{"id":2171,"date":"2012-02-08T09:16:47","date_gmt":"2012-02-08T17:16:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=2171"},"modified":"2012-02-16T09:38:39","modified_gmt":"2012-02-16T17:38:39","slug":"local-artist-doesnt-succumb-to-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2012\/02\/08\/local-artist-doesnt-succumb-to-struggles\/","title":{"rendered":"Local artist doesn’t succumb to struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Victoria printmaker and Camosun graduate Nic Vandergugten knows all about the struggles of being an artist. And it\u2019s not just the financial struggles that weigh on Vandergugten; like all artists, he wonders if what he\u2019s doing will resonate with people at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re never sure whether you\u2019re going to be rewarded financially, or if people will even connect to the piece emotionally,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s easy to become filled with self doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n

But as real as the emotional struggles are, the financial ones are just as difficult.<\/p>\n

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Nic Vandergugten and his art (photo by Lucas Milroy\/Nexus).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can become a financial strain on people around you,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019ll have to borrow money from parents and friends, at the hopes that you\u2019ll be able to reciprocate that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vandergugten, who grew up in Victoria\u2019s Chinatown in an artistic household, says that becoming an artist wasn\u2019t really that far of a leap for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess in a sense I took the long road to taking up the family business, because my father is an artist,\u201d he says. \u201cI 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\u2019s hard to put into words; it\u2019s an experience that happens in the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me spirituality is something that is just there, and it is mysterious, but it helps guide you,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd the more you open up to that and trust in that, the more that things seem to fall into place.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Victoria printmaker and Camosun graduate Nic Vandergugten knows all about the struggles of being an artist. And it\u2019s not just the financial struggles that weigh on Vandergugten; like all artists, he wonders if what he\u2019s doing will resonate with people at all. \u201cYou\u2019re never sure whether you\u2019re going to be rewarded financially, or if people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2258,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","category-february-8-2012"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2171"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2328,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171\/revisions\/2328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}