Dyslexia, Attention Deficit, and the Artistic World

Artist Mishler deconstructs his career

By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily NewsTuesday, May 12, 2009 10:49 AM EDT

When sculptor John Mishler says he doesn't like drawing because he sees images in his head, it's another way of broaching his dyslexia. "I turn numbers around, say things backward and that's part of me," Mishler said. "Growing up, I wasn't as smart as other kids because I could not read easily. I still can't spell. I finally have learned that it is a gift because I look at life a little differently. A lot of creative people have Dyslexia.

"I was in an international show of artists with Dyslexia. Dyslexia was talked about. Each person with Dyslexia had to write a statement about growing up and learning. We all ended up writing the same thing without seeing each other's writing. We visualize things, although I do a lot of drawing for proposals - but it's easier for me to do it in my head. "Traditional sculpture sits on a pedestal and alludes to someone from mythology or history we should know in some polished, precious material. Kinetic sculpture plays with the rules because it doesn't have a solid volume. In fact, it seems almost weightless and doesn't have a fixed shape. It changes shape engaging the negative space around it. It's made out of reflective materials, so if the sky changes, the sculpture changes its 'skin.' It combines some of the very best aspects of both poetry and dance.

Mishler, who "did not start out in kinetic sculpture, it's where I ended up," received his master of fine arts degree from the University of Tennessee. He moved back to Goshen, which he vowed when he went away to school, "I was never coming back. But I love this beautiful area. The weather changes all the time and I really like it."

In 1981 Goshen College, where he teaches part-time, showed a budget surplus and commissioned Mishler to do a sculpture for the center of campus. One of his first metal pieces, Broken Shield became a part of the college, which used it in its advertising. It has been covered in tinfoil, a student made a papier mache figure and posed them together for his senior show and other students turned it into a flag.

Just last week students covered it in purple, the school color.

Anyone who asked why he painted it red-orange received the stock answer, "Just wait until the drab winters and you'll understand."

Artists make decisions for different reasons. The height of one sculpture was determined by where John's 8-year-old son's head came to standing under it. "To me, making it his height is a significant part of the piece," Mishler explained. "It means something to me."

His first kinetic sculpture was for a park in Elkhart. It's very vertical and incorporates abstract hearts.

One of his projects was underwritten by a Genesis grant from the City of Elkhart. It sits next to the Midwest Museum. "Whenever I make a sculpture," he said, "I want it to relate to wherever I'm putting it. When I designed it I didn't see right away that the zig-zag makes an E for Elkhart. I designed it without checking out what materials were available. I was having trouble finding a piece, so I went to a scrapyard which had lightpoles from Elkhart. I thought that was perfect."

Mishler said Elkhart commissioned a sculpture as his work was evolving into curves. "Public art commissions forced me to keep growing and changing," he said. "There are two rivers which can make it difficult to get around Elkhart. It's easy to get lost. The name of the city of Elkhart from Native American legend comes from the island in the center of the city that's supposedly shaped like an elk heart. This is also the one where I first used stainless steel," causing consternation about putting something close to a busy intersection that could distract motorists and cause wrecks.

Mishler often accompanied his son to band competitions, and Elkhart was the band instrument capital, so he designed 21-foot-tall Jazz Parade, "kind of a Dizzy Gillespie (bent bell) trumpet combined with other brass instruments." K&M Machine-Fabricating in Cassopolis made it.

In the artistic world, more sculptors are dyslexic than painters.

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