"To empower, educate and provide recognition to artists through scholarship and the propagation of an accessible and interactive multi-media community."

This is the mission statement of SPLAT, a start-up arts organization headquartered right here in Southwest Florida.  Anchored by an educational channel television show and interactive website (SPLATweb.org), SPLAT is determined to help deserving local artists achieve their higher education goals through the disbursement of scholarships.  The television show and website will also serve as forums for viewers to learn more about art personalities, techniques, and happenings.

SPLAT is the creation of two local personalities.  Tim Smith, the Visual Arts Department Head at Cypress Lake Center for the Arts in Fort Myers, is the founder of SPLAT and heads up the Television Division.  Eric Taubert, the publisher of The Cape Coral Barometer, is the co-founder of SPLAT and holds the reigns on the Internet Division.  Together they intend to develop SPLAT into a viable and vibrant arts community providing benefits and an organizing voice to artists of all disciplines.

As the host of the new television show, SPLAT – Adventures in the Arts, Smith's vibrant personality grabs center stage. But it’s his impressive credentials and lifelong dedication to art education that form the foundation of his newly-formed organization.  Smith is a graduate of the Art Institute of Chicago.  He has over thirty years experience as a production potter, teacher and fine artist. He has won many awards, including a Robert Rauschenberg Grant, first place in the fine art gallery at Seminole College and a Siggraph Grant for technology.  His work has been exhibited in various galleries in Florida, Minnesota, St. Louis and Chicago…including the Morton Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago.  And he served as co-chairman for the Robert Rauschenberg Scholarship Committee on Sanibel Island.

Recently, I sat down with Tim Smith to talk with him about the journey that lead him to SPLAT.  Here's what he had to say:

It all began in the fall of 1967.  The Beatles had just released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.  Television news was dominated by the cultural upheaval caused by opposition to the war in Vietnam.  America was trying to beat Russia to the moon, and earlier in the year astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee were killed in a fire on board the space capsule on the ground at Cape Kennedy, Fla.  I was only eight years old.

I was living in St. Cloud Minnesota and I remember watching television when a commercial came on promoting a local bank.  It showed a Japanese potter throwing pots on the potter’s wheel.  I was fascinated and mesmerized by his technique.  I had never seen a potter work before.  He made it look so easy.  I had to try it myself.

I put my tennis shoes on and ran down to the local craft store.  I bought 5 pounds of clay, ran back home, and went down to the basement.  I took one of our old record players, plugged it in, and turned it on.  I formed a piece of clay into a ball and put it in the middle of the turntable.  That day I stayed in the basement and lost track of time making small, crude, little pots on an old turntable.  I was hooked.

Jump ahead 13 years.  It's 1980 and I'm spending one year as an apprentice potter at Saint Johns University in Minnesota for Richard Bresnahan.  This was a noted potter I was working under.  He had traveled to Japan and completed a four year apprenticeship under Nakazato Takashi, a thirteenth generation potter whose father (Muan Nakazato) was designated a Living National Treasure by the Japanese government for his artistic contributions in the discipline of pottery.  Living National Treasure is a title awarded in Japan to certain masters of crafts, such as swordsmithing and pottery, with the aim of preserving skills and techniques in danger of being lost.

"I cleaned, I swept, I hauled clay," Bresnahan said of his first year in Japan. "I did everything but make pottery."

At the end of his four year Japanese apprenticeship, Bresnahan was declared a Master Potter.  He was an anomaly, the only Westerner in 13 generations of Nakazato pottery making to achieve this distinction.  Bresnahan returned to the United States in 1979 to apply his skills as artist-in-residence at St. John's University.  One year later I was doing my apprenticeship under him.

My responsibilities were to work from eight o’clock in the morning till ten o’clock at night, six days a week. I would start out by recycling clay and cleaning the studio, my responsibilities also included, splitting wood for the kiln, refining materials for the glazes, and getting everything ready for Richard to come in and produce.  I did everything but make pottery.  Takashi had taught him well.

Now flash forward another twenty-seven years, through all the petty trials, triumphs, and tragedies an artist's life unfolds into.  School.  Apprenticeships.  Relationships.  Fatherhood.  Gallery shows.  Jobs.  Bills.  More jobs.  Now it's the summer of 2007, and I just received a grant to work at The Anderson Ranch Arts complex in Snow Mass, Colorado.  By this time I've been a potter for over 33 years.  When I arrived one of the wood burning kilns was in the process of being fired.  It was around midnight and a few Japanese potters were stoking the kiln.  I sat up with them and talked until about 2:00 AM.

The next morning I woke up and strolled around the campus.  I wandered up to a studio in which a Japanese potter was working.  I stepped in and asked if it would be all right if I could sit and watch.  He nodded.  As he formed the pots I realized I knew some of the techniques he used, techniques I had learned from my teacher.  I asked him if he knew a potter by the name of Richard Bresnahan, he replied that Richard had been an apprentice for him in the late 70’s.  Synchronicity had put me in the same room as Nakazato Takashi!  I had serendipitously come upon my teacher's teacher, and in his work I could see the purity of the art I had inherited from him without ever meeting him.  His hands worked the techniques he learned from his father, techniques which had been taught down through the dark and hazy tunnel of passing time, through thirteen generations in his family alone.  Ancient arts like pottery, are passed along like DNA within a family tree, generation to generation, evolving slowly as they go.  I spent hours beside Takashi, mesmerized, asking questions - many through a translator - but mostly just watching and appreciating the artist before me and the influence he unknowingly had on my life.

Art is about learning and teaching, taking and giving, the transfer of knowledge.  If art works correctly, it becomes a self-sufficient community, a perfect circle lifting itself up for all to see.  Looking back on my personal journey through the world of art, I would not be where I am today without the influence, generosity, and support of other artists.  I'm at the point in my life where I'm asking myself, "What is my legacy as an artist?"  I've been a teacher, but I want the opportunity to teach on a bigger stage.  I've been given financial help when I needed it, now I want to provide that same type of help for the next generation of struggling artists.  I've been an influence to people, but I've still got so much more inside me.  I need an outlet.  I need a platform.  I need a stage.  It's time for me to give back to this thing which has given so much to me, to complete my part of the perfect circle...that's what SPLAT is all about.

Splat is currently seeking grant money and donations from local businesses in an effort to offset set-up costs.  To learn about a truly unique advertising opportunity contact Tim Smith through the Splatweb.org website. To pledge your support, or to learn more about SPLAT, visit the newly launched SPLATweb.org.