I don't like writing about myself, but I know that I, too, have been curious about other artists whose work I have enjoyed, particularly those I have discovered via the Internet, and I have quickly gone to the 'about the artist' section to quell that curiosity. So, due to that and because others have strongly recommended I do a bio...
My name is Kevin Buntin and I currently reside within the wilds of Troy, Ohio, with
my beautiful wife, brilliant stepdaughter, and one very eccentric cat.
Art has always been a part of my life, literally. I was drawing Viking ships teeming with warriors on goldenrod notebook paper and modeling mummies and Frankenstein monsters - complete with various anatomically incorrect organs within hollowed out chest cavities - out of modeling clay since I was in elementary school.
I don't do art out of pretense, or a desire for recognition or wealth - any artist can tell you what a waste of time that route to fame and fortune is! I do it because I always have; it is a compulsion, a need. If I stop, then I become ill. Ever since I was a child, my mind has been overflowing with characters and fantastic creatures of my own devising and the worlds in which they live, and they all demand to be released. Through my art I do that. I tell stories. I don't really make too many immediately obvious statements, nor are they terribly profound, I'll leave that to other more high-minded artists who prefer to make pieces too big for most of the space left to us in this world.
The size of my work and the subject matter of it tend to focus on the microcosm rather than
the macrocosm. They occupy the space left over in the world, the tiny places between the
roots and the trees. Indeed, a great deal of the material I use for my work makes use
of materials that most people would simply discard as too small, as scraps of what is left
over. I use pretty much whatever materials I feel will achieve the vision I have in my head.
I have mad frequent use of such materials as wood putty used in conjunction with particularly
interesting pieces of roots from uprooted shrubs, acorn caps, and scraps of leather or
various other fabrics. I sometimes let the shapes of the scraps of cloth or leather dictate
how they will come together or I simply cut them and piece them together to make more formal
costuming out of them. Almost all of the costumes are hand-stitched by me - I only recently
began to learn how to make use of a sewing machine to speed up what parts of the process I
could! My primary materials of preference, however, are the various polymer clays out on the market.
What great stuff! And very ironic, since the overwhelming theme of my work is of a natural,
preindustrial/pre-synthetic character. All of my pieces are hand modeled - NOT FROM MOLDS, unless
they are molds from my own original works - OOAK (one of a kind) pieces. I do all my own
costume designs, armatures, painting, wigging, carving, and set design work, and where I
do not, it is accordingly specified in the piece's description. The stories that accompany
most of the pieces are of my own devising or have been pulled directly from old faerie tales,
myths and legends.
Books and stories have always been a large part of my life along with music, and they have
all walked hand-in-hand with my art. The subject matter of my pieces is as heavily influenced
by nature, as it is folklore and mythology. The very character of a face can come to me
from the shape and size of an acorn cap.
This all stems from my memories of my great grand-parents'
six-acre plot of land, now entirely black-topped over and long since sub-divided. It was almost entirely
covered in forest, and my brother and I would spend nearly every Sunday exploring every inch of it.
To me, it was thick with faeries, goblins, elves, and gnomes. Many of my ideas come from
my own imagination, but a self-education in various folkloric traditions provides a great deal
of copyright free fodder.
© The World of Kevin Buntin