By Jonathan Burger, Craven Arts Council & Gallery, Inc.
Where are you from and how’d you end up in eastern North Carolina?
I’m originally from a small town in Texas. We moved here on January 1, 2021, from Tulsa, Oklahoma. We moved here because I had a job in Raleigh that was mainly remote, and we decided not to move to that area because it would just be trading cities. My wife, Melissa, loves the water and found New Bern for us. We were sold on it once we came out to visit and saw the sights. And, we love the fact that New Bern is “Art friendly.”
Do you have any formal training, or are you self-taught?
I’m self-taught in photography, art, and filmmaking, which is probably why I’m not more successful at any of it. I’ve always seen my art as a hobby. The same goes for writing–self-taught, but I’ve been pretty successful at that. It took me at least ten years of writing books and articles to say out loud that I’m a writer. It sounds terribly pompous to say, “I’m a writer or a published author.” It’s still uncomfortable for me to say it. I usually tell people I’m an IT guy (which I am) and rarely mention the writing.
You work in a lot of mediums, including film, live theatre, and podcasts. Do you have a favorite, and why or why not?
Film is my favorite, followed by live theatre and acting. Film is expressive, and I can hold an audience’s attention with film. A picture might be worth a thousand words but often only gets a few seconds of a glance. The same goes for live theatre.
You are the organizer of the Experimental Film Festival here in New Bern. Can you tell us what the festival is about?
Yes, now in its fourth year, The Experimental Film Fest celebrates experimental film and its makers. Experimental film is hard to describe, but you know it when you see it. It often doesn’t follow the typical film formula of characters, plot, and three acts. Some experimental films have none of those characteristics. Experimental film is fun because you don’t have to follow filmmaking rules or stick to a genre. It’s an “anything goes” art form.
I also have a podcast with the same theme: The Experimental Film Podcast, where I interview filmmakers and explore their work. It’s the second most popular podcast in Slovenia.
You also work in IT, do you see any relationship between that and your artistic work?
I see very little connection between the two, actually. Art is creative, engaging, and often philosophical, whereas IT is procedural, detailed, and often boring. Art can be those things, too, but if it is, you should do something different or explore a new medium.
Is there another artist whose work you admire or inspires you?
For mainstream film, David Lynch, Christopher Nolan, and Quentin Tarantino are pretty fascinating. Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Éric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, and Claude Chabrol are big influences on my experimental film work. I love the so-called French New Wave and French avant-garde cinema. I would love to have been part of that movement. I don’t smoke, so that probably disqualifies me. I can’t pinpoint a single movement or artist for visual arts, but I like defiant art–art that says, “Yes, it is, in fact, art, but you might not be able to understand it.” I’m a big fan of your and Mairin Gwyn Narron’s sculpture work. For acting, Charlie Chaplin was brilliant. His 1916 film, The Pawnshop, is my favorite.
Do you have any advice for artists just starting out?
Yes, be persistent. You only fail if you stop doing what you do. Put yourself out there on every social media platform and post often. My most valuable advice for new artists is, “Learn to talk about your art.” Artists can be introverted or afraid to speak about their art, but you can’t be. Learn to self-promote.
What artwork, performance, award, or other artistic achievement are you particularly proud of, and why?
I’ve won a handful of film awards. My first film award was from the Cinematic Panic Festival in Memphis in 2018. I took an award for my film, Landscape: The Call is Real. It’s a 10-minute film of random shots from the boardwalk carnival near Wilmington and the zoo in Columbia, SC, and the audio is a 911 call from a 17-year-old who shot and killed his mother and his sister. Morbid but effective.
In one sentence, what is art to you?
Art, to me, is therapy and I do art as a diversion and am happiest when I create something.
I know you’ll be running the Experimental Film Festival, will you have a video there, or where else can people find your work?
I will have a short film that I made near the History Center in the Spring called Une Belle Journee, starring German actress Luisa Wietzorek. You can see it and some of my other films on my Vimeo channel at https://vimeo.com/kenhess.