Falon Mihalic is interviewed in issue 14 of Art Houston, a local arts and culture magazine. Read the full interview here and some excerpts below:
Where are you from? Give me your life story in 100 words.
I’m from the Florida panhandle, a place of wild landscapes and incredible biodiversity. My experiences there greatly inform my work and how I see the world. I’m always searching for -and working to create- lush landscapes and to tap into their verdant qualities. I studied natural sciences in undergrad and then got my Master’s degree at the Rhode Island School of Design for Landscape Architecture. While at RISD, I explored site-based installation and laid the groundwork for my sculpture and painting practice. After working for a few corporate design firms, I became licensed in 2013 and launched my own hybrid practice of landscape architecture and public art.
Thematically, what is your work usually about? Why do you choose to focus on these issues?
I’m interested in our connection to the natural world and how we perceive natural phenomena like wind, water, and climate. Our understanding of the natural world is quite limited and I think art has the potential to open up new ways of seeing and experiencing that thing we call nature. Yet nature is not actually a separate entity from ourselves. We are bound up in it as emotional and social animals in an interconnected ecosystem. I want my work to give form and meaning to our ecological connectedness. I think it can result in greater empathy and a stronger social fabric, that’s certainly a driving factor in my public artwork and landscape projects. Our climate is undergoing rapid changes and we are struggling to process what it all means. Art provides people with a space for feeling and for understanding abstract concepts and relationships. I want my work to give people a place to feel and reflect on nature and our connection to the environment.
Is having a "successful career" as an artist something that is important to you? How do you define success?
Financially, I need to be successful because art is how I make a living. Intellectually, I define success by showing up to the studio each day and chipping away at big difficult ideas. How do I build a structural metal piece about something as ephemeral as wind? How do I express our city’s flooding bayous with immersive light art? These are hard questions that require a lot of ingenuity and ambition. I can’t be afraid to fail. I have to stubbornly pursue these ideas. Eventually, I make something that other people feel a connection with. I think a specific artwork is successful when I feel something- something a bit undefinable like mesmerizing wonder- and I get feedback from other people that they feel something from it, too.
