The Brians a.k.a. Chuck & George
Colette Copeland
April 2020
The third in a series of conversations with artist couples delving into how they are
surviving the pandemic times.
All photos courtesy of Chuck & George
Email conversation with Brian K. Scott and Brian K. Jones collectively known as Chuck & George
CC: How has covid19 and the quarantine impacted your artistic practice both conceptually and technically?
BS: The truth is, it is just a compounding factor…it has seemed that our world slipped into a surrealist dystopia some time ago. I actually have not made any art since the lock-down. (Ok, I have done bad sketches of participants in online meetings and classes). It happened that our studio mate (a framer) decided to move out. I first told him not to worry, he didn’t have to pay rent for a while, but he was determined. So I embraced the new and exciting ceramics space now available. BJ and I have been working on the studio! It’s getting quite nice; we put in two new windows making the whole wall an open airy place to work, painted the ceiling pale blue to bounce light around. This is both procrastination and peculation. For me to make art, I think about it for a long time, and usually before any big C&G project, I find an emergency build that can’t wait and I ruminate on the project while building.
BJ: This quarantine has been the perfect time for a reconfiguration of our creative spaces. When my studio is clean and organized in a way that reflects who I am, it is incredibly motivational.
CC: With all the museums and galleries closed, what innovative ways have you found in order to stay connected to art and artists?
BS: Well we had the good fortune to go to the Dallas Museum of Art’s last preview For a Dreamer of Houses, not knowing it was going to be the last time people would be allowed to enter the museum…So I think of that! We have a lovely front porch, so a few artists & friends have come for porch coffee…usually they will bring their own thermos / flask, but a few are bold and have me serve. I am always cautious to wipe the cups down with alcohol first. We are participating in the Pandemic Art Fair put together by Ted Kincaid & Glasstire.
We are working on this year’s SpeedBump Art Tour…which will be an online experience in May. This year we’ll present video tours of artist spaces and interviews of the tour stops. Sadly this is the 20th year and we were planning some exciting elements including an after party in our back yard. This is of course a small problem when you think of all that’s happening everywhere. The immediate Covid-19 crisis is a monster, but it really is a little bump compared to the population, political, and climate crises.
BJ: A big part of our artistic practice is the social participation within our art community. The ability to mingle with the gallerists, artists and patrons and the unscripted social, emotional interactions that play out are invigorating. This is just impossible to match in an online environment, but I (like many others) depend on social media as a tool. Recently I just invited others to collaborative on an animated piece with me. The “Little Big Tex Social Distance Coloring Book & Animation Project”. It’s really a “keep busy” kinda project but I am super excited about what the participants may throw my way. I’m thrilled by assignments and hope others will enjoy it.
CC: What are your strategies for staying sane and not getting homicidal with your partner during these times?
BS: The Jones & I have been collaborating, cohabiting, coexisting under a mutual destruction, nonaggression detente pact for thirty years. Our projects have a typical cycle…we discuss it, sketch about it, disagree about it….if you’re lucky you can see us yell about it, then we pull something better than either of us could do out of the cauldron. We have the good fortune that the studio is next door, so we can be away from each other as much as needed, and the garden is behind, so I can go pull a weed every half hour to maintain a chill demeanor.
BJ: My partner Brian K Scott and I have been together for 30 years. We’ve worked together professionally and have also collaborated artistically as Chuck & George for that entire time. I imagine a good murder suicide would do wonders for our career, but it would be most ineffectual to do it during a terrifying pandemic. We would do best to play that card in a more rational time.
Colette Copeland with Ryder Richards & Sue Anne Rische →
Colette Copeland with Silvia Argiolas & Matteo Campulla →
On a cold November day in 1990 “Chuck & George“ were born on a cracker. While having lunch at Jim’s Diner, UNT art students Brian K Jones & Brian K Scott sat at a table and painted each others portraits on saltines. They then declared themselves “Chuck & George”. Though inspired by longtime art collaborators “Gilbert & George”, the pseudonym was derived by the pairing of each artist’s existing imaginary muses.
The time is now and Chuck & George are still sitting at the table with the past and the present, having a chat, eating magic cookies, drinking, playing a game, cheating at that game, saying one thing and hearing another. As with a lot of our collaborations we gain inspiration from our loved ones, toys, literature, music, movies and TV shows. 80’s pop songs are often inspiration because like Ziggy they have always asked the big questions. And yes, love is a battlefield.
“the world of Chuck and George shimmered with regret, compassion, annoyance, frustration, pity and love – usually all at the same time, and never without a pervasive, deeply artistic irony about the near-impossible task of staying true to yourself and to the people who made you who you are.” Julie McGuire , Number: Seventy Seven (an independent arts journal) Winter 2014
Dallas Museum of Art: For a Dreamer of Houses→
Pandemic Art Faire→
Little Big Tex Social Distance Coloring Book & Animation Project
Our website maintained by Brian K Jones
Our most recent show, Cat Butt Parfait! This summer @ Galveston Art Center→
www.instagram.com/chuckandgeorge →
www.instagram.com/andgeorge →
Colette Copeland is a multimedia visual artist/writer whose work examines gender, death and contemporary culture. Sourcing personal narratives and popular media, she uses video, performance and installation to question societal roles and media’s influence on enculturation. Her experimental videos employ absurdist humor to explore the landscape of human relationships. She loves all things Dada and Fluxus with a big splash of subversive humor, especially the work of Chuck & George and agrees that we have devolved into a surrealist dystopia.
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