Profile | Scott Bluedorn | The Surfer’s Journal

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At first sift it can be difficult to find the nucleus of Scott Bluedorn’s art. The inside of his studio, a barn on the border between Springs and Northwest Harbor in East Hampton, is laced with his works in progress, all appearing as if they’ve come not from a single artist but several. A saltbox birdhouse shares the space with a Japanese-inspired block print, its nuclear-tinted panoramas folded accordion-style into a kansubon scroll. There are Hopi kachina dolls, cyanotypes of submerged sperm whales, and ghostly Xerox transfers.

A mechanized sculpture titled “Devious Machine” sits alongside a collage of marine plywood, a handmade chair, and another assemblage of tiled shoe rubber called “So(u)l(e)drips.” A cactus-like scarecrow stands outside of the door. On a shelf inside, a Melanesian-inspired mask is propped below several finished pieces—drawings of cabins that evoke M.C. Escher and Lloyd Kahn in their setting and architecture. “I don’t have this laser-like focus on one subject or medium,” says Bluedorn. “I worry about that sometimes. Then I think, you know, if I arrive at something, it’s ultimately because another piece led me there. So even with a wide breadth of work, the idea is to trace a line through all of it, and see that it came from one mind, one set of hands.”

For Bluedorn this axis comes in the form of “Maritime Cosmology,” a self-defined concept he describes as an exploration of the transformative properties of the sea and coastal environments. “It’s impossible to live near the ocean,” he says, “and not be influenced by it. Saltwater can clean. It can bleach. It can transform. So that’s really my common thread.”

The tricky part about finding this underpinning in his work, however, is that it isn’t always apparent. His alignment as a coastal dweller, and also a surfer, is often a secondary component. Broadly his pieces leave a nautical impression—and elements of his paintings and drawings may contain waves, shorelines, marine creatures, and shipwrecks. But these features are also usually mashed together with aspects of surrealism, primitivism, and magical realism, which can diffuse the oceanic focus. In many pieces, it’s the eerie levitation of a scow that draws the eye, not the scow itself. In others, a post-apocalyptic backdrop pulls the attention away from the waves breaking along a shoreline.

Much of it is also created with the intent of triggering either an emotional or intellectual response, which means that, instead of mere seascapes, the viewer is usually presented with images, constructions, or sculptures that overtly challenge them to draw an interpretation, further obscuring the maritime basis. In “So(u)l(e)drips,” for example, it’s clear the shoes Bluedorn used as tiling are refuse. But it’s only after he explains how he collected them in the coves of Montauk, and points out how they’ve been worn down by their time in the water, that the oceanic connection becomes apparent. His other sculptures and assemblages also focus on making a similar statement about the transformative nature of the sea and humanity’s presence in that environment. But in most cases, like “So(u)l(e)drips,” the materials and their origins are the main bridges back to the ocean: His scarecrow is made of trap floats. The Melanesian mask and the kachina dolls are constructed from plastic flotsam.

“It’s really about how garbage and materials live on past their intended use,” he says. “And how we relate to it. The traditional costumes in Melanesia and Micronesia were made from coconut fibers and shells, because that’s what they were collecting on the beach. That was the material they had available. And that’s how I translated these from garbage. This is my material. This is what I’m finding on the beach. This is what I have available.”

This focus on material of place—the specific patterns, shapes, and objects of coastal living—also applies to the rest of his art. The shingling found on his birdhouses and throughout many of his other pieces is a direct reference to the architecture of Bluedorn’s upbringing on the East End, and also to the boat-and-cottage-building cultures that the fishing and whaling trades spread along the Atlantic seaboard. And his background as a surfer serves his collection and inspiration process. He knows it’s time to go garbage picking in the coves after a swell, and on trips overseas he’ll multitask, soaking up references at sites like Machu Picchu after a surf strike to Chicama.

“Surfing is obviously a huge part of my life,” he says. “And you don’t see that many references of it in my work. But there’s always an incorporation of waves, not as a specific focus in a surfing sense, but they’re always there. I always try to skirt the coast. When I travel, surf trips turn into research trips. Then I use photo reference when I sit down to work, since I like to think about how detail can reflect the character of something. There’s also always some kind of metaphor in it, whether that’s direct or indirect. The shingling, for example, is repeated gesture. It’s meditation. That kind of thing might not be as apparent in something from South America, which is more about color, but texture and pattern are always important. They instantly become recognizable. And if you combine them with a symbol, like a whale, they can also become about place and heritage and that connects back to the coast and the ocean as the main drive behind everything.”