Jolts to conventional wisdom

Artist Don Vogl chose the best of his works from the past few years, including this whimsical snake sculpture, for his farewell show at the South Bend Regional Museum of Art. Vogl is moving out West in the spring. Tribune Photos/PAUL RAKESTRAW The antelope is a recurring motif in Vogl's work, as with the vibrant painting "Ping & Pong." Don Vogl's "Ports of Call" was honored at the last Elkhart Juried Regional Exhibition. 'Don Vogl: Au Revoir' Today through May 11 in the Rotunda, South Bend Regional Museum of Art, 120 S. St. Joseph St., South Bend. Opening Jan. 25 in the Community Gallery: "Summer College Residency Exhibition," featuring work by area students Aletha Israels, Salvador Moya, Amy Rosseau and Matt Searle. Gallery hours are from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Admission is a suggested donation of $3. Winter art classes for children and adults begin next week. Call (574) 235-9102 for more information.

Stick to one medium.

Develop a consistent, coherent body of work; this is your "brand."

Avoid fluorescent colors -- they're trashy.

Never, ever give the goods away.

If the authors of the dating handbook "The Rules" ever came up with an edition for visual artists -- the goal being not a proposal of marriage, but a five-figure sale -- South Bend painter Don Vogl probably would warrant his own chapter as an example of what not to do.

"I get beat up all the time by people who think I don't know what I'm doing," Vogl says.

Over more than 50 years as a professional artist -- 31 of them spent teaching at the University of Notre Dame -- Vogl has broken practically every rule there is, beginning with his decision, as a GI Bill undergraduate at the Art Institute of Chicago, to study all media instead of just one.

"I decided art education was the way to go," he says, explaining that it was the only degree program that covered printmaking and ceramics, sculpture and design, as well as painting and drawing. "I've always wanted to do different things. And," he adds with characteristic self-deprecation, "I'm always trying to find reasons for why I do the stuff I do."

Viewers should find reason enough in "Au Revoir," the solo show likely to be Vogl's last in South Bend. This spring he and his wife move to Fort Collins,

Colo., where they have children and grandchildren ("I hate to say I'm moving to be a baby sitter, but ...," he trails off with a shrug) and where the light and landscape -- far different from the artist's longtime home in the industrial Midwest -- offer an endless challenge to Vogl's abilities.

"Mountains and deserts have always appealed to me. It think it's in my genes," he says, explaining that his grandparents came from the alpine region of Auerbach, Germany. In fact, the collection of recent works in the Rotunda of the South Bend Regional Museum of Art includes several watercolors (touched up by pastel) created on visits out West.

Here also are some whimsical animal sculptures Vogl makes no excuses for, except to say that one ("Armored Deer") provided a home for a rock collection he was afraid might have been jettisoned in preparation for the move. But the antelope turns out to be a recurring theme in Vogl's work, as seen in the painting "Ping & Pong."

"It has to do with vulnerability," Vogl comments, pointing to the stylized, almost cartoonish contours of the animals' heads, outlined in improbable shades of pink, blue and orange. "Those horns -- they're a show of defense, but they're really not that effective, especially when you've got a rifle."

Vivid, patterned and playful as many of his paintings are, there's often a subtext (in this case, the antelopes' suspicious regard of the viewer) that Vogl prefers not to spell out. "Who's worried about the innocent people? Whenever there's a war, who gets it first?" he says, reflecting on the global concerns that perhaps have become more present in his work as he's matured. "It creeps in, but it's not a focus."

Experience also has taught Vogl to give himself more room to fail, not less.

"I'll do it wrong first, then I'll make adjustments," he says, talking specifically about the colors that give his paintings such a sensual jolt -- but only when viewed in person. With some paintings, the shapes are saturated and pure; in others, such as the recent prizewinner "Ports of Call," the hues are more muddy, layered, evolving.

There's a simple explanation: Not only does Vogl paint over a lot of his old canvases, allowing some of the original pigment to bleed through ("Ports of Call" began life as a big, dirty brown square, whereas "Desert Monument" was a blue taffeta remnant picked up at a fabric store's going-out-of-business sale), but his color schemes tend to shift on him.

"It's all balancing and seeing what you can do for equilibrium. It gets too green, and you put more orange on it. This gets too pink, so you add some blue. Then this shape balances that one. It's kind of trial and error.

"If you plan it out too tightly, it's going to be wrong anyway. I don't know where it's going, and I enjoy that part of it much more," Vogl admits. About his compositions, he adds, "I try to make it extra bold right from the beginning, rather than build up to it."

Look before you leap -- it's another rule Vogl's never had use for.

"If it's not intriguing, I wouldn't be doing it," the artist says, smiling. "The adventure is what keeps carrying me along."

Staff writer Julie York Coppens:

(574) 235-6281