Shells of Meaning

Brian White was born in Friendship, Maine. He attended Friendship schools. And when he moved away, he didn’t go far. For almost 20 years, he has lived, and worked, in Union in a delightful 1789 Cape Cod cottage of weathered grey shingles, with a brick fireplace, rusty red walls, fanciful stenciling, wide painted floorboards, lots of antiques, and sunlight. And, of course, the attached studio barn. Although he has traveled little, his world is enormous, and his vision broad and deep. He is a voracious reader and mostly self-taught about everything.
Recently White purchased a “little place on the water” back in Friendship. He hopes to separate his art’s heavy construction mode from the meditative rumination it requires, although he’s not yet decided which location will accommodate each aspect of the work. As with many of life’s events, he’s sure if he remains open, he’ll get the right answer.

His dad was into antiques, selling and buying, often the contents of whole houses, which White helped sort through from the time he was a young child. Some days he might sit outside in the car while his dad talked with Andrew Wyeth, Louise Nevelson, Christina Olson, or Bernard Langlais. This was his introduction to art and artists, and many other things like sunsets and when the violets would bloom. Today, he keeps his hand in antiques, but, he says, as little as possible.

These days, his focus is on what he can create with glass, antique mirrors, fabric, metal, found objects, and, increasingly, shells—whelks, mussels, cowries, scallops, and more. He made his first shell sculpture in 1999, had his first art exhibit in 2003, and has sold every shell garment he has made, whether it’s a haute couture gown or a lobsterman’s shirt. Plus accessories (shoes, veils) and more (bees, dragonflies).

The first three shell dresses he created—Mussel Dress, Island Bride, and Rose Arbor—were purchased as soon as they were made. Rose Arbor, formed of welded copper tubing, shells, and Gaufrage velvet, was acquired by the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland before it was even finished.

His work is also in the Portland Museum of Art, the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, and the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, as well as in many private collections. He is currently at work on a half dozen commissioned pieces as well as work for an exhibit in Houston, Texas.

He describes his philosophy of life as almost Thoreau-like. “We don’t need every damn thing in the world. We have peace and harmony and everything we want in our surroundings.”

What were you like as a kid?

I was the miserable kid that taxed everybody’s patience. School was boring. I only wanted to go with my dad, buying antiques.

How did that impact you as an artist?

A lot of what I make came about from being a kid walking around in attics of houses. When my dad bought the contents of a house, I’d take all the clothing out of the closets and bureaus. I started seeing people’s lives. It was all about life but the people were nowhere to be seen. With the shells, I’m actually making portraits of people more than garments.

How did you become interested in art?

My dad was friends with Bernard Langlais. I remember waiting for my dad, looking up at this 65-foot wooden Indian he was making, and wondering, what the hell is this guy doing? What’s he eating for breakfast? And we lived 10 minutes away from the Wyeths’ house in Cushing. I didn’t know them, but my dad did. I used to scrape off plaster from [antique picture] frames, soaking them in the pond, for Andrew Wyeth. My dad said he was an abstract expressionist. And so I started studying the abstract expressionists. With the money I made, I got magazines, I got books, and I started reading like anything. Around 1971, I went to see a Wyeth show at the Farnsworth. I was maybe 10 or 11, and I said, that’s no abstract expressionist, you dumb sucker. I knew Wyeth was a famous artist but I didn’t know what the hell he did for work. I guess my dad didn’t either. I’m like, he paints the things that I know.

Your first show was in 2003. How long had you been making art?

I’ve always made things. I could always sell them but it never really satisfied me. Then I started doing some self-examination. I did Reiki, some theoretical physics, studied Deepak Chopra and Wayne Dyer. It made me look at what I really have to offer. And it clicked. But that first show, I honestly didn’t think that anything I had done was art. John [Ames, owner of Ten High Street gallery in Camden] said, “Oh, no, they’re art.” So I said, “OK, well, take them and sell them.” And he did.

How did you start working in shells?

A lot of the antique world is about surface and form. Shells have great surface. I had been collecting shells long before I ever thought of making anything with them. The first sculpture that I made was from the mussel shells that I found when I was out meditating and walking the beaches.

You don’t gather all your shells yourself, do you?

No. It’s like somebody’s out there calling them into my life, and I’m not trying to be, like, ooga-booga about it. When I did Island Sheep, a 13-year-old girl went out for a picnic with her grandmother and she slid down a hill that was all covered in these whelks that had been harvested and dumped out under an oak tree. They called me up. I thought they were ugly, but the girl was so happy, so I bought them. I put one in my pocket, handled it, drove around, and then I said, that’s going to make a sheep. And the first person who saw it bought it.

Some of these are very elegant and others, not so much. Do you have a preference?

No, I don’t. The mussels, they’re so natural. The blue is wonderful, with the algae and the barnacles. That subtlety, you try to keep and not have it polished and bleached. But I love to make couture stuff, too. I’d love to make something Coco Chanel. I have these huge freshwater clams, mother of pearl. Oh, that luminescence.

Could you describe what’s involved in a piece?

Well, first I have to design it. Sometimes a dressmaker’s pattern works. For the lobsterman’s shirt at the Penobscot Marine Museum, I deconstructed a shirt and made a pattern. Some pieces I create my own design. I buy yards of theater gauze to create the scrim and kind of do my interpretation of 17th-century frescoes. I add some stuff to make it super strong. Probably not too far away from what George Segal did with his bandages that were impregnated with plaster. That gets overlaid with metalwork I’ve done. Everything is hand sewn and soldered. Some pieces are particularly difficult. You have to try to bend something that doesn’t bend. [He laughs.]

Does it take a while to find a home for these?

No, but I don’t really think about that part.

What about this one [a black dress, sitting half-finished in the middle of the kitchen floor]?

Yeah, it’s spoken for. Someone saw it and I told them my vision for it, and they bought it right then.

So how do you explain the vision at this point?

I know the kind of evening I can feel, the emotion. I want you to see it with a little sexual edge, and youthful and fun and celebrating life.

Any fears?

Only that I’m gonna get tired and not care anymore. I do get bored easily. And all of my life isn’t just about making art. I don’t really care about being a multimillionaire. I don’t care about being a big shot. I do care about making really good things. And I do care about the sunset.

How would you describe your work?

I think it’s fresh. It’s philosophical. It’s poetic. It’s intimate.

What’s next?

I’d like to do some big canvas stuff, and some large-scale outdoor pieces. I’m thinking about all that. I don’t always know the answers. Sometimes I ask the questions and this awareness comes into my mind: You listen to that. You listen to the little signs, indications of what life is telling you. Anyone can do that. That’s what I’m doing now.