Hello. I figure it is a good time for me to reintroduce myself to my fellow earthlings. I am Lucas Klesch, the Fresch Klesch in the Portland Oregon's art world. I am a climate scientist, photographer, painter, and poet. I have been a blogger off and on since 2008 and all that old work can likely still be found on Tumblr or the blogger site if someone wants to see where this artist originated, online that is. I will go into my origins as an artist later, but today's focus is to give folks an idea of where I am going first.
A few years ago out of necessity, I undertook a massive renovation of my live/work situation in the SW Hills of Portland. The goal was to have a space filled with natural light, be 100% renewable/carbon neutral and fully autonomous from relying on outside "grid" for energy production. Some pretty lofty goals for a climate scientist and artist living and working in a "cold" climate. I believed I could solve this problem by inverting my thinking, and set out to find people who could think outside the box to help me. In the coming months, I will share much of my design thinking, successes, failures, and what still needs work to come to blossom. My goal is to give you folks these insights I have had along the way so you can be successful yourselves. We are facing a climate reality which must be acted upon, and there is no more time to debate the finer points, it's either do it, or die. No more sugar coating the need for our actions to be drastic and immediate. If we are to have a chance at surviving as species, it starts with people like me who know what the solutions are to the problems humans face. My hope is that my fellow humans who need a nudge, will find that my words inspire them to take the first steps. So, the first question for you is, how do I design a sustainable space? The answer is, think about the light. I will lay out the rationale and questions I asked in my next post, but for now I want to introduce the artist in residence to you.
To give a synopsis of myself, I was taught photography at the age of seven in a classical way, from my father, who himself was introduced to it by his father. I currently carry on this tradition with my daughter. My photography has spanned 35+ years with a focus on documenting the decaying landscape of earth and urban environments, chasing nostalgia and sunsets in the pacific northwest, and capturing the raw emotional beauty of women.
At the age of ten, my beatnik grandma introduced me to coffee and my poetic heritage of Emily Dickinson and Dylan Thomas. I began writing as a way to deal with the emotional landscape of of being a teenager, and later kept this going as a means of coping with manic depression. I have published three poetry books to date which you can buy through the website or on amazon. I have two more on the way as I work through the manuscript editing process. My poetry is a rich mixture of science and love wrapped in the emotional blanket of a self aware earthling. I take after Emily Dickinson in my juxtaposition of words, and Dylan Thomas with the propensity of verbosity fueled life. The comparisons end there as my style is a personable mixture of prose that connects the reader to their life through my simple descriptions. The language and diction is scientific prose and raucously raw emotional connects we can all identify with.
I am currently working on compiling a couple of photography books as well as writing my first literature trilogy for publication. I'll save these for later, but must share how I became an abstract painter in my late twenties. I first took up a brush when my daughter was being born, and I had to leave behind the darkroom in my loft studio. It initially was a way for me to be creative, while being present for my daughter. As I continued to proactive and learn my style, I found it was a great way to clear my mind of emotional baggage. I learned that throwing paint is good for the soul, and have been homing my style on my current project of quantum messages from the universe's beginnings. I have been meditating on quantum physics and the connection to the universe we all have. We all have a means to communicate throughout all spacetime, and I have found these paintings are the perfect foil to my current poetry as well.
I hope you will follow along to find out...
ljk