PYROMANIAC

Fulbright’s science fiction written in fire

Under the covered workspace with the January rain pouring down outside, John Fulbright digs through an assortment of metal objects — hinges, cogs, plates, refuse from some long dismantled machines. He places them on an old piece of shelving whose paint has long since peeled and faded. He pulls out his blow torch and clicks it a few times. Suddenly, the flame whooshes to life, and he begins to draw, not with a pencil but with fire, giving birth to a robot worker.

The Beaumont native, who says he has always been a science fiction fan, has created a series of “pyrograms” that invite the viewer to explore an alternate reality, a utopian future of joyful robots who build communities, both physical and spiritual.

“They look like robots to me or alien in some way,” he says. “They have human characteristics, but they are not exactly human. And what are they doing?”

Fulbright and his friends were working at the home of Charlie Stagg, a local artist who used bottles and concrete to build his Vidor house.

“We were having a lot of fun in our spare time working at Charlie’s, helping him build his studio, collecting materials, building his road,” Fulbright says. “We were happy and working, so I thought, ‘What if you could program a robot to be happy — artificial intelligence with an innate sense of joy?’ Work is not a dirty word. It’s satisfying; it’s physically invigorating, and you get to see results. I love to see progress and results. Like Felix ‘Fox’ Harris said, ‘Make something out of nothing.’ That idea really turns me on.”

Making something out of nothing inspired the title of his show, “Previously Invisible Worlds,” at The Art Studio, Inc. The exhibition opens with a free reception from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., Feb. 2 and runs through Feb. 23.

The 54-year-old has built a successful photography career, but said he wanted to find a different way to be creative.

“What I was attracted to about this process is it’s quick and it’s immediate, and you can get it up on the wall without much fanfare,” he said. “Photography is process oriented — it takes a long time; it takes a lot of materials to get it from the camera to the wall. It’s prissy, in a way. I wanted something that’s fun, spontaneous, timely — I just wanted something that’s more me than photography.

“That’s the genesis of the pyrograms — using fire instead of light to produce images.”

Fulbright said he doesn’t have any formal training, but he loves artists.

“I’ve been hanging around The Art Studio so long that I really understand artists,” he said. “I’ve never thought of myself as an artist. Coming from a conservative family from West End Beaumont, I was to go to business school or law school. No one ever said, ‘You know, John, you really ought to be a photographer.’ But it’s been the most satisfying thing I could do.”

Fulbright began developing his fire images in 2005.

“Years ago, after Hurricane Rita, there was lots of material on the road — wood, metal objects — and I would take my little dog for a walk and we would pass by this place,” he said. “The building had been damaged in Hurricane Rita. It was a roofing company, and it had all these odd little metal pieces, cutoffs, outside the building. I was talking to the owner, and he said, ‘We are going to have to tear this building down,’ and I said, ‘Well, do you mind if I have any of these bricks or metal objects?’ and he said, ‘No, that’s fine.’ They were going to have to remove it all anyway.”

Over the years, Fulbright continued to pick up things he found.

“What I saw was raw material and blank canvases,” he said. “White shelf boards that would come out of old kitchens here in Old Town. It’s a very old neighborhood. A lot of the wood had a really rich quality and patina. It was amazing. It wasn’t something you could create — it was environmental. Most of the materials that are in the show have been found within a mile of my home.

“So I combined these metal objects with these white shelf boards, and I started dreaming. Whatever I was thinking about — rock ‘n’ roll, science fiction, re-use/recycle, marriage equality — I would just create a little tableau, a little story, then burn around them with the torch. When you take away the metal objects, there was something that looked like a photograph or a painting, with positive and negative space, and the middle tones caused by the ash. I’d scrub that away to reveal the wood, the white paint transformed into rich grays. The contrast was good. It was like using what I learned through photography to make art.

In the 1980s, Fulbright got a job assisting internationally known Beaumont-based photographer Keith Carter.

“Keith’s a technical genius and a creative genius as well,” Fulbright said. “He told me that the most important thing you have to offer is your life.”

The connection to photography is obvious, but Fulbright sees the pyrograms as almost a rejection of his professional work.

“I had never had any training whatsoever at artwork, but these materials spoke to me. I thought, ‘Y’know, I live right down the street from one of the best photographers in the world. I need to find to find a different creative outlet. Like Charlie Stagg said, ‘Make a little art every day.’ He was huge influence on me. He used the materials that were natural to his environment and created artwork, and I did much the same.”

Fulbright showed his early works around town at the Merchant Soirée, a pop-up market.

“I sold them cheap. I wanted to get them into the hands of artists,” he said. “I would create a piece and somebody would immediately buy it. Then I started framing. Richie Haynes and I would rip down shelf boards and make some frames. It just improved the whole look of them. My intention was to get these up on the wall quick.”

“There were some little triggers. I found a coffee table that had been through a house fire, and there were some objects that had been on the table. The smoke had made impressions, and I thought, ‘Huh, that’s another way to make an image.’ And I would leave a washer on a white board, and the rust would make an impression as well. It just came to me naturally — ‘OK, this is what I’m doing now.’”

Some of the pieces in the show are assemblages, which grew out of the pyrograms.

“Some objects don’t lay flat, but they looked like torso and limbs and heads, so I thought this could be another space, a three-dimensional space,” Fulbright said.

It’s not just the fire that attracts Fulbright. It is the wood.

“We used to go to the Sicardi Gallery in Houston, and they specialize in Latin American art,” he said. “Down in Uruguay and Venezuela, they don’t have a lot of trees so wood is a high-value commodity, so they treasure each scrap of wood. The gallery had a show from Uruguay. They were creating these little three-dimensional wall hangers, and they were fascinating in the way they could create the illusion of paint or abstract art.

“It made me think about wood as part of the vocabulary, that it could be as expressive as a brush stroke or photography.”

Science fiction plays an important role in Fulbright’s work.

“Part of my goal in creating these objects is you never know where you are going to find inspiration,” he said. “I hope, through these science fiction themes saying ‘What if?’ maybe some engineer will say, ‘You know, that’s not a bad idea. I never thought about it because it seems so foolish, but an artist thought of this and I can backward engineer it.’ I really have faith that science fiction informs science. You have to dream things. You have to have the idea. You never know where that idea is going to come from. I invite people not just interested in artwork to see the show. It’s really meant for everyone.

“To successfully live on this Earth and not have the climate wipe us out, we are going to have to be creative. Scientists need artists, I believe.”

It may only take Fulbright an hour or so to create the piece, but he contemplates the composition for a long time before he actually burns. The metal elements that create the figures will be used in various combinations on several pieces.

“That’s the idea of these guys, that they are robots that fly out into space and recombine into whatever configuration (they need),” he said. “They are malleable — ‘We’re digging ore today so we need this.’”

Once the pieces are finished, Fulbright uses tung oil to varnish them. It grows naturally in the Big Thicket and doesn’t degrade in the same fashion as polyurethane, and the oil can be reapplied as the piece ages. The oil also brings out many of the subtle tones.

Fulbright prefers planks to plywood, mostly in the states he finds them, but he is not opposed to adding a little paint here and there to improve the contrast.

“I really don’t restrict myself in any way,” he said “That’s how techniques develop — ‘Well, I’ve done it that way, now I’ll try it another way.’ If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. I enjoy experimenting. I’m always learning something new.”

“That’s what I enjoy about making art — I get to decide. I don’t have to confer with anyone. I am the master of this world. It might not make any sense, but it amuses me, and I hope it amuses others.”

Fulbright said that he never knows what the audience will take away from the work.

“My hope is to stimulate ideas,” he said. “That’s what these fun-loving robots are doing. They’re out living their lives and enjoying it. The last line of the poem, ‘Desdirata’ (is) ‘Strive to be happy.’ That poem would be their bible. Whoever created these read that poem.

“These robots are flying into space creating environments for us to live in. They don’t breathe oxygen. They fly using electromagnetism that occurs naturally in the universe — they’re having a ball. They are creating things using raw materials, refining and building. It’s because they want to.

“I have this silly idea that one day we can upload our consciousness and email it to another place in the universe and print out a body that would work in that particular environment. It would be total freedom, to go anywhere and do anything and be totally adaptable to our environment.”

By re-using discarded materials to create futuristic scenarios, Fulbright marries the past and the future at the same time. It is a process that requires thought.

“It’s really a struggle to put these things together, and I really enjoy the struggle,” he said. “It helps me clear my mind. In this crazy world, it’s something I can control. I fully admit this is art therapy. I need it. I need to create art. It’s something surprising to hear myself say, but I do.

“Artworks are meditations on how you should live. To be successful you have to be happy.”

The Art Studio is located at 720 Franklin in downtown Beaumont.

For more, visit www.artstudio.org, or for images, visit pyrograms.tumblr.com.

Story and artist photos by Andy Coughlan, ISSUE editor