On 1/2/08 an American Story segment featuring my
second cross-country art tour appeared on the NBC
TODAY Show. Click the photo to see the 5-minute clip.
This is good stuff...culturally significant. The things you have done are not within the realm of possibility for most people, even most artists. And yet it is a dream we all want to see lived out, something anyone can find inspiration in.
- Bronwyn Moyer
Few of us willingly go out beyond the limits of our settled lives. Certainly, most would be reluctant to do what Jim Mott does. The successful, middle-aged artist travels the country trading paintings for food, lodging, even a speeding ticket. Stays with total strangers. Scary, you say? We found Jim Mott wandering through a fading afternoon in Wisconsin last fall. A shy man. Quiet. But he has managed to explore 29 states, 15 thousand miles, so far. Cost him nothing but gas. Along the way he's experienced some things the comfortable majority will never feel...
- Bob Dotson, NBC TODAY Show “American Story”
You are perfectly right about landscapes being OK in the post-historical phase of art. But somehow more in the spirit of the times is your project of itinerancy, which has a performance dimension...
- Arthur Danto
Jim Mott is navigating a way back into the nation's narrowed avenues of trust and kindness. His work proves that we remember how to connect with and take care of strangers, and explores the deep mutual benefits in doing so....
I love everything about this well-examined life of his: the testing and proving of the willingness of strangers to connect with strangers, the daring, the apparent freedom coupled with initiative, the talent, and the expansion of the artist's own world, as well as the worlds of the people who host him.
- Rebecca Rafferty, City Newspaper
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My painting road trips have generated popular, media, and web interest, from a Today Show American Story feature to Chinese web forum discusssions. |
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NBC TODAY Show Clip CS Monitor Article American Artist Feature CBC Radio Interview City Newspaper Review Rochester Magazine |