Early art appreciation drew Michael McFalls to a lifelong career

Michael McFalls is an adventuresome soul, having hiked the mountains of Tennesse and traveled abroad to Europe to encounter interesting cultures and fascinating people.

Yet his calling, his passion, is teaching young students at Columbus State University the basics and finer points of painting and sculpture, then seeing them mature into productive artists. It’s something his businessman father might not have wanted him to do early on in life, but the journey has proven fruitful, bringing him to Columbus, where he and his wife both are associate professors of art at the university and raising a family in the Midtown area of the city.

McFalls, 41, a Tennessee native, also is director of Pasaquan, the historic site built by the late folk artist Eddie Owens Martin in nearby Buena Vista, Ga. It’s a project that has heavily involved the painter-turned-sculptor and his students during a major restoration of the property as it prepares for an Oct. 22 grand opening.

The Ledger-Enquirer visited with McFalls recently at the downtown Corn Center, where his three-dimensional work is on display inside his studio, with a much larger work space for his students just outside the door. He discussed his job, his students, and why he really finds it tough to criticize their works. This interview has been edited for length and clarity, with an expanded version at www.ledger-enquirer.com.

Q. What drew you to the arts as a career?

A. When students ask me that, I say that’s the only thing I was good at. (laughs) I will say my mother is an interior designer. She always fostered that in me. She allowed me to express myself through the arts. I remember, even in the 8th grade, I had a studio in the garage at our home making still-life paintings. She was kind enough that she would take me to museums … So I was seeing art. She made sure I was seeing art. The funny thing is my father is a businessman, and he didn’t really like the fact that I was going into the arts.

Q. What type of businessman was he?

A. He used to be a vice president of sales for Philips Magnavox in Atlanta, and then he was running Philips’ interests in Philips Arena. I don’t know all of the details, but he was one of the players in getting Philips to build the arena in Atlanta. He was involved in that in some capacity, and then he retired soon after they finished.

Q. He wanted you to go into business?

A. Yeah. Then in high school I played football (linebacker and tight end), and I had some minor scholarships to go play at level two, schools like Georgia Southern and (Middle Tennessee State University) and (East Tennessee State University). But I had an injury near the end of my senior year and I said, “I think I’m going to go into art,” and I think he just about died. (laughs) I still love football. My father is a season ticket holder for UT, the University of Tennessee, so I’m still a Vol fan. I still go up to those games, sometimes go to the Georgia games.

Q. So the arts truly is your calling?

A. I think it’s my calling. I’ve been doing it my whole life. I don’t know if I believe in fate, but perhaps it was my destiny to go this way.

Q. Why did you choose sculptures?

A. Now that’s strange because, really, I was a painter all through school. In undergraduate school I was a painter. I went to graduate school as a painter. I came out of there making sculptures. I will say that maybe if people will criticize my work, it’s sometimes a criticism that “he’s not a real sculptor. He makes work that looks like a painter.” But I actually think that’s an advantage. My work is about color and surface and texture, and these are issues that I think painters deal with more than sculptors. What happened to me in graduate school was there was a time when I spent more time making these shaped canvasses than actually painting them. It just seemed like it evolved.

With my work right now, I’ve been collaborating with a professor from UGA, Jon Swindler, for the last year and a half. We do installations. So I’m doing print work, I’m doing sculptural installations in the space, and usually these are pieces that last for just the duration of the exhibition.

Q. Do artists have to be prepared mentally for criticism and build up a tolerance for that?

A. Sure, or you just don’t worry about it. I think I’m at the point where I don’t care as much. There’s something really gratifying about having an exhibition and collaborating with this guy, Jon, in the sense that any criticism we get, we can deflect and say, “Oh, that was John’s fault.” (laughs) All joking aside, I think there’s something as an art maker, when you have that show, there’s this bit of a high. You’ve created this thing, whatever that thing is, and you always want people to like it. That’s that kind of primal need for acceptance. But at some point, you have to move on to the next thing despite what anybody says. And, of course, Jon and I are not famous enough that many critics are coming by and telling us our works are good or bad.

Q. Was it your intention all along to go into the academic world?

A. I think it was. When I was in undergraduate school at Columbus College of Art & Design in Columbus, Ohio, I remember talking at the first of the year to my art professor and asking, “How did you get to do that? I want to do that.” And also there was an opportunity when I was living out in California and doing a lot of residencies, and there became this moment where I was having more exhibitions. I was kind of getting a little bit of press, but I just didn’t like the hustle. First of all, I’m a teacher. I love teaching, and I love interacting with students. I thrive on that.

Q. So the business aspect of art you didn’t enjoy?

A. Yeah. It’s a tough business, and I never really was interested in that part of it.

Q. You always have to sell your art and yourself?

A. We call it the art hustle. You have to hustle, and you have to be seen and be at all of the exhibitions and make work that’s salable. The work Jon and myself are doing now, it’s not really salable. It’s an installation that’s temporary. Who’s going to come in and buy that? (laughs) What it is is an experience for the viewer when they come in. Usually, we’re working in nonprofit spaces or museums and places like that. We’ve had some great shows so far. Our first show was actually in Sweden, and it was amazing. We hung like 40 birch trees from the ceiling of the museum. That was the best experience for me.

Q. What’s it like to be an art instructor and the day-to-day workings of it?

A. Next semester, because of Pasaquan, I’ll be teaching two classes, and one will be a drawing class. I usually teach a foundations drawing class, which is probably my favorite class to teach … I love it because not only is it the basics of drawing, but every freshman art major has to take it ... I think it’s a great opportunity to make a strong impression on a student when they’re a freshman. There are some faculty who prefer teaching senior-level classes. I’ve really become fond of freshman-level classes because, frankly, sometimes they’re not bitter yet. (laughs) They’re really interested, and they have no preconceived ideas of what art is, and if they do, those things usually dissolve very quickly that first two weeks of class. That class is a fundamentals class; it’s teaching students to do perceptual drawings. So I get back to basics with them, which also makes me go back to basics, and I love that.

Q. How are art classes different from other academic courses?

A. Art tends to not be as structured as a lecture-based class. What we have is two check-in points during a semester and students have a mid-term critique and a final critique. Usually, every week I’ll critique their work up to those points. But they only get graded on a body of work at mid-term and at the end. That’s the idea, because if you came in and had a bad day drawing, you know, you’re not always going to be “on.” It’s not like you can test. If I told every student when I walked into the class, “All right, today is your test in drawing,” they would all freeze and their drawings would be terrible. Drawing is a non-rational, non-linear process. You have to look at the body of work, not just one particular piece to evaluate it.

Q. Do you ever have to tell a student that maybe art just isn’t for them?

A. No, no. When you look at the best artists, at least in contemporary art, they weren’t the very best students. (laughs) So I try not to persuade students to do that, because I think they might be too young to know that art is really thinking, it’s an idea. You don’t necessarily have to know how to draw. I think you have to know how to “see.” When you look at contemporary art today, almost anything goes. You look for certain curiosity about the world, a certain way of looking at the world. As art professors, you try to help them see that in themselves.

Some of my best students were horrible at drawing, and some of them really struggle when we get to the end and it’s all theory-based. They might have been great at drawing, but they have to be told what to do. And good artists aren’t told what to do, right? Some of my best students have come out of the main campus and they thought they were a biology major and wandered into my class somehow and ended up becoming an art student. I’ve got one now who’s an artist in New York and another who is teaching. And they never intended to be artists.

Q. You’ve got two classes in the upcoming semester?

A. The other class I’ll be teaching is sculpture 1 and sculpture 2. It’s a combination class of both levels of students, and it’s really a foundations to sculpture, but these are typically junior-level students. So there are more prerequisites for this class. Again, I love that class because it’s an introduction to materials. We do woodworking, plaster work and a lot of metal work. I do a lot of metal fabrication with them, and they for the first time start thinking about three-dimensional form and space … It’s a ton of fun, but it’s usually technique-driven at that point because everything’s new.

Q. What’s the most challenging thing about your job?

A. Sometimes the challenge can be with students, in the sense that you have to be critical of them. These students put their heart and soul into some of these works and you still have to be critical of it. I’ve had many students cry, and I think it’s because they take it so seriously. They really are passionate about it … Despite that, we still have these clear objectives for each assignment. We say you have to do this technique. You have to try to embrace these moments of visual arts. They might not meet those objectives, and you have to tell them that. I hate giving bad grades. They used to call me “Professor McFail,” (laughs) but I think I’ve gotten soft in my old age. That was a long time ago. I think I’ve gotten softer because I understand the kids are putting everything they can into it. That’s the toughest part … but that’s my job.

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job?

A. The exact same reasons, because some of the students are just so passionate. You love it when you see a student and it all starts to click and they become very committed to it. Most of the time, they come into art class because they were good at drawing ponies in high school or something, and by the end they’re thinking about art and how it can change the world and the concept of contemporary art, of culture and aesthetics, and you see them mature and change.

When students have success, that might be better than having a good show as an artist ... when you see your students gone (from CSU) and having their own shows.

This story was originally published July 23, 2016 at 9:51 PM with the headline "Early art appreciation drew Michael McFalls to a lifelong career."