David Blodgett
is an artist, and South Bend, Indiana, is his canvas. He’s a muralist. He
paints on the sides of buildings and inside on their walls. Drive a mile in any
direction in the area, and you will see one of his murals. But just how he
became to be the South Bend’s resident muralist was a bit of an accident.
Blodgett chose
to study art; that much was on purpose. It would have been hard not to. Both of
his parents were artists—at 94 years old, his mother still is. He studied under
the legendary Harold Zisla, the founding director of IU South Bend’s art
department. He certainly intended to do that too. But murals, he just sort of
fell into.
Two years into a
job as the Johnson County, North Carolina, resident artist—he swears that use
to be a real job title—Blodgett thought he had better do something.
“Nobody gave a
freaking rat’s ass that I was there, that I was an artist,” Blodgett said. “So,
consequently, we did nothing. But all of this money kept flowing from the
state, so we started to get nervous.”
Blodgett and his
wife, also a resident artist, found a blank wall in downtown Johnson and got to
work on a mural depicting that town’s history. The rest, as they say, is
history.
Blodgett is full
of anecdotes, colorfully related and humorous. I’ve interviewed him in the past
and have always enjoyed it. I am sure any audience would get a kick out of the
story of how he became a muralist.
For Blodgett,
you just have to point him in the right direction and he takes off with a
story. So here are some questions—or more likely suggested topics—that I will
offer during the interview:
1. What is a
mural?
2. What do
people like about murals?
3. How did you
become a muralist?
4. What is art?
5. What was it
like to study art in the 1970s?
6. Where are you
from originally?
7. How were you
affected by growing up around artists?
8. How many
murals have you painted in South Bend?
9. What’s your
favorite mural in the area that we could get footage of?
10. What do you
want your legacy to be?
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