Rational Impulse

The Art of Bruce Adams

Can you separate the art from the artist? Friend and former Hallwalls curator Kathy Howe posed this question as we talked one summer afternoon more than twenty years ago. Does an artist’s work always reflect his or her personal interests and personality? I said I thought mine might. Kathy looked at me incredulously and responded, “Yours absolutely does.” I had never considered this before, but I’ve never forgotten it since.

I was probably born a skeptic; genetically wired to question. As a child I distrusted things other kids routinely accepted. Shaving makes whiskers grow faster? I doubted it. I disagreed with my Catholic classmates who thought looking at a picture of nude women was a sin. If so, I was doomed. I scoffed when a neighborhood kid told me a friend of hers knew a nurse that went mad and ate a human arm that some jerks suspended above her door to scare her. My innate bullshit detector recognized urban folklore even before it had a name. I distrusted Von Daniken’s ancient astronauts; stage hypnosis was laughable, and I just figured kids were pushing the Ouija board. God presented another problem. I remember questioning Father Knauber during religious instruction about inconsistencies in church dogma. When he visited our classroom on a mission to recruit choir boys, mine was the only hand that didn’t go up.

I’ve always had an interest in science—a quality instilled in me by my father—and thanks to my high school biology teacher Mr. Izard, I gained an appreciation for the scientific method. Despite this, I sometimes lacked the tools and information to critically examine extraordinary claims. Uri Geller had me briefly believing in psychic powers in the early seventies when astronaut Edgar Mitchell endorsed his claims. Growing up at the dawn of the space age, astronauts were, to me, indisputable champions of science. But working as a professional magician instilled in me a keen awareness of the susceptibility of humans to trickery and self-deception. Eventually I discovered the various publications of the Center for Inquiry, which provided rational answers to my lingering paranormal ponderings. By my late twenties secular humanism was the tag I used to describe my world view.

It was inevitable then, that these qualities would find their way into my artwork. The prospect of an exhibition at the Center for Inquiry presented an ideal opportunity to examine how science, skepticism, and rationalism impact my artistic endeavors. Are my humanistic convictions reflected in my choice of subject matter? Is my approach to art-making influenced by my appreciation of the scientific method? The selected examples of work and accompanying text in this exhibition are an attempt to address these questions.