Bad Art Club founder Daniel Freedman (center) draws with other uninhibited artists, including 6-year-old Hudson Gootkind (right), during an event in the parking lot of Hi-Fidelity Brewing Company during Portland’s East Bayside Block Party last month. Freedman’s club is a group dedicated to making art accessible and fun. Carl D. Walsh/Staff Photographer
Grace Korman, a professional carpenter and painter, used a Sharpie to draw the outline of a bird in a nest in one corner of a large piece of canvas draped over two tables. Under the Bad Art Maine tent in the parking lot of Hi-Fidelity Brewing, she filled in the bird with lots of gold tones.
“Are you trying to ruin my bird?” she asked. Daniel Freedman was doodling on the other side of the table and immediately said yes. “I know this is your favorite part,” Korman said.
Freedman added red eyebrows and highlights to make the bird angry, and the couple laughed at the cartoonish result.
Hudson Gootkind, 6, strode toward the tent with shy confidence, followed by his two adults. He surveyed the flock of brightly colored pastel birds already crowded on the canvas. While eight adults sketched around him, he held a thick black pastel and began to outline what appeared to be a human-like bird.
As he filled the animal’s belly, he proudly announced, “It’s a penguin.” When he was finished, both of his forearms were smeared with rainbows of oil pastel dust.
“Little kids are fearless,” Freedman said, grinning as he watched Gootkind at work.
Hosted by Bad Art Maine, the Bad Art Club meeting aimed to make art accessible and fun for everyone, no matter what level. There are no rules and everyone is encouraged to contribute to community works. Birds were, of course, the theme of this meeting.
At club meetings, members engage in hands-on activities that encourage connection and expression. Sometimes they pass around a piece of paper and everyone takes turns adding to it. Often they work together on a large canvas, using markers, colored pencils, pastels, watercolors, acrylics, and stitches to inspire each other. Most art materials are donated.
Freedman, who lives in Scarborough, said he founded Bad Art Maine with an ethos of anti-perfectionism. He struggled with intense writer’s block. Growing up in an Orthodox Jewish environment in suburban Philadelphia, he was drawn to sculpture, but by the time he graduated from college, he had lost confidence in his creativity. He knew he wasn’t alone.
An accepted practice at “Bad Art Club” events is the freedom to rework the art of others, which is what is happening in this photo. The club set up a tent in the parking lot of Hi-Fidelity Brewing during the East Bayside Block Party last month and invited people to participate in artistic work. Carl D. Walsh/ Staff Photographer
“It’s heartbreaking to see such genuine and kind people feel like they’re not good enough to express themselves,” he said.
Freedman, 28, has spent the past seven years rediscovering his love of art. He described letting go of artistic perfectionism as a not always straightforward recovery process. He said he “refuses to allow the world to take art away from him.” Over the summer, he exhibited more than 40 works – an assortment of watercolors, oil paintings and mixed media pieces – in the Oak Street Lofts gallery space, most of which were created over the past eight months.
“I just let go a little bit,” Freedman said. “Part of that was Bad Art Maine. It gave me the freedom to sit down and paint a picture without worrying about it.”
While struggling with his own perfectionism, Freedman began teaching a class called “Making Bad Art” last summer to help others on their own journey. He described it as artistic rehabilitation.
The group talked about art and did both collaborative projects and solo work. Freedman encouraged people to think of art “as a form of communication and expression, not just for yourself but with other people.”
“Art, at its core, is about sharing,” he said.
He said he founded the club to make this vision more accessible. The idea was to create a free space where people could be creative.
The first meeting was last September, and from October through May the club met weekly while Freedman taught social studies full-time at King Middle School. In the summer, the club transitioned to event-based meetings, such as under the tent in the Hi-Fidelity parking lot.
Korman, who recently painted birds, said half of the visitors are professional artists. As an artist, she said, she appreciates the encouragement to make messy art and experiment with styles.
A creative outlet
Gretchen Nelson, a computer science teacher at Portland High School, started attending club meetings as a way to meet people and get creative after moving to Portland last September. She’s been there more than a dozen times.
“I did a lot of art when I was younger, but then I stopped,” she said. The club reintroduced her to the idea that “the point of art is to have fun.”
Over the summer, Freedman added more musicians to the group, but the basic idea was always the same: just have fun. On June 29 and July 20, Bad Art Maine hosted the Really Good Summer Concert Series in Congress Square Park from 2 p.m. to sunset.
“Musicians like to play music and have an audience, and people who like to make visual art like to listen to music,” Freedman said. At the event, musicians made art with participants from the Bad Art Club.
At least one member of the Bad Art Club crosses state borders to be there.
Anthony Letts, who lives in Conway, New Hampshire, said he was “overwhelmed by the community,” had attended six or seven meetings, and was pleased to see new faces each time.
“Everyone can feel at home there,” he said.
In the fall, the Bad Art mission will head to Spain. Freedman will teach English and American culture part-time in Madrid, and when he’s not working, he plans to pitch a tent on a court. In the meantime, the club’s loyal fans will keep it alive in Maine.
“Some things are universal,” Freedman said. “People are interested in creating something.”
Copy the story link
