By Paul Rentschler
It happens every Tuesday night at the Art Barn in Valparaiso. Aspiring students, Sunday painters, and professional artists gather to paint and absorb the philosophy and artistic insights of Konrad Juestel.
Juestel, a 70-year-old native of Salzburg, Austria, studied with the late Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka in the mid-50s, and has taught students in northwest Indiana for more than a quarter century. His works are found in many private collections, in the Salzburg permanent collection, and in the Upper Belvedere, the Austrian National Museum's collection of contemporary art.
His Tuesday night teaching sessions at the Art Barn he attended by some two dozen artists and students. The serious come week after week, year after year.
David Sander, local painter, printmaker, and a specializing in wood engraving, stops by to promote his latest exhibition and to bang out a jazz piece on the studio's upright piano. Artist Ruth Bremner mentions that her vivid watercolor of tropical fish was on a recent cover of Horizons, an in-flight magazine. Gordon Ligocki, the gallery director at IU Northwest and a sculptor-critic, drifts off with Juestel to smoke and talk shop. Watercolorist Lee Heinsen, who with Ligocki opened the Raparian School of Art last year, comes by to experiment with less familiar media. "Juestel taught me to be an artist-that concept is more important than technique, and that technique will follow from concept," says Heinsen.
For the first hour Juestel usually explores some aspect of art. He comes out of the German expressionist tradition, specifically influenced by the Vienna Succession He is in the tradition of artists such as Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele.
However, Juestel is hardly frozen in one movement. He speaks with knowledge of the work of Jackson Pollock, Joseph Stella, de Kooning, Picasso, Matisse and Cezanne. "You know, I stood for a long time in front of that Jackson Pollock in Boston," he tells the class, his strong working man's hands stabbing an imaginary brush in the air. "The masters, you think-bah, bah, bah!- they just put it down and it's done. But these guys have trouble, too. They have to work at it. I could see he really struggled; he really had to push it. Nie?"
Juestel stands before a large pad of cheap paper with fruitcake tin filled with chunks of colored chalk and illustrates his ideas by dashing off spontaneous drawings that are alive with color and movement. He makes a mark, then rummages through the pile of chalk pieces he's made on a nearby table, picks one, tries it on the bottom of the page, grunts in disgust, discards it and picks another. Satisfied, he makes another mark and repeats the process.
Once finished with his idea he rips off the drawing, which floats, forgotten by him, to the floor. Many visitors have at one time or another ferreted away one of these discarded treasures to frame. Sometimes Juestel even signs them. His students should invest in pads of acid-free paper for his use in class.
Oh, do the ideas flow. Color, perspective, the nature of art. He uses these concepts to foster a holistic approach to art. Discussions relate to how colors speak to each other. that is, how they affect and react to one another, how their density or weight affects surrounding areas, and how their clarity or hue act within the work.
Juestel's classes are not how-to sessions. He deals in ideas, theories and understandings. He makes artists aware of the constant reevaluation process and the need to be aware of their work's current stage ("the where-about" in Juestel's terms), what their next mark will do to it ("the what-about"), and the resultant change.
Nude by Konrad Juestel, black and white lithograph, 12" x 18"
At the core of his philosophy is the belief that the essence of art is finding the sign or stimulus that realizes a new understanding for the viewer. For him, all artistic activity is a form of investigation. He maintains that artists can use their own subjectivity to open doors to the universal.
He teaches that every experience we have somehow codes our subconscious. Different things stimulate these codes and create uncontrolled, gut-level reactions. For him, subject matter gets its meaning through the connotation created by placing it in a specific context. Therefore, when artists find the proper symbol to trigger an intuitive reaction, they have frozen that reality for an instant and have created a larger vision.
The class regards such teachings as heady stuff. Student Betty Allison likens his teaching to "a mental aerobics class." The complex ideas become even more difficult to grasp when Juestel's German accent becomes heavier as he becomes more philosophic. Nie? He shares Kokoschka's insistence on precise language, and becomes frustrated with the imprecision of the English language.
As important as theory is to him, he maintains that theory and understanding for the artist should only be background, a reservoir drawn upon subconsciously by the artist in the act of expression. The final work must be well realized and fully resolved. Says Juestel, "The whiskey must be distilled into the cognac." He kisses the tips of his fingers like an old-world waiter. "That is what you look for, the cognac."
This agile man with unruly gray hair moves from student to student always analyzing, commenting and encouraging. "Beautiful, beautiful," he says to one. "This is good; this red is a good choice. See how it speaks to this area and invigorates it? This is committed, good."
He holds adverse criticism until he is sure his student knows what is right about a work. Nor does he tell anyone specifically how to correct a work, offering options instead. "This area is separated from the rest of the work. It needs a bridge to connect it," says Juestel, blocking out a part of the work. "You didn't work as hard here as you should have. See how it detracts and how much better the rest is when you take it away?"
Juestel's dialectical approach is evident as he explains how different approaches may alter the total work. "Remember, everything changes everything," he admonishes a student.
Because his teaching is theory-based, Juestel's students display a broad range of individuality and devotion to all types of media. There is no learning by rote, no easy answers, no copying the teacher's style. Juestel encourages his students to explore their art in ways best suited to their personalities. It is he who adjusts to each student's style and level of expertise. "No matter how diverse his students' work and materials are, he finds a common denominator," says Ligocki.
The maestro's heaviest criticism starts with the words, "If I were to be very, very critical, I'd. . ." To get such a comment is to have achieved a rite of passage. His students know that he is an anchor in this world of shifting ideas, of movements too soon developed and discarded, of worth determined too often by politics and political correctness. "I met him once when he was placing bricks in a sidewalk-he told me he had a commitment to each brick," says student Dale Fleming.
Juestel's insistence on quality work provides a constant that his students crave. He has enduring quality. In short, he is the cognac. Nie?
This article originally appeared in Arts Indiana, a magazine committed to the literary, performing and visual arts. Arts Indiana, Inc., The Majestic Building, Suite 701, 47 South Pennsylvania St, Indianapolis, IN 46204-3622. Tel.: (317) 632-7894. Paul Rentschler is a freelance writer who recently passed away.