Download PDF-Fifty Years of the Art Fairs

Man of Steel

By Jeffray Kessler, Contributing Writer

As he discusses art on the porch of his home outside of Mancelona, a roofline shadow, cast by high afternoon sun, splits sculptor John Unger, ecliptically, into two halves.

The image is emblematic of a man whose talents currently are bringing him success on two main fronts. He is an internationally renowned metal sculptor and a recognized designer of sophisticated Internet website customization.

Making an attempt to pigeonhole Unger into specific categories however can at best be a fleeting snapshot of a tremendously creative man. With a radar-like brain that begins scanning the horizon for the next big thing at the moment his first waking blinks allow in the day’s dawn, it is a safe bet that something new will have captured his focus by noon.

“When I wake up,” he said, “I first think of the things that must be done, those that should be done and those I feel like doing.”

This daybreak philosophy has worked well for the forty-year-old who grew up on Torch Lake, and started out as a poet and graphic designer. Some Antrim residents might remember his father, the former Probate Judge.

The John T. Unger studio, workshop and home are on the east side of M66 just south of Eddy School Road outside of Mancelona. At first glance, the unknowing observer might not assume this is the source of success that has come to the artist. An eye that is keener and less prejudiced will notice metal sculptures in various stages of completion and a line of large, cut, rust-ensconced bowls.

These bowls, called “The Great Bowls of Fire”, have brought Unger reward for many hard years of work and dedication toward one of his passions,

The bowls are made from the ends of propane tanks, the large “pigs” that are common sights throughout the county.

“One day I was ‘shopping’ in a scrap yard (not uncommon for a metal sculptor) and saw one of these tank ends cut off and I asked myself, ‘What else could this be?’ How could I misinterpret this in a useful manner?’ That’s when I got the idea,” Unger said.

The results are large bowls, the edges of which are plasma-cut into flames, waves and other attractive designs. There is a hole cut in the bottom for water drainage, and they are perfect chalices for fire. Customers have placed them in gardens and decks. They build in them fires of wood, and some rig them for gas, especially those in commercial settings.

Thanks to the wonders of the Internet and E-commerce, they can be found in private homes, restaurants and hotels around the world. Unger cited orders that have come from Ireland, England, the Caribbean, and Hawaii as examples. Originally sold in galleries, 95% of sales are now over the Internet and out of state. Demand for the bowls is on its way to a third year of 100% growth.

He described a kind of poetry that emerges when you think about using a fuel storage device for a product that encapsulates fire.

“There is a beautiful poetry about it,” he said. “This is the kind of pattern to look for in creativity. Pattern recognition is key. I am not looking for what things are supposed to do. Instead, I try to figure out how to deal with constraints and make them work for me.”

In this case, the bowls have indeed worked for Unger. They have brought to him a significant level of financial reward, but have also opened new landscapes for adventure. A second side of the artist has emerged.

Unger became active as a blogger on the Internet.

“Blogging has made me a success,” he said.

“Blog” is a portmanteau or abridgement of the words “web log”. Blogs are sites on the Internet where information can be disseminated, and where interaction about topics can be shared.

“I started because I just wanted better software,” he said.

That initiation has eventuated in his becoming a sought-after analyst and designer of websites. He has authored tutorials that allow people to customize and improve their websites with nonstandard characteristics. They are called “coding” tutorials.

He summarized, “Like my art, this is another case of reinterpreting something I see. I get paid rather well for being me and having fun.”

That statement should not be taken as a shallow quip. John T. Unger has paid his dues.

His success began with collapse. In 1999, he suffered through the catastrophic cave in of the “dot-com” industry, and lost his job. The year after, while removing the snow from his roof (a foreclosed, shaky, one-time minimart), that roof collapsed.

He remembered, “I literally rode it down.” He continued, “I found myself in an unheated building, in the dead of winter, in the middle of nowhere. I started doubting myself and I thought about quitting my art.”

Ironically, it was art that lead to his revival. It was a deal he made with the bank that held the financing of the collapsed home for some of his art that began his road back.

The lesson here he said, “Is to be willing to work hard, fail and not give up.” Soon, he began buying the equipment he needed to do his metal work. He currently is enjoying a more secure base.

On the horizon for Unger is a continuation of the “fire bowls”. He now employs three people to help in that effort. He is looking at developing a venture capital fund for artists. He also is working in the area of public art where communities can become actively involved. He sees a website that allows design and input, but also supports funding and solicitation for public art.

“I’d like to do more intellectual work (systems and ideas) as time goes on,” he said.

He includes on that intellectual horizon working with the state of Michigan in the area of economic development, utilizing his Internet expertise.

As you drive by or stop at the gallery, see if you can kick your ability to envision to a level that approaches Mr. Unger’s. His plan for the site is a three-story structure that will serve as his home and workshop. It will be made of glass and six, forty-foot shipping containers.

“I’ve dreamed of this design for 12 years. Every time I get told ‘no’, it makes me work harder. One way or another, this will happen.”

Take time to meet John T. Unger, and see if you doubt his ambitions.

Unger invites you to visit his website: www.johntunger.com, and you are welcome to call him at 231-584-2710. He asks that you remember that he works from 9:00-5:00, Pacific Time.

In other words, don’t call before noon.

Winner Landscaping $100,000 and Under
Project Name: A Frame for Lush Scenery
Entrant Name: Garden Gate Landscaping Inc.
Landscape Architect: Mary Abe, Garden Gate Landscaping Inc.

An image of my Merman Sculpture was selected for inclusion in this limited edition book featuring 400 works by eSnips artists.

Gabe Rivera.

Hugh mentions me as an example of the Global Microbrand concept at 45:55 and 1:01.22 in the recording.

Picasso painting becomes anti-Iraq war symbol
By Doree Shafrir

The billboard-size “Guernica” has stood as a symbol of the horrors of war since Picasso painted it in 1937 at the height of the Spanish Civil War.

Now, a Michigan artist is encouraging people across the country to put reproductions of the iconic painting--monochromatic figures of dead and dying men, women, children and animals after a bombing--on billboards as a statement against the war in Iraq.

“I’d been thinking about it since the election,” said John Unger, 38, an ironwork sculptor and mosaic artist by trade. He was angry, he said, and “I wanted to find a good project that would make people think.”

The seeds of the project were planted even earlier, Unger said. In early 2003, the United Nations covered up its reproduction of “Guernica” when then-Secretary of State Colin Powell made a speech there to garner support for the war in Iraq. Then in March 2003, soon after the United States invaded Iraq, the covers of Harper’s Magazine and The New Yorker featured the painting with curtains drawn around it.

According to Picasso specialist Robert Rosenblum, a professor of fine arts at New York University, “Guernica” has been used as an anti-war image for decades. Still, Rosenblum pointed out that at the time it was painted, Picasso’s work was criticized for being inaccessible to a mass audience. “Guernica” was created during Picasso’s Cubist period, and its images are distorted, angular, almost inhuman.

“There were a lot of people, especially coming from a populist viewpoint, who said the language and medium was too avant garde and refined to be a genuinely democratic popular image,” he said.

Today that issue seems no less urgent, Rosenblum said, as he questioned whether Unger’s billboards would be effective.

“The cover of The New Yorker and art museum protests are one thing,” he said. “Billboards in the middle of Route 66 are another.”

Nonetheless, Unger said the billboards are intended as catalysts for discussion--whether positive, negative, confused or conflicted.

The “Guernica” billboards are also part of what Unger calls “open source art,” an idea loosely adapted from the principles of open source software, in which people add to a project that can be freely adopted by anyone else.

But Eric Raymond, one of the founders of the open source software movement, pointed out that open source work is predicated upon the originator of the work's giving permission for it to be used. “If he [Unger] wants to take someone else’s art and claim that’s open source, that’s not what we’re about,” Raymond said when told about the “Guernica” project. “What he’s doing is theft.”

Unger thinks differently. “The ‘Guernica’ project, I think, falls well within the definition of open source,” he said. “‘Guernica’ the painting obviously does not. They’re separate things, really.”

In any case, Unger’s project has more than a little bit of a radical streak. As he envisions it, the billboards could be commandeered guerrilla-style, as the California-based Billboard Liberation Front has been doing since 1977, modifying advertising copy and manipulating images for sociopolitical ends.

“It’s not so hard to come by the used skims of billboards,” Unger said. “A person like myself who doesn’t have a big political budget could hypothetically get hold of some of these and project the image, even hand paint it. Part of me doesn’t really want to suggest that to people, and of course part of me really does.”

Still, Unger added that a community or political group could also participate in the project by renting a billboard.

Ultimately, whether the billboards go up or not probably doesn’t matter, Unger said: “Even if it never really happened, if people talked about it enough, that gets the idea out there and that’s not bad.”

Picasso painting becomes anti-Iraq war symbol
By Doree Shafrir

The billboard-size “Guernica” has stood as a symbol of the horrors of war since Picasso painted it in 1937 at the height of the Spanish Civil War.

Now, a Michigan artist is encouraging people across the country to put reproductions of the iconic painting--monochromatic figures of dead and dying men, women, children and animals after a bombing--on billboards as a statement against the war in Iraq.

“I’d been thinking about it since the election,” said John Unger, 38, an ironwork sculptor and mosaic artist by trade. He was angry, he said, and “I wanted to find a good project that would make people think.”

The seeds of the project were planted even earlier, Unger said. In early 2003, the United Nations covered up its reproduction of “Guernica” when then-Secretary of State Colin Powell made a speech there to garner support for the war in Iraq. Then in March 2003, soon after the United States invaded Iraq, the covers of Harper’s Magazine and The New Yorker featured the painting with curtains drawn around it.

According to Picasso specialist Robert Rosenblum, a professor of fine arts at New York University, “Guernica” has been used as an anti-war image for decades. Still, Rosenblum pointed out that at the time it was painted, Picasso’s work was criticized for being inaccessible to a mass audience. “Guernica” was created during Picasso’s Cubist period, and its images are distorted, angular, almost inhuman.

“There were a lot of people, especially coming from a populist viewpoint, who said the language and medium was too avant garde and refined to be a genuinely democratic popular image,” he said.

Today that issue seems no less urgent, Rosenblum said, as he questioned whether Unger’s billboards would be effective.

“The cover of The New Yorker and art museum protests are one thing,” he said. “Billboards in the middle of Route 66 are another.”

Nonetheless, Unger said the billboards are intended as catalysts for discussion--whether positive, negative, confused or conflicted.

The “Guernica” billboards are also part of what Unger calls “open source art,” an idea loosely adapted from the principles of open source software, in which people add to a project that can be freely adopted by anyone else.

But Eric Raymond, one of the founders of the open source software movement, pointed out that open source work is predicated upon the originator of the work's giving permission for it to be used. “If he [Unger] wants to take someone else’s art and claim that’s open source, that’s not what we’re about,” Raymond said when told about the “Guernica” project. “What he’s doing is theft.”

Unger thinks differently. “The ‘Guernica’ project, I think, falls well within the definition of open source,” he said. “‘Guernica’ the painting obviously does not. They’re separate things, really.”

In any case, Unger’s project has more than a little bit of a radical streak. As he envisions it, the billboards could be commandeered guerrilla-style, as the California-based Billboard Liberation Front has been doing since 1977, modifying advertising copy and manipulating images for sociopolitical ends.

“It’s not so hard to come by the used skims of billboards,” Unger said. “A person like myself who doesn’t have a big political budget could hypothetically get hold of some of these and project the image, even hand paint it. Part of me doesn’t really want to suggest that to people, and of course part of me really does.”

Still, Unger added that a community or political group could also participate in the project by renting a billboard.

Ultimately, whether the billboards go up or not probably doesn’t matter, Unger said: “Even if it never really happened, if people talked about it enough, that gets the idea out there and that’s not bad.”