Photograph by Alana Bartol
James Masse is a third year BFA Visual Arts student from Tecumseh. This cutie is anything but boring and is sure to keep any collegiette on her toes!
Have you ever been interviewed before?
A guy interviewed me when I was eleven because I bought a Harry Potter book and I was on the radio for it. Wait, no, I was almost eleven! On the radio they were like, “How do you know you’re not a wizard?” and I was like, “I’m not eleven yet so I won’t know until I get my owl!” Those are my interview experiences thus far.
Other than Harry Potter, what else are you a fan of?
I’m not [Harry Potter’s] biggest fan now because there’s no more books. I like collecting things. When I was a kid I had a lot of Legos because I wanted to be an architect, but then I realized I don’t like math so I got into art. I wanted to be an architect because of the money, but I didn’t think about what it would mean. I’ve always loved drawing; I’ve been drawing since I was five. My dad and I would do X-Men drawings of Cyclops. I wanted to do something like that, but part of me knew it would be hard to make it as an artist.
What do you want to do with art now?
I’ve really gotten behind teaching. I like talking to people and showing them things. There’s a lot to be said for story culture, I guess. Everything we know we were taught, but I think that’s going away because of the internet. One of these days I want to teach using art, figure out how to make art about teaching or the way the mind observes it. I’m interested in making art for different types of learners. I’m not sure we have all the different types of learners mapped out either. I think there are different brain types and I want to explore that too. I want to teach high school [students], so I want to make my second teachable [subject] social studies. I have to have the grounds for a social studies class, like a soc or a psych intro class that they’d offer in high school. I was interested in anthro, but the program got cancelled. I’ve taken the basic Intro to Psychology and a Positive Psych class, which was interesting. I like how people’s brains work. There’s a lot of teaching that doesn’t really address or acknowledge how different people learn.
Did you work at Camp Kodiak (a summer camp for “children & teens with and without Learning Disabilities, ADHD, NLD & High-functioning Asperger Syndrome”) because you were interested in teaching people who are different learners?
Oh yeah definitely. I went there because I want to teach and because it’s a great opportunity. I got to be the kiln guy. When you make a clay sculpture, you have to fire it or else it gets very fragile, so firing it in the kiln makes it strong, like ceramic. I was in charge of taking sculptures the kids made, putting them in the kiln, and making them more permanent. When you drop them, they won’t necessarily shatter like glass. There can’t be air bubbles, the clay has to be half an inch thick, it’s a bunch of stuff you have to do. I really loved working there. I’m going back, it’s great. You’re a camp councilor, too, so you have a troop of kids you’re like a pseudo parent to. If I had to go and run pottery that was the only time of day other than free play (where all the kids run around camp) when I’m not with my nine boys. So you’re basically like a quasi-adopted parent. My group was [ages] 16-18. The camp has [ages] 6-18 and they have a place for older people, too. I found this place in the job fair that the university holds. It’s up in Parry Sound. You go up about June 20th and come back about August 20th. You have a cabin with all your campers and you stay with them.
How long have you been interested in teaching?
I think out of laziness in high school I wanted to teach art, then I realized when I hit college I toyed with the idea of being a professional artist. But it would be kind of like whoring out my creativity. I thought about teaching art again because the art you make for yourself is a lot different from the art you’re going to make to sell.
How was your co-op experience at St. Joseph’s?
Good. I learned more about teaching at camp, but it was good for me because I went in for art. I feel like if I went in for something other than art it would’ve been much harder. I’m confident in my skills with art because I can answer almost any questions about the media they’re using. The issue was more controlling the kids. You have to make sure the class is doing what you want to them to be doing. The grade twelves were pretty good for not being off task. It’s hard to keep the grade nines on task because they’ll go off in their own little worlds. It’s different because their minds aren’t completely matured. Although, our minds probably aren’t completely matured at twenty-five either.
What do you want to do with your life?
I hope to teach, build my own house, I want to write a book, I want to tattoo people, I want to ride a dragon, I want to do a lot of things. I want to travel the world. I’d like to sell art for significant money. I don’t want to make it my day job, but I want to be famous enough that I’m recognized for my art. It’d be nice if it was before I was dead. If I don’t get recognized as an artist before I’m dead, I’ll just hang out as a ghost until someone is like, “Hey, he’s pretty good, that’s worth lots of money!” or acknowledges my work as some sort of importance. Then I’ll be like, “Okay, I’ll move on, I’m done being a ghost.”
What medium do you like working with best?
Not watercolours. People always ask me if I like to do watercolours. Always watercolours, but that’s the only thing I absolutely loath. I really dislike being asked that. I’ve done pen and ink, lots of oil paintings, I’ll do anything other than watercolours. That’s like people asking, “Do you like Monet? Do you like Van Gogh?” Like yeah, doesn’t everybody? Do you breathe air? It’s a pet peeve of mine. When I was at Fanshawe, I found an awesome method of making foam core sculptures, but the thing is no one cares. The medium you use is very important in the art world. If you use blue ball-point pen, no one is going to buy it even if it’s the Mona Lisa because it’s in blue ball-point pen. The work I was making was very fragile and people didn’t want to buy it because they knew it would break. So I didn’t sell any. So I ended up abandoning that medium because people don’t care about things they can’t quantify properly. To be honest, right now I’m really into the drawings I’m making with my hands shoved in my mouth. I’m using a cool collage style and it’s fun. I’m gluing all sorts of different paper together and putting layers of dry media down that’s dusty or chalky and putting glue on top and moving it around. It’s fun. It’s life-sized, like nine-foot drawings. They’re cool. I have one where I shoved my fist into my mouth so hard it came out the other side of my mouth, kind of like in Fight Club.
Where do you get your inspiration?
I’m concerned with stuff so I make art about stuff. I don’t have one artist statement I can give across the board. I have series I’ve done about spiritualism and cynicism towards the way we behave as humans. Right now I’m working on a series of work about how I’m sick of talking about all of that, so I draw myself with my hand stuffed in my mouth because no one seems to be listening to me anyways.
What is your ideal partner like?
I have a thing for writers. She should be smart and she should have pretty eyes. I like long hair. She should like movies or media or something, some sort of literature in some form. You know, human. Highly passionate.
What are some of your pet peeves?
Pretentious artists, art stereotypes in movies, people who ask me if I watercolour paint, singing commercials, people with popped collars, people who say “YOLO” and people who use the word “basic”.
Works Cited:
Camp Kodiak. Camp Kodiak. Web. 07 Jan. 2015. http://www.campkodiak.com/.