Susan Walsh

The equinox seems an appropriate time to share the work of Susan Walsh, as her focus is on the change of seasons, time-based processes, and the effects of the elements. Walsh is a multimedia artist whose materials include wind, rain, waves, and shadows. Her subject is time, and her object is to record it by setting up experiments that are at once scientific and poetic. She meticulously researches weather conditions and seasonal patterns, zeroing in on the optimal conditions for spontaneous mark making. This is a collaboration between the artist and the elements, and Walsh’s research involves finding the precise speed that the wind must blow to disperse the charcoal across, but not off, the paper. In another series, she determines the narrow season in which a piece of thread will cast a perfect, ink-like shadow across the paper (spoiler alert: it’s January through March), or the perfect admixture and amount of gouache so that when the rain pelts the paper, the pigments will separate and spatter just so. Walsh’s studio is a laboratory of trial and error, a labor of love and curiosity in which she painstakingly documents the patterns and quirks of her collaborator. By the time she places her paper in the elements, she has achieved a high level of predictability, with a generous tolerance for accidents. It’s the latter that excites Walsh, those unexpected natural events that leave irregular marks and remind her that no amount of record keeping can ensure an anticipated outcome. Walsh makes notations on the paper that include the date, time, and location of the commencement of the drawing. It also records notations such as the wind’s speed and direction, and these exhaustive details become the human mark, a fingerprint of the artist, so to speak, which is a ledger of where she was at a precise moment in time. In theory, if all her drawings were placed in chronological order, we would have a timeline of the artist’s movement across the landscape of her life. Walsh’s sundials similarly attest to the presence of the artist as she records the shapes and shadows cast by stone, nail, and thread. Everything is a sundial, according to Walsh, but it requires a scientist, poet, or artist to initiate the essential inquiry. Walsh is all of these, as she harnesses the power of the elements and uses them to create her elegant time- and nature-based works.

MH: To quote your artist statement, “The consistent theme of my work has been marking time through observable changes in natural phenomena.” When did you become interested in the passing of time, and why does it hold such interest for you?
SW: I’ve always been interested in time, but it didn’t become part of my work until I moved to the Hudson Valley in 2008. I started to write the time of day on photographs that I took, and I felt like I was recording an energy or an instance of something. Then I had this moment in the studio when I was playing around with thread, and I noticed that the winter sun had cast shadows on the thread that  was laying on white paper, and it looked like a pen and ink drawing. It was one of those amazing moments that you have in the studio. This moment was about time, the elements, the winter sun casting a shadow, and the object becoming a sundial. From there I started to research the recording of time, and began to think about everything as a type of sundial.

MH: So it sounds like you had been vaguely interested in time, but then you had this epiphany around it, and your interest expanded.
SW: Yes, it was a super-epiphany, and I had a strong feeling that it was the beginning of my work changing in a big way. Prior to this, when I was living in New Mexico, my work was more about politics and the female body. When I moved to New York City, I was taking photos as a way of sketching, but that work was no longer important to me. So this new direction was really exciting.

MH: You meticulously mark the passing of time by using nature-based processes: sunlight, shadow, wind, rain, waves. In one series, a wave crashes onto a piece of paper and leaves a mark. You then record the precise time that the mark was made. Why are you interested in recording the exact moment of an occurrence?
SW: It’s about where I am at the moment that I connect with this natural object or event. It’s like I’m the recorder of myself in connection with the elements. This happened, and I was there. It becomes a collection of these moments and where I was in the world at that moment. It’s also a moment of dissolving with that thing, with the rain, and I become very present.

MH: I’d like to dive into your process to understand it better. In your series Rain Drawings, you place pigment on a sheet of paper and leave it outside in the rain, which pelts into the pigment and leaves a mark. Do you attempt to regulate or edit the drawing in any way, or do you leave it entirely to the elements?
SW: It’s pretty much up to the elements. The part when I’m involved is when I decide that it’s done. So the date and time that I put on the rain drawing is the moment it began, then I stand there, getting wet and watching the rain do its thing. It’s just wonderful to watch the rain disperse the paint, then when I decide it’s finished I carry it inside and it takes 24 hours to dry. And during that process it continues to become something else, because it changes as it dries. It’s a beautiful process.

MH: In your series Wind Drawings, you lay charcoal on a sheet of Arches paper, and then what? You place it in the wind? Please describe how this works.
SW: In this case I’m stamping the paper with charcoal powder and another medium, otherwise it all blows off the paper. And again, I decide when it’s done. On these drawings I record the direction and speed of the wind. This notation is part of the narrative, like a mark.

MH: When we look at the finished piece, what do you want the viewer to see? What do you see? Is it a nature-based drawing, or a sort of cross-section of time?
SW: The main thing I’m hoping for people to see is the energy of that element, like the energy of the sun or rain or a wave. I do a lot of experimentation to make this happen so that you first perceive the energy of that thing, and then maybe you see associations to landscape. Like with the wind drawings, some people see them as trees, and with the waves some people see them as the sea. But first I want them to see the energy of those elements, because the true energy is astounding, and that’s what I’m trying to get at. It’s a quieter energy.

MH: It’s interesting that your work isn’t about the charcoal or the ink or pigments, it’s about the energy of the element, but you need something to show where the rain or wave has been.
SW: Yes, the studio is basically an experimentation lab, where I’m trying to find the right materials to convey a certain energy. What properties do charcoal have that will convey the energy of the wind, or gouache to convey the waves?

MH: I’m curious if you engage with the process as an artist purely aesthetically, or do you also feel like a scientist or researcher, with little regard for the visual “product”?
SW: I’d say it’s somewhere in the middle. I’m reading the scientists, the botanists, all the books that excite me about these topics. Right now I’m reading a book about the cultural aspects of rain, but in the experimentation process there are all these aesthetic concerns that I take into consideration. I want the work to be appealing; I want people to feel pleasure when they look at it. It’s more poetry than science.

MH: You don’t have any control, really, over the visual product, except in the very beginning.
SW: Well, yes—I do make decisions about the color of the gouache. That’s an aesthetic decision. The pigments separate as they dry, which is also an aesthetic decision. But as soon as I put it out, I no longer have any control, and that’s what I’m looking for. I don’t want any control. I want there to be an invitation, I want to let go, I want to see what this thing can do, and then I decide when it’s done. So it really is about time.

MH: There are a lot of things that you could do to make your work more “flashy”, less quiet. Like manipulate it into mandalas with Photoshop to give it more visual appeal, that kind of thing. But you don’t. Is that a deliberate choice, not to make it flashy?
SW: I don’t want my work to be flashy, so I don’t need to manipulate it. I like how quiet it is, and I like that the connection it makes to other people is a quiet connection. One year I took some of my thread drawings down to one of the art fairs in Miami, and all the art was loud and screaming, and there were my little, quiet thread drawings (haha). I sold a few pieces, but I realized that my work is not art fair work at all.

MH: In another series, Time Story, you continue to work with the elements to reveal time, but now time becomes geological. There are topographies and ancient time-keeping methods such as sundials and wood patterns that narrate the life of a tree. How does moving into three dimensions expand your investigation of time?
SW: I see the three-dimensional work as something that exists in space and changes from moment to moment. The sun casts a shadow, and seeing how it reacts with my sculpture is interesting to me. There are these cycles in nature that we don’t really notice because we don’t slow down, but I get to see it in my sculpture. So the three-dimensional work is active, not inert. But then if I photograph it, that becomes a fixed moment.

MH: Your participation in the process is essential but minimally invasive. You gather the materials, set them up, then step away from the process. It brings up some interesting questions regarding the will of the artist as well as your self-identification as an artist. Have you wrestled with your role and identity in your practice?
SW: Someone once asked me if I was the artist or if rain was the artist. I don’t struggle with it because some of the art that I’m really drawn to is process-based and experiential, and I like fitting into that camp. There are so many artists who have inspired me, and who have done this kind of work, like Robert Irwin who creates a condition of natural light, theater scrim, and space that slowly changes for the viewer moment by moment. I also like the work of Meghann Riepenhoff, who creates large scale cyanotypes in frozen water, and works where the wind and rain inscribe ice crystals onto the paper. 

MH: Your work is very conceptual and cerebral which makes it interesting, but it’s also beautiful. The finished piece has a quiet elegance to it.
SW: Yes, thank you! It starts in the mind like an outline and ends with a quiet trace of a sensory, physical experience. 

MH: Whether you’re a scientist or lab technician or artist, if you didn’t set this whole thing up, it wouldn’t happen. So your intention is essential, but your participation is minimal.
SW: I see my participation and the elements’ participation as an equal collaboration. The elements are making the marks, but I spend a lot of time experimenting with materials before I get to the point of setting up the drawing. Like when I first tried to do the wind drawings, I couldn’t find the right energy, and eventually I figured out that the speed of the wind had to be between 14 and 20 mph. If it was less it just sat on the paper, if it was more it would just blow off. With the thread drawings, I discovered that it was only between January and March when the sun is really low in the sky that it works; any other time I can’t get the desired effects. So even though it all looks very simple, it’s complex and takes a lot of trial and error.

MH: What is the difference between an artist and a technician? I’m thinking not only of the set-up of your drawings, but also of the painter who has amazing technical skills, but whose work is little more than a display of virtuosity, a portrait that’s life-like but sterile. Is there a meaningful distinction between being an artist and being a savvy technician?
SW: I think the artist is always going to look for the poetry. I don’t think the technician would be able to let go of control. Being a good technician means that you get it just right, you tighten the bolts, you’re drawing the lines perfectly and precisely. My work is not about that. So the letting go is the poetry and the art. It’s where the work goes when I let go.

MH: Well, your work is most definitely poetic, almost by definition. I mean, I don’t know why anyone would go to all the trouble of setting up these visual experiments, if she wasn’t an artist or poet.
SW: Hahaha! So true. Why would they? Charcoal powder is dirty, the wind is a pain, so why would anyone bother?

MH: I’m curious if your studio practice is also a spiritual practice of some sort. It seems to lend itself to that, not only in its focus on time as material, but also on you, the artist, as a temporal agent. If you do your job right, you simply disappear. How do you feel about that?
SW: So spot on. I don’t consider my studio in Newburgh to be my only studio. The studio is also the mountain, my walk, and the whole thing is absolutely a spiritual practice. It’s about slowing down, seeing the constant return of the breath. The idea of the return of the seasons is comforting to me, and the idea of returning to something in terms of material interests me. I’m just figuring out ways to let go and get quiet enough to be open to some magical thing out there.

MH: I’m quoting you here: “The work is complete when the viewer experiences the absence of the material that makes it.” You could substitute the word “artist” for “material”. Is it your ultimate goal to paint yourself out of the picture, as it were?
SW: I wouldn’t say that’s my goal, but I think that’s happening with the work. The elements take the main stage, and that’s okay. I wrote that the material is absent, but in reality I think it’s still there. The rain, the wind, it’s all still there. But I don’t think it’s my goal to paint myself out of the picture, no.

MH: What is your goal, then? Do you have one?
SW: The last time I checked in about this, I wanted to convey that there’s something out there that’s so ubiquitous that maybe we don’t notice it. So if I can convey an awareness of this beauty, which is in the energy of the rain, the wind, and the waves, then that’s the goal. I don’t think that’s painting myself out of the picture, but I’m okay with it if it is.

MH: What’s the best part about being an artist?
SW: I feel so lucky that I have a form for all these crazy things that I’m curious about, and when I go off on these curious tangents, I love where I end up. And then I get to share that excitement with colleagues and friends, which gives me community and connection. It’s such an incredible journey and I love it.

www.susanwalshstudio.com

The artist’s work is featured in Fresh 2023 at Klompching Gallery in Dumbo through Oct. 21, 2023.

IMAGE LIST
1. 41°N30’22” -73W57’54” 3:13 pm, 2013, archival pigment print, 11 x 11 in.
  2. 41°N30’22” -73W57’54” 3:00 pm, 2013, archival pigment print, 11 x 11 in.
  3. Wave Drawing, Fort Tilden Beach, NY, #2, 2017, gouache, Atlantic sea water, Arches paper, 7 x 7 in.
  4. Wave Drawing, Fort Tilden Beach, NY, #3, 2017, gouache, Atlantic sea water, Arches paper, 7 x 7 in.
  5. Wave Sending Project (detail), 2020, gouache, Atlantic sea water, paper, 4 x 6 in.
  6. Wind Drawing, Beacon, NY #12, 2018, charcoal powder, wind, Arches paper, 22 x 30 in.
  7. Wind Drawing, Beacon, NY #15, 2018, charcoal powder, wind, Arches paper, 22 x 30 in.
  8. Wind Drawing, (photo taken in artist’s studio)
  9. Rain Drawing, June 14, 1:20 pm, 2023, charcoal powder ink, rust powder ink, rain, Yupo paper, 7 x 11 in.
10. Rain Drawing, June 14, 1:43 pm, 2023, charcoal powder ink, rust powder ink, rain, Yupo paper, 7 x 11 in.
11. Rain Drawing, November 13, 8:30 am, 2018, gouache, rain, Yupo paper, 22 x 30 in.
12. Rain Drawing, May 20, 11;230 am, 2018, gouache, rain, Yupo paper, 22 x 30 in.
13. Time Story #4, Sun Drawing, August 14, 8:23 am, 2021, archival pigment print, 11 x 11 in.
14. Time Story #10, Sun Drawing, August 14, 8:29 am, 2021, archival pigment print, 11 x 11 in.
15. Time Story #13 Sculpture, 2022, wood, nails, graphite, paint, 28 x 28 in.
16. Time Story (photo taken in artist’s studio)
17. Time Story #13, Sun Drawing, March 21, 9:21 am, 2022, archival pigment print, 28 x 28 in. image, 32 x 32 in. paper
18. Carbon Portrait No.1, 2023, archival pigment print, charcoal powder, 8.5 x 11 in.
19. Carbon Portrait No. 2, 2023, archival pigment print, charcoal powder, 8.5 x 11 in.
20. January 19, 2015 #1 (Agnes Martin/On Kawara), 2015, wood panel, flashe, nails, 12 x 12 in.
21, 22. The artist in her studio.

Lisa Pressman

Lisa Pressman’s paintings are explorations of the human condition, with all its triumphs, frailties, and baggage. Her experimental use of materials is visually arresting and seemingly effortless, as she applies layers of translucent color and texture to achieve a rich, luminous surface. Pressman’s mastery over her medium is restrained rather than ostentatious; her paintings radiate with a golden light that is subtle yet seductive. She layers her paintings with encaustic, acrylic, and a variety of mediums and grounds, then digs into them with razor blades and clay tools, as if excavating our deepest emotions. The work is burnt with incense, sewn with suture-like stitches, and covered with a cryptic text that reads as an excised variant of our Roman alphabet. These hieroglyphs are composed of fragmented fonts that are vaguely familiar, but it’s no use trying to decipher them, as their meaning is impenetrable. It’s unclear what Pressman is trying to tell us, or if she knows herself. She appears to be channeling messages in a tongue that bypasses the intellect and speaks directly to the heart. Pressman is fluent in the language of grief, having experienced tremendous loss in her life. Her work is emotionally intense, laden with the acute joys and sorrows that can only be accessed through profound suffering. She shares her journey with a deep generosity of spirit, and we want to travel with her, knowing that on some level it’s our journey as well. Pressman’s work has a ritualized aspect, and we sense that in her process – paint, stitch, burn, repeat – she’s working something out on a transpersonal level. Her paintings have a rhythm, language, and function that remain an enigma, but through them we recognize that our own suffering, past and future, is neither solitary nor in vain. Indeed, in the extremities of our human experience, we all speak the same language.

MH: Your paintings are comprised of many layers, and there are passages where the material becomes very dense. How do you approach your work, and is process important to your practice?
LP: Process is extremely important. The process is about building the history of the piece, of what goes on and what covers up, of what conceals and what reveals, and this applies to anything I’m working on. Process is especially important now as I’m burning, smoking, and stitching the material, and even with the paint, where I’m layering in color, scraping into the surface, and so forth.

MH: The building up of layers, and then scraping into them, feels like an excavation of sorts. Are you searching for something? Is it a formal inquiry, or does it feel more metaphorical? Possibly both?
LP: Yes, absolutely both. Sometimes I’m searching for the magic moment that might be underneath, formally speaking, and with the oil paintings I’m searching for an image or something to reveal itself. I keep digging and digging until I find something that I can work with, a shape or a quality of light, that kind of thing.

MH: At this point in your career as an artist, do you feel confident that you’ll find it?
LP: If you’d asked me a year ago, I’d say absolutely! At the moment I’m having some doubt around it, but I definitely feel confident in my investigations, whether with the material or image. It’s an ongoing process, and the questioning is part of it.

MH: So it’s not always a given that you’ll come up with a good piece?
LP: It’s not always a given. Except that I’m very persistent, and I have no problem painting over something. My motto is when in doubt, paint it white (haha). I rarely throw a piece out, and I have piles and piles of work, so I don’t feel like anything is too precious.

MH: Your studio practice also consists of burning, sewing, melting, and smudging with incense. In addition to achieving a wide variety of marks on your surfaces, this starts to sound like a ritualized process. Do you ever approach your work as ritual?
LP: I never did until after my son Sam passed away in 2019. Now I feel connected to the idea of ritual, incense, burning the paper, rolling the ashes – it captivates me. I taught a class with my working partner Susan Stover on Meditative Practices in Contemporary Art, where we looked at a lot of work that has to do with burning, sewing, repetitive text – practices that relate to ritual. It inspired me to approach my work differently, not just as a formal painter. Like today I was in my studio burning incense, and the embers fell on my paper and burned holes in it, which was very satisfying.

MH: What’s the difference between process-oriented work and ritual-based work? Do you make a distinction between the two, or does it all run together?
LP: I never had a connection to ritual until recently. I was connected to material and process and the way I painted, with a lot of repetitive mark making that felt contemplative. But in the past few years the specificity of the materials that I’m using has lent themselves to ritual.

MH: Does your stitching have a ritualized aspect? Or is it more meditative? In some of your pieces, it feels like you’re mindfully mending something, almost like a suture on a psychic wound. How do you think about the sewing and thread?
LP: Yes, it’s meditative, and there’s a mystery about it. I like the idea that the stitching moves in and out, in front and behind, and there’s that sense of suturing, of mending something intangible. I also like the idea of stitching as bringing disparate things together, and I use red thread that has symbolic associations. In Buddhism red is a sacred color, the color of the life force, and Jung talks about the red thread running through life. But primarily it’s an aesthetic choice; it just feels right for me, and it’s healing.

MH: Yes, you spoke of the healing properties of color. Would you talk about that?
LP: After my mother passed away, I was in the studio, and it was a dark, depressing day. I was working with encaustic, and I decided to try using color to make myself feel better. So I created this amazing yellow painting that totally was the opposite of how I felt inside, but looking at it evoked positive emotional changes. I was able to respond differently, and that’s something that I’ve been focusing on.

MH: Do you think about this when you choose your color palette?
LP: The new work has color, but it’s understated, maybe because I’m getting older and learning more about color all the time. I’ve always focused on is having the color look like its coming from within, so there’s a glow or a sense of light that emanates from the painting.

MH: Right, I see that in your work and it’s very mysterious. How do you get that effect?
LP: I start with a warm, transparent ground, then I layer opaque and transparent layers, both warm and cool, building up the surface so that when I scrape into it, I’ll be bringing back what’s underneath. So the warmth or “glow” comes from the first layers that I put down.

MH: You must have to plan ahead, like chess moves.
LP: I don’t really plan ahead but I have a way of building surface that works for me. But it’s just call and response. I generally know how the layers will respond, but I never really know what’s going to happen; there are always surprises. Teaching has helped me figure out what I’m doing. I like using a razor blade to dig into the surface, and I sometimes use a clay tool. I sometimes call myself a “visceral materialist” because I relate to materials in any form, and my process is deeply intuitive.

MH: The thing that first drew me to your work was your distinctive use of text. It’s intriguing how you use language, text, and letters while avoiding specificity of any kind. The marks seem familiar, but as we move in close to decipher them, we cannot penetrate their meaning. What’s your thinking behind this?
LP: I’ve been using text for a long time, and the writing was always unclear. After my son passed, the writing became even more obscure, as I didn’t particularly want to share my grief. I didn’t want to go into the truth of how I felt. I like the mystery, the idea of something; I can hint at what I’m feeling without having to tell everything in the work. There’s a connection between what I’m communicating with the text and what you see and feel.

MH: I love your spare use of text. The emotion, the deep sensitivity, it’s all there in the writing, but if it was literal, it would be too much. It creates its own language.
LP: Yes, to me it looks more like mark making, and I like that. The other thing I’ve done is to write in smoke, and I also add full letters or commas in the Letraset typefaces, which are recognizable.

MH: I’m also intrigued by your process of applying text to your paintings, which creates an enigmatic calligraphy that’s just one step removed from our English language, and therefore recognizable, but it’s veiled and we cannot access it. You seem to want us to try to penetrate its meaning.
LP: I think of it as a beacon. You may not be able to read it, but you identify with it as a human being.

MH: Do you think it’s possible that when people look at your paintings, on some deep level they know this language? Is it the language of grief?
LP: Probably. Someone was looking at one of my pieces once who didn’t know anything about my work, and she said to me, I’ve got to have this, it reminds me of my late mother. I’ve always wanted to have that kind of emotional response to my work, to touch someone on that level. I want to make art that makes people feel something.

MH: It sounds to me like it’s important for you to have a heart connection, rather than a conceptual connection.
LP: Absolutely. When I was a young artist and trying to figure out what kind of work I wanted to make, I saw the work of Eva Hesse, and I knew that was it. I wanted to make work that made people feel, as opposed to think or overthink. It’s about human connection. I mean, I know that concepts are supposed to be important in an artist’s work, but I’m more interested in the heart connection.

MH: I think most artists are. The cerebral approach is interesting to talk about at dinner parties and art openings, but underneath it all, the heart connection is what people really want.
LP: Yes, and a sense of recognition, like this is something I can relate to, even if it’s not specific. A person gets the sense of a work of art, and they relate to it from their own experience of life.

MH: Do you think that by making the text unreadable, you’re communicating more? It seems to me that language almost gets in the way when it comes to communicating the deeper issues of the heart.
LP: Absolutely. I have a series called After Words, which refers to this. At some point words get in the way, because they’re too defining; they can constrict and limit a deeper understanding.

 MH: I suppose if you were to write literally what you’re thinking and feeling, it would be like a Hallmark card.
LP: It would be corny and unnecessary, and it would get in the way.

MH: But there’s also the argument that if you don’t give some insight into the work, will the viewer get it? Unless they’re really tuned in, they’re probably not going to. So how do you handle that?
LP: It doesn’t bother me. I think the viewers don’t need to know the story, but they can intuit that the thread, burning, and language suggest something else going on. Something is trying to be communicated. It doesn’t have to be grief, it can be from another planet, another world. Hopefully the work stands on its own without the story.

MH: In a sense the artist creates the work, then gets out of the way. Because as we all know, artists are prone to getting in their own way.
LP: I like to leave it open. You don’t have to tell the viewer everything. You can leave something out, and I think that’s the same with the text. There’s enough left out, but there’s enough there to give the viewer a glimpse.

MH: Right, and the other thing is that if you tell the viewer your story, then that becomes what the piece is about. They don’t have the opportunity to put their own narrative on it, which may be more interesting than yours. The artist has to back off and trust the viewer to have her own experience.
LP: My mother took me to the Met a lot when I was a kid, and I remember being drawn to the Chinese scrolls. I didn’t know what they said, but they spoke to me, even though I didn’t understand them. There was magic in them, a mystery.

MH: I know that you’ve suffered tremendous loss in your life and have had to deal with unimaginable pain. How has your studio practice helped you through this?
LP: It gets me out of my head, which goes back to the practice of doing and making as a means toward healing, mending. In theory, if you engage in a creative practice, then perhaps the healing happens on its own.

MH: Do you think that sewing helps with healing? Or any kind of repetitive activity like that?
LP: I don’t know if it’s the sewing. If it was that, then I could just embroider. I think it’s the creative catharsis of material and making that’s healing. And my son was an incredible artist himself, so that’s a big connection for me.

MH: Of all the different materials that you use in your work – color, language, sewing, burning – is there one that you feel most drawn to, or is it all of a piece?
LP: It depends on whatever I’m working on. I do these limited palette paintings that are so immediate, and they’re captivating for me because they’re the opposite of all this other stuff that I’m doing. Today I was using incense and burning and moving around like a crazy person, and I’ve also been experimenting with acrylic. I’m really excited about my explorations with color. It’s kind of magical.

MH: What’s the best part about being an artist?
LP: I like the investigative quality, what happens if I do this or try that, and then I appreciate the surprises that happen along the way. I learn a lot about my own life from how I work in my studio. Being involved in the process and working things out is a metaphor for life. And then there’s the freedom. It’s the only place where you can do whatever you want – it’s absolute freedom.

www.lisapressman.net

To learn more about Lisa Pressman’s teaching courses and C2C Art Projects with Susan Stover, click here.

IMAGE LIST
 1. Messages I, 2020, ink, Letraset on paper, 12 x 9 in.
2. What Remains, 2023, oil, paper, thread, smoke, wax, Letraset on panel, 48 x 36 in.
 3. What Remains, detail
 4. What Remains, detail
 5. After Words 13, 2023, smoke, Letraset on paper, 12 x 9 in.
  6. After Words 14, 2023, smoke, Letraset on paper, 12 x 9 in.
7. The Beginning, 2023 oil, ink, Letraset on paper, 8 x 8 in.
8. Creating Language, 2023, ink Letraset on paper, 8 x 8 in.
 9. After Words 5, 2022, oil, ink, Letraset, burns on panel, 6 x 4 in.
10. The Letter, 2022, oil, thread, ink, smoke, Letraset on handmade paper, 17.5 x 15 in.
11. Letter 3, 2022, oil, ink, smoke, Letraset on board, 12 x 10 in.
12. We Are Here, 2023, ink, smoke, wax, Letraset on board, 12 x 10 in.
13. Manuscript 2, 2022, oil, thread, smoke, ink on handmade paper, 17.5 x 15 in.
14. Manuscript 1, 2022, oil, thread, smoke, ink on handmade paper, 17.5 x 15 in.
15. In the Space, 2023, smoke, thread, watercolor, Letraset on paper, 8 x 8 in.
16. What Happens After, 2019, encaustic, 12 x 12 in.
17. Excavating Light, 2019, oil and wax on panel, 10 x 10 in.
18. Things That Were Never Said, 2021, encaustic, 30 x 30 in.
19. Limited Palette 1, 2023, oil on paper, 5 x 7 in.
20. Limited Palette 2, 2023, oil on paper, 5 x 7 in.
21, 22. The artist in her studio.

Barbara Friedman

In her current show at Five Myles in Brooklyn, Barbara Friedman explores the tenuous relationship between pure abstraction and painterly figuration. “The Hysterical Sublime” consists of a series of formal color field paintings that appear to have been hijacked by a legion of zoomorphic creatures. In a dual process of discovery and intervention, Friedman liberates the creatures from the paint, endowing them with enough agency to administer to each other’s needs. The creatures make us feel slightly uneasy as they confront our curious gaze, but Friedman seems to regard them as her allies, despite the havoc they’ve wreaked upon her pure color fields. But maybe that was her intention all along—namely, to turn formal painting on its head and poke fun at it. She readily admits that the creatures are ridiculous, illogical, and skeptical of art movements. They’re about intimacy and connection rather than the critical concerns that characterize nonrepresentational painting. The anthropomorphized animals imbue the paintings with heartbreaking humanity, making it hard to look at them and harder to look away. Whether by accident or design, Friedman paints a portrait of our species more relatable because her subjects are animal rather than human. While we’ve become woefully inured to the afflictions of our fellow humans, few among us can bear to witness the suffering of an animal. But I may have it all wrong; the creatures may not be like so many actors in a Greek tragedy. They may be perfectly content in their two-dimensional habitat, blithely chomping their way through fields of pigment and mocking any attempts at critical art theory. If Friedman’s would-be color field paintings have indeed been usurped by snakes, snails, whiskers, and whales, it’s doubtless for our benefit. The art world won’t suffer the loss of another purely abstract painting, but it can surely afford to take itself less seriously.

MH: Your canvases are very painterly and hover on the edge of pure abstraction, but for the mythic animals that emerge and hijack your paintings. Who or what are these creatures, and when did they first make an appearance in your work?
BF: I love the word hijack! And the creatures really do hijack my recent paintings, because they start off as pure abstraction but once the paint dries fully, the creatures emerge. Before the pandemic I would paint something that I would then eradicate and allow to mutate into something else. I no longer start with a preconceived image, but with as little intervention as possible, I bring out the imagery that the poured pools of oil paint seem to suggest.  

MH: There’s a Hieronymus Bosch vibe in your work, where the creatures seem to have considerable agency and intelligence. I’m thinking of the lobster, who’s drinking the melted butter that he’ll later be dipped into. And he’s aware of it, which makes my heart hurt. How do you think about them?
BF: I like the ridiculousness of the creatures. It’s about their interconnection – they’re hanging over each other, breathing into each other’s mouths, kissing, licking, all the things we aren’t allowed to do. The lobster is particularly maudlin, and I rendered the bowl of butter concretely, which is unusual for this series. I felt that it needed something there formally. It’s about desire, intimacy, fear.

MH: The imagery expresses a deep pathos, as if the creatures are making the best of a situation beyond their control. Which could also describe the human experience, as we flail about and try to make sense of our abstract existence. Do you ever think of them as self-portraits, or profiles of humanity?
BF: Yes, absolutely. I’m not sure where the distinction lies. I think they’ve merged with each other, and there’s an interspecies merging as well. I see them as hybrid creatures that harness the vastness of the abstraction. They’ve escaped from a toxic environment, because they emerge from oil spills, and yet they still have souls.

MH: They do have a toxic feel to them. And they’re a little threatening! It’s unsettling when an animal has that much agency.
BF: I love the idea of them having too much agency!

MH: Right? A cat is cute when it’s curled up on your lap, but you’d be uncomfortable if it started walking around on its hind legs with a pair of scissors. And that’s how I feel about your creatures; I’m trying to feel good about them, but their intelligence makes me uncomfortable.
BF: Haha! Honestly, these paintings are odd to me as well. But I do have this figurative impulse, and I think there’s also love and intimacy between the figures. But I’ve never told stories that were anything but open-ended.

MH: Do you have any insight into why you see animals in your paintings rather than, say, trees or tangerines?
BF: I wanted to take the whole painting and with a few interventions, turn it into something specific, something that seemed inevitable, like it had to be this thing. At heart I’m a portraitist; I was the kid who drew faces in fifth grade. So it was interesting to harness the paint and nudge it into something. It’s like pareidolia, where you see recognizable forms in random patterns. What I saw were these creatures and their interrelationships.

MH: You said that you sometimes refer to your work as “contaminated color field paintings”. What do you mean by this?
BF: I want them to be viscerally satisfying as color field paintings, then I want to thumb my nose at the seriousness of it. Adding the figures is exactly what you’re not supposed to do! The last thing that most abstract painters want is to have any perceivable imagery in their paintings. If they think something looks like a bunny rabbit, they’ll immediately change the painting. I’m doing the opposite, and that’s what I mean by contamination. But I want both to coexist if possible.

MH: Do you think that’s possible? Can a work be completely abstract and have imagery?
BF: Probably not, but I’m not interested in making purely abstract paintings. I love pure abstraction, but then I want the imagery to snap into focus. I may have an idea of where I want the painting to go, but it doesn’t always go in that direction. Each painting is unique and has its own life, and then it becomes just about making it work on a formal level.

MH: The creatures are quirky and painterly, but they’re somewhat distracting. They may interfere with one’s ability to relate with the painting formally.
BF: A lot of people feel that way, and it frustrates me sometimes. Like if someone was to refer to me as the artist who paints animals, I’d hate that. I feel like my work operates on many levels, including the formal.

MH: I suppose pure abstraction without any figuration can be sublime, but it’s not very relatable. By adding these creatures, are you making the sublime more accessible?
BF: Yes, there’s the desire for relatability, for contact and connection – to reach across an abyss. There was a lot of opacity in my family when I was growing up, so there’s a part of me that wants to reach out to people and connect.

MH: Right, I can see how your paintings could establish a horizontal connection with the viewer. Do you also think about vertical connections?
BF: You mean spirituality? I’ve been told that I’m deeply secular, which is really sad, if true. I’m very skeptical by nature, but I don’t sit happily by it.

MH: When you’re in your studio and in the flow, do you feel any kind of vertical connection, like something’s coming through you? Not in a religious sense, but like you’re tapping into something ineffable?
BF: Yes, totally. But I don’t know how to ascribe that. I’m a very romantic painter, and I act on essentialist assumptions that are so modernist and retrograde. I feel like I’m searching for something…

MH: Maybe it’s neither a horizontal connection with other people nor a vertical connection with some deity – maybe you’re just connecting with your creatures!
BF: Hahaha! Maybe, but whatever kind of painting I’m making, I feel like there’s a secret to be found, something waiting to be pulled out. I just don’t know the way there, so I have to keep digging until I find it. And that’s what keeps it interesting.

MH: What you’re describing requires some magical thinking! You’re diving into these paintings with the faith that you’re going to find whatever’s in there, waiting to be excavated. So maybe you’re not so deeply secular after all.
BF: It’s totally magical thinking. I approach art making completely through magical thinking – I want to be surprised. I’m looking for the accident that charts the way forward. It’s the only way I enjoy working; otherwise, I’d just be illustrating an idea, and my ideas aren’t that interesting.

MH: So you start a painting in search of something, and all along the way you make allowance for accidents to disrupt and detour your process. It seems that what you’re searching for is a moving target.
BF: Oh, it’s always a moving target. But this is how I’ve always worked, I’ve just done it in different ways. All my characters and creatures happen during the process; they offer themselves up to me along the way.

MH: You’ve said that you want to make your work funny and ridiculous, and at the same time you want to “harness the sublime”. Are they the same? The ridiculous and the sublime?
BF: I want to see the ridiculous in the sublime. Maybe I’m also mocking the sublime, toying with it, bringing the lofty down to size. But it’s still lofty! I’m not destroying it, I’m humanizing it.

MH: Do the creatures give you something to push against?
BF: I’d say that the abstraction gives me something to push against. It’s a back and forth process, and very angst-ridden. I do the initial pour with lots of turp and pigment, then when it’s dry, I intervene with the imagery, then I’ll go back and pour again, reestablishing the abstraction. So it’s really the abstraction that I’m pushing up against.

MH: Do you think that pure abstraction is better suited to take the viewer to an elevated state, simply because there’s no visual noise? Or would a landscape or dog portrait do a better job because they’re more relatable?
BF: It’s a great question. I think either can do the job, and I can have a transcendent experience through either. It’s totally subjective.

MH: The title of your show is “The Hysterical Sublime”, which is from an essay by Fredric Jameson. What was Jameson referring to, and what about this is intriguing to you in reference to your paintings?
BF: It's Jameson's phrase that gripped me rather than his analysis of the phenomenon that it names. I don't think he’s imagining the old kind of sublime, which would be something higher and grander. Jameson is suggesting that human beings have constructed an elaborate culture that keeps us estranged from nature, and that this construction is itself overwhelming. His essay intrigued me because it seemed to be pointing to what I was playing with, and there’s an element of hysteria in these paintings. I feel like I'm in dialogue with natural objects and processes, and yet aware of how my side of the dialogue is itself a massive construction.

MH The creatures that emerge from your paintings appear to be hysterical. Are they also sublime? And do they offer you the possibility of transcendence?
BF: I agree that they're hysterical creatures. I find them to be sublime too, in the sense that their appearance in the paintings is beyond my control. But I don't imagine people feeling like the paintings take their breath away, in that sense of the transcendent. The creatures are hysterically sublime in the sense that the art making is hysterically overwrought.

MH: What’s the best part about being an artist?
BF: I think we all love the psychological and intellectual freedom. It really does feel like you don't have to grow up.  But I would also say that I love the kind of learning that such freedom makes possible, which is very much an accumulative learning. This just gets better with age.  So now, after however many years of painting, I can feel as though what I do in the studio brings together everything I have learned in past years, both from my own work, my reading, my life experiences, as well as from all the art by other people that I have taken in. 

www.barbarafriedmanpaintings.com

“The Hysterical Sublime” is showing at Five Myles through September 5th. A closing reception is on September 5th, 5:30-8:00 p.m.

IMAGE LIST
  1. Nut Job, 2021, oil on linen, 44 x 37 in.
  2. Whispering Sweet Nothings, 2023, oil on linen, 37 x 28 in.
  3. Prize Pig, 2022, oil on linen, 28 x 37 in.
  4. Mouse King, 2021, oil on linen, 44 x 37 in.
  5. Early Bird, 2021, oil on linen, 44 x 37 in.
  6. Pressed, 2022, oil on linen, 44 x 37 in.
  7. Blue Spittle, 2022, oil on linen, 44 x 37 in.
  8. Sniff, 2023, oil on linen, 44 x 37 in.
  9. Why the Chicken Crossed the Road, 2023, oil on linen, 37 x 44 in.
10. Very Like a Whale, 2021, oil on linen, 37 x 28 in.
11. Lobster Sipping Butter, 2022, oil on linen. 37 x 28 in.
12. A Blooming, Buzzing Confusion, 2022, oil on linen, 37 x 28 in.
13. Milking Courbet, 2023, oil on linen, 28 x 37 in.
14. Resuscitated, 2023, oil on linen, 44 x 37 in.
15. Enjambment, 2020, oil on linen, 48 x 60 in.
16. Visitation, 2019, oil on linen, 24 x 36 in.
17. Clinging to the Truth, 2018, oil on linen, 36 x 24 in.
18. Window View – Pinocchio Waving, 2016, oil on paper, 30 x 22 in.
19. Little Big Collar – Orange, 2014, oil on wood, 6 x 6 in.
20. Big Collar on Red with Slipping Head, 2014-16, oil on linen, 22 x 22 in.
21. Big Collar at Night with Green Horizon, 2015, oil on wood, 28 x 24 in.
22. The artist in her studio in Manhattan.
23, 24. The artist in her studio in Samos, Greece, 2023.

Eleanor White

Eleanor White’s tactile works on paper may be best described as sculptural paintings, or painterly sculptures with collage elements. One of the striking features of White’s work is her use of non-traditional materials, which read as ingredients in a science experiment or herbal brew: crushed lapis lazuli, porcupine quills, dandelion seeds, eggshells, shed snakeskin, dog hair, copper, and a pinch of spodumene. In “Prima Materia”, the current show at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, White was commissioned to create two works using lepidolite, the mineral most abundant in lithium. This is the metal that you’ve been hearing about in the news, in high demand due to its use in rechargeable batteries. White’s works address the proposed lithium mine in northern Nevada, a 1,000-acre site known as Thacker Pass, as it threatens to devastate the tribal land on which it’s located. As in all her work, White went down a rabbit hole with this project, translating her research into a visual language that conveys the beauty and controversy associated with lithium. Indeed, the glittery bling of the material casts a long shadow across the Nevada landscape, which the Shoshone and Paiute tribes claim as their ancestral burial grounds. The sparkly purple of the lepidolite momentarily distracts us from the critical issue – namely, the disregard of the U.S. government in permitting the mining corporations to enter this sacred land. White takes advantage of the mineral’s optical allure to make it difficult for us to look away, and we want to engage further in the unfolding narrative. In other recent works, she creates geometric patterns using solid materials that contradict their transient substrate (crushed gems on paper grocery bags) or juxtaposes precious stones with common materials (lapis lazuli and eggshells), crushing both into granular, indistinguishable substances. White effectively levels the playing field, suggesting that all materials possess equal value, with comparable susceptibility to the laws of entropy. Whether objects of beauty or catalysts of controversy, White handles her materials with the same respect, embracing the complex issues that they signify. From rare stones to paper grocery bags, all organic materials are precious and mined at a great cost to the planet and its inhabitants. While White states that her work is not intentionally political or environmental, it invariably transcends aesthetic expression and raises complex issues that haunt us well after encountering her work.

MH: In your work you use materials that aren’t generally associated with two-dimensional work, including crushed stones, dog hair, and porcupine quills. How did you come to use these unusual materials? What was your inspiration?
EW: It naturally comes out of my sculpture practice. I’ve always used unusual materials in my three-dimensional work, but for lack of space a few years ago I started working on paper. It’s not exactly painting, but I’m working with a thick medium, and I’m moving it in the direction of sculpture.

MH: Do you think of your works on paper as sculptures? They’re sort of between two and three dimensions.
EW: Yes, because I’m using the same techniques: casting, collage, and so much is about the materials and my curiosity around working with them.

MH: The materials you work with are unfamiliar to most people. Like, most people have never heard of spodumene. Has this been a process of discovery for you? And is the research part of your practice?
EW: Minerals such as lepidolite and spodumene have been a point of discovery for me, as they’re a source of lithium, which is so controversial right now. The element lithium is what my two pieces in the Aldrich show are about, and they were very much research based. Before that, I was working with crushed gemstones, so it was a natural jump. But the deep dive into lithium has been interesting because it’s a current subject in the news, and it’s one of the elements that’s come to the forefront in terms of importance for our future.

MH: Why is it so controversial?
EW: Resource extraction is controversial, especially for the indigenous people who have to deal with the devastation to their land. There’s a proposed lithium mine that’s in the beginning phase of construction in northern Nevada on land considered sacred by the Paiute and Shoshone people. This would be the largest domestic mine and a huge source of lithium for the U.S. Creating the pieces made me feel a lot of empathy for the affected communities, like how would I feel if it was the Hudson Valley that was about to be devastated? 

MH: What made you start using the crushed gems?
EW: It came out of the desire for more permanence. I was using eggshells and ash, which captured the idea of impermanence, but I wanted to go in another direction by adding color to my work and using a more permanent material.

MH: Would you describe your process? What are the challenges around using these materials, and then attaching them to a surface?
EW: In my exploration of works on paper I started thinking about what I could do that’s not exclusively a painting: what do these materials have that paint doesn’t have? The crushed stones are granular, they have dimensionality, and I can mix them in a casting process with molds and medium. But the big challenge is coming up with the composition, so I make these little pieces and move them around the paper for a long time until a design emerges.

MH: Wait, you don’t mean that you make those little piles ahead of time, do you?
EW: I do. I cast them all on sheets of plastic then rip them off, then I can move them around on the paper to create the patterns. I started out doing it with stencils and did it in one shot, but I rarely work that way anymore. I’ll frequently have several pieces going at once because it can take so long to come up with the composition.

MH: I’m intrigued by the patterns that you choose. They seem at times to derive from Islamic geometry, and other times they read as complex mathematical charts. What’s the inspiration behind them?
EW: There’s inspiration from Islamic patterns as well as Japanese prints and their flattening of the patterns. What I enjoy the most about Japanese prints is and how they shift without any dimensionality; the design always remains flat. There’s also a lot of mid-century design that inspires me. Both pieces in the Aldrich exhibition are abstractions of aerial views of lithium mines in Chile which are structured as grids.  

MH: The show at the Aldrich includes two of your works on paper. How did you feel about the work being included in this show? Was there any reluctance in having your work cast as Prima Materia? Does that feel restricting in any way? 
EW: I’m absolutely thrilled to be in the show. The curator asked me to use lepidolite, because it’s one of the stones that contains the most lithium. The color was challenging, because it’s a very alluring light purple, so I had to find the right balance for this beautiful, sparkly stone. I felt like I needed something to create a push/pull, so I included  tufts of hair from a person who has taken pharmaceutical lithium in the piece.  It adds a creepy quality to the work, and I enjoy the balance of attraction/repulsion in the different materials. The purple piece “All That Glitters (is not gold)” involved research into a wide variety of materials that contain different forms of lithium. The other piece, “Between and Rock and a Hard Place” was me thinking about the Thacker Pass proposed mine site.

MH: There are a lot of metaphors that could be associated with your work. How do you think about it? Do you have a conceptual overlay, or is it more about the aesthetic appeal?
EW: It’s a combination of both. I want it to have aesthetic appeal, but I also want the work to resonate on a deeper level. I want people to think about it after they’ve left the museum, and to stay engaged.

MH: Does your work make any statement about the environment, the devastation of the planet, scarcity of materials, that kind of thing?
EW: Definitely. But I try not to be overtly political or heavy-handed. I don’t think that works for me.

MH: The angle that I’m most interested in exploring is the precious nature of your materials. Is that a consideration in your work? 
EW: I do now! At first, I was drawn to them for the color, but now I’m thinking more about where my materials come from. It creates tension for me to think about it in this way.

MH: There’s the idea of high and low art, one being loosely based in a work’s market value, and the other more about pure expression, with no regard to marketability. I can see your work making a statement about this, but I don’t want to assign meaning if that’s not your intention.
EW: I’m not using gems for their value. I started using them because I thought they’d be more permanent. I was using playing cards previously and didn’t realize that the inks were fugitive. I didn’t think gems would fade or change, but as it turns out, some gemstones fade. But I see all the materials as equal in terms of the interest it holds for me.

MH: You did a series where you glued crushed gems to the brown paper bags that you get at the market. This material is non-archival and it’s an interesting juxtaposition between materials: one is precious, the other disposable. What were your intentions around this?
EW: I did those during the pandemic, and that was the paper that I had on hand. I wanted to do things much faster, because I wasn’t very focused at the time. I was also trying to loosen up, because my work can be a little formally tight, so it helped with that, and it also helped take my mind off the pandemic.

MH: Are you concerned about the longevity of these pieces? Does it matter to you that the acid will break down fairly quickly?
EW: I think about that in all my work. I talked to a conservator about artists’ materials, and their opinion was that artists should be more concerned about creative expression than anything else. But the idea of permanence, whether it’s conceptual or actual, is of interest to me.

MH: In what sense?
EW: How it relates to us, how it relates to time. And now I’m thinking about it in terms of whether I want it to be around, or if I just want it to dissolve. Leave no trace, right?

MH: That’s interesting. I’ve never heard that point of view before. Most artists obsess about which museum or landfill their work is going to end up in once they’re gone, but the idea of making something that will intentionally self-destruct is intriguing.
EW: Yeah, I mean there’s some guilt in making all this stuff and leaving it behind. When my work dissolves, the minerals will go back into the earth and the paper will break down. But using anything plastic-based is hard to reconcile.

MH: How do you feel about art being cast as a valuable commodity? Or the relatively new cultural phenomenon of branding? Are you good with it, or does it make your skin crawl?
EW: It definitely makes my skin crawl. It’s nice when someone wants to live with my work, but the commodification is hard to swallow, and the whole consumerist thing can be difficult.

MH: Right. Some of your materials are considered precious because they’re stones, which are commodities that people buy and sell. And lithium is a major commodity, which is probably super expensive?
EW: It might get more expensive if the demand for its use in electric car batteries increases. I think there could be a lithium rush. But the commodification of the stones – that’s not something that I’m thinking about. All the materials have equal value to me. I can be just as excited about working with beach pebbles or dirt as with garnets.

MH: It sounds like even though you’re using precious stones in your work, you don’t see the work as precious.
EW: No, and if the work looks precious, then it doesn’t have that extra thing for me. I don’t have a good association with the word “precious”.

MH: It’s a derogative term when it comes to art.
EW: Definitely. So I like to balance whatever preciousness is there with something else. Either some formal distance, or something that chills it out and makes it almost clinical.

MH: I can see that. The last thing that most artists aspire to make are objects or paintings that will be be sold in expensive department stores. Do you think that when art becomes a commodity, some essential quality lost?
EW: You mean like if you’re just pumping them out and selling them? I think an essential quality for the artist would be diminished, because you’re not learning as much from it; it just becomes rote and uninteresting. For the artist, the first of a series may not be as interesting as the twentieth, but for the viewer it may not matter.

MH: Like the blue-chip artist curse. People buy their work because it’s “important”, a great investment, but probably not for any sublime quality that it may have. And it may or may not go on the collector’s wall.
EW: That’s a terrible thing. After working in the museum and gallery world for my entire career, it makes me sad when a piece of art has never been out of storage, never been seen, and is not fulfilling its intention. What’s most important is the artist’s process of making it, so at least it fulfilled half of its intention.

MH: I’ve always had a hard time with the concept of an artist’s work being called “important”. To me, this speaks to market value, and has little to do with creative expression or cultural relevance. I was originally going to call my blog “In Their Studios: Conversations with Unimportant Artists”.
EW: I think the art that we make reflects what’s happening in the context of our lives, which is important to the artist. But the art world is driven by market forces beyond us. The whole commodification thing seems contrived.

MH: Do you think art communicates something different, depending on the viewing audience? Like if your work was in the Natural History Museum versus MoMA, the context would make it all about the lithium, and fewer people would relate to the aesthetic or conceptual aspects of the work. And if it was in a soup kitchen, it may say something else entirely. Would you be okay with showing in non-art venues?
EW: That would be great! I’d love that. I like the thought of showing it in a soup kitchen, and I hope the work would be accessible there as well. That’s what I want my materials to convey: tactility and accessibility, and the ability to relate it to your own personal experience.

MH: Can you say a few words about your three-dimensional work? I’m particularly interested in “Spring Again”.
EW: “Spring Again” is made from dandelion fluff that I collect in the spring. I add to this piece every year so it’s always getting larger. I’ve done a couple of these durational pieces that serve as markers in my life. The other is a hair piece, made from my hair that I keep adding to it. It’s related to my life, my aging. They’re ephemeral pieces, and the hair piece has an icky, repulsive quality to it. The hairball is on a gold table with a glass dome, so it’s like a relic.

MH: What about the mandala series that you did? What were those called?
EW: Hygrothermographs. I was given these paper graphs from someone where I work. They measure the temperature and humidity in a building, but they’re no longer used because everything is digital now. I like the way these reference time, because it’s a week rotation so I’m reclaiming the time that I was at work. And I like working with color, which creates the push/pull with the clinical aspect of the charts.

MH: By clinical do you mean conceptual? You mentioned it earlier and I’m not sure what you mean.
EW: It could be conceptual, or maybe cerebral. The concept is important, but I also want there to be aesthetic appeal, so it’s a push/pull for me, finding the right balance.

MH: Your work is an interesting juxtaposition between the beautiful and the clinical. The show at the Aldrich is a perfect fit for your work.
EW: Yes, and it’s very science-based, which has always been a big influence in my sculptures.

MH: I know you have a show coming up at Kenise Barnes Fine Art in August. What works will you be showing there?
EW: I’m currently working on a series of pieces based on the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water, and loosely inspired by or evoking the feeling of those. I’ve completed “Earthbound” with crushed stones,  porcupine quills, shed snakeskin, and bonded copper  and “Up In The Air” has feathers, a wasp nest, pollen, dandelion seeds.  This current work with  three-dimensional materials incorporated into a work on paper is a mixture of painting, sculpture, and collage. Each material I choose poses a question of how do I leave some of its recognizable qualities and still transform the materials so there’s a sense of discovery for myself and the viewer?

MH: What’s the best part about being an artist?
EW: The pleasure and grounding effect it has on my personality. It makes me feel whole, and if I don’t make art, I become cranky and unpleasant. The excitement of trying something out, testing new ideas and working them out – that’s the most fun part. Time is precious and I don’t want to waste it, so that’s one of the most difficult things, because I can’t rush the process. It’s hard when something fails, but maybe it’s not a total fail, maybe you learned something that you can take to your next piece. Art can be the most joyous or the most painful experience.

www.eleanorwhitestudio.com

“Prima Materia: The Periodic Table in Contemporary Art” is at The Aldrich through August 27th.
”Bet They Collect Things Like Ashtrays and Art” opens at Kenise Barnes Fine Art on August 26th, and runs through October 15th.

IMAGE LIST
1. All That Glitters Is Not Gold (detail), 2022, lithium minerals spodumene, lepidolite, lepidolite mica, ceramic grade lithium carbonate on porcelain, lithium orotate nutritional supplements, industrial lithium grease, hair from a person taking medical lithium, deconstructed lithium ion battery, resin, 63 x 30 in.
2. All That Glitters Is Not Gold (full piece), 2022
3. All That Glitters Is Not Gold (detail), 2022
4. Aerial view of lithium mine in Chile.
5. Between A Rock and A Hard Place (Thacker Pass), 2023, soil gathered from Thacker Pass, NV (site of largest lithium mine in the U.S. under construction) computer circuit boards, polymer medium on painted paper. 
6. Between A Rock and A Hard Place (Thacker Pass) (detail), 2023
  7. Lepidolite rocks.
  8. Things that contain lithium.
9. Untitled (Lapis Lazuli), 2021, crushed lapis lazuli, eggshell, dry pigment on painted paper, 33.5 x 15 x ½ in.
10. Untitled (Aquamarine Opal), 2021, crushed opal, aquamarine, eggshell, dry pigment on painted paper
11. Earthbound, 2022, crushed jade, snakeskin shed, porcupine quills, bonded copper, fossilized wood, eggshell, wood ash, glass bead, polymer medium on painted paper, 47 x 27 in.
12. Earthbound (detail), 2022
13. Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, 2021, crushed tourmaline, opal, pyrite, glass bead, dog hair, dandelion seeds, eggshell, wood ash, dry pigments, polymer on painted paper, 34.5 x 27.5 in.
14. Animal, Vegetable, Mineral (detail), 2021
15. Pyramid Merkaba
16. Untitled (Turquoise, Howlite), 2021, crushed turquoise, howlite, eggshell, dry pigment, polymer medium on painted paper, 31.5 x 13.25 in.
17. Up In the Air, 2021, wasp nest, lepidolite, pollen, dandelion seeds, feathers, pigment, eggshell, polymer medium on painted paper, 47 x 27 in.
18. Up In the Air (detail)
19. Spring Again (dandelion rug), in continuous progress, 2004-present, dandelion seeds, plastic, safety pins, dimensions variable
20. Spring Again (detail)
21. Shed (hairball), 2012, artist’s hair since 2012, an ongoing sculpture
22. Shed (hairball)
23. Hygrothermograph Color Study (rainbow stripes .01), 2019, oil pencil on found circular graph paper, 8.5 in. diameter, mounted on 12 x 12 in. board
24. Hygrothermograph Color Study (yl spiral), 2022, oil pencil on found circular graph paper, 8.5 in. diameter, mounted on 12 x 12 in. board
25. Hygrothermograph Color Study (gray stripes with radiating colors), 2019, oil pencil on found circular graph paper, 8.5 in. diameter, mounted on 12 x 12 in. board
26. The artist with Untitled (Red and Black), 2022, eggshell and wood ash on painted paper, 78 x 16 in.
27. The artist with Between A Rock and A Hard Place (Thacker Pass), 2023

Jane Sangerman

Jane Sangerman explores the pictorial space of her paintings by creating a seductive portal that draws us in, only to encounter barriers that deny access. Far from pushing us away, these obstacles deepen the mystery, heightening our desire to circumvent them and enter the enigmatic space that lies beyond. The barriers most often appear in the form of the plastic fencing that is ubiquitous in Bushwick, where Sangerman lives and works. In her paintings and works on paper, Sangerman builds up thin layers of color through her medium of spray paint. The canvas is divided into top and bottom sections which she works independently of each other. She describes the upper half as the metaphysical realm, a space full of secrets and infinite potential. The lower half is the material world, but far from mundane, it inspires the saturated colors and metaphors that energize her work. Sangerman connects the two by creating patches of color and texture from the buildup of spray paint. These patches float in the foreground, as if waiting with us to pass through the plastic fencing and be ushered into the great beyond. Sangerman is fascinated by urban decay, an avid collector of rusted metal that she finds on the streets or pulls out of dumpsters. Using the metal as a mesh to spray through, she creates shadowy layers of grids that hover in the lower section. She regards them as urban artifacts, embodying the energy of those who have previously handled them. This is humanity encased in materiality, no less profound than the mystical space that dominates the upper half. Indeed, Sangerman’s paintings reside at the intersection of the upper and lower realms, an amalgamation of the magical and the ordinary.

MH: Tell me about your studio practice. I was surprised to hear that you use spray paint, and that you rarely paint with a brush. How did you discover this medium, and what about it is appealing to you?
JS: The physicality of the materials has always been an important part of my process. Prior to spray painting, I was building up layers of found objects that I’d attach to a painting. Somehow I ended up with a pegboard, and I was attracted to the tiny holes so I decided to spray paint through it, and I liked the effect. I built up layers of spray paint, taping out areas and blending colors so they’d dry together in a seamless, matte finish.

MH: Do you think living in Bushwick has influenced your choice of materials?
JS: My palette is much more intense from the constant exposure to the murals and graffiti. I was shocked when I first moved here! Bushwick is the spray paint capital of the world, and there’s not a square inch that isn’t visually active and colorful. There are murals everywhere, and there’s a store close by that sells spray paint and nothing else. But I was already using spray paint when I lived on the Upper West Side. 

MH: Were doing the same work that you’re doing now?
JS: Yes, but without the fencing and barriers. We moved here at end of 2018, and I welcomed the change.

MH: You mentioned that you started out in lithography, and that this continues to influence your work. How so? What do lithography and spray paint have in common?
JS: I come out of a printmaking background, where the colors are separated into different runs. This is similar to how I work with the spray paint, because I’m always thinking about the layer beneath, and what parts of the image I want to grab as I progress through the painting. This requires taping off sections, which is an important part of my process. So whatever stage of the process I’m in, there’s always evidence of where I began.

MH: That’s interesting. So there’s always something from the bottom layer?
JS: Yes, and that comes directly out of lithography, where you mask out with gum Arabic and try to get the ink films to dry together into a unified surface. This is essentially what I’m achieving with the spray paint.

MH: You describe your work as having many layers. I take that to mean layers of paint as well as levels of meaning. Why do you build up these many layers of paint, often concealing the painting beneath?
JS: It’s the way that I need to work to achieve the effect that I want. In the lower half of my paintings I have some flatter areas with striping, which requires a lot of underpainting. If I can’t get what I’m looking for, I may need to do the whole thing over again, which requires taping out, masking, and spraying a solid area. But the good news is that I can do it again, and I can keep doing it, and the fun part of working in this way is a collage effect. So in the process of trying to achieve what I want, this interesting effect happens.

MH: I find it interesting that you enjoy the process of taping off areas of the painting, a necessary step before spray painting. And you do it in the wee hours of the night, while listening to garage bands on your headphones. I love that image! Is this the meditative part of your practice, where you lose yourself and deeply connect with your process?
JS: Absolutely. I enjoy the process of trying to tape a perfect circle. It’s very satisfying and meditative, and I do this in the middle of the night. I also like to sit in my chair and sketch out ideas. It’s another thing that I tend to do late at night when there are no distractions.

MH: Your canvases are consistently divided in half by a horizontal line, delineating the top and bottom sections of the painting. This creates an interesting dynamic, almost a hierarchy in pictorial space. Is there intentionality behind this division?
JS: There is. It’s a universal above and below idea, and it’s become increasingly important in my process. It’s not enough to create a metaphysical space; I also need a flat space, our physical world, where my environment informs me. It’s the junction of the two spaces that charges me up.

MH: I remember being taught never to divide the canvas in half.
JS: Yes, it goes against everything I learned in art school, which said that you should work the whole piece at the same time. I think of it as spliced film. I’m always trying to cut things in half, and then connect them. I begin in the top section because it’s the place where I go to lose myself. And the bottom is just as fulfilling because I’m responding to my immediate environment, which is Bushwick. 

MH: Are you exploring two different sides of yourself?
JS: Possibly! I find myself an enigma, like most people do. I can’t help but pull in my world, but at the same time I want to go somewhere else. I can’t come to an agreement without showing both of those.

MH: I see you as a cerebral person because you’re a reader and a thinker, but you’re also in your body as an athlete. So the top and bottom halves of the painting express the totality of who you are as an artist and a person.
JS: That’s interesting. I’ve never fit into one group very neatly. I need both.

MH: I’d like to dig deeper into the top and bottom sections because I’m intrigued by their juxtaposition. You describe the top half of the painting as a mysterious space that’s infinite, and where you go to get lost. In your words: “It’s the sort of space where I feel like I could discover the secret of something.” Would you elaborate on that?
JS: I like to think that I’m going to discover something in the top half. This is the unknown, a space full of timeless secrets. There’s so much in our universe that we don’t know, and this is where I go to search and play. What’s in there, and what’s out here? It’s all connected, and I love to think about that as I paint.

MH: Interestingly, this space is also where your fencing shows up. It’s like you’ve discovered a passage into the infinite, then created a psychological barrier that has to be negotiated. How do you think about the fencing in your paintings?
JS: It was a spontaneous idea. I’m a runner, and as I’m running around the neighborhoods of Bushwick I pass all these construction sites with plastic fencing that’s permeable, but they create an obstacle. There’s a beauty in looking through this meshy world, and it makes it more mysterious to have something in the way. I noticed that barriers make me want to enter the space, because subconsciously I’m being held back. 

MH: Interesting. If the fencing wasn’t there, it wouldn’t have the same pull. By simultaneously pulling you in and pushing you away, it deepens the mystery.
JS: That’s right. This happened after moving to Bushwick. I realized that the upper half of my paintings needed a permeable barrier that would both pull you in but keep you out. 

MH: There’s also the idea that a barrier or wall creates value. Right? Because erecting a wall gives the thing behind it more value.
JS: Yes, that’s human nature. We want what we can’t have. And I’m always searching for interesting barriers. I search the internet, but my favorite things are those that I find on the streets of Bushwick.

MH: I can’t help but think of the confessional screen that separates the Catholic from the priest. Your paintings have a similar quality that beckons the viewer into its depths, but to fully enter it, they have to leave something behind. Not necessarily their sins, but maybe their ego and its attachments. Do you assign any religious or spiritual meaning to your work?
JS: I’m from a mixed background. My dad was Jewish, but he converted to Presbyterian, and my mother was Presbyterian. She worked for the church, and I spent a lot of time there, waiting for her. So I was surrounded by spirituality, but I’d be just as happy sitting in a temple or mosque or any reverential place; it would do the same thing.

MH: Is that what you’re trying to create in the top half of your piece, sort of a reverential, expansive feeling?
JS: Yes. A place to go. Churches are special for me because that’s my history, but it’s more about the feeling. The mystery. I have beautiful memories of being in the church, waiting for my mother. I think of it as a place where we’re all connected.

MH: Then there’s the bottom section of your canvas. You said that you think of this space as the day-to-day world in which you orient yourself, and where you come up against something. What do you mean by this? Are you referring to your urban environment?
JS: It’s important to me that I put parts of my physical world into the work. I used to attach objects onto the canvas, but now I’m spraying through objects, things that I find in Bushwick. I love urban detritus and would love nothing more than to be let loose in a scrap metal yard. It would be a treasure hunt for me! All of this ends up in the lower half of the work. The challenge of trying to connect the two worlds is very exciting for me.  

MH: So the top and bottom meet at the center of your painting, the metaphysical brushing up against the mundane. It seems that they coexist happily enough, like an old married couple who have learned how to tolerate the other’s quirks. But then there’s a third layer that appears randomly across both spaces. What do these striped patches represent?
JS: The top and bottom need to talk to each other, and these patches serve as connectors. There needs to be some action in the painting – contrast, interaction of color, stripes – that is jarring and affects our eyes in a physical way. The patches create movement in a static area, and they keep your eye moving around the canvas. So they’re a formal device, and the stripes create the effect of a window, something to look through.

MH: You say that you’re drawn to the urban landscape, like the odd shapes that fall from walls and weathered surfaces, and the odd marks that you find in subway stations. Why are you so fascinated with urban decay, and how does this show up in your work?
JS: I think urban detritus is incredibly beautiful. It might make someone else’s skin crawl, but I’ve always been inspired by weather-beaten, worn objects. It takes some magical thinking, but these objects and the urban landscape speak to our humanity. They carry the stories about all the people who have lived there. I grew up in a clean, suburban setting, and I always found the city much more interesting. So the magical thinking is going on in both the top and bottom halves.

MH: What’s the magical thinking in regard to the bottom half?
JS: There’s history embodied in these shapes: where the item was made, the people who used it and touched it, and then all the lives that brushed up against this object.  

MH: It’s a different kind of magic, one that we can comprehend, rather than the mystical idea of God or spirit. The idea of unknown men and women touching these objects creates a beautiful connection.
JS: Yes, and then there are all the invisible processes, like the tree that had to grow so that a woodworker could make a chair. I don’t think of this as I’m working, but it’s in my work. 

MH: What about your fascination with walls and barriers? Where did that come from?
JS: That came a little later, when I first looked at the work of Antoni Tàpies and his wall paintings. I also looked at Sean Scully, and the walls in Ireland with the tension of heavy stones. So I started thinking about walls, what’s on either side of them, and the beautiful marks on their surfaces. 

MH: It's interesting that your medium is spray paint, you have a fascination with walls, and you live in Bushwick. Its seems like a given that you’d be a graffiti artist! Have you ever done that?
JS: No, I’m such a chicken. I have friends who invite me to go tagging with them, but it’s something that I’ve never had the urge to do. I enjoy other artists writing on the walls.

MH: Can you say a few things about the fingerprints?
JS: When I started my art career I did a lot of self-portraits, either drawings or paintings. I wanted to include something of myself in my current work, so I decided to stamp my fingerprints into the painting. They’re cut linoleum prints of my enlarged fingerprints, and they can be read in different ways. I like having them in the piece, and it’s natural for me because it goes back to my printmaking roots. In one series on paper, they create the border, like a baroque frame. 

MH: You’ve talked about running through Bushwick, seeing the light pierce through plastic fencing and getting totally inspired with new ideas for your paintings. This sounds utterly sublime, and I wonder if Bushwick has become your muse?
JS: I’ve definitely fallen in love with Bushwick. I love the light, the cultural diversity, the energy, the colors, I even love the sound. It’s very noisy! So yes, I love Bushwick. I only wish there were more dumpsters to climb into and find interesting stuff for my work. 

MH: What’s the best part about being an artist?
JS: It’s so hopeful. I feel so fortunate to have something to wake up for, and I can’t wait to start, to put down a new idea and see what it looks like. Or the moment when I peel the tape off and see what’s under there, and how the colors have blended together. It’s never-ending and it can be terrible or good, but I have to do it. It can be hard to be an artist, but I feel very fortunate.

www.janesangerman.com

IMAGE LIST
  1. Taint D101, 2020, acrylic and spray-paint on canvas, 20 x 18 in.
  2. Acerb D99, 2020, acrylic and spray-paint on canvas, 20 x 16 in.
  3. Rondure D124, 2021, acrylic and spay-paint on canvas, 30 x 24 in.
  4. Alter D113, 2021, acrylic and spray-paint on canvas, 40 x 30 in.
  5. Reveal D108, 2021, acrylic and spray-paint on canvas, 30 x 24 in.
  6. Ensue D116, 2021, acrylic and spray-paint on canvas, 30 x 24 in.
  7. Hover D141, 2023, acrylic and spray-paint on canvas, 40 x 30 in.
  8. Trammel D 89, 2019, acrylic, acrylic medium, and spray-paint on Arches paper, 60 x 40 in.
  9. Crest D104, 2020, acrylic, acrylic wash and spray paint on Arches paper, 30 x 22 in.
10. Pirl D100, 2020, acrylic, acrylic wash and spray-paint on Arches paper, 30 x 22 in.
11. Inverse D131, 2022, acrylic, acrylic wash, and spray-paint on Arches paper, 30 x 30 in.
12. Counter D118, 2021, acrylic, acrylic wash, colored pencil, and spray-paint on panel, 20 x 16 in.
13. Aligned D138, 2023, acrylic, acrylic wash colored pencil and spray-paint on wood panel, 20 x 16 x 1.5 in.
14, 15. The artist in her Bushwick studio.

“Homespun” at the Dorsky Museum

The current show at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art in New Paltz brings together nineteen Hudson Valley artists who work with fabric and fiber. Curated by Karlyn Benson, Homespun features artists who approach their medium in a variety of ways, interpreting textiles and needlework as both fine art and craft. Traditionally a women’s occupation, sewing was often referred to as “fancywork”, a term that brings to mind busy ladies sitting in their parlors, passing the idle hours by engaging in ornamental needlework. But contemporary artists of all genders embrace fabric as an appropriate medium for the representation of women’s rights and cultural issues. If there is a value system attached to working with fabric, it may be found in the necessity of slowing down the creative process. Sewing, weaving, and quilting are time-consuming processes that require deliberation and repetition, which often imbue the piece with a meditative quality. In Small Hours IV, Rachel Mica Weiss strings spools of embroidery thread through eye hooks in a wooden frame, mimicking the weave of a loom. The texture is luminous and seductive, pulling us into its presence but denying access to that which looms beyond its shimmering surface. Melissa Dadourian embraces geometric abstraction, traditionally associated with male artists , by knitting fine threads and yarns into hard-edged shapes. Soft Geometry No. 23 is neither a painting nor a sweater, but lies at the intersection between fine art and conventional feminine craft. Her work is a humorous but pointed interpretation of male art as seen through the female gaze. As one of the two male artists in the show, Paulo Arao’s work is also rooted in geometric abstraction, but the colors and patterns are imbued with symbolism that derives from his Filipino heritage. In his diptych Mixed Signals, the diamond patterns are stylized body parts, containing properties that invoke spiritual and healing powers. Padma Rajendran uses sewing, dyeing, drawing, and screen printing to create fabric pieces that tell the stories of contemporary immigrant women. Dream (Jeans) and chasm in the wind is a large, skirt-like wall sculpture that reads as a narrative, giving voice to the untold stories of migrant women who redefine our understanding of home and family. Kat Howard’s work addresses sexism, female oppression, and the ravages of trauma. In There Is No Calm in Stillness, a large installation that reads as a baroque cloudburst, Howard stuffed hundreds of nylon pantyhose with raw cotton and knotted them into bundles. These bulky tubes read as so many body parts, bound together with strings that shimmer in the low light as they converge on an adjacent wall. But the possibility of transcendence is diminished when we notice the meat hook on which they’re strung, a solemn reminder of the sexualized feminine. Laura Kaufman uses embroidery and watercolor on linen to build upon language and communication. Her works in the show were inspired by the shapes that she used when teaching her son cursive writing. The embroidery thread traces orthogonal lines, creating a bas-relief surface on the graphic shapes, like hidden messages embedded in verse. Ana Maria Farina creates objects that occupy a space somewhere between mysticism, abstraction, and representation. She uses a tufting gun (you’ll have to google it), with its references to male-centered violence, to create images of mythological creatures and Eastern symbology. Like many of the artists in the show, her process is cathartic, a transformative process involving intense labor and exhaustive repetition. Histérica #7 is a contemplative piece that has outgrown any lingering notions of pictorial space to become its own thing. Not exactly a likeness and no longer a rug, it has succeeded in transcending all definitions of what art is or should be. Which could be said about all the works in the show, as they challenge art-world definitions of high art versus the work formerly assigned to craftspersons. In Homespun, Karlyn Benson has offered us a generous glimpse into this vibrant medium, with its rich textures, candid observations, and gender-based contradictions.

Homespun is curated by Karlyn Benson and runs through April 16th.

EXHIBITING ARTISTS
Paolo Arao | Grace Bakst Wapner | Natalie Baxter | Samantha Bittman | Orly Cogan | Melissa Dadourian | Ana Maria Farina | Kathy Greenwood | Kat Howard | Laura Kaufman | Laleh Khorramian | Niki Lederer | Will McLeod | Rachel Mica Weiss | Courtney Puckett | Padma Rajendran | Hanna Washburn | Deborah Zlotsky | Ishraq Zraikat

IMAGE LIST
  1.  Museum view of Homespun
  2.  Museum view of Homespun
  3.  Museum view of Homespun
  4.  Kat Howard, There Is No Calm In Stillness, 2023, raw cotton, cotton thread, nylons, polyester thread
  5.  Rachel Mica Weiss, Small Hours IV, 2023, polyester embroidery thread, maple, brass hooks
  6.  Melissa Dadourian, Soft Geometry No. 23, 2022, acrylic paint on knit thread
  7.  Melissa Dadourian, Soft Geometry No. 23 (detail)
  8.  Padma Rajendran, Dream (Jeans) and chasm in the wind, 2020, dye, polyester, sewing notions, stitching on various fabrics
  9.  Paolo Arao, Mixed Signals (diptych), 2020, sewn cotton, denim, corduroy, canvas, handwoven fibers, map pins
10.  Laura Kaufman, Part of Speech, 2021, watercolor, rayon, watercolor pencil, rabbit skin glue on stretched linen
11. Ana Maria Farina, histérica #7, Baubo, 2020, upcycled fibers on monk’s cloth

Nancy Bowen

Nancy Bowen’s current show at SUNY Westchester Community College, Sometimes A Body Is Not Just a Body, features sculptures and drawings from 1992-2022. Her work considers the female body from the female perspective, rather than the focus of the male gaze. Since the 1970s, feminist artists have been challenging the traditional depiction of women in art and culture. As a young artist at the time, Bowen asked what it felt like to be inside that body, and her work became an interior exploration of the female form. She excavates the myriad networks of the body, including the digestive, reproductive, and chakra systems, probing the hidden structures of the female anatomy and bringing them into the light. Liberated from the oppressive male gaze, Bowen reveals the essence of femininity with all its shadows and complexities, a freedom granted to women artists beginning with her generation. In 2000 she traveled to India, where she was inspired by the Hindu representation of the chakras, the energy centers that correspond to the functions of the body. In her works on paper, Bowen integrates Eastern symbology with Western feminism to create a powerful expression of the divine feminine. Some of the drawings contain categorized lists of body parts (feet, breasts, thighs), which suggest that indeed, sometimes a body is not just a body, but an inventory of organs and orifices. For over half a century, women artists have been free to express radical images of themselves without the fear of censorship or retribution. If the progress of a civilization can be measured by the way in which the female body is portrayed in its art, Bowen’s work has been an essential contribution to our evolution and enlightenment.

 
MH: Your current show, Sometimes a Body Is Not Just a Body, features selected works from 1992 to the present. I’m sure you have mountains of work from such a long stretch of time, so how did you select pieces for this show? What were you thinking about as you put the show together?
NB: I worked with Joe Morris, the gallery director of the Westchester Community College Art Gallery, and we chose works that had an interesting dialogue between materials and content. We were also looking for pieces that would have a dialogue with each other and that showed a through line from my old work to the present.

MH: In the late 70s you were making figurative sculptures, and your work was about the female body from the female perspective. Then you started fragmenting the female body and expressing what it felt like to be inside that body. Would you talk about your thinking and process around that, and where it led you?
NB: As a young artist I was asking the questions that a lot of women artists were asking at the time, like what would a female body made by a female artist look like? This was coming from John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing” and thinking about how the male gaze had determined the way women were portrayed throughout art history. The feminist art world had started to change, and artists were looking at images of women through the ways they were constructed in the media – artists like Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, and Laurie Simmons. Then there were the constructivist feminists who were applauding this work, saying that it was impossible to make an image of a woman that wasn’t seen through the male gaze. So that shut down artists like me who were still portraying women. It was almost as if there was a fatwa against women making images of women! But my response then and now is that if we don’t make images of ourselves, then we’re erasing ourselves from history, or we’re letting others dictate how we’re being shown.

MH: When did you begin to express how it felt to be inside the female body, and how did the idea come to you?
NB: In 1989 I lived in Rome for a year, and while I was there, I got to see La Specola in Florence, a collection of anatomical wax models from the eighteenth century that were a collaboration between artists and scientists. They were these incredible, full-scale images of women made from plaster and wax, with long hair and pearls, and their intestines were beautifully splayed out on top of them. It intrigued me and was the inspiration behind making the inside of the female body visible and beautiful.

MH: The 70s and 80s were a complicated era for young women. On one hand we were enjoined to buck the system and become hairy-legged feminists, and on the other we had the anemic supermodels who made us feel overweight and undesirable. Did you struggle with this? How did this tension show up in your portrayal of the female body?
NB: Yes, well I never considered being a supermodel! I was more concerned with practical things, like carrying a 100-pound bag of plaster on my shoulder or picking up a piece of bronze. Art school was still macho in the 70s; when I was in undergrad, I didn’t have any women teachers at all. But at the Art Institute of Chicago, they had an incredible visiting artist program, and all these early feminist artists were coming through as visitors: Marsha Tucker, Miriam Shapiro, Louise Bourgeois, Elizabeth Murray, and my teacher Ree Morton, who was a huge influence. 

MH: It doesn’t sound like you struggled with body image, so perhaps there wasn’t much tension around that in your work.
NB: Yeah, I never wanted to be Farrah Fawcett. I was never a thin person, and it wasn’t something I thought about that much. I guess I’m lucky in that respect. I was looking more at the gestures of the figure than what the body looked like.

MH: As a long-term art educator, do you see female art students expressing feminism as insistently today as they did back when you were a student? Are they more apt to take their rights and equality for granted?
NB: I’ve seen reactions to feminism change a lot in the 30 years that I’ve been teaching. When I was coming up, women were clear about wanting to be feminists and demanding our rights, demanding female teachers and things like that. Now students take it for granted because they’ve grown up with parents who raised them as feminists. The big difference I see now is that young men are way more feminist than they were when I was in school. So the change that’s most obvious is the way parents have raised their sons to see women as their equals, and not to expect them to cook dinner. And now with all the incursions on reproductive rights, I hear young women talking about it and becoming aware that our rights are not something to be taken for granted. At Purchase College where I teach, we’re a super trans-friendly school, so that conversation is very up front in students’ artwork.

MH: When and why did you become interested in Hindu and Buddhist art? What about the imagery speaks to you?
NB: When I was making figurative sculpture, I was looking at examples from around the world, trying to find historical models of how I might think about making figures. I found that in a lot of cultures, the men are huge, and the women standing next to them are little. But in Indian culture, the women and men are the same size. The goddesses and gods were sexualized in a way that Western sculpture is not, and the women were enjoying themselves as much as the men. So I started going to India, where I was introduced to tantric painting. I saw Ajit Mookerjee’s amazing collection of scroll drawings of the chakra systems in bodies, and I started researching this tradition of depicting the chakras. I discovered that they existed primarily as paintings, but not as sculptures. 

MH: As an aside, do you think in those cultures where the divine feminine was predominant there were any feminists? I somehow can’t feature Shakti and Shekinah burning their bras or participating in a Million Goddess March. When a woman is fully empowered, is there the need to defend herself?
NB: Yes, because even when a woman is fully empowered, we still live in the world that we live in. Ron DeSantis and all these politicians are trying to take away every right that we have. So unfortunately, yes. And in Indian culture, they’re really in need of feminism. In the rural areas, there’s still the tradition called sati that says when the husband dies, the family is allowed to burn the wife if she’d be a financial burden on the family. This practice has been banned legally, but it still goes on.

MH: This segues into a question that I think about often: are you a feminist for yourself, or for other women?
NB: For everyone!

MH: The reason I ask is that there are women who have never felt oppressed or discriminated against for being a woman. Her feminism isn’t so much for herself, but for the young women who no longer have the legal right to decide for themselves when to have a child. And she’s a feminist for trans-women, who feel unsafe in their chosen identities. I’m curious if you’ve ever experienced sexist discrimination in your own life?
NB: Yes, I have. At my job at Purchase, there was a time when the women on our faculty had salaries that were way less than the men of the same rank. I also experienced sexism at my previous job at Columbia. I grew up with a sexist dad; I grew up under the patriarchy. We live in a very sexist society, where men make laws about reproductive rights, and I worry about the future of young women. 

MH: After spending some time with your work, I see two dominant threads: a visceral exploration of the feminine, and your intrigue with Eastern mystical traditions. They complement each other well, and it’s almost inevitable that you became interested in the chakras. Would you talk about your depiction of the chakra system?
NB: In 1989 I was living in Rome, and I made an edition of hand-held chakras that were cast in glass. Then I started making drawings of the chakras, some of which were literal depictions. Each chakra has its traditional way of being depicted; there are images, sounds, numbers, colors, even animals related to each chakra. It feeds into something else that I’m interested in, which is making work in which information systems collide.

MH: The content of an artist’s work is often something that creates conflict within her psyche. For me it’s religion, for you maybe it’s the female body vis-à-vis the male gaze, but it’s a complex that provokes and jabs at you until you make peace with it. Do you ever feel that you’re in the process of resolving some internal conflict through your creative process?
NB: No. I wrestle a little with spirituality, how I experience and express it. But no, I don’t feel conflicted.

MH: You seem like a singularly unoppressed woman!
NB: Haha! I’ve had a lot of therapy.

MH: Is there something that keeps pulling you back into the studio, as if you’re sorting it out through your creative process?
NB: No, I don’t have that. I get a material bug. I find a new material and I have to figure out what I can do with it. I have a restless mind, and need new challenges, like learning a new skill that I can bring into my work.

MH: Does this desire to try out new materials show up as a tension?
NB: Yes, that’s where the tension is for me. What happens when I put this next to this? Is that going to work or not work? What material works best for this piece?

MH: As a multidisciplinary artist, do you see your expression of the female body being as much about the materials as it is the content?
NB: I would say yes to both materials and content because our experience in our body changes all the time. When I started out, I was in a young body, and now I’m in an aging body, and the experience feels very different. In terms of materials, I oftentimes embed content into the material, or the way I combine materials makes a kind of content. And that’s always changing too, because in the sculpture world they’re always inventing new materials. Working in ceramics, there’s a lot I continue to discover about the materials.

 MH: I saw your installation Spectral Evidence in Provincetown in 2021, and it’s in your current show as well. There is surely no episode in the history of our country that was darker for women than the Salem witch trials, which are the inspiration behind the work. Can you say a few words about this piece?
NB: I have an ancestor, Samuel Sewall, who presided over the Salem witch trials. I went to Salem about 5 years ago, and found a book about him, “"Judge Sewall's Apology: The Salem Witch Trials and the Forming of an American Conscience”, which tells how he recanted, repented, and spent the rest of his life atoning for the killings. So in my installation I’m stepping in for my ancestor, making him experience his guilt and face off the graves of the people he murdered. It was a way to make symbolic amends for the wrongs of the past. I was making this during the Trump presidency, so there were parallels to the current political situation: fake news, corruption, greed. The whole thing was a spectacle, like lynching would later be.

MH: In reference to the title of your show, I have to ask: When is a body not just a body?
NB: A body isn’t always represented as a picture or a sculpture. In the some of the drawings in the show, I depict the body as a list of body parts.

MH: What’s the best part about being an artist?
NB: I get to do what I want! I get so much pleasure out of working with materials and creating visual images, and it makes me happy when people see my work get pleasure out of it.

Sometimes a Body Is Not Just a Body
is on view at the WCC Art Gallery through April 12th
www.nancybowenstudio.com

IMAGE LIST
  1. Venus Again, 2022, underglazed ceramic, shell, 30 x 20 x 20 in.
  2. Material Compulsion, 1993, clay, glass, steel, hair, 46 x 20 x 20 in.
  3. Princess T, 2016, turtle shell, ceramic, magic-sculpt, stones, library stand, mixed media, 48 x 20 x 20 in.
  4. Herculine, 1993, ceramic, glass, steel, hair, 41 x 15 x 17 in.
  5. Blade Runner, copper, dish, wood, ceramic, 55 x 18 x 16 in.
  6. Exalt, 2007, glass, epoxy resin, wax, mixed media, 50 x 34 x 34 in.
  7. Witch Installation (Spectral Evidence), 2019, ceramic, paper pulp and mixed media, size variable
  8. Witch Installation (Spectral Evidence), 2021, Provincetown Art Museum, Provincetown, MA, ceramic, paper pulp, mixed media, size variable
  9. Witch, 2021, Provincetown, MA
10. Teraton Necklace, 2003, ceramic, clay, steel, hair, c.18 x 96 x 96 in.
11. Weather Skulls, 2016, digital collage, gouache on paper, 16.5 x 20.5 in.
12. Draped Skulls, 2013, beads, collage, digital print on paper, 27 x 22 in.
13. Too Plain to Need Any Further Explanation, 2016, wood, glass, beads, gouache, ink on found book, 48 x 30 x 8 in.
14. Shady Shelfy Singsong, 2015, digital collage, gouache on found book on rice paper, 39 x 31 in.
15. Double Rhode Island, 2020, digital print, gouache on maps, 14 x 17 in.
16. Body Language 2, 2021, digital print, gouache on paper, 22 x 26 in.
17. Body Language 4, 2021, digital print, gouache on paper, 22 x 26 in.
18. Body Language 6, 2021, digital print, gouache on paper, 22 x 26 in.
19. Body Language 3, 2021, digital print, gouache on paper, 22 x 26 in.
20. Body Language 5, 2021, digital print, gouache on paper, 22 x 26 in.
21. Witch Grid Drawings, 2019, collage, gouache on paper, each 11 x 8.5 in.
22. Spleen, 2009, mixed media, charcoal on paper, 30 x 22 in.
23. Third Eye, 2009, mixed media, charcoal on paper, 22 x 30 in.
24. Installation at Westchester Community College, 2023
25. The artist in her studio.

Alyse Rosner

Alyse Rosner’s mural size paintings are a magnificent maelstrom of brushstrokes, drips, and vibrant color. In her current show at Rick Wester Fine Art, Rosner takes us on a journey that begins with harmonious surface gestures, growing increasingly chaotic as we move into the depths of the composition. Washes of saturated color surge across the unprimed canvas, cascading into the foreground in an effusion of polymer and pigment. Once we’ve crossed its threshold, the painting transports us into passages where we might not choose to enter. I found myself trapped in the lower left quadrant of Bracing Against the Wind, the show’s titular painting, an achromatic cul-de-sac that temporarily curbed any forward movement. But the discord is not without its merits; it is like the dissonance of Bach’s Cello Suites, encompassing the whole of human experience, from the euphoric to the claustrophobic and everything between. An 18-foot canvas is too large to depict a single subject or produce a solitary emotion; indeed, Rosner’s paintings are not about something, but are the thing itself. They are contained universes with their own language, logic, and weather systems, churning up responses that run the gamut of emotions. Her paintings are so broadly expressive that their interpretation will vary according to where one stands in relation to the canvas. By taking a few steps to the right, I was able to extricate myself from the fraught passage and return to the more palatable purples and blues in the foreground. Rosner begins each piece with graphite rubbings taken from her surroundings, including her wooden deck and a tree stump just outside her studio. Barely visible in the background, these references provide a measure of stability and ground us in the natural world. Her smaller canvases are more contained, an extension of our world and thus more easily digested. They are like microcosms from the larger cosmos, banished for their interest in pursuing beauty over chaos. In both her large- and medium-size paintings, Rosner commands her medium with the grace and humility required for working on a monumental scale, offering us a glimpse into her working process and emotional breadth.

MH: Your process starts with graphite rubbings from the deck outside your studio, or a cross-section of a tree trunk near your house. What was the inspiration behind that? Had you worked with rubbings prior to the large paintings?
AR: My mom is an artist, and when we were kids, she always gave us creative projects to do, including rubbings, so it wasn’t a foreign thing to me. Then in grad school I did some woodcut printing, but I realized that I loved making the block more than the print. In the early 2000s I started painting miniature woodblocks, 5 x 6 inches, with layers of acrylic on raw pine. That’s how the process evolved, and later I started thinking about how I could scale those up to make larger paintings. I thought maybe I’d work on a bigger piece of wood, but the logistics were overwhelming. Then I had the idea to make a rubbing of my deck, which has an exposed grain. There’s also a tree stump just outside my studio door, and it seemed like a natural thing to try. It was all an experiment, trying new ideas to shake things up, and I felt connected to it because it was all part of my surroundings.

MH: You mentioned that you move the raw canvas around a lot in the initial stages of the painting, literally dragging it outdoors to do the rubbings. You also hose it down, adding pigments to create large washes of color. Do I have that right? How would you describe the physicality of the process? It sounds both exhilarating and exhausting.
AR: That aspect is very physical, and I have to be geared up for that kind of physical activity. I’ll have a day that I do a lot of rubbings at once, which jumpstarts a body of work. It’s a very satisfying process – instant gratification – and can also be surprising, like when it materializes in a totally different way than I’d imagined. The large washes of color are with acrylic paint and water on the raw canvas. It starts out on the wall then goes to the ground, and as the paint dries it fades, so it goes through a few phases of adding more water and pigment. None of it is too mysterious, but it can be unpredictable.

MH: By the time you’ve finished the painting, the tree trunk rubbings are very faint, like ghosts of trees floating in the background. I read them as terre firma, a solid foundation for your energetic brushstrokes and complex compositions. How do you conceptualize the rubbings, and the fact that they all but disappear?
AR: They don’t always disappear. In the group of paintings in the current show, the rubbings are fainter, but other bodies of work have had much darker rubbings that assert themselves more strongly. The rubbings came out of the process of working on miniature paintings, where the incentive for the composition was the wood grain, a raw piece of pine. I used the grain as a way to orient a drawing, and my current rubbings serve the same purpose. By putting something down on the blank canvas, I have something to respond to that is personal and meaningful, so this has become an ingrained part of my process.

MH: It’s interesting how artists need to have something to get the ball rolling. Without some entry point on the paper or canvas, it can be hard to move into a new piece.
AR: Yes, you have to have some kind of strategy so you won’t be intimidated by the blank page. I had a visiting artist in grad school who suggested using the previous painting to start the next painting. I sometimes use previous paintings as a source for mark-making. I see it as a reference to propel the process forward.

MH: Do you have a conceptual basis for the rubbings? Like, are they the ground from which the composition is built, that sort of thing?
AR: They’re definitely the anchor. But when I’m painting, I don’t think about what it means or what it’s a picture of, I think more about how the marks relate to each other, and if they’re beginning to activate each other. When the marks finally activate, that’s when it becomes a painting. There’s content in the paintings that is not depicted by me, but is a preexisting content in the combination of the language and rubbings. It’s commenting on nature, life cycle, decomposition, growth, phenomena that we don’t understand, or that we try to understand. Lots of things can be projected onto them.

Bracing Against the Wind, 2022, graphite and acrylic on raw canvas, unstretched, 84 x 216 in.

MH: You went from painting miniature woodblocks to mural-size canvases, and it sounds like it took many years to realize. What process did you go through to scale up, and what were some of the issues that you came up against?
AR: Well, it’s been 23 years, so I guess I came up against a few things! When I was working on the miniature scale, my kids were babies, and it was as much as I could handle back then. Then there were the material challenges, learning the language and searching for my own voice, my own way of working. For some reason tiny and enormous have more in common than tiny and medium. Both the miniatures and the large canvases create a universe; they’re not a picture of something else, but they are the thing itself. The medium-size painting, 30 to 40 inches, often is a picture of the thing, and that’s the struggle for me. I prefer to make the thing rather than a picture of the thing. And the larger works are just a natural scale for me to work.

MH: You write that each painting is in response to the preceding painting, suggesting that your work engages in an ongoing conversation with itself. I’m intrigued by the idea of an artist’s materials embarking on their own journey, with the artist as their medium. Does this ring true for you? Namely, do you ever feel like the materials are in control, and you’re along for the ride?
AR: If you can get there, it’s a nice place to be! Once I get through the struggle of getting into the painting, I can get into a flow, and then it can feel like things are happening and I’m just participating.

MH: I’d imagine that working on such a large scale would amplify the feeling that you’re collaborating with the materials. Do you ever lose yourself in the process? Is there ever the sense of being overpowered by your own creation? Not in a Frankenstein kind of way, but with the feeling of not being equal to the task?
AR: Oh my god, of course! Definitely. Sometimes I think I’m kidding myself to think I can do this, and it can be overwhelming. Plus I often can’t see what I’m doing because I’m too close to it. It can take a few days to get into the process before I can be clear and have some perspective on what the painting is becoming. Things often happen out of sequence, or I make something that I don’t recognize, and it feels alarming, like I’ve totally lost my place and my practice. In those times, I work hard to let the painting exist as it is and see if over the course of a few weeks I can understand it. Basically, when I feel unsettled by the work, I feel like it’s going someplace that it hasn’t been before and that’s where growth happens, but it can be very uncomfortable.

Carrying Its Broken Shells, 2023, graphite and acrylic on raw canvas, unstretched, 84 x 216 in.

MH: Is there ever the feeling that you’re getting in the way of your materials?
AR: Sometimes I do, but I try to resist it. My work has a continuity, but there are also places where it moves in new directions. I hope that I let that happen.

MH: I’m interested in the idea that an artist can be a hindrance to the materials; that the materials want to express themselves through her, but she’s getting in the way. Artists do a lot of different things to get out of the way, like smoke weed or self-flagellate or whatever.
AR: I haven’t thought about that so I’m not sure how I get in the way or out of the way, either one. I have a routine, and habits can be good or restrictive.

MH: What brings it up for me is that you work on such a large scale, and I’m frankly in awe. There’s a lot of creative energy coming through you, as well as a lot of paint, and it would be easy for you to get in the way of the process, but you seem to handle it all with grace. Not to be a fawning fangirl, but it amazes me that your paintings hold together as these super-tight compositions. And they’re exquisitely beautiful!
AR: Thank you! Most of the time while the painting is developing, it looks terrible! Up until the last second it can be a mess. But when it looks the worst is the best for me, because when parts of it start to look good, I feel protective and try to save a section from being ruined. That’s when I get in the way – when I have a part that I’m protecting. You have to be willing to risk the good parts and trust that in the end, the risk is going to land you in a good place.

MH: You mentioned that as you’re working, you try to suspend judgment, and let the paint be as it is. Even if you don’t like how it’s going, the process may take you into new territory, rather than staying with the familiar. This takes a lot of trust, and I’m wondering where a mature artist is most apt to place her trust: in herself and her problem-solving capabilities, or in the medium to resolve itself? Is there a meaningful distinction to be made?
AR: I think you’re right. I think I put most faith in the process, and I suspend judgment as much as I can, because ultimately, I believe it’s going to resolve itself. I do have this ridiculous faith in moving forward in the painting, making intuitive decisions, and using the painting as a leverage for structuring decisions.

MH: When you have a deadline approaching, are you less apt to take chances and try new things?
AR: Hopefully things have progressed far enough so that by that time the deadline is getting close, I have a direction and it’s not as risky as when I’m deep in the middle of the process. For this show, I did work up to the very last second. But I work well under deadlines.

MH: I love the story of how Peggy Guggenheim commissioned Jackson Pollock to paint a large canvas for one of her dinner parties. The day before the event, he hadn’t even started it, but he painted the entire canvas late that night and delivered it the next day. I guess Pollock worked well under deadlines too! The story is probably apocryphal, but it speaks to the idea that the materials have their own agenda and impulse.
AR: Yes, you develop a familiarity and trust in the materials, as well as an intimate connection with your own process of working.

MH: You talk about the content of your work being autobiographical: they’re about who you are and what you’re going through, which is vulnerable for any artist. But you’ve experienced tragic personal loss with the death of your husband 11 years ago, and I’m curious how that showed up in your work? Were you able to process your grief in the studio?
AR: During the pandemic I felt a connection to this experience, as it was the tenth year since my husband passed away and it felt monumental to me. He was on morphine, which is color-coded for strength, and the color he was using happened to be phthalo green. After he passed away, that color really resonated for me. Prior to that my work was monochromatic, so when I started to incorporate this garish color into my work, it called for more color in response. The colors became vivid and synthetic, which was a big shift for me. It felt like a silent memorial, but people didn’t know that because I didn’t feel comfortable sharing it for a long time. Then during the pandemic there was such a collective sense of grief, and so many people had lost loved ones that I felt comfortable talking about it. Eventually that aspect of my work entered into my artist statement, and into my discussion of the work more publicly.

MH: There’s been so much grief and loss due to the pandemic, war, and climate change, and artists have found ways to express it through their respective mediums. The result is a lot of emotional art being shown right now! Have you noticed that? It seems that there’s an abundance of art in the galleries that’s super vulnerable, as if a huge, collective wound has been ripped open.
AR: When something difficult is happening to you, there’s the feeling that you’re in it alone, but now there’s this collective feeling of grief and people are living parallel lives. I think artists are more inclined to share those emotional upheavals, and they express it in different ways. I haven’t always felt comfortable sharing openly, but maybe I’m more comfortable now because these things are amplified due to the pandemic.

MH: I’ve noticed that the work in galleries has become more vulnerable and intimate in scale. I’m thinking of the recent shows of Carol Saft and Jackie Shatz, very small paintings and sculptures that carry a lot of emotion. I wonder if the collective wound is calling for more intimate works.
AR: I know both of their works. It’s terrible that the collective wound exists, but I think it’s good that people are willing to share it more openly.

MH: Is your work emotional? Behind the beautiful, organic patterns on the surface of the canvas, I see passages that look like they’re composed in a minor key. Are you orchestrating an emotional response?
AR: My process is really a call and response, an intuitive process that’s probably more formal than it is emotional. but it’s also conceivable that the emotional content is in the back of my mind when I’m making decisions. I don’t know if I can separate that.

MH: That’s fair. In your painting Bracing Against the Wind, the far left the section seemed dark and brooding, a singular passage in your larger body of work. Was I reading into it, or did you paint it that way?
AR: It’s open to interpretation. I don’t usually use such dark colors, but I was indirectly involved with the forest fires on the West Coast because my siblings live there. I was experimenting with the smoky sensation in some earlier paintings, so I was trying to bring a darker palette into the painting by having black and umber around the edges, and that’s how it evolved.

MH: What’s the best part about being an artist?
AR: I can’t conceive of doing anything else, so I feel lucky that I’m able to do it. To be in the studio and make the paintings and be able to share them is a luxury, so I also feel fortunate in that regard.

MH: What is your predominant drive in making art?
There’s something hardwired about the need to make something. I can’t not do it! I can take a break maybe, but I’ve always had the physical need to create something. One thing that I learned during the pandemic is that art matters and making something physical is important. It’s very meaningful to be a part of that.

Bracing Against the Wind runs through April 15th at RWFA.
www.alyserosner.com

IMAGE LIST
  1. Zephyr, 2023, acrylic and graphite on raw canvas, 60 x 54 in.
  2. Oracle, 2022, acrylic and graphite on raw canvas, 46 x 36 in.
  3. Flight Burdock, 2022, acrylic and graphite on raw canvas, 33 x 30 in.
  4. Bracing Against the Wind, current installation at RWFA, NY, NY
  5. Rosner II, 2008, acrylic and graphite on yupo paper, 22 x 20 in.
  6. With Wood Grain, 2008, acrylic and graphite on yupo paper, 22 x 20 in.
  7. With Wood Grain XL, 2008, acrylic and graphite on yupo paper, 22 x 20 in.
  8. Untitled, 2009, acrylic and graphite on yupo paper, 60 x 55 in.
  9. Moment (Flutter IV), 2006, acrylic on raw pine, 6 x 5 in.
10. Moment (Lashes II), 2006, acrylic on raw pine, 6 x 5 in.
11. Moment (Lashes III), 2006, acrylic on raw pine, 6 x 5 in.
12. Moment (Rickrack V), 2006, acrylic on raw pine, 6 x 5 in.
13. Moment (Unnamed II), 2006, acrylic on raw pine, 6 x 5 in.
14. Moment (Unnamed III), 2006, acrylic on raw pine, 6 x 5 in.
15. In the studio.
16. Graphite rubbings in the studio.
17. Transporting canvas for graphite rubbings.
18. Rubbings in process.
19. The artist in her studio.

Alex Gingrow

Alex Gingrow is a language-based artist who spends as much time crafting her sentences as she does painting the intricate patterns that accompany her text. Her sketchbooks are filled not with images, but with words, sentences, and fragments of narratives, all of which she uses to generate ideas for her paintings. She crafts words in the way that a sculptor uses a chisel, trimming away verbiage to arrive at the essence of an emotion or concept. Where most text-based artists aim for specificity in their language, Gingrow strives for lyric ambiguity. Her word combinations often have double meanings, allowing the viewer to interpret the piece according to their biases. In her current series, she presents sentences in the form of poetic flowcharts that emulate the cadence and rhythm of her writing. These verbal constructions are set against richly patterned backdrops that vie for our attention as they interweave with the foreground text. Gingrow’s ornate backdrops have an enigmatic vibe, reminiscent of wallpaper from a bygone era. The exquisitely painted patterns, combined with a disjointed narrative, create a tension that might infer an unreliable narrator. It’s likely that Gingrow would welcome our distrust, as her goal as both an artist and writer is to make us question anything that presents itself, and to examine the validity of our long-held beliefs.

MH: You work in various styles, but your paintings and drawings always include text. When did language start showing up in your work? What was the inspiration behind it?
AG: Language has always been present in my work. I remember around the age of eight making my first acrylic paintings and I would always include word bubbles or labels. I was gifted paint pens when I was a kid, and I wrote on everything. I’ve had times throughout both my development and career when I tried to literally paint over the text or obscure it to the point of abstraction, but text is how I generate ideas. I don’t sit down and sketch, I sit down and write. My mom and both my aunts were community college English teachers, so I grew up with language, literature, and grammar.

MH: What inspires your text? Can you describe your writing and editing process? Sometimes it’s very personal, other times it can be controversial.
AG: It does vary a lot. When I lived in the city, the text was inspired by the tempo and cadence of walking. I generated ideas by walking and looking, and the ideas seeped in naturally. I’m also inspired by African American literature, which was my focus in undergrad, because for a while I was an English major as well as an art major. There’s something about the innate tempo in African American and Caribbean literature that has always resonated with me. But I don’t think in pictures, I think in words. Sometimes a sentence will come to me, and it’s done, it’s perfect. Other times I generate pages and pages of stream of consciousness writing, then I do an intense editing process where I go through and underline what I call the nuggets. Then I take those out and basically sketch with them. It’s almost like concrete poetry, where the verbal and the aesthetic are intertwined.

MH: Painting is like poetry in that it communicates by suggestion or metaphor. Adding text allows the artist to convey something with more precision. Is this a consideration in your use of text? Are you looking to be more specific?
AG: Actually, what I’m striving for is ambiguity. There’s something specific about the nature of language and words, but I don’t want to be overly didactic. A lot of the text and phrases that I use have double meanings, and their interpretation depends on what the viewer brings to it. So as I’m generating words, I think about competing ideas and what the text brings up.

MH: Here’s an example of interesting ambiguity. A piece contains two words: JUST WAR. I read it as “It’s just war! Get over it, snowflake.” But I could also see someone reading it as “It’s a just war, because the Ukrainians are defending their territory”. Either way, it could be interpreted as an incitement to war. What are your thoughts behind this series?
AG: That’s exactly the ambiguity that I’m embracing. And I think a step beyond that is not just the interpretation of the language, but what is war, anyway? What is valid aggression? How do we determine that? And again, I’m not approaching it didactically. I don’t have an answer for that. I’d never want to be a leader of a country because I wouldn’t want to make that decision. Was World War II justified? What does that imply? Who are we to decide? My concern is for humanity to think longer and harder about those questions.

MH: I think it was Kurt Vonnegut who said that war is never justified. It’s not worth the death toll; we should just surrender to a new regime and carry on with our lives. And that’s arguable as well. But I have a question about this piece. If someone say on the far right took your piece “JUST WAR” and appropriated it as a call to arms or used it in a way that’s not in alignment with your sensibilities, how would you feel about that?
AG: I mean, of course I’d have an absolute fit about that, and fight it tooth and nail.

MH: But in a sense you wouldn’t have an argument because there’s this ambiguity. The larger question is when an artist makes a work of art and it’s completely misunderstood or misrepresented, what do we do about that?
AG: It’s a great question, like the Dana Schutz piece in the Whitney Biennial, the painting of Emmett Till. I followed that closely and understood both sides of the argument, and I think the only solution was the dialogue around it. We need to talk about these things and try to see the other point of view. Communication is key, understanding someone’s intent and where they’re coming from, even if you disagree.

MH: Your text is often poetic or fragmented. In a sense, you’re layering poetry on top of poetry, giving the work an enigmatic edge. Does it bother you if someone doesn’t get your work in the way you intended?
AG: No. If I thought I could control that, I’m in the wrong business. I mean, it’s not up to me to make someone do something. I like to provide the hand, I want to give an offering, and if someone is open to accepting that, then come on board, but I can’t control what other people interpret.

MH: How do you think about the background? In some pieces it’s minimal, making the text easier to read. But they lack the visual appeal of your more ornate backgrounds. Do you use this patterning to draw the viewer deeper into the painting?
AG: The patterning in this recent body of work was born out of the pandemic. I was home for two years with a young child and an older house that we’d recently moved into, and I began noticing the upholstery, the wallpaper, the weird patterns from the 80s. Like the cadence of walking in the city, I found that those patterns of domesticity have their own tempo. Their repetition and patterning create a meditative trance for me so I can slip into thinking about stories, words, and memories. I think that’s what has inspired my highly textured and patterned backgrounds. In older works like the Provenance and Calendar series, the backgrounds are white brush marks, very repetitive with a size 0 brush. From a distance it just looks like a white backdrop, but when you get up close, you’re rewarded with the hand of the artist, these tiny brush marks that you want to touch. So background has always been important for me as a platform for the text, but it’s not subsequent to the text; it is its own reward.

MH: The baroque background often stands in contrast to the stark statement in the foreground. This juxtaposition is interesting, especially because the filigree makes it harder to read the text. Why did you go in the direction of making the text harder to read? Was it a literary or a painterly decision?
AG: Definitely more of a painterly decision. I’ve found that in working with text over the years, there are some people who don’t like to read. If they see text in a work of art that’s slightly longer than a meme, they don’t have the attention span to spend time with it. I want people to be beckoned forward, and then once they get there, things start to unfold. It’s like getting to know someone. The closer you get, the more conversations you have with them, and you begin to create a connection. That’s what I hope happens with my work; that’s the goal. 

MH: Is that the goal rather than making a statement with your work? Even an ambiguous statement?
AG: It’s the initial goal because it foretells the coming of a relationship. I don’t want my piece to decorate a room, I’d like the collector to have a relationship with it. I want to make work that someone will get lost in every now and again, like a springboard into their thoughts and memories.

MH: You mentioned that you’re also a writer, which comes as no surprise. Why does your creativity appear in its current form? Why visual art instead of literary pursuits?
AG: I would prefer to be a writer but I’m too scared. I’ve thought about this a lot. I’ve started so many novels, but I abandon them after a while. I think it’s because my mom proofread and edited my papers when I was a kid, and it was brutal. Brutal! [laughter] There’s something so raw about writing and when someone scratches that wound, it just hurts too much.  

MH: Ha! Interesting. You think the publishing world is more brutal than the art world?
AG: To me. Perhaps not to somebody else. I mean, you can tear apart my painting process and technique all day and I can deal with it; it feels like you’re just scratching my skin. But if you tear apart the writing or poetry or narrative, it feels like you’re scratching my heart.

MH: How awful. Have you heard other writers express the same thing?
AG: I’ve never asked anyone before. But that’s only a small part of it. The writing is so direct and personal. It’s the child in me shrinking away from criticism. But if I paint the text and interweave it with aesthetic options, it’s like a protective cloak, and I can deal with it.

MH:  Do you aspire to write a novel, or are you content with your current writing process? Is it fun to craft succinct verses? I think of the novel “Baby Shoes” by Hemingway, composed of six words: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Your work has that reductive quality.
AG: I love the challenge of writing a novel, but at this point it's more aspirational than actually in progress. I’ve drafted it, I’ve started it, I’ve rewritten it, I’ve edited it, rewritten it again. We’re building a new studio on our property and it’s going to have a writing corner, so we’ll see what happens. 

MH: Your literary constructions are so tight and pared down that I compare them to sculptures. Does it ever feel like you’re sculpting with words, reducing big ideas to their barest essence?
AG: I love that idea. I’ve never thought of it in that way because I’m so non-three-dimensional, but it’s not about dimension at that point, it’s more about crafting. It’s both building and chiseling away. 

MH: Yes, a novel is about building a narrative, but what you’re doing is more about reduction, trimming away the excess.
AG: On my current piece I spent a week chewing on the difference between the prepositions through and on. “Sinister steps through frozen leaves”, or “Sinister steps on frozen leaves”? I kept writing it both ways, trying to decide between the two words.

MH: Which was it?
AG: Through.

MH: I like through. It has movement. “On” feels static.
AG: Yeah, but do the sinister steps continue? Or do I need the oppression of “on”?  Are they passing or settling? [laughter] 

MH: It seems that you’ve found the perfect medium for your sensibilities and skills. You can write in a nonlinear style, express a condensed statement that can be challenging to the viewer, and paint it in a way that’s visually seductive. Does this check all the boxes for you? Are your writerly urges satisfied in your studio practice?
AG: For the most part, yes. I wish I journaled more, because I think a lot comes out of journaling, both in the process and going back to it later. But the creative writing is absolutely satisfied in my studio practice.

MH: I find it interesting that most text-based art is subversive in some way, yours included. Would you agree with that generalization? And if so, why do you think this is the case? Why does the use of language in visual art incline toward subversion?
AG: In the fine arts realm text almost has to be subversive, otherwise you’re competing with advertising, memes, and direct sales or hooks. So when an artist chooses to use text in their work, they have to skirt around that kind of thing so they don’t run the risk of being one-dimensional.

MH: Can you give me an example?
AG: “Bless This Home”. It’s something you could get at the art section of Target or Michael’s. It’s a quick delivery, and has one interpretation.

MH: Artists have a propensity to rail against the status quo, and text is often added to a work of art to clarify or intensify an opinion. So it’s easy to see how text-based art would be provocative. Is it important to you that your work elicits a reaction? What would be the ideal response?
AG: I think it’s important to distinguish between artists who use text in a piece, and an artist who uses text as their work. I would put myself in that latter category. My work is the text, and everything else is the scaffolding that supports it. As far as the reaction, I want to present something for the viewer to chew on. In one piece from my Calendar series, I wrote, “I want to be the kernel of popcorn in your teeth.” Maybe it’s an annoyance, but it’s there. I want someone to enjoy the work on an aesthetic level, but what I want more is for someone to interpret the text in their own way and consider it from all different angles. I want the text to exist as part of an examination of the human condition. The goal is for the text to resonate with someone from a completely different demographic.

MH: Honestly, you sound more like a writer. Because a writer talks about creating these narratives that tap into the human experience. But then there’s this seductive visual element that’s sort of a delivery system for your writing. You really do have a foot in both worlds. 
AG: It’s a hard place to occupy sometimes in the art world because I don’t want my work to be a solely aesthetic experience. When I go on residencies, I prefer to hang out with the writers and poets rather than the artists.

MH: Would you ever consider being a writer who has a painterly style?
AG: I wouldn’t rule it out. I mean I love doing these tiny, intricate paintings. I find it so satisfying, spiritually fulfilling, meditative, but it’s getting more difficult. I’m often hunched over doing teeny detail work with a super tiny brush, and at the end of the day my body hurts and my eyes are strained. So it may be an organic progression toward writing at some point. 

MH: In a broad sense, do you feel that you’re undermining something in your work? And if so, what?
AG: That’s an interesting question. In the Provenance labels, there was some intentional and more obvious subversion, which was the subversion of the gallery world, the art world. I would say that there’s some personal subversion in some of the stories that I write and tell, things that I’d never admit to anyone, so maybe that energy invades a piece. I’ve always had a rebellious streak, so perhaps some things come across that way, but it’s not anything that’s intentional. I grew up in Tennessee in a very liberal, democratic, queer family, not anything typical for that region. I think I’ve always realized that I don’t have to fit in, and I’m happy to live that way.

MH: In general, does art undermine something?
AG: Anyone who lives in the world as a critical thinker is undermining and questioning the status quo, right? I mean, that should be our job! One of the most beautiful things about being an artist is the access to everything, the permission to explore anything. That’s not encouraged in traditional society. You wake up in your little box, you stay in your lane, you go to your job, you stay in your socio-economic strata. There are these boxes that are easy to fit into, and our job as artists is to question everything. So yes, there’s inherent subversion in that.

MH: Do you ever use the text as a means to extract or exorcize something out of your system? Can it be cathartic in some way?
AG: I think about that often. Sometimes I think I hold onto some stories so I can keep mining those inappropriate, discomforting things. Maybe I keep going back to get that human response and then exploit it in the text somehow.

MH: Rilke said he never wanted to go into psychotherapy because he didn’t want to exorcise his demons. They were his material.
AG: There’s a lot of validity in that. There are intense topics that I’ve dealt with numerous times across numerous series, and yet they’re still in there. They haven’t gone away, so maybe I need them. 

MH: On a personal note, it was difficult for me to look at your Trump series. It felt like I was tapping into a dense energy, and I didn’t want to give it any of my time. That’s a powerful reaction to a piece of art! How does it feel to bring this kind of toxic energy into your studio?
AG: Those are excerpts are from the Access Hollywood video. There are fourteen pieces total in that series. I don’t want to spend a lot of time on him, but I felt like I had to make those at the time. I had to see how they read in a year, in five years, in ten years. They’re probably never going to sell and that’s totally fine; that’s not what they were about. But they’re part of our collective American experience and I felt that they were important. The American people elected this person, and we deserve to see his words and be ashamed of them.

MH: Do you ever see yourself leaving text behind, or would that be like declawing a cat? Would it be easier to leave painting behind and express yourself purely through writing? Or are text and image so intertwined in your work that you can’t feature letting either of them go?
AG: I don’t foresee letting them go but of course I’m open to any natural evolution. Writing will always be a part of me, and I just enjoy the process of putting paint on paper. The writing is the actual art, or what I think of as the manifestation of my own spirituality, and making the work is the physical act of devotion or spiritual practice. Coming to the studio, mixing pigment, cleaning brushes, throwing ink on paper – that’s my form of processing and worship and devotion. I can’t imagine ever abandoning that.

MH: What’s the best part about being an artist?
AG: The life! To get to be creative every day, to have the permission to explore anything. If I’m interested in quantum physics or astronomy or mythology, or if I’m inspired by nature walks, I get to be curious and explore it all. How great is that? And then there’s all the people you get to know on an interesting level, not just talk next to the water cooler. It’s the freedom of spirit. I don’t know what else I could do.

www.alexgingrow.com

Image List
  1. We Broke Me, 2021, oil, acrylic, ink, watercolor, graphite, colored pencil on Duralar, 40 x 53.75 in.
  2. Keep My Hair Out Your Mouth, 2021, oil, acrylic, ink, and gesso on paper, 25.5 x 40 in.
  3. You Pluck Rotting Teeth From Your Caustic Mouth As Casually As I Weed The Winter Garden, 2021, oil, acrylic, and ink on Duralar, 24 x 36 in.
  4. I Am In Your Skin, 2022, oil, ink, graphite, and gesso on paper, 26 x 39.75 in.
  5. I Would Have Ruined Everything For You, 2021, oil, acrylic, ink, and gesso on paper, 38.75 x 39 in.
  6. I Would Have Ruined Everything For You, (detail)
  7. Those Camberley Nights Were Fresh Electric Like A Naked Wire In Spilt Milk, 2021, collage, ink, and graphite on paper, 8.5 x 7.25 in.
  8. This House Was Not Made To Be My Home, 2018, gesso, ink, watercolor, charcoal, pastel on paper, 48 x 50.5 in.
  9. I Needed You To Be There When I Looked Back, 2019, gesso, ink, watercolor, charcoal, pastel on paper, 37 x 50 in.
10. Just War, 2018, flashe, ink, and graphite on paper, 22 x 30 in.
11. Still Pretty Though, 2018, ink, gesso, and graphite on paper, 22 x 30 in.
12. I Did Try And Fuck Her, 2017,  ink and gesso on paper, 7.25 x 6.5 in.
13. Oh It Looks Good, 2017, ink and gesso on paper, 7.25 x 6.5 in.
14. I Moved On Her Like a Bitch, 2017, ink and gesso on paper, 7.25 x 6.5 in.
15. With Skin So Sour and Pulp So Sweet, 2017, watercolor, graphite, and gesso on paper, 7.25 x 8.5 in.
16. You Used To Smile in Pictures. I Used to Shave My Legs, 2017, watercolor, graphite, and gesso on paper, 7.25 x 8.5 in.
17. Barbie Wrecked the Fucking Convertible, 2017, watercolor, graphite, and gesso on paper, 7.25 x 8.5 in.
18. 04.10.13, 2013-present, graphite, ink, and acrylic on paper, 15 x 15 in.
19. 04.03.13, 2013-present, graphite, ink, and acrylic on paper, 15 x 15 in.
20. 04.21.13, 2013-present, graphite, ink, and acrylic on paper, 15 x 15 in.
21. Nothing like kicking the bucket to boost the sale, 2010, graphite and ink on paper, 22 x 30 in.
22. Hirst is no Warhol. I mean, maybe after he’s dead. But he’s not there yet., 2012, graphite and acrylic on paper, 22 x 30 in.
23. Well all the money IS in the label, you know., 2008, ink, graphite, and gouache on paper, 22 x 30 in.
24. Which one was damaged? The unsold one? Oh, that’s fine. Nobody cares about that one anyway, 2010, graphite and acrylic on paper, 22 x 30 in.
25. The artist and her daughter Scout.
26. The artist in her studio.

Shanti Grumbine

Shanti Grumbine is a multimedia artist whose intimate relationship with materials, along with her broad conceptual investigations, brings her work somewhere between craft and conceptual art. Which is appropriate, given that she’s drawn toward aspects of both. Her work interrupts the value systems that we live by, while questioning the role of art as another commodity in a bloated capitalist system. In one series, Grumbine collects discarded objects that she finds on the side of the road and brings them back to her studio, where she recreates them as scaled-up versions. Like the original object, which is often a mere fragment, her sculptures are unidentifiable, like that section of a broken arm of a pair of sunglasses that wraps around your ear. Grumbine treats these nameless ‘things’ with a sort of reverence, as they point to a value system beyond any conceivable market value, and indeed beyond even their own usefulness. Her work has a devotional aspect, as it brings our attention to the overlooked but sacred world that is simply everywhere, if only we could see it. Grumbine affords us the opportunity not only to see but to engage with those aspects of our culture that are marginalized and invisible. A great compassion emanates from her work quietly and unexpectedly, as she pulls back the curtain and lets us see and experience the sacredness in everything. In the process of translating insignificant objects into a lofty visual language, Grumbine urges us to question our entrenched value systems, and maybe try harder to see the beauty in every little thing.

MH: It’s hard to label your work because you work in many mediums, and you seem to work in series as well. Are you good with not being categorized as this or that type of artist?
SG: It’s something that I struggle with. My tendency is to move through different media and projects as my location or life situation shifts. My hands and mind are digressive and when I get an idea, I have to see it through. It can feel unwieldy at times, and yet the unwieldiness is exciting to me.

MH: Do you ever have issues with being categorized as an artist in general? I’m wondering if you prefer “artisan”, which is sort of ‘artist light’, and has fewer expectations around it.
SG: Ann Hamilton refers to herself as a maker, and I love that term. It has breath and space in it, and it also feels very grounded and humble. It has that sense of going into something that starts as nothing, and then becomes something as you engage with it, whether it’s with your hands or a conceptual process. And there’s the craft element, and something magical too, to make something exist that wasn’t there before.

MH: A lot of your materials come from the tradition of craft: weaving, dry felting, form sculpting. What is your relationship to the craft world?
SG: I’m interested in things that are beautiful and well made, and that’s what I attempt to achieve in my work. There’s a kind of generosity and authenticity when something is well made, and that’s meaningful to me. The materials, like wool and thread and felt, are also very grounding, and they’re not bloated with art history. Craft taps into a different kind of history that’s oriented toward function rather than market value. I also think a lot about the Industrial Revolution, when there was a shift in value systems and skill was traded in for profitability.

MH: Not too long ago, craft was officially embraced as “fine art”, which everyone agrees is well deserved, but it also has a cringe aspect. It implies that crafters everywhere were pining to have their work recognized by the art world, because they couldn’t possibly be satisfied by sitting at their loom or potter’s wheel and making things. Do you find the acceptance of craft into the art canon to be presumptuous?
SG: I think what you’re pointing to is a specific value system of the craft tradition and its relationship to the value system of the art world, which is more market-driven. This brings up a core interest of mine, which is an investigation of value systems and how they came about, who maintains them, and what it takes to dismantle them. Maybe by inviting the craft world into the fine art world, we’re starting to embrace alternative value systems.  

MH: Do you think that when the art world invited the craft world in, like a big cattle call, the art world had more to gain than the craft world? Like the art world needed something from the craft world to bring it down to earth?
SG: I imagine so. I know that I have. Craft brings with it a respect for the material world, with an acknowledgment of material agency. It decenters us along with our notions of genius and will and that is important. And it acknowledges lineages of making that are not white or male-centric. 

MH: Back to your use of mediums. I see you as a materials-oriented artist, and it seems that you love the journey of experimentation. Is the diversity of materials intentional? Does it keep the work fresh, and does it help in avoiding categorization?
SG: It’s interesting that you ask if I’m trying to avoid categorization, when I’m desperately trying to be categorized! (haha) But it’s nice to view it as a strength rather than this thing that I’m always entangled with. I struggle with not being categorizable because it’s not lucrative. It’s harder for people to pin me down, curate me into a show, create a collector base. But I love working with diverse materials and sometimes my work is the material investigation itself. And then there’s this conceptual investigation happening at the same time. I like the parallel investigations, the back and forth between the hand and the mind.

MH: How do you feel about “branding”? The B word. I feel like it’s a gated community for creativity. What’s your take?
SG: I’m never going to be able to do that. Like if someone were to look at my work and say, “That’s a Shanti Grumbine”, that’s a game that I can’t play. I mean I literally don’t know how to do it.

MH: Do you think most artists know how to do it? I think they don’t.
SG: I’ve been asking myself these kinds of questions, partly because I’m a single mom and I need to make money. When I was doing my series with newspapers, there was this moment when suddenly, that’s who I was. I had a brand, and I felt so boxed in! And invisible. It’s like going through life with the tip of your pinky showing and nothing else, and people only know you as the tip of your pinky. I needed to shift gears, and I needed the time to do it, so I did a year-long residency in Roswell, New Mexico. I was looking at other models of art making, and I saw that there are project-based artists that respond to various environments or situations. This was something I wanted to embrace and aspire to. It was a big realization, and a relief in some way.

MH: Isn’t being a project-based artist antithetical to branding? With branding you have a style, and that’s who you are.
SG: Right. Branding requires a different temperament than what I have.

MH: A common thread that weaves through your work is transformation. You find and collect “mundane objects that exist in the margins of our lives” (your words), and in one way or another transform them into something else. What is it about the transformation that appeals to you?
SG: There’s something sacred about paying attention to an object that has been overlooked, and I think that attention is the source of transformation. There are two things that are happening: there’s the visual transformation of the object when I notice it, then there’s the transformation that happens in my interaction with the material as I make it. But then I’m also transformed by the engagement. The process allows me to see the world around me and engage with it differently.

MH: So you’re out for a walk, you spot a nondescript object on the side of the road, something about it draws your interest so you bring it back to your studio, and then create a scaled-up version of the object. What have I left out of the process? What are some other considerations?
SG: That was a specific project that I started when I was in Roswell. I was dealing with pain from chronic Lyme, so I had to walk to alleviate the pain, and it became part of my studio practice. Walking along this specific route became my daily pilgrimage, and I started paying attention to what was along the side of the road. I started collecting these objects that had been transformed by exposure and use. They were no longer categorizable because they had left their old value system and entered into a new realm that felt full of possibility. I experienced these objects as relics and began to read about the history of walking and pilgrimage. I witnessed the pilgrimage that happens once a year to El Santuario de Chimayo, in Northern New Mexico. The destination chapel holds a well of blessed dirt, a base element made holy through attention and devotion. I also thought about reliquaries and pilgrimage sites I experienced as a child on a family trip to Europe when my mother was teaching about the Crusades. And I thought about the bones of saints housed within cathedral altars. We choose who and what is sacred.

MH: You told me that you don’t know what the found object is; you don’t want to know. Why not? Would knowing its purpose and history affect your process?
SG: Sometimes I know, like one of my sculptures, Column, is modeled after a worn piece of a pair of sunglasses. I like knowing and not knowing what it is; it exists on this precipice between the sunglasses and this other magical, bone-like existence. It’s a liminal space between what it was and what it’s becoming. There are other artists who have enlarged the things that clutter our lives, like Claes Oldenburg, who enlarged these fetishized objects in our culture. I find objects after they’ve shifted into this other state; I’ve found them in their thingness. They’re no longer what they were. It’s a different approach, a different investigation.

MH: What do you mean by thingness?
SG: Bill Brown writes about the concept of “Thing Theory”, which says that an object becomes a thing when it can no longer serve its common function. An object disappears into its use value: I pick up a glass, I drink, I don’t think about the glass. But if that same glass breaks, there’s a stutter in that experience, and it becomes a thing. So thing theory is about the ways in which the things in our lives affect and transform us. Bill Brown also talks about our bodies as objects and the way that physical injury disrupts our performance, our objectness. This theory resonates with me on a deep level due to the way chronic illness interrupted the functionality of my own body, shifting my sense of self. Illness turned me into a "thing among things".

MH: I find it interesting that when reproducing the thing, you’re not making it different than what it is. You enlarge it and in doing so you magnify its ordinariness. What is it that you would like us to see? What do you see?
SG: When I have this moment of visceral connection with a thing that has no value, it interrupts the value systems that I live by, that I’m burdened by. My engagement with the thing gives me the agency to interrupt the capitalist, market-driven value system with something that has a very different type of value. I don't think I enlarge it to magnify its ordinariness, I magnify the ways it feels extraordinary to me. And I enlarge it to occupy the physical scale of my body.

MH: I see in your work a Zen-like quality that places value on the ordinary and unadorned. The sacred isn’t something to be sought after like a shiny talisman, but in whatever presents itself in your daily, repetitive routine. Is this something you think about in your studio and in life?
SG: Since I’ve been chronically sick for ten years, there’s been a narrowness in my experience. Art has been the doorway that lets me learn anything and everything from whatever happens to be nearby.

MH: Is the sacred aspect of the piece inherent in the object itself? Or does your process of transformation make it sacred? You talked about translation during my studio visit, and it’s interesting to think about how a nameless object becomes sacred as you translate it into another visual language.
SG: What I’m really interested in is how we encounter the objects in our world, and how we encounter each other. We choose our value system, and we choose through our attention what is sacred. By transforming these nameless things into devotional objects, I’m exercising my choice by giving it my attention, which challenges market-driven value systems.

MH: All spiritual teachers will tell you that everything is sacred. The object that you pick up on the side of the road is just as sacred as the object that you didn’t pick up, so the reason you choose one over the other is more a matter of aesthetics.
SG: Yes, and I’m curious about that. What is desire? Why am I drawn to this and not that? I experimented with that in my earlier work, when I was looking at these luxury items in the newspaper and extracting them from their context to understand what is desirable and why. I was investigating how our desires have been formed by advertising, and why we’re drawn to certain shapes.

MH: Maybe translating the unremarkable object into a different visual language makes it desirable, not sacred. Because in theory, it’s already sacred.
SG: Yes. I’m also curious about what makes a shape desirable. The object on the side of the road had a specificity to it, but I couldn’t place it. There would be a lighter, and it had been out so long that the plastic had transformed into something almost marble-like, where the surface has this gorgeous feel to it. I thought that if I were to recreate it, I’d be touching into what it’s pointing to, that liminal space that I’m so drawn to.

MH: So it’s not just the object you’re interested in, but what’s happened to the object.
SG: What it’s pointing toward. Each object was different but had a suggestive power to it.

MH: That’s interesting. I can understand that the object has a history, but you’re saying that it also has a future?
SG: Yes! You buy a souvenir that points back to a nostalgic point in time, right? But these objects are like souvenirs that point forward to some possibility of value.

MH: Souvenirs of the future! How do you suppose they’ll have value in the future? To me they’re spent; I think of them as dead. What value could they have?
SG: They point toward a different value system than the one they’d previously been engaged in.

MH: How important is viewer engagement? Could you say that the viewer transforms the object into something sacred just by seeing it? I’m wondering at what point a mundane object becomes something extraordinary. Does it happen the moment that you pick it up from the ground? Or is recognition required from an audience?
SG: The viewer doesn’t have to see it as sacred. But the attention and generosity of showing them both the object and the enlarged version allows them into the process, and I think it’s palpable, if I’ve been successful. For me, engagement is important because it slows me down. Our culture is very fast, we take things in very quickly, and we’re not always aware of what our reactions are. When I was cutting newspapers, the engagement slowed me down. Cutting into the newspaper, removing the words, I became aware of its structure and the engagement and translation slowed me down.

MH: You also talk about the value of repetition. Could you elaborate on that?
SG: I’m always thinking about repetition. It came up in a recent project called “Laps(e)”, which is a video piece, a weaving, and a text. The video is of me swimming laps, and I’m wearing a GoPro, so you see what I see as I’m swimming. The back and forth of my laps parallels the back and forth of the weaving and the back and forth of writing. I’m interested in this type of repetition that Gertrude Stein refers to as insistence. She writes that when human beings do something over and over, it’s a type of insistence. As a single mom I’m constantly doing repetitive things, but if I think of it as an insistence, it feels celebratory and strengthening. And when I think of mass-produced objects turning into a singular state through repetitive use, that’s a kind of insistence as well.

MH: What do you mean by insistence? How is weaving a kind of insistence?
SG: When you do something over and over, it’s not just a mindless repetition, but there’s a shift in emphasis. Regardless of intention or will, there is growth or strengthening. Like weaving isn’t just repetition, it grows. The skill accrues, the collaboration with the material shifts. And swimming laps, the muscles start to develop. Something is being transformed.

MH: It sounds like insistence is like repetition with a will. Or with an agenda.
SG: I don’t think there’s even an agenda. Something grows, something is transformed, something shifts. Even if there’s no agency, there’s a rhythm. Even if I have no goal, transformation and shift happens.

MH: Is insistence built into the whole human experience?
SG: Yes, I think so. But repetition is necessary for any type of value to accrue. I think that’s why rituals are important, and mantras, and why politics and advertising are successful, and why we have to be careful.

MH: I was recently asked by a non-artist why making art was important to me. I had a hard time explaining! How would you respond to the question?
SG: It’s important to me because it gives me access to an alternative value system that makes me slow down and pay attention, rather than allowing everything in my life to disappear into usefulness. The studio provides an opportunity to engage with my hands in a way that I don’t have anywhere else. It feels like a sacred practice, like going to synagogue or temple or church. It's a sacred space. 

 www.shantigrumbine.com

Shanti Grumbine’s solo show "In Formation", curated by Matthew Lopez Jensen, is up through March 1.
575 Madison, NYC Open 24/7

Image List

  1. C, 2017, found object, foam core, fiberglass veil, FGR 95, taxidermy clay, iron B metal coating, patina, 23 x 24 in.
  2. Oculus, 2017, foam core, fiberglass veil, FGR 95, taxidermy clay, silver B metal coating, iron B metal coating, patina, found object, 24 x 26 in.
  3. Yellow Thing, 2017, foam core, fiberglass veil, FGR 95, joint compound, epoxy putty, spray paint, gouache, found object, 22 x 25 in.
  4. Sign, 2022, found object, foam core, Aqua-resin, fiberglass veil, taxidermy clay, epoxy putty, iron B metal coating, cold patina, hand felted, hand-dyed wool, 23 x 18 x 2 in., 29 x 21 in.
  5.  Auricle, 2022, found object, foam core, Aqua-resin, fiber glass veil, taxidermy clay, epoxy putty, alkyd oil, blessed dirt from Chimayo, NM, hand felted wool, 20 x 14 in., 21 x 14 in.
  6. Dowser, 2022, found object, foam core, Aqua-resin, fiber glass veil, taxidermy clay, epoxy putty, alkyd oil, blessed dirt from Chimayo, NM, two cinder blocks, hand felted local wool, 63 x 15 x 4 in. (including cinder block pedestal), 34 x 22.5 in.
  7. Dowser, (detail)
  8. Broken Flower, 2022, dry felted local wool on industrial wool, found object, found object, foam core, Aqua-resin, fiber glass veil, taxidermy clay, epoxy putty, alkyd oil, blessed dirt from Chimayo, NM, flower breeze block, size variable
  9. Column, 2022, found object, found object, foam core, Aqua-resin, fiber glass veil, taxidermy clay, epoxy putty, alkyd oil, blessed dirt from Chimayo, NM, flower breeze block, 38 x 12 x 3 in. (including flower breeze block)
10. Monolith, 2021, found object, foam core, Aqua-resin, fiberglass veil, taxidermy clay, epoxy putty, alkyd oil, blessed dirt from Chimayo, NM, concrete blocks, glass, liquid mirror, cast Rockite, 62 x 8 x 8 in., 33 x 17 in.
11. Monolith, (detail)
12. Road, 2021, cast pigmented concrete, handwoven wool and acrylic yarn, wood, MDF, foam core, alkyd oil, found object, 36 x 48 in.
13. SOS, 2021, cast pigmented concrete, taxidermy clay, handwoven wool yarn with embedded Morse Code, wood, MDF, 3 x 4 ft.
14. SOS, (detail)
15. Undone 10, 2022, wood, MDF, taxidermy clay, handwoven cotton, linen and wool, 12 x 12 in.
16. Undone 5, 2022, wood, MDF, taxidermy clay, handwoven cotton, linen and wool, 6 x 6 in.
17. Undone 1, 2022, wood, MDF, taxidermy clay, handwoven cotton, linen and wool, 6 x 18 in.
18. Remnants Offer Hints, 2017, de-acidified New York Times newspaper, matte medium, UV spray coat, nails, magnets, 22 x 18 in.
19. Surplus, 2017, de-acidified New York Times newspaper, matte medium, UV spray coat, newspaper stick, spray paint, 24 x 38 in.
20. Surplus, (detail)
21. Gesture, (from Thing Among Things), 2018, photogram cyanotype on watercolor paper, 9 x 12 in.
22. Resonate, (from Thing Among Things), 2018, photogram cyanotype on watercolor paper, 9 x 12 in.
23, 24. The artist in her studio.

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 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.