Check Out the Walls
By Kami Rice, freelance writer
I have great intentions of taking you on a tour of all the fine coffeehouses offering their liquid wares around Williamson County’s nooks and crannies, but today I’ve ended up back at the Brentwood Borders Café. It’s very close to my house, and the book addict in me loves being surrounded by so many pages full of words.
I wasn’t planning to record this visit on any megabytes of space on the server hosting FranklinIs. I didn’t come here to work on anything FranklinIs-related. However, the paintings on display today are too cool not to mention.
My artistic taste prefers varied textures as well as minimal clutter—in the way of warmth and homeyness rather than the way of modern metal, glass and emptiness. That taste has found a nice meal on the wall of the Café today. (Okay, okay, so that’s not really the most appetizing metaphor in the world and is, I fully acknowledge, actually quite pun-y, but once the words started going there and I started chuckling, I just couldn’t leave you out of the fun. Aren’t you glad?)
Trevor Mikula is the artist of the moment here, and if I were not a struggling painter (of word pictures) myself, I would love to shell out some cash for some of these pieces that keep distracting my eyes and the rest of me from the work I came here to do. The bold blocks of color are vibrant without being too loud and overwhelming, whimsical yet reality-based, youthful while never quite descending into childishness.
The textured surfaces—layers created with a palette knife—suggest depth and substance that invite gazing, gazing as rest and reflection, gazing because it’s a chance to step away from the never-stopping culture we live in, gazing like you would if you were sitting on a bench at the edge of a pond surrounded by trees in the middle of a gentle summer rainstorm, gazing into something real that isn’t really your world but helps your world stop for a minute.
Displayed nicely near the wall of art were copies of Nashville Arts Magazine. Trevor’s There Was Two Today made the cover, and rated a little profile story inside. That’s where I learned about the palette knife application; I’m not art-savvy enough to know that otherwise. And in the world of random connections, I recently happened upon a nice little Bob Ross rerun on NPT. He, too, was using a palette knife. You know, it’s really amazing that there are few children of the 80s who do not know who Bob Ross is. It was a white guy with a ‘fro in front of an easel who talked while he painted—talk about low budget programming—and somehow it did then and still does suck us viewers into not changing the channel.
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Since I’m talking about him here, I thought it might be nice to check in with Trevor, so that I could tell you loyal readers a little more about him and his work. So, I gave him a call recently. Here’s what I found out.
Trevor is 26 years old and has been painting for eight years. For two years he’s been working as a painter full-time, without another job…which is always a nice milestone for any artistic type to reach.
When I asked how he chooses his subjects, he explained, “I just paint anything that interests me.” Then he went on to reveal the economic realities that even artists must live by: “A lot of my work is based on what’s going to sell where.” For example, when he’s doing a show in Arizona, he paints a lot of cattle and cactuses. He also in general paints a lot of “floral stuff and landscapes” because those sell best.
The flexible schedule is one of the things Trevor likes best about being an artist. “I get to do what I like. I think that’s the best part. I don’t have a schedule that ties me down,” he said. He can go into his studio and work when he wants to. Understandably, then, the thing he likes least are deadlines. “The thing that I hate is when I have deadlines, like when I have a show coming up or I’ve double-booked myself. I like to take my time to do good work.”
Trevor’s artistic career got its start when he was right out of high school and sold his first painting. It was a painting of a giraffe. He sold it to one of his teachers for $50.
Of course, an interview for a column that’s supposed to be about the coffeehouse scene wouldn’t be complete without a question related to coffeehouses. Trevor said he’s started hanging out at coffeehouses quite a bit recently. “My studio is close to a couple places, so I meet clients there.” He usually drinks coffee but added, “When it gets cold out, I love hot chocolate.”
Trevor’s paintings are no longer hanging at Borders, since he was their September artist, and September has somehow silently disappeared into a new month. You can check out his web site (www.trevormikula.com) to see more of his work. Email him from his web site if you’d like to know when he’ll have another show in the Mid-State.
Kami Rice lives in Brentwood, Tennessee and rarely experiences a dull moment. If, however, you need to be rescued from a dull moment, you can check out her teeny, tiny corner of the blogosphere: The Coffeehouse Journals. Contrary to all appearances, Kami does have a life outside coffee.
