STC art instructor David Freeman brings fresh eyes to folk creations

Empty eyes stare out from the blue mask, static satellite tower looming from the forehead.

Nearby, religious luminaries found by artist David Freeman in Mexico radiate with light through images of the Last Supper and other scenes. Prickly seashells surround a crucified Christ, and satellite towers covered with colorful beads spread across a table; bowls depict more towers rising over pristine waterfalls gushing from lush jungles into rippling lakes.

"David Freeman: Unstoppable Imagination of Information for Change," which opens July 18 at the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art, addresses a number of themes including misuse of technology and the importance of folk art.

"I’m trying to take artisans’ work that we don’t notice, that you just kind of walk by and see as a touristy kind of an artifact, that we don’t give a serious look," said Freeman, 55, art instructor at South Texas College. Freeman, who’s also curator and programs coordinator of the school’s library art gallery, was preparing some of his pieces in his studio before transporting them to Brownsville.

"It’s the difference between looking and seeing something," Freeman said. "We just kind of walk by these things all the time without giving them notice."

Freeman, who also is editor of Voices of Art Magazine, works in a wide variety of media, said Jennifer Cahn, curator for the Brownsville museum.

"There is a lot of intricate detail and a lot of ideas behind it," she said. "He’s definitely working on the intellectual level as well as the aesthetic level. He’s very passionate about politics, and about promoting the arts and getting the community involved. And that energy comes across in his artwork, as well. Sometimes it can be frenetic, and sometimes it’s calmer and more contemplative. All of the work, I find intriguing, and it has an energy to it."

The masks with the satellite towers warrant further discussion. Freeman, who also has a residence and studio in San Antonio, got the idea for the masks while "walking the streets of Mexico."

"I’ve always been interested in primitive folk art, because it does have this wonderful belief system and this faith system that’s so different than the dogma of religion," he said. "To me it’s much more spiritual, and it’s based in something that’s very, very genuine, and I want to replicate that."

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Freeman hired someone to make the masks with the satellite towers; the towers represent technologies which, in Freeman’s view, have the potential of spreading meaningful as well as incomplete information.

"It’s the whole idea of information being power," said Freeman, who is also constructing several towers from bamboo one from spatulas.

"We don’t get the right information, especially with the last government," he said. "We just didn’t get the right information, and they used whatever information they gave us for their own agenda. I mean, yeah, Saddam was a demon and needed to be removed, but did we need to go over there and invade to take out that one man? Of course it’s about oil, but they’re not letting us know it’s about oil."

Freeman points out that people in everyday life often misuse technology such as Facebook and Twitter to spread irrelevant information.

"We can waste a lot of time with personal opinions that mean absolutely nothing, without being able to come to a consensus," he said. "I think we need to read a lot more. I think we need to read published authors and artists, information that’s been validated somehow, and not just every Tom, Dick, and Harry that’s got an opinion."

In a sense, Freeman’s love of folk art and his message about technology come together in the masks, which are folk art, and in the satellite towers. Perhaps the masks represent the primal and authentic spirituality of folk art, and the satellite towers communicate the deception of contemporary life in which modern man loses contact with his own soul, lost in a sea of bewildering and disjointed knowledge.

"It’s like, all the tourists come to Mexico and then spend 20 bucks on a T-shirt, and dinner, and a wrestling mask, but it just sits somewhere on their kid’s desk or on some shelf," he said. "You know how all that touristy stuff just gets put out in your next flea market or your yard sale. So it’s a way of letting us see our own back yard a little bit, a little more focused."

Much of the folk art he has collected from both sides of the border has religious scenes. One of the luminaries, with electric bulbs, depicts the Last Supper with metallic green, violet, and blue radiating from each head. Another shows the Virgin Mary with the Baby Jesus surrounded by flowers. Still another contains an image of Virgin Mary in a blue cape.

"When I was a child, I went to Sunday school," said Freeman, who spent much of his life in Libya where his father worked in the oil industry.

"I loved the Bible, illustrations, all kinds of illustrations," Freeman said. "I was brought up in a Christian household, take you to church every Sunday, do all the religious ceremonies. You kind of daydream and look at all the illustrations as opposed to listening to the religious sermons and lectures. So, I’ve always been attracted to biblical paintings, all of the great masters, all of the great museums all through Europe."

While growing up in North Africa, his parents would take him and his brother to Europe, where they visited the art museums.

"They had these wonderful biblical paintings that showed people on the cross, and the crucifixion is a very violent kind of thing," he said. "But if you’re a child, you’re interested in those kinds of things, they really get your attention. I’ve always been attracted to that biblical kind of illustration, and those biblical paintings by the great masters. They’ve always been very noticeable. They are dramatic, and they are dark and brooding."

That’s what attracted him to the luminaries.

"They are really brightly colored," he said. "They turn, they have light in them, all those wonderful mechanics, and the visual efforts that they put in there are really really attractive. And I like them just for what they are. There’s a wonderful kind of religious message there."

Freeman says his collection of Catholic icons doesn’t have a direct connection with the satellite pieces. His purpose with them is to simply present them together in a big installation.

"That’s a separate kind of compulsive thing that I’ve been doing since I got here," he said.

Freeman’s show runs until Sept 5.