Creator Five: Jim Mackey

“I am a man seeking redemption, and I am a man running out of time. This is not necessarily “Redemption” in any certain religious context, but in a Cosmic Karma thought. It is a desire to fix or amend the negatives I have done. I also resist the urge to blame these negatives on the mental and addictive issues of my life.”

— Jim Mackey

Gettysburg artist Jim Mackey lets us explore insights into his work via the bank of questions that forms the regular series “Creator Five.”

1) Jim Mackey uses many avenues to share his creativity, including poetry and oil painting. But perhaps the artist is best known regionally for his fascinating chainsaw wood carvings (some referred to as “totems”) and found art assemblages that have been exhibited and sold throughout the larger art network, with pieces in permanent collections at Elizabethtown College and the Pennsylvania State Museum.

2) Jim is very open about personal aspects of his life that influence his work and shares with viewers of his art that he has bipolar and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders. He recently traveled to Chicago to visit the Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, where his piece, “Episode,” was exhibited in the Ryan Licht Sand Bipolar Foundation show “Insights.”

Jim Mackey discusses a chainsaw-carved artwork.

The Gettysburg artist states that he “was first aroused to the art world in 1969 when he was shown Andy Warhol’s soup cans.” A catalog of Joan Eardley’s paintings sits on Mackey’s desk, of which he states, “This is the only painter I aspire to paint like.”

“The point of my current totems is to capture the power of the primitive and not classical sculpture. The Shigir wooden idol is my inspiration.” (The idol is possibly the oldest known wooden sculpture, carved from wood that is approximately 12,000 years old.)

3) Jim feels he is at his creative peak in the latter part of the day. “Ideas come in the night from outside myself.”

4) He finds sources of inspiration from both visual and written creatives. The numerous artists credited include Louise Nevelson, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Joan Eardley, Cy Twombly, Marcel Duchamp, Thaddeus Mosley, Martin Puryear, Lonnie Holley, Joe Coleman, Joseph Cornell, Joseph Beuys, Mark Rothko, and Barnett Newman.

Notable books include “Jonathan Livingston Seagull,” “Man’s Search for Meaning,” and “1984,” with additional nods to Kurt Vonnegut, William Faulkner, Herman Hesse, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Virginia Woolf.

On a lighter note, Mackey’s favorite ice cream is vanilla, and he shares that sandwiches are his guilty pleasure. In addition, he enjoys traveling to Assateague Island and appreciates the music of Leonard Cohen.

*Jim Mackey’s totems at Carlisle’s Penny Gallery*

5) Regarding his art, like many artists, sometimes Jim feels his message isn’t as apparent as he thinks. He admits that he sometimes intentionally creates a puzzle. To his fellow artists, he encourages them to try various art forms and methods till they find their voice, then pursue it relentlessly

After Jim’s personal and creative journey, he asks all of us to “try to be self-supporting, grow spiritually, and help others.”