Meet Bryce Widom

Today we’d like to introduce you to Bryce Widom.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
It was summertime. I was pouring ales and rootbeer at the Mountain Sun Pub & Brewery. A bearded mountain man, sitting solo at table 13, called me over. He wanted to ask me a question that would change the course of my life.

I was at that time in the midst of an existential crisis. My readings of Kant and Camus weren’t helping me get any closer to understanding my purpose for living or the as-yet-unknown work I was wanting to commit myself to. In the 18 months since graduating college as a psychology and creative writing major (following two years as a physics major at an engineering school), I’d done nothing more with my degree than assess the mental wiring of my quirky friends and written a few haiku for donations. But to give myself some credit here I was experimenting, tasting different lives, possibilities. As a school bus driver, cake decorator, telephone psychic.

But what did all these have in common? Where was I heading in my work? What did I want to be doing with my life? I couldn’t find a pattern. I was lost, floating, and beneath it all, somehow… trusting.
So what was this question the grizzled man at table 13 asked me? He’d noticed the big chalkboard hanging in the center of the pub wall, beer names scrawled on either side, sandwiching a chalk drawing of a swordfish leaping from the waters of some primordial psychedelic swamp-forest. The artwork and lettering were mine, as I’d been asked by the owners to give my hand a try. And he – lead singer of a band of Nederlanders – liked my work, and wanted me to draw a poster for his band’s upcoming autumn tour.

From that gig, more poster requests flowed in, along with album covers, garment designs, band logos. I eventually left my waiter-and-cook position to pursue art full time – a profession I’d been set against following, as my Mom is a professional artist, and I was determined to do something different, to forge my own path. But the pattern through all of my experimenting was essentially aesthetic in nature. The feeling of threading my way through Boulder County picking up and dropping off kids in my bus… the joy of squeezing icing onto frozen cakes in always-new ways for the delight of someone’s birthday… the strange-yet-familiar-feeling of looking into a tarot card – with no idea what the card was intended to symbolize – but seeing stories appear in the image, and then voicing these stories to an intimate stranger on the other end of the phone. All of these had an aesthetic texture to them, a beauty, a feeling, a flow. And I was finally seeing the pattern: I am an artist.

Has it been a smooth road?
My past two decades as an artist have been filled with both challenge and grace. I’ve had the great fortune of a near-continual stream of work requests coming my way. And yet, my own doubt about the value of my work (and deeper, the value of my existence) has continually evoked challenge.

This has played out in the tension of opposing internal forces. Like this: I’ve always hoped to build a more stable financial situation, while simultaneously diminishing the dollar value of my work. The stories that run in deep grooves in my psyche have told me that my work is worth far less than whatever anyone else might value it at. This has caused immeasurable financial stress!

And I’m happy to say that I’ve been re-writing these stories and with the help of my business partner, I now trust and feel that my work has deep value and receiving the generosity of others in exchange for the offering of my work is a truly good thing.

And then there’s my perfectionism… a project that could take me a week and be well-done, I stretch into many weeks to take it to the level where I’m at peace with the end result. This has led to innumerable projects where I’ve been far over-time and yet I’m still working away… and meanwhile the clock ticks on, the calendar days flip by, and bills are due.

And, I’m thrilled to say that I’ve done a great amount of work around my perfectionist tendencies, and am continually finding more ease, flow, spaciousness, and efficiency in the way I work. So good:)

Please tell us more about your work, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
I paint small and large works in oils to hang in living rooms, sacred spaces, workplaces. I create big-scale murals – and soon – I’ll be painting with spray cans! (A new medium which I’m thrilled about.) I make larger-scale chalk/pastel paintings for public venues and homes. Some of these are erased and re-created through the years. Others are framed behind glass for lifetimes of viewing. (Given that I’ve been doing this for twenty years at the Mountain Sun pubs in Boulder, Denver and Longmont this is what I’m currently best known for.) And for those chalk/pastel paintings that I do erase, I offer prints (www.prints.brycewidom.com).

I love the way that I can work with clients feel, who they are, feel the space that the art will be living in, and create an artwork that arises from the uniqueness of the confluence of a thousand subtle and significant threads. And infused in any work is my own inner-practice that I’m in the midst of at the time. I love that there is no separation between my own personal work and practice, and my career as a painter.

I also appreciate my ease of letting go… whether it be erasing a chalkboard at the end of the season (which has caused a self-declared “pain” for so many witnessing), mailing a painting to a waiting client, or letting go of a current direction as a new vision arises. For letting go of all that is here allows me to embrace whatever is now emerging.

Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
Boulder: I love the beauty this city is cradled in. The rising Flatirons to the west, vast open plains to the east. And I’ve never personally known a city that is as supportive of my work as an artist. This support  and enthusiasm is only growing with time! I feel deeply accepted here in Boulder and encouraged to create more work, to share my creativity across the walls of homes and workplaces and barn-sides and carports and fences of this city.

Denver: My birthplace! And though I was raised primarily in Alaska and never truly knew Denver, I am slowly, subtly falling in love with this city. And the RiNo Art District is fueling this. So much art on ginormous building-sides, or tucked away in alleys… every few days, something new seems to sprout up! I love the largeness of the art. And how it is created as an offering for all who are willing to look and see.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.brycewidom.com AND www.prints.brycewidom.com
• Email: artist@brycewidom.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brycewidom/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brycewidom/
• Other: https://www.patreon.com/brycewidom

Image Credit:
all images were taken by me or my daughter Mina Lotus

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