It’s about ideas: Luis Gutierrez, artist

October 21, 5:53 PMSan Jose Contemporary Art ExaminerErica Goss

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L.Gutierrez: assemblage

Luis Gutierrez draws, paints, and creates collages and assemblages.  He is an inveterate collector, picking up things he finds on walks, and going through stacks of old photographs at antique stores.  Many of his finds – old toys, found objects, and game pieces – become part of his work.  His home on a quiet street in Los Gatos is filled with his paintings and drawings, as well as treasures he’s acquired along the way.  He taught art at San Jose City College for twenty-seven years, where he encountered people from a variety of backgrounds: different age groups, ethnic groups and a mix of men and women made for some very interesting classes. 

Gutierrez has high praise for the community college system: “If it weren’t for community colleges, many people wouldn’t have a chance to succeed.”  Gutierrez himself attended Diablo Valley Community College when it first opened, then transferred to San Jose State University, where he earned his bachelor's degree.  Soon after, he received a scholarship to attend the Art Institute in San Miguel de Allende, in Mexico, and received his master's degree from San Miguel.  There he met Janet, the woman who would eventually become his wife, but their paths took them in different directions: she to her home in Canada, where she raised a family, and he back to the Bay Area.  They reconnected many years later, however, and are now married. A drawing he made as a young man hangs in his house.  “This is of Janet, from when we first met.  I gave this drawing to a friend.  When Janet and I got married, he gave it back to me.” 

A child of the Depression, Gutierrez was born and raised in the East Bay town of Pittsburg.  His father died when Gutierrez was just five years old, leaving a wife and three children, and forcing the family into poverty.  “We all had to work,” he says.  “I shined shoes, delivered papers, you name it.”  His mother eventually remarried, and the family grew to five children.  During high school, Gutierrez’s talent began to show, but he received little encouragement.  “There was always that question: how are you going to make a living?  I grew up in a house without books, music or pictures on the wall.  I didn’t even collect rocks!”  He worked in Pittsburg’s steel mills, and all through college.  

“I’ve done all kinds of jobs,” he says, but at this stage in his life, Luis Gutierrez has the advantage of skill, patience and practice.  “Talent is the desire to do something well.  I can do things faster now than before, which is good because at my age, I don’t want to labor too long.”  He doesn’t need much and feels happy where he is.  He loves being an artist, he says, and finds that he has many ideas and plenty to do. He quotes the poet E. E. Cummings: “Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but it's very difficult to learn to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you're a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you're nobody but yourself.”

“The hardest thing to learn is how to keep things simple,” says Gutierrez.  “Artists must learn from the world, but listen to themselves.”  In a culture focused on what Gutierrez calls “left-brained” thinking, artists must reach into the right side of the brain – the part concerned with creativity, art and feelings.  Over a lifetime of artistic expression, Gutierrez has developed techniques to usher in his own, and his students’, creativity. 

“When I draw, I like to engage both my left and right hands. That is, I draw with both hands at the same time.  I do this very quickly, in less than a minute.  I’ll go back later to the drawing, but I like the intimacy of working quickly.  It allows me to reach the right side of my brain.  All artists have defined a way of keeping the left brain at bay; you can’t keep it out completely but you can keep it away long enough to get some art done.”  For example, Gutierrez created a portrait series of soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), drawing very quickly with both hands.  The effect of these portraits is of anguish and suffering.  “I felt that no one was doing anything for these soldiers,” he says.  “They came back from Iraq and terrible things had happened to them. Many ended up divorced, jobless, even homeless.”   

The PTSD portraits are an example of what Gutierrez calls “the personal.”  “Find out what’s important to you, and then find out why.  Art is about feeling.  When I get interested in something, it’s because I have a personal connection to it.”  Don’t overwork things, he cautions: “Artwork should look very fresh, as if it were poured on the canvas. Sometimes art takes a long time and sometimes it’s there very quickly – the artist must recognize that place.”

“We need to get away from judging whether something is ‘good art’ or ‘bad art.’  Everything is art!  If something appeals, if it’s exciting to you, then it’s art.”  As far as advice, Gutierrez states, “Know as much about yourself as you can.  Be practical in your life, but not in your art.  Work hard and be patient.  You have the answers and the questions.” And – “Art is about ideas.”

(All photos by Erica Goss)