Justing Deister

​

PUBLIC ART RESUME
I enjoy everything about creating large-scale public art. I am familiar with all the physical aspects of scale, site, safety, durability,
delivery and installation. I enjoy meeting and working with committee members, team, hosts, financial people, marketing and community representatives. I like discussing purpose, goals, a promotional plan, the history of the area and the community,
planning and project management, conceptualizing, design and execution.
I enjoy exploring the formal qualities of size and shape, as well as sign and symbolism, color, meaning and context, but also
expressing social and religious matters that are meaningful to me.
I am always experimenting with new materials and process. I may have a firm idea in mind when I begin but I enjoy the freedom to make decisions as I add-to and cut-away. I like to try to allow the idea to inform me of the shape it asks for. I guess that means I execute with a lot of intuitive flexibility. My approach may be somewhat like a painter - gradually evolving the image, with trial and a lot of error, but eventually arriving at a point I accept. I like to hold back from explaining everything, leaving some mystery to remain and leaving some things out for the viewer to complete. It’s the same for my smaller mixed-media pieces that I call “Lost Souls” made from discarded junk that live again, telling a new story - again, each viewer contributes a final interpretation.
My first public art piece was “Say Cheese”, a six foot tall fork with mac-n-cheese noodles. Collaborating with a metal fabricator for the fork and making fiberglass noodles, this piece draws out memories many of us have of playing with our food. That’s my purpose - tap into our common, shared experience, suggest, prompt and provide clues but not tell the whole story. In this way,
I can present an incomplete subjective notion and know the viewers’ contribution will complete it.
My artistic expression is a way of responding to life, my experience and search for meaning and purpose. Possibly the best
response we can have to life is to act with our heart. In this way we express our most authentic self.
Allow my art to reveal something to you when the time is right. Don’t rush to understand, label or explain it. Without words, allow emotions to mingle with memories and you will make connections you haven’t imagined.
When I tell you that one of my public sculptures is an eight-foot tall English gentleman out for a stroll and that he has been stranded on an island with tiny people, swam among lilies with Claude Monet, waited for Godot, starred in 2-dimensional
theater, and fallen in love with a giant squid, well... it’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Feel free to make up your own.