Mapping the Artist: Chris Wesley

Chris Wesley and Kathabela Wilson

Chris Wesley is a powerful and versatile writer, artist, and performing musician. He creates new and unusual connections amidst the arts.

By Kathabela Wilson

Chris had a solo art show at Scenic Drive Gallery last year. He is currently poised to launch his next book “The Gospel of Wolves”.

Telescope on the artist

Chris Wesley at Scenic Drive Gallery – Monrovia, CA.

How do you see the poet- artist in the world, what can he give and how do you see yourself doing that?

We are ghost chasers exploring the things that haunt us most. My personal creative poltergeist is love and belonging because I spent the bulk of my first 19 years believing I was inherently unlovable and that I didn’t fit in anywhere, not even in my family. I use those experiences for the intense dark that contrasts the brilliant light in my art.

Focus on the artist

Chris Wesley and Rick Wilson

I see you as having an especially versatile and creative approach to life and your art. How do you mix life, poetry, art, music, photography, and psychology?

Funny that you mention psychology, because in everything I do, regardless of medium, I’m after the emotions of my audience. Whether it’s joy, fear, disgust, hope or something else, the most important thing for me is that I move the audience and it takes an understanding of psychology to do that.

As for being versatile, I think each medium reaches people in different ways. I use everything I have. A strong melodic song with moving lyrics can define an emotional period of time. A photograph can transport you to another place and time. With fiction, I go deeper into the motivations behind the actions of the characters. With poetry, I offer a painting in words that captures the emotional weight of a moment with no sound and no picture.

Microscope on the poet

Chris Wesley

What are interior qualities of your artistic life, what makes you an artist?

Everything I create is an expression of something that’s burning inside me to be released. I’ve tried to walk away from being an artist multiple times because it can be a cruel and isolating way to live, but I couldn’t stay away. It felt like I was living the song Hotel California, being able to check out, but never leave because I could never find another way to be. I’ve learned how to accept and be happy with how I’m built, but it was a journey to get here.

Mapping the artist

Chris with Tim and Katlin

How does Pasadena and the surrounding area, color and influence your work?

Active with Poets on Site, I’ve participated in their live performances inspired by art and their poetry audio tour for the collection of the USC Pacific Asia Museum in 2010, expanding my repertoire to include tanka and haiku, Japanese forms that are short and can communicate a lot in short order. It can still be heard online, and the book is available in their museum shop. Also in the past several years, being a board member and stage director for the Pasadena literary performance series “Indelible Ink” put me in direct contact with poets from all over the world. Hearing their work read and being told some of their stories has also helped me understand cultural standpoints that includes, but reaches beyond race into larger, deeper conversations of how we perceive ourselves and interact with others.

In the cultural richness of Pasadena I have a community of poet friends. My books, as the titles imply, are all about how we connect with one another: “Pack Animals” and “The Gospel of
Wolves”

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