Mark Newport
Hello my name is...
Mark Newport
I hale from ...
Amsterdam, New York
and currently reside here in...
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
I am well trained in the art(s) of ...
Textiles and Drawing
My quest is...
to make objects and images that challenge traditional ideas about how we live and who we are - mostly focusing on traditional notions of masculinity.
I will not rest until...
tonight when I go to bed. Everyone needs rest each day.
It all started when....
I was a kid and my Mom told me that I could do anything I wanted to do. I don't think she envisioned being an artist as a choice, but she still sent me off to art school at the Kansas City Art Institute. I went there thinking I would be a painter and agreeing with my Mom that I would study design. When I was in Kansas City I started working in the Fiber Department. There I learned to weave and that opened everything up for me.
My favorite work of fiction ...
I am a little too fickle for one favorite of anything so, much of Philip Roth's work, Neil Gaiman's Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader, Joss' Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly television shows.
My favorite piece of non fiction...
Same intro as above: James Lord bio of Giacometti, exhibition catalog for Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller's the Killing Machine and many other great reads.
My biggest fantasy is...
Traveling the world making and exhibiting my work and eating good food ( I am a fairly simple guy).
and the reality is...
I get to travel a little, I make my work not quite as much as I would like, and I teach a great bunch of graduate students in the Fiber Department at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. Oh and I eat pretty well too.
The most impossible monster I can imagine is...
Before last election cycle it would have been a Republican VP candidate going rogue, but I guess that is no longer imaginary.
The grandest marvel I can imagine is...
the moment when I (or anyone else) have a new idea.
.jpg "Ryan Riss | November 4 - October 28, 2011")
