http://www.johnhaney.ca
SAVE THE DATE: The Dasha Shenkman Lecture in Contemporary Art with Michael Snow and MFA Open Studios is on Wednesday March 25, 2015.