A journey through art
“I've grown to see the ice, the sea, and the winds as artistic forces, keepers of an artful balance.”
Fez BeGaetz is a multi-disciplinary sculpture artist based on the shores of the Willamette River in Portland Oregon. Specializing in large-scale steel sculpture with colorful paint schemes and patinas, he continually seeks to improve his process and explore his edges of what “art” means in his life.
From a young age Fez was surrounded by art and beauty. While working with his father, Arnold, as a General Contractor on the Kitsap Peninsula in Washington, he learned the trades of home building over the course of many adolescent summers. During this time he developed a strong work ethic, attention to details, and a foundation for engineering and the strengths and weaknesses of a particular material.
His eye for beauty really came from his mother, as it seems like she was always crafting something. From his childhood, Fez has fond memories Luann making clay figurines in miniature environments displayed around the house. When she became a florist in his early teens, he would spend hours on end in her flower shop admiring her ability to create a balanced boquette from a smattering of colors and shapes. These hours spent in her creative swirl gifted Fez a skillful eye for balance and symmetry in a composition. He likes to say that his favorite compositions are an assemblage of parts in an asymmetrical symmetry.
Curiosity and discovery has led him all over the world through project oriented travels.
Once completing his focused studies in computer graphics, animation and programming he took an opportunity to expand his horizons and moved to Southeast Alaska to embrace the wilds. Working as a backcountry guide and volunteering with the local Search & Rescue and EMS teams, his community of world traveling tourism workers shattered his constraints for how one can live life.
In his 20’s and 30’s he worked on countless natural building / homesteading projects, toured the USA producing fundraising events, and joined crews working globally on outrageous festival environments. But his deepest learnings have come from his 10 years adventuring as ship-based expedition crew working in the polar regions, primarily as a Kayak Guide and Expedition Leader in Antarctica. As all his lived experience had brought him to this point in his life, there had never been anything more impactful to the way he sees beauty than the MEGALITHIC icebergs born from the continent of Antarctica.
As he gleaned techniques, thought, and design from the many creators he worked with, he decided to begin his own artistic career in 2012, fabricating two enormous lily flowers that people could climb in and connect to one another. This dawned the Lilium Gigantum pieces. Working primarily in steel, Fez couples the use of aluminum, fiberglass, acrylics, lumber and fabric into his works. Through dynamic collaborations he has continued to push his boundaries incorporating psychedelic color palettes, and exquisite lighting patterns into his works.
As he continues fabricating and designing an artful life, he and his partner Heather BeGaetz frequently collaborate on new works. They share in the initial concept and design of birthing a new piece, while heather brings her deep wells of brilliance in big picture visioning, reason, colors and shape to every project. Fez often focuses on the heavy structural elements, how things work, engineering, and the way sculptures break apart and assemble for transportation and installation. Together, they are mused by their daughter Calliope, and their surrounding environments. The big dream that keeps on calling, is to bring the collection of artwork that we’ve amassed over the years to a property where we can explore art in its many facets, hosting gatherings and giving our chi to land-based artful living.
"I find inspiration in the natural world, from icebergs to sunflowers. To me, art is a voice. It's a purpose added to place. The intention of my art is to draw the viewer out of their everyday actions and prompt an experience, something felt, some depth inside they’ve perhaps not met nor considered before. If art, as a medium, quiets the mind, but for a moment, it has served its purpose.
And YES, I give F@#$ about art!”