High Profile: Kyle Boswell

Raised to follow his artistic and free-spirited nature, he saw himself a citizen of the world. He now shares his creative and cultural perspective at his gallery in Little Rock.

“When I opened my gallery I don’t think there was anyone doing what I was doing, taking the risk of showing something that’s different.” Kyle Lawson Boswell
“When I opened my gallery I don’t think there was anyone doing what I was doing, taking the risk of showing something that’s different.” Kyle Lawson Boswell

Kyle Boswell can't paint. He can't draw, either.

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About the gallery’s name, Boswell Mourot Fine Art, Jon Mourot explains that his name may be on the gallery, but that’s to honor their partnership in life.The gallery is entirely Boswell’s domain. -Kyle Boswell

Boswell stares off into the distance, the way people do when they're looking inward, offhandedly offering his self-critique.

Self-Portrait

Kyle Boswell

DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: May 6, 1963, Little Rock

MY FAVORITE MUSICAL GROUP: U2

A CULTURE THAT FASCINATES ME: Pretty much all cultures do. I have always been interested in cultural diversity around the world.

TIME OF DAY I’M AT MY BEST: Midmorning

I LIKE TO WEAR: not a suit

MY FAVORITE VACATION SPOT: Italy

THE BEST THING ABOUT ARKANSAS IS family.

MY FANTASY DINNER PARTY GUESTS: Salvador Dali and his pet anteater, Federico Fellini, Theodor Seuss Geisel and all my nieces and nephews (when they were kids).

ONE WORD THAT SUMS ME UP: optimistic

"Maybe if I put my mind to it I could," he says. Then he breaks his gaze and adds, "That just doesn't interest me at all."

Seated comfortably in his namesake Boswell Mourot Fine Art gallery in The Heights, he's in a good place -- successful, secure and satisfied in himself.

It took a while to get where he is today. Born and raised in central Arkansas, he set off as a young man eager to explore the world, until maturity brought him back to his native soil.

He has never needed paint or pencils; he has always expressed himself best through sculpture. Take his "Pails and Buckets" series, glass pieces that reflect insights gathered from his travels.

He prefers sculpture, he says, because it has substance; it's something he can feel.

"I'm very tactile," Boswell says, rubbing his fingers together as though he's conjuring up a sense-memory of his childhood in Bryant.

"We have this creek in our backyard and it was filled with kaolin clay. We were always digging up this clay and making pots and figures. Growing up, I loved the feel of the clay," he says, gesturing as though he could still feel the wet earth squishing between his fingers.

Boswell spent his formative years surrounded by a close-knit extended family -- "an old-fashioned Scottish clan," as his brother, Britt, calls it. Kyle, Britt and their sister, Blair, were encouraged to pursue their intellectual and cultural interests to the fullest.

"My family, my parents never told me what to say or what to do or what to become. They enjoyed seeing us express ourselves," Boswell says.

His parents, Ted and Joyce Boswell, were active in the state's Democratic Party. Ted Boswell even ran for governor in 1968, losing in the Democratic primary by 300 votes. He might have done better, his artist son says, but he wasn't one to compromise his beliefs to win favor with donors.

"And that's what I grew up with," Boswell says. "It just kind of set in with me."

From the time he started pulling clay from the creek, it was clear Kyle's interest in art ran deep. With few creative outlets in Bryant, the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock became his artistic incubator. He took classes there starting at age 4, until he was 17.

But when he left the nest, he found college art programs less hospitable. After one too many clashes with his instructors, he didn't just walk away from art school, but from art altogether.

He had another passion -- travel. At 18, he explored Chile by himself -- and this was during the torturous and deadly Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, he points out. A year later, he went to Egypt on his own.

He would work different jobs in the political scene, including a stint working for the state auditor at age 19, to pay for his plane tickets.

He loved experiencing different cultures and studying the work of foreign artists. What he saw on these trips would eventually help inspire his "Pails and Buckets."

The glass buckets, attached to rigid handles, look like homages to some ancient culture -- but what culture? They look sort of African, or maybe Asian. Pre-Columbian America? Europe's Dark Ages maybe?

The ethnic ambiguity is intentional, Boswell says. Coloring and ornamentation give each pail a distinct identity, but even with those differences the humble buckets represent the common bonds of human civilization.

FINDING CLARITY

In the mid-'80s, Kyle and Britt were gadding about Europe when Kyle's life took a sudden turn during a long wait at a London bus stop. The brothers struck up a conversation with a couple from Little Rock.

Deborah Baldwin and her husband, Jim Metzger, had also been touring Europe that summer. That day, "we were going to Stonehenge or Bath or something," Baldwin says, and a transit strike had limited their travel options, setting up the chance meeting.

As they chatted, Baldwin mentioned she'd just started teaching a course at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock titled History of World Civilizations, an introductory course that covered a wide range of cultures. She suggested that if Kyle ever thought about going back to school, it might be good way to start.

A month later, she walked into class and there he was, taking his first step toward a degree in international studies.

Fast-forward to the mid-'90s. Boswell is a graduate student at the American University School of International Service in Washington with vague aspirations of a career in the diplomatic corps.

His family connections got him a job with the late U.S. Rep. Ray Thornton (D-Ark.). Among his duties: going to embassy parties and meeting foreign dignitaries.

Every morning, Boswell says, he would ride the bus to work among "all these suits." Thornton's office was near The Mall, and at lunch Boswell could stroll through the Smithsonian's art galleries.

Bill Clinton was president, so there was an Arkansas clique in Washington filled with people he knew. It was during this time that one particular Arkansan from his past came back into his life. Boswell had met Jon Etienne Mourot back in 1979, at a fundraiser Boswell's father threw for Ted Kennedy's 1980 presidential run.

They'd dated briefly a few years later but had gone their separate ways. In 1996 they reconnected and were ready for something more serious, except for one problem.

"I have addiction issues," Boswell says with the same openness with which he admitted his inability to draw.

"His alcoholism was really bad, and I didn't want to be part of that," Mourot says.

Boswell checked himself into what is now Hazelden Betty Ford. His experience in rehab did more than get him to dry out. He felt more in touch with his true self than he had in years.

"I came out with complete clarity," he adds.

Boswell was ready to reclaim himself, and one of the first steps was, at the age of 33, to finally admit to his family that he was gay.

Deep down, Boswell must have known they'd be OK with it, Britt Boswell says, "but there are still those conflicts that we have within ourselves that we still have to get OK with."

Boswell also realized that his place in the world wasn't among the suits. Art was his true calling.

Mourot was in the midst of a career reboot. He'd been a successful lawyer, but in 1995, feeling "just burnt out," he left it behind to study psychology.

Boswell moved to Miami with Mourot. Fifteen years away from clay, he took up glassblowing at the University of Miami. Mourot, in the meantime, got his doctorate in sex therapy.

Living in Miami was very freeing, Boswell says. Unlike Washington, there weren't all the old ties to Arkansas. They could remake their careers as they built their life together.

That's when Boswell realized how much he wanted to go home.

"He wasn't happy in Miami," Mourot says. Boswell missed his family. He wanted to see his nieces and nephews grow up.

Mourot was happy to make Boswell happy, and he agreed to move home. They were both happy to discover that Little Rock had grown up, too, economically and culturally. There was a generation of young professionals who, like them, were well-traveled and well-educated. They had sophisticated tastes, and the city was adapting to accommodate them.

Boswell opened his gallery in 2007, confident he could contribute something distinctive to Little Rock's renaissance.

"I have a very sophisticated approach to my gallery, even in how my art's displayed," he says. The space at Boswell Mourot is open, with little extraneous decor and all-white walls and other surfaces. The exhibited works are uncrowded, giving each piece the viewer's undivided attention.

He takes great pains to select art he feels can command such attention, basing his shows more on what he thinks is good rather than what he knows will sell.

"When I opened my gallery I don't think there was anyone doing what I was doing, taking the risk of showing something that's different," he says.

He took this approach further, bringing in artists from Chile, Argentina and Germany, combining his cultural knowledge and artistic instincts to present a wider worldview to the Little Rock art community.

In 2009, Boswell opened a second Boswell Mourot Fine Art gallery in Miami's Coconut Grove neighborhood.

"It's funny. Here you say, 'I have a gallery in Miami,' and people get really excited," Boswell says. "In Miami, you say, 'yeah, I have a gallery in Little Rock,' and they say, 'Little Rock, Arkansas?'"

Truth is, he sells more art in Arkansas than he does in Florida.

THE ART OF FINE LIVING

For years, Boswell has used his gallery to bring international art to Arkansans. Later this year, he'll bring international exposure to his and other Arkansans' artwork during Miami's Art Week.

Since 2001, Miami has hosted a "winter" version of Art Basel, one of the world's most prestigious art festivals, held in Basel, Switzerland.

"You'll have Saudis flying in on their 747s to buy their art. It's amazing," Boswell says.

Over the years, several satellite festivals, any one of which would be considered a major art event in most settings, have been added to run concurrently with Art Basel.

Art Week draws tens of thousands of collectors to Miami from around the world. This year, Boswell Mourot will be entered in Spectrum, one of the better-known satellite festivals.

"It's a big deal," Boswell said. He believes it's the first time an Arkansas gallery has been part of Art Week.

"I want my galleries to keep climbing in recognition," Boswell says. "I work very hard to be successful, and we are successful."

About that "we" -- Mourot explained that his name may be on the gallery, but that's to honor their partnership in life. The gallery is entirely Kyle's domain.

"I just show up at events when he needs eye candy," Mourot says.

With his gallery's success, Boswell has a forum where he can not only make artistic statements, but also be a voice for the community.

"I'm able to do so many different things here at the gallery that may not necessarily have anything to do with art," he says. "I've had political fundraisers here -- of course for very liberal candidates."

He has also used the gallery to help promote local organizations and causes, none more personally important than PrideCorps, an organization Mourot founded two years ago for LGBT teens after he saw how many of his young patients suffered from a sense of isolation.

It was a feeling Boswell could relate to. Teens didn't come out back in his day, not in rural Arkansas. He was called "fag" and "queer" just for liking art and theater.

He had the Arkansas Arts Center as a refuge and a family that stood behind him. He remembers one time a couple of kids were giving him a hard time at school until big brother Britt invited them to step outside.

"I'm willing to do that now," Britt Boswell says.

"PrideCorps is something I wish I had then because a lot of misery would have been eliminated," Boswell says.

He's been sober 19 years. He and Mourot were married three years ago. He has defined himself as an artist since he was a boy, and at 53, that's how he's recognized and respected today.

Boswell has spent his life molding malleable materials. He knows it takes working and reworking before a piece takes the desired form. Life is like that, a perpetual work in progress, and his is shaping up pretty well.

He has taken the scenic route through life and is back where he started and right where he always wanted to be.

So what if he can't paint.

High Profile on 09/18/2016

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