Melissa Stern

Stepping into Melissa Stern’s studio is like entering a vast laboratory of anthropological research. An array of quirky artifacts covers every surface, some incorporated into sculptures and others on standby, like understudies awaiting their moment of glory. There is the ceramic bust of a fanged alien devouring the Venus de Milo, the figure of an adorable girl with the head of Winston Churchill, bodies with no arms and arms with no body, and much, much more. Everywhere you look there are works in progress, a seemingly endless collection of curiosities that will eventually be upcycled as ear, eyeball, or thumb. And that’s just one side of the studio. On the other side are her works on paper and canvas, equally diverse in imagery and emotion. This eclectic mix of found objects and skillfully crafted sculptures is the core of Stern’s studio practice. Her interests are wide-ranging (indeed, she graduated cum laude from Wesleyan with degrees in anthropology and art history), but her interest in people is the heart of her work. Specifically, Stern is interested in a person’s story: who they are, what moves them, and how her work can create meaningful connections. The figures in her sculptures and drawings also have their stories, from the quasi-liberated Clairol model to a grinning, armless waif whose feet are nailed as it were to a feminist cross. We can only guess at their histories, and this gap in the narrative creates the connection that Stern is after. When asked what her work is about, she turns the question around and asks the viewer what they think, soliciting an active role in its interpretation. Her work is at once hilarious and heartbreaking, creating an opening for us to laugh/cry over our complicated personal and collective histories. Stern’s artwork engenders a range of interpretations, and how we react to it is an indication of our personal world view, and where we are situated on an emotional grayscale.

MH: You’ve been making art for a long time, and I’m curious how and when you first knew that you wanted to be an artist?
MS: I don’t think I ever approached it as a career. I’ve been making things my whole life. I came from a middle-class background and my parents came from a poor background, so the idea was, why would we buy something if we could make it? My parents refused to let me go to art school, so I went to Wesleyan and studied anthropology, and realized that what interested me was why people make things, and how objects have the power to affect people. Then after leaving college and flailing around New York for a while, I realized that I didn’t want to study objects, I wanted to make them. So circuitously but not surprisingly, I ended up being an artist.

MH: Were you always a dedicated, “serious” artist, or did that develop over the years?
MS: By the time I started making artwork, I knew that’s what I had to do. It wasn’t really a choice. I also love teaching, and I do other things as well, but making objects is kind of the center of my life.

MH: Have you ever had a Plan B? Like, if things don’t go well with my art career, maybe I’ll explore a career in (blank)?
MS: The easy answer is no. Years ago when I was going through some rocky times as an artist, I was seeing my Jungian therapist, and she suggested that we talk about what else I could do, and the answer was nothing! I’ve had plenty of day jobs, but nothing that could have been a career.

MH: The first time I saw your work it felt lighthearted and whimsical. It seems consistent in your work that the first layer is playful, the second layer might be called humorous or satirical, both of which have a slight edge, and by the time we hit the third layer, a darker element emerges, like a contour that slowly reveals itself. Is this progression intentional?
MS: I’m not sure if it’s intentional. I’m not that strategic. It’s kind of who I am and how I see the world. I don’t make things and think this part is funny and that part is dark. It always interests me how different people see my work. The only thing that drives me crazy is when people say it’s adorable.

MH: Haha! Your work is not adorable.
MS: But it tells me something about the viewer. I’m interested in how people react, and I love it when they see that my work has many layers. Not everyone wants to see that. And that’s okay, you see what you want to see, but I like it when I can touch a person on many levels. Because life is very funny and very dark.

MH: It may be misleading to classify your work as dark. I like the term “shadow”, as it’s less foreboding, and more integrated with “light”. Psychologically speaking, I see your work as encompassing both light and shadow as it relates to your personal history, as well as our collective history. Do you see your work as an expression of both?
MS: Yes. I think life is both. People are full of ambivalence, and the world is full of mixed feelings – nothing is black and white, but many shades of gray. There’s a duality, a push and pull between light and dark that is emblematic of how complicated we are. And emotionally speaking, that’s what my work is about.

 MH: One of the pieces that made me laugh/cry was a large sculpture of a woman’s feet in sandals, with an epic case of toe-verhang. It was at once hilarious and heartbreaking, hinting at the shadow that women carry about their sexuality. The power of the piece was in its vulnerability, and I think this may be one of your strong points as an artist: namely, the willingness to be open and vulnerable. Do you ever feel exposed when you put your work out in public?
MS: As a younger artist, one of the critiques that I got was that I was holding back, and I was told that I should let it rip. So I have consciously tried in the past couple of years to be more vulnerable. I make what I make and, in the words of Popeye, I yam what I yam. The one thing I have strong negative feelings about is work that hits you over the head and tells you how to feel. I want to make work that has an open-ended quality, and that lets each person interpret it and feel how they want to feel.

 MH: What’s the difference between ambivalence and vulnerability?
MS: Vulnerability is a much more open state of being; it is perhaps the lack of ambivalence. I want people to respond to my work, and being vulnerable is part of that. I’ve found that the more open I am in my work, the more response I get, and the more I connect with people.

MH: Another consistent theme in your work is the feminine. Some of the figures could be of either sex, but most of them read as female. How do you regard sexual orientation in your work? Do you concern yourself with gender specificity?
MS: I’m not particularly interested in gender specificity. There are pieces that are neither and all, and then there are certain figures that are explicitly about being a woman. My work has a lot to do with my memories of being a girl and growing up in Philadelphia and exploring my own psychic past. But what I strive for is a universality, so that anyone can look at it and respond to it, even though the figure happens to be female.

MH: Do you consider yourself a feminist? How would you feel about your work being called “feminist art”?
MS: Yes, but maybe it depends on your definition of feminist. As I see women’s rights being eroded left and right, it makes me feel more politically feminist. But my work is not overtly political or feminist; it’s not going to hit you over the head. You can read a lot into the smiling girl whose feet are nailed to the ground.

MH: Women our age who came up in the 60s and 70s were deeply influenced by the 1950s, because most of us had mothers who weren’t yet liberated from their traditional roles as housewives. By the time we hit puberty, we had to make the improbable leap from June Cleaver to Cher. Do you think this compressed period in history cast a shadow over our liberation? Were we simply too young to understand the immensity of the freedom we were being given? I see in your work the expectations of what it means to be feminine and liberated, and the ways that we may have failed.
MS: That’s a big, juicy question. I think what you’re saying is true, but the difference for me is that I had a working mother. She imbued in me the idea that I should always have my own money, and I should be able to make a living. So I grew up with the idea of self-determination and empowerment more so than my friends whose mothers never worked. But it wasn’t a totally liberated, modern household: my mom worked all day, then came home and made dinner. And she always wore makeup. No one ever saw her without makeup, because, as she put it, she had to put her face on. I love this idea of putting one’s face on, putting on foundation ­– it has so many levels of meaning, right? I’ve used this kind of imagery a lot in my work, because it connects to vulnerability, ambivalence, the whole psychological aspect of being a woman.

MH: Some of your figures wear the fashions of the conservative 1950s, and you often include figures cut from vintage magazines. These caricatures inhabit your work like relics from a bygone age. What draws you to that era? What does it represent to you?
MS: I’m fascinated by how women were portrayed in magazines after the war, in the 40s and 50s. Life magazine reinforced the idea of women being moms and housewives, and they began to be filled with ads for stockings and bras. Then later into the 60s there was a whole series of ads about Maidenform bras, like “I dreamt I was in the circus in my Maidenform bra!” and there was a picture of a woman in a bra taming lions. They’re so absurd! It acknowledges a certain type of liberation but reminds us that we need to dress a certain way and be sexy.

MH: So liberation was available, but had all kinds of strings attached. And maybe it still does.
MS: Yes, and it ties back to the idea of ambivalence. You can be liberated as long as you make sure you get home and cook dinner every night. In my series “Does She or Doesn’t She?”, I talk about that ad campaign, which depicts successful, gorgeous ladies with perfectly coiffed hair, and the question is, does she or doesn’t she dye her hair? And in the ads, she almost always has a child next to her. So we’ve been sent these mixed messages our whole lives, and we still are. The hyper-sexualized messages that are sent to young women now are horrifying to me.

MH: Some of your female figures seem confused or paralyzed, as if uncertain of who they are or what their place is in the world. My read is that they were enjoined to go forth and be feminists but weren’t given any useful instructions. How do you think about these figures, some of whom are on the verge of a meltdown?
MS: Haha! I sometimes feel paralyzed as an artist. I work between genres; I am neither this nor that. I’m a contemporary artist but I work in the vein of other traditions and sometimes that puts me in a funny limbo land, and this is reflected in my artwork. The fact that they are women and girls is yet another layer of meaning.

MH: And then in some of your works, the female figure is liberated and empowered, without regard to the male gaze. Do you think that your journey toward liberation is reflected in your work? And if so, has your creative process contributed to that?
MS: Oh, I certainly hope so! I try to make work that embodies what’s on my mind and in my heart, as well as things that I’m not thinking about, that are in my subconscious. Sometimes I’m surprised by my own work, and I think, wow! How did I do that?  So if the work feels more liberated or like I’m tapping into purer veins of emotion, that’s great! One can only hope, right? For me there’s also the technical aspect of taking a found object, like a funnel, and integrating it so completely into a fabricated object that it feels like there’s no other way that this figure could have existed but with a funnel for her head. So in addition to the emotional and psychological growth, there’s a technical evolution of my skills as an artist.

MH: Yes, and there’s also the development of an aesthetic, because you need to have a certain refinement of aesthetic to see that the funnel is the only possible solution for this head. 
MS: Absolutely. And experience. The more things you make, the more you experiment, the more the encyclopedia in your mind grows. 

MH: I’d like to return to the concept of light and shadow in your work. It’s said that the further you go into the light, the deeper you go into darkness; there will always be equal amounts of both. Do you find that as you move toward greater freedom as an artist and as a woman, that your work becomes deeper and more resonant? Does the darker aspect of your work stabilize the light in a kind of emotional chiaroscuro?
MS: I have trouble answering the question because I don’t think that analytically, and it’s hard for me to be objective about my own work. What I see when I look at it is very different than what other people see. The work is more deeply felt than when I was younger, and it’s more difficult as well.

 MH: Why do you think this is?
MS: Because I’m more honest and vulnerable, and I allow my feelings to come out in a more naked way. Making figurative work is different than abstract work. You’re making people! That’s different on every single level. The subtleties are very important because they’re more noticeable. As my work has gotten richer and more resonant, those subtle inflections and small gestures create the entire personality of the piece.

MH: Have you noticed that the works that express the light/shadow energy are the ones that people most react to?
MS: Yes, but it depends on context. Seeing the work in my studio is very different than seeing it in a gallery, where someone else controls the narrative. Curation plays a big part: the works they choose and how they hang the show creates a different universe than someone coming into my studio and plunging into my brain.

MH: What do you think of this: The stronger the presence of a shadow, the richer and more interesting the art. Am I being too reductive to suggest that the shadow is what makes great art great?
MS: I would agree with you, but I think the tension between one thing and another is what makes great art great. I can look at work that is beautiful but has no oomph behind it, and it won’t stay with me. On the other hand, I can look at work that’s all oomph, or all emotion, and it doesn’t touch me at all.

MH: What’s missing for you in those pieces?
MS: The dance! The dance between beauty and content. I happen to think that beauty is underrated in artwork, and by beauty I don’t necessarily mean something that’s conventionally pretty. There’s beauty in austerity, and in reduced, simple work as well as work that’s ornate and baroque. It’s an elusive quality, and sometimes the beauty comes from pure content.

MH: Do you think what makes great art great is the tension of a polarity?
MS: No, I see it as a dance. Polarity implies opposites and a different kind of tension, whereas a dance is when two things come together and make a third. Like two conflicting emotions melding together in a dance to create a beautiful work of art that touches you so deeply.

MH: That sounds like Hegelian dialectic. Do you think great art is a type of synthesis? Something new that emerges when overused ideas react with opposing elements?
MS: Yes, or with all the elements. It’s a moment of magic! If you try to take it apart and analyze it, you lose the magic.

MH: I like the idea of an artist creating on an emotional grayscale. We’re not the same from day to day, so it follows that our work is sublime one day and psychotic the next. The emotional range of an artist’s work can only be seen in her larger body of work, as in your show at Lockwood Gallery that was so extensive.
MS: Absolutely. And the show that you’re referring to was a twenty-year retrospective, so you saw the evolution of work from 2000-2020. One can only hope that you’re seeing growth and change in the work!

MH: What would you like people to take away from your work, if you could control such things? Do you want them to laugh? Cry? Run for the exit?
MS: All the above! Although if they run for the exit, I would hope that they’d come back again to see what it was that touched them.

MH: What’s the best part of being an artist?
MS: The magic that comes when I step away from a piece and think, how did I do that? When everything comes together, whether there’s been a struggle or no struggle, and there’s the sense of wonderment and joy – that’s the best part. The second part is when someone sees that piece that I’ve made and connects with it emotionally. They laugh, they shudder, it triggers a story – whatever. The ability to make something and through that magical object, to make a human connection will never cease to amaze and thrill me. 

www.melissa-stern.com

Read about The Talking Cure, a community-based project pioneered by Melissa Stern.

Image List
  1.       Suburbs, 2019, found objects, fabrics, oil paint, wood, 34 x 38 x 6 in.
  2.       Stiff, 2018, clay, ink, fabric, encaustic, wood, crayon, thread, needle, 29 x 13 x 8 in.
  3.       Funnel, 2021, clay, metal, ink, resin, rubber, wood, 27.5 x 12 x 5 in.
  4.       Nailed, 2006, clay, oil paint, nails, wood, graphite, 20.5 x 7.5 x 6.5 in.
  5.       Curlers, 2020, clay, resin, oil paint, wood, curlers, 21 x 8 x 5.5 in.
  6.       You’re Soaking In It, 2017, wood, clay, collage, objects, resin, 29 x 19 x 15 in.
  7.       Looking Back, 2020, graphite, pastel, collage, colored pencil, 26 x 19 in.
  8.       Hair, 2022,
  9.       First Date - Twins, 2020, graphite, pastel, collage, oil paint, 23 x 17.5 in.
10.       Chameleon, 2020, graphite, pastel, collage, oil paint, 12 x 16 in.
11.       Wedge Sandal, 2015, clay, paint, 16 x 17 x 5 in.
12.       Knock on Wood, 2021, clay, paint, resin, rubber, plastic. 62 x 20 x 16 in.
13.       Coral Reef, 2022, clay, resin, paint, graphite, wire, 29 x 23 x 6 in.
14.       Marriage, 2022, clay, paint, 14 x 12 x 11 in.
15.       Trophy, 1995, clay, paint, objects, 23 x 23 x 7 in.
16.       Rollers, 2020, seet metal, paint, resin, wood, glass, rollers, 9.5 x 9.5 x 3 in.
17.       House Bound, 2019, clay, wood, paint, 23 x 10 x 19 in.
18.       Me With Makeup, 2020, oil stick, oil pastel, 24 x 18 in.
19.       My Hair, 2019, charcoal, oil stick, 22 x 28.5 in.
20.       Comb Over, 2020, graphite, pastel, ink, 16.5 x 18 in.
21.       Pink Earrings (Detail of High School Hair), 2020, graphite, watercolor, colored pencil, 12 x 9 in.
22.       Chelsea Girls, 2020, oil stick, graphite, 23 x 17.5 in.
23.       Knockout, 2019, clay, oil stick, 19.5 x 10 x 4 in.
24.       The artist in her studio.

Jayoung Yoon

Jayoung Yoon is an interdisciplinary artist who uses her body to examine the nature of emptiness. In her current solo show at Garrison Art Center, Yoon creates two- and three-dimensional forms with her hair, weaving herself into the space and intimating an underlying connectivity. Indeed, when a slight draft sends a ripple across the translucent, shimmering forms, there’s the feeling that you’ve inadvertently stumbled into Indra’s net. The presence of the artist is felt in each knotted strand of hair, and we too become present as we consider the staggering amount of time and labor involved in her craft. The title of the show, “Sowing Seeds of Emptiness”, hints at the essence of Yoon’s work, which is an inquiry into the Buddhist philosophy of form and emptiness. She broaches the subject poetically, first by creating the sensation of emptiness, and then subtly posing the question, Empty of what? The topic of emptiness is dense, and many volumes of Buddhist philosophy have been written in the effort to arrive at its core. But where words fall short in conveying that which has no existence, Yoon’s sculptures are luminous veils that simultaneously reveal and conceal the answer to the paradox: Empty of a separate existence. By incorporating human hair with time, by weaving and knotting them together, Yoon suggests that the bliss of emptiness is experienced when we awaken to the interdependence of all things.

MH: Your show at Garrison Art Center is breathtaking and exquisitely beautiful. It’s hard to convey in words the presence that it carries when seen in person. When did you start working with hair as your medium, and how did the idea evolve?
JY: I worked with thread when I was at the Maryland Institute College of Art, exploring how our physical or mental pain can transform into personal growth. I created a metaphorical space in an installation with thread and nails and empty space, like a cocoon space. After that I started to use my body to make videos, and then in 2007 I went to a fiber program at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, where I started to think about materiality and process as a medium for my work. I was looking for a material that could represent both body and mind. And since I had experimented a little with hair, using a single strand to make an almost transparent form, I thought that hair could represent a kind of ineffable thought. Hair as a material is very physical, and when people see it, they think of growth. But hair is also visceral, so it has these two distinct qualities that I thought worked well together.

MH: Are you inspired by the Korean craft of weaving horsehair? It seems similar, but weaving horsehair must be a different experience from knotting human hair.
JY: I think you’re referring to the Korean tradition of hat making that’s called gat. When I started using hair, I wasn’t aware of this tradition, and the technique is totally different from what I was doing. But I went to Korea in 2019 to learn traditional embroidery and patchwork (jogakbo) for my installation project “I Am the Emptiness” at Garrison Art Center. I learned hand-sewing techniques at the Korean Cultural Center, especially a triple-stitched seaming technique called gekki. While I was there, I saw a horsehair hat in one of the studio rooms. I was fascinated by its delicacy, and the transparent quality totally resonated with my artwork. I tried to find a workshop where I could learn gat, and I found out it only exists on Jeju Island, where there are a lot of horses.

MH: Would you talk a little about the harvesting of your hair? Is there a ritualistic aspect to cutting and growing it?
JY: When I started to completely shave my hair off, it wasn’t only that I needed the material, but also because I use my body for my video performances. The significance of cutting off my hair was around letting go of ego, as in the Buddhist tradition.

VIDEO: Form and Emptiness No. 14, 2017, artist's hair, glue, 8 x 8 x 8 in.

MH: Is there anything about your process that you’d like to share? I’m at a loss to even come up with a question about it, so feel free to elaborate.
JY: In the process of making the semi-transparent forms for my “Form and Emptiness” series, I work with spacing, like making simple fishing nets. I make a handmade loom and stretch each strand of hair, then I use a needle to weave the hair in. I need to find the right tension, because if I stretch it too tight the hair snaps, but if it’s too loose the hair curves. I tighten them one by one, and then I use glue to bind them together. I make six panels and tie them together to make cubes. It’s a very labor-intensive, time-consuming process and it requires focus and patience. I need to be present, so I can’t watch anything, but sometimes I can listen to podcasts. Recently I’ve been listening to podcasts of how to become a good parent.

MH and JY: Hahahaha!
JY: In the two-dimensional works, I come up with a geometrical sketch using the Fibonacci sequence. Then I put my sketch in Illustrator, print it out, and decide how many layers I want to go with. Then I cut the papers, place them on a canvas panel, and cover the lines with hair. I refer to patterns from Islam and books on nature, sometimes flowers and seashells, which have the Fibonacci sequence.

MH: In one of the pieces in the show, you used your black hair to create a bowl, inside which is another, smaller bowl made from the gray hair of your mother. The beauty and intimacy of this piece is almost painful, but you describe it as playful and funny, trying to convince your mother to let you clip some of her hair. Can you talk about this piece, and what it means to you?
JY: My mom came to the U.S. in August for a month to help babysit so I could have my studio time to prepare for my GAC show. That was already planned a year ago, so I asked her to collect her gray hair that naturally falls out whenever she takes a shower, and she brought a bag of gray hair with her. But it wasn’t enough to make several small vessels for my artwork, so I asked if I could clip some of her hair so I could finish the work. She was willing, but also very wary of where I cut, so she asked me to collect it from all different places on her head, so her hair didn’t look funny.

I’d like to talk about my mom a little bit because she’s a big influence for me. My mom is an artist, a Korean traditional dancer and musician, and she’s also a therapist. She often danced for people who have deep personal and social pain. For example, there are Korean comfort women who were abused by Japanese soldiers during World War II. I remember when I was young, she danced for those women, and at the end of her performance she invited all of them to come to the stage and dance with her, and I saw that the women were crying. When I saw that I realized that sometimes people heal through the physicality of the present moment; sometimes words cannot solve their problems. My mother is a very spiritual person, and she introduced me to so many books that inspired me. Her compassion and wisdom nurtures me as an artist and the person who I am, so I made this piece about my mom to show that she is a pearl of wisdom in me. But then after I made the piece, I thought about how the mother always embraces the child, and then when the mother gets old, the daughter embraces the mother. Those were some of my thoughts around the piece.

MH: In another piece, there is a long, tapered cylinder that looks like a transcendent trumpet, descending to the human realm to reveal some cryptic message. What significance does this piece have for you?
JY: The title of this piece is “The Portal”. It was inspired by an experience that I had on a meditation retreat in 2005 in South Korea. There were practices around seeing the world as it is, cleansing our thoughts, and being present in the moment. In one of the practices, we were taught to keep questioning, keep searching beyond notions and knowledge, prejudice and judgment, and ask, what is beyond all that? During that practice, I had the experience that I disappeared as a person and became one with pure love and consciousness. So “The Portal” represents a portal into different dimensions. The sculpture has a vanishing point, and I installed it so people can look up into it and experience their stream of thoughts, and wonder what’s beyond the vanishing point.

MH: What is beyond the vanishing point?
JY: A sense of oneness, infinite being, and pure, unconditional love.

MH: One of the most astonishing aspects of your work is the apparent time that it takes to create each piece. It’s like you’re making time visible to us, knot by knot. Do you regard time as a medium in your work?
JY: Absolutely. I want people to see my work as an accumulation of single, present moments, instead of time as a linear past, present, and future. And because it’s such a labor-intensive process, people see and experience time in my work. This is a quote from “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle:

“Nothing has happened in the past; it happened in the Now.
Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now.”

MH: I experience deep compassion in your work, and I think it’s because you’re using your hair. If you did the same work, substituting black thread for hair, there wouldn’t be the same feeling of generosity, of giving of yourself. Is there a sense that by relinquishing this vital part of your body, you’re emptying your own bowl, as it were, and filling up the bowl of the viewer?
JY: It’s an interesting point of view. Sometimes when I cut my hair for a video performance it’s completely shaved, and that takes a lot of physical endurance. I read that during the Tang dynasty, which was about 600-900 A.C. in China, there was a Buddhist nun who cut off her hair and embroidered an image of the Buddha with her hair on silk fabric to demonstrate her devotion. When I read that story, it really resonated with me. So your observation is correct ­– I give of myself to make the works.

MH: There must have been a huge shift when you switched from thread to using your hair.
JY: Yes, it was a big leap.

MH: It became more about giving of yourself, because you started using a piece of your body. You’re not cutting off your arm, but you’re still giving of yourself, both the hair and the time that it takes to manipulate it. So I have to ask, why do you do this?
JY: I cut off my hair and use it in my work so I can share my beliefs with people. Compassion comes from the knowledge that we all are connected, and we aren’t separate from each other. I think that’s why you see compassion in my work. Not just because I use hair, but also the visual forms that I choose, you can see the compassion there too.

MH: Does gender identity come into play for you? Hair is such an essential part of femininity, and I wonder if your work and your life make a statement about what it is to be a woman who is hirsute one day and hairless the next. Was there a feeling of liberation or loss when you first started cutting your hair?
JY: Actually, I don’t want my work to represent feminism or femininity at all. In the videos I try to give my body an androgynous appearance by completely removing my clothing and facing away from the camera while I shave my hair off. I want to be seen as a human being instead of representing gender or identity.

MH: Is loss a necessary component of your process? Do you feel that to execute the work authentically, you need to sacrifice something deeply personal and corporeal, like your hair?
JY: My work is about the process, and because the hair comes from my body, it can represent loss or death. But then I use the hair to make sculpture and painting, so it gets new life. And then the hair sculptures sometimes get attached to my body again for a performance, so it’s a cycle of life and death.

MH: The word “empty” comes up often in your work. The title of the Garrison show is “Sowing Seeds of Emptiness”, which implies that emptiness is something that we need to plant, cultivate, and harvest. In other words, it requires our attention. How do you think about emptiness, and how do you wish to portray it in your work?
JY: I want to quote Thich Nhat Hanh, who explained the concept of emptiness:

“Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper.  The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. […] They are empty of a separate self.”
(from “The Fullness of Emptiness” )

So in Buddhism emptiness doesn’t mean nothing, it means that nothing has an inherent existence. Emptiness indicates the interrelatedness of all things; we cannot separate ourselves from all the other processes on which we depend. In my series “Form and Emptiness”, there is a structure in the center of the cube, and every angle of the sculpture is slightly different. I wanted to suggest that our perception cannot be in isolation; it keeps changing depending upon the environment or different angles. It’s said that our thoughts and mind can change the world, and that’s based on the teaching that nothing is separate from myself. So if I change my mind, eventually that can affect the rest of the world. It’s part of the awareness of our interconnectedness.

MH: Knotting your hair into a kind of net is related to that. There’s a myth – I forget what it’s called ­– that says we all exist in a net that stretches to infinity, so a movement or event in any part of the net can be felt throughout.
JY: Indra’s net.

MH: Oh right! Or the internet. So basically, the way that you think about emptiness is not as a void, but as an interconnectedness. But I also think of the emptiness of ego, because that’s the big problem with ego: it thinks it’s separate.
JY: Yes.

MH: As a person who’s keenly interested in emptiness, do you experience dissonance between the ambition (emptiness) and the path that leads to it (striving)? Is there no way to arrive at emptiness except through the struggle of human experience?
JY: This is a difficult question. For me, the path that leads to emptiness is the one in which we see each form of human experience as it is and have total awareness that everything is interconnected. It reminds me of Vipassana meditation practice, which begins with awareness of breath, then awareness of body sensations, feeling a sensation arise and disappear. They explain that this practice is very important because our nervous systems are related to our body sensations. For example, there is some sound that I don’t like, and when I recognize it, I start keeping preferences, and the sound starts to cause me pain. Because once we don’t like something, there is the sensation of pain. So sensation is an important link between the outside world and our reactions. In answer to your question, I think it’s important to recognize the sensations of human experience, but to be able to reach emptiness we have to observe it as it is rather than react to it. We also need to recognize that the reaction comes up, and then goes away ­– it’s constantly changing, so we don’t have to react immediately.

MH: It’s a difficult question because we’re humans and we’re having human experiences. We don’t have the experience of a frog. To arrive at what you’re describing, the state of non-attachment, is very difficult, but I guess if you stick with it, sooner or later you’ll arrive at emptiness. But having the ambition to arrive at emptiness is an ambition, which compounds the difficulty. Do you ever struggle with this, or do you have it under control?
JY: (Hahahahaha!) Actually, the title of the show is “Sowing Seeds of Emptiness”, but I’m raising two young boys, and everything is not so easy. When I was preparing for the show, I wasn’t in any kind of peaceful state, and I was thinking that I’m in no position to talk about emptiness! So yes, I’m struggling with all of it.

MH: I know this isn’t fair to spring on you, but can you describe emptiness without saying what it isn’t?
JY: If I tried to define emptiness, I’d probably just repeat something that the masters have said. In the quote above by Thich Nhat Hahn, when he sees the sheet of paper, he sees that everything is in it. Emptiness is full of everything. It’s only empty of a separate self.

MH: One question about your series of 2D works on panel. The title is “Empty Void”, and I probably gave this too much thought, but…empty of what? By definition a void is already empty, so when we speak of emptiness, and when the tomes of Buddhist writings point to emptiness, what are they referring to?
JY: I understand that some people think that the title is redundant, since emptiness is already a void. But for me the void is the universe, and emptiness is the absence of a separate self. I want to talk about a video performance from 2009 called “Listening to the Mind”. It was the one video performance that I staged outdoors in an open space. I installed a hair sculpture and connected it to my ear and laid down on the ground for ten hours straight. I felt the temperature changing, the subtle movements of the hair sculpture in my ear, and the wind blowing over my naked body. I had the experience of my body disappearing into the universe and becoming whole with nature. It was a transformative experience, and I didn’t know about meditation at that time. I think the performance led me to explore meditation practices. I thought about creating images about my experience, which led to the sacred geometry and mandalas, so the “Empty Void” series represents the interconnectedness and oneness of everything.

MH: Were you uncomfortable during the performance? It must have been cold.
JY: If I kept clinging to the pain and thinking about how I didn’t like it, the pain and cold were stronger. When I was in the present moment, I was aware of the physical pain and temperature, but it didn’t bother me as much. The awareness made it bearable.

MH: I see your sculptures as shimmering veils that both reveal and conceal emptiness. It’s like they let us know that emptiness is present, then let us figure the rest out. But it’s a specific kind of emptiness – the emptiness of the human experience. By incorporating human hair with time, by weaving and knotting them together, you expose the frailty of existence. We are as ephemeral as your sculptures, fleeting forms in a sea of emptiness. Is this a valid interpretation of your work?
JY: Yes, I think that’s a good interpretation. In my studio I experience the sculptures as sometimes visible, sometimes invisible and fleeting. The visibility changes a lot with the environment. There’s a large piece in the GAC show that hangs near the window, and a lot of people don’t see it because it can disappear, depending on the time of day.

MH: It’s a tall order for an artist to express emptiness, given the density of the subject. Volumes have been written to describe the indescribable, and visual art often becomes bogged down in its medium and execution. Your works are transparent, luminous, and seemingly weightless, and I can think of no better way to approach the subject of emptiness.
JY: Thank you. My hair in both the embroidery and sculpture is semi-transparent, so instead of blocking peoples’ view, the viewers can see each other through the sculptures. Through careful placement, the installation can integrate with the audience to create the feeling of interrelatedness. So there’s the potential for the viewer to move through the experience, and the gallery becomes an intimate and contemplative space.

MH: I think that’s true. There’s also the moment of astonishment when the viewer realizes that the material is your hair, that you tied each knot by hand, and in that moment, we experience the presence of the artist. And it does have the effect of bringing one into the present.
JY: My hope is that the viewer will discover a new perception and develop their awareness of the moment.

MH: Is there anything else about your work that you’d like people to know?
JY: I’ve been reading about how environmental destruction, climate change, and deforestation disrupts the global ecosystem, causing viruses like Covid to spread to humans. And it will likely become more common if we aren’t aware that humans, animals, and the environment are interconnected. In quantum physics, the act of observation changes that which is being observed, just like our thoughts create our own reality. So I think of my art as a manifestation of my mind and thoughts which can influence others in a positive way, and change the world. In my videos and performances, I often try to visualize cleansing my thoughts, not only personal memories but also collective memories through the meditative process.  

MH: What’s the best part about being an artist?
JY: For me being an artist is trying to remember who I really am. Spirituality is about remembering who we are, which is pure love, pure consciousness, and infinite being. I search for answers, I create my work, and then I share my effort, rather than keep it to myself. And I share all of this through my visual art.

“Sowing Seeds of Emptiness” is at Garrison Art Center in Garrison, NY through November 6th.
There will be an artist talk on Saturday, October 8 at 2:30 at the gallery.
www.jayoungyoon.com

IMAGE LIST
  1. The Offering Bowl 07, 2022, artist's hair, artist's mother's gray hair, 6 x 6 x 6 in.
  2. The Offering Bowl 07, 2022, (detail)
  3. The Offering Bowl 02, 2018, artist's hair, feather, thorn fragment, glue, 6 x 6  x 6 in.
  4. Form and Emptiness 01, 2015, artist's hair, glue, 8 x 8 x 8 in.
  5. Form and Emptiness 02, 2015, artist's hair, glue, 8 x 8 x 8 in.
  6. Form and Emptiness 14, 2017, artist's hair, glue, 8 x 8 x 8 in.
  7. Sensing Thought 06, (detail), 2019, artist's hair, glue, thorn fragment wrapped with hair, 11 x 5½ x 5½ in.
  8. The Lotus Leaf, 2013, artist's hair, 36 x 27 x 27 in.
  9. The Skull, 2016, artist's hair, glue, 8 x 6 x 8 in.
10. The Portal, 2017-present, artist’s hair, 10 ft. x 5 1/2 in. x 5 1/2 in.
11. The Portal, (detail)
12. The artist and The Portal at Garrison Art Center.
13. The Membrane, 2017, artist's hair, glue, 60 x 30 in.
14. The Membrane, 2017, (detail)
15. Empty Void 28, 2020, artist's hair, acrylic medium on panel, 8 x 8 x 1 in.
16. Empty Void 34, 2020, artist's hair, acrylic medium on panel, 10 x 10 x 1 in.
17. Empty Void 25, 2018, artist's hair, acrylic medium on panel, 8 x 8 x 1 in.
18. Web of Life, 2017, artist's and artist family's hair, urethane resin, approximately 9 ft. diameter
19. The Chair, 2007, Synthetic hair, fishing line, fishing weights, 34 x 15 x 16 in.
20. The Chair, 2007, (detail)
21. Watching the Mind, 2009, photographic documentation of a video performance
22. The Hand, 2008, photograph of a wearable hair sculpture on body
23. The artist wearing The Glove sculpture.
24. The artist in her studio.
25. The artist at Garrison Art Center.

Patricia Fabricant

Patricia Fabricant is a Brooklyn-based artist who works in a variety of styles, from painterly portraits to woven icons to pure abstraction. Her enduring interest in portraiture led her to paint herself in unconventional poses, with grins and grimaces that are at once humorous and disturbing. The unflattering aspect of her self-portraits makes sense in the context of the series, which was a direct response to the 2016 presidential election. Fabricant painted her horror, shock, and rage, then wove them together to express more than one emotion at a time. She also wove the self-portraits with paintings of mandalas, creating icons with radiating halos that recall Byzantine Madonnas. It’s astonishing how many self-portraits Fabricant painted to create her weavings, and one admires the tenacity of a middle-aged woman to scrutinize herself in the mirror for three solid years. Indeed, when she reached her saturation point, Fabricant returned to the abstract patterns that she was painting prior to 2016. This series has a raw energy that is similar to the woven self-portraits: whimsical, textured, and vibrating with layers of saturated color. Also like the self-portraits, the patterns seem to point beyond themselves, not to a failed presidency, but to a meditative state induced by the intense concentration of the artist. Like radiant strands of DNA, the interweaving colors multiply and assert their own order within the chaos of the painting. In her ongoing exploration of pattern and decoration, Fabricant has created a life form that is a metaphor for something deeply complex and nonverbal.

MH: Over the years your work has gone back and forth between figuration and abstraction. How do you regard subject matter in your work, and how important is it to you?
PF: As a student I was primarily a figurative artist, and my senior thesis show was all portraits. I didn’t call them portraits, though; I called them paintings of people, because I wasn’t interested in creating a likeness. Later, when my work became predominantly abstract, I stayed connected to the figure by going to life drawing sessions. A big pivot in my work happened in 2016, following the presidential election. I’d been painting decorative abstract work up until that point, but in the face of what we were going through as a country, the work felt trivial. It didn’t seem like a path forward at that critical moment, and I was experiencing so many emotions – horror, shock, fury, sadness – that I started to look deeply into myself, and what came out of it were expressive self-portraits. As far as subject matter, it’s not critical to me. With the abstract work I avoid a subject altogether, even though there’s a human impulse to see one in the work.

MH: The self-portraits are funny, sometimes serious, always vulnerable. I love that some of them are so unflattering. What led you to paint yourself in this light?
PF: After the 2016 elections, I wanted to confront my anger head on, so I made a distorted facial expression and painted it while looking in the mirror. It felt like I was making my own emojis. It was never about trying to make myself look good; I wanted to try to get at something more real. 

MH: Jean-Paul Sartre wrote that if you look at yourself in a mirror for too long, you'll see a monkey. Was it difficult to spend so much time looking in the mirror? What came up for you?
PF: Yes, it was, and one of the things that came up was how much my face has changed, and what the middle-aged face looks like. It’s the same as when you look at a word too long. I’m a graphic designer and sometimes I’ll look at a word for so long that it suddenly looks wrong. This is what happened with my face, and why I eventually went back to abstraction.

MH: So you painted hundreds of these self-portraits, and at some point you started to cut them into strips and weave them. It’s interesting how the series evolved, and I wondered if you would talk about the inspiration behind weaving them.
PF: It was partly a result of the raw anger I was feeling about our new president – that feeling of wanting to break things, but I didn’t want to ruin the things in my apartment, so I started breaking my art by cutting it into strips. The weaving came together when I was trying to express more than one emotion at the same time, so I’d weave funny and angry together. It went through a lot of iterations: I painted portraits of other people and wove them into my self-portrait, I did a series where only half the face was woven, I did a series that I call “Icons”, where I painted mandalas and then wove my self-portrait into them, creating a radiating effect, and I painted flowers and wove myself together with them. 

MH: Some of the woven self-portraits distort your face into a fleshy blob. One can read a lot into this: annihilation of the ego, loss of selfhood, or perhaps you were painting the monkey. How did it feel to paint yourself as no-self? Was it liberating in some way?
PF: I didn’t actually paint myself as no-self; the no-self came when I wove them together. So even though there wasn’t a conscious decision to obliterate the self, that was the result. Someone pointed out to me that in the woven self-portraits, only half of each painting is visible; the other half is behind the other portrait. So in effect there is a shadow self-portrait hidden beneath what you see. I love that idea.

MH: You came to an end with this series and moved into the abstract patterns that you’re still painting. Why did you depart from the self-portraits, and how did you arrive at the current series?
PF: After three years of self-portraits, I couldn’t look at myself anymore. I was doing these small, fluorescent abstractions on the side, and I realized that I was returning to something that felt familiar and inspiring. I was ready to go back into that body of work. 

MH: What is it about this style of working that appeals to you? Is it primarily process-oriented, or do they have a conceptual underpinning?  
PF: It’s primarily process oriented. I make some formal decisions when I start so that I have a sense of where I’m going with it, and then I lose myself in the process. So they’re more formal than conceptual in my approach and inspiration.

MH: What do you mean when you say formal? 
PF: They’re more about form, composition, color, line, relationships, layering, and that’s where they connect to the self-portraits. Even though I’m not literally weaving, what I’m creating has the effect of something that’s woven. I’m interested in the ambiguity inherent in layering. I don't necessarily want it to be clear which shapes are on top and which recede into the background.

MH: In reference to these paintings, you write that the work may be the by-product of your need to create your own internal order to cope with the chaos outside your head. (Terribly misquoted – sorry!) Does painting abstract patterns feel appropriate for our current political climate? More broadly, does pure abstraction serve as a kind of convenient speechlessness? A sensuous veil that covers up the grotesque?
PF: That’s an interesting perspective. The self-portraits were a reaction to the chaos and horror of our time, but maybe decoration is as well. Maybe this is a way of putting up a veil between me and the world. 

MH: In a sense you could say that all of art is a veil between our existence and some imagined world. Should we even expect art to be more than that?
PF: There have been points in history where art has made a difference. Like that portrait of George Floyd that was everywhere and resonated so much. And then there’s Goya, Picasso’s Guernica; there have always been artists who confront political issues directly and who make a difference. Some are didactic, some require so much explanation that the work almost doesn’t matter because you have to read a whole essay to understand it. It’s more that we need art to sustain ourselves as a species, rather than whether art moves the needle in any way. 

MH: In your current series of abstractions, there’s an energy that comes from the lines that feels like it has its own intelligence. They appear to be complex organisms that create their own order within chaos. How do you regard the lines and shapes? 
PF: One of the things that’s important to me is that you can see the imperfections and the hand in the painting. The undulating lines create a texture that can look like hair or the surface of water or drapery. I feel like it’s successful when it has that surface texture. Sometimes when I’m working on a painting, I’ll see something happening and I’ll sort of coax it out and let it take over. The way this process works is that when they’re done, they’re done. I don’t go back into them. The hard part for me is restraint; I tend to fill them in completely, so I’m trying to hold back and leave space. It’s not my nature; I have a little horror vacui, or maybe its OCD. 

MH: You refer to the Pattern and Decoration movement as an influence in your work. Would you briefly explain what the P&D movement was, and how it has inspired you?
PF: The P&D movement emerged in the early ‘70s, primarily women led, and unapologetically decorative. It was a feminist-based movement, and in some sense, a reaction to Minimalism, which was more austere and masculine. They used techniques in art-making traditionally associated with women’s work: sewing, weaving, quilting, and decoration. So I saw this show at Los Angeles MOCA, “With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art”, and it was very exciting to me, because there were some artists that I know who are still actively working: Arlene Slavin, Joyce Kosloff, Dee Shapiro. Seeing the show helped me put some context into my own work with pattern and design. It validated my work in a lot of ways and made me feel that I was connecting to something bigger.

MH: Pattern implies repetition, and unbroken repetition often gives rise to a meditative state. The sheer accumulation of shapes can create a state of suspension, or even of awe. Was this ever discussed as part of the P&D movement? Namely, was there the potential for the pattern to create a state of transcendence?
PF: That’s an interesting question. I haven’t read anything that indicates that, but I know that it’s something that I feel keenly when I’m working. It’s hard to imagine that it didn’t happen for them as well. 

MH: Is there the potential for the patterns that you make to create a state of transcendence for you? That out-of-body experience where you’re super focused and everything else slips away?
PF: They absolutely do. I completely lose myself in the making, and my aim is to create that effect for the viewer as well. 

MH: Have you ever experienced awe in the face of accumulation? I’m thinking of Tara Donovan, who uses everyday objects like drinking straws – zillions of them – to create massive sculptures, or Islamic designs that are based on a single, interlocking shape.  Also, the work of Wolfgang Laib, who painstakingly collects jars of pollen for his installations. Are you drawn to this type of work?
PF: 100%. I often feel awed by art, but accumulation has a big impact on me, and can spark that feeling of awe.

MH: Do you think that patterning and repetition beget a certain intelligence, an internal order that gently takes over the painting? The artist can either fight it or go with the flow and see what arises. Have you experienced this, and if so, are you comfortable giving up the driver’s seat? 
PF: I have an ongoing push and pull with the work. I’m open to letting it drive me a bit, and sometimes I’ll gently nudge it back. Other times I’ll make a mistake, and then decide to go with it rather than try to correct my mistake. That’s really ceding control for me. But there’s a lot of control in what I’m doing for sure. It’s not loose, it’s not gestural. 

MH: How do you hope people will react to your pattern paintings? What’s the optimum response?
PF: Awe would be the optimum response, and for that I need to push to a larger scale so they encompass an entire field of vision. At their current size, they’re more like objects, which I like, but I’m interested in what scale would do. I’m more interested in a visceral response than an intellectual one.

MH: You also do a fair amount of curating. How does that figure into your creative practice?
PF: I love curating, and that’s more about my intellectual side. The curations that I’ve done are aesthetically driven, but I love putting things together in a logical way. I think this derives from my work as a designer; I design a lot of art books and it uses another part of my brain that I also use when I curate.

MH: What’s the best part about being an artist?
PF: I love the community. I know some artists who are real introverts and hate having to go out, but I love communicating with artists and having artists in my life. I also like the fact that I never have to retire, that I can keep doing this for the rest of my life.

www.patriciafabricant.com

Image List
  1. Icon 122618, 2018, gouache on paper, woven, 12 x 9 in.
  2. Icon 010719, 2019, gouache on paper, woven, 12 x 9 in.
  3. Icon 070918, 2018, gouache on paper, woven, 12 x 9 in.
  4. Woven Self-Portrait 082417, 2017, gouache on paper, woven, 24 x 18 in.
  5. Faceless, 2017, gouache on paper on panel, 12 x 12 in.
  6. Angry, 2017, gouache on paper, 16 x 12 in.
  7. Sad, 2017, gouache on paper, 16 x 12 in.
8. Seductive, 2017, gouache on paper, 16 x 12 in.
  9. Stumped, 2017, gouache on paper, 16 x 12 in.
10. Shocked, 2017, gouache on paper, 16 x 12 in.
11. 062820, 2020, gouache on panel, 14 x 11 in.
12. 051021, 2021, gouache on panel, 14 x 11 in.
13. 121221, 2021, gouache on panel, 14 x 11 in.
14. 101921, 2021, gouache on panel, 14 x 11 in.
15. 112221, 2021, gouache on panel, 14 x 11 in.
16. Burst, 2011, gouache on paper, 24 x 18 in.
17. Red Dancer, 2003, oil on wood, 24 x 24 in.
18. Desdemona, 2004, oil on wood, 33 x 48 in.
19. Zones, 2006, oil on wood, 40.5 x 48 in.
20. Azure, 2012, gouache on paper, 24 x 18 in.
21. 080912, 2012, gouache on paper, 12 x 9 in.
22. Silkscreen, 2013, silkscreen on paper, 11 x 8.5 in.
23. Silkscreen, 2013, silkscreen on paper, 11 x 8.5 in.
24. The artist in her studio. 

Donna Ruff

Donna Ruff is a visual artist who works with the printed word. She cuts, burns, and alters text, pushing the limitations of its ability to communicate with clarity. By removing portions of writing, she highlights that which remains, challenging the narrative as well as the narrator. Who tells the story of our country’s history? Who decides which news stories dominate the headlines? In her work with newspapers, Ruff overlays a geometrical design onto the front page, then removes the negative shapes by cutting them by hand. She leaves just enough behind that the viewer can discern the context, but also engage with the sacred geometry embedded in the design. These interlocking patterns are based in Islamic and Judaic motifs, evoking a contemplative state of mind as one grinds through the news headlines. This juxtaposition is at the heart of Ruff’s work: the contrast of positive and negative space, the removal of text to underscore the remaining content, and the defacing of the narrative to question its authority. Beyond contemplation, Ruff’s intention is to engage the viewer/reader in the stories and create a historical archive of the critical issues of our times. In another series, Ruff examines the Federalist Papers, the foundational writings of American democracy. She burns away the letters, literally removing every jot and tittle, leaving a ghost-like pattern that is a fitting metaphor for the current disintegration of human rights in our country. Ruff has worked in many mediums, always with text, language, and a heart for social justice. There is a beauty in her work that goes beyond aesthetic gratification, a thread of empathy that weaves through every newspaper headline, every burnt book page. This empathy speaks to the story behind the news, the interminable narrative of human dignity and suffering. Ruff presents these stories with grace and compassion, reminding us that in spite of the headlines, the prevailing narrative will always be our care for one another.

 MH: You’ve shared some of your family history with me, and it seems that books and language are in your DNA. Have you always had a deep connection to books?
DR: Oddly enough, I’ve always had a deep connection to encyclopedias. My grandparents had a scrap paper company and my grandmother used to save encyclopedias from the shredder, taping pages back together. So even as a young child, there was a reverence for books. When we eventually got a set of encyclopedias, it seemed like an amazing gift. Then as an adult, I illustrated children’s books, so I thought about narrative and the sequencing of a page. I learned how to bind books in grad school, and then later found out that my grandfather was a bookbinder. So I have a lot of experience with books in various ways, and I think there may be something in my family history that sparked that connection. My mother used to say that this was why I became an artist, because they’d take me down to their scrap paper warehouse and give me a bunch of paper and I’d sit on the floor of the office and draw pictures.

MH: I see your work with books as both additive and subtractive. You burn, scrape, sew, and paint over text, leaving fragments of language and meaning, open to interpretation. What’s going on inside your head as you engage in this process?
DR: I didn’t start burning until 9/11. Seeing the towers burn, thinking about all those people dying, you couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by it. This inspired me to burn as a way of processing the whole event. Then I met Willie Cole at Rutgers, and he was using hot irons and burning patterns on paper. That really stuck with me. When I started burning book pages, I transferred an image of a tree limb onto the page, then burned out the negative spaces. I liked the texture that resulted from the layering of text, shape, burned edges, as well as the subject of the book, which in this case was Freud’s “Interpretation of Dreams”.

MH: What did this work represent to you?
DR: My mother had just died of a brain tumor, but prior to that she’d lost the ability to speak, so I became obsessed with language, the brain, and cancer cells. I was interested in Rorschach blots and mirroring, and my designs reflected this. And it’s very satisfying to burn paper!

MH: There’s the sense that you’re sculpting with language, meticulously choosing what stays and what goes. Do you ever think of your process as an eclectic form of writing? Or are your editing choices purely visual?
DR: It’s definitely not just visual. With the newspaper pages, I cut the patterns by hand, so I’m constantly thinking about what I’m going to cut away and what I’m going to leave. I choose a front page that has an interesting photograph – for example, I often use photographs of migrants. Then there’s figuring out the pattern that I’m going to cut away, its placement on the page, and then once I start cutting, I think about leaving enough of the text that you can get a sense of the narrative from the words that are left behind. I’m constantly making decisions during my process, mostly visual decisions, but also of content.

MH: I’m intrigued by the idea of an artist using writing as the primary visual element in her work. A counterpart to that might be a writer who paints with language, creating an abstract painting with the written word. What is it about text that engages you?
DR: Early on I looked at artists who work with text, like Suzanne McClelland, who was working very abstractly and loosely with interwoven text. Lesley Dill was also a big influence. She worked with type and fonts in a way that the text became an image itself. Then my mother became ill and lost the ability to speak, so I never knew what she was understanding. This made me think about how much goes into the brain, and how much we process when it comes to language. I got interested in the idea of cutting or burning some of the text away, which has the effect of highlighting what’s left. And it pulls someone in closer to see what was left behind, so the work becomes more intimate.

MH: That’s one of the things that I like about text, the fact that it draws people into the piece. But for me, once they’re engaged, I don’t want them to fixate on the writing by trying to read or interpret it. It’s just another design element, not to be taken literally, as it were. How do you feel about this in your work?
DR: That’s interesting because in your work you’re literally building words with letters, so why go to all that effort if you don’t want them to read it?

MH: For me, it’s more about what’s being transmitted than what it’s saying. But with yours, people get in close to see what you left behind, and then they’ll probably try to read it. Are you good with that?
DR: I like when they get in close because they’re engaging with the story. If they see the front page of a newspaper, they might just give it a cursory glance, check out the headlines, and then turn the page. But if they see the front page with all these shapes cut out of it, they’re going to get in there and look carefully, and maybe they’ll question why I chose that page. Ultimately, I feel that I am a communicator. It’s kind of like writing a story with images because I want the content to be foregrounded and at the same time, I want the negative space to be foregrounded.

MH: Abstract art is like poetry in that it circles around a subject or sensation and creates an emotional response, but it’s not always the best tool for expressing a specific idea. Does your choice of geometric design reflect something specific that you want to communicate?
DR: Yes, in a sense. When I went to grad school after being an illustrator for so many years, I was trying to get away from anything that was figurative, because I felt like it was going to look like illustration. So I was exploring abstraction in a way that felt familiar to me, and it had to have some gravitas. I guess I’m kind of a serious person. The geometric abstraction comes from a lot of cultural influences. It’s very much about abstract ideas that are important to me.

MH: By overlaying the geometric pattern onto newspaper headlines, are you offering a counter-narrative to biased reporting?
DR: Not so much a counter-narrative as a suggested context. I don’t believe reporting is biased, but of course it’s mostly the violence that makes the news. I believe that we comprehend what we read according to our experiences and most people don’t know much about that part of the world. There is beauty and transcendence in the Middle East and the forms themselves are used not just in Islamic religious architecture, but also in synagogues and domestic architecture, just as the interlocking geometry is used on screens to allow breezes in and keep the sun out.

MH: It’s interesting that you overlay religious based patterns into the news. Do you see this series as a commentary on faith, not only spiritual faith but faith in the news media?
DR: The shapes aren’t religious based except in the sense that the repetitive shapes represent the unending nature of the universe, and their use in religious architecture is meant to encourage contemplation. I’m interested in the idea of sacred geometry and have done other series with circles and squares. Given my family’s reverence for the book, which is common to both Judaism and Islam, I guess you could view my overlay of these forms on the newspaper as a reverential act, but I think of it as preserving important moments in time as the news comes and goes in a flash.

MH: In that sense, you could take some of the articles that are buried deep in the paper, stories about people we’ve never heard of, and put an overlay onto that.
DR: I deliberately don’t use the inside pages. I have to use the masthead, because it is iconic, whether it’s the New York Times, the Miami Herald, or Wall Street Journal. The headline places it in history. The inside doesn’t have the same visual impact. And I like to think about the stories that make the front page: who gets there, how big is the type, how big is the photo, is it above or below the fold? I find that all very interesting.

MH: How do you hope that people will react to this series? What’s the optimum response?
DR: I want people to have empathy for what’s going on in the photograph, particularly the ones about migrants. The real value of that body of work is that it’s a historical archive. It’s something palpable that has frozen those stories in time.

MH: Burning has a ritualistic quality to it. In every religion there’s a sacrament that involves fire, burning away, destroying the obstacles that impair clear knowing. Is there an aspect of this in your work?
DR: Probably, but I don’t think of it in that way. Always in the back of my mind is the idea of book burning, like in the Holocaust, and even now, the censorship of texts. I mean, book burning is so symbolic! When you burn a book, you’re literally destroying a culture’s history and narrative; you’re destroying ideas. I’m conscious of the deep symbolism. Especially with the series I did in 2019 with the Federalist Papers – that was in my mind all the time. We are burning the Constitution; we are destroying our democracy.

MH: Would you talk about your recent large wall piece made with T-shirts? How does that fit in with the rest of your work?
DR: This is something that feels very close to me right now. During Covid I was cleaning out my closet and came across a lot of T-shirts from my old protest marches. I knew that I wasn’t going to wear them again, but I didn’t want to throw them out because they’re history. I decided to cut them up, then I dipped them in plaster and let them dry, allowing some of the words and images to show through. Finally, I put them all together on a wall, and it started to look like a memorial, so I stuck flowers on them, and invited others to add flowers to them.

MH: So Donna, you’ve had a long career as an artist, and I’m sure you have a lot more work ahead of you. And here we are in 2022, in unprecedented times, wondering what’s coming down the pike. Does it feel empowering or toothless to be an artist in the face of such uncertainty?
DR: That’s such a difficult question. I wouldn’t say that art is toothless, but it’s discouraging to think that what we’re doing isn’t making a difference. I demonstrated during the war in Vietnam, and we actually made a difference back then, but it doesn’t seem like that could happen now. There’s too much splintering and too much misinformation. So as much as I want to feel like what I’m doing makes a difference, I don’t know that it does.

MH: Does art have a purpose in a tenuous democracy? When we create artwork on a sinking ship, can we expect to keep it afloat, or are we just giving the passengers something nice to look at as they submerge?
DR: Like the orchestra that continued to play as the Titanic sank? [haha] I think that art is important, and it’s important now to keep it in front of peoples’ faces. But if you look at history, there were times when it was just a distraction from the real work of getting people to pay attention to what’s going on. I’ve voted in every election since I was twenty-one, and I believe the only way to make change is to vote. But now it seems like most politicians care more about their careers than about who they’re working for. But no, I haven’t gotten to the point where I’m thinking that we’re the orchestra that’s playing while the ship goes down, or the orchestra in the concentration camp.

MH: Then it sounds like you still have hope, even if it’s just a shred.
DR: I couldn’t get up in the morning if I didn’t have a shred of hope.

MH: I think that’s one of the hallmarks of being an artist, the fact that we hold onto hope until we simply can’t anymore.
DR: I feel so grateful to be an artist because I have something to keep me going every day, something that feels important ­– it’s certainly important to me. I’m still thinking, experimenting, still have energy for trying new things, and I still have hope that it will make a difference.

MH: I wonder if art has the capacity to change minds, to wake people up. Has that ever been possible? Or does the woke person gravitate toward evolved art because she’s already evolved? Which came first: the woke chicken or the enlightened egg?
DR: I don’t think people change their minds by looking at art. It’s long exposure to many ideas over time, and art is a piece in this process. The art world has become so diverse, very experimental, artists doing work that’s participatory and post-studio art. When it comes to art about social justice, I believe that creating empathy is really the key.

MH: I see art as the antidote to cynicism. We’ve become so jaded, so divorced from trust in our government and news sources, that we have little faith in any form of communication. Art has become essential, not to match the new couch, but as a vital expression of integrity. What are your thoughts on this?
DR: I agree that art is more than what looks good over the couch. But there’s been a lot of interest again in abstraction, so maybe people are turning away from social justice issues in art, and they’d rather have the nice shapes over the couch. I do think that art can bring a ray of light into peoples’ lives, even if they’re using it to avoid the dark. That’s not a bad thing. If everyone becomes so cynical that they don’t do anything, that’s not good either. That’s maybe even worse.

MH: When artists go into their studios and dive into their work, they may not be making political or socially responsible work, whatever that is, but they’re creating authentic work. And I would argue that this very act provides a counter-narrative to the shifting political truths that we hear about constantly in the news. How do you regard authenticity when it comes to your work?
DR: The word authenticity is very loaded right now. I’m true to myself and my own vision, and that’s important to me. One of the things that makes us so vulnerable as artists is that we’re being honest in our work. We’re saying, this is what’s important to me! This is what I believe! And if someone’s not interested in it, it’s hard not to take it personally. That honesty is the kernel of what’s so engaging about art. You can see it. There’s a gravitas in good work that you can always respond to.

MH: Art may not have the ability to change minds or wake people out of their sleep, but it tells a different story than the mainstream narrative. So when our ship does indeed sink and the next civilization paddles up to inspect the flotsam, they’ll see the art and know that there were some among us who cared about truth and basic goodness.
DR: So when they come across Jeff Koons’ giant “Puppy”, they’re going to assume that this is what we were all about? [haha] We see the art of cultures from long ago and we put our own meaning on it. It takes an art historian to know that those Greek sculptures were painted at one time. We have a sense of beauty, which to me is still the guiding force in everything I do. That’s part of my core; I can’t put stuff out there that doesn’t have a certain beauty to it. I want it to be alluring – I want people to get pulled in.

MH: What do you want your flotsam to say to future generations? What mark would you like to make?
DR: Empathy is important to me. But in the end, is anything we make that important? I’m happy that the work has been collected by some museums, so they’ll take good care of it. But I’m not so sure of my own value in this world to think that it’ll be important for someone to dig up something of mine. I’m a miniscule part of the big picture. 

MH: What’s the best part about being an artist?
DR: Making art, making anything really, is deeply satisfying. The fact that I have the skills and focus to make beautiful objects is a great blessing, especially as I get older. I can’t overstate how important that is to me. I like to think that what I’m doing is bringing something positive to the world that wouldn’t be there otherwise.

www.donnaruffstudio.com

Image List
1. 2.2.12, 2012, cut newspaper, 16.5 x 11.5 in.
  2. 2.23.13, 2014, cut newspaper, 16.5 x 11.5 in.
3. 10.18.21, 2022, cut newspaper, 15 x 11 in.
  4. 2.21.21, 2021, cut newspaper, 20 x 11 in.
  5. 10.28.13, Homage to Lou, 2013, cut newspaper, 16.5. x 11.5 in.
6. 10.11.14, 2014, cut newspaper, 17.5 x 11.5 in.
  7. 2.7.11, 2011, cut newspaper, 17.5 x 10 in.
  8. Fanatic 3, 2006, burned book page, 9 x 9 in.
  9. Fanatic 4, 2014, burned book page 9 x 7 in.
10. Fan 271, 2019, burned book page 8 x 8.5 in.
11. Frieze 8, 2012, burn and gold leaf on handmade paper, 28 x 21 in.
12. Frieze 24, 2015, burn and gold leaf on handmade paper, 28 x 21 in.
13. True Light, from the Federalist Papers series, 2019, laser cut paper, 30 x 22 in.
14. Its Own Importance, from the Federalist Papers series, 2019, laser cut paper, 30 x 22 in.
15. Senate, from the Federalist Papers series, 2019, laser cut paper, 10.5 x 8 in.
16. Political, from the Federalist Papers series, 2019, lasercut paper, 10.5 x 8 in.
17. In Darkness, 2006, book with text removed by x-acto knife, 9 x 12 x 2 in.
18. Stop Press 2, 2016, cut newspaper, 15 x 11 in.
19. Extrano, 2019, laser cut dye sublimation prints on children’s blankets
20. Extrano, (detail), 2019, laser cut dye sublimation prints on children’s blankets
21. Extrano, 2019, laser cut dye sublimation prints on children’s blankets
22. Rend, 2020-2022, commemorative t-shirts, plaster, flowers, dimensions variable
23. Rend, (detail)
24, 25. The artist in her studio.

Leslie Kerby

Leslie Kerby is a Brooklyn-based artist who concerns herself with the complex socioeconomic systems that impact our lives daily. My eyes glazed over when she brought up the subject of supply chain management, and I wondered what would entice an artist to take a running leap into the tangled web of corporate culture. But her enthusiasm is contagious, as I discovered when she explained the intricacies of the shipping container industry. It’s clear that Kerby enjoys the reactions to her wonky subject matter, which she talks about with great humor. Her interest in these systems began in her early twenties, when she was a social worker and had to navigate the social services sector. Later, her interest expanded to the complex networks that make our lives run smoothly, such as the medical care industry and the funeral and burial industries. Kerby’s intention is not to point out the failings of these systems; rather, it’s to bring awareness to the labyrinthine networks that are indispensable to our everyday lives. Through her various mediums of paint, printmaking, collage, video, and sculpture, Kerby makes her subject matter visually appealing, which in turn makes one want to understand the container industry and its discontents. One thing that stood out clearly during our conversation was Kerby’s genuine warmth and care for others. Her years in social service gave her the skills to listen closely to the back stories of peoples’ lives, and to make connections in unexpected ways. This shows up in her curatorial practice, where she juxtaposes artists who explore similar topics with different visual languages. Kerby’s curatorial practice, along with her art practice and frankly her life practice, is about building the kind of connections that create community and make us want to help each other.

MH: You’re an artist and a curator, but in a previous life you were a social worker, and you also worked in corporate communications. How do your former careers inform your creative work?
LK: They do in so many ways. In my early twenties, right out of college, I was a case worker at a social services agency. I had eighty people who I was responsible for, and I often developed intimate relationships with them. I learned how to sit and listen, how to understand where people were coming from, and how to think on my feet during a crisis. The situation was often different than when it was first presented, so I learned to listen to the back story that precipitated the crisis. I also spent some time interviewing people for food stamps, which exposed me to that whole social system. I became interested in the social networks and systems that we don’t think about day-to-day, that have a huge influence on how we operate in our lives. My challenge as an artist is to find interesting ways to present this information in a way that will engage people and get them talking about it. I was also in corporate communications, a focus group moderator at an advertising agency, the assistant director at the Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton for a few years, and I worked at the Johnson Museum at Cornell on their development team, and on and on. I have a very long resume!

MH: It’s sort of humorous if you look at this long list of things that you’ve done. They’re so unrelated to the art world!
LK: Yes and no. The art world is also full of people, and there are surprising ways in which I draw on all these experiences, no matter what it is that I’m doing. I also represented graphic designers for eighteen years, helping them build their careers. That was a stepping stone into the world of paper and design. I started making small, abstract collages, which became greeting cards, which turned into a greeting card business! [laughter] I sold a line to museum shops and other arts institutions for about eight years and exhibited at the stationary show at the Javits Center.

MH: Is your work with hidden systems, like the shipping industry for example, a creative response to the years that you worked in social networks? I’m wondering if it got under your skin, and you started seeing connections everywhere you looked.
LK: I think it’s always been a part of my general interest. I read widely and I like a challenge, and for me it’s interesting to talk about things that seem like they’re in the background, but have a big impact on what we’re doing day-to-day. I get excited about presenting this information in an interesting way, then hearing the responses to my work, and having conversations about it. I guess I’m just a social being.

MH: It’s interesting that your subject matter is based in left brain logic, and your creative work is based in right brain intuition. How do you think about this contrast?
LK: I like to think that I’m engaging both sides of the brain. I have an analytical side to my personality, and I’ve always had a creative side as well, but I didn’t express it visually until I started making the greeting cards. That was my entry into the visual realm, because these small collages became larger images, and then I had someone interested in showing those in a gallery.

MH: It sounds like you don’t really see the left brain/right brain contrast, but you see it as more free flowing.
LK: It is, and always has been. I used to express my creative side through sewing, creating my own patterns for clothing, cooking, that sort of thing. In the early days when I worked at companies, people would ask me if I was a lawyer because of the language I used, so I know I have a strong analytical side as well. Maybe the two sides are more blended now.

MH: Can you talk about some of the networks that you’ve explored in your work? For example, you became engrossed in the shipping container industry and supply chain management. Most eyes glaze over just reading those words, but you took a deep dive into its intricate structures. I’m curious what drew you into studying this subject?
LK: It started with observing that shipping containers were becoming a part of our everyday lives. I started reading about the industry and learned that shipping containers were being used in tent cities, and as vehicles for hydroponic farming, and I saw that they were being used for markets in Brooklyn. I read up on the history of the shipping container industry, which got me interested in the current system of supply chain management. This system maximizes inventory by keeping it moving out of warehouses, so companies don’t have to store so much stuff because they keep it moving throughout the world.

MH: Was there a graphic aspect to the shipping containers that also intrigued you? Do the systems that you choose to explore also have a strong visual component that engages you and informs your work?
LK: Yes and no. Certainly for the shipping containers, there were graphic design elements that I was drawn to, like their shapes, colors, how they’re stacked, the letters and numbers on the sides of the container, even the names of the companies. I found all of that very appealing. The work that I’ve done with cemeteries was also visually intriguing because the headstones and monuments can have interesting shapes. But when I came to the medical industry, it didn’t have a strong visual component, so it took me a long time to figure out how I wanted to deal with that.

MH: As you study these obscure systems and begin to grasp their complexities, are you more apt to find order or chaos? Are you expecting to find one over the other?
LK: It’s not that I’m expecting to find chaos, it’s more that I’m sensing that we’re at a significant moment of change. Taking on some of these systems is a big task, and collectively we may need to think about how we want to approach them differently, or what we might want to demand from the systems. I’m not looking at it as though there’s something wrong, but that something big is happening and it would be interesting to have a conversation about it. I’m trying to be open to what’s there.

MH: Do you ever feel like it’s too late for these conversations?
LK: Things change very quickly! By the time the public becomes aware of it, it’s almost too late. But I’m an optimist, so I try to find a way to be positive, and maybe that’s the point of my artmaking process. These are difficult and complicated subjects that people may not want to bother with, but maybe we can bother with them and have a few laughs while we discuss them. 

MH: Do you get the sense that all these complex organisms are working in unison, or are they hopelessly out of sync? For example, is the medical industry compatible with the body’s immune system? And is the shipping container industry supportive of the democratic system of government? One likes to think that humanity is well served, but often that’s not the case.
LK: I think that there are misalignments between them, but I believe they could be brought back into sync. These systems are big and unwieldy, but the crux of the problem that underlies everything is the inability of people to understand other people.

MH: What do you think is the underlying cause of the breakdown of systems?
LK: I’d say the baseline is money. There’s money to be made with the systems, and that ends up being the driving force behind the ways that they get completely out of whack.

MH: With your skills and knowledge, you could have had a flourishing career as a supply chain analyst, but instead you chose to be an artist. What pulled you in that direction? Was it the salary and benefits?
LK: Ha! Hardly. I could have gone in a thousand different directions with my experience. I’d been representing artists and graphic designers for many years, and I’d been doing a lot of things for other people, which is a part of my personality and gives me great joy. But I felt like there was something I wanted to express, and art making turned out to be the thing I wanted to explore. 

MH: What’s your studio practice like? You say that you get restless working with one material, so you work in a variety of mediums and styles. How do you choose which medium to use on a series?
LK: I always try to find the best material to articulate my subject. I feel like almost daily I’m jumping off the diving board, because I’m always experimenting, trying new mediums and new approaches with familiar materials. I also love collaborating with artists, and that’s opened a new world for me. I started working with Lianne Arnold, a video artist, and Elisheba Ittoop, a sound designer, and the three of us created the shipping container project. [see video below] Lianne and I subsequently worked on a video that explores the mechanics of the medical industry. I love collaborating because the other women come up with great suggestions that I never would have thought of, and this enriches the project. And I have absolutely no problem touting their praises because we’re all in it together.

MH: Do you have an ego?
LK: Yes, I do have an ego, but I enjoy working with other people so I’m happy to share in that journey. If they’re excited about working with me and coming up with this way to present something, I’m gratified.

The World Contained, II by Leslie Kerby, Lianne Arnold, and Elisheba Ittoop

MH: Some of your work hints at better ways to conduct our interpersonal relationships. There’s the issue of how to negotiate public and private spaces, and there’s a series that you did that introduces new ways to “bury” our dead. Would you talk about that a little?
LK: My interest in cemeteries initially had to do with access. Who has access to the cemetery, and who can be buried there? Then I became interested in the social networks found in cemeteries – there are the founding families of the town here, the people with money here, and the poor families over there. And I thought, we’re doing the same thing in death that we do in life! And then there’s the fact that cemeteries are becoming obsolete because most have reached their capacity. How should we think about memorializing our loved ones if the physical cemetery isn't going to be available? I explored these ideas during a residency in Virginia, cutting out silhouettes of monuments in vellum and making structures that I hung in my studio as mobiles. This instigated some great conversations about memorials versus monuments, and the funeral industry in general. Then I went on another residency in Dumbo and worked with Lianne on a video that was projected onto the mobiles. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and all this was pre-Covid, so I’m dying [haha] to present it to a wider audience.

MH: There’s the stereotype of the artist as a harried introvert who goes into her studio, locks the door, and paints in isolation all day, every day. This doesn’t sound like you. How important is community and connection for you?
LK: Community is everything for me. When I started showing my work in galleries, I realized that I didn’t have a network in the art community, so I was going to have to get myself out there and meet people. As a result, I know a lot of people. When I ask someone to work with me or collaborate on a project, they often know me and they’re receptive to it, and I find that very gratifying. I also have days when I get into working in my studio. I love the quiet and the ability to think things through, but then I quickly get to a point where I feel like I’ve got to get out there and talk to people about my ideas. I feel like I can’t exist without community, honestly.

MH:  When you curate, you create interesting conversations between artists through their work. One could say that in your studio practice you’re depicting systems, while in your curatorial practice you’re creating them. How would you describe your practice as a curator?
LK: I’ve had the luxury of being associated with this project space in Midtown that a lawyer friend has, called Project: ARTspace. I’ve been grateful for the opportunities to curate shows without any directive. When I put the shows together, I find artists whose works touch on the same topic but in different ways. I try to create interesting juxtapositions, exploring the connections between works that someone else might not have put together. And I’m so happy when people get the connection; it’s very gratifying to me. 

MH: In your curation practice, you’re creating connections in real time. When you’re in the studio and engaged in your creative work, do you have the sense of being connected? And if so, to what?
LK: I can easily work for eight hours at a stretch, and I love those days when everything is flowing. It feels like what’s in my head is coming out through my fingers; things feel easy, and they make sense in the bigger picture of the series that I’m creating. It feels magical, and I get those days fairly often. But it’s also important to me to go out and see the shows as a way of staying connected with the current conversation about art. I also read a lot of the art magazines, like Hyperallergic and Two Coats of Paint and the various interviews, because it also helps me to stay up to date with the larger conversation.

MH: What’s the best part about being an artist?
LK: Getting to do what you want to do. There’s incredible freedom in getting an idea and then expressing it. And then all the artist friends that I’ve made who sustain me and feed me, and all the friends I’ve made through making art and collaborating. I feel like my life is full because of that, and it takes me to places that I never would have gone or sought out. I also find that no matter where I go in the world, I meet people and make great connections. Honestly, that to me is so thrilling.

www.lesliekerby.com

Image List
  1. New Tacks and Tracks IV, 2021, monoprint with relief plates on Katakata paper, 18 x 21.5 in.
  2. New Tacks and Tracks, 2021, monoprint with relief plates on Katakata paper, 21.5 x 18 in.
  3. New Tacks and Tracks VII, 2021, relief monoprint on Katakata paper, 21.5 x 18 in.
In the “Container” series, titles were derived from the international shipping code indicating country of origin and type of container.
  4. Containment SN U22V2, 2018, monoprint, 15 x 17.5 in.
  5. Containment EG U42P9, 2017, monoprint with chine collé, 22 x 15 in.
  6. Containment BD U26HO, 2014, monoprint collage with linocut and intaglio, 17 x 15.5 in.
  7. Containment HK U22P3, 2014, monoprint collage with linocut, intaglio, and tape, 17 x 15.5 in.
  8. Containment KP U22V3, 2014, monoprint collage with linocut and intaglio, 17 x 15.5 in.
  9. Poster for the Gowanus, 2022, watercolor, acrylic and graphite on vellum, 19 x 24 in.
In her “Happy Place” series, the artist reached out to friends during the pandemic and asked for photos of where they were finding peace, then painted the images.
10. Happy Place 11, 2021, watercolor, acrylic, and graphite on vellum, 10 x 10 in.
11. Happy Place 10, 2021, watercolor, acrylic, and graphite on vellum, 10 x 10 in.

12. Happy Place 13, 2021, watercolor, acrylic, and graphite on vellum, 10 x 10 in.
13. Happy Place 9, 2021, watercolor, acrylic, and graphite on vellum, 10 x 10 in.
The “Total Accumulation” series uses the Tiffany box as a stand in to talk about financial inequality and our propensity to accumulate wealth, debt and people.
14. Total Accumulation, 2019, collage with paper, pen and ink, handmade stamps, 30 x 22 in.
15. Total Accumulation VI, 2019, collage with paper, pen and ink, handmade stamps, 15 x 22 in.
16. Total Accumulation VII, 2019, collage with paper, pen and ink, handmade stamps, 22 x 30 in.
The “Laying On of Hands” series takes a close look at the medical industry.
17. Back To Nature, 2021, trace monotype with chine collé, 30 x 40 in.
18. The Safety Net, 2015, mixed media collage (oil, pen and ink, paper litho transfer), 18 x 20 in.
19. The Patients 5, 2015, mixed media collage (oil, pen and ink, paper litho transfer), 18x 20 in.
20. Blanket Coverage, 2016, mixed media collage (oil, pen and ink, paper litho transfer, gouache),  22x 30 in.
21. Closing Ceremony, 2019, installation at Brooklyn Bridge Park. This video and mobile installation looks at the funeral industry.
22. The World Contained II, 2017, video presented in collaboration with XAOC Contemporary Ballet at Norte Maar’s CounterPointe program 23. The World Contained II, 2018, video presented at BRIC Arts Media, commissioned through the Garage Door Art FP, projected at 57 x 17 ft.
24. The artist in her studio

Oriane Stender

Oriane Stender is a Brooklyn-based artist who has worked with a variety of materials, from book pages to currency to stitched photographs. In her recent series, she combines traditional weaving with painting in a unique process that she has refined over time. These “woven paintings”, as she calls them, differ from conventional painting in that the paint is not applied onto the canvas, it is woven into it. The threads are painted on the loom ahead of the weaving process, resulting in a rich, variegated canvas with shapes that overlap, blur, and soften at their edges. Stender sometimes refers to herself in jest as a “soft-edge abstract painter”, a fitting description of her work on many levels. It’s fair to say that her larger body of work has always combined abstraction with some form of weaving, either literally or metaphorically. Her dollar bills interweave pop imagery with currency, a wry commentary on the consumer-driven art world, and her woven and shaped book pages carry a narrative of the parental expectations that cast a long shadow over her childhood. Over the years, Stender has seamlessly woven her identity into her work, rewriting her personal history and discovering herself in the warp and weft of her creative process. We covered a lot of ground in our conversation, but what came through was the grace and humor of an artist who is devoted to her practice, be it fine art, craft, or both.

MH: For many years your work was paper based, much of it focused on currency. You cut, sewed, and wove dollar bills, and you also worked on book pages. Can you talk a little about your older series?
OS: I started working with money because it’s a material that everyone recognizes and has a relationship with. I wasn’t interested in the self-referential work that artists make when they refer to other artists and art history. The references don’t mean anything to someone outside of the art world, but money is something that everyone has feelings about, has a direct relationship with, and handles every day. And there’s a lot of imagery in the dollar bill that goes unseen, so I could zero in on all this imagery that was hidden, but in plain sight. It seemed like a fertile medium. The book pages were more personal. I’m named after a character from “In Search of Lost Time” by Proust, so I worked with pages taken from the novel. It was a heavy legacy, and I was never able to read all of Proust. I got through the first one but it was a slog, and a metaphor for heavy parental expectations. Like, they gave me this name and I can’t even read the book! So somehow by altering the pages, cutting and drawing and engaging with every page, I reclaimed my identity and made myself the protagonist of my own story. And as I worked, I listened to it on tape, so I did end up reading the whole book. This series was very personal and important to me.

MH: A few years ago, you made a big shift to traditional weaving. It seemed like a sea change, and I’m curious what instigated the shift in medium.
OS: I’ve always been interested in weaving. After I graduated from UC Berkeley, I took a semester-long weaving class at what used to be CCAC (California College of Arts and Crafts). I put a lot of time into it, bought a loom, and worked as a studio assistant for a weaver. What I like about weaving is that it has a strength and integrity as an art medium, because rather than making an armature and then painting on the surface, you’re building the structure and surface simultaneously as you weave. 

MH: Were you dissatisfied with what you were doing before you moved to traditional weaving?
OS: It’s not so much that I was dissatisfied, it was more like I was done with that chapter. I might revisit it, and in fact I did a residency in France a few years ago and obviously I couldn’t take my loom, so I worked on my book pages. And I was making these weavings with paper, but I wanted to delve deeper into the practice that I was doing. Like painters who want to grind their own pigments, I wanted to get into the roots of the practice.

MH: You mentioned that your work is a hybrid of painting and weaving. How so?
OS: In traditional painting you start with a woven piece of canvas and then you paint on the surface. I’m breaking that down and doing it in the reverse order. I paint the threads, and then I weave them into a solid canvas. I refer to them as “woven paintings”, and I’ve developed this process over several years, figuring out what kind of paint works best, how to pull the warp so it’s under tension when I paint, and which monotype and stencil methods work best. I’m not doing fancy weaving here – the painting is really where the action happens.

MH: What is the conceptual aspect of your work? How do you think about it?
OS: Weaving itself has a rich history. It’s an ancient technology that has contemporary applications, and there are mythologies around weaving from every culture. In most myths, women were the weavers, so that’s one connection. Another is the universal symbology of circles that I often use in my work. It could be the egg, fertility, the earth – I like to use imagery that’s not culturally specific. It’s not going to mean the same thing to everyone, but it’s going to mean something to everyone. And then there’s the metaphor of the warp and the weft. The warp is what’s set out there first on the loom, and it’s like the identity that my parents gave me. They had this child and they named it Oriane and it was their idea; that’s my warp. The weft is what you make of it. You can’t alter the warp once it’s on the loom, so it’s a metaphor for what life has set out for you before you do anything, and then the weft comes along and there’s all kinds of decisions that make us who we are. All these things come to me as I’m working; it's not like I think them up ahead of time. It’s a meditative process and I’m in this zone where I’m open to the metaphors associated with the task.

MH: Switching from a conceptually based, fine art medium to a traditional craft-based medium must have brought with it a host of considerations, some anticipated and some unexpected. Do you face any issues when you identify as a weaver? The art world loves to label, which can be annoying.
OS: I don’t see it as having left one world and entered another. I still consider it a conceptually based practice; it’s both conceptual and hands-on craft. But so were the money weavings. Even before I was working on the loom, it was important to me to have a good balance between the conceptual and the craft. If I had to distill the goal of my practice it would be to keep that balance close. Because it’s a dichotomy, like everything in life; you don’t want to fall too far on one side or the other. We’re whole beings, and we have to live both in our minds and in our bodies.

MH: Do you find that people react to you differently now that you’re a weaver?
OS: I don’t say I’m a weaver. I say that I’m working in a combination of weaving and painting. It’s not a practice that’s easily described. I sometimes call myself a soft-edge abstract painter, to distinguish myself from hard-edge abstraction. 

MH: Craft was embraced by the snobby art world decades ago; in theory there’s no longer a delineation between “fine art” and “craft”. In your experience, has there been any residual snobbery? Do you ever feel that your work is regarded as something other than fine art?
OS: For sure, even though fine art is my background – I studied it and I know art history. I don’t have a background in craft so the assumptions that come with it are inaccurate. Some artists have broken down the barriers between art and craft, others haven’t been successful in doing so. I feel like it’s an unnecessary categorization, and I don’t concern myself with it too much.

MH:  How or when does craft differ from fine art? One delineation might be that in traditional craft, the artisan disappears into the work and remains relatively anonymous, whereas in the fine arts, her presence is felt and pronounced. One is about the product, the other is about the artist. What do you think?
OS: I think the original division was that craft was about making useful things – all your plates, clothes, and the stuff that you use in daily life. When people got to the point where they had a little disposable income, they could afford to buy pretty things to put on the wall. That’s called “art” because it has no other function. But that’s a simple way of looking at it.

MH: Do you think the nonfunctional objects on the wall, or “art”, gradually became more about the artist than the art?
OS: Sure, it can be about status, like when a collector wants to buy a painting because the artist has a big name. When you get into the higher levels of art, collectors are buying a white painting because it’s a Ryman, not a white painting. That’s been around for a long time, with wealthy families like the Medici who commissioned portraits from the big artists of the day. But you could say that those paintings were also functional in the sense that they portrayed the rich person’s social status and helped them remain in power. And then there was the Church who paid artisans to create stained glass windows that told stories from the Bible for the illiterate people.

MH: It’s like fine art has an agenda, which may be political or religious, but craft has more of a utilitarian purpose. Fine art is trying to persuade you of something; craft has no axe to grind.
OS: Yes, but then you have to ask, what agenda does my art have? It isn’t didactic; it’s not narrative. Abstract work is different. Its agenda is more subtle, mystical, emotional, visceral – there are all kinds of reactions that it can evoke that aren’t just conceptual. 

MH: Do you think that when craft crossed over into fine art over the last few decades, it lost its utilitarian purpose? I’m thinking of Ruth Asawa’s baskets that are not designed to hold anything. Maybe the definition of fine art is that it doesn’t do anything practical.
OS – And you can’t carry anything in it! (haha) You say that weaving has been accepted, but that’s not so universally true. There are some superstars that have made it into the canon – Anni Albers, Sheila Hicks, Sophie Taeuber-Arp – but it’s not like suddenly weaving was fine art. Some people have accepted it, and some haven’t.

MH: When an object is referred to as “well crafted”, it generally means that the hand of the artist is not seen. There’s an emphasis on the quality, integrity, and utilitarian aspect of the object. This is very different from the current art world, which values imperfection and even sloppiness. How do you approach your work now? Do you embrace the imperfections in your weavings, or do you prefer them to be flawless?
OS: I don’t pay any attention to what’s embraced by the art world. Trends come and go. In terms of my own work, I try for perfection, knowing that there will be plenty of mistakes, so I don’t have to program them in. I don’t have to try to make a drip because there will always be drips. I could try to control things more, but I let those things go and the imperfections are just there.

MH: In Japanese woodworking, the practitioner is taught the skill of complex joinery over many years of apprenticeship. The focus is on the integrity of the lineage, and self-expression is not valued in the tradition. Do you feel connected to a lineage of weavers, across history and cultures?
OS: Yes, but in more of a broad sense. I haven’t studied under a strict lineage, so I don’t have that connection, but I feel connected to the history of weaving. At this point we’re so disconnected from the earth’s history and human history that it’s like we’re on some alternate planet. We sit in front of screens, we don’t grow our own food, we don’t do the things that people used to have to do to survive. Any feeling we have of connection is more on an intellectual level. Weaving is something I do that links me to the past in a positive way.

MH: When you’re working in the studio and at your very best, do you ever “disappear” into your work? Is there ever the sense of merging with your medium?
OS: Not so much merging with my medium, but there are times when I’ll forget to eat, or suddenly I realize that I’m faint because I haven’t stopped for hours. But yes, there are times when I’m really in the flow, and it feels like the weaving has a direction and I’m just following it.

MH: These rarified moments in the studio of becoming one with the medium are what the mystic strives for. It’s like we transcend the dense material and rote process and experience an extended moment of bliss. Does this happen because we lose our sense of separateness?
OS: I don’t feel like I disappear. That feeling you’re describing I get that more from yoga. I get that in moments in weaving, but not for extended periods. There are so many tasks involved with weaving at the loom that it would be hard to lose myself completely.

MH: The mystic refers to these moments of bliss as “a glimpse of the goal”. Beyond the galleries, sales, and reviews, what is your ultimate goal as an artist? Have you had glimpses of it?
OS: On one level, I feel like what we do as artists is very selfish. We’re not out there saving the world, feeding the poor, whatever. We’re here trying to make things that please us and give us a transcendent feeling. But how much of that is just to make myself feel good? So you can look at it as totally selfish, but it’s also possible that my work will inspire someone, or give them a feeling of transcendence. For me it comes from a place of self-care and self-healing, and I don’t know if I need to know what the greater goal is. I continue my work with this sense of devotion without knowing whether it’ll mean anything to anyone else.

MH: Devotion to what?
OS: Hard to say, because I don’t have any spiritual beliefs. It’s a discipline. I don’t have much discipline in other areas of my life – this is the only one, so without it I’d just be a blob. I don’t know what motivates me to work with so much devotion, but it’s very healing for me.

MH: I wonder if your work carries the essence of self-healing in some way. If an artist makes work that has a certain energy or intention, does it show up in the work?
OS: Hopefully the objects that you make will carry some of that spirit and affect someone else. That would be great. I can’t say that’s my goal, but I think it’s a possibility.

MH: Are there any last words that you’d like to say about your work and your process? Something that might be generally overlooked by your viewers?
OS: Explaining my work and making sure that people understand it was more important to me when I was younger. Now I feel like if it takes that much verbiage to get you interested, then it’s not doing its job visually. I hope that the work is successful from a distance and then as you get up close it reveals something more. I think if they look closely, they’ll see that there’s a lot going on. 

Oriane Stender

Image List
Unless otherwise indicated, all woven pieces are mixed pigments and airbrush inks on handwoven cotton and silk.
  1. Marilyn Monroe Dollar, 2014, dollar bill woven with images of Andy Warhol’s painting, 3.5 x 6.25 in.
  2. Marilyn Marilyn, 2014, dollar bills woven with images of Andy Warhol’s paintings, 6.25 x 6.25 in.
  3. Yellow Dollar, 2014, dollar bill woven with flower painting, 3.5 x 6.25 in.
  4. Flowers 2, (Anni/Andy), 2019, 33 x 26.5 in.
  5. Untitled Woven Painting, 2019, 41 x 26.5 in.
  6. Untitled Woven Painting (Half Os Pink/Blue on Orange), 2021, 37 x 26 in.
  7. Chandelier Ghost Lace, 2020, 35 x 20 in.
  8. Flowers 1 (Anni/Andy), 2019, 33 x 26.5 in.
  9. Untitled Woven Painting (Radiating Rings), 2021, 45 x 27 in.
10. Flower Dollar, 2015, dollar bill woven with painting, 6.25 x 6.25 in.
11. Dinars to Dollars, 2004, U.S. dollar woven with Iraqi dinar note, 3.5 x 6.25 in.
12. Dollar Curtain, 2001, curtain made of cut 1/4” squares of dollar bills sewn together, 31 x 25 in.
13. Dollar Curtain, detail
14. Ugmolu 5, 2003, cut and stitched money, 13 x 13 in.
15. Ugmolu 5, detail
16. Untitled Woven Painting (Circles, Ovals), 2019, 41 x 26.5 in.
17. Untitled Woven Painting (Wonky Rings on Orange), 2020, 45 x 27 in.
18. Untitled Woven Painting (Wonky Rings on Orange), detail.
19. Watermelon Candy, 2021, 45 x 27 in.
20. Watermelon Candy, detail
21. Untitled Bookpage Totem, detail, 2017, book pages from Proust, beeswax, size of full piece: 53 x 12 in.
22. The Story of O, 2018, ink on bookpage, 16 x 12 in.
23. The Story of O (le voisine mysterieux), 2017, ink on book page (Proust), 8 x 5.75 in.
24. Untitled Bookpage Drawing (Pinwheels), 2016, ink on bookpage, 36.5 x 28.5 in.
25, 26. The artist in her studio.

Carla Rae Johnson

Carla Rae Johnson is an artist, writer, educator, feminist, and social activist. Her work is about individuals and collaborations, some historic and some imagined, often addressing inequality and social injustice. In her current show at Garrison Art Center, From the Séance Series, Johnson brings together historical figures from disparate periods to engage in intimate tête-à-têtes. She creates sculptural tableaux where these unlikely couplings take place, with accompanying drawings, and the viewer is left to imagine the dialogue between the players. No two people will hear the same conversation: some will hear Audre Lorde praising Abraham Lincoln for his courage in abolishing slavery; others will hear her chiding him for not taking a harder stand against the South. The brilliance of Johnson’s work is that she gives you the information – and she does copious amounts of research for every tableau – and then she backs off and lets your imagination fill in the blanks. Her larger body of work includes painting, drawing, sculpture, performance, installation, and a fair amount of humor. Indeed, she uses her sharp wit and a seemingly endless supply of puns to address difficult issues of social and political import. Running through all of Johnson’s work is a golden thread of compassion for her fellow travelers, a faith in humanity that supersedes the current movement toward intolerance. As racist and patriarchal belief systems attempt to elbow their way back into the mainstream, it’s encouraging to encounter an artist and activist whose work is deeply rooted in justice for all.

***
 My conversation with Carla Rae Johnson was a live event, recorded at Garrison Art Center in Garrison, New York on May 28, 2022. The following is an edited version of our conversation.
***

MH: The Séance Series proposes hypothetical meetings between creative and historic figures who never met during their lifetimes. How do you come up with the pairings? What questions do you ask of them, as the facilitator of the conversation?
CRJ: When coming up with the pairings, I try to choose opposites – people who you couldn’t imagine talking to each other, or even in a room together. They’re usually figures who are separated in time, although some of their lives overlap chronologically. I only consider people whom I’ve admired at some point in my life, people I think very highly of. I research each person for at least a year, reading anything I can get my hands on that they wrote or said, including their biographies. And I bring them together through drawings, which are usually done first. I find visual metaphors that connect the two figures, and I find common ground in terms of what they said or did or who they were. Then I create a visual tableau that’s like a theater set: it’s the furniture for their meeting. Instead of asking them questions, I posit that they’re playing a game with each other. Games are a form of communication, every bit as potent as a conversation, and choosing the game and how it’s played also informs the piece and how the two come together.

MH: I was especially drawn to the piece “Audre Lorde Meets Abraham Lincoln,” which is included in the show. One of Lorde’s famous quotes is, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”. This would have been very challenging for a white privileged patriarch such as Lincoln. Do you consider the discomfort and disparity that the pairings create?
CRJ: Yes, there’s a little feminist agenda there. I do think that Audre Lorde would have held Abraham Lincoln to task. She was a 20th-century activist and described herself as a black lesbian feminist warrior poet mother.  She and Lincoln are playing bridge, but it’s not the card game; it’s an actual bridge, and I felt that Lincoln is the one who has to build it. He’s not at all finished, because as you can see on Lorde’s side, it’s incomplete. Today more than ever we can see how incomplete it is and how much work needs to be done.

MH: I think it’s brilliant that you incorporate some Lincoln Logs into the piece. Your work is often humorous, which is interesting, given that your subject matter can be heavy or controversial.
CRJ: Humor is a thread that has run through the work from the very beginning. I grew up with humor in my household; my father was an inveterate punster. I use puns unreservedly in my work because I find them to be concise metaphors. They put two ideas together in one word. So even though everyone moans and groans when there’s a pun in the house, they’re very clever and can sometimes be profound. And yes, those are intended to be Lincoln Logs.

MH: It’s very subtle.
CRJ: Yes. Another thing that I love about incorporating humor is that it’s a way to say hard truths. You package them in such a way that people smile, and then they process after the fact. If they have no entry point to a challenging idea and it’s simply didactic, it’s less likely that they’re going to try to process the information or the truth that’s there. So humor is a way to do that for me.

MH: I love the idea of these conversations happening between artists from different eras, or “time zones”, as it were. Have you thought about whom you’d like to be paired with? What would you talk about?
CRJ: I’d like to sit down with Fanny Lou Hamer. She was a Mississippi sharecropper in the 1960s, and her parents had twenty children. She came from a dirt-poor situation, had a sixth-grade education, and lived at the height of racism and horror in rural Mississippi. She fought for voting rights, not just for black people but for women, the less educated, and all people. Some civil rights leaders wouldn’t listen to anyone who wasn’t Ivy League-educated, or who didn’t have a Ph.D., but she encouraged everyone to come to the table. The reason I’d like to talk to Fannie Lou Hamer is that she was never intimidated, even though she was beaten and her life was threatened. I want to know how she kept her positive attitude and her hope in the face of what was going on in Mississippi in the 1960s. 

MH: I’ve heard some people say that they don’t like descriptive titles. They say that they get in the way, but I think they’re saying that the concept is getting in the way of experiencing the piece on a purely aesthetic level. Where do you stand on this? How important are the title and conceptual aspects of your work? Is the piece complete without them?
CRJ: Extremely important, and no, it’s not complete without it. If there were no words or descriptions in the gallery, it would be very challenging to identify the figures who are represented here. I came up through art school in an era when you weren’t supposed to talk about the work, ever. If it needed verbal buttressing, it wasn’t up to snuff. And if you went to hear a panel of artists, it would be all guys, and they wouldn’t speak about the work – it was supposed to speak for itself. I never bought into any of that. The work comes from a conceptual base, and I want people to understand it. I’m aware that an artist can make work that gives you all the information you need to understand it, and you say, okay, I get it, and walk away from it. You can also make art that’s open, with a wide variation as to how that piece could be interpreted. I think I’m in the middle somewhere because I don’t want it to be wide open, although every time I talk to someone there are some new insights, so it isn’t completely closed off. 

MH: If someone came to the show, looked at the work, but didn’t read anything, is that ok with you? If they like a piece and respond to it but don’t know what it’s about?
CRJ: Oh hell no, I’d grab them by the collar and pull them back in. [haha] Of course I’d be open to that. My intention is that these will be beautiful, elegant objects to contemplate whether you know what I intended or not. But you might get a sense of an unfinished task here, a sense of imbalance and discomfort there, or you might pick up on some inequality going on. Those things might not be verbal, but I would hope that those sensibilities would come into play. 

MH: Do you enjoy the process of making the work as much as coming up with the ideas? I’m wondering where you geek out the most in your process ­– is it in the craft, or in solving the technical issues that come up when you’re working? Or do you go down rabbit holes with your ideas?
CRJ: Sometimes I hate the process, like with one piece in the show there were a lot of compound angles, and I didn’t know how to cut them. I’m self-trained as a woodworker, so there's a tremendous amount of head-scratching that goes into it. That part of the process is a lot of fun once you figure it out. It’s very empowering. But I think the more fun part for me is the conceptual end of it: dreaming up the idea, tossing it around, doing the research, and I have a lot of fun doing the drawings because they’re another way of discovering the piece. 

MH: A recent body of your work features larger-than-life female figures painted on panels with their faces cut out. Visitors can stick their heads in the hole and have their photo taken as an imagined historic figure. The viewer becomes Virginia Woolf as an environmentalist cleaning up the Hudson River, or Harriet Tubman, helping those seeking asylum at the U.S. border. It feels like you’re psychologically putting the viewers in other people’s shoes. In one piece, you literally place the viewer on a pedestal. Beyond the fun photo ops that these pieces generate, do you think that your interactive works evoke something in the viewer, some sensibility to these women’s causes?
CRJ: I have no way of knowing. I’ve never had anybody who put their face in a hole and had their picture taken come up to me and say, “Oh my God! I’m Virginia Woolf!” But yes, the intention is to evoke a sensibility for these women. I wanted people to think like Virginia Woolf, or have the courage of Fannie Lou Hamer, and what I realized is that all this artwork that I’m doing, bringing people back, is because I notice something missing in myself. I’m not a courageous person, so I figure that if I keep making art about Audre Lorde, maybe I’ll be more courageous, and maybe my voice will speak out at a moment when it really matters. The only way we can bring these women back is to become more like them ourselves.

MH: When I look at your larger body of work, I see a theme running through it that can be summed up in one word: compassion. Your work is about individuals and collaborations, some historical and some imagined, but always with the intention of creating equality for all human beings. Where does this drive come from?
CRJ: That’s the first time I’ve had the word compassion used as a description of the thread that goes through the body of work. It’s been a long process for me to move toward work that is focused on social justice. But certainly, social justice is compassion. This drive may have come from my Methodist upbringing, but I think where it really comes from is the Holocaust. When I was in college, I took a course in 20th-century American history, and the teacher showed a film called “The Twisted Cross”, which was a propaganda film that had women and men falling all over themselves to get close to Hitler. I’d never thought the Holocaust was a real thing that happened until I studied it and understood the events leading up to it. It devastated me, and I knew that I needed to do something in my life that countered what happened there. I didn’t know how or what, but I was thinking about being an artist, and I pursued that path because nobody told me otherwise. So I think that was the germ of how this all came about.

MH: If you stand in front of a work of art for long enough, you get a sense of the artist’s creative process: her mistakes, her frustrations, and how she pulled it together. What emerges is the intelligence of the artist and the expression of immense compassion. Does this ring true for you? Do you think that art conveys the humanity of the artist?
CRJ: I think it can. I’ve known some artists who made some deeply sensitive work but were real assholes in their lifetimes. I personally respond to art that conveys that compassion.

MH: Is there an artist who comes to mind whose work evokes compassion?
CRJ: Kate Kollwitz’s works evoke that for me, probably Mary Cassatt, although I’m not a big fan of Impressionism because of the eye candy factor, but there’s a lot of mothering compassion that comes through in her work. I also think the work of Goya shows compassion.

MH: I thought of Rothko.
CRJ: Yes, and Sue Coe is a contemporary artist whose work is in your face with the kind of imagery that’s built on compassion for animals and humans.

MH: In some ways, art is a salve that provides the artist with some relief, and then we share that with others, hoping that it will give them some relief as well. What do you think of that idea?
CRJ: I think that’s true, and that’s at the heart of what I’m trying to do.

MH: I once read that the history of art is the history of artists. It’s easy to forget when you’re wandering through the Met, or leafing through Janson’s History of Art, that each painting, each sculpture is evidence of a life that was concerned with experiencing and expressing what it means to be human. And every artist does this in her own way. For you, it seems that the way to be human and to be an artist is to address issues of inequality and injustice.
CRJ: Yes, I think that’s true, but not always. A couple of the Séance Series pieces weren’t so much focused on social justice as on the creative process. Duchamp and Dickinson were two creative people who were groundbreakers during their lifetimes. And the pairing of Beethoven with Bessie Smith was about joy and fun, although she also sang the blues.

MH: To quote the sculptor Stephen de Staebler: “Behind every artwork, there is a breathing, feeling human being called ‘the artist’ who creates out of a drive and an energy that remains untapped in most of us.” What is ultimately more important, the life lived, or the artwork produced by that life?
CRJ: The life lived, without hesitation. Artists are always going to make beautiful and meaningful things, but there’s no way to replace the complexity of human life with all its experiences, and how that life interacts and interrelates. I was a teacher for almost forty years, mostly college art classes, and it occurred to me toward the end that all the energy and creative thought that went into the classroom studio was every bit as important to me as making art. I was totally absorbed in teaching, because it’s direct, while art is indirect. In the classroom, people get inspired, and they inspire each other and it's so exciting to watch people become empowered.

MH: I think of some of the tortured souls who were artists, many of whom died young. I’m thinking of Van Gogh, for example, or Beethoven. Was it their suffering that made the work great? As tragic as it was, I feel like it was their suffering and humanity that connects us to the work and makes it so rich.
CRJ: I think that’s true. When I was in my teens and twenties, I thought I wouldn’t live beyond thirty. I had that “tragic artist” future planned out for myself, that I’d either die or go insane.

MH: Connecting this to your work, I see humanity shining through in the form of social commentary, equality, and zero tolerance for injustice. Would you consider this to be fuel for your creative work?
CRJ: It is now. It’s been a process to get to that place, and there have been other things that have fueled it up until that point. But I think by the time I got to the Séance Series and beyond, I started to put my creative energies toward social commentary. 

MH: This has been a tragic couple of weeks, with the mass shootings in Buffalo and Texas. As humans, we’re worn down and temporarily speechless. What’s your default when these tragedies occur? Do you feel like it’s important to keep making art, or should we respectfully put down our brushes for a while? Is there anything that artists can do to make a difference in the face of so much suffering?
CRJ: I once read a quote that asked, “Does the poet continue writing poetry when the house is burning down?” Which is a tough question because our house is burning in the U.S. at this point in time. I do sometimes question why I’m making art when things are so horrible, and what I come up with is that it’s what I’ve trained myself to do, it’s what I do best, so it’s what I can offer. So after something tragic happens and time has passed, I come back to making art about it. I’ve been doing a lot of political cartoons since 2016 and again, humor is a saving grace for me. I’ll often react to a tragedy with a cartoon that’s funny-not-funny, and something profound may come out of it. 

MH: Have you ever considered another form of activism that may generate more immediate results? I can see you as a politician or human rights lawyer. Is art an effective vehicle for bringing about social change?
CRJ: It can be. I don’t know how often it is. I think of the work of Barbara Kruger – people pay attention to it because it’s savvy and sophisticated, but I don’t know any artists who can say with confidence that their work brings about social change. Lucy Lippard has always been a guiding light for me. She started out writing as an art historian, writing about “the boys” and writing very well, and then she became part of the feminist movement. But she managed to balance her critical writing about art with an incredible amount of activism. I march whenever I can and have been to DC many times. You’re just a body, but then there's a head count and it does signal something to people that maybe they need to pay attention to this issue.  

MH: Finally, what for you is the most satisfying part of being an artist?
CRJ: Training oneself to think creatively. There are those moments when you’ve done a lot of sweating and head scratching and figuring things out, and then you hit upon something that’s so much better than what you ever dreamt of finding. We live for that!

“From the Seance Series” is at Garrison Art Center through June 12.
www.carlaraejohnson.org

Image List
(Photo credit: Howard Goodman. Images 1-8 are from The Séance Series.)
  1. Frida Kahlo Meets Franz Kafka, 2022, wood and found chairs, 54 x 48 x 48 in.
  2. Audre Lorde Meets Abraham Lincoln, 2007, wood, 75 x 96 x 48 in.
  3. Bessie Smith Meets Beethoven, 2004, reconstructed piano, digital drawings, ostrich plumes, 58 x 60 x 27 in.
  4. Emily Dickinson Meets Marcel Duchamp, 2001, wood, 75 x 60 x 36 in.
  5. Hildegard of Bingen Meets Herman Melville, 2001, wood, 54 x 36 x 71 in.
  6. Georgia O’Keeffe Meets Galileo Galilei, 2014, wood, bone, paint, 90 x 54 x 41 in.
  7. Anne Frank Meets Albert Schweitzer, 2016, wood, paint, graphite, 99 drawings, 78.5 x 87 x 43 in.
  8. Frida Kahlo, Franz Kafka, 2017, graphite on vellum, 14 x 11 in.
  9. Voting Booth for Fannie Lou Hamer, 2017, wood and tape measures, 64 x 24 x 42 in.
10. Encore Power: Virginia Woolf, 2021, acrylic on face-in-a-hole panel, 72 x 42 x 24 in.
11. Encore Power: Harriet Tubman, acrylic on face-in-a-hole panel, 72 x 42 x 24 in.
12. Encore Power: Frida Kahlo, acrylic on face-in-a-hole panel, 72 x 42 x 24 in.
13. Encore Power: Fannie Lou Hamer, acrylic on face-in-a-hole panel, 72 x 42 x 24 in.
14. Monument to the Future, interactive pedestal, wood, paint, boots, carpet, silver fabric, 120 x 40 x 70 in. (with the artist)
15. The artist installing Audre Lorde Meets Abraham Lincoln.
16. CRJ and MH in conversation at Garrison Art Center in May 2022.

Janet Passehl

A few years ago, I went to ODETTA Gallery in Brooklyn to hear Janet Passehl talk about her intriguing work. She told a story that I’ve never forgotten and have retold many times. She was in a show in Connecticut, and happened to be in the gallery one day when a visitor walked in, looked around the gallery, and asked in a loud voice, “Where’s the art?” This type of comment would send most artists running to their therapist or the closest bar, but for Passehl it was a great compliment. Her work with cloth is not easily categorized or recognizable as art, thus it challenges our traditional conceptions about beauty and skill, process and product. Indeed, Passehl emphasizes that her work is not about the end product, but the piece is the process of making it. The finished cloth is an ongoing series of moments and a confluence of two wills: that of the artist and that of the cloth. She irons, folds, cuts, and weaves the cloth, while it exerts its own will upon the artist, shifting and breathing and asserting itself as a living, organic material. The collaboration is one of mutual respect, and we begin to feel the presence of the cloth as a separate being, a thing unto itself. In speaking of the finished works, Passehl says, “They’re always themselves, they’re always complete, and they’re always what they should be.”

MH: You started folding and ironing cloth in 1990, and you said in a way it was like drawing. How so? And what had you been doing prior to that?
JP: Prior to folding and ironing, I was using found cloth, hanging it, adhering things to it, and making marks with various materials. I was trying to find a way to make marks that would take longer and be more of a physical act, embracing time and movement. The folding and ironing became another form of mark making. I stained the cloth with tea or mud or whatever I could find, then the folding became an interplay between the stains, folds, and ghosts of folds that I’d already made. These became different kinds of lines with different qualities, and it all came out of drawing from life.

MH: What is it about cloth that intrigues you?
JP: I have a long relationship with cloth. I learned to sew when I was eight, and my grandmother and great-grandmother were seamstresses. As a child I was always designing and making clothing; if I wanted a stuffed animal, I’d make it. As an adult, I wanted to find a way to elicit an emotional response from the viewer without the use of imagery. Everyone has an intimate relationship with cloth; we all know what it feels like against our skin, and we have memories around it, so I thought that cloth would give me a way to build sympathy with my audience.

MH: So you start with a rectangular piece of cloth, and then you iron, drape, pin, cut, and so on. What happens during this process? Are you in control, or do you relinquish control? Does the fabric have a personality that needs to be respected?
JP: Respect is a big part of it. I feel close to my materials, like I have a loving relationship with them. I’m interested in the personality of the cloth and how it asserts its own characteristics. I was trying to control it by folding, ironing, and cutting, but I couldn’t because it’s this living and organic thing, always shifting and asserting itself. This striving for control, and the impossibility of control, is a big part of my work. I try to work with the material so that it stays alive and breathes. I always think of cloth as having two wills: the will to flatness and the will to drape. I worked with both of those for a long time, and now I’m weaving the cloth.

MH: Right. How did you arrive at weaving? It seems like a natural progression, making your own cloth.
JP: Weaving is where the work has always been headed. It embodies everything that I’ve been concerned with, which is time, duration, space, process, awareness. The loom is a purely rational process, but irrationality works its way in, so there’s this interesting intersection between logic, intuition, and emotion. The resulting product has its own life, physical posture, and way of being.

MH:  Cloth has so many variations in weaves and textures that each piece must have its distinct attributes. Do you find that you struggle with some pieces more than others? What would constitute a struggle in your process?
JP: When I’m weaving, I’m doing the same thing over and over but it’s different every time because of all the variations that can happen. Various tensions in the threads, threading the loom wrong – these things are a part of the process that I find enjoyable. In weaving class, I was the only one who didn’t mind having to go back and rethread. Working at the loom for me is something that takes as long as it takes. I call it “loom time” and it embodies my whole process.

MH: It sounds like the things that would normally be a struggle are the things you enjoy.
JP: Right. It’s important to me that it’s not just about the end product, but that the piece is the making of it. There’s no sense of production that I struggle with; I don’t feel like I have to hurry up and make fifteen of these. I just need to make something that speaks in the way that I want it to speak. And that takes as long as it takes.

MH: You mentioned that you wanted to create an emotional response in your work without the use of imagery and were drawn to experiment with cloth. And then you reduced your palette to black and white, which effectively strips away any residual sentimentality. It’s a wonderful challenge, to simultaneously starve and summon the emotions. Do you think you’ve been successful?
JP: First I want to say that my palette is not black and white. The pieces that I’m weaving are an off-white creamy color, and the previous body of work was light blue-gray. That's radically different from black and white. But yes, that’s what I set out to do when I started to iron – I wondered how minimal I could go, how simple and plain a thing I could present that would carry the information, emotion, mood, history, time, and duration. That’s been the challenge, and that’s really the crux of it. And based on what people tell me, there has been an emotional connection to the work.

MH: You use the term “radical simplicity”. What does this mean for you?
JP: I’m interested in how little I can do to create poetry. How something can be so basic and yet carry a lot of import is very important to me. This can be difficult for some people because it goes against their expectations of what art is.

MH: There’s a hint of something religious taking place in your work; a ritual or sacrament is suggested in the acts of cutting, draping, controlling, surrendering. And then there’s the use of fabric, which makes me think of a shroud or veil. I know you were raised Catholic, so I wonder if these themes creep into your work. Penitence? Transcendence?
JP: Not penitence! Possibly transcendence. My Catholic upbringing was early in life, in the 1960s, so the mass was still very aesthetic. There was the white cloth over the altar, the drapery, the incense, the iconography – these are things that I still respond to. I’m also interested in the idea of religion as the human search for meaning, and I’m moved by the art that’s been created because of those stories. I’m not a practicing Catholic at all or involved in any kind of dogma – I’m not even a seeker – but there seems to be something that I absorbed in my childhood about religion that shows up in my studio practice. Something about being with these materials; there’s the sense that I’m communing with a mystery.

MH: In Buddhism there’s the concept of tathata, or “suchness”, which is the essence of an object before ideas or words are attached to it. When I see the cloth, draped or lying flat, I experience it as a sort of primal presence that is at once immensely significant and essentially immaterial: it simply is, in the most profound sense. How would you respond to that interpretation?
JP: I like it – that’s how I respond to it. The work isn’t easily categorized. It’s not sculpture, it’s not drawing, it’s not a recognizable work of art. It’s something else, and that aspect has become important to me.

MH: I think of that great story that you told at your artist’s talk years ago, about the woman who walked into the gallery where your work was showing, looked around, and asked where the art was. I’m not sure why that touched me so deeply. I think the fact that you loved her reaction – indeed, that you were honored by it! – is so different from how most artists would respond. Can you say a few words about this?
JP: I like that the work is so quiet that somebody might not see it, particularly somebody who walks into an art exhibit with particular expectations. It speaks to the “suchness” that you brought up, that isn’t immediately recognizable as art. That’s not what it’s trying to be or needs to be. 

MH: It seems that ideally, you’d like your work to disappear, or to be assimilated into the environment.
JP: Yes and no. It depends on what the environment is. It could be in a cluttered environment and disappear into the clutter, which isn’t at all what I want. Ideally, I want the work to be in a quiet space but then not jump out of the space at you.

MH: When an artist gives the viewer a boatload of visual stimulation and then adds a strong conceptual basis, there’s the sense that it’s all wrapped up, no further instructions needed. The viewer doesn’t have much to do except enjoy the piece, or not, but she doesn’t need to exert much mental energy to interpret it. What’s your thinking around this?
JP: I don’t want the work to be wrapped up because that’s not realistic; it’s not a reflection of the world or of life. I want my work to be open enough that people can have their own response and associations, and it may open another way of thinking about the world. I often have people tell me that they thought a lot about my work after they saw it, so I think it elicits a kind of curiosity.

MH: On the other hand, when an artist gives minimal visual information or stimulation, the viewer has to work harder to generate a response to the work. They either spend time with it and try to understand where the artist is coming from, or they simply don’t care, and walk away. How do you feel about this? Are you good if some people walk away? Are you ever inclined to explain it?
JP: Well, if everyone likes what you do, you’re doing something wrong. Everyone wants something different out of a work of art. If someone asks me about it, I’m more than happy to talk about the work. It’s not that I explain it so much as I talk about the things that are meaningful to me about the work and my practice. These are in-depth conversations, so it becomes a meaningful connection.

MH: There’s the sense that by denying the viewer those elements of art that are so appealing – color, virtuosity, verisimilitude – you’re exhorting them to find poetry in the mundane. It’s like you’re asking them to flex an aesthetic muscle that doesn’t get much use. I’m thinking of the solitary thread that droops from the cloth, the imperfections in the weave – these passages are so basic and unremarkable, but they take on poetic significance in the context that you’ve created.
JP: I hope so. There are a lot of little hints in the work, and hopefully people tune in to those, and then find those small moments all around them. There’s so much that happens at a minute level in everyday life, the nuances and juxtapositions that we encounter if we pay attention.

MH: It’s like you’re giving people a gift, offering them a way to see more deeply into things.
JP: That would be the ideal. Occasionally I’ve had people say to me that they saw things differently after seeing my work.

MH: In some ways I experience your work as an event. There’s so much activity that goes into making it: cutting and ironing, pinning and draping, and so on, then the piece is experienced by the viewer, and then it continues on to become something else. It’s a perpetual work in progress, existing in time and space, whereas a painting is a painting is a painting, frozen in time, regardless of where it hangs. What do you think? Is your work better described as an event, possibly a verb?
JP: I think of it more as an ongoing series of moments, living and breathing. It’s exciting to me to look at these works and know that they’ll always be a little different: they’ll move, breathe, hang in distinct shapes. And the weaving is the culmination of all that – it feels like a collaboration with the work, like I’m equal to the work, rather than its commander. It’s an ecstatic feeling for me. With my older work, I was trying to force the cloth to behave in a certain way, but the weavings are more open than that. They’re always themselves, they’re always complete, and they’re always what they should be.

MH: You said that you don’t have good or bad days in the studio because you have no expectations of success or failure. How did you arrive at this place? It sounds sublime.
JP: It is sublime! I think it came from realizing that it’s not about how many pieces I can make or sell or how I can get a dealer and all of that. That’s simply not the way that I work. Plus I've learned over the forty years of being an artist and writer to trust the process. I just keep looking, thinking, reading, and most of all inquiring of my materials and processes, and I find the work I need to make, and it will find its way out into the world.

MH: Did you have to give up something to arrive there?
JP: Nothing except my illusions about being a hugely successful artist who has lots of shows and sells a ton of work. Once I realized that’s not the most important thing to me, then I was fine. Because as much as I'd welcome commercial success, I don't want it to get in the way of my creative freedom.

MH: Any final words?
JP: I’m very ambitious, but my ambition is about making the absolute best work I can make, and the only way to do that is to be totally honest and unsparing. It took me a while to get to this place, but now I’m comfortable with it, and it feels beautiful.

www.janetpassehl.com

Image List
1. Lenient and Truancy, 2021-22, hand-woven cotton, 61 x 19 x 2 and 47 x 18 x 2 in.
  2. Truancy, 2021
  3. (woven cloth, detail)
  4. (woven cloth, detail)
  5. (woven cloth, detail)
  6. (woven cloth, detail)
  7. (woven cloth, detail)
  8. (woven cloth, detail)
  9. Cloud for Yves Bonnefoy, 2021, machine-woven cotton, 45 x 12 x 6 in., Zürcher Gallery. Photo: Adam Reich
10. Blue Flower 3, 2018, machine woven cotton, 32 x 12 x 5 in. Thomas Rehbein Gallery, Cologne; Photo: Simon Vogel
11. Blue Flower 3, 2018, (detail)
12. Blue Flower 3, 2018, (view 2), Photo: Bradley Olsen
13. Blue Flower 2, 2018, Thomas Rehbein Gallery, Cologne; Photo: Simon Vogel
14. Star for YB, 2021, machine-woven cotton, 13 1/2 x 6 x 3 in., Zürcher Gallery, Photo: Adam Reich
15. Stars, machine-woven cotton, pins, 34 x 21 x 1 in., Zürcher Gallery, Photo: Adam Reich
16. Installation, 2017, ODETTA
17. Rain, 2017, machine-woven cotton, painted wood, 19 x 72 x 48 in., ODETTA
18. Knot, 2021, machine-woven cotton, 33 x 10 x 9 in., Zürcher Gallery, Photo: Adam Reich
19. The artist and her loom.
20. Detail of Untitled, 2021, machine-woven cotton, pin, 20 x 22 in., Zürcher Gallery, Photo: Adam Reich

Elizabeth Gourlay

The best way to get to know an artist is to spend time with her art. It’s there that her soul lies and her heart beats, and where her highest self is revealed through pure form and color. Elizabeth Gourlay’s paintings are at once radiant and understated, in keeping with the modest temperament of the artist. She applies thin washes of gray paint over planes of vibrant color because, in her words, “It’s hard for me to allow a color to pop without pushing it into the background.” The result is a vibrance that is more felt than seen, like clouds bursting with light from an invisible sun. And yet she allows her brilliance to shine every so often: here a thin line of lemon yellow, there a block of blazing orange. Through subtle juxtapositions that are second nature to the artist, Gourlay’s muted palette makes it possible for color to reach its highest potential. While our conversation took some interesting turns, it always came back to color and paint. Clearly this is the artist’s passion, and her depth of knowledge on the subject is extensive. In her show “Unexpected Windows” at Kenise Barnes Fine Art, the canvas departs from the traditional rectangle and assumes a shape that is integral to the painting. The irregular shapes are unexpected windows through which we catch glimpses of the artist’s thought process as she pushes color and form in unexpected new directions.

MH: Most artists work from nature at some point in their career. In art school we paint the figure, landscape, still life, all that good stuff. But later we make choices about what we want to paint, and whether we’re going to continue to work with representation. When did you move into pure abstraction? Was it when you were in grad school at Yale? Was it a gradual shift, or were you always drawn toward nonrepresentational art?
EG: It was a gradual shift. I started working with pure abstraction in 1986, but it was quite different than what I’m doing now. At Yale I was still working figuratively, doing circus paintings that were large and loose and becoming increasingly abstract. The big shift happened when I moved to New York City. I was living on the Bowery and my work made a huge shift into abstraction. I was making gestural shapes that relate to what I’m doing now, drawing with a pencil, and then painting on top of that. I got to show these at the Drawing Center in 1986, which was an amazing opportunity for me. After that I started experimenting with a lot of things – encaustic, collage, small sculptures, and eventually I started working with geometric shapes. 

MH: Your paintings appear to be about pure form, color, and relationships. But I see the barest hints of imagery in your work: windows, staircases, landscapes. How do you feel about your work being interpreted as representational?
EG: I don’t see it that way, but I don’t mind if people do. I’m happy for people to interpret it the way they want to. I’ve always been inspired by nature, and I enjoy representational art. Morandi is one of my favorite artists.

MH: In one of your paintings, I see a Tibetan nun wearing a bright orange robe, descending a stone staircase while chanting Buddhist mantras. Is that totally irritating?
EG: It’s not irritating, it’s fascinating because that’s not what I was thinking about at all. The color is never symbolic for me, but I’m happy if people read into it. Sometimes my work has a quirkiness that makes people see things that I didn’t intend.

MH: Your use of color is for me the most satisfying element of your work. I can’t help but think of Albers and the interaction of color, and I wonder if he’s been an influence in your work? Your muted palette creates a field against which the colors pop and vibrate. Can you talk a little about your use of color? 
EG: Color has been the most important element for me in my work since I started my schooling. When I started teaching color, I returned to Albers and taught my students how to use color interaction. I had them mix achromatic grays, and that’s something I use a lot in my own work. I love gray; I think it comes from living in Edinburgh, Scotland, which is a gray city. That’s where I first learned about color. Lately I find myself choosing some odd colors that I wouldn’t normally choose, like this new cobalt violet that I’ve been obsessed with for over a year now. I’m also using powdered pigments and mixing the paint myself, which I’m really excited about. I’m always experimenting with odd combinations and thinking about how to make colors pop. But it’s difficult for me to allow a color to pop without pushing it into the background.

MH: There’s considerable variation in your visual vocabulary. Sometimes I think of Agnes Martin, other times I recall Diebenkorn and his flat planes of color. But it’s rarely just one thing – all these elements are thrown together in a formal way, and my eye keeps moving around the canvas. Is this movement something you think about?
EG: I definitely think about movement. As a piece develops, I’m always thinking about where the eye is moving. The edges become very important, both the edges of the forms and the edges between forms. The eye should stay engaged on the piece, but your experience must go well beyond. A big shift happened about ten years ago, when I was in Italy for the summer. I’d be working in the studio and the sound from the street would come up through my window and bounce around the room. It was a recurring sound and I experienced it as a shape, echoing around the room. This, combined with seeing and experiencing the architecture of the buildings in the town, had a big influence on how I thought about shapes in my paintings.

MH: It seems like the way that you paint must be really satisfying.
EG: It can be, but I keep changing it, because I can’t repeat myself too many times. And then it’s satisfying to work with scale, going from small to large and back to small. But yes, I enjoy it. If I’m having a good day and I’m on a roll, it’s super satisfying. But it’s not consistent.

MH: I’m also interested in how/when/why you chose to depart from the traditional rectangular canvas to work with shaped panels. They’re so satisfying visually – I can imagine that it’s extremely pleasurable to paint on them. Does the departure from the rectangle influence how you approach the canvas? Are your formal choices affected by the contours of the panel?
EG: Yes, I find that the shaped panel strongly influences the composition. Sometimes when I work on a rectangle or square there are overwhelming possibilities, but the shaped canvas gives me a direction. In some cases, it’s like the shape tells me how to paint the piece. I didn’t realize until I started making the shaped pieces that I was probably influenced by my father. He was an architect, and I grew up in a house that he designed. He worked locally, so I’d go to sites with him and help him measure.

MH: What does pure abstraction give you that representational art does not? 
EG: I kept up with painting the landscape and figure until maybe ten years ago. This was mostly for commission work or teaching exercises, though I’m sure color and other ideas crept into my own work. Whether or not a piece is representational is not why I’m drawn to it; it’s more about responding to the color, shape, composition, or energy of a piece, and if it’s speaking to me or not.

MH: Is there freedom when you’re untethered from representation, and if so, can you define this freedom? Does it ever feel like a burden, or is freedom your ally?
EG: There are so many choices that sometimes it’s helpful for me to have some rules, even if I end up breaking them. Like, I’ll decide to work on paper one day, or collage, or paintings. It gives me direction. The small collages and works on paper help me figure out the larger pieces. 

MH: I ask this because freedom often creates anxiety; specifically, the fear of making a bad decision. In the presence of pure freedom to paint whatever I want, it’s an issue just to go into my studio, much less pick up a brush. Does this ever come up for you?
EG: Oh yes! I was ready to abandon the shaped pieces before I ever showed them. I was going to go back to the rectangle. 

MH: So how do you push through? Is it sheer will?
EG: Yes, and the fact that I get so much joy from working. I’m not happy doing anything else. When I feel stuck on something I just try to push through.

MH: I envy the Italian Renaissance artists whose creative work was spelled out for them: Nativity, Last Supper, Crucifixion, Repeat. They never had to think about subject matter; all they had to do was bliss out with paint or marble or whatever. I’m wondering if you sometimes experience obstacles in making choices about the work. Do you secretly wish there was a rule book that you could refer to when things get dicey?
EG: I try to make my own rules to keep going. I work well with commissions, because they give me parameters, something specific. There’s this quote from Pat Adams, who taught at Bennington and Yale, and I ran into her at the Vermont Studio Center: “It’s important that artists not return to the Renaissance where they were given topics and subject matter. I think we need to provide evidence. Artists who sit and work quietly are allowing themselves to come into it. They are providing evidence of our species: what impels us, who we are, what we are, what we do, what we are thinking.”

MH: I’ve heard it said that all paintings are self-portraits. If so, it follows that each painting shows different aspects of the artist. From one painting to the next, do you notice variations that may represent contrasting facets of yourself? Do some finished pieces feel meditative, and others agitated? 
EG: That’s interesting. I don’t think about that necessarily, but there’s a piece in the show in Kent that I saw as a self-portrait. It shows my thinking process, how I edited and changed the painting. I’m always editing things out, but if I’m feeling agitated, I try not to put it in the work. That’s when it’s better for me to do something else, like stretch canvases.

MH: Back to color. I have immense respect for how you handle it. You paint a field of saturated color – let’s call it ‘Tibetan Nun Orange’ – and then you paint over it with a tertiary gray, so that the orange is now barely visible. Nevertheless, it is visible, if understated. It’s as if the gray amplifies the color by restraining it, like water penetrating a dam, or sunlight filtering through clouds. It must be deeply gratifying to have found a way to manipulate color in such a way that it transcends the medium and creates luminosity.
EG: I guess it is, but it still feels like a day-to-day struggle. One piece will be good and then the next one will be a failure, so it’s not like I do a series of fantastic paintings. But sometimes it feels like there’s something that moves through me. There’s this great quote from Paul Klee: "From the root, the sap rises up into the artist, flows through him, flows to his eye.” I think about that all the time. When it’s working, it’s something that flows through the artist, and they’re not necessarily aware of it at the time. 

MH: Did you ever consider another occupation? I don’t mean hedge funds or dentistry, but writing, music, anything like that? I see you as a poet, possibly a dancer. Have you always been a visual person?
EG: Oh yes, from a very young age. I have an early memory of one of my parents’ friends, an artist, showing me how to work with watercolor to make clouds, and I remember being completely mesmerized. Both my parents encouraged me from a young age to be an artist. The other thing I loved doing was writing, and I play the piano, but it’s hard to do everything.

MH: You mentioned that this show at Kenise Barnes is the first show of your shaped panels. How do you feel about showing them? Is there a way that you’d like people to approach your work when they see the show?
EG: I’m happy about the reaction to the new work, and I hear that it’s been well received. I’m pretty open to how people choose to see it. I’d like my work to be approached with an open mind, as if they were entering a new building or architectural space. I think the color and form will speak for itself.

www.elizabethgourlay.com

Image List
  1. P30, 2022, acrylic on canvas mounted on shaped panel, 18.5 x 15 in.
  2. T30, 2022, acrylic on linen mounted on shaped panel, 30 x 24 in.
  3. J30, 2021, acrylic on linen mounted on shaped panel, 30 x 22 in.
  4. Cgray8, 2021, acrylic on linen mounted on shaped panel, 9.5 x 9.5 in.
  5. S30, 2022, acrylic on canvas mounted on shaped panel, 18 x 15 in.
  6. There 5, 2021, acrylic on linen mounted on shaped panel, 17 x 14 in.
  7. PV2, 2021, colored pencil and acrylic on linen mounted on shaped panel, 14 x 11 in.
  8. Q30, 2022, acrylic on linen mounted on shaped panel, 18 x 17 in.
  9. B39b, 2021, colored pencil and acrylic on linen mounted on shaped panel, 12 x 9 in.
10. Pg9, 2021, acrylic on linen mounted on shaped panel, 8.5 x 8.5 in.
11. PG 18, 2021, acrylic on canvas mounted on shaped panel, 30 x 24 in.
12. Duende 1, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 44 x 40 in.
13. PG 17, 2021, colored pencil and acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30 in.
14. Blue Cobalt Green, 2020, colored pencil and acrylic on canvas, 44 x 40 in.
15. Cyanrose, 2018, flashe acrylic on canvas, 44 x 40 in.
16. Key E, 2022, gouache and acrylic on paper, 9 x 8 in.
17. B215, 2018 ,collage on paper, 6 x 5 in.
18. B221, 2018, collage on paper, 4.5 x 2.75 in. 
19. Citrine, 2019, ink and gouache on paper, 17 x 12.5 in.
20. Improvisation a, 2014, ink, acrylic and collage on canvas, 40 x 40 in.
21. Tarang, 2015, ink, acrylic and collage on canvas, 50 x 50 in.
22. Studio wall, 2020 
23. Studio wall, 2022
24. The artist in her studio.

Ann Provan

Ann Provan’s show at the Garrison Art Center, “Inner Window”, consists of sixteen paintings that read as meditations on atmosphere and light. Geometric forms float in a field of saturated color, creating architectural structures that shift and collide in ambiguous space. But the ostensibly serene paintings contradict the temperament of the artist, who became agitated as we talked about her studio practice. “Each piece is a terrible struggle,” said Provan. “I never know how it will turn out.” We discussed the difficulties that we face in our studios, from the continual effort to push each piece toward its highest potential, to the personal demons that torment the artist when a piece goes south. The struggle is real and complex and widely understood to be an unavoidable aspect of the creative process. Provan’s paintings should be seen as the work of an artist who is deeply committed to finding that elusive thing that cannot be easily realized in a painting. Her abstract geometries are beautiful to behold, but they open an “Inner Window” that is much deeper and more complex: the ongoing struggle of the artist to overcome all obstacles in search of the purest form of self-expression.

MH: Your show at the Garrison Art Center, “Inner Window”, features sixteen paintings, all painted in the last several years. I know that you’ve worked in other mediums as well. What’s your background as an artist?
AP: I always drew as a kid, and as a young adult I moved to France, where I went to the École des Beaux-Arts. It was a different structure than American schools, focused on the model, and it didn’t really suit me. When I came back to the U.S. four years later I went to the San Francisco Art Institute, where I did my MFA in painting. Then I moved to New York and switched to geometric sculptures that create cast shadows. This body of work was well received, and in 1979 I was invited to be in a group show at the New Museum, “Dimensions Variable”. I’ve also done a lot of artist books, two of which are in the MoMA collection.

MH: Most artists don’t like to be labeled, but your work has the outward appearance of geometric abstraction. And yet there’s an atmospheric quality to the work, which keeps it from diving into pure abstraction. There’s also a landscape and architectural vibe in some of the pieces. The term “Atmospheric Abstraction” comes to mind. How do you regard your work?
AP: I like “Atmospheric Abstraction”! I feel that in many ways I’m a landscape painter. Living in the Hudson Valley, I’m very moved by nature. We’re kind of isolated, and the sky is fantastic – there’s this constant transition of light that I want to capture in my paintings. A lot of geometric abstraction is cold and sharp, but the landscape influence conveys an emotional quality that I like. There’s also potential for the inversion of geometric shapes, which engages perception and slows you down while you try to make visual sense of it. But in the overall painting I want to create a sensitive space that’s very vulnerable. In some ways I feel like I’m still a beginner, trying to shape my paintings into poetry. 

MH: How did you find your way to abstract painting? Was it a long progression, or did you make conscious choices along the way about how you wanted to express yourself? 
AP: I come from a bunch of different mediums and concepts, from painting surreal dreams to abstract sculpture, artist books, painting in watercolors, and working with round shapes. But with this last group of paintings, I’m finally coming to something. I’ve had more time to develop it and it’s a larger format, so I feel like it’s finally blossoming in an interesting way. 

MH: Why squares and rectangles? Do they represent something to you? Is it a choice, a process of elimination? Why not circles and spheres?
AP: I’ve used circles and spheres a lot, and I want to go back to them because it’s very pleasurable working with those shapes. But I’m interested in creating an optical illusion, and it’s easier to do with squares and cubes and rectangles. The geometric shapes invert and go backwards and forwards in space, playing with perception. 

MH: What I’m getting at in a roundabout way is a curiosity in the way that an artist chooses to express herself. Specifically, how do you know that what you’re painting, and the way that you’re painting it, is the right creative expression for you? 
AP: Oh, each piece is a terrible struggle! It really is. I start out with a nice little sketch and then when I start painting it, everything goes wrong. It's a nightmare.

MH: Do you feel like you have to go through that process somehow? Is the struggle necessary?
AP: I’d rather not go through it, but it seems to be part of my process. I mean, just to show you how horrible it is, I’ll show you this piece I’m working on. I’ve painted over this so many times… 

[She shows me a piece that was turned toward the wall. It’s beautiful.]

AP: I can’t see how I’m going to finish it. I always have to find my way out of a painting, but I can’t see my way out of this one. [Heavy sigh, slow shaking of head.] I have some ideas that I’ll try. I might be able to figure it out, but I never know. It’s so stressful.

MH: Would you consider this to be your painting style?
AP: It’s evolving. I feel like I have a way of moving the paint around that’s personal to me, but there are things that I could push further. Each painting is a different experience for me; each one is a mountain. 

MH: I’m jealous of the artist who goes into her studio with utter confidence in what she’s doing, never doubting for a moment that she should be painting anything other than dog portraits, or seascapes, or whatever. Do you ever think about what else you could be doing? 
AP: I believe that we have to find what we want and what’s important, and there’s no one who can tell you. That’s the goal, to find yourself, whatever it is that turns you on. The most special thing you can do is to embrace your disabilities. Maybe the thing that you do “wrong” is precious. Like, not knowing how to draw is fine, and you should embrace that.

MH: There’s this romantic idea that the artist doesn’t find her voice, the voice finds the artist. Like there’s some artistic concept floating out there, waiting for the right artist to come along and grab it. What do you think? Too woo-woo?
AP: Very woo-woo. But I think there are breakthrough ideas, brilliant ideas, that might fit that concept. James Turrell comes to mind. I think that sometimes you find things that are interesting and make them your own. You see something you can use and make your own recipe with it.

MH: I’ve been reading “Zen in the Art of Archery” by Eugen Herrigel, and it’s given me an interesting take on the creative process. In Zen, archery is not regarded as a sport, and hitting the bull’s eye is not the goal. Instead, training in archery is a method through which the student becomes totally immersed in the technique. While perfecting her outward technical skill with the bow and arrow, the archer comes into inner alignment with the process, eventually merging with it completely. I think this is also true for the artist. I wonder if you ever have experiences of this type. Do you ever have that sensation of merging with your medium?
AP: Yes, it’s really special when that happens. I wish it would happen more often. Sometimes you do something, and it comes out just right. It’s a kind of focus and centeredness, and maybe has something to do with not letting other things in your life interfere with your concentration. I also find that ambition isn’t good for my creative process. It took a long time for me to let go of that and become more committed to the painting. 

MH: Herrigel speaks of archery as a medium which leads to a methodical immersion in oneself. I think we do this as artists, whether we’re aware of it or not. That moment after you’ve been painting for many hours, when you’re in auto-pilot mode, and then something sort of clicks. Suddenly you feel like the canvas is almost painting itself, like it has a life of its own and you’re just along for the ride. Do you ever experience this? How does it affect you?
AP: Yes, I do. After I’ve gone through the horrible struggle, I start to see where it’s going and how I can make it work, and then I begin to get really excited about it. That’s an important moment, when you know you’re going to make it and the painting starts to give you something back. It feels victorious in a way, a spiritual thing, like finding yourself in the painting, and then it can step away from you. It’s an amazing experience, the biggest thrill. But it’s hard! And it takes me a long time.

MH: In your artist statement you write, “I never know at the start how (the painting) will turn out. If I did, there would be no point in doing it.” I love that. It feels like an openness to discovery, and it seems like it must take a certain amount of trust in yourself that you’ll recognize “it” when it appears. How would you describe the moment of discovery?
AP: It’s a relief! Because when I start out, I think it’s going to be the most brilliant thing, and then I work on it and it’s awful. So when I get to the point where I actually like it, it’s wonderful. When the painting works, it gives you something back. When it’s not working, it’s a feeling of frustration and insecurity.

MH: Returning to “Zen in the Art of Archery”, there’s a passage that made me think of you. The author describes Zen as the immediate experience of that which cannot be apprehended by intellectual means; one knows it by not knowing it. Through many years of training, the archer learns to “know” through the medium of the bow and arrow. Is there a way that you begin to “know” as you paint? At some point in the process, is there an inclination or intuition that you’re coming closer to that elusive thing?
AP: Yes. It’s a magic moment. You transcend yourself, and that’s when the painting leaves you and has a life of its own. Maybe it’s the expression of your best self, of your sensitivity and your innate wisdom. It’s always a surprise, something that never existed before and there it is. After it’s finished, you look back and think, how did I do that?

MH: There are so many complexities to being an artist, and we all know that it’s a difficult path. There are many rewards, but there’s also a lot of aggravation, and we’re constantly coming up against internal and external obstacles, like self-doubt, or having to move out of your studio, and so on. But in spite of it all, we continue making art as though our lives depended on it. Do you have any insights into why artists are so driven?
AP: I think when you practice art for a while, you almost need to make work to feel okay. There’s something magic about making art. It’s because you overcome those obstacles that you find what it is that you need to find. I have to find it, and if it isn’t there, I’ll stay with that one painting until I do. And I never know how it will turn out – each time is different. But it’s very satisfying when you work it out, and the struggle is just something you have to go through.

MH: For those who plan to see your show “Inner Window” at the Garrison Art Center, is there anything that you’d like them to know about the work that’s not readily apparent?  
AP: I feel like whatever people take away is fine. It’s about light and personality and warmth, and it’s pretty positive, given what’s going on in the world. I hope they can slow down to look and find something in it for themselves. It’s still a mystery for me. 

www.annprovan.com 

Image List
  1. Golden Hours, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 40 x 40 in.
  2. Tango, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 40 x 40 in.
  3. Focus, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 40 x 40 in.
  4. Still Green, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 40 in.
  5. Key West, 2022, acrylic on canvas, 20 x 20 in.
  6. Intervals, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 20 x 20 in.
  7. Forest, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 36 x 36 in.
  8. Breakthrough, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 18 x 18 in. 
  9. Drifting, 2020, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 40 x 40 in.
10. Sanctuary, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 40 x 40 in.
11. Landings, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 36 x 36 in.
12. Inner Window, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 16 x 16 in.
13. Sunrise, 2020, acrylic on masonite, 14 x 11 in.
14. Montauk, 2019, watercolor on paper, 15 x 11 in.
15. Early Spring, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 12 x 12 in.
16. Sun Moon, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 12 x 12 in.
17. Slant Rhymes, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 12 x 12 in.
18. Architecture, 1979, wood, thread, wire, 16 x 24 in. (from the exhibition “Dimensions Variable” at the New Museum, 1979)
19. Corner Piece, 1979, string, thread, dimensions variable (from the exhibition “Dimensions Variable” at the New Museum, 1979)
20. Tiny Circles, 2011, watercolor on Arches paper, 8 x 8 in.
21. Slant Lines, 2019, watercolor and gouache on paper, 22 x 23 in.
22. Slant Rhymes II, 2019, gouache on paper, 22 x 23 in.
23. On My Mind, 2006, pine, 12 x 8 x 6 in.
24. The artist in her studio.

Kazumi Tanaka

Time is a current that flows through the work of Kazumi Tanaka, connecting past events to the elusive present moment. In her current show, Beyond Silence at Fridman Gallery, she created a series of intricate musical instruments using animal skulls, reptile skins, her own hair, and other unusual materials that carry within them the markers of time. But while the finished piece is uncommonly beautiful, the process isn’t necessarily pretty. The dead animal must be located, often as roadkill, and then processed to pare it down to the skull. This task demands a strong constitution, and Tanaka, whose respect for the animal is palpable, chose not to elaborate on this part of her process. There’s the sense that she’s collaborating with the deceased animal, transforming it into an object that will carry its spirit into the future. The piece is incomplete until she hears it played, as it is the sound that will determine its success as an instrument. Tanaka has invited musicians to play her tiny instruments, and in so doing they too collaborate with the animal. Their various approaches express the “voice” of the skull, which is indeed beyond silence. In a recent collaboration with singer/songwriter Sara Milonovich, the musician composed a score for one of the instruments and performed it in a video, as well as at the gallery. Played with a bow strung with the artist’s hair, the music was haunting and imperfect, carrying the essence of the animal into the present moment. Beyond Silence at Fridman Gallery closes on Sunday, April 3rd.

 MH:  Your current show at Fridman Gallery, Beyond Silence, features a collection of musical instruments that you constructed using animal skulls, seashells, your hair, and other unusual materials. How did this idea come to you, to transform living materials into objects? 

KT: A while ago I discovered a skull in my backyard, which turned out to be a groundhog skull. I like having objects around me for a while, so that I can spend time with them and see different shapes. At first it looked like an airplane, and then it started to look like a guitar, and I wondered if I could make it into an instrument that could be played. That was 2016, the year I went to MacDowell. I was there for six weeks, so I had plenty of time to develop this work. A friend put me in touch with two professors at Cornell who knew about electronic devices, and they helped me figure out how to amplify the sound by connecting it to a transformer. Because the skull was very small, there were some issues that I had to work out, but once I got the proper equipment, it worked. I never know until I hook it up what kind of sound the instrument is going to make. The whole process is a series of surprises. Once I made this tiny banjo using my bearded dragon’s shed skin, and it sounds just like a banjo (see video below, and Cthulhu’s photo above).

MH: You could have made the skulls into sculptures that just sit on a shelf, but instead you chose to turn them into instruments that would be played, handled, and receive continual use. When you made this choice, were you thinking of honoring the animal? 

KT: Yes, that’s always the idea. It’s a challenge how to remain respectful to the animal, because sometimes I find the roadkill and clean it myself, or I drill holes into the skull. But I’m building my relationship with each animal through its remains and creating a connection. I also build connections with the people who find out what I’m doing and want to give me the animal skulls that they’ve found. So in the whole process, I think of people as well as the animal itself – that’s how everything comes together.

MH: I see the instruments as a three-way collaboration between you, the animal, and time. Time in the sense that the animal is no longer living, so you’re collaborating in different time zones, as it were. And time as it’s expressed through music, a time-based medium. Did you think about time as you created this series? 

KT: Yes. By the time I start working with the skull, significant time has already passed, because the animal has already gone through the process of decomposing and turning into bone. My working process is quite slow, and there’s a period when I feel like it’s not getting anywhere. There always seems to be some struggle that I go through, and then there’s the glorified moment when I get to hear the sound that the instrument produces. The visual shape may be satisfying, but the instrument isn’t complete until I play it. And then if the sound isn’t satisfying, it’s a disappointment. I discovered that when the size of the skull increases, it increases the ability for the instrument to become more playable. So the species really determines the sound, and I can also improve the sound by changing the strings. I worked with a guitarist in Germany, Jonas Khalil, who hooked up all these electronic devices and it made some interesting sounds. Since the instruments aren’t perfect, the sounds can be haunting. 

MH: I love how time is expressed in your piece Passage, which is essentially a large hairball made from your own hair. As you collected your hair over the many years that you made the ball, you began to find isolated white hairs within your black hair, and you say that you witnessed time passing through your own body. I found that very moving. 

KT: Thank you. Theoretically I could make a white ball when I get old, but I probably won’t have the patience. It took so many years to make that it became sort of a ritual. 

MH: For me, the music is an essential aspect of the sculpture. I see/hear it as a narrative, telling the story of the animal. It’s the animal’s voice, as I see it, and anyone who plays the instrument adds something personal to its narrative. But it’s also in part the story of you, in that your hair is used in making the bow strings. I love that your voice is also part of the musical narrative.

KT: That was the idea for the show Beyond Silence. I wondered if the sound coming out of a strange musical instrument could be a message or voice, and if the animal might have something to say. I thought that if someone played the instrument, we could hear something beyond the music. But at the same time, I’m not claiming that I’m giving the animal its voice. The skull came to me, I worked on it and touched it, and in this process, it helps me to heal from some of my own difficulties. I think about metaphorically touching the animal, specifically the skull where the mind rests. There’s something moving about this, and I want to create beautiful instruments that are played with respect for the animal.

MH:  You mention that the process of making these sculptures was healing for you. How so?

KT: When you try to think about why, it’s not always easy to answer. I’m always moved by music, and I have some musician envy, because I don’t have that gift. But I have some musician friends in Beacon who were curious about what I was doing, and it became a sort of collaboration. It’s very generous of musicians to partake in something like this, and I was touched by the kindness and generosity. When Sara (Milonovich) played a composition that she wrote for one of my instruments, it felt like all the dots connected for me. That was the moment when I felt like, This is why I do this. I think we’re all looking for this moment.

MH: Healing from emotional and psychological wounds is a long process, and some people give up because it’s too painful. I believe that deep healing can only come when the pain is replaced with something creative, a marker to honor where the wound once was. Your instruments carry that quality for me – markers of past wounds that have transformed into something positive and even joyful.

KT: Yes, it’s such a pleasure that people come to the show and really enjoy looking at the work. I want them to have a purely gut reaction, and I want the instruments to touch their hearts. There’s something healing about this.

MH: What quality do you look for when looking at art? Can you put your finger on what moves you? 

KT: I can tell when I see something. I can see the creator’s mark, that they really put their heart into it. It’s hard to identify, but I think it does something to your heart, and to your eye and mind. It’s also the time and attention that the artist spent on the piece. There’s no good or bad or right or wrong; it’s so intangible, but our hearts are also intangible.

MH: Your work is in part about memory. How do you experience and express memory in your work? 

KT: Because my process is so slow, whatever I create is about memory. I grew up in Japan, so any time I make something that has to do with my past life, it’s all about memories. Sometimes the memories are second-hand, like my mother’s memories of World War II. I recently collaborated with the poet Jeffrey Yang and did a series of drawings with tea that summarize my memories of my past life. We hope to publish it next year. 

MH: Contemporary artists often allude to memory, which implies an inclination for looking in the rear-view mirror. I wonder if we forfeit something by dwelling too much in the past, keeping us tethered to our wounds. What do you think about this?

KT: That’s exactly the thing I’m trying to avoid. Sometimes you need to hit bottom, but I think you can’t stay there; it’s very unhealthy. We all have difficult times, and then what you do with it is up to yourself. I can’t stand to stay there, so I look around and see what I can do. I try to think of some other way to spend my time or focus on something else that feels good and engages my attention.

MH: In Buddhism, there’s the idea of shifting allegiances from That to This. In your piece Two Apples, there are two real apples and an apple that you created, and they all look like real apples. I see the fake apple ­as That, forever belonging to the past. The real apples, on the other hand, are This, the present moment, which is constantly changing, but always This. So deep healing can come only when we let go of the stories and shift our allegiance to This. 

KT: That’s exactly what the piece is about. When we talk about This, it’s already passed. This will never remain beautiful, but if you look at it from a different perspective, it’s beautiful because it changes. The fake apple will always be nice to look at, but the real apples will shrivel and eventually disappear. We get old, we shrink, and we die, and that is a beautiful thing. 

MH:  I see this with your instruments as well. The wounded animal is healed when you honor it in the present moment.

KT: I feel a little conflicted with this. I’m no healer, but I think they are healing us. I feel like we’re all wounded by Covid, because we haven’t been able to function as we’re supposed to. We couldn’t ask others for help, so we had to suffer on our own. People passed away and we couldn’t honor them or share the moment because that ability was taken from us. We’re the ones who need to heal. I wanted to create something to bring people together, and the instruments serve that purpose. 

MH: Does nostalgia play a part in your work? Do you see your work as sentimental in some way, or is it forward looking? I see it as a mid-way point between nostalgia and hope, honoring the past and inviting future potential.

KT: I hope so. I like thinking of myself as an emotional animal because emotion creates my drive. Detachment from emotion is a red flag for me, because it’s a protective mechanism, and avoidance of pain or sadness is not good for me. So I continue to be emotional, even though some people are naturally more composed and calm. As far as past and future, the instruments themselves are past tense, but when a musician comes and plays them, they become present tense. It adds a different dimension, beyond time.

MH:  I’m interested to hear if you regard the past as in some way more desirable than the present. Is the better version of humanity in our rear-view mirror? Or has compassion improved with our evolution? 

KT: The word “nostalgia” implies that we look back and think how wonderful it used to be, and I can’t agree with that. I think that every moment, every year is different – the difficult times are always followed by the comeback time, and then the effort that it took to get out of it was worthwhile. And that keeps me strong and energized to keep going in my creative process. But I sometimes struggle with the question of why I make art, and how it makes a difference in the world. Like with the heartbreaking situation in Ukraine, I question how doing my work is important. I think other artists struggle with this as well.

MH: What’s the optimal reaction to your work if you had the ability to control these things? What impression do you hope that it makes?

KT: I’d be happy to have people feel some kind of emotion, but I don’t expect a certain reaction. If there are fifty people in the room there might be fifty reactions, and that’s fine. What I’m afraid of is if there’s no reaction. So if each person brings something home, that’s optimal.

MH: Is there something about your work that you’d like people to know, that may not be readily apparent?

KT: That’s always the question: How much do I want people to know? Sometimes I talk a lot about process and how it came about, and sometimes I feel like I don’t want to talk too much about it. It depends on the artwork. Right after I finish a piece I have so much to say about it, but when some time passes, I don’t have as much to say. That’s what the titles are for, to give some meaning to the work. There will be a time that I won’t be here to answer questions, so if they take less information, that’s the nature of it. 

www.kazumitanaka.com

Cthulhu II from Kazumi Tanaka, artist on Vimeo.

Image List
 1. Visitor, 2021, deer skull found on Mount Desert Island, ME, wood, metal string, 15 x 4 x 4 in.
  2. Cthulhu, 2020, shedded skin of bearded dragon, wood, mother of pearl, brass, metal string, old piano key, 12 x 4 x 1 in.
  3. Infinity Violin, 2016, wood, metal string, brass, 5.5 x 2 x 1 in.
  4. Harmony, 2021, deer skull fragments, mother of pearl, metal string, brass, old piano key, Two String Bass: 10.5 x 3.25 x 2.25 in.
  5. Harmony (detail), 2021, Harmonica: 1.75 x 2.5 x 2.5 in.
  6. Buzzard Whistle, 2021, buzzard skull, bamboo, wood, pulp, 5 x 2 x 1.5 in.
  7. She Shall Mandolin, 2016, channeled whelk shell, wood, metal string, mother of pearl, old piano key, 11.5 x 4 x 3 in.
  8. Sara Milonovich playing “Visitor” (video)
  9. Hiroshima Amore, 2015, wood, hair, fabric, and sewing machine needles, 5 x 3 x 10 in.
10. Passage, 2000, black hair, with tussle also made of artist’s hair, felt, cotton thread, 5 in. diameter ball
11. Two Apples (before), 1997, apples, polychrome plaster, ceramic plate, 7 x 7 x3 in.
12. Two Apples (after), 1997
13. Claustrophobia, 2001, wood, paper, fabric, mirror, installation on table: 67 x 20 x 41 in.
14. Conception #1, 2014, series of 10, hand screen-printed pigment on linen and silk, aluminum, steel, wood, thread, 76.5 x 44 x 8.5 in.
15. School Days, 1996, wood, blackboard, 27 x 20 x 21 in.
16. Nest, 1990, stainless steel pins, 3 x 4 x 4 in.
17. Float, 2002, wood, needles, 40 x 17 x 13 in.
18. INK, 2018, natural ink on paper, 10 x 10 in.
19. Kiku, 2010, handmade paper from milk carton, hibiscus tea, chamomile tea, 9 x 12 in.
20. Departure, 2015, coffee on paper, installation: 29.5 x 135 in.
21. Departure, 2015, coffee on paper, installation: 29.5 x 135 in.
22. Blue Hole, 2021, natural indigo ink on paper, 11 x 15 in.
23. Lost Pond at Manitoga, 2021, natural indigo ink on paper, 11 x 15 in.
24. Nest, 2007, Irish breakfast tea on paper, 10 x 10 in.
25. Sparrow, 2009, Hochland gruner tea, 10 x 10 in.
26. Cthulhu, the bearded dragon
27. The artist and Cthulhu

 

Judith Braun

In her various series of drawings and paintings, Judith Braun explores the symmetries of the natural world by filtering them through a series of self-imposed disciplines. This process, which she calls “Symmetrical Procedures”, is based on three rules: symmetry, abstraction, and carbon mediums. That may sound wonky at best, or self-punishing in the extreme, but after listening to her rationale, I became a devotee. Like a levelheaded apologist, Braun expounds on the philosophy behind her work with reason and conviction. “I think of it as freedom through discipline”, she said, and it’s clear that she employs her practice outside of the studio as well. Braun applies the same stringent parameters to her small graphite drawings on paper as she does to her ephemeral fingerprint wall drawings, which have been commissioned across the country and in Europe. The restrictions help to push her deeper into her creative work, which in turn illuminates the symmetry of the universe and her place within it. I went to the opening of her solo show, “My Pleasure”, at Opalka Gallery in Albany, which features her new series of fifteen large-scale self-portraits. These paintings on raw canvas appear to be a departure from her past work, but during our conversation she revealed their origin, how they evolved, and how they are indeed a continuation of the discipline that she’s been using for almost two decades. 

MH: Your show “My Pleasure” at Opalka Gallery is a big departure from your past work, in style and scale. Can you say a few words about the show, and how it came about? 

JB: I was making small drawings during the pandemic, and I wondered what they would look like if I did them on a large scale. I did some experimenting with raw canvas and black flashe paint, and I liked how it looked and felt. Using a brush on raw canvas had a similar feel to graphite on paper. It may seem like a departure from my previous work, but it has many similarities and follows the same parameters that I’ve always used. 

MH: What does “My Pleasure” refer to?

JB: I like words that have some ambiguity. “My Pleasure” is a common response when someone thanks you, and I like it because it feels formal, but kind. At the same time, the title speaks to the whole idea of pleasure, which is a subject I find interesting and provocative. If we didn’t have pleasure, we’d have nothing; we’d just be robots. I used one of my quotes from 2009 for the show and painted it on one of the walls: Without pleasure, all we’d have is a bunch of stuff.

MH: What are your thoughts around the installation? It was interesting to wander through the work, rather than walk up to the wall to see it. I’m curious why you chose to hang the canvases on movable racks, rather than on the walls. 

JB: When I started making the work, it became clear that they were becoming big heads. When I tried to picture how I’d install them in the gallery, it felt like they’d be staring in at the viewer in a confrontational way. I did some research and looked at how other artists present works on loose canvas, and eventually came up with the idea of garment racks on casters. I liked the aesthetic, but didn’t know what it would look like in the space, so it was a big risk. But I felt like, why not take a chance? And I like it! It was a big leap, but sometimes you have to take that risk.

MH: How has your relationship to your work changed since leaving New York City? In the city there can be a grind to show and sell your work, which can suck the joy out of an artist’s practice. Was this true for you, and has this changed since your move to Albany?

JB: When I left New York I could have stayed with the last gallery that I was with, but I decided that I wanted to be on my own. I don’t want expectations to be set on me, where a gallery wants a certain type of work that I may not want to create. The compromise doesn’t offer enough to make it worthwhile to me. When I first moved up here, I considered letting it all go, and being an artist who doesn’t show her work. But I realized that it’s just not the same – it’s like talking to yourself all day. I like being part of the art world, which means that I need to engage in it, and it’s a little more difficult up here in Albany. I can’t rely on things happening by chance the way they do in the city, so I actively reach out and try to stay connected with people and galleries. And it helps that I have some traction as an artist, since I showed in New York for so many years.

MH: Can you say something about the parameters that you refer to? You call your practice “Symmetrical Procedures”, a discipline in which you follow self-imposed limitations for making your work. I find it intriguing that in the face of pure freedom of expression, you create restrictions for yourself. 

JB: I think of it as freedom through discipline. It’s a philosophical idea that I came up with years ago when I was a hippie and questioning freedom in general. I felt that freedom without self-discipline would just lead to chaos. For me, freedom meant the freedom to choose, and this included the choice of self-limitations. So “Symmetrical Procedures” is the application of that philosophy in a visual medium. I use the disciplines of symmetry, abstraction, and carbon mediums, and I’ve worked within this discipline since 2003. 

MH: What do you like about working in this way? Why these three disciplines?

JB: I like working within these parameters because they’re my rules and my ideas; I set it up and believed in it and believed that it would keep unfolding, and it hasn’t gone dry yet. As far as my choices, I chose symmetry because it’s a pattern found throughout the universe, and it’s basic to humanity. And then I chose abstraction because it represents anything and nothing; it has no reference outside of itself. So when I combine symmetry and abstraction, I create something out of nothing. I make a random mark, and copy it in reverse using symmetry, and suddenly I have something. Anything becomes something. Then to all this I added the discipline of using carbon-based mediums, which limited my palette to black and white. I like the fact that under heat and pressure, carbon becomes a diamond, so I’m drawing abstract symmetries with diamond dust. 

MH: Does this apply to your fingerprint wall drawings as well?

JB: Yes, they’re also drawn with carbon. I dip my fingers in charcoal dust, and make marks on the wall in a symmetrical pattern. They derive from the same set of rules.

MH: Do you use this discipline as a tool for discovering deeper meaning in your work? Do the self-imposed rules give you something to push against, so that your creativity can flow freely? I’m thinking of the way that riverbanks place restrictions on the flow of water, so that it becomes a river rather than a swamp. 

JB: Yes. Another metaphor is the piano. It has eighty-eight keys, and the pianist has ten fingers, but no one has ever thought that they were going to run out of things to play on the piano. The restrictions push you deeper into the body of work that you’re doing. Otherwise, an artist goes into her studio, and she can do anything, with no limitations, and this may not feel like freedom. I have my three disciplines, I chose them consciously, I’ve stuck with them, and they’ve proven over time to have infinite potential. 

MH: Could your practice be considered a search for Truth? Do you ever think about objective truth in your work, or is it a non-issue? Has truth become something so quaint, out of fashion, and overrated that we no longer take it seriously? Sort of like realist painting?

JB: I think I gave up the search for objective truth when I moved away from realist painting. I gave up verisimilitude because it required focusing on a level of skill that became uninteresting to me. Now it’s more about the truth of who I am. One of the things that I really like is the unique voice of an artist. Even if I don’t like their work, I can appreciate their authentic expression. I’ve come to think of truth as being true to myself. And that’s what I wanted this show to be – a part of me that I haven’t shown before, but another part of myself that’s true.

MH: Art has always reflected the dominant beliefs of the culture. I’m thinking of Renaissance art, which portrayed truth as indisputably objective, and Modernist art, where truth was depicted as entirely subjective. Does Post-Truth Art reflect the gray zone of “alternative facts”? When there are so many conflicting narratives, I wonder if the artist may increasingly turn inward, where the work becomes hyper-self-referential. What do you think?

JB: Well, the work in this show is very self-referential, so maybe it’s a result of the world around me that I’m living and creating in. These paintings are much more emotionally explicit than in the past. I’m not making cerebral, symmetrical patterns that are nice to look at; these works are very carefully constructed expressions, and what they express is still up for interpretation. There are fifteen big heads, self-portraits, and they’re crying tears, exploding, going crazy ­– it’s new territory for me, and it’s vulnerable. I don’t know if it reflects the issue of truth, or post-truth. Maybe the only way to answer your question would be with some perspective, like in five years maybe we’ll look back to this time and say, look how many artists were doing self-portraits! But I don’t think anyone is thinking about it in these terms; we just make the art that we do. 

MH: What do you think about beauty? Are we also in a post-beauty moment? The New York art world doesn’t place much value on it. Do you bother yourself with beauty? You have amazing technical skills, but that’s more of a liability than an asset in most circles. How do you negotiate these considerations, or do you ignore it and do whatever you feel like?

JB: It isn’t a word that I throw around, but I think about beauty, and I think it’s still relevant. I like my work to be beautiful, even if it’s black and white stripes. I want it to be a visual pleasure. And I always want my work to be interesting. If I’m doing a circle, it’s got to be an interesting circle – something that makes me want to look at it longer. 

MH: What’s the best part about being an artist?

JB: Having artist friends. I haven’t found another group of people that I’d rather hang out with. When I’m an artist, I’m at home with myself. It’s who I am, who I’ve spent my life being, pursuing this creative process for myself. How it fits into the world, with my life and family and friends, that’s where I find myself. Without it, I don’t know who I am.

“My Pleasure” is at the Opalka Gallery in Albany, New York
through April 23. An artist talk and tour is scheduled for April 14.

www.judithannbraun.com

Image List
From the “Black and Raw” series:
 1. Pink Tears, 2021, acrylic on raw canvas, 79 x 72 in.
  2. Drip Mask, 2021, acrylic on raw canvas, 79 x 72 in.
  3. Happy Bitch, 2021, acrylic on raw canvas, 79 x 72 in.
 4. The Song, 2021, acrylic on raw canvas, 79 x 72 in.
  5. Installation view, “My Pleasure” at Opalka Gallery, Albany
  6. Fingerprint Wall Drawing, 2022, Opalka Gallery 
7. Happy Bitch #1, 1993, black carbon-toner photocopy on 11 x 8.5 in. paper, 115.5 x 152 in.
  8. DWL-21, 2020, flash and graphite on paper, 9.25 x 9.25 in.
9. DWL-22, 2020, flash and graphite on paper, 9.25 x 9.25 in.
10. BE-10-2, 2015, graphite on duralar, 10.5 x 10.5 in.
11. BE-14-2, 2014, graphite on paper, 13.75 x 13.75 in.
12. AM-6, 2007, graphite on paper, 10.5 x 10.5 in.
13. AM-4, 2007, graphite on paper, 10.5 x 10.5 in.
14. Lanternal S-6-3, 2010, graphite on duralar, 6 x 6 in.
15. Lanternal S-6-6, 2010, graphite on duralar, 6 x 6 in.
16. Symmetrical Procedure BKS-16-2, 2008, graphite on duralar, 16 x 16 in.
17. Crazy Bitch #9, 2015, charcoal and graphite on paper, 33 x 39.75 in.
18. Crazy Bitch #2, 2015, charcoal and graphite on paper, 39.75 x 33 in.
19. FPC-19-1, 2016, charcoal fingerprints on paper, 19 x 19 in.
20. FPC-19-2, 2016, charcoal fingerprints on paper, 19 x 19 in.
From the “Fingerprint Wall” series:
21. Fingering #30, “Apparitions”, 2016, charcoal fingerprints on panel, Anthropologie, London, UK, 8 x 14 ft.
22. Fingering #20, 2014, charcoal fingerprints on wall, Sharjah Arts Festival, Sharjah, UAE, 12 x 13 ft.
23. Fingering #23, 2015, charcoal fingerprints on wall, Maple Rugs Showroom, NYC, 9 x 12 ft.
24. Fingering # 24, 2015, charcoal fingerprints on wall, Bloomberg Philanthropies, NYC, 8 x 27 ft.
25. Single Standard, 1981, oil on canvas, 16 x 24 in.
26. The artist at her opening at Opalka Gallery, Albany.

 

 

 

Char Norman

Char Norman is a fiber sculptor, a term that she uses to differentiate her work from fiber arts, traditionally a two-dimensional medium. Her meticulously crafted sculptures are made with natural fibers, handmade paper, and objects that she collects from nature. She is also an environmentalist, activist, and educator, and it would be difficult to tease out the various threads of her practice. Her deep concern for the environment pushes her into activism, which feeds her art practice, which in turn educates her audience about the environment. There’s the sense that her work has a higher calling, and that the white walls of a gallery may not be equal to the task. To that end, she sometimes places her fiber reliquaries in urban niches, where they may be discovered and taken home by the fortunate soul who stumbles upon them. This anonymous generosity is in keeping with the spirit of her work, in which the artist disappears, and the natural world shines through. It was a privilege to engage in an in-depth conversation about the practice of this interesting and accomplished artist.

MH: You refer to yourself as a “fiber sculptor”. What does that term signify?

CN: “Fiber arts” generally refers to works that are two-dimensional, like weavings and wall hangings, but my work is three-dimensional, so “fiber sculptor” is more descriptive of what I do. I create sculptural forms by combining natural fibers with elements from nature.

MH: Your work is nature-based, and nature has played a significant role in your life since you were a child. How did you get so turned on by nature?

CN: I’ve always lived close to nature – even now, I hike almost every day. As a kid my grandfather would take my brother and me on long hikes in the woods. It always felt magical, and that love of nature has been there ever since. It’s where I find peace and refresh myself. Whether it’s the coastline of California or the hardwood forests here in Ohio, it has the same effect. 

MH: All your work is skillfully constructed and detail oriented. Do you concern yourself with the current trend toward deskilling? Do you care if skill is currently out of fashion?

CN: Craftsmanship and skill are very important to me. It’s something that I excel at, and I don’t want to lose it. As far as the trend away from skill, I mostly ignore it because it’s not who I am. Every now and then I try to loosen up a little, but it’s hard for me to do. It has to be finished; it has to be precise. I do care that skill is out of fashion because I think it’s an important and satisfying aspect of being an artist.

MH: There’s a lot of repetition in the making of your work – I’m thinking of the coiling, for example. I wonder if this type of work feeds you in some way. Is it ever boring, or would you describe it as meditative? 

CN: It can be extremely boring, but it can also be meditative. Most of my work is made up of pods, which require many hours of coiling. When I start a piece, I’m just coiling around and around which is slow and boring, and I usually have to engage my mind in something else while I’m doing it, like listening to music or books. Once I establish the shape of a pod, I’m designing and engineering the piece as I coil, which gets creative and exciting.

MH: I know that you’re a deep thinker, and that your work speaks to some issues that are very important to you. What concepts are most pressing to you? How does your work address these issues?

CN: Everything I do addresses the environment in some way. I think it’s the most important issue of our time, because if we destroy our environment, nothing else matters. I do a lot of research for my work. A few years ago I traveled to the Amazon rainforest to learn how the indigenous people regard the environment. I’ve also become interested in the mycelium network and all that goes on below ground. This is how fungi send out tendrils that feed the trees, and how the trees speak to each other. There’s so much that we could learn from this, as well as from the natives of the Amazon, if only we were open to it.

MH: At first sight, one would regard your work as beautiful, even precious. But looking deeper, it’s often dark and disturbing, like reading the news. Are you good with that? I’m thinking of Colony Collapse, as well as your Egret Series, which refers to the near annihilation of egrets.

CN: Yes, I want that to happen. I want people to be educated and realize what’s going on. If I can entice them with beauty and then show them the dark side, that’s great – that’s a successful piece. The Egret Series is a good example. It grew out of some research that I did when I heard that egrets almost went extinct in the late 1800s. Their feathers were used as adornment for fashionable ladies’ hats, and as a result, egrets were slaughtered and nearly wiped out. But two society women intervened by boycotting the hats, saving the egrets, and forming the Audubon Society in the process. So this is the kind of research that I do when I’m working on a series, and it can be pretty disturbing at times.

MH: Yes, but your work seems fundamentally hopeful. Is this a correct read? Do you think that in spite of devastation and environmental collapse, your work embraces hope? Or do you create relics as nostalgic reminders of what we once had?

CN: I see it as both dark and hopeful, but mostly I want the work to bring awareness to the importance and beauty of the natural world.

MH: There’s the sense underlying your work that you’re making reparations to the planet for the ways that we’ve abused it. Do you see your objects as offerings? Do you ever regard your work as penance?

CN: I regard it in a couple of ways. First, I like to present the work as if it’s sacred, so sometimes I place it in a tabernacle or a shrine. Whenever I go on a residency or travel and create a body of work, I leave a piece behind. I’ll mount it in the forest somewhere, as an offering to nature. I feel that I’m giving back a little. I also do this in cities. When I went to Italy for a residency, I saw that there were tabernacles and niches on almost every corner in Rome and Florence, which were shrines to Christianity. So I started creating little sculptures out of leaves and sticks and fibers, and then I found empty niches and left them there. They were my shrines to nature. And then some of the work is about mending nature, where I sew it back together. I’m fixing it as a sort of reparation.

MH: How do you like having a full-time studio practice? Does it ever get old? Do you sometimes miss teaching and administrating?

CN: I was at Columbus College of Art and Design for 14 years as Dean of Faculty and Associate Provost. I was developing programs and overseeing faculty and doing art accreditation and working a 60-hour week. Do I miss it? Not a bit. I love being in the studio full time. I feel now that I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. When I get a little tired of it, like during the pandemic when I was in my studio all the time, I go for a hike, work in the garden – something like that. I also do a lot of curating, which is great because I’m talking to other artists and putting together interesting shows. Right now, I’m working on an environmental show for the Columbus Cultural Art Center. I’ve been working on this show for three years, and it opens this September. 

MH: Is it necessary for you to struggle in the studio? Or do work better when the seas are calm?

CN: The struggle comes when I get tired of what I’m doing. I did a lot of shows last year, and it felt like I was producing the same thing over and over. I was thinking of taking a year off, but that didn’t happen. Ideas come fast and furiously, and I have to start them because when the seas are calm, I don’t work as intensely. When my life is in turmoil, I get much more work accomplished. There’s been some trauma in my life over the last decade, and my work has always saved me.

MH: So your work is a refuge, in a way?

CN: Yes. I retreat into the studio and shut everything else out and dive into my work. 

MH: Putting aside the commercial aspect of artmaking, how does what we do have value? Beyond gallery shows, beyond sales, beyond Instagram posts, what is it that we give to the world that is essential?

CN: Education. An important aspect of my work is educating people about the environment. But ironically, part of it is that I’m just making more stuff and putting it out in the world. The environmentalist in me thinks maybe I shouldn’t be doing that! 

MH: Which do you think has more value: the creative act, or the work of art?

CN: I think the creative act is more important. My sculpture is just going to take up space somewhere, but creativity generates intelligence. It’s a little like the chicken and the egg, because the creative act results in the art object, and then the art fuels more creative energy.

MH: Given what’s happening in Ukraine and around the world, is it even worth it to make art? Does an artist have the power to make a difference in the face of so much destruction?  Are we sticking our heads in the sand when we go into our studios?

CN: Yes, but I think we have to carry on. Art is not essential for living, but it’s what makes life worth living. And I think that’s the reason we need to keep making art – to create hope. I read about these Ukrainian women who are making shamanic dolls for peace, and even though they may not bring about peace, it’s important for them to be making them. It provides them some comfort, and it expresses the value of their culture.

MH: Is there something about your work that you’d like people to know, that they might overlook at a quick glance?  

CN: The work that I make and the act of creating it are sacred to me. The ubiquitous pods in my work are symbolic wombs and shrouds, and they refer to the circle of life and its sacredness. And yet it’s also very mundane – we live, we die, and that’s the way it is. I’ve often said that when I die, I want all my sculptures to go back into the woods and become one with nature again. 

www.charnorman.com

Char Norman lives in Columbus, Ohio. She and the artist Helen Hoffelt are currently showing their work at the Columbus Cultural Art Center, through March 26th. Tipping Point is the result of a trip to Selva Vida Sin Fronteras – Amazon Reserve for Peace – in Ecuador. The artists’ intent is to bring awareness to the issues and impacts and human responses to the environment.

Image List
All works are made by weaving, coiling, and assemblage. 
1. The Bones of the Mountain III, linen, branches, rock, cacti, 12 x 10 x 3 in.
  2. Hope, linen, wood, milkweed pods, 3 x 9 x 7 in.
  3. The Bones of the Mountain I, linen, branches, rock, cacti, 3 x 9 x 5 in.
  4. Melt, mixed fiber, 30 x 14 x 14 in.
  5. Gaia’s Womb III, linen, kozo, lotus pod, rust, twigs, 14 x 9 x 9 in.
  6. Colony Collapse, linen, handmade paper, digital prints, branch, 36 x 36 x 6 in.
  7. Hang Ten in the Gyre, linen, mixed fiber, plastic water bottles, 6 x 11 x 10 in.
  8. Acts of Devotion, installation of weaving, coiling, assemblage, size varies
  9. Weaver Bird, linen, twigs, 13 x 6 x 6 in.
10. Hats Off to Egrets, linen, egret feathers, twig, abaca, 12 x 6 x 6 in.
11. I Am Not a Hat, linen, egret feathers, twig, abaca, 11 x 6 x 6 in.
12. Weaver Bird, installation, linen, twigs, size variable
13. Huddled Masses, linen, twigs, Spanish moss, 12 x 9 x 9 in.
14. Ghost Forest, bark, handmade paper, size varies
15. Gut Punched, linen, rust, bark, pawpaws, 20 x 8 x 5 in.
16. Three White Pods, bark, abaca, linen, 2.5 x 13 x 2.5 in.
17. No Words, bark, linen, bullet casings, 20 x 7 x 5 in.
18. The artist and the artist’s cat in their studios.
19. The artist at her loom.

Alexandra Rutsch Brock

Alexandra Rutsch Brock is an artist, curator, and art educator, not necessarily in that order. Whether showing me her new series of sculptures or talking about taking her high school art class to the Met, she exudes passion and a sincere love for making and sharing art. Alexi has curated many shows, including HyperAccumulators and Insomnia, both at the Pelham Art Center in Pelham, New York. “I love shining a light on other peoples’ work”, she says, and indeed, she is as excited talking about other artists’ work as she is about her own. It’s unusual to encounter an artist so preoccupied with and committed to the promotion of others. I’m honored to shine a light on this remarkably generous artist, who sent me home with my very own ceramic vagina, pictured above.

MH:  There seem to be three categories to your art practice: artmaking, curating, and teaching. Is there one category that resonates most strongly with you? Or are they all of a piece?

ARB:  They’re equally important to me, and they feed each other. I love working alone in my studio, but I also like working with other artists. I started curating when I was 18, and I’ve always loved interacting with artists, visiting their studios, seeing what inspires them. When I was growing up there were always artists in our home, so I thrive on being around creative, smart people. That’s why I love teaching – the kids are amazing, and every day I’m fed by their creativity. 

MH:  I’ll start with artmaking. Why are you an artist? I know that your father was an influential artist – did he push you to go in that direction, or did you find it on your own? Did you ever resist the artist’s path?

ARB:  Both of my parents were artists; my father was more well-known than my mom.* I grew up in this creative environment where there was art everywhere, and we always had art materials to play with. I was good at art – I never wanted to do anything else, and never considered another profession. I was encouraged to go to art school, so I went to SVA (School of Visual Arts, New York) for my undergrad. I later got my degree to teach art.

MH:  You seem to work in series, which I find interesting. Do you see your explorations as a single continuum of creative expression, even though one series is quite different from another? Does one series lead to the next?

ARB:  All of my studio work is about me and my life experience, so it’s all connected. The various series have to do with birth, sickness, heart surgery, cancer, aging; the medium varies but it’s all about my life. In a larger sense, it has to do with the fragility of life, the frailty of our bodies, loss, and vulnerability. Commercially speaking, working in so many styles and mediums is problematic, but in an artistic sense it’s not. It’s hard for me to continue with a series after I’m done with it. Once the initial excitement is gone, I have to end the series because the soul leaves the work and it gets too clean and polished. I want the work to stay raw. I want it to be art, not a product. 

MH:  Some artists choose to explore deeply within the parameters of their medium and subject matter, like Rothko, for example. And then there are artists who like to experiment with different styles and concepts – Gerhard Richter comes to mind. Does either approach resonate with you? 

ARB:  I like exploring a lot of ideas, and I like to break the rules of a medium. It’s the mark-making that I’m interested in. For me it’s all about the exploration – that’s what I find exciting and fun. I have an idea, or something speaks to me, and I figure it out as I’m making it. And then once I figure it out, I’m usually done with the series. 

MH:  My favorite is the Ecstasy series, which are some of the most vulnerable portraits I’ve come across in a long time. They appear to be portraits of women in orgasmic pleasure, but I love their ambiguity: are they alone? Is there a lover? Maybe she’s in the agony of childbirth? Whatever’s going on, the tenderness is deeply felt and communicated.

ARB:  They’re all me. I painted them from photos that my husband took, experimenting with stained paper and gouache. I wasn’t trying to be pretty; in some I look ugly or wounded. This series just flowed out of me, and several people suggested that I make them larger, but I couldn’t. They’re the size that they’re supposed to be, which is life-sized.

MH:  You said that you have a new series going. Can you talk about that yet?

ARB:  I did a series of crying eyes during the pandemic. I started out by drawing eyes, then I sewed eyes on paper, and eventually I made them more tangible by sculpting them in clay and adding the tears. It was about the collective mourning of all that we were losing, and about some personal loss as well. The last five years have been filled with intense changes for me, so the tears are about loss, nostalgia, and losing control. 

MH:  Curation and collaboration play a big part in your art practice. Does it satisfy a different part of your creative drive? What is it about community-based work that you find gratifying? 

ARB:  I love the whole process of curating. I like meeting the artists and doing studio visits, I like putting artists’ work together and planning a show, and I like working with other people and coming up with ideas for shows. The conversations that artists have about art is always interesting – I mean, that’s the best energy in the world, right? 

MH:  Curating is interesting when you’re an artist, because you put a show together, but it’s not your own work. So there’s this once-removed gap that might mitigate the vulnerability of showing one’s own work. Does this ring true for you? On the other hand, it must be super gratifying to shine the light on another artist’s work. 

ARB:  This is what I love about curating! I love shining a light on other peoples’ work. I love putting artists together and starting a conversation about art and ideas. And of course it’s easier to approach a gallery when I’m not asking for myself, but asking them to look at another artist’s work.

MH:  Do you think it takes a certain amount of arrogance to be an artist? Maintaining a studio, forking over money for art supplies, dedicating one’s free time to express oneself – all of this requires some serious self-confidence. Do you ever struggle with this? 

ARB:  I don’t think it takes great confidence to buy art supplies and make work. I don’t need to struggle with this too much because I’m making it for myself. It brings me joy. I think every artist does it because they love it. But if I’m struggling with a particular piece, I just switch to another medium. I need to be excited about what I’m doing, and if something doesn’t excite me anymore, then I can’t continue to work on it.

MH:  And then there’s teaching. How does that feed into your practice? Is it a calling? 

ARB:  I love teaching art to kids. I want to show them how good it feels to make something, not so that their work can be in a gallery, but just because it brings them joy. I also want them to be comfortable walking into galleries and museums. When I bring a busload of kids to the Met, I explain to them ahead of time that we’re not going to enter through the school docent program, we’re going to enter through the main entrance, go to the ticket counter, and everyone’s going to pay a dollar for the suggested donation. I want to show them how it’s done so they can be comfortable with it, and know that this place is open to them any time they want. 

MH:  What is something about your studio work that you’d like people to know? 

ARB:  My work is about my life experience. I love the process of making it, and I love making it for myself, and…

At this point in our conversation, Polo the dog jumped off the couch, yawned, stretched, and waddled across her Ecstasy series that was spread out across the floor. I semi-freaked out, but she waved dismissively and shrugged it off. We had a good laugh.

MH:  Um, it doesn’t seem like your work is very precious to you. 

ARB:  My dad was like that with his work. It was everywhere, so you couldn’t help but step on it. The work just isn’t that important. What’s precious to me is the time that I have to make it.

www.alexandrarutschbrock.com

*Her father is Alexander Rutsch; her mother is Katherine Stolow Rutsch.

Image List
1. Ecstasy #5, 2017, watercolor and gouache on paper, 10 x 9 in.
2. Ecstasy #12, 2017, watercolor and gouache on paper, 10 x 9 in.
3. Ecstasy #9, 2017, watercolor and gouache on paper, 10 x 9 in.
  4. Ecstasy #7, 2017, watercolor and gouache on paper, 10 x 9 in
 5. Ecstasy #2, 2017, watercolor and gouache on paper, 10 x 9 in.
6. Retrospect (from the Moments series), 2021, gouache on rag paper, 11 x 8.5 in.
7. Past, Present, Future (from the Moments series), 2021, gouache on rag paper, 11 x 8.5 in.
 8. Harlequin Tears (from the Moments series), 2021, gouache on rag paper, 11 x 8.5 in.
9. Tears 1, 2021, white stoneware, slip, silk cord, 10.5 x 13 x 31 in.
9a. Tears 2, (wip), white stoneware, hi fire glaze, 20 x 14 x 2 in. (photo by Alyse Rosner)
9b. Tears 3, (wip), white stoneware, slip, hi fire glaze, gold lustre, 20 x 14 x 5 in. (photo by Alyse Rosner)
10. Family Tears, 2022, porcelain, high fire glaze, gold lustre, 9 x 7 in.
11. Trying To Communicate, 2022, stoneware, high fire glaze, gold lustre, 9 x 7 in.
12. Seeing Deeply 2, 2020, gouache and thread on Indian paper, 15 x 8 in.
13. Effulgent, 2020, gouache and thread on Indian paper, 8 x 8 in.
14. Connections, 2020, gouache and thread on Indian paper, 8 x 8 in.
15. From the 50 Series, 2021, ink and pencil on Indian rag paper, 10 x 10 in.
16. Ceramic Vagina, 2021, porcelain, hi fire glaze, mother of pearl lustre, 4 x 2 x 1 in.
17. The artist and Polo.

Mandy Cano Villalobos

The first time I met Mandy Cano Villalobos, she was eight months pregnant with her third child, on her way to a month-long artist residency in Wassaic, New York. This tells you everything you need to know about the artist, whose uncompromising work defies convention and categorization. Working in a variety of genres, MCV uses nontraditional materials to register the mundane activities of her life. Stitching discarded clothing, painting transcendent mandalas with pig blood, dripping her own breast milk onto the floor of an abandoned silo, pushing a gurney laden with detritus around the city – these gestures point to the impermanence of objects and the vanity of accumulation. The theme of desire is present throughout her work, expressed in her ritual-based work as well as performance. I’m a fan of her Penance series, in which she burns countless holes in paper so that I don’t have to. MCV lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and we talked on Zoom.

MH:  You grew up with a single mom in the army. How did you find your way into art? Was it fortuitous, or was it a choice?

MCV:  My mother tells everyone that I came out of the womb drawing. My grandmother was inclined to make things, so I may have gotten some of it from her. When I was ten I started collecting antiques. I’d go around to yard sales and buy unusual stuff. But even though I had this pull toward art, I thought that becoming an artist would be a bad life decision. I thought about becoming an English major instead, thinking that I’d make more money. But my mom convinced me that it was a bad idea, and that I didn’t have the patience for anything but art. She was right.

MH:  Do you want your kids to grow up to be artists? Is there a part of you that worries that they will?

MCV:  I don’t want my kids to be artists! There are too many artists in the world already. I want them to be engineers, accountants, and executives so they can buy art and support artists, including me.

MH:  Can you describe your performance piece “Motherload”?

MCV:  It’s an ongoing project. A gurney is covered with the detritus of motherhood, and I literally push it around the city. Domesticity is this private thing, so I wanted to take the idea of being a mom and lug it around in these historically industrial, male-dominant places. In another version, I stuff a huge backpack with all the things of motherhood, and I trek around town with it on my back.

MH:  You often use unusual materials in your work. I’m thinking of the pig blood, burnt paper, breast milk. Is there anything you’d like to say about your choice of materials? Do you find traditional materials such as paint to be limiting?

MCV:  Oh, totally. I love the tradition of painting, and a lot of what I do has stemmed from a classical education. But at some point, I got irritated with the narrative of painting. The idea pushed in art school was that painting should be big, bold, and loose, and if I painted like that, I’d be good to go. It really turned me off from painting. My work was more body-oriented, which at that time was looked down upon. I’m also drawn to craft that incorporates materials that I collect, like bodily relics. I have a collection of fingernails from the women in my family that I’ll use in a piece. There’s something precious about these materials.

MH:  How do you deal with boredom in the studio? When the inspiration isn’t there, do you take a break, or do you slog through?

MCV:  I’m never bored. My studio is my quiet time. If I’m having issues with a particular piece, I always have twenty other things I can work on. Inspiration is overrated; you just do the work, and every now and then a lightbulb goes off and you do something amazing. But most of the time you just go to the studio and work, whether you’re inspired or not. Plus, my life is insane! I have three kids and a dog and piles of laundry – so no, I don’t get bored. 

MH:  When I spend time looking at your work, the word “devotion” comes up. Is that a correct read, and if so, what are you devoted to?

MCV:  I definitely have a deep faith. I see everything that I do as having eternal ramifications. I feel that I have a very limited time on the earth, and my vocation is art making, so it’s my job to fulfill that purpose. If I didn’t have that larger belief system, there wouldn’t be any point. 

MH: A lot of your work ­is repetitious in its process. On closer examination, I see it as an act of “intentional accumulation”. Whether you’re burning holes in paper, tying endless knots in red string, or gathering “stuff” for your altars, there’s an accumulation of actions and marks. What are your thoughts on this? Is there an underlying need to accumulate? And to what end? 

MCV:  Omg, yes. I think of every finished piece as a relic of my process. How can I accumulate my moments, and express them visually? My two-dimensional work explores how process and image relate to one another. My installations are an accumulation of stuff, this American problem where we try to create a sense of permanence and meaning through the acquisition of physical objects. When I was a kid we moved almost every year, so I collected old books and antiques because they offered me a sense of home and continuity. My installations speak to this contrasting aspect of accumulation, that it’s both beautiful and false.

MH:  Is the work ironic, then?

MCV:  It’s not ironic. It’s more about the desire for something that we’re not able to get. A fundamental aspect of being human is this idea that there’s something missing that we desperately want, but we’re never going to be able to get it.

MH:  There is the Buddhist concept of “transfer of merit”, whereby the practitioner chooses to dedicate the merit that she’s accumulated through her meditation practice for the benefit of others. Your work has this quality for me, not in a religious sense, but there’s the feeling that you’re doing some good in the world by your considered, repetitive actions. Does this ring true?

MCV:  To some extent. I can only control so much. I’m not going to save the world, but maybe there’s some good that I can offer in the limited time that I’m on the earth. Like, how does my studio work translate into my relationships? And I feel like I’m constantly asking, what’s the point? By creating objects that will live on after me, I feel that I’m investing in something greater than myself.

MH:  Do you think that artists accumulate and disseminate good will in the world by doing their work? Taking the focus off from the “product”, do we generate basic goodness simply by spending so much time immersed in the creative act? 

MCV:  Part of me wants to respond with a resounding yes, but another part of me is way too practical to buy into that. I think that creativity is an essential human act, and there’s something about the process of creating that is fundamentally “good”. I love that part of being an artist. But the other part of me that was raised by the army mom is too practical to believe that artists can make such a difference in the world.

MH:  What is the optimal response to your work? If you could control the reaction, how would you want people to respond to it? I’m thinking of your performances, which are so beautifully understated. What is it that you want to communicate?

MCV:  I want people to engage with that piece that’s missing – that thing that we all want but can’t have. There are a lot of people who don’t even realize that the desire exists, and I want to connect with those people. I want to create the desire for something that’s beautiful and good. And I know that sounds very romantic, but whatever.

MH:  What’s something about your work that’s not readily apparent? 

MCV:  That accumulation thing that you picked up on is important. I also think a lot about death and impermanence. The fundamental human desire for permanence and home is an important aspect of my work, probably because there was so much change early on in my life. 

MH:  What’s something about you that comes through in your work, that most people wouldn’t notice?

MCV:  This idea that the artist is so important feels false. In a certain way, I think the artist should disappear in the work. I would much prefer that the work stand on its own. I find the art more interesting than the artist. 

www.mandycano.com

Image List
 1.  Motherload (Gurney), 2021, performance, Chattanooga, TN
2.  Motherload (Backpack), 2021, performance, Grand Rapids, MI
3.  Throne of the Dog-Faced Girl, 2020, found object sculpture
4.  It’s a Man’s World. Until it Isn't, (for Sheherezaad), 2021, found object installation
5.  Corpus Snow, 2018, wine-stained cloth, snow, and dirt
 6.  Holy Ground, 2018, stained clothing, string, and dirt from Chimayo, NM
7.  Things to Make and Do, 2022, hand scorched book cover, 9 x 7 in.
8.  Penance V, 2019, paper scorched by hand, 12 x 9 in.
9.  Monolith (Gold), 2019, imitation gold on ink-stained paper, 28 x 18 in.
10.  Nocturne I, 2018, imitation gold on found paper, 17 1/2 x 11 3/4 in.
11.  Of Mothers and Sons, 2020, found objects, thread, metal, and railroad tie
12.  Stain, 2016, collaborative performance with artist’s son, Grand Rapids, MI
13.  Stain, 2016
14.  Mark: Knot, 2015, performance tying knots in red string, Grand Rapids, MI
15.  Transfer Water, 2014, performance transferring water between two buckets, Grand Rapids, MI
16.  Traces, 2014, collection of photographs of roadside crosses marking death sites, found objects, food
17.  Voces, 2009‐2013, performative installation
18.  Sisyphus IV, 2014, pig blood on paper, 22 x 17 in.
19.  The artist in her studio (on Zoom).

Cal Lane

Cal Lane is a mixed media artist best known for transforming industrial steel into intricate, lace-like patterns. She uses plasma cutters and oxyacetylene torches to cut I-beams, oil tanks, and car hoods, undermining their masculine associations with traditional feminine craft. The juxtaposition of blue-collar labor with domestic handicraft creates a tension that goes beyond gender and ornamentation, addressing issues of class, sexuality, and religion. Lane embodies the contradictions in her work, having been employed as a hairdresser and a welder. Her sculptures and two-dimensional works are at once ironic and subversive, confronting the judgments and stereotypes that fuel the power struggles between class and gender.

MH:  Your work comes out of a blue-collar profession. Is this allusion intentional? Is it important to you as a conceptual aspect of your work?
CL:  I grew up working class. My dad was a naval engineer, and my mom was a hairdresser. I was pushed to follow in her footsteps, so I got my certificate and worked in her salon for a while, but I hated it. My parents discouraged me from going to college. To their way of thinking, you were lucky if you had a job, and hairdressing was a good profession. 

MH:  What led you to work with steel?
CL:  One day I saw this ad in the paper that said, “Become A Welder!” So I did. I went to welding school in my early 20s, and it suited me really well, from day one. When I finished trade school, I was welding tugboats, skyscrapers, and scaffolding. I enjoyed welding as a blue-collar job – the scale and the smell of it were very satisfying, and it fit the rebellious side of me. I didn’t like being pigeonholed as a hairdresser, but I also didn’t like being pigeonholed as a welder. Ironically, when I became a welder, I wanted to be more feminine. I’ve always been that person who pushes against rules and expectations; when someone tells me I can’t do something, that’s what I want to do.

MH:  How did you find your way into art?
CL:  Besides being a hairdresser, my mom was a painter, so I grew up making art with her. As a kid I was always drawing something, so art has always been in my life. As a welder by trade, I had this idea of taking something big and industrial and carving it away into something delicate. I saw it as poking fun at the “boy’s club” aspect of my profession. Eventually I went to art school and did my undergrad at the Novia Scotia College of Art and Design. I was hired as their metal shop technician and taught a metal working class for their architecture department, which helped pay for college. 

MH:  Besides the obvious juxtapositions in your work, such as the masculine/feminine and the industrial/handmade angles, I feel like there’s something deeper, not readily apparent. Is there something that is essential to your work, that most people don’t see at first glance?
CL:  One of the contrasts that I play with is between the material and the imagery. Steel is this heavy, industrial object that is a symbol of strength and power, and by turning it into lace, it feels like I’m taking away the usefulness of it. I’m undermining it, in a certain sense. I cut lace patterns into oil tanks, oil drums, I-beams, and car hoods, and if people see these as merely decorative objects, I struggle with that. I’m attracted to the decorative in a dark kind of way. It’s funny because I’m often invited to be in group shows centered around lace, but I started making lace because I hated it. My work was a comment on the “decoration” to which women are often reduced, rather than making a decorative object. But I also sometimes incorporate the beautiful aspect of lace as a contrast to the dirty, grungy, dark side of steel working. Both are important and interesting to me.

MH:  There’s a strong presence of femininity in your work, as well as an undercurrent of subversion. Is that a correct read, and if so, what are you subverting?
CL:  I don’t approach any of my work with a specific way that I want it to be interpreted. I try to keep it engaging and open-ended at the same time. For me, the strength of visual arts is its ambiguity and mystery, so I try to approach things more loosely. Ever since I can remember I’ve been confused by the things that people seem to value. Gender issues, class, religion – any kind of judgment seems random and meaningless to me. It’s constant and it’s exhausting. As a natural rebel, I’m always reacting against my environment, both socially and culturally. I guess I’m embodying the devil’s advocate, always questioning why we have to do anything a certain way. In this way, my work is subversive.

MH:  Does the artist choose her medium, or does the medium choose the artist?
CL:  I think it goes back and forth. I like having an idea, and then choosing the material for that idea. I don’t just work in steel. I’ve been working on a series of paintings on mattresses, which interest me for their materiality and texture. Each one has a unique quilt pattern, and I like playing off the contrast of the intimate and hideous qualities of a used mattress. I’ve also done some drawings of submarines on embossed wallpaper, which are very pattern oriented. In general, my two-dimensional work has a strong connection to sculpture; I call them paintings because of their rectangular format, and because they hang on the wall. 

MH:  All artists get to a point where their work becomes repetitive. For some artists that’s not a problem, because the most important thing is to be engaged in the process. For others, they have to move on and find something fresh. Where do you stand on this issue? 
CL:  Moving on to something fresh is definitely important to me. It helps that I work in several mediums, so I have a variety of things I can work on. I’m aware that my audience is looking for the steel work, but I need to step away from it sometimes, and then when I come back to it, it feels fresh. It can be hard to find the time to experiment when I have too many shows back-to-back and have to produce a body of work. 

MH:  Is originality important?
CL:  I was more concerned with originality early on when I was doing my undergrad. I was a female welder which gave me a unique point of view, and I had teachers pushing me in that direction. But having your own metal shop is overwhelming and expensive. And then I found an oxyacetylene cutting torch at a garage sale for $70, so I started cutting metal. It was the only tool I had, and the limitation was good for me. But steel isn’t just a material for me, it’s also a metaphor for a lot of things, like the masculine and industrial aspect of the material. So I would say that originality has been important to me, but I don’t think about it as much as I used to.

MH:  You’ve had a good amount of success in your art career: shows, reviews, articles, and sales. How do you handle disappointment when it comes up? 
CL:  I’ve always had low expectations! I can thank my upbringing for that. I never expected to have any success, so any form of it comes as a surprise.

MH:  What is the highest compliment that you can imagine as an artist?
CL:  Well, one guy called me the Jimi Hendrix of plasma cutters. 

MH:  And as a human being?
CL:  A lot of people tell me that I’ve inspired them, which is nice to hear. One guy told me that his 5-year-old daughter started welding because of me, and other women have told me that I inspired them to go into metal work. 

MH:  What’s something about your work that you’d like people to know, that’s not necessarily obvious?
CL:  I was always the artist who was very introverted. As a kid I just stayed home and drew, while all my friends were getting together and partying. But as you get older it completely changes, and now it’s become a communication tool for me. When my work is out in shows and people see it, it’s the primary way that I connect to other people. I’m making the work almost to prove that I’m living on the planet. It’s like I’m asking the question, “Does this make sense to you?”, which is the beginning of a conversation. 

A selection of Cal Lane’s work is currently on view in the exhibition “In Her Space”,
with Roxa Smith at C24 Gallery in Chelsea, through March 5th.

www.callane.com

Images 2-6 are currently on view at C24 Gallery in Chelsea, NYC
1. Veiled Hoods and Stains, rust stains on canvas
2.  Gallery View, C24 Gallery. Foreground: Astute Class, 2021. Paintings by Roxa Smith.
3.  Hood, 2015, C24 Gallery
4.  Big Panties, 2017, C24 Gallery
5.  Untitled (Shovel), 2016-22, C24 Gallery
6.  Sweet Spill, 2010, C24 Gallery
7.  Sifted Sand, 2017, 16 x 24 ft.
8.  Dirt Sift, 2018, digital print, 3 x 2 ft.
9.  The Digs, Knickerbocker Stop on the M Train, 2016, plasma cut steel, 60 x 4 ft.
10.  Guttersnipe, 2010, plasma cut steel, 40 x 9 ft.
11.  Domesticate, 2014, plasma cut steel container, 9 x 9 ft.
12.  Lanederbes, 2012, plasma cut steel ammo box, 34 x 18 in.
13.  Doily Dumbells, 2019, plasma cut steel, 54 x 23 in. 
14.  Oil Drum Column, 2008, plasma cut steel, 15 x 3 ft.
15.  Courting, 2017, mixed media installation, 40 x 23 in.
16.  Braided Tires, 2017, tire and hair, 3 ft. x 35 in.
17.  Sub-side, 2017, drawing on wallpaper, 52 x 25 in.
18.  Panty Stain, 2017, rust on paper, 23 x 14 in.
19.  The artist and her husband, Tim Reinke, and Clark. Painting behind couch is from her new series of mattress paintings.
20.  Cal Lane

Martha Bone

Martha Bone is a Hudson Valley-based artist whose large-scale assemblages on paper and canvas are excavations from her rich personal history. Working from her photographs, she constructs images by painting, scraping, sanding, and often puncturing the surface of a piece. Her work is sculptural and free-form, as she adds to a piece by gluing on sections as needed. She studied dance in New York for many years, which influences her process and informs her body-oriented imagery. The screws and bolts that she attaches to her drawings stand in bold relief to the fleshy, intestinal shapes that spill over the surface.

MH:  Your sculptures and your two-dimensional work have a monumental feel to them. There’s the feeling that they want to take up a lot of space. Why do you think it’s important to you to work this large? What does it give you that, say, miniature painting wouldn’t? 
MB:   I have to work large. There’s something wonderful about being able to move into a painting with your whole body. I studied modern dance right after college and loved the immediacy of the art form. My gestures on the paper or canvas often come from the joy of moving around while I’m working, so my work is very body-oriented. I work like a sculptor, digging into the piece, using a cheap, worn down brush like a shovel. I sometimes accidentally create holes in the paper, and I like the mark that it makes.

MH:  It sounds like your work is the expression of an internal process, rather than an external observation.
MB:  It’s both. It comes from within and without. That saying, “As on earth, so it is in heaven” – that’s how I think about it. There’s nothing in here that’s not out there. There were several years where I wasn’t interested in making anything beautiful. I was working through some things, to get to a place of truth in myself, and you don’t get there right away. It’s taken me a long time, but I’m there now. I’m using external reference points more than I did in the past: machinery, objects, bone, metal, clay, and even bologna shows up in my work.

MH:  Can you describe the inner drive that pulls you into your studio every day? Are there words for it?
MB:  I have to do it, even if I don’t feel like it on a given day. It’s more than a compulsion, it’s karmic. If I don’t do it, it backs up on me. Whatever it is that I’m working on, I want to work through it. It’s not easy to come to the studio every day. Some days it’s torture! But there’s no choice – I have to do it, even if it means coming into my studio and ruining something.

MH:  You spent some significant time in India. This must have affected your work.
MB:  I originally went to India in the 80s because I was supposed to meet this guy in Jaipur, and he didn’t show up, so there I was in India, all by myself. I met some people who showed me how to navigate the culture, and after that I fell in love with it. It was the underbelly of India that drew me in. I’ve always been interested in what’s hidden, what’s happening behind the scenes. But in India, nothing is hidden – everything is out in the street, even death, and I saw bodies carried down the street on a stretcher. I started a business called “Sleeping Buddha”, where I designed a line of textiles and had them block-printed in India. There were these huge, black cauldrons where they mixed the dyes with a stick over a wood fire – all of this stuff spoke to me and influenced my later work. I went to India every year just because it got into my blood.

MH:  When I first met you, you had your awesome studio on West 28th Street. But when they kicked the artists out of the building, you did the studio scramble for a few years, which I know was a total hassle for you. And now you’re in your home studio, near Hudson. How is that working out? How has your work changed since leaving your Manhattan studio? 
MB:  Well, I’m not running back and forth anymore, so I can get up early in the morning and start working, and I can work after dinner as well. I get a lot done, and I think about my work all the time. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of people to talk it over with, but other than that, it’s working out welI. I’m a New York girl and I miss the city, but I love working here. I think the change in my work has to do with having less stress than I did in the city.

MH:  All artists want to be successful, but we define success in different ways. What does success look like for you? Has it changed over the years?
MB:  When I was young I was a designer/illustrator, and I was successful at both. But then I moved from the Upper West Side to a fabulous loft on East Broadway, and that’s when I realized that I was an artist. I was 25. Those were great days! You didn’t have to have a website or Instagram account, you could just walk into a gallery and show them your slides and they’d give you a show. I showed with Louise Bourgeois and Joan Semmel at Alan Stone, with Kiki Smith and Carolee Schneemann at The Erotic Art Gallery; I did a performance at St. Marks in the Bowery Church with three dancers and a sound artist. I studied modern dance at the Merce Cunningham Studio, the Martha Graham School, and with the principal dancers from Alwin Nikolais Dance Company. The last person I studied with was Meredith Monk, who had a huge influence on my work. She was minimal and expressive – her work really mirrors how I look at things. So things were going amazingly well, but it felt like there was a piece missing. I didn’t feel like I could keep it up. I went to an ashram upstate for a short rest and ended up staying for nine years. I didn’t do any artwork during this time, but I was doing deep work on myself, piecing things together, which is reflected in my current work. I think success changes as you get older. It doesn’t always look the way you want it to, but sometimes things work out the way they need to.  

MH:  Sometimes you’ll hear an artist being referred to as an “important artist”. This turn of phrase has always annoyed me. Do you think this implies that some artists are more important than others?
MB:  I don’t like that expression either. Writers and critics like a certain kind of artist and I respect that, but it’s not always what I like. If it doesn’t resonate with you, then it’s not important for you. My work has a spiritual component that curators aren’t necessarily interested in. I’m doing work that I feel good about, regardless of who likes it or whether it’s considered “important”.  

MH:  The New York art world is very competitive. Lots of artists are making interesting art, but only a small percentage get to show their work. Do you have any insights about how it all works? Do you care? 
MB:  Yes, I care, but I try not to think about it too much. I think the artists who get shown have done the research and made the necessary connections, and the work usually fits into certain styles or parameters. It really depends on how much effort you put into it. In the past, I haven’t put in a lot of effort, because I didn’t care all that much. I just wanted to do my work. I think in a lot of ways the art world is broken. It needs to open up and create new ways of presenting artists’ work. 

MH:  It’s hard not to be cynical these days. Our country’s politics are disgraceful, and the planet is seriously in peril. Is it still relevant to make art? Does it sometimes feel like you’re preparing for a solo show on the Titanic?
MB:  You can’t count on anything. We don’t know what’s going to happen. You just do your work because you have to, regardless of what’s going on out there.

MH:  What’s the best part about being an artist? 
MB:  You have a way to express your ideas and processes. I’ve had a lot of things to work through, some of it karmic, some from past lives, and it all came to the surface when I was in my 20s. It was very intense, like an erupting volcano, and the only thing I could do was grab a marker and sketch what I was experiencing. It was very body-oriented and I had no filters – it all just came out and I drew it. Then in the 70s I had a close relationship with a spiritual teacher who pulled a lot of baggage out of me that had deep roots. And I was an artist, so I had a way to express this and work with it.

MH:  What is something about yourself and your work that you’d like people to know, that might not be apparent?
MB:  I’m feeling a lot of compassion for the human race and for where we’re headed. I think that it’s showing up in my work. Maybe it’s the technique, maybe it’s just that I’m a compassionate person, and that’s coming through more than it used to. A lot of my older work had a certain edge to it, but my new work is more beautiful than I would have done in the past. There’s a certain generosity that’s showing up in my work and in my relationships that wasn’t there before.

Works from her current series, “Mapping the Invisible”, can be seen at
510 Warren Street Gallery in Hudson, New York through January 30.

www.marthaboneart.com

Images
1. Mapping the Invisible #6, 2021, acrylic, charcoal, joint compound, pastel, bolts on pieced paper on wood panel, 64 x 99 in.
2. Mapping the Invisible #1, 2020, acrylic, aluminum enamel, charcoal, joint compound, pastel on pieced paper, 77 x 112 in.
3. Mapping the Invisible #2, 2020, acrylic, aluminum enamel, charcoal, joint compound, pastel on pieced paper, 60 x 84 in.
4. Mapping the Invisible #3, 2020, acrylic, aluminum enamel, charcoal, joint compound, pastel on pieced paper, 63 x 88 in.
5. Mapping the Invisible, 2020, acrylic, aluminum enamel, charcoal, joint compound, pastel on pieced paper, 36 x 36 in.
6. Mapping the Invisible #5, 2020, acrylic, aluminum enamel, charcoal, joint compound, pastel on pieced paper
7. Mapping the Invisible #8, 2021, acrylic, charcoal, joint compound, pastel on pieced paper on wood panel, 65 x 91 in.
8. Karmic Loop #1, 2020, charcoal, conte crayon on watercolor paper, 22 x 30 in.
9. Karmic Loop #3, 2020, charcoal, conte crayon on watercolor paper, 22 x 30 in.
10. Karmic Loop #5, 2020, charcoal, conte crayon on watercolor paper, 22 x 30 in.
11. Karmic Loop #2, 2016, charcoal, conte crayon on watercolor paper, 30 x 22 in.
12 and 13. The artist in her studio.