Oral History Interview with Jeffrey Mongrain, 2011 December 16-17
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Oral history interview with Jeffrey Mongrain, 2011 December 16-17 Funding for this interview was provided by the Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America. Contact Information Reference Department Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution Washington. D.C. 20560 www.aaa.si.edu/askus Transcript Preface The following oral history transcript is the result of a recorded interview with Jeffrey Mongrain on December 15 and 16, 2011. The interview took place in New York City, and was conducted by Mija Riedel for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. This interview is part of the Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America. Interview MIJA RIEDEL: This is Mija Riedel with Jeffrey Mongrain at the artist's office in Hunter College in New York City on December 15 [correction] 16, 2011, for the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art. This is disc number one. Good morning. JEFFREY MONGRAIN: Good morning. MS. RIEDEL: We — let's start with some — just a bit of early biographical information and move on from there. You were born in Minnesota? MR. MONGRAIN: At — in International Falls up on the Canadian border. The hospital I was born in overlooked Canada, across the river. MS. RIEDEL: Really? MR. MONGRAIN: Yes. Actually, the nickname is Prospect Falls. It's where Rocky and Bullwinkle came from. MS. RIEDEL: Really? MR. MONGRAIN: It's always the coldest place in the continental United States. So yeah, small town, very — but very much that kind of wilderness sort of childhood. MS. RIEDEL: How big was the town? How big is the town? MR. MONGRAIN: Gosh, I think when I was there, it was about 5[,000] to 6,000, so small town. MS. RIEDEL: Oh, yeah, small. Yeah. MR. MONGRAIN: There was a twin city on the other side, was Fort Francis, in Canada of course — our rivals. MS. RIEDEL: Of course. MR. MONGRAIN: Yeah, so that was back in the mid-50s. MS. RIEDEL: You were born in '57? MR. MONGRAIN: Fifty-five. MS. RIEDEL: Fifty-five. What was the date? MR. MONGRAIN: June 24, 1955. MS. RIEDEL: Okay. Well, at least you were born in the summer. [Laughs.] MR. MONGRAIN: Yes, indeed. Yes. I was born on my parents' fifth wedding anniversary, so we always had to celebrate my birthday with their anniversary. MS. RIEDEL: Ah, how did that go? MR. MONGRAIN: It was fine for me. I think that they needed to sneak away after the birthday party to have time alone. MS. RIEDEL: [Laughs.] Right, right. MR. MONGRAIN: But it was — it was nice. MS. RIEDEL: Would you describe your childhood — what — your parents' names, what they did, if you had siblings? MR. MONGRAIN: Right. My father is Arthur Mongrain, and he owned — he owned the local garbage business — MS. RIEDEL: Okay, okay. MR. MONGRAIN: — which I have to say, for a child, I — my best memories as a child were working on the garbage trucks with my father. And it sounds kind of exotic, and certainly I'm not sure how it's affected my artwork, but there were those cold winters where it was 40 below and you were out there working on the garbage trucks. But it made a situation where my father and I were very close, and we spent a lot of time together. My mother was more of the artist type — actually, a young beauty. She was Miss Minnesota in her younger years. MS. RIEDEL: Was she really? What was her name? MR. MONGRAIN: Delores Lydia Rose Mongrain, and very sweet woman. And she sort of brought more of the artistic and music side to us kids. There are four of us, four children. I have an older brother named Todd. He lives in Minneapolis, and he recently retired at a fairly young age. He was into corporate reality and he kind of got out before everything crashed. So my older Republican brother. And I have a younger sister who's about a year and a half younger. Her name is Terry. She's now married to a man, Steven King. And she's a surgical nurse still living in International Falls. She's the last one of the family that's still there. And my younger brother who's 12 — 12 ½ years younger is James Mongrain. James is perhaps one of the more renowned glass blowers in the United States, and he — he's one of Dale Chihuly's primary gaffers. And all of the glasswork that you in line [inaudible]. Has had nothing to do with my skills as a glass artist, but with Jim. I was just out there at the Museum of Glass about a month and a half ago, and he and I were working on a project. I got invited as an artist in resident. MS. RIEDEL: Was that the goblets? MR. MONGRAIN: Yes, my chalice series. I'm recreating the holy grails from about 60 paintings of The Last Supper. So I'm working on kind of a large installation with that. But it's great having a younger brother with those skills. He — should I have a doctor, lawyer or glassblower in the family. [They laugh.] I have a glass blower. MS. RIEDEL: There you go. We will definitely talk about that. Was art something that was supported? You said your mom brought the art into the family. Was art something that was supported and discussed when you were a child? Did you have art classes? MR. MONGRAIN: Not really. MS. RIEDEL: Okay. MR. MONGRAIN: I mean, my parents were very supportive of us doing whatever we wanted to do, but it was a typical small town. There was perhaps one art teacher in the high school, and there was very little art, per se, when I was a child. The typical thing in a town like International Falls was watercolor landscape paintings, which is exactly where I started. This high school teacher named Jim West was a watercolor painter, and made these beautiful landscape paintings. And I started under him and started trying to learn some of those techniques — incredibly difficult doing these watercolor landscapes. It's a real skill. But I sort of started there and found my ways into the art studio and started doing pottery and started doing wheelwork, and that's sort of where it started. MS. RIEDEL: Was that in high school or before? MR. MONGRAIN: That was in junior high or high school. MS. RIEDEL: So in the public — in the public junior high there was a ceramics program. MR. MONGRAIN: Well, the — they were — it's a small town, so everything was together, sort of in one building. But my first — MS. RIEDEL: Well, you mean elementary through high school? MR. MONGRAIN: Well, from about 9th grade on. MS. RIEDEL: Okay. MR. MONGRAIN: My first eight years I went to a private school. It was a private Catholic school called St. Thomas Aquinas. So I had my early education working with nuns mostly, and occasionally priests and brothers. And that sort of established the sort of Catholic interest, I think. MS. RIEDEL: Absolutely. That makes sense. Did you draw as a child, or was it permanently 3-D work that you were interested in? MR. MONGRAIN: I did draw quite a bit. I remember one sculptural piece I made as a child. I was actually probably reasonably shy as a child. I remember — perhaps one of the best pieces I made when I was a kid, I was trying to build these sculptural forts, and it wasn't working. I finally went — of course, lots of lakes — I built it underwater. And I took all these branches, tying them together, and I kept diving down, and I built this little architectural fortress under about eight feet of water. And I wish I had an image of it. I've got some old drawings. But that was perhaps my first sculpture. MS. RIEDEL: I remember reading about that, but I wanted to ask you: How did the idea come to you to build it underwater? MR. MONGRAIN: Well, like I said, I think I was a little shy. And even though my parents were supportive, making art was something that — a lot of my peers were hockey jocks and this kind of stuff, so it was — it was just a way to do it where it was perhaps a little more private. And also, I kind of like the site orientation. Growing up on a lake and involved with the water — and it's one of the reasons that some of my current sculptures are of mud and water, I think. But it added a kind of a mystery to it, I think. I'm perhaps romanticizing it from — since it was 40-some years ago. But yes, I think that's probably it. MS. RIEDEL: And so was your house actually on a lake, or you were close to a lake? MR. MONGRAIN: Yes, we had — International Falls are surrounded by lakes, and then we also had a small cabin on an island, which was only three or four miles from our home. So that would be where we would spend our summers, on this island. MS. RIEDEL: It sounds idyllic, was it? MR. MONGRAIN: It really was. It was — it was the typical fishing and hunting and outdoors things. And yeah, I drew a lot, made small sculptures. Perhaps one of my earlier pieces was I sculpted a crown. It was one of the — it was like fourth or fifth grade, and it was one of the statues of the Virgin Mary.