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Former Beloiter's talent shines in Milwaukee
 |
| Photos by Mark Boxley Adam Nilson stands in front of a wall faux-painted to look like steel plates welded together. The wall, which is a part of an industrial look Nilson gave to Hairy's Hair Bar in Milwaukee, started off as flat drywall. Top photo, Nilson's reflection is seen in his depiction of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa painted on the wall of Sven's Cafe, also in Milwaukee. |
By Mark Boxley
Daily News staff writer/photographer
He was a decent student with definite athletic skill, but former Beloit Memorial High School student Adam Nilson wasn't heading in the right direction.
Until, that is, one of his teachers, Bob Houck, showed him he had talents that could take him places - places other than jail.
Nilson is now living in Milwaukee, running Nilson Studios, and is finding himself in demand more and more for his artistic skills. In the mid-1990s while he was still in school, though, a career in art was not really on Nilson's radar - at least not a legal career.
"I was definitely uninterested in school at the time," Nilson said of his days at BMHS.
Instead of hitting the books, Nilson was hitting the bridges and overpasses in the area, making a name for himself as a graffiti artist.
"He had a real reputation among kids in the (graffiti) underground," Houck said.
Recalling a time when he saw some of Nilson's artwork on the Milwaukee Road bridge over Turtle Creek, Houck said he made a point of telling the young artist what he thought in class on Monday.
"I just had to laugh," Houck said.
Police also noticed Nilson's talent, and once while giving him a ticket for tagging an overpass, an officer commented about the difference between the young man's work and most other graffiti.
"It was more like, 'This guy was thinking about stuff,'" Nilson said laughing.
Houck, and then BMHS principal Jim Fitzpatrick, took an interest in Nilson and helped move him in a more law-friendly direction.
"We connected really well," Nilson said of Houck as his art teacher. "He showed me I could take that talent and turn it into something and not get busted."
As renovations in the high school were going on during Nilson's senior year, Houck and Fitzpatrick came up with the idea of letting Nilson paint a mural in the cafeteria.
"That was a dream come true," Nilson said grinning, "a legal wall."
The project, which ended up being about 40 feet long, took many late nights of work to finish, Houck said. Nilson had no problem putting in the time to get it done.
"He was a kid who had a tremendous amount of energy," Houck said. "He was a whirlwind."
Family members, like Nilson's uncle Bob Nilson, who haven't seen his more recent work, remember the school's mural and Adam Nilson's budding talent.
"That (mural) was the first big thing of his I saw," Bob Nilson, said. "He's very talented."
Adam Nilson was naturally good at traditional art, but "he was above and beyond that," Houck said. He was always pushing the limits of an assignment, he said. "He was a great improviser."
Sometimes sitting, often standing and much of the time pacing in his small cluttered Milwaukee studio, Nilson said it was Houck's help and pushing that got him into the Milwaukee Institute of Artistic Design (MAID). Houck worked with Nilson to get slides of the student's work together and wrote a letter of recommendation. With his grades and attendance record from high school, Nilson said he probably couldn't have gotten into any college - but regardless, he got into MAID.
"It was complete culture shock," Nilson said of moving from Beloit to Milwaukee.
At first classes were pretty standard, but as time went on, things like drawing the human form threw Nilson for a bit of a loop.
"All of a sudden people were taking their clothes off," he said as he pointed to a charcoal drawing of a woman he had done in college.
Then things took a turn, again and again. His stepfather died, his home burned down and he found out he was going to be a father, all in a short period of time.
Originally Nilson was an illustration major, but after he interned at a mural company and he started to relive the thrill of his past "mural" work, he started thinking about changing his major to focus more on that kind of work. The dramatic changes in his life were the fuel that solidified the idea of switching his area of study at MAID.
"All of a sudden I was going all these internal reflections," he said.
When it came to changing his area of study, there was no resistance from the school or the faculty.
"The teachers there were just awesome, just amazing," he said.
His senior gallery - the final display of his college work - sold five of the seven pieces shown.
His son, Jackson, was born a month after graduation and with support from his parents Michelle McAffee, who bought him his first art table when he was little, and Doug Nilson, and girlfriend Sara Salamone, he had everything he needed to get going professionally.
"That was it," he said of Jackson's birth, "that was the ticket. I just dove in head first."
Things didn't get off to a rip-roaring start, in fact the first few months after graduation were established as a pretty "cold winter," he said. But with a few jobs under his belt, Nilson started to establish himself and his name started to move around throughout the art community.
One of the several big jobs since was at a hair salon in Milwaukee. Nilson took bare drywall and turned the entire main room into a mixture of welded and bolted steel. Using faux-painting and sculpture techniques he learned in school, Nilson made the walls look like a series of patch worked steel plates welded together. The beams running through the middle of the room were transformed into girders, complete with bolts and rust. The entire room was given an industrial look, and from a distance it's hard to tell his work from the real thing.
It is that kind of cutting edge look that Nilson said he goes for in everything he does.
"Things that you've never seen before," he said, "that's what I try to come up with."
Big spaces, with plenty of room to work are Nilson's preferred canvas.
"I'm definitely into large-scale," he said.
This trait was something Houck saw in his pupil many years earlier.
"He worked with his whole body," he said. "He thought big; he was ambitious."
Now, Nilson has completed about 30 murals, and the jobs keep getting bigger. His most recent project, redoing inside of a jazz club in Milwaukee called the Groove, also included construction renovations, something Nilson has not done in previous jobs.
Reluctant to say he's "made it" in the art world, Nilson said he knew things were working out when he got to a large job site at Cannes Bar.
"That's when it finally felt like I was finally starting to get where I wanted to be," he said.
And, in the future, if Jackson takes up in his father's footsteps, Nilson said a name change could be in order for his studio.
"I think someday I'll change Nilson Studios to Nilson and Son Studios," he said.
Even though, Nilson works hard to be good at what he does, and to him the results of his work and the emotions they portray speak for themselves.
"It's never easy; it's still not easy," he said. "But I feel like if you're on earth, you should do as many positive things as possible."
Nilson's talent as an artist has made going to the next level a possibility, but it was his drive that took him there, Houck said.
"I'm not surprised," he said. "He's going to go far."
For now, Nilson is still working in Milwaukee on a few projects. He has not done any work in Beloit - "Oddly enough, nothing in Beloit that was legal (aside from the school mural)," he said - but he hopes to someday be able to come to town for a project and be around his family.
For the beginning artist, Nilson suggests they work and grow their skill, but not on overpasses like him. Talent is there in many people, he said, "but there are people who are born with it but don't cultivate it."
Teachers like Houck are what make what Nilson is doing possible.
"(If it weren't for him) I probably would have been down and out with no direction," Nilson said.
Daily News staff writer/photographer
He was a decent student with definite athletic skill, but former Beloit Memorial High School student Adam Nilson wasn't heading in the right direction.
Until, that is, one of his teachers, Bob Houck, showed him he had talents that could take him places - places other than jail.
Nilson is now living in Milwaukee, running Nilson Studios, and is finding himself in demand more and more for his artistic skills. In the mid-1990s while he was still in school, though, a career in art was not really on Nilson's radar - at least not a legal career.
"I was definitely uninterested in school at the time," Nilson said of his days at BMHS.
Instead of hitting the books, Nilson was hitting the bridges and overpasses in the area, making a name for himself as a graffiti artist.
"He had a real reputation among kids in the (graffiti) underground," Houck said.
Recalling a time when he saw some of Nilson's artwork on the Milwaukee Road bridge over Turtle Creek, Houck said he made a point of telling the young artist what he thought in class on Monday.
"I just had to laugh," Houck said.
Police also noticed Nilson's talent, and once while giving him a ticket for tagging an overpass, an officer commented about the difference between the young man's work and most other graffiti.
"It was more like, 'This guy was thinking about stuff,'" Nilson said laughing.
Houck, and then BMHS principal Jim Fitzpatrick, took an interest in Nilson and helped move him in a more law-friendly direction.
"We connected really well," Nilson said of Houck as his art teacher. "He showed me I could take that talent and turn it into something and not get busted."
As renovations in the high school were going on during Nilson's senior year, Houck and Fitzpatrick came up with the idea of letting Nilson paint a mural in the cafeteria.
"That was a dream come true," Nilson said grinning, "a legal wall."
The project, which ended up being about 40 feet long, took many late nights of work to finish, Houck said. Nilson had no problem putting in the time to get it done.
"He was a kid who had a tremendous amount of energy," Houck said. "He was a whirlwind."
Family members, like Nilson's uncle Bob Nilson, who haven't seen his more recent work, remember the school's mural and Adam Nilson's budding talent.
"That (mural) was the first big thing of his I saw," Bob Nilson, said. "He's very talented."
Adam Nilson was naturally good at traditional art, but "he was above and beyond that," Houck said. He was always pushing the limits of an assignment, he said. "He was a great improviser."
Sometimes sitting, often standing and much of the time pacing in his small cluttered Milwaukee studio, Nilson said it was Houck's help and pushing that got him into the Milwaukee Institute of Artistic Design (MAID). Houck worked with Nilson to get slides of the student's work together and wrote a letter of recommendation. With his grades and attendance record from high school, Nilson said he probably couldn't have gotten into any college - but regardless, he got into MAID.
"It was complete culture shock," Nilson said of moving from Beloit to Milwaukee.
At first classes were pretty standard, but as time went on, things like drawing the human form threw Nilson for a bit of a loop.
"All of a sudden people were taking their clothes off," he said as he pointed to a charcoal drawing of a woman he had done in college.
Then things took a turn, again and again. His stepfather died, his home burned down and he found out he was going to be a father, all in a short period of time.
Originally Nilson was an illustration major, but after he interned at a mural company and he started to relive the thrill of his past "mural" work, he started thinking about changing his major to focus more on that kind of work. The dramatic changes in his life were the fuel that solidified the idea of switching his area of study at MAID.
"All of a sudden I was going all these internal reflections," he said.
When it came to changing his area of study, there was no resistance from the school or the faculty.
"The teachers there were just awesome, just amazing," he said.
His senior gallery - the final display of his college work - sold five of the seven pieces shown.
His son, Jackson, was born a month after graduation and with support from his parents Michelle McAffee, who bought him his first art table when he was little, and Doug Nilson, and girlfriend Sara Salamone, he had everything he needed to get going professionally.
"That was it," he said of Jackson's birth, "that was the ticket. I just dove in head first."
Things didn't get off to a rip-roaring start, in fact the first few months after graduation were established as a pretty "cold winter," he said. But with a few jobs under his belt, Nilson started to establish himself and his name started to move around throughout the art community.
One of the several big jobs since was at a hair salon in Milwaukee. Nilson took bare drywall and turned the entire main room into a mixture of welded and bolted steel. Using faux-painting and sculpture techniques he learned in school, Nilson made the walls look like a series of patch worked steel plates welded together. The beams running through the middle of the room were transformed into girders, complete with bolts and rust. The entire room was given an industrial look, and from a distance it's hard to tell his work from the real thing.
It is that kind of cutting edge look that Nilson said he goes for in everything he does.
"Things that you've never seen before," he said, "that's what I try to come up with."
Big spaces, with plenty of room to work are Nilson's preferred canvas.
"I'm definitely into large-scale," he said.
This trait was something Houck saw in his pupil many years earlier.
"He worked with his whole body," he said. "He thought big; he was ambitious."
Now, Nilson has completed about 30 murals, and the jobs keep getting bigger. His most recent project, redoing inside of a jazz club in Milwaukee called the Groove, also included construction renovations, something Nilson has not done in previous jobs.
Reluctant to say he's "made it" in the art world, Nilson said he knew things were working out when he got to a large job site at Cannes Bar.
"That's when it finally felt like I was finally starting to get where I wanted to be," he said.
And, in the future, if Jackson takes up in his father's footsteps, Nilson said a name change could be in order for his studio.
"I think someday I'll change Nilson Studios to Nilson and Son Studios," he said.
Even though, Nilson works hard to be good at what he does, and to him the results of his work and the emotions they portray speak for themselves.
"It's never easy; it's still not easy," he said. "But I feel like if you're on earth, you should do as many positive things as possible."
Nilson's talent as an artist has made going to the next level a possibility, but it was his drive that took him there, Houck said.
"I'm not surprised," he said. "He's going to go far."
For now, Nilson is still working in Milwaukee on a few projects. He has not done any work in Beloit - "Oddly enough, nothing in Beloit that was legal (aside from the school mural)," he said - but he hopes to someday be able to come to town for a project and be around his family.
For the beginning artist, Nilson suggests they work and grow their skill, but not on overpasses like him. Talent is there in many people, he said, "but there are people who are born with it but don't cultivate it."
Teachers like Houck are what make what Nilson is doing possible.
"(If it weren't for him) I probably would have been down and out with no direction," Nilson said.
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Paul Crave wrote on Mar 10, 2007 12:02 PM: