patriarchal orifice #2: Boloria frigga (Frigga Fritillary), 2016. Thread stitched on human hair, insect pin, styling products. 18”h x 16”w x 1”d

ANDY MAUERY constructs delicate crowns, curtains and clouds from human, acrylic and horse hair. Shed regularly and replenished anew by the body, hair highlights the impermanence of life. In her recent work, human hair is just barely held together by thread drawings of extinct and endangered species. These fragile objects point to our interconnectedness and remind us that we, too, are not immune to extinction. Andy earned her BFA from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and her MFA from West Virginia University. She has been at artist-in-residence at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Vermont Studio Center and Tesuque Glassworks. In 2017, she won an Artist’s Resource Trust Fund Individual Award from the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, which funded the work in her upcoming solo exhibition devolve. The show opens in the summer of 2018 at the Lord Hall Galleries at The University of Maine. Currently she is an Associate Professor of Art and the Foundations Coordinator at The University of Maine. Andy lives in Veazie, Maine with her husband, son and two nocturnal kittens.

OtherPeoplesPixels: You’ve worked with hair for many years. When did you first use it in your practice?

Andy Mauery: I think the first fully realized works that used hair came near the end of grad school, although it had been part of my sketching practice longer. I’ve always had braids lurking around—in hair, different fibers and drawings. One series of pieces was based on fishing lures, but spoke more to luring human attention, looking at some cisgender society roles and mating rituals with a bit of skepticism/cynicism, and some humor. So I made people-sized lures of steel and fibers and turned the hair/fur—pretty common on fly fishing lures—into human hairdos. 

With the more recent rapunzels, I went back and indulged myself in making bigger versions of works that I have been repeatedly remaking for years in smaller, varied formats.  

little red rapunzel, 2013. Acrylic fiber, scissors

OPP: How do you think about the hair materially?

AM: As a material, hair is simultaneously an extremely personal part of each of us and a widely shared mammalian feature. There’s my hair, which I groom in a manner that culturally address a sense of self in many ways. And then there are more than 5,000 species of mammals that, yeah, all have the same stuff, yet it’s considered so completely, utterly foreign and “animal.”  Many artists have tapped into the politics of hair. It’s complex and very real. I have frizzy auburn hair, and it has garnered a surprising amount of attention, both positive and negative, from the time I was very young. My paternal grandmother had a beauty shop, too, and I loved it when she let me style this one ratty, mod auburn wig. 

patriarchal orifice #1: Vertigo morsei, 2016. Thread stitched on human hair, insect pin, styling products. 16”h x 19”w x 1”d

OPP: The most recent hair work is crowning glories. Can you talk about the juxtaposition of human hair with the stitched outlines of extinct butterflies, snails and mussels?

AM: The crowning glories, an ongoing project, took shape when I was trying to clarify the relationship I have with these species works and simplify my approach. I wanted the works to resonate personally with each viewer, without presupposing an existing empathy with the critters being pictured. I started with really direct representations of or symbols for the central subjects or ideas: power, you/your human body, the species we humans are harming. I worked with this straightforward equation; the human is [combined with] the other species. I was drawing from photos and graphics of various endangered species, including some plants, and started creating tracery layouts and patterns. 

I experimented with different techniques to hold the works together, including hand and machine stitching, knotting, wrapping, some felting. The first of the series that survived my experiments was an actual crown made of human hair, whose form is created entirely of simple silhouette drawings of protected and endangered (and some extinct) species stitched in thread, on/through/around the hair. 

The hair is this actual DNA record of a person, a wearable memento mori and a self-portrait, all those things and more made into this delicately drawn version of an object representing power. I’ve actually under-engineered the pieces a bit, too, to make sure that they aren’t permanent: they are meant to come apart eventually. I liked the crown works when they were flattened out as patterns, prior to being shaped, so I’ve moved some of the later versions of the series into wreath-like wall pieces, where the repeated butterflies and snails can be more clearly seen. So they are also these contemporary versions of the Victorian mourning jewelry, lamenting the mussels, plants, moths that we are wiping from the earth.  

A Species of Special Concern: Northern Leopard Frog (Rana pipiens), 2017. Human hair, mirror vinyl, petri dish, water, watercolor pencil, soluble starch. Frog is life size.

OPP: What role does fragility play in your practice? 

AM: Plural roles, definitely, as it is entwined in so many aspects of my practice. Addressing the physicality first, at times I am so intent on working right up to the edge, as if I have to find out first just how far a material can be pushed before it fails. I have so many examples of objects that didn’t survive their own making, when I pushed just a bit too hard. Or sneezed on them. It turns out that a frog made of starch does, indeed, dissolve in those circumstances. 

The crowning glories are the husky, strong works in my oeuvre, comparatively. I was talking with an artist friend about having a hair work badly damaged in a shipping accident, and when she suggested some tougher materials, I said, “oh yes, on it already. I’m doing a collaboration in glass.” Then I heard the sentence outside of my head, through her laughter: when glass is your “tougher” material. 

I’m drawn to materials and structures that are vulnerable, and delicate, and ephemeral. Of course it’s lovely when they are paradoxically strong and fragile, too. Horsehair is a great example. That seeming contradiction is what I keep poking at with each sculpture, drawing, installation. I want materials that degrade and age, that have a life span, that need to be cared for to survive, that are analogous to the subject matter or theme of the work. Fragility and mortality are really driving the train, so to speak. 

Years ago I worked with these same ideas through the lens of boundaries, how we imagine, create, enforce boundaries out of ignorance/unknowing/fear, instead of trying out new ways of experiencing where we as individuals start/stop within our world. Now I continue working on those same concepts but with a shift in perception, still acknowledging my impulses toward the phenomenological and ontological, but now stepping more firmly into what a friend identified as, “good, old-fashioned ethics.” I sometimes wonder if my approach has led me to materially working my way through my own clumsy understanding of Philosophy 101 coursework, manifested through studio practice. If so, I embrace it, with general apologies to philosophers everywhere.

crowning glory 2 (hopping mouse), 2013. human hair, thread. 7"h x 7.5"w x 8" d

OPP: Human mortality and animal extinction are themes in your work. Does one concern you more than the other?

AM: Is it too irreverent to say my level of worry between the two is comparing apples and oranges? Human mortality became more of a concern when I became a parent and as I lose a continually and irreversibly larger number of friends and family to human mortality. We get such a short time on earth, even the most long-lived of us; it’s healthy to use that time well. At this point, I don’t worry about it every day, but it certainly shapes my actions. The human condition, you know…we work our way outward from our biological and self-concerns to eventually—in theory—worrying about how our societies work and how they impact the environment. 

OPP: Are you concerned with human extinction?

AM: I do have real, daily concern with animal and human extinction, and those two are inextricably linked. After an incalculable number of animal species die, we humans die. I believe that they have a right to live whether their deaths impact our future survival or not. But for those who don’t think that bats, for example, deserve that consideration, perhaps you could get behind supporting them as a part of the biodiversity that sustains all life? 

Science has made a very strong case that humans are primarily responsible for the current extinction crisis, this “sixth wave” being unlike the naturally occurring mass extinctions in the sheer numbers of species lost to avoidable conditions like the introduction of invasive/exotic species, habit loss due to a wide variety of land practices that result in pollution and destruction. And of course there is global warming. Our ability to address those big questions involved in the human condition—are we made to be selfish, can we be altruistic, should we live in hierarchical societies, how do we treat the environment—affect our chances of making it as a species. We can’t really survive as humans without non-human species. There is no realistic scenario that supports that; we are part of a vastly complex system of living things.

extinction as parlor game, 2017. Wallpaper, endangered Maine butterfly stitched in thread on human hair, insect pin, styling products. paper is 11' high.

OPP: How do viewers respond to your work?

AM: Some people are really drawn to them and find them beautiful and strange. Others get very angry with these works in gallery shows. They say things like, You’re allegedly so upset about this, but you’re showing bats made of hair in a gallery. This is terribly—choose one—entitled, mercenary, elitist, timid, limited, inefficient, preaching to the choir, naïve … Social and political activism takes place in many venues. It must. It has a lot of different forms; it must. These works are not my only actions towards halting species extinction, habitat degradation, but they are a portion of it. 

OPP: Do you have a favorite piece by another artist?

AM: So many favorites. . . there’s an ever-changing list of faves for different reasons, I will give you  some currents. An artist and scientist who works with the threat of extinction, Brando Ballengée’s Collapse is so beautiful and threatening and sad. It’s thousands of preserved species in gallon jars stacked in a pyramid, in response to the damage to the Gulf of Mexico following the Deep Horizon spill. Leonor Antunes' I stand like a mirror before you (2015) for her her brilliant riff on Modernist forms and her deep forays into structure, I love grids, nets, knotted strings and often use them as well. Her work is often so clean and restrained, and politically on point about women artists’ roles to be both practical in effect and socially/politically radical. Speaking of socially active artists, I am really looking forward to showing this summer with elin o’Hara slavick, she does stunning work including a series of cyanotypes done in Hiroshima with objects that were left after the A-bombing in 1945. They are like exquisite, blue x-rays of loss.

Artificial Simplicity 2, 2009. acrylic fiber, steel, plastic. fiber 12' length

OPP: What's your favorite piece of your own work? Consider the difference between most successful in terms of audience response versus your personal experience making the piece.

AM: The crowning glories are ok with me right now. I’m pretty invested in them, and audiences are responding in varied but strong ways, which is pleasing. But I feel some of my curtains have been the most successful in terms of audience response, such as the two installations in the Atmospheric Conditions exhibit. They are large, visually transparent screens that sway with air currents, can be touched, they reference the body in somewhat odd but still accessible ways. My personal experience making them has, well, pros and cons. For example the materials are very tactile and pleasing to handle, which is great because they take some time to construct so there is plenty of handling opportunity. They are also quite frustrating to make because in most of the studios I’ve worked in, and certainly in my current studio, the ceiling is not high enough to build one vertically, or hang it after initial construction to work on; so the logistics are somewhat involved, and I don’t get to see if it’s really worked until it’s installed into the taller gallery space. I’m currently making a crowning glories version of a curtain, may as well go all in and try to merge the two.  

Featured Artist Interviews are conducted by Chicago-based artist Stacia Yeapanis. When she’s not writing for OPP, Stacia explores the relationship between repetition, desire and impermanence in cross-stitch embroideries, remix video, collage and impermanent installations. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where received her MFA in 2006 Stacia was a 2011-2012 Artist-in-Residence at BOLT in Chicago. Her solo exhibitions include shows at Siena Heights University (Michigan 2013), Heaven Gallery (Chicago 2014), the Annex Gallery at Lillstreet Art Center (Chicago 2014), The Stolbun Collection (Chicago 2017) and Indianapolis Art Center (Indiana 2017). In March 2018, her solo installation Where Do We Go From Here? will open at Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery (Palos Hills, Illinois). In conjunction, the atrium will exhibit two-dimensional artwork by artists who were invited by Stacia to make new work also titled  Where Do We Go From Here?

Headlands Center for the Arts — Marin County, California

Deadline: application generally opens around April and is due in June
Application fee: $35
Stipend: optional monthly stipend of $500
Length: 4-10 weeks

The Artist in Residence program awards fully sponsored residencies to approximately 45 local, national, and international artists each year. Residencies include studio space, chef-prepared meals, comfortable housing, and travel and living stipends. AIRs become part of a dynamic community of artists participating in Headlands’ other programs, allowing for exchange and collaborative relationships to develop within the artist community on campus. Artists selected for this program are at all stages in their careers and work in all media, including drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, film, video, new media, installation, fiction and nonfiction writing, poetry, dance, music, interdisciplinary, social practice, and architecture.* 

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Arts/Industry Program at John Michael Kohler Art Center — Sheboygan, Wisconsin

Deadline: May 31, 2018
Application fee: none
Stipend: round-trip transportation, and a modest weekly stipend
Length: 2-6 months

Each year up to 16 artists are selected for residencies in the Pottery and/or Foundry areas of the factory through a competitive jury process. No experience with clay or cast metal is required, just an interest in pursuing a new body of work and being open to new ideas. Arts/Industry offers artists the time and space to focus on the creation of new work, and a unique location for their studios. Artists-in-residence work at the Kohler Co. factory in the Pottery and/or Foundry. Artists need not have experience with clay or metal, just an interest in materials and the potential for the industrial environment and processes to influence their creative practice.* 

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Ox-bow — Saugatuck, Michigan

Deadline: Next deadline is May 1, 2018 for the Fall Artist and Writer Residencies; deadline for Summer Residencies is in February
Application fee: none
Stipend: $200/ per week
Length: 2-13 weeks, depending on type

Ox-Bow’s residency program offers artists and writers, at various stages in their career, the time, space, and community to encourage growth and experimentation in their practice. The Arts Faculty and MFA residences are held during the summer while our core classes and community programs are in session. The small group of residents is a part of Ox-Bow’s artist community of students, faculty, and Visiting Artists. The Fall Artist and Writers' Residencies are held for five weeks in September and October. This larger group of artists enjoy a more intimate community. If you are a current Undergraduate or MFA student, we also offer a 13-week summer fellowship.*

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The Rabbit Island Residency — an island in the middle of Lake Superior, Michigan

Deadline: Midnight EST, January 28th, 2018
Application fee: $25
Stipend: variable, recent awards have averaged around $1800
Length: 2-4 weeks

The Rabbit Island Residency is a platform to investigate, expand, and challenge creative practices in a remote environment. By living and working on Rabbit Island residents engage directly with the landscape and respond to notions of conservation, ecology, sustainability, and resilience. 

Approximately three to four supported residencies are awarded per summer period (mid-June until late-September). Selected applicants will receive an unrestricted honorarium which they may use to facilitate research, cover travel expenses, and materials. Residents may also be awarded an exhibition at the DeVos Art Museum in Marquette, Michigan, two and a half hours from the island. A publication featuring work and research of the awarded residents is produced annually in partnership with the museum.* 

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Djerassi — Santa Cruz Mountains, California

Deadline: March 15, 2018 for residencies in 2019
Application fee: $45; $65 up to one week after deadline
Stipend: Ford Family Foundation Residency, available to visual and media artists who reside full-time in Oregon, will reimburse fellows for the cost of air travel and shipping of materials.
Length: 4-5 weeks

Residencies are awarded competitively, at no cost, to national and international artists in the disciplines of choreography, literature, music composition, visual arts, media arts, and science. There are 6 residency sessions each year: 5 are 4 weeks long and 1 that includes Open House/Open Studios is 5 weeks long. One session is devoted to Scientific Delirium Madness and the intersection of art and science. No shortened or partial residencies are offered. 

Djerassi Program is designed as a retreat experience to pursue personal creative work and share collegial interaction within a small community of artists. In this spirit residents are expected to commit themselves for the entire residency session they are awarded.

Our Program chef prepares communal dinners Monday through Friday, and provisions both kitchens. Residents prepare their own breakfasts, lunches, and weekend dinners using ingredients supplied by the Program.

Djerassi Program offers residencies during the regular season, which run from mid-March through mid-November. Winter Residencies for alumni of the Djerassi Program designed to be far more independent and substantially different from the regular residency.* 

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Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts — Omaha, Nebraska

Deadline: May 1, 2018 for sessions beginning in January 2019
Application fee: $40
Stipend: $1000 monthly stipend + $500 travel stipend
Length: 2-3 months

For more than three decades, the Bemis Center’s core mission has been to provide artists from around the world dedicated time, space, and resources to conduct research and to create new work. Frequently cited as one of the top international residency programs, the Bemis Center offers artists private live/work studios, financial support, technical/administrative assistance, and opportunities for intellectual discourse about contemporary art through free public programs, such as panel discussions, lectures, and knowledge-sharing workshops. To date, nearly 900 artists have participated in the residency program. No meals are provided, but each live/work studio has a kitchen. Private housing (individual apartment/cabin/house) is located in downtown Omaha’s historic Old Market, the Bemis Center's 110,000 square foot facility accommodates a broad range of artistic activity. Artists-in-residence have 24-hour access to extensive installation and production spaces and the Okada Sculpture & Ceramics Facility, a 9,000 square foot industrial space used for large-scale sculpture fabrication.* 

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Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program — Roswell, New Mexico

Deadline: 10 p.m. MDT, June 1, 2018
Application Fee: $25
Stipend: $800 per month is offered along with $100 for a spouse/partner and $200 per child living with the grantee.
Length: 1 year

The studios are large, open spaces that measure approximately 30 'x 25 'x 10'. These areas are well-lighted and convertible to the artist's requirements. Artists are housed in a complex of six houses and 10 studios located on fifty acres of land. Each artist is provided with a house that can amply accommodate either a single person or a family. Rent, utilities (except telephone), repairs and maintenance costs are borne by the Program. Houses are furnished with major furniture items, appliances and utensils within reason. The printmaking facility is a small, fully operational studio - basically lithographic/etching in nature. No dogs. Cats allowed, but should be kept inside due to coyotes.*

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Joshua Tree Highlands Artist Residency — Adjacent to Joshua Tree National Park, California

Deadline: applications open in October 2019 and close January 10, 2019 for summer 2019
Application Fee: $35
Length: 7 weeks
Stipend: Up to $1000.
Food: no meals provided

JTHAR is a nonprofit artist residency, which invites 4-6 artists from around the world to create work amidst the beauty of Joshua Tree National Park and connect to the vibrant local artistic community. The residency provides scholarship funds, individual housing for each artist, studio space, a gallery exhibition and runs April - June. There is also a shared art studio. The area is a spectacularly beautiful and quiet environment in which to create. The residency is open to artists worldwide working in all media, including painters, photographers, writers, musicians, etc.

Artists unable to attend the Residency Program may apply for a 6 week individual stay at JTHAR between late June and mid March. Make sure to choose your dates listed below if you are applying for the 6 week solo program. The six week solo artist fellowship does not have scholarship awards.*

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Soap Factory Midwest Artist Residency — Minneapolis, Minnesota

Deadline: February 28th, 2018 @ 3PM!
Application Fee: none
Residency Fee: none
Length: 3 months; Round 1, June 4th - August 25th, 2017; Round 2, September 7th - November 30th, 2017 
Stipend: $500 for materials; $1,500 for travel reimbursement
Food: none

The Soap Factory aims to provide an opportunity to research, produce, and exhibit during a three month residency in our building. This three month residency program asks emerging to mid-career artists, or collectives from the Midwest to develop and share their practice with our audiences.

The Midwest A-I-Rs are provided a material stipend, private studio, and access to our woodshop and workshop spaces. Free accommodation during your visits to Minneapolis (only available for artists residing outside of the Twin Cities). Studio visits by visiting curators and artists will be offered once a month.  All participants are asked to present work developed during their residency; culminating in an exhibition, performance, public event, or publication. Work presented will be exhibited in our new residency gallery spaces.

Artists from all disciplines are welcome to apply. This residency aims at strengthening the practice of, cultural exchange between, and career development of Midwest artists; Artists currently working in the MN Metro area, Greater MN, and Midwest region are encouraged to apply.*

Soap Factory Solo Exhibition Residency — Minneapolis, Minnesota

Deadline: February 28th, 2018 @ 3PM!
Application Fee: none
Residency Fee: none
Length: June 4th – November 30th, 2018; solo show runs November 17th, 2017 – January 6th, 2018
Stipend: $3,600 honorarium paid at end of residency; $1,500 for travel reimbursement
Food: none

The Soap Factory (TSF) aims to provide a rare opportunity to contemporary artists looking to exhibit their work in the three main floor galleries of the Soap Factory. This six month residency program asks one mid-career or established artist, or collective, to develop an exhibition in the Soap Factory’s 12,000 sq. ft. main floor exhibition space.

The Solo Exhibition will be supported financially and administratively; accompanied by documentation and an exhibition catalog. A-I-R’s are asked to participate in an artist talk or open dialogue, and in our podcast.

Please note, artists working in all disciplines are encouraged to apply to this opportunity though the Soap Factory is especially interested in artists practicing experimental and/or interdisciplinary work.*

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McColl Center for Art + Innovation — Charlotte, North Carolina

Deadline: June 6, 2018 for Winer/Spring 2019
Application Fee: $35
Residency Fee: none
Length: 3-4 months
Stipend: $6000 living allowance; $2000 for materials; reimbursement for one round-trip economy-class flight
Food: none

McColl Center for Art + Innovation is a nationally acclaimed artist residency and contemporary art space in Charlotte, North Carolina. Its mission is to empower artists, advance communities, and contribute positive impacts to its broad public audience by introducing a range of current artistic practices. Located in the former Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in Uptown Charlotte, McColl Center houses nine individual artist studios, more than 5,000 square feet of exhibition space, and multiple common-use spaces, including a studio for large-scale sculpture fabrication. We invite artists to take risks in their processes and explore their ideas within the context of Charlotte. We welcome the visiting public to connect with contemporary art and artists through exhibitions and public programs. Artists live in a furnished one-bedroom condominium with Wi-Fi and have a private workspace (230–819 square feet) with Wi-Fi. Other perks: a group exhibition on the second or third floor of McColl Center with photo and video documentation.

In addition to the core Artist-in-Residence Program (open call or invitation), McColl Center offers an annual Environmental Artist-in-Residence Program (invitation only), a Carolinas HealthCare System Artist-in-Residence Program (spring season; open call), a residency for a UNC Charlotte art professor (fall season; invitation only), a Summer Affiliate Program for artists living within a 50-mile radius of Charlotte (open call), and a new exhibition residency that transforms McColl’s first-floor gallery into an open studio for artists to explore processes and projects (invitation or open call).

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Plyspace Residency — Muncie, Indiana

Deadline: March 15 for Summer 2018 
Application Fee: $25 
Stipend: $500 travel stipend for regular residents; $1500 for Resident Fellows to be used for travel and living expenses and up to $1000 in funding toward their proposed collaborative project 
Length: 4-12 weeks 
Housing: accommodations on the second floor of PlySpace, a post-victorian house built in 1916, in the Emily Kimbrough Historic District of downtown Muncie, Indiana. The living quarters will include a private bedroom, private or shared bath, a shared living space, shared laundry facilities, and a shared full kitchen.

PlySpace is an artist-in-residence program dedicated to offering visual artists, writers, performers, designers, and other creative individuals time and space to investigate and pursue their own practices. Additionally, it serves as a platform for experimentation and provocation by catalyzing conversation and collaboration with various Muncie communities. PlySpace facilitates various opportunities for residents to engage with the public through partnership and programming that is tailored to their area of interest.

Each resident will propose a personal project as well as a project to be completed in partnership with a community collaborator. PlySpace will work with both parties to encourage a successful and fulfilling collaboration. For more information on community partners and collaborations, take a look at the Community Collaborators page.

Selected residents will be offered one of two types of residency. The type of residency offered will be determined by the Admissions Panel and Final Selection Committee during the admissions process. All residencies include living space in PlySpace and studio space across the street at Madjax, a center for innovation and design. 

PlySpace Residents will be offered living quarters, studio amenities, and will be paired with a community collaborator based on their personal and collaborative project proposals and interests. Residents are expected to complete a public talk about their work and complete a project in partnership with their Community Collaborator. Resident Artists will have full access to the PlySpace studio spaces at Madjax as well as limited access to the School of Art (SOA) facilities at Ball State University. They will receive a $500 travel stipend for their residency period, between 4 and 12 weeks.

PlySpace Resident Fellows will be offered living quarters, studio amenities, and will be paired with the Ball State University School of Art as their community collaborator. Resident Fellows are expected to conduct multiple public programs connected to their practice through their partnership with the SOA. Resident Fellows will have access to the SOA facilities necessary to complete their projects as well as the PlySpace studio spaces. Resident Fellows will receive a $1500 stipend provided by PlySpace to be used for travel and living expenses and up to $1000 in funding toward their proposed collaborative project and supplies. Resident Fellows must plan a 9 to 12 week residency stay.

Three individual or collective applicants will be accepted for each residency term (one PlySpace Resident Fellow and two PlySpace Residents).

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NEXT UP: Residencies with a Cause: The Environment

Untitled (Flashlight), 2017. Acrylic and oil on panel. 22" x 20"

JENN SMITH's paintings and drawings feature Adam and Eve, a very chill Jesus Christ and a silly serpentagainst a rural Midwest background. Corn, tractors and signs of worship also populate her oeuvre. Her style is simple, evocative of a child's Sunday school drawings. But her exploration of evangelical belief and her own upbringing as an evangelical Christian is anything but simplistic. Humor and sincerity are both present, proving that you can take something seriously without believing in it. Jenn earned her BS in Studio Art at Illinois State University and her MFA in Painting from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has exhibited at Carrie Secrist Gallery (Chicago), the Back Room at Kim’s Corner Food (Chicago) and Julius Caesar (Chicago). Her work was most recently on view in Winter Romance at Andrew Rafacz Gallery (Chicago). Jenn lives and works in Chicago.

OtherPeoplesPixels: What’s your relationship to Christianity?

Jenn Smith: I was raised evangelical Christian in the rural midwest. We attended the kind of church where people would spontaneously begin speaking in tongues or fall down in a trance-like state. They call it being “slain in the spirit.” We thought we were living in the end times and the Rapture would happen at any moment, so there was a lot of excitement and fear. I’m no longer a believer, but many of the ideas and images from that time in my life continue to fascinate me.

Book of Acts, 2017. Acrylic and oil on panel. 20" x 26"

OPP: Your painting style is silly, cartoonish, and evocative of a child’s drawings. Have you always painted this way? Or is it a style that is particularly suited to the content of your recent work?

JS: I learned how to draw and paint representationally as an undergraduate, but pretty soon after that I started making abstract paintings, drawings, and collages. I continued to make abstract works off and on for about ten years. Then, in grad school, I decided I needed to paint figuratively. It was a big jump. I was pretty sure I’d forgotten everything I learned as an undergrad, but I knew it was the only way I could wrestle with more personal content in my work. So, I started to paint figures, animals, cars, cornfields, angels and snakes from my imagination, very simplified and without too much fuss. I’m not very interested in realistic representations of things. I like diagrams, game boards and flat, matte shapes and symbols. I look at a lot of medieval paintings. I like how they’re so often flat with a confusing sense of space. A too-short arm, an awkward gesture, or foreshortening gone wrong keeps things interesting. 

OPP: More than just being visually interesting, it seems to suggest that the reality you think you know is a lie. . . which brings me to the recent snake drawings, like Soon and Very Soon (Snakes #16) and Soon and Very Soon (Snakes #3). How do your goofy snakes relate to Eden’s snake?

Soon and Very Soon (Snakes #7), 2017. Colored pencil on paper. 11" x 8.5"

JS: I found the inspiration for the snakes in a deck of Bible character memorization cards a friend gave me as a gift. The cartoon serpent was depicted on the Adam and Eve card, slithering in and out of oval-shaped holes in a flat green cartoon tree. The cards were meant to be straightforward educational materials, but I felt there was some level of (unintentional?) sexual innuendo. . . I mean, snakes going in and out of holes and so on. . . It was kind of funny, but it also hit on my interest in the complexities of what is hidden and what is visible in a painting or drawing. My snake drawing series has allowed me to explore these ideas within a very limited framework, in almost a diagrammatic way, using a set of symbols including snakes, boxes, holes, lines, dotted lines. 

OPP: And what about your version of Jesus? Does he have a different backstory than what the bible taught?

JS: Well, he retains his biblical backstory—there’s no way to separate him from that, even if I wanted to. But it’s interesting to put him in other contexts to see what happens. There’s so much emphasis in evangelical culture that we should strive for a personal, intimate relationship with Jesus. So for believers, they don’t think about him as a historical figure or a far-away savior; they think of him as their best friend who they talk to every day. So I feel like I got know him pretty well when I was growing up. When I first started to include a Jesus-looking figure in the work I wasn’t exactly sure why I was doing it. But now I’m starting to wonder if the Jesus in the paintings is actually a version of me, in the same way the Jesus a Christian talks to every day is actually just a part of their own mind. 

Untitled (figure and Jesus), 2016. Oil on canvas. 22" x 20"

OPP: What does the word irreverent mean to you and do you consider your work to be irreverent?

JS: I think irreverence and a sense of humor have served me well in my life, but I’m still getting used to the fact that they’ve made their way into my work. As I said, I was making abstract paintings, which were pretty safe (also sort of boring) before grad school. I know that people find my recent work irreverent, and I think it probably is. But I also try to make it complex and layered and to allow a lot of space for the unknown.

OPP: Tell us about the Demons. They are the most abstract works. I interpret the titles as referring to dates, so I imagine that these works represent some kind of event or “dangerous influence.

JS: That’s a good guess! I usually don’t say much about the demon paintings because I think part of what makes them interesting is their ambiguity.

Demon '87, 2016. Acrylic and oil on canvas. 22" x 20"

OPP: You’ve been out of grad school for a little over a year. I remember my own first year out as particularly difficult. How’s it been? Has anything changed in your practice?

JS: It has been a real rollercoaster, but I feel very lucky that I’ve been able to continue making my work and have had opportunities to show it. I draw a lot more now, as a way to develop ideas and plan paintings, but also as an end in itself. I have intensified my practice of collecting Christian ephemera, which I share on Instagram. Painting is still the center of my practice and I don’t think that will change. I’m still excited about it every day.

OPP: What are you excited about in the studio right now?

JS: I’m working on a series of paintings on the front sides of wooden boxes about the size and shape of cereal boxes. They are hollow inside and have coin slots on top. They resemble the collection boxes we used to have on the walls of our church. I’m interested in the idea of having these paintings/boxes on a gallery wall where anyone can drop a coin or a folded-up note or anything else into the slot, and whatever is dropped inside becomes a permanent part of the piece forever. 

Featured Artist Interviews are conducted by Chicago-based artist Stacia Yeapanis. When she’s not writing for OPP, Stacia explores the relationship between repetition, desire and impermanence in cross-stitch embroideries, remix video, collage and impermanent installations. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where received her MFA in 2006 Stacia was a 2011-2012 Artist-in-Residence at BOLT in Chicago. Her solo exhibitions include shows at Siena Heights University (Michigan 2013), Heaven Gallery (Chicago 2014), the Annex Gallery at Lillstreet Art Center (Chicago 2014), The Stolbun Collection (Chicago 2017) and Indianapolis Art Center (Indiana 2017). In March 2018, her solo installation Where Do We Go From Here? will open at Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery (Palos Hills, Illinois). In conjunction, the atrium will exhibit two-dimensional artwork by artists who were invited by Stacia to make new work also titled  Where Do We Go From Here?

The One with the Rainbow, 2016. Ceramic rainbow, broken mug, peach pit, Shrinky-dinks, beads, toothpicks, foam tubing, hydrocal, expandable foam, acrylic paint, silicone, epoxy clay, glitter, pigment, steel rod. 26” x 16” x 14”

LAUREN CARTER transforms found objects and personal possessions into kitschy and profound assemblage sculptures. These memorials to sentimentality are both serious and silly. Her effort to preserve and honor discarded, once-loved objects shows up in the marks left by her hand in the hydrocal, silicone, expandable foam and epoxy claycast plaster that holds these works together. Lauren earned her BFA from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and her MFA with Distinction from the University of New Mexico. She has exhibited at Non-Fiction Gallery (Savannah, Georgia), Chicago Art Department, Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago) and Chicago Artists Coalition. She was a 2013-14 HATCH Projects Residentand a 2017 Center Program Artist. Surface vs. Sap, a two-person exhibition with Nico Gardner, opens March 31st at Comfort Station in Chicago. Lauren is a teaching artist at Marwen in Chicago, where she lives.

OtherPeoplesPixels: Your most recent body of work, Offerings or Clusterfucks, seems to be more about material culture and its detritus than earlier bodies of work like Flux (2015) and Pre/proscribed (2012), which are more bodily and visceral. What changed?

Lauren Carter: A lot, actually. Pre/proscribed is a body of work from grad school that was mostly introspective. I was examining a subconscious desire to preserve a notion of myself while unpacking ideas of othering, unmaking, loss, vulnerability, and nostalgia. My mother has a chronic illness that was directly influencing my work and research at this particular time in my life. I spent a lot of time thinking about pain and identity, and the work was really personal and kind of tough to talk about. I was also spending a lot of money making these things that were process oriented and took a lot of time to complete. So when I moved to Chicago immediately after finishing my master’s program, I figured it was a good opportunity to change my practice a bit, and make objects that are more financially and emotionally sustainable for me.

Effigies, 2015. Beeswax, pigment, hair, satin, wood. Approximately 8'w x 11'h

OPP: Was Flux the transition?

LC: Yes. I was looking for a way to continue to communicate the corporeal experience, but by utilizing symbols I found outside of my personal realm and the body. For example, I think deflated balloons found tied to mailboxes and fence posts are super loaded metaphors for loss and nostalgia. They are a kind of memorial for whatever celebratory event has passed. They’re incredibly sweet and sad things to me. It’s most likely that the person who put them up just forgot to take them down after the party, but I tend to assign sentimental meaning to just about anything. So the installation Effigies is a funeral or sorts for what those balloons signify. 

From there I started looking at flower bouquets and roadside memorials, which leads to this new work. I’ve continued to explore vulnerability and nostalgia, but now through personal items and found objects that embody ambiguous narratives of commemoration.

The One on Astro-turf, 2016. Ceramic seashell, broken ceramic lady, amethysts ribbon, beads, plastic flowers, pantyhose, broken glass flower, metal brooch, old earrings, ceramic swan, parts of a stuffed animal, picture   frame, glitter paper, a cut up old exhibition card, acrylic paint, expandable foam, marbled shelf paper, hydrocal, epoxy clay, expandable foam, wreath stand, Astro Turf. 30" x 24" x 20"

OPP: What role does kitsch play in this newer work?

LC: Formally, I use kitsch as a medium, just like the other materials I use in my work.  But I’ve been a collector of kitschy things since I was a kid, which I’m sure is something I share with many people. It started with those stupid Precious Moments figurines that I’d receive every birthday from a member in my family. Then it was porcelain dolls and unicorns. Then Treasure Trolls. . .  and the list goes on. Keeping a gift from someone is a way to preserve a memory of a person or of a specific time. And I think that we end up collecting things because objects become symbolic. No matter how tacky or worthless they may be, sometimes they’re just too precious to throw away. Because the things we collect and keep carry a lot of weight, I think of the objects I use in my work as signifiers for a universal language of sentimentality that anyone can draw from or relate to.

OPP: I imagine you shop at thrift stores. Is that true? What’s your collection process like for the found objects?

LC: Yes, very true! I have a slight obsession with obtaining other people’s discarded possessions. I’m always drawn to objects that spark my own memories or remind me of someone from my past, but I have a couple rules that I’ve made for myself when gathering materials. I’ll choose an object that has a nice form, color, or texture; but it must be mass produced, and either be broken in some way, or have some kind of obvious history attached to it. If it doesn’t prompt me to ponder who owned it and how it ended up where it is, I put it back on the shelf.

The One with all the Pearls (If You Need It), 2018. Peach had cream container, ceramic jesus, fake roses, jewelry display, tape, pearls, expandable foam, epoxy clay, silicone, acrylic paint, plastic wrap, found table. 36” x 12” x 16”

OPP: Can you talk about your repeated use of furniture as pedestals?

LC: I think of collecting as a domestic ritual of the act of remembering. Using found furniture instead of traditional pedestals reiterates that idea. The cabinet or table that supports a sculpture has its own history and is a necessary component to the work. Also, finding a piece of furniture that’s perfect for a specific sculpture is way more fun than building pedestals.

I Sincerely Appreciate the Gesture, 2017. Paper pulp from greeting cards I received from loved ones over the years, found frame, gold gilding wax. 53" x 28" x 9"

OPP: I deeply LOVE I Sincerely Appreciate the Gesture (2017), which is made from all the greeting cards you’ve received from loved ones over the years. I’m interested in the excess of it, the weight of it, the desire to both honor the gesture and to get rid of the cards. Will you talk about how you conceived of this piece?

LC: Oh thank you! You definitely described exactly what I was trying to achieve with this piece. I think a lot about honoring the vulnerability in the act of giving. I think we are just as vulnerable when we give as we are when we grieve, it just looks much different. Maybe that’s another reason it’s so hard to purge our homes of the things we don’t want, but feel obligated to keep because they were given to us with love. Greeting cards are just that. They are so cliché, but yet filled with so much thought and sentiment and history. And they’re a tricky thing for me because, in theory, they don’t take up much space. Unless you never throw them out and you end up with this burden of lugging around a box containing every card anyone has sent you in the last decade, and that box just keeps getting bigger and heavier. Which is exactly what was happening. I’ve lived in four states over the last ten years, and I’ve taken some of these cards everywhere with me.

OPP: What was the process like?

LC: I took the box to my studio, sat on the floor, read each one and ripped it up, and of course cried the whole time. I found this process pretty cathartic, and it’s probably the most important part of this piece for me. Because the content is literally in the material, I decided to create a self-portrait of sorts that honors the material made by my loved ones’ vulnerability, while simultaneously conveying the burden of sentimentality that I often feel. 

The One with the Little Owl, 2018. Ceramic owl, alligator foot, part of a stuffed animal, vase, rubber grapes, beads, rubber ball, fuzzy ball, old jewelry, expandable foam, epoxy clay, brass rod, Plastidip, acrylic paint. 13” x 11” x 6” 

OPP: You have an imminent two-person show with Nico Gardner. What can you tell us about it?

LC: Surface vs. Sap is our first collaboration together. Nico and I continuously shift between the personal and the general, the specific and ambiguous, creating new work in conversation with one another. With a primary focus on desire, ritual, identity, and the expression of human need, Surface vs. Sap addresses the power and persuasive nature of mundane, domestic objects. Our use of found or purchased items is a starting point to explore themes that ultimately result in a collaboration of both material culture and making. The exhibition features wall mounted and freestanding mixed media sculptures that engage the floor, ceiling and walls. Independently created, the works echo each other's voices through the nature of consumer objecthood, both domestic and commercial. Household artifacts lost in the hurricane of one of my arrangements is excavated and embodied into one of Nico’s new works. Simultaneously, an object in its prime depiction in one of Nico’s reliefs finds itself mirrored and absorbed into one of my clusterfucks. It should go without saying, but Nico's the Surface, and I'm the Sap.  We are incredibly excited about this opportunity to work together, where we are continually throwing wrenches into each other's practices. And we get a chance to do it again in the fall! We'll have a second, larger, exhibition with additional works at Heaven Gallery in Chicago.  

Featured Artist Interviews are conducted by Chicago-based artist Stacia Yeapanis. When she’s not writing for OPP, Stacia explores the relationship between repetition, desire and impermanence in cross-stitch embroideries, remix video, collage and impermanent installations. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where received her MFA in 2006 Stacia was a 2011-2012 Artist-in-Residence at BOLT in Chicago. Her solo exhibitions include shows at Siena Heights University (Michigan 2013), Heaven Gallery (Chicago 2014), the Annex Gallery at Lillstreet Art Center (Chicago 2014), The Stolbun Collection (Chicago 2017) and Indianapolis Art Center (Indiana 2017). In March 2018, her solo installation Where Do We Go From Here? will open at Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery (Palos Hills, Illinois). In conjunction, the atrium will exhibit two-dimensional artwork by artists who were invited by Stacia to make new work also titled  Where Do We Go From Here?

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Permeable (Broken Clover), 2017. Cast FGR 95. 5 x 10 feet.

SHANTI GRUMBINE transforms everyday objects including broken castoffs found on the side of the road and the New York Times, which is both revered and thrown away daily. Through the slow, repetitive actions of cutting, gluing, screen-printing and casting, she leaves the impression of her hand to be the lens through which the viewer can reconsider systems of value and knowledge dissemination. Shanti earned her BFA in 2000 at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her MFA in 2005 at Penn Design, University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia). She has attended numerous artist residencies, including those at the Saltonstall Foundation (Ithaca, New York), Bemis Center for Contemporary Art (Omaha, Nebraska) and Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, Vermont) with a full fellowship. Most recently she was a 2016-2017 RAIR Fellow in Roswell, New Mexico. In 2017, she presented two solo exhibitions: Zeroing at Smack Mellon (Brooklyn) and pilgrim, approaching wordlessness at Roswell Museum and Art Center in New Mexico. Her work will be included in Summer Reading, an upcoming group show at The Woskob Family Gallery at Penn State. Shanti lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

OtherPeoplesPixels: You’ve worked with The New York Times as material for years. Where did you start and how has the work changed over the years?

Shanti Grumbine: I started using the New York Times newspaper as source material in 2011. In 2009, I was diagnosed with late stage neurological Lyme Disease and I spent much of the following two years in bed, isolated and not capable of continuing the sculpture practice I’d finally found my footing in. My world slowed down, and due to cognitive difficulties, so did my reading. I wasn’t able to hold onto information, my word recall was impaired, and my focus was shot. My experience of reading had shifted into something so slow and non-linear that it no longer resembled reading. I wondered how to recreate this experience visually. At the same time I was really trying to get out of my own head and connect with the world at large. Newspapers create a simplified/organized microcosm of the world. Computer screens hurt my eyes, so I had to stick with reading the paper version. I wondered what it would be like if each word disappeared after being read. Would I, the reader, hold onto the words more dearly out of desperation? Would my comprehension increase? Would the authors approach to narrative or information sharing shift? Would language become more meaningful? At first I wanted to create a stop motion animation of a newspaper article disappearing word by word. But the pain I dealt with in my joints made the action of erasure difficult. So I started to excise each line with an X-Acto knife. Because what we read inevitably affects what we see, I started to cut away at the images as well. What started as a personal gesture grew into a much larger exploration of censorship, marketing and the historical precedents for western journalism. 

Surplus, 2017. De-acidified New York Times newspaper, matte medium, UV spray coat, newspaper stick, spray paint.

OPP: Transformation is important in your work. And there are many different kinds of transformation—redaction of text, material and scale shifts, recreating two-dimensional images as three-dimensional objects. Is transformation content or process? 

SG: I think it’s both, a process that leads to content. I believe strongly in the way that the body can think—I discover the world around me with my hands. My mind is curious, and my hands investigate. It’s no different from when I was a kid taking things apart to see what they were made of. So to redact text is also a way of trying to understand how the page functions. Through that type of removal, the margins become more visible and so does the structure of the page. This redaction of the newspaper page led me to a project called Score, where I translated redacted newspaper pages into a musical score. When I redacted the individual lines of text, the words and shapes of the pull quotes became more prevalent. When I screen-printed the redacted page – I saw the pull quotes as medieval square notes asking to be translated into a melody. By turning the pages into a score and performing them, I was able to experience the flow of information more clearly from when a story breaks to when it disappears from the public eye. I could hear how journalism functioned. This type of transformation is a very slow, very elemental way of knowing that isn’t appreciated in today’s digital, fast paced information age. By allowing for slow repetitive processes, I tapped into the systems of western information dissemination that preceded journalism including illuminated holy books and oral traditions of information dissemination such as Gregorian chant. 

In my newer project, I focus on the act of walking and the collection and recreation of broken things. When I am drawn to a random object on the side of the road, I have a choice. The moment of finding can remain my own personal discovery, a fleeting momentary but unconscious encounter, or through its recreation and enlargement, it can become something permanent, and more monumentally visible. Through the transformative act of recreation, I commit to a bent piece of metal, privileging the margins of culture and the throw away. 

Melt, 2015. screen print. 22 x 30 inches.

OPP: In Zeroing (2017), your solo show at Smack Mellon, what’s the relationship between the fashion accessories rendered in print and sculpture—watches, jewelry and shoes—and the news images that point to serious problems in our world—guns, melting glaciers and refugees seeking asylum? 

SG: In Zeroing, I wanted to focus on the ways we establish and maintain value through advertising and how those techniques affect our ability to seek, communicate and understand “truth.” I’m interested in the black and white advertisements for luxury items that congregate in the margins of news journals providing a peripheral narrative. Even in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Mrs. Maisel, an upper class 1960s house-wife turned comedienne has the epiphany that the shoe ads are strategically placed to distract women from the content of the articles. The New York Times is a truth seeking institution and it’s also a commercial product, funded by advertisers and aimed toward a specific class, which is made more obvious by its advertisements. The pieces of jewelry, watches and vases are intended to be passed down from generation to generation, reinforcing the relationship between profit, media and legacy. 

Throughout the show I created relationships between the news images and the luxury items in the advertisements. For instance, in front of a screen print of a melting iceberg in Antarctica, I placed a Baccarat crystal vase as if to ask, “Which crystalline structure will last longer?” And I paired a Chanel pump with an image of women and children escaping from Syria in Turkey, pointing out the blatant irony of functionality as well as gesturing toward the mythic quality of alienation and longing in Dorothy’s ruby slippers and Cinderella’s glass slippers. I was interested in desire in general, how it functions and what types of insidious forces shape that personal landscape of longing. I wanted to understand these luxury items at a more formal level. By enlarging, inverting the values and screen-printing them to look like X-Rays or ghosts, I was able to uncouple them from branding. By recreating them by hand as white objects and presenting them in a non-profit gallery space, I shifted their materiality, context and value. 

Asemic Prayer #2, 2015. New York Time plastic delivery wrapping

OPP: You call Brooklyn home, but you spent 2017 in Roswell, New Mexico as a RAIR Fellow. What was surprising, difficult or thrilling about New Mexico? How did the environment affect your work?

SG: I’ve loved New Mexico since I first went hiking and camping there in my 20s. I love the vast, dry expanse of high plains and desert that surrounds Roswell. When the land is endless and quiet, your mind attunes to that. Roswell is equidistant from the Southern parts like Carlsbad and White Sands and northern towns like Santa Fe, Taos, Abiquiu and Ojo Caliente, so I got to explore many different aspects of the New Mexican landscape and culture. But mainly I was in Roswell, working, reading, writing and learning my own internal rhythms. In Roswell, there was time for everything. Time for stretches of disciplined studio time, time for feeling totally lost, time to be supported by friends, time to start over and lots of time to see things through. 

Since I was diagnosed with Lyme, my main source of exercise, well-being and pain management has been walking. Every residency I do, I establish my 2-3 mile daily walk. It’s my top priority, and everything else—food, studio, socializing—organizes itself around that. In Roswell, I started to think and read more about pilgrimage and the history of walking. Though I spent my first four months focusing on Zeroing and some other group shows in New York, my next project was forming itself in my daily walks and reflexive collection of detritus from the side of the road. That winter, I found out about an annual holy pilgrimage to El Santuario de Chimayo, a small adobe Church in Chimayo, that occurs on Good Friday and was grateful to incorporate that experience into my research. Rebecca Solnit described pilgrimage in her book Wanderlust as a “liminal state – a state of being between one’s past and future identities and thus outside the established order, in a state of possibility.” Despite moments of hopelessness, this is often how I felt when I first got sick, and it is also how I felt in Roswell. Witnessing that pilgrimage affected the content and format of my work for the rest of the residency.  

Liminal, 2017. Gel pen on black paper. 20 x 28 inches.

OPP: Tell us about your most recent solo show at the Roswell Museum and Art Center, pilgrim approaching wordlessness (2017).

SG: pilgrim, approaching wordlessness was comprised of two distinct but related parts dealing with aspects of liminality. One part consisted of drawings and wall sculptures based on the ubiquitous and overlooked decorative architectural features such as breeze blocks that can be found in almost any rural or urban community regardless of class. With Trump commissioning border wall prototypes, I couldn’t help but start thinking about borders and boundaries, who and what we let in, how and why and who gets to decide. I started thinking about permeability and rigidity, the power of empire and the incredible risks people take to create sanctuaries. And the visible role that architecture plays in creating these various value systems. These layered thoughts are bound up in my material explorations of breeze block patterns, an affordable and aesthetically pleasing decorative concrete block, originally designed to keep out the sun and let in the breeze. The other part of the show consisted of drawings and sculptures based on the broken, rusted things I found on the side of the road. A collection turned collective as friends and neighbors began dropping off bits and pieces of broken things found from their own walks.

C, 2017. Foam core, fiberglass veil, FGR 95, taxidermy clay, iron B metal coating, patina, found object.

OPP: In what way are those objects “souvenirs [that] point forward toward something still becoming?” 

SG: While I was working toward this show, I re-read parts of Susan Stewart's book, On Longing where she talks about the souvenir. I was trying to understand what these broken rusted objects were to me, why I felt drawn to picking them up and why I wanted to trace them as drawings and remake them as larger sculptures. Souvenirs are a reminder of something. They are “by definition always incomplete” because they are a trace of the original event and are therefore inherently nostalgic. The objects that I find are similarly incomplete, and hold a trace of what they used to be. But they aren’t a part of a whole, the way a bit of hair or cloth reminds us of the person or dress. And they are not the replica of anything such as the Eiffel Tower, nor do they feel nostalgic, not even for the particular walk or place in which I found them or the person who gave them to me. In their rusted brokenness, there is the sense of something new, something caught in the act of becoming. They become signifiers of transition, idols of possibility. According to Bill Brown, an object becomes a thing when it breaks, no longer neatly fitting into a category of functionality. We only see the window when it becomes dirty. In my act of collection, I came to understand my own objectness and as a result my own transformation into thingness. When the body is sick or broken, it no longer disappears into its functionality. We are all at one time or another, a thing among things, a liminal vessel straddling where we were and what we will become. 

Here at OPP, we know that you'd rather spend your time in the studio, not researching ways to get more time in the studio. So we're kicking off a series of posts to get you started. Over the next six months, we'll highlight a variety of residencies, organizing them by type, including studio-only, fully-funded, solitary retreats and media-specific residencies. Keep in mind, this list is by no means exhaustive. It's really just the tip of the iceburg.

And speaking of tips. . . some residencies offer solitude while others offer a more social experience. To get a sense of the culture at residencies you are interested in, follow them on Instagram. Links provided below. 

ACRE — Steuben, Wisconsin 

Deadline: 11:59 PM CST, March 4, 2018
Application Fee: January 4-12: free; January 13-February 26: $35; February 27-March 4: $50
Length: 2 weeks, 3 sessions
Residency Fee: $1,200
Funding: 15 half-scholarships; numerous full scholarships available. click here for eligibility. 
Food: Breakfast is provided each morning in the lodge, available from 8-10am, continental style. Residents eat lunch and dinner communally in a large screened-in outdoor dining hall/kitchen. Prepared by a large team of chefs and assistants, each meal is made from locally-sourced meats, veggies, and dairy. Options for vegans and vegetarians are available upon request, and food is prepared specially for those with other dietary restrictions.

ACRE (Artists’ Cooperative Residency and Exhibitions) is an artist-run non-profit based in Chicago devoted to employing various systems of support for emerging artists and to creating a generative community of cultural producers. ACRE investigates and institutes models designed to help artists develop, present, and discuss their practices by providing forums for idea exchange, interdisciplinary collaboration, and experimental projects. Please note that studios are set up as shared work-spaces. Private work spaces are limited to your apartment. If you are seeking a solitary residency experience or require private accommodations, ACRE may not be the right program for you.

Most residents stay in the sprawling Steuben Lodge, which houses around 40 people and contains a large central area that includes a library with limited wireless internet, breakfast area, computers, printers and scanners for everyone’s use, and more.*  

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Vermont Studio Center — Johnson, Vermont

Deadline: February 15th, June 15th, and October 1st
Application Fee: none
Length: 2-4 weeks
Residency Fee: $3,950 for 4 weeks or $2,050 for 2 weeks
Funding: Financial aid is available. Full Fellowships are available and change each deadline. To see what is available at the February 15th deadline. Check here 
Food: We serve 3 communal meals a day Monday-Saturday, and brunch and dinner on Sundays. Fresh fruit, hot and cold beverages, and breakfast cereal are available 24 hours a day.

Each month, VSC welcomes over 50 artists and writers from across the country around the world to our historic campus in northern Vermont. Residencies include: a private room in modest, shared housing, 24-hour access to a private studio space in one of our 6 medium-specific studio buildings, a 24-hour Meditation House reserved for group and individual meditation, yoga studio. 

VSC's residency format includes six distinguished Visiting Artists and Writers per month. Each Visitor offers a public slide talk or reading, and is available for a private studio visit/writing conference with residents working in their medium/genre. Visiting Writers also offer a craft talk for the writing residents.*

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The Ragdale Foundation — Lake Forest, Illinois

Deadline: 11:59 PM CST, March 4, 2018
Application Fee: January 4-12: Free;January 13-February 26: $35;February 27-March 4: $50
Length: 18-25 days
Residency Fee: 18-day residencies cost $630 and 25-day residencies cost $875
Funding: Financial aid is available on a very limited basis. Applicants may request to apply for financial aid upon acceptance of a residency. Some fellowships available by separate application.
Food: Dinner is provided five nights a week, Monday through Friday. Our chef generally prepares vegetarian meals with meat dishes on the side. The Barnhouse and Ragdale House kitchens are available 24 hours a day and is fully stocked for residents to prepare their own breakfasts and lunches. 

Ragdale annually hosts approximately 200 visual artists, writers, composers, and interdisciplinary artists at all stages of their careers for 18 or 25- day residencies, making it one of the largest interdisciplinary artist communities in the country. Ragdale offers a retreat setting where at any given time, a dozen creative individuals experience uninterrupted time for dedicated work, a supportive environment, family-style dinners, and dynamic artist exchanges within a backdrop of 50 acres of idyllic prairie.* 

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The Studios at Mass MOCA — North Adams, Massachussettes

Deadline: The next deadline for general applications will be in July 2018, for fall/winter sessions. 
Application Fee: none
Length: 1-8 weeks
Fee: $650/week
Funding: Many participants receive need-based and merit-based financial aid.
For Massachusetts-based artists only: currently accepting applications for a “Financial Wellness” residency session (up to 4 weeks) from November 7, 2018 – December 4, 2018. This subsidized residency opportunity offers a deeply discounted fee and additional professional development programming. Deadline: April 13, 2018, 11:59pm EST. Click here to learn more and apply. 
Food: One communal meal per day, in the company of other artists-in-residence.

We offer great studio space and housing, one group meal per day, access to MASS MoCA‘s exhibitions and to Makers’ Mill (a printmaking and fiber arts makerspace located a short walk from the Studios), and one-on-one professional development coaching with the staff of our "Assets for Artists" program. Housing is across the street from the museum, in newly renovated apartments (private bedroom/queen bed + shared kitchen and bath). We offer optional one-on-one artist-focused financial and business coaching through the staff of MASS MoCA’s Assets for Artists program, helping artists and writers in all disciplines strengthen the business side of their artistic practice.* 

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Anderson Ranch — Snowmass Village, Colorado

Deadline: February 15th
Application Fee: $60
Length: 10 weeks; Fall Term: October 10th – December 20th; Spring Term: February 6th – 17th April
Residency Fee: $1,500
Funding: Four of the 28 residencies are fully funded fellowships awarded by the jury panel. One fully funded residency fellowship is available for an African American artist, made possible by the generous support of an anonymous donor.
Food: Breakfast and 5 dinners per week are provided; vegetarian meals available.

Anderson Ranch’s Artists-in-Residence Program fosters creative, intellectual and professional growth for emerging and established visual artists. Residents have access to world-class facilities and 10 weeks of studio time, free from everyday pressures. Residents can pursue interdisciplinary projects among a community of working artists, and gain feedback from prominent Visiting Artists and Critics. The Ranch setting is specifically crafted to aid artists in the production of their work. The residency is designed to allow artists to take risks and pursue new projects and ideas. Resident artists will be provided housing, studio space and meals.  Residencies are offered in ceramics, new media, photography, furniture design, woodworking, painting, drawing, printmaking and sculpture. Individual rooms in shared house, separate from studio.* 

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The Wassaic Residency Program — Wassaic, New York

Deadline: Applications for our SUMMER Residency Program open December 11th are due January 22nd. Applications for our WINTER Residency Program open May 15th and are due June 19th. 
Application Fee: $25 
Length: 1-6 months 
Fee: Winter: $600 per month, per resident plus $300 security deposit; summer: $900 per month + $200 security deposit 
Funding: Fellowships range from $100 – $400 and are awarded based on exclusively on need. We award 1 merit-based fellowships each season. The fellow receives a fully-funded residency for the month awarded. Unlike receiving financial assistance, the merit fellow is not expected to perform work in exchange. 
Food: no meals provided.

The Wassaic Residency Program cultivates and supports community for emerging and professional contemporary artists, writers and other creatives. Housed in historic, landmark buildings, the residency program offers nine artists each month the opportunity to live and work in the heart of a rural community. The Wassaic Residency seeks artists working in a diverse range of media who want to produce, explore, challenge, and expand on their current art making practices, while participating in a grass roots, community-based arts organization.

Residents may bring their dog. Dogs require an in-person interview and an additional monthly impact fee of $100 per month. You cannot bring your cat (too many allergies).*

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NEXT UP: Studio-only Residencies across the Nation (a few have a live/work option)

*Italicized text pulled from residency websites or other promotional materials.

Lightspeed Five. Mixed Media on Panel. 24" x 24"

LIZ TRAN's paintings and installations hum with vibrant, synthetic color, hovering between abstraction and representation. The versatility of her visual language—replete with circles, paint drips and swooping, sagging lines—allows the forms themselves to constantly shift meaning. Explosions become flowers. Party streamers become tent tops. Wreathes and beaded necklaces become an expanding and contracting universe. Liz earned a BFA in  Painting and Print Art at Cornish College of the Arts (Seattle) in 2002. In 2017, her work was included in exhibitions at The Brain Project (Toronto) and Parlor Gallery(Asbury Park, New Jersey). Also in 2017, her solo show JaWbReAkEr was on view at ZINC contemporary in Seattle. She has been an Artist-in-Residence at Babayan Culture House (Ibrahimpasa, Turkey), Baer Art Center (Hofsos, Iceland), the Association of Icelandic Visual Artists (Reykjavik, Iceland) and Vermont Studio Center with a full fellowship from the Clowes Foundation. In March 2018, her work will be included in Elation Station at Russo Lee Gallery in Portland, and she is working on multiple installation projects across the country. Liz lives and works in Seattle.

OtherPeoplesPixels: A defining element of your work is its multi-coloredness. It’s not just colorful, but rather explosively colorful. What do you love about color? How do you think about color?

Liz Tran: I make paintings that, because of their vibrancy, are extremely difficult to ignore. I love the emotions evoked by color and how the injection of color can completely change the way a space is read, even more so in my installation work. Adding vibrant pattern to monochrome structures and landscapes forces the audience to pay attention to something that would otherwise go unnoticed. I wrote a statement for the Seattle Art Museum Gallery’s Color Excursion exhibition that accurately sums up my feelings on the subject.

“The use of color in my work is an unapologetic form of escapism from the long stretches of grey weather that continually blankets my Pacific Northwest home. Each year my palette of luminous, unnatural hues provides a defiant objection to winter’s approach. Pulsing fluorescent paints massage the naked eye with ultraviolet light, creating an energized glow impervious to dull environments. Maroon does not belong to me. Tubes of brown remain unopened. There is safety in muteness. My paintings speak to extroversion, experimentation and play. Through color, I aim to activate.”

Current. Mixed Media on Canvas. 48" x 60"

OPP: That injection of color into a bleak landscape is present in much of the work you've done during residencies, especially in Iceland, where you've done at least six. What is it about Iceland that kept you returning year after year? How did the environment affect the work you made there?

LT: What draws me to Iceland is the sense of solitude, of being at the edge of the world. The naked shapes of the volcanic landscape create a vastness that leaves space for the mind to wander. There are few trees or structures obstructing the view, which makes it difficult to discern distances. What appears to be a short walk can turn into hours. The hot pots, the steam, the sulfur, the 24 hours of daylight in the summer and the harsh, low angle of the sun in the winter are all things that I can’t experience back home. I could wax poetic about Iceland for hours but, ultimately, the country is very conducive to creativity.

Extreme Boulder Makeover. Completed while in residence at Samband íslenskra myndlistarmanna / Reykjavík

OPP: What is more important in your process: control or surrender?

LT: The process is a constant conversation between control and surrender, push and pull. Surrender is the preferred action (or rather, inaction), where “flow” and intuition lives. However, control must step in occasionally, before things get completely out of hand. It’s not one of my strengths, but without control my work would bleed into complete chaos, which it often does. With the multitude of media and layers I work with, it’s easy to overwork. Quite a few of my paintings are sacrificed to complete surrender and therefore make their way to the burn pile. 

Swell. Mixed Media on Panel. 24" x 30"

OPP: The same recurring forms read differently in different paintings. What looks like a planet in one piece is a bauble, ornament or balloon in another. Sagging lines look like party streamers in Last Call but they become tent tops or waves in Swell. To me, this points to the connection between human culture—in the form of decoration and celebration—and the cosmic. Thoughts?

LT: Forms repeat and are re-purposed naturally and intuitively. This is my visual language, developed over decades and just like any language, there is repetition.

Not only does the work refer to the human connection, it refers to interconnectedness. In some ways, I’m reaching for an accurate portrayal of that universal connection, which is completely impossible but keeps me challenged. Interconnectedness IS something to celebrate. We are all in this together. 

Big Bang One, 2014. Mixed Media on Panel. 36" x 36"

OPP: What keeps you painting circles in particular?

LT: Circles are the shape of infinity, the world, the moon, the feminine, wholeness, self and to some, God. It’s the shape that comes most naturally to me. I’ve never been drawn to hard edges, geometric forms or angles. Circles leave things up to interpretation. 

OPP: About a decade ago, trees, especially with gnarled, curvy branches were recurring images in your paintings. Can you talk about how that body of work shifted into what you are doing now? Was it a slow evolution or an abrupt change?

LT: Although I still love the tree series, it came to the point where I couldn’t push it any further. It was time to move on. I became much more interested in imagery that couldn’t be defined as a particular object. Stripping away the trunk and branches left me with the rich material that I am still exploring today. Taking away the “tree” gave me unlimited possibilities.

From Whence We Came. Mixed Media on Panel. 60" x 144"

OPP: My favorite piece on your website is From Whence We Came. Can you talk about that central void in the composition in relation to the title?

LT: That’s one of my favorites as well. Because of the large scale (60” x 144”), there was automatically a physicality in the making of the piece. The title refers to the place where we all originate, the womb. To a certain extent, I am creating my own womblike environment and celebrating it. 

To see more of Liz's work, please visit liztran.com.

Roswell Artist-in-Residence, Roswell, New Mexico

Artist Residencies are a big part of life as a contemporary artist. You'll see them on most artist CVs. They offer two of the three most important resources that artists say they need: time and space. (The last one is money, and some residencies even offer that.) Many—most?—working artists have at least one other job besides making their work. We figure out how to fit art-making into our busy lives in small bursts and we guard our studio days with territorial urgency. So a residency can bring much needed expanses of time empty of other obligations.

Here at OPP, we know that you'd rather spend your time in the studio, not researching ways to get more time in the studio. So we're kicking off a series of posts to get you started. Over the next six months, we'll highlight a variety of residencies, organizing them by type, including studio only, fully-funded, solitary retreats and media-specific residencies.

Keep in mind, this list is by no means exhaustive. It's really just the tip of the iceburg. So you need to develop your own methods for researching and applying to residencies. Here are a few tips:

1. Look at the CVs of artists you admire and who make work in the same vain you do, whether that is similar content or media. See where they have been in residence. Sometime you discover a lesser-known, but nonetheless exciting opportunity.

2. Get on the mailing lists of the residencies you are interested in to get reminders of upcoming deadlines and to see which artists are chosen.

3. Keep an active list of upcoming deadlines on your desktop along with a folder for each of your residency applications. Label these folders by year and residency name. Keeping all completed applications—even unsuccessful ones—in one accessible place can aid you when you apply to other residencies. You don't have to reinvent the wheel every time you apply. You can often repurpose language from previous applications.

4. Do continue to apply, even if you don't get in the first time. I've heard over and over again from artists at varying career levels that they often applied multiple times to prestigious residencies (and grants) before they were finally successful. Caveat: don't submit all the same images year after year. Panelists might remember your work and you want to show that you are continuing to make new work and evolve as an artist.

5. Excellent images make all the difference. In the age of iphone documentation, it's hard to justify paying an experienced photographer to document your work. But having sat on several juries, it is very clear that the quality of the images has THE BIGGEST impact on your success. I've seen mediocre work that was excellently photographed win out over superior work photographed in crappy lighting.

The Red Mill at Vermont Studio Center