Chris Taylor was born in Blue Ridge, GA and lived in Boone, NC as a child before moving to Dalton, GA where he graduated from Dalton High School. The day after graduation he moved to southern California where he earned a two-year degree in journalism. He moved back to Georgia in 1993 and to Athens in 1998. He is a mostly self taught artist and worked at the University of Georgia where he was the Art Director for the Terry College of Business for 17 years. After seeing the film Rivers and Tides, the 2001 documentary about land artist Andy Goldsworthy, Chris’s own interest in making art out of nature came into focus. He has spent years making beautiful creations in nature, with natural materials, including people sized bird nests at the State Botanical Gardens of Georgia and Sandy Creek Nature Center. You can see pictures of some of his art in nature on his website 34north.org and on Instagram at @34degreesnorth. Chris has been making art full time since 2016 and has taught art workshops with children at Double Helix, Arrow, local schools, the Lyndon House and Sandy Creek. Recently Chris worked on the holiday light display at the Botanical Gardens, where he wrapped animal frames built by Saint Udio on display in the Children’s Garden in lights. The display opened December 1st. Chris lives in Forest Heights with his family, dog JoJo (who was found at Trader Joe’s in Athens) and cat, Rue.
What do you love most about your work?
Children notice important details that we don’t because we rarely pay attention. A kid will just be walking along and stop with no thought as to what is going on around them, to pick up a rock or look at a bug or something like that. I’ve seen kids do magnificent pieces of work from just sitting on the ground playing with leaves. I’m glad I get to be a part of that, and I’m glad I get to see it! These pieces are ephemeral so just the fact that I get to see what these kids are doing before it goes away is pretty amazing, and I love it. Somebody asked me once, “why are you so good with kids?”, and I said I used to be one and never forgot. I never forgot what it was like to walk into the living room Christmas morning, or what it was like to wake up when it had snowed or finding the best rock you have ever seen in your entire life. That magic stuck with me. I don’t work with adult groups much, but when I do I always hear, “I’m not creative.” I have a question that I can prove to anyone that they are creative and it is: have you ever dressed yourself? Or have you ever bought a couch? When people start to realize that they put together colors every day without knowing it or they are figuring out how things go together, that is creativity. It’s just not considered classically trained creativity. People do it every day whether they know it or not. I love then seeing that lightbulb in somebody’s eyes go off, that’s a lot of fun.
What do you love to do in Athens or what are some of your favorite places?
I love the Bot Garden and I love Sandy Creek. I love all the parks, especially the trail behind Memorial Park. When I started going out and doing these guerilla pieces where I would just go out and do it and walk away, that is where I was doing it was behind Memorial Park on that trail and I really loved it. To me, Athens is more of a sense of unity and people. For the most part, people here are very welcoming. It is like Austin or Portland where you can live there and say, I’m an artist or a unicyclist and people say okay and it’s fine. There is opportunity here and not just commercially. There are chances to help people and chances to do things that you may not get to do elsewhere. If you are willing to work for free, you can do whatever the hell you want because people are always looking for somebody to do something. The Athens Cultural Affairs Association and the Athens Area Arts Council have done such wonderful things getting money into people’s hands to do beautiful things in town. I am blessed that I have a good relationship with Sandy Creek and the Lyndon House. And, I am developing this relationship with the Bot Gardens that I get to be a part of this stuff that will be there a long time. Creative opportunities would really be the final answer.
If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?
Iceland, no question. There are a lot of places I want to go. I have been to the UK and it was amazing, especially going to The Highlands, but I really want to see Iceland. I like how open it is. Growing up in the mountains, and we lived in an actual holler, people don’t realize how dark it stays even in summer because there is so much canopy and so much shade. When I moved out west and saw the desert for the first time, just the fact that it was so big was so liberating and it felt so good. And, besides being just beautiful, Iceland is a kind of evolution in action. It is just so open and I would really love to go there someday.
Do you have a favorite book?
The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern. I do love that book very much. I have a real love for magic circuses and carnivals in particular. It’s the story of two people who are pitted against each other and they don’t know it. They are both magic in their own way and the circus is where this all takes place. I am so drawn to these underdog kids who do great things. I try to read it once a year. I also love American Gods, by Neil Gaiman and a book called The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden. I read a lot of Y.A. fantasy with female protagonists, I like the idea of someone coming from nothing and beating the system.
Do you have a favorite movie?
Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I still remember seeing it and I remember my grandmother taking me to see the extended edition, which is when he goes into the ship. It is still scary in parts but I think what Steven Spielberg did better than anyone else was capture the wonder, and I am all about that sense of wonder. And I like aliens, and if I am going to have an alien experience that’s the way I would want it to be.
If you could see any band or show anywhere, who would it be and where?
There are things I wish I could do for the first time again, if that counts. When I lived in Southern California, I went to a Norton Simon museum in Pasadena, which everyone knows as the museum at the turn in the Rose Parade. I was there for a school assignment and I walked into this room and it was all of these giant super simple colorful cutouts on the wall and I had never seen anything like that before and it was Matisse. And in this glass case there was this long handgun book and what I learned is that it was his book, Jazz, where he tells a story with no words. It was just construction paper cutouts in this book, which had never been exhibited in America before, this was the first time it had ever come from France. I just fell into it. It was just like with Rivers and Tides, that was one of those things I saw where I thought now everything is different. I didn’t know you could just cut paper and it would be beautiful and tell a story. I will never forget the whole day, it was that significant. So, yeah doing something like that again for the first time would be something.
If you could put any message on a billboard, what would you put?
Be Nice or Shut Up.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
Stop worrying about stuff. Stop worrying about what other people think. Stop worrying about whether you are going to fail. You are going to fail and that is okay. Failing is not as bad as people make it out to be. I know that our parents want us to live full lives and want us to have money to cushion if something happens and I know that you are supposed to have a certain amount of money in savings, but stop worrying so much about what other people think. My circumstances were I didn’t really get my twenties because of family stuff that was going on and the choices I made to stay and help my mom and stuff like that so I missed out on a lot of that and it was sort of out of my control a little bit. But twenty-five years as a graphic artist and then five or seven years as a fine artist, yeah, I’d say it is okay to fail. It is not going to hurt that bad.
What is something interesting about you that most people may not know?
When I tell people I listen to a lot of classical music, I bet that kind of surprises them, because I listen to metal almost all of the time. That has always been my genre of choice so it might be interesting that I love classical music and played in the Athens Symphony for years.
What are three words or phrases that come to mind when you think of the word home?
Love, support and grace. Grace is taught as being loved in spite of who you are, in spite of your problems. But to me, grace is when you love someone because of who they are, not in spite. Grace is a huge thing for me and I really try to show people that, because it’s just so important and it’s just so lost. Love, grace and support are all kind of the same thing.
