Meet Lucas Novak

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lucas Novak.

Lucas, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I come from a mixed background of different cultures that I find very interesting and exciting. My mother’s parents, for example, immigrated from Italy and lived in New Jersey where they grew most of the vegetables that they ate. I spent many afternoons harvesting tomatoes, beans, basil, pears, and figs; my grandparents taught me how to jar tomatoes and how to play Italian card games. I also have Czech and Ukranian blood in me — the part that drew me to play ice hockey for 20+ years, and some of the first painting of my childhood involved trying my hand at the intricate designs of Ukranian Easter eggs. (Some of those designs are mesmerizing, by the way.)

Fortunate to grow up in beautiful Southern California in parts that were not super developed back in the day, my friends and I loved exploring nature on foot or on our bikes, searching out wildlife in the hills, catching lizards and snakes. I remember in third grade considering myself somewhat of an expert about local birds of prey, reptiles, sharks, and other creatures that third graders dig. That strong appreciation for nature and the environment continues today and is integral in my dual career as artist/attorney.

Being in nature always inspired me. I drew hawks and falcons nonstop. Ever since I was a young child, I was attracted to art-making — drawing, painting, sculpting with clay or cardboard and construction paper — anything that involved creating stuff with my hands. I felt like I had an inborn talent for it and my drawing hand was good, so it was never something that I felt pressure to do; it was just something that I did.

Years later in college at UCSB, my appreciation for different forms of art grew dramatically as I continued to study them, realizing the tremendous amount of work required to be an artist. Also majoring in Law & Society, I soon found that the fields overlapped in significant ways. To name a few, law and art each benefit from an analytical mind, an understanding of social institutions, cultures, human struggles, hierarchical structures, inequalities in life, and abstract concepts, while relying on empathy and emotional intelligence. I believe art is not simply about craft – we are not constructing windows. Later, in graduate school in New York, my dual studies continued as I concurrently earned my Masters (focusing on experimental film creation) as well as my Juris Doctorate from Syracuse University.

Throughout it all, I have always thirsted for knowledge and experiences, visiting new places and meeting people, learning about local events, global trends, and new cultures. I recently married a Korean woman (born in Korea) with strong ties to Korean culture. She is my rock, has great artistic taste, always supportive in my endeavors, and willing to provide constructive criticism about my art.

Has it been a smooth road?
The road of an artist winds through dark mountains crosses rushing waterways, traverses miles of empty desert, goes down alleys, into the wall of traffic, over gravel and into muddy ditches, over bumps, potholes, and occasionally a smooth patch of asphalt. I have worked a bunch of different jobs in my life to make ends meet while selling art on the side. Here’s a few: as a gardener, at a pet store, a customer service phone rep, as a waiter, shucking oysters and cooking appetizers at an oyster bar, and in the basement of a hospital filing medical records during the graveyard shift. During one low stretch of my life many years ago, I lived in my friends’ living room, working as a canvasser for Greenpeace. Later, in 2008, I was admitted to the California State Bar and worked as an attorney in Los Angeles at a national civil litigation firm, as well as SAG-AFTRA, before starting my own firm.

Throughout it all, I have created art mainly because of the need to grow as an artist. I have been creating art prolifically since before the turn of the millennium, and most of it has been met with rejection. But then there are the exhibitions and sales that are always great. My collectors are awesome and I am grateful for every one of them. Fortunately, I don’t need art sales to pay all of the bills. This means I can create art that I feel is real, experimenting with a wide range of styles and media, creating what I think is fresh and unique without being pigeon-holed into what is expected of me.

We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
As an artist/attorney, it’s a balancing act between right and left brain. I maintain both careers and treat them equally which means I work many many hours and odd hours. I think that just calling myself an “artist” carries a ton of responsibility. A lot of people toss that word around like it’s nothing. I didn’t need to pass a test, like a bar exam, to become an artist, but I know from my earliest memories that art chose me. I need to be responsible to that word, so I push myself to the max. I need to be prolific to be the best I can be. Laziness is the worst enemy.

It’s usually hard to explain when I’m somewhere like a restaurant when someone asks me what I do for a living. Most people expect a single job title. Yes, I started a law firm that now pays most of the bills. Art pays less at the moment, but do monetary earnings define what I do? I’ve been working as an artist much longer than I’ve been an attorney. Becoming an artist does not happen overnight, and I don’t think it’s suddenly earned from a university degree.

For example, in the early 20th century, United States Supreme Court Justice, Felix Frankfurter, was asked by a young man how to become a great lawyer. He advised the man not to limit his studies to the law, but to embrace the study of all fields, such as history, art, literature, science, other cultures, and the environment. I think the same wisdom applies to people who want to be great artists.

About fifty years later, the famous art critic Clement Greenberg wrote in his essay Esthetic Judgment: To keep on expanding your esthetic taste asks that you keep on expanding and refining your sense of life in general. To further develop your taste in art, he advises that you keep on learning from life apart from art.

So I follow the wisdom of Greenberg and Justice Frankfurter in pursuing my endless mission to grow, refine, and create more influential and meaningful work that transcends cultures and borders and reaches greater audiences. And I am inspired that two of the greatest artists of the 20th century, Henri Matisse and Wassily Kandinsky, were also lawyers.

I think this gives me freedom to create art that is my own. My work is unique in that I create video art pieces (each a blend between stop motion, claymation and live action) as well as paintings that blend the lines with sculpture, or blend abstraction with representational elements. For example, the 3-dimensional aspect of some of the paintings relate to the videos, since the videos incorporate clay and stop motion puppets, and juxtaposing these mixed-media paintings of clay figures with the clay puppets in the videos allows viewers to imagine the paintings coming to life, with the figures perhaps blinking, or looking around, or stepping out and walking about the room.

Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
I’ve traveled to many different places in the U.S. and overseas, and I love Los Angeles. I love that it is full of diversity and different cultures, a variety of amazing foods from all over the world, excellent music scene and art scene, cutting edge art galleries, and of course the weather. While the smog and traffic can be a downer, I love that we have such beautiful natural environments so close, where I can wash my spirit clean on a mountain or at the beach.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.lucasnovak.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lucastnovak

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