Vessel Work ~ A Practice in Three Parts
Brian Otto / Desoulos Works
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Entry Points
The Seven-Word Truth
"It may seem like debris but it's art."
The Name
Desoulos Works. Yes, he does.
The Current State
Sixty-five years into existence, thirty years into artistic practice, sitting with 140,000 files of documentation—photographs, writings, recordings, fragments. What others call Beautiful Garbage, I call physical evidence that consciousness happened here. That someone saw differently. That someone chose creation over destruction, one moment to the next, without pills or quick fixes, just art working through things.
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Part One: Interpersonal Relationships
How the Work Connects
The Inheritance
The artistic talent arrived through tragedy, already marked by the intersection of creation and destruction. My grandmother Katie Otto believed it passed to me from my aunt Rosemary—my godmother, Katie's daughter—who died early in a farm accident. This inheritance came pre-loaded with the understanding that beauty and loss share the same DNA.
William and Joan Otto, my parents, encouraged what they saw developing. A normal upbringing in Winsted, Minnesota, a small town conservative about modern art but diverse in characters, numerous nicknames going with distinctive personalities. The rural landscapes I roamed on foot and Huffy bicycle became the foundation—fields, distinctive seasonal changes, wide open sky, all wonderment.
Charles Schulz came first in childhood, a Peanuts comic strip in the daily newspaper teaching that simple lines carry complex emotions. Then Andrew Wyeth in middle school, those gritty egg tempera realistic paintings showing how truth lives in worn surfaces. During high school, meeting New York painter Philip Pearlstein at a St. Cloud party, understanding that artists existed as real people, not just names in books.
The Mission
"I am creating here a positive place for possibilities of what humans can materially do. Other than choose to occupy their time with hurting, torturing, and killing each other, in obvious and secret ways."
This isn't manifesto but fact. Every piece made is time not spent destroying. Every hour in the studio is an hour not contributing to the world's violence. The work exists as conscious alternative, not passive escape but active choice.
"My art works are laments, prayers, meditations, chants, and hopes, that are universal. That relate to my life and everyone else's life. The works are wishes. Wishes for the best to happen for every human being in the future."
The universality isn't assumed but earned through specificity. The more personal the wound, the more universal the healing. My morning jottings—thousands of short stories inspired by common day-to-day real and psychological occurrences—become everyone's morning jottings. The specific becomes general through honest documentation.
The Public Face
The evolution of public interaction traces the struggle between authentic expression and market demands:
The Commercial Years (1982-1998):
After MCAD, the greeting card line "Ottographicals" for Recycled Paper Products. Graphic illustration for Gibson Carothers' humorous writings. The most unusual commission: painting corporate employees on Ukrainian compartment dolls for US West's split, each business person in folk art style. Sumi brush work for healthcare campaigns. Magazine covers in Milan, sitting on the Metro watching fashionably dressed people thumb through magazines with my painting on the cover. Fifteen years providing visual solutions until stock imagery began cannibalizing the profession.
The Healing Years (1998-2001):
"For three years, Brian created three dimensional, tactile and touchable mixed material art assemblages (therapeutic art) for local hospitals and medical clinics."
But then: "It started to become more like his earlier commercial art when the clients wanted more of a certain thing (only happy symbolisms and colors)."
The fear of being pigeonholed made me stop. Better to choose uncertainty than false happiness. This rejection of guaranteed income for authentic expression—either strengthening the immune system or sending to emergency.
The Current Practice:
"I AM ALWAYS ON THE SAME PAGE AS MY CUSTOMERS."
Not because I pander but because we're all wrestling something. The technical mastery becomes a bridge: they watch me carve wood, see the vocoder transform voice, witness primer and sand mixing. The process gives us something to discuss besides the pain that brought them here.
The Family Witness
"I live in Saint Paul, Minnesota, with my wife and soul-mate Lori and two daughters. Daughters Amarah and Ella have been subject matter for many of my photographs and videos."
Lori knows when I've swallowed the agony bug again. She hears the power tools at midnight, sees the twenty percent organizing stretch to sixty percent avoiding. The relationships hold you accountable in ways the art cannot. The daughters watch me make "Fabricated-Examples-Of-Aftermaths" and understand something about working through rather than around. Carlos the havanese doesn't care if it's not quite as bad as it looks—he just wants to sit nearby while I sculpt.
"This one's for all those who think ART is not a good profession"—but also for their families who watch them choose it anyway.
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Part Two: Mixed-Media Makings
Technical and Spiritual Infrastructure
The Roofless Workspace
"String of the poet's mind. The roofless workspace is perfect for the soul. Containment of energy open to a city dark grey blanket of stars overhead."
The workspace exists in multiple dimensions:
Physical: Garage studios, underground installations, rooms with windows thrown open at 7am (like that Berlin room above the beer pub where I developed monochromatic flat color technique). Spaces that breathe, that cannot keep the world out.
Metaphysical: "I Am A Vessel Of Some Uncertain Higher Presence Working behind Hot And Cold Art Walls. A Presence That Has No Control Over Horrible Tragedies. Will Not Magically Intervene On Awful And Insane Human Situations."
The roofless quality isn't just missing ceiling—it's openness to transmission. Birds chirping while 3D art is made, sun's rays streaming in and changing visual appearance, shadows and sunlight playing throughout the day. The workspace cannot protect from what needs to be processed.
Atmospheric: "Music (turned up or in the background), Thoughts (surfacing from recesses and worked out to better understand them), Energy (relaxed and buzzing energy), Passion (for making something happen for The Unknown Higher Source), Intellectual Aspect (challenging myself to use mind to fullest capacity), and Zen Mind (work naturally in natural flow without thinking)."
The Methods Liturgy
A complete inventory of techniques as spiritual practice:
Writing/Language:
- Thoughts Put Into Words
- Hand-Writings (displaying personality of the hand)
- Script Writings for videos
- Narrations
- Morning jottings (thousands accumulated)
- Short stories from daily occurrences
- "Ottoisms"
Two-Dimensional:
- Intuitive Drawings
- Detailed refined drawings
- Abstract Gestural Liquid Medium on Heavyweight Paper
- Flat and dimensional painting
- Sumi brush linear work
- Photo-digital special effects
- Collages and montages
- Mosaics
Three-Dimensional:
- Wood carving with hand and power tools
- Metal work (hammered and engraved)
- High-density foam sculpting
- Spray foam for bubbly surfaces
- Mortar and clay work
- Primer and Sand Mixed with Oil Enamel 3D Forms
- Assemblages and arrangements
Found/Transformed Objects:
- Intercepting disposable products before landfill
- Cutting items into intuitive smaller parts
- Re-purposing as components
- Affecting collected objects
- Creating "Fabricated-Examples-Of-Aftermaths"
Performance/Documentation:
- Art performances and enactments
- Recording myself constructing/deconstructing
- Character creation and personas
- Masks and disguises
- Documentary videos with high-resolution SLR
- Extracting stills from motion
Sound/Installation:
- Akai analog synthesizer work
- Vocoder inputs and alterations
- Audio software instruments and filters
- Experimental sound for exhibits
- Aromatherapy concepts for installations
- Complex mixed-media installations
Project Portfolios
Underground Studio Rubble Installation
"So much extreme violence occurring on ancient/holy land, it projects in my head. This series is an installation of smashed bricks, broken concrete, affected objects, wood made to be splintered, sprinklings of glass shards, crumbled wall board, tangled wire, interpretations of bullet holes, rocks, and stone fragment."
I stared with wide open eyes at stomach-turning blood and ash carnage. Drew the scenes and respectfully laid the brush and ink paintings into the rubble installation. These pictures as prayers for the innocent dead and wounded.
Kosovo Fresco Collage
"There is this magnificent cathedral interior in Kosovo. It's like a soiled opulent tapestry day dream. My favorite details of the photographs of those walls were clipped out and arranged together intuitively."
Finding beauty in destruction, magic warmth applied to pocket charms and wood necklace elements. The sacred persisting through violence.
Fabricated-Examples-Of-Aftermaths
Intentional messes that stack and evolve toward visual aspects of light and hope. The aftermath created before the disaster, preparation for processing what hasn't happened yet but surely will.
Roofless Workspace Terminal Illness
"Who has cancer? The artist? Was there a nuclear meltdown? This is dark and the objects are cool and almost colorless."
Every picture feels bleak and uneasy. The simplicity of color enables the eye to be drawn to surface details and clusters of forms. Terminal illness has a distant feel.
Punch Gutenshlak
"Something is out of control. Bold colors. Out to lunch gone crazy. Fluorescents eat cake. California. Get a grip waste of talent."
God, I hate bold primary colors. They're not at all like the ultra-subdued colors in my night dreams. Sometimes the work demands what you hate.
The Debris Transformations
"It may seem like debris but it's art."
The process:
1. Intercept useless disposable products before landfill
2. Cut into intuitive smaller parts
3. Re-purpose as components for art piles
4. Apply adhesives, mortars, formed concrete
5. Effect new surfaces with tools
6. Oil prime to add solidity to loose particles
7. Final coat with luxurious gloss oil enamel
8. Combine fully coated objects with raw-damaged-unfinished components
The transformation isn't beautification but recognition. The debris was always art, waiting for someone to see it correctly.
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Part Three: Thoughts Becoming Words
The Transmissions
Morning Jottings
"I'm a morning jotter of thoughts and have stacked up thousands of short stories, inspired by common day-to-day real and psychological occurrences."
Selected transmissions from the accumulated stack:
"I AM THE PENCIL AND GOD IS THE SHARPENER"
"I AM THE PENCIL AND MY DOCTOR IS THE ERASER"
"The Rooster Is Crowing. Get Up, We Got Work To Do."
"i have a B.F.A degree in Love.
I have a B.F.A degree in Joy.
I have a B.F.A degree in Hope."
"Just Because I'm Angry Doesn't Mean I'm Dangerous."
"I went On A Pilgrimage To The Places Of Christ's Life - In Book And Mind."
"suffering naturally"
"I'LL LEAVE MY SOUL TO SCIENCE"
"I can kiss twenty asses in a day."
"money isn't as evil as it may seem"
"angels and demons nation"
"Life Is A Wonderful Thing - As Long As You Keep Your Eyes On The Thread."
"the walls of my castle are crumbling"
"CREATE TO COPE"
"Don't Get Mad At Something Just Because You Don't Understand It."
"PEOPLE WITH PASSION CAN BE A PAIN - BUT - FROM WHAT I'VE OBSERVED - PEOPLE WITHOUT PASSION ARE EVEN A WORSE PAIN IN THE ASS"
"We Humans Are Broken From The Get Go. We Get Drunk. We Do Drugs. We Drop Bombs With A Straight Face. We're An Imperfect Picture From The Start."
The Vessel Writings
"I Am A Vessel Of Some Uncertain Higher Presence Working behind Hot And Cold Art Walls. A Presence That Has No Control Over Horrible Tragedies. Will Not Magically Intervene On Awful And Insane Human Situations."
This admission changes everything. Not claiming divine power but divine helplessness. The vessel receives but cannot change the transmission. The art walls are hot and cold, the presence uncertain, the tragedies unstoppable. This is honest infrastructure of faith after faith breaks.
The vessel work continues regardless:
"This is the most superstition part him. How his work, emotions, and energy is closely related to what he imagines God or The Greater Unknown would want him to do. This can be, through the process, tormenting and a benefit."
Torment: Am I doing what I'm supposed to?
Benefit: I'm doing what I'm supposed to.
The Catholic upbringing "still that hasn't yet been fully dissolved" creates both burden and purpose.
Linguistic Slippages
How consciousness processes the unprocessable:
"Bullet friends...no poet grams. Forecast lenders...no focused leaders. Certain keys...no serve teas. In unison gardens...no innocent gardens. Bombs are varied...no buried. And transported through a happy Adam paradise-like lunch forest...no lush forest."
Each phrase morphs into another, meaning sliding when trying to process trauma. The ear mishears to protect itself. The mind transforms bullets into poems, bombs into burials. This is the immune system at work—taking what would destroy and shifting it just enough to survive.
The Work Speaking
"My chanting (work) calls to the deceased kindred spirits... My present moments (mindful work) is shadows and light... My actual walking (work) sees thick and thin...bending...meandering...vine composing lush green forests...and bare-bones woods adorning big rivers."
The work has become self-aware, speaking through accumulated decades of making. Each parenthetical "(work)" marks where the vessel function activates.
"My spirituals (works) have legs. Not always literally."
The work walks on its own now, travels without me. After sixty-five years, it has achieved independence while still needing these hands for manifestation.
"My emerging products/evidence (works) earn money and countless hours of not earning any money during free investigations and experiments. Also... I sometimes don't earn any money while ideas or visions are incubating in my mind or under a few heat lamp bulbs."
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The Evolution Arc
Chronological Backbone
Winsted Foundations (1959-1978)
Born 1959, Hutchinson, Minnesota. Grew up in nearby Winsted. Daily roaming of rural landscapes on Huffy bicycle. Fields, soil, seasonal changes, worms, bugs, wide open skies becoming part of feeling soul.
Charles Schulz first, teaching that daily strips accumulate into philosophy. Andrew Wyeth next, those gritty watercolors showing truth in worn surfaces. High school photo-realistic oil and watercolor paintings. Meeting Philip Pearlstein at a party, understanding artists as real people.
The freedom to explore on foot and bicycle. The conservative town with diverse characters. The numerous nicknames. All becoming foundation for later work.
Commercial Years (1982-1998)
MCAD 1978-1982, BFA in Graphic Design. First opportunity: greeting card line "Ottographicals" for Recycled Paper Products through Gibson Carothers. Visual solutions for humorous concepts.
The unusual high point: Ukrainian compartment dolls painted with corporate employees for US West Telephone split, Fallon McElligott Rice Advertising commissioning folk art style business people.
1983: Chicago freelance illustrator, studio at Gebhardt Design, large-scale oil paintings exhibited at Stanley Korshak near Watertower on Michigan Avenue.
1985: Study abroad in Germany and Italy. Fashion Edizione Milan commissioning painting for magazine cover (earning whopping $70). Room above beer pub in Machenbach, Germany, developing monochromatic flat color technique. The elderly female owner entering at 7am, swinging windows open to cold damp winter air.
Return to Minneapolis, continued illustration with linear emphasis using sumi brushes. Healthcare campaigns, magazine publishing. Business gradually slowing as stock imagery grew. The profession cannibalizing itself.
The Pivot (1998-2001)
"During 1998, without the interest to participate in cannibalizing my own previously secure profession, I transitioned to spending more time on my fine art which was simultaneously being developed."
First fine art commission: extensive series of playful sculptural assemblages for Fairview Health Hospitals and Clinics. Natural whole health wings added to existing hospitals. Wire, string, leather, beads, stained glass, metal, wood, enamel, stain, elements found in nature. Soft to feel, warm to look at.
The marking point: Summer 2001, visiting The Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa. "I studied Inuit and Northwest Coastal Native American art for a couple years before visiting the CMOC, but was mesmerized by the experience of seeing the actual works up close."
Returning home, expanding painting studio to include 3D sculpture workshop. The shift from two-dimensional to fully dimensional practice.
But then the trap: "It started to become more like his earlier commercial art when the clients wanted more of a certain thing (only happy symbolisms and colors)."
Fear of being pigeonholed. Stopped taking projects. Continued only with work that came naturally.
Expansion (2001-Present)
"The past ten years have lead me down numerous new paths expanding possibilities in several directions."
From whirlwind-storms of youth to simple making and recording now. The variety becoming more seamless as methods and associations combine. The work evolving from:
- Singular paintings to mixed-media installations
- Individual pieces to comprehensive documentation
- Commercial assignments to vessel transmissions
- Client needs to universal wishes
- Technical mastery to spiritual infrastructure
"My life and work sometimes feels scattered and unfocused, but after years of seeing it incubate and evolve, I realize more now that it naturally consists of many different types of expressions and encapsulated stories of our community and beyond to far corners of this planet."
The scatter pattern revealing itself as comprehensive worldview.
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The Philosophical Core
The Immune System Paradox
"Art-making strengthens my immune system or it sends me to the emergency room. Nothing in-between. Cheer up, that's not true."
But it is true, and the cheer-up is the lie we tell ourselves. The Berlin room with windows thrown open at 7am—that either killed or strengthened. The monochromatic technique developed there came from survival, not choice.
The technical mastery accumulates like antibodies. Each new skill—vocoders, metal engraving, SLR documentation—is the immune system learning to recognize a new pathogen. But sometimes the art attacks the host. The all-night sculpture sessions, power tools at 3am, "numerous clusters of illogical sacrifices"—these send to emergency, metaphorical or literal.
The Agony Bug
"I've swallowed the agony bug of art—it can't be helped. I want to leap up and shout ARRRG!! but instead I pick up power tools."
The agony bug doesn't care about your BFA from MCAD or years as graphic designer. It doesn't respect mastery of vocoders or ability to sculpt stone. It lives in the gap between what you envision and what hands produce, between productionaholism and meaning.
"I sometimes view being a contemporary visual artist as something that can't be helped."
Not a choice but a condition. The vessel doesn't choose to receive transmissions.
Non-Taxing Art as Strategy
"I have been making non-taxing art...so that my mind is more able to naturally generate thoughts that are then put into words...to be used for dialogue for videos, comics, and other snip-its of life."
This isn't giving up—it's tactical. The hands stay busy with simple repetitive marks while mind roams free. The Ukrainian dolls painted for US West's split—each corporate face in folk art style—that was non-taxing art that paid bills while mind composed sculptures.
Non-taxing art creates space for real work to emerge.
Three B.F.A. Degrees
After the literal BFA from MCAD in 1982:
"I have a B.F.A degree in Love.
I have a B.F.A degree in Joy.
I have a B.F.A degree in Hope."
These are the degrees that matter. Not earned but declared. The technical mastery serves these three actual qualifications. Every technique learned, every tool mastered, every material understood—all in service of Love, Joy, Hope.
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Reader Takeaways
Practical Wisdom from the Practice
On Permission
"You have to permit yourself to make gorgeous art...or it won't happen. Get it done."
On Process
"Twenty percent of my art-making process involves organizing things and thoughts to go with the things."
"It's always a balance between productionaholism and meaning, with a little more of a lean towards meaning. It doesn't always go exactly as I want though."
On Transformation
"From overwhelming hurt to a strong sense of hope. No pills or quick fixes, just art working through things one moment to the next, leading to real and measured societal benefits."
On Technical Mastery
"Technical mastery is just vocabulary. The struggle is the sentence being written."
On Persistence
"Give it some more time."
"Sometimes one thing leads to something else seemingly unexpected."
On Honesty
"If you desire to bite with raw evil express it only through art."
"My art is not that bad. If you give it more time you'll realize that it's really not quite as bad as it looks."
On Purpose
"There is something that can be learned: From this life, making art, and discussing the results. I sense that relates, in various ways, to all nations on this planet."
On Daily Practice
"I try to capture unique split second moments with my camera and study the photos to get ideas for drawings and paintings."
"Every day, I try to include into my art and writing what goes on in my life."
On the Reality of Art as Profession
"This one's for all those who think ART is not a good profession to go into."
"Desoulos Works. Yes, he does."
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The Complete Picture
The Full Spectrum
"There is the full gamut of sensibilities in my work, raw to refined, dilapidated to polished. Like America itself. I take it all in through my experienced and developed senses, process it, and then let it flow out."
The practice encompasses:
Ordinary life. Visual music. Soulful energy. Morsels of philosophy. Angst and agitation. Natural spiraling chaos. Peace and contentment. Meditations and chants. Slight restlessness. Flow of fragments. Working thoughts and improvisations. Conventional and digital art expressions. Unique reflections or interpretations of the small things happening day-to-day. Local, national, and international concerns.
The Musical Substrate
"Blues men and women, waltzers, poets, bat-eaters, table dancers, cowboy hats, prison visitors, snake charmers, dynasty entertainers, river storytellers, songbirds, monks, Caribbean colors, desert fools, mountain mentors, drugged sinks, opulent angels, carney hippies, formal crooners, former taxi drivers, vessels of pain, roots of tender history, calls from the wild, penny-less x-stars, and crowd divers."
I could identify them all by name, but the list would be too long. Music always fills work spaces and stimulates, rejuvenates, and relaxes the energy. KFAI Fresh Air, the all-time favorite radio station. Dmitri Shostakovich as Art Warrior Music. The extensive collection propelling energy through difficult periods.
"Music and Art has helped me through difficult times."
The Final Assessment
From Hutchinson 1959 to Saint Paul 2024. From Andrew Wyeth to debris as art. From Ukrainian corporate dolls to roofless workspace rubble. From KFAI streaming to morning jottings to 140,000 files waiting.
This is a practice that chose:
- Comprehensiveness over focus
- Documentation over selection
- Making over marketing
- Process over product
- Vessel work over personal expression
- Universal wishes over individual success
"How much further should I push the art?"
The answer lives in the work itself: "My spirituals (works) have legs. Not always literally."
The work pushes itself now. The vessel continues receiving. The pencil keeps being sharpened by God or erased by doctor. The non-taxing art creates space for thoughts to surface. The morning jottings accumulate. The debris transforms into evidence.
It may seem like debris but it's art.
Beautiful Garbage waiting to be found.
Physical evidence that consciousness happened here.
That someone saw differently.
That someone chose creation over destruction.
One moment to the next.
Without pills or quick fixes.
Just art working through things.
Desoulos Works. Yes, he does.
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End of Manuscript
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This manuscript captures the full expanse of your practice while maintaining flow and avoiding redundancy. It uses your own words as the foundation, weaving them into a comprehensive narrative that honors both the technical mastery and spiritual dimension of your work. The three-part structure allows readers to enter at different depths while the chronological backbone provides context. The philosophical core runs throughout, and practical takeaways offer value to other artists and creators.
The document can be used as:
- A complete artist's statement
- Foundation for a book
- Website content (broken into sections)
- Grant application support
- Gallery exhibition text
- Personal archive/legacy document
It's structured to be both comprehensive for those who want the full picture and accessible for those who need quick understanding of your practice.
