Artist

Tom Uttech

born Merrill, WI 1942

Also known as: Thomas Martin Uttech
Born: Merrill, Wisconsin, United States

Works by this artist (2 items)

Nind Andaki from the Wisconsin Sesquicentennial Portfolio

Artist

Tom Uttech

Date2001

aquatint, soft-ground, dry-point, hard-ground and lift-ground on paper

Mamakadendagwad

Artist

Tom Uttech

Date2015-2016

oil on canvas

Videos

Video Player is loading.

Current Time 0:00

Duration 0:00

Loaded: 0%

Stream Type LIVE

Remaining Time 0:00

Meet the Artist: Tom Uttech
The Singing and the Silence online interview with Tom Uttech (long version)

TOM UTTECH: My paintings, which are now using birds as principle imagery frequently, grew out of an absolute lifetime fascination with birds. Something occurred very early in life before I was more than three years old. A red-winged blackbird flew by in display in front of this perfect, June-green background, and I think that since then my interest was just set in stone. At some point, I discovered Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario. The animal occupants of the paintings are ones that could occur in that place.

Some of them are things I have intimate relationships with, and some are things I wish I had, and some are ones I never even saw. The history of the paintings is a very prosaic, dumb thing, which demonstrates the value of goofing up and failing. Having a painting that was just as dumb as could be, and I could not make it interesting, so I had to do something to that painting to make it interesting. I decided to add animals or birds to it and kept adding more and more, which made it more and more interesting, and it turned out to be very popular and successful. I have sort of been set adrift on that path since then.

I don't know why they all fly or run in the same direction. That was a coincidence, and it feels so right that I just keep doing it. Now, I was making paintings that are fictional—completely. They're not descriptions of any actual place or any actual time or event.

Since the paintings were all fictional, I gave them fictional names, too, like "Portage to Cache Lake" or something. Well, Cache Lake exists, and you can portage to it, but that's not what the painting was about, but it still was an interesting sounding title.

In the parts of making those titles, I started using the names of the lakes that I had traveled on. Before too long, I ran out of lakes that I had traveled on, so I didn't want to say it again. I started buying U.S. geological survey maps of all over the place, and I scoured them for names of lakes. I finally got to the point where I used those up.

Well, I became good friends with a fellow professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, who headed the Indian Studies Department. That guy had a copy of a book, which was a lexicon of the Ojibwe language—Oijibwe to English and English to Oijibwe—created in the 1500s. Now, what I'm able to do—and I still use this—I can either think of something that I want the painting to be about in English and then find an Ojibwe translation, or else I could go to the Ojibwe section and look for a word that looks beautiful. Sounds right, as well as I can pronounce it, and if its meaning is in some way or other connected to what's in the painting, then that painting becomes "Wendiguskiwe" or something like that.

I intend this to be an additional element of interest and mystery in the paintings and also a nod of appreciation to those people who I know up there that I like so much.

Exhibitions

An image of two red and blue birds in a tree at night

The Singing and the Silence: Birds in Contemporary Art

October 30, 2014–February 22, 2015

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Birds have long been a source of mystery and awe. Today, a growing desire to meaningfully connect with the natural world has fostered a resurgence of popular interest in the winged creatures that surround us daily.

Visit Planning

Access Programs

Museums

Explore Art and Artists

Something Fun

Exhibitions

Art Conservation

Collection Highlights

Research Resources

Publications

Fellows and Interns

Featured Resource

For K-12 Teachers

For Lifelong Learners

Learn from Home

Featured Resource

Latest News

About the Museums

Host an Event

Connect with Us

Shop Online

Featured Story

Donate

Join

Become a member

Tom Uttech

Works by this artist (2 items)

Videos

Exhibitions