Victoria printmaker and Camosun graduate Nic Vandergugten knows all about the struggles of being an artist. And it’s not just the financial struggles that weigh on Vandergugten; like all artists, he wonders if what he’s doing will resonate with people at all.
“You’re never sure whether you’re going to be rewarded financially, or if people will even connect to the piece emotionally,” he says. “It’s easy to become filled with self doubt.”
But as real as the emotional struggles are, the financial ones are just as difficult.
Vandergugten, who got his Associate of Arts degree in English from Camosun in 2009, says he had to borrow money from loved ones to help scrape by as an artist; while he has always been able to repay his debts, he feels bad having to take debts from people in the first place.
“You can become a financial strain on people around you,” he says. “You’ll have to borrow money from parents and friends, at the hopes that you’ll be able to reciprocate that.”
Vandergugten, who grew up in Victoria’s Chinatown in an artistic household, says that becoming an artist wasn’t really that far of a leap for him.
“I guess in a sense I took the long road to taking up the family business, because my father is an artist,” he says. “I went back to square one and decided to just focus on being an artist. For me, with my work, all you need to start is a feeling that you can put into a really rough sketch. It’s hard to put into words; it’s an experience that happens in the moment.”
Before becoming involved with printmaking, Vandergugten was a sushi chef; he says the aesthetics and concepts of Japanese art may have helped lead him to carving. Vandergugten also realizes that, for him, just like for many other srtists, creating art is a very spiritual experience.
“To me spirituality is something that is just there, and it is mysterious, but it helps guide you,” he says. “And the more you open up to that and trust in that, the more that things seem to fall into place.”