Artist's ultimate life challenge is bringing beauty into the world

It’s not enough to have artistic ideas and the skill to carry them out. A creator also needs flexibility and perseverance.

Collin Rowland has the perseverance of a determined artist and the flexibility of a break dancer.

“I’ve been disillusioned by both the music and the art world,” Rowland said, smiling. “Being creative in the world and trying to make a living at it, it’s a difficult thing. But it’s part of the challenge of life.”

Rowland is a nationally known mixed media artist whose work is in galleries in the Greater Cincinnati area of Ohio as well as the Chasen Galleries and the Art Ovation Hotel in Sarasota, and elsewhere.

Mixed media art incorporates mediums such as acrylic paint, spray paint, oil-based paint, resin, sculpture and photography, and more.

“I love music too,” he said.

Rowland got an early education in “mixed media” when he worked hard at both art and music. While in middle school and high school, he considered himself an artist. Then he discovered guitar, drums, dancing — including break dancing — and songwriting.

His college course load — and his early career— reflected his love of both art and music.

When he discovered art at a young age, Rowland said he found his purpose. “Ninety percent of my life has been trying to find ways to encourage and inspire people through music and art.”

He participated in art shows in high school and attended the University of Cincinnati to study art, but halfway through his college experience, Rowland switched to music classes because he “wanted to be a rock star.”

He was the lead singer of the band Love Assembly, featuring high-production, danceable, electronic club music. He pursued his musical dreams for about 10 years, going on tour and putting out an album, “Urgency of Now”. (Love Assembly’s music can be found on iTunes and wherever popular music is sold online.)

However in 1992, he said the file-sharing software Napster was throwing the music industry into turmoil. Rowland thought getting “a big record deal” seemed unrealistic. Even so, he continued pursuing it until about 16 years ago when he married the former Shelli Overholt, a graduate of Eustis High School in Central Florida.

“She really challenged me,” Rowland said. “She said, ‘You’ve really got to find some kind of creative medium.’”

So, he started doing fine art photography. His interests evolved into experimenting with photography, including hand painting, using resin epoxy, incorporating glass, spray paint, stencils, and printing images on a variety of materials. Eventually, printer technology caught up with Rowland’s imagination.

“I was a photographer, and I wanted my work to be more artistic,” he said.

MOVE TO SARASOTA

Rowland, 57, a native of Maysville, Kentucky, moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, after high school. He and his family moved from Cincinnati to Sarasota three years ago to be close to Shelli’s parents.

He also saw Sarasota as a prime market to sell his mixed media art and a great place to frequent the beach with their children, Amelie, Gianna and Zion.

He and his wife adopted Zion Shun Collin Rowland, now 8, from China almost eight years ago, fulfilling a dream they talked about when they were dating.

“He has brought so much love and light into our family,” Rowland said of his son, who underwent three open-heart surgeries by the time he was age 3 and — doctors say — may undergo another one as a young adult.

“I don’t know what we would do without him,” Rowland said.

For Rowland, making art, music and exploring other mediums of creativity is “a very personal, very spiritual kind of thing. I want to bring beauty into the world that adorns people’s walls or their ears, or whatever is interesting. But for me, it’s also a prophetic thing where I am looking for ideas that are bigger than myself. I’m looking for the spiritual.”

Rowland reflected on comments from Bono and The Edge from an interview when U2 was recording “The Unforgettable Fire” album (1984).

Conjuring his best Irish accent, Rowland quoted them, saying, “We believe the best songs are already written. All we’re doing is sifting through our junk, looking for the divine. That’s all we do. And sometimes something inside resonates.”

For U2, looking for something that is “greater” may result in connecting several chords that were played a week apart, Rowland said.

“For me, it’s the same thing. When I’m making art, I’m searching, looking for something that I feel I should play a role in bringing into the world. It’s not me getting all of the credit. I’m looking for something that hopefully speaks to people on the inside, on a personal level.”

While taking no credit, Rowland says a few times people have told him they are “moved” by his artwork, even to tears.

“It’s speaking to them on that level that I had no control of,” he said.

How does Rowland achieve that level of meaningful artwork?

“That’s a really good question,” he said. “They say that the key to innovation is the willingness to fail, to show up and try some stuff.”

If it doesn’t work out, just try again, he concluded.

“That attitude is really important to create a sacred space where you can be personal, intimate, vulnerable with yourself or, if you are collaborating, with somebody in the studio.”

Bottom line, he said: “You’ve got to feel that you can be childlike, where anything can happen.”

As a former songwriter, Rowland said he’s a bit of a storyteller. He loves to take a germ of an idea for a song and work on it to find its theme as he creates the verses, bridge and chorus. The same is true of his art.

“Each piece of art is, to me, like a song,” he said. “Music and art are the same thing. You are just using different (senses) to experience it.”

There are lots of ways to tell a story and Rowland has experimented with many of them. When he got back into painting through photography, he would capture visuals with a camera which he also could have created with a paint brush, marker or pencil — even charcoal— instead.

With some of his work Rowland layers images. He laser cuts his drawings out of metal or steel and floats them in front of the photographs.

He credits Daniel Augur, a former business partner, early collaborator and good friend who owns a large metal fabrication studio in Cincinnati, for helping him develop his art.

“I learned a lot working with him,” Rowland said. “He helped me experiment with the limits of normalcy.”