Artist finds subjects in suffering

Patrick Carrico starts his day writing, then works as a para-educator in special education classes in Cathlamet.

He leads students in art and writing projects, completing the assignments himself, which he said, “give the children an example of what an adult male focused and finishing something looks like.”

He paints at home in the evenings, using some of the sketches he started in class.

Carrico’s paintings are being exhibited at Redmen Hall in Skamokawa through May 29. The works are colorful and vibrant, capturing the pain he sees around him in school and in the world, with non-traditional materials that include roofing tar, house paint and paint for fishing lures.

The 31-year old arrived in Cathlamet over a year ago to be with girlfriend Laura Lincoln. Carrico has written two mysteries and written and acted in The Coatroom, a film performed at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in 2005.

Carrico said he owes the quantity of his work to his attention deficit disorder. He tells his students “to use it, not as an excuse, but as a way to be more prolific, to channel the weird sides of your personality.”

One painting entitled Done! shows one child working on a project, another sitting “suffering” and a figure standing. The moment a kid slams his pencil down and says, “Done,” the teacher gets upset, Carrico said. But he’s tolerant of kids’ reaction to the pain in their lives, saying, “They have so much to process.”

Sketches of students are part of the exhibit, and some have been to see it.

“They feel a part of it,” he said.

Carrico’s father was a special education teacher, and Carrico’s first job, at age 16, was for Easter Seals.

“I like what I do," he said. "It’s never boring. They’re people worth working for--not like when I made wine in 2007, which made a rich person even richer."

Carrico studied art in college, but he doesn’t have much good to say about art school.

“It was all conceptual art; it is so irrelevant," he said. "It’s no more than a club; there’s no hand of the artist. It does nothing to reflect the universal statement of suffering.

“It was ridiculous… but what it gave me was a foundry and a stage.”

Carrico said making art can be extremely uplifting and helps him deal with mental health issues.

Carrico has visited and returned to the Vincent van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. Van Gogh, known for his struggle with mental illness, is a hero and an inspiration for Carrico, as is Edvard Munch, the Norwegian artist noted for "The Scream." He is also inspired by Oregon artist Lauren Mantecon’s boldness, although their styles differ.

His film, The Coatroom, Untitled Productions, 2005, was set in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

“It’s the story of kids in Philadelphia deciding whether or not to finish college," Carrico said. "They’re at the point of deciding about trying to succeed or not."

The film won at Portland Underground Film Festival and, in a dream come true for Carrico, was shown at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles.

A network of friends across the world support his work. One living in Israel is distributing The Coatroom; a trailer is available on Youtube.

Carrico has written two mysteries featuring a detective who is losing his senses one by one. They sell on Amazon.com. He is seeking representation and publication at conferences like Woodstock in NY and is considering another in Nashville.

Carrico described Omelets, his debut novel, as a return to his rural roots to chronicle the lives of two GI wives from a small town in Oregon. A kind of coming of age tale soaked in cheap white wine, sprinkled with methamphetamines and displaced sexuality, Omelets points at the ridiculous predicaments of youth during a time of ridiculous war, he said.

In Beaujolais, Carrico added, “Sam Waters, maimed and suffering from the stages of extreme alcoholism, finds himself homeless in Medford, Oregon, implicated in the disappearance of the daughter of a prominent local business family. By chance he witnesses a string of violent and bizarre acts that lead him to the actual culprit.”

Carrico says the alcoholism and addiction that run through his work is something he understands since they are so much a part of his generation.

“There’s so much pain in the work I do,” Carrico says. “Making art can be a catharsis, or it can be picking at scabs.”