For the Common Good: A Community Artist Interview with Reinaldo Correa
Model and Installation of Prairie Revival, steel, High Performance Paint & LED Lighting, 15ft x 12ft x 20ft, Marion, Iowa. 2017.
I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed and learned from this conversation with Iowa State University colleague and fellow artist, Reinaldo Correa. It was one of those conversations that inspired me for the rest of the week. So much insight and wisdom - this is an interview I encourage you to read over and over, and take some notes.
Born and raised in rural Puerto Rico, Reinaldo is nationally recognized and prolific public artist and an assistant teaching professor for the departments of architecture and industrial design in Iowa State University’s College of Design. I asked Reinaldo, who has degrees in both architecture and industrial design, how he identifies, creatively speaking.
In his words, “I'm an artist at heart, who happens to love to work on multiple scales. I feel very comfortable working within architecture, or working with the design of a product, and I feel comfortable with the methodologies of both. But there's something so beautiful about art, its expression and engagement with people. Sometimes, as a public artist, you have these preconceptions of how people will respond to your work, and it ends up being totally different from what you expected. Every time I enter a new community, I put myself in a position to learn, to engage, and to be a part of something bigger than myself.”
Reinaldo Correa Studio, LLC. Metaphotonic Tree POD, Exterior Baltic Birch, Advantech & Steel Connectors, 8.5ft x 12ft x 9.5ft, Reiman Gardens, Ames, Iowa, 2015. Photo credit: McClanahan Studios.
1. Who are you in 10 words?
I know in many seasons of my life when people would ask, "Who are you?" there's always this immediate connection with one's profession. Today, I think of this question more in the sense of the holistic person. I'm a man of faith. I've been very blessed to be a father of three wonderful children who genuinely fuel my drive and, really inspire the work that I do. I was very fortunate to marry my high school sweetheart, who is my best friend and hardest critic. And I just happened to really love art and design.
It's interesting that it's always backwards, it's always our profession first. I'm finding that in the season of life that I'm currently in, all of these other factors of who I am as a person are really influencing what I do within my practice and its allowing me to experience the definition of success in a very different way. Also, I don't think that's 10 words.
Reinaldo Correa Studio, LLC. Whispers of Nature, Corten Steel, Stainless Steel & LED Lighting, 8ft x 8ft x 12ft, Jester Nature Park, Granger, Iowa, 2018.
2. What are your creative rituals?
Oh, my gosh, I've been talking a lot with my wife about this. There are times in one’s creative practice, when you feel very, very lonely. The journey seems to be unclear and the light at the end of the tunnel is nowhere to be found. One of my creative practices that's been very helpful is to invite a group of really close friends and a few colleagues for a Zoom call, once a month, and share our work, struggles, and be able to bounce ideas. I’ve found it has so much value in my process.
C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien actually were a part of a group of people called The Inklings that would meet on a weekly basis at multiple locations such as pubs, public buildings and cafes. They would typically gather to fellowship and share about their writings. Tolkien's wife would say that Tolkien was most productive on Wednesday when it came to his writing because he knew that on Thursday, when he was going to meet C.S. Lewis and the rest of the gang, he had to be prepared to share about the development of his work. It's like the proverb that says, as iron sharpens iron, so does one person sharpen another. Being able to be surrounded by like-minded people, and to enable your tight-knit community to be able to say when your work is not great and allow this to impact your thoughts and creative process has been very fruitful. Knowing that it’s all coming from a good place, empowers one to want to step it up.
Reinaldo Correa Studio, LLC. Workshop conducted prior to Whispers of Nature (Corten Steel, Stainless Steel & LED Lighting, 8ft x 8ft x 12ft, Jester Nature Park, Granger, Iowa, 2018). Reinaldo led a design workshop for local middle school children during which they discussed conservation and different ecosystems. Several of the student drawings in this workshop inspired the cut patterns in the finished sculpture.
3. What community rituals do you value?
I'm in this domain of public art. And I think ultimately when you think about community, it comes down to people, right? Community cannot exist without people. And what I have found to be very helpful is number one, learning how to listen. It sounds simple. But as a teacher and an artist, you're constantly talking and trying to spread knowledge. You're talking about your work. There's self-promotion. And we can easily dismiss the importance of listening.
Being able to pause, to be in the moment, and to listen, but then not only to listen, but then reflect upon what is it that you're being told. How do you begin to enter into a state of reflection where you're truly, generally understanding the heart of the individual, of the community, of the people? And I think that's something very, very important that might kind of seem simplistic. But I feel that there's profoundness in that.
4. How do you merge your creative work with your community work?
I really enjoy just going out in a community, and just sitting down on a bench, and literally almost disappearing. It`s somewhat similar to what we call in research, contextual inquiry, where we're observing and interviewing. I feel very comfortable being there an hour or two, sometimes even three, just observing and being in the state of pause and seeing the behavior of individuals and their interactions with their particular environment. That's something that I really enjoy.
The other part of contextual inquiry, the interview, which for me it’s more of a personal engagement. I found it very helpful in my practice, in the rituals that I conduct, to stand up and engage in a conversation, even while we live in this day and age where we constantly walk around with earbuds. Back in the day, you would be able to meet people and just have a conversation and develop a larger network. Today, it's awkward to poke someone and say, "hey, yo, you want to talk?" But one of the things is I find that when people are outdoors or in their environment, that they're much more approachable.
I like to describe community as almost like a book. When you think about a book, you have an individual who's written the book that kind of encompasses 15, 20, 30 years of experience into a few hundred pages, right? So, when you walk up to a person who has lived in a community for 10, 15, 20 years or maybe even more, you're getting a snippet of their entire lifespan within minutes. I have found that metaphor to be extremely influential to creatively understand what is important for a community.
Reinaldo Correa Studio, LLC. Workshop conducted prior to Whispers of Nature (Corten Steel, Stainless Steel & LED Lighting, 8ft x 8ft x 12ft, Jester Nature Park, Granger, Iowa, 2018). Reinaldo led a design workshop for local middle school children during which they discussed conservation and different ecosystems. Several of the student drawings in this workshop inspired the cut patterns in the finished sculpture.
5. How has that changed in the last six months?
I'm currently working on a project that’s taking place right within the spectrum of COVID. I'm finding that being able to just walk up and speak with people has become much more difficult nowadays. People have their defenses up. I'm a very hands-on person, so I love to have my piece of tracing paper and to draw and go back and forth in a visual dialogue. The whole Zoom thing is just not as compelling, and the interactions have totally changed. I feel that I've lost a bit of the tactile quality of being able to engage with people.
A lot of my work incorporates teaching. One of the things that I love about public art is that there's the art component, there's the community component, and there’s the teaching component. A lot of the work is derived by hands-on workshops, you're cutting paper, you're drawing, etc. Well, how do you do that now virtually? I'm having to kind of rethink those kinds of workshops and those engagements.
Finally, a lot of the public artwork that I've been a part of requires collaboration with many people, such as city officials, architects, landscape architects, engineers and structural engineers, the list goes on and on. Sometimes, if you’re not careful, those collaborations can be lost in digital translation, where sometimes an email could be misunderstood. In the past, we would just meet together in a firm or in the office and break these things down because of the massive amounts of decisions and details. Now I'm finding myself in more and more and more and more online meetings.
Reinaldo Correa Studio, LLC. Detail of Whispers of Nature, Corten Steel, Stainless Steel & LED Lighting, 8ft x 8ft x 12ft, Jester Nature Park, Granger, Iowa, 2018. Reinaldo led a design workshop for local middle school children during which they discussed conservation and different ecosystems. Several of the student drawings in this workshop inspired the cut patterns in these rings.
6. What has been your hardest community lesson?
Many, many years ago, as part of a different studio at the time, we were working on a public art project in Canada. We had been shortlisted as one of the three finalist artist teams. Artists and artist teams submit an RFP (Request for Proposals) or an RFQ (Request for Qualifications). You can have anywhere between 50 to 300 artists apply, and then between three and five artists get shortlisted for the final competition. So, we were competing with two other artists.
We had become very fascinated with the First Nations, who are the largest group of Canadian indigenous people. Researching and learning about this culture was just so amazing, and eventually the expression of the public artwork was leaning in that direction. We eventually learned that we did not win the competition and that some of the panel members felt that our proposal was not appropriate.
The lesson is that we have to be careful with whose stories we tell, and there are certain stories that we're also not meant to tell. For instance, as a Latino and especially as a Puerto Rican, there are all these different notions and perceptions of being a dual citizen, as well as the main three ethnicities that embodied the culture, Spaniards, Native Americans, and Western Africans. I started thinking about how I would feel about a person talking about those things who perhaps doesn’t have a first-hand experience of what it means to be Puerto Rican.
Our hearts were in the right place, but we also understood that when we're creating public art, there has to also be a level of sensitivity and understanding of what stories we should be telling. Does that make sense? When I look back at this experience, it would have been awesome to actually have reached out to a First Nation community and set up a platform to build upon that narrative and to have a member of that particular community become a part of the project team. It was a hard lesson to learn, but I'm very grateful for it because it allows me to become much more mindful in all of my future projects.
Ripples, a forthcoming public artwork in Johnston, Iowa, that is in collaboration with OPN Architects, Confluence. Hansen Company. Stainless Steel, S.S. Kinetic Scales and LED, 20’ x 10’ x 14’. Expected installation: Spring 2021.
7. What has been your most fulfilling community moment?
There have been quite a few. Every single project has such a totally different experience. My very first public art project as an independent artist was a small project with a very small budget. I was collaborating with a very good friend of mine and we had this vision for this treehouse sculpture that was meant for kids in the community to play in and engage with. Then we were selected, and we realized the we didn't have enough funding to do it because of the complexity of the proposal. Our idea would have taken five times the budget that we had.
We had to make a decision: either we embrace it and find a way, or we actually had to drop out and say, "Hey, I'm sorry, but we came to this realization that we can’t afford to do it." So, I was like, "Wait a second. This is for the community. Let’s do it.” At that point, I didn’t really care if the project was profitable or not - it was our opportunity. I've always said in my practice that I would put the art before anything else, including money. I started reaching out to members of the community, and in the end, I ended up with 15 sponsors. It was a moment that I had to be really bold, and I don't know that I would dare to do it now, but when you're so passionate and you believe deeply in what you’re doing, people see your heart. We ended up with more resources than we actually needed, and we were able to complete a very successful project. The community saw our heart, saw our intention, and they were so willing to give up their resources to make that vision a reality. I will be forever grateful, to those individuals who sowed into my life and believed in me.
Reinaldo Correa Studio, LLC. Prairie Revival, steel, High Performance Paint & LED Lighting, 15ft x 12ft x 20ft, Marion, Iowa. 2017.
8. What tips might you have for artists who want to dive into community work?
Lately, I've been doing a lot of national and international public art competitions, and what I'm finding is, WOW, it's very, very, very competitive. The most recent projects had over 200 and 300 applicants. When you look at the statistics of a project with 200 applicants, you have less than half a percent chance of winning. That could be so discouraging. Even if it's 100 applicants, that's still a one-percent chance. My first piece of advice is don't be discouraged. You have to be consistent. You have to put in the hard work. You have to continue to go at it, even when you see these kinds of numbers, and you think, "Oh my gosh. What am I doing? Why even bother?”
The reality is that many competitions eliminate a large percentage of the artists right from the get-go because they did not follow the instructions correctly or they don’t have the right credentials. And it sounds silly and simple, but it's true. If the application asks for five pieces of artwork, don't show them ten.
Another piece of advice is to just be genuine. You're dealing with people in public art projects, and people know people. If you are being fake, if you're not a genuine person, if you don't have the heart for this particular community, it will somehow emanate from you, and they will catch on to this very, very quickly.
There are going to be moments as an artist, as a person, where self-doubt is going to kick in, fear is going to kick in. How do you overpower that? In the midst of those emotions, you still act. You still apply. You still move forward. I've had moments as a finalist, when I’m competing for the final spot and I`m having to persuade a panel why my proposal it the best option for that community and I`m like, "Do I really want to be here, am I good enough?" And it's nerve wracking. I tell my students, "Even if you don't have your work completed, and experience fear, always show up. Show up." Be intentional about showing up and acting upon that fear. Many times in life you have to follow your own advice.
Find a mentor, and also learn from your journey. Every single project that you do will truly teach you something different. When you finish a project, pause and write about that entire experience. What were the things that went really well? What were the things that I could have actually done better?
Reinaldo Correa Studio, LLC. Metaphotonic Tree POD, Exterior Baltic Birch, Advantech & Steel Connectors, 8.5ft x 12ft x 9.5ft, Reiman Gardens, Ames, Iowa. 2015. Photo credit: McClanahan Studios.
9. What tips might you have for communities to support artists?
I would like to see communities taking more risks, especially with the younger generation of artists. Firms hire interns because they find the value of the younger generation. And one of the things that I find so amazing about working with students now is they will challenge your thoughts. When you give them a voice in your process, they'll tell you the things that are unrefined and very genuine. I think there's a myth, that in order for a person to be considered an artist, you have to have either a BFA or an MFA. What I've learned through my journey is that artists come in all shapes, sizes, colors, backgrounds, etc., and we should really enable that more and be able to empower that.
Interior of Ripples, a forthcoming public artwork in Johnston, Iowa, that is in collaboration with OPN Architects, Confluence. Hansen Company. Stainless Steel, S.S. Kinetic Scales and LED, 20’ x 10’ x 14’. Expected installation: Spring 2021.
10. What motto or creed do you live by?
Run your race and delight in the journey.
For me right now, it's this idea of being able to kind of slow down, and to delight and enjoy the journey. To really soak in the opportunities that you're currently experiencing, and understand that your race is very different from every other artist or every other individual. We live in this social media age where on one side, it’s incredible because we now have access to the entire world and artists throughout the entire globe and the incredible work that's out there. But if we're not careful, we start to put a lot of pressure on ourselves and we can easily fall into this practice of comparing.
We are all very unique. We all have these beautiful backgrounds and we bring something so different to the table. At least for me, I'm coming to the understanding that this is my race and yes, it's good to look around to see who's also running and what they're doing, but ultimately, I understand that there are these other areas that are important to me, like family and faith.
To learn more and keep up-to-date with his projects and practice, connect with Reinaldo on Instagram and Facebook, visit his website, and send him an email at art@reinaldocorreastudio.com.
Reinaldo Correa creating a model for Ripples, a forthcoming public artwork in Johnston, Iowa, that is in collaboration with OPN Architects, Confluence. Hansen Company. Expected installation: Spring 2021.
Like learning about the ins and outs of being a community artist or a community arts leader? Check out interviews with artists Akwi Nji, Catherine Reinhart, Jordan Brooks, Kristin M Roach, Rami Mannan, and and Jill Wells, and interviews with community arts leaders Amber Danielson, Allison McGuire, Andy McGuire, and Jennifer Brockpahler.
Have a phenomenal community artist or an inspiring artist leader to suggest? Comment below or email jennifer@whatsgoodproject.com.