Inheritance: In Memory of American Glass, 2016, Ditmas Avenue stop, F subway line, Brooklyn

Inspired by craft objects and folk art, CARA LYNCH is staunchly opposed to aesthetic elitism. She embraces surface embellishment and pattern in sculpture, print and public works. She taps into the devotional power of heavily-encrusted talismans, while celebrating the visual pleasure of rhinestones, feathers, beads and glitter. In 2012, Cara earned her BFA in Studio Art with a Minor Art History at Adelphi University (Garden City, New York). Since then, she has studied Printmaking at Columbia University, Papermaking at the Women's Studio Workshop in Rosendale, New York and Advanced Sculpture at Hunter College. Cara recently closed her solo show Love Tokens and Talismans, supported by Queens Arts Council Grant, at Local Project (Long Island City, Queens). In spring 2016, she installed her first permanent, public work for the NYC Metropolitan Transit Authority at Ditmas Avenue stop of F subway line in Brooklyn. Cara lives in New York, New York.

OtherPeoplesPixels: Tell us about your research into the “sailor’s valentines, mourning jewelry, memoryware, kitschy trinkets, and historical amulets or talismans” that informed your recent body of work called Love Tokens and Talismans.

Cara Lynch: I have an interest in those things that are not traditionally included in the fine art world: craft objects and processes and folk art. I am interested in why we make things and the purposes and power of these objects. I see the embrace of these traditional crafts as a political statement when included in a fine art context or conceptualized in this way.
 
While my research for this particular body of work initially began viewing images online, I also spent time at the New York Public Library looking through books of reliquaries and walking through the Met looking at various ceremonial and talismanic objects. I spent time at the Morbid Anatomy Museum in Brooklyn, pouring over their incredible collection of books on mourning jewelry and love tokens. Many of the forms I created are directly influenced by these objects, but my main interest is in the traditions and functions of these objects: to memorialize experiences, express devotion or provide protection or good luck.

You're Tacky & I Hate You, 2016. Cast hydrocal, rhinestones, feathers, paint, wood, hardware. 12.5 x 15 x 3 inches

OPP: How do these influence manifest in your sculptures? What are you loving, mourning, remembering or warding off in this work?

CL: I grew up very Catholic, and I am very interested in how objects become symbolic or get their power. For Catholics, the Eucharist, rosaries and other sacred objects are given their power by the beliefs of the faithful. In some other religions, this is not the case; the power becomes inherent in the object itself. As artists, we are granted a certain power through our making of objects. In many ways, making becomes our faith.

The sculptures are very much about my own experience, mourning the passage of time and struggling with the reality that we can’t always attain our desires, whether for physical objects or for abstract experiences, like equality or affirmation or holding on to the present. The pieces combine casts replicating a number of objects I’ve saved from my childhood or collected from trim stores along my walk to work through the garment district in New York. I am memorializing my own experience through these pieces, as well as empowering the “non-elite” in some way.

There is tension expressed in these objects: between high and low, art and craft, class and taste, sentiment and spectacle. By embracing the decorative and the domestic—newer pieces sometimes include casts from copper cake pans—I hope to grant power to myself and to all women. By embracing “low,” craft materials, and elevating them in some way, I am making a political statement for the working class and challenging “high art” and academic aversions to the decorative. By creating beautiful objects, I make my fantasies attainable in some sense.

Fetter Better, 2016. Detail. Cast hydrocal, found ornament, chain, glitter, paint, iridescent pigment, wood, hardware. 10 x 20 x 5 inches

OPP: Your talismans are cast hydrocal, embellished with automotive paint, spray paint, glitter, faux pearls, rhinestones, chains, and tassels. It’s visually hard to separate the solid, cast object from it’s surface embellishment. Can you talk about these two distinct parts of the process: casting a solid substrate versus embellishing it?

CL: I am very interested in embellishment and the decorative. I think this stems from my interest in both thinking about desire and devotional objects. The solid cast objects are kind of funny, because they really are embellishments themselves, made more concrete and solid through a transformation of material. Embellishing the transformed embellishment seemed to be really aggressively decorative or feminine—a little like overkill and kind of funny to me.

Casts are also reminiscent of memories. They are a replication, an attempt to reproduce. The embellishment allows me to put this sentiment in tension with other interests. I am able to temper the feminine quality with a little bit of masculinity, for example, through the application of automotive paint.

Sex and the City, 2014. Archival handmade paper (pulp painting). 20 x 30 inches

OPP: Your pulp paintings appear to be speaking the same language as painting, drawing or print, but these designs are actually part of the substrate, not added to the substrate. Can you briefly explain the process for those not in the know about paper-making techniques?

CL: Paper-making is a really amazing process. Plant based fibers are beaten into a wet pulp, then suspended in water and caught on a screen to form a sheet. Pulp can also be pigmented and “painted” with. Essentially, you are creating an image with a very physical material itself in various colors, rather than with paint, ink or pencil. It has a temperament of its own.

To create the colors and patterns in this series, I pigmented the actual pulp in separate batches. The various hues of pulp were stenciled and layered onto wet sheets of freshly pulled paper, building up in some areas more than others. After working on a wet piece for some time, It would be pressed, combining layers of material into one flat sheet. In this way, the patterns are part of the actual paper, not applied to the surface.

Pennants for the Working Class, 2016. Screenprint on felt flags, brass grommets, craft materials. Variable, each measuring 10 x 16 inches

OPP: In Pennants for the Working Class (2016), you’ve transplanted the “patterns derived from American household glass objects, including depression glass, carnival glass, and early American pressed glass,” from utilitarian, three-dimensional objects onto the flat surface of the flag, which has a more symbolic function. Can you talk about the functions of pattern in general and how you use it in your work?

CL: Pattern can draw attention to an object, create a tensions between surface and object, or refer to something beyond itself. In my work, pattern often symbolizes something beyond my initial interest in surface and decoration. In many works, I am referring to histories behind the patterns. In this case specifically, I see the patterns from these glass objects as symbols of the American dream. These patterns were found on glass objects that were highly affordable, widely available and also really beautiful. This is in contrast to their predecessor, cut crystal, which was only available to the wealthy. For this piece in general, I was really thinking of the pennant flag as a symbol of prestige and pride, borrowed from the vernacular of yacht clubs and ivy-league universities.

Pretty Bomb, 2016. Lithograph. 22 x 15 inches

OPP: Earlier, you mentioned “academic aversions to the decorative.” Why do you think this aversion exists? Have you noticed a sea change in the last 5 years?

CL: I think this academic aversion to decoration and beauty is tied to a classist and sexist system. Higher education in the arts was sought partially to professionalize art making. The way artists did this was to become very "serious" about their work, substantiating it with theory and criticism. View points other than the dominant, historically-male—rooted in theory, science, knowledge—were left out of the picture. As Duchamp said, "artistic delectation is the danger to be avoided." This kind of thinking was perpetuated through the discourse, banishing beauty (and consequently, a slew of other things) from the presiding conversation. To some extent, beauty itself is a social construct, defined by social class, taste, gender, and a number of other factors. But this is all really interesting! I feel like we should be embracing it, instead of shutting it out. 

We've invited former Featured Artists to answer a series of questions about being an artist and to highlight a new work made since the time of their interviews. Some questions are practical; some are philosophical. These compilations will be interspersed with new Featured Artist interviews every month and will include links back to older interviews. And don't forget to sign up for the monthly blog digest if you prefer to get all your Featured Artist action in your inbox once a month.

Sara Holwerda | Read the Interview

Chair Dance (Adagio) at RP13 from Sara Holwerda on Vimeo.

As an artist living in Chicago that did not go to graduate school in Chicago, I feel that the value of an MFA, at least in the city, is directly linked to the art community that it was obtained in. There are many artists who have developed a strong community here out of local MFA programs, and as a result it is often difficult as an "outsider" to have the same access to opportunities as someone who got their MFA from a local program. I have had great experiences with several local performance and video venues, and have found that this subset of the local artistic community very warm and welcoming. In a bigger city with a deluge of MFA's, maybe it becomes more about finding your niche and making a few great connections within that.

Coy Gu | Read the Interview

Just Not With A White Girl, 2016. Oil, acrylic, charcoal on bristol board, half smoked joint, silicone, Wonder Bread plastic bag on canvas. 30 x 35 inches

In practical terms, an MFA allows for teaching, which is the most stable form of income for an artist. If that MFA is a name brand one, it'll open doors and provide access you otherwise wouldn't be privy to. Of course, one will meet a network of artists through an MFA program and learn new things from professors and peers. However, one could join an artist community and/or studio building and experience similar things.

Anna Jensen | Read the Interview

Was A Supply; Now A Return, 2015. Acrylic on canvas. 16"x12"

I dropped out of college six times. There is something about the smell of an institution that is very inspiring at first and then ultimately sends me into a panic of feeling trapped.  It’s not that I lack discipline or the respect of learning from those with more experience.  I’m sure art school benefits many people when it comes to learning technique and making future professional connections among other things. But, I think self-motivation and  development via the school of hard knocks are just as key.  Also for me it felt like a waste of time to pack up all my supplies and strap a 5ft x 6ft painting to the top of my car several times a week just to go in and discuss my work with bored, unfocused kids who brought in their projects on sheets of notebook paper.  Not that they were ALL that way, but I was in my twenties and the other students were fresh out of high school. I had a gut instinct that I knew what I wanted to do and could do it without a traditional school environment.  So I ended up using my public library card a lot!  And I'm proud of the career I've had on my own terms.

Jacinda Russell | Read the Interview

Room 107, Boise State University, 2015. Archival Inkjet Print. 20" x 30"

Obtaining an MFA was a life-changing event in my career. I did not attend graduate school with the intention of teaching. I wanted to follow in the footsteps of my relatives who had acquired a terminal degree, and it was an important goal in my early twenties to achieve the highest level of education in my field. Its worth is greatly contested today due to the debt that many students accumulate. I fully realize that my circumstances may not be warrant the price that many people pay now, but I would not have exchanged the experience for anything. I learned how to speak about my work and how to research and defend every aesthetic and conceptual decision. These are skills I use daily as a professor of art and lecturing artist. My peers at the University of Arizona—twenty years later—continue to be the ones that I turn to for advice. I took advantage of every opportunity with visiting artists and scholars (as a research assistant to A.D. Coleman in the archives at the Center for Creative Photography and as a studio assistant to both Barbara Kasten and Judith Golden). I have never found a comparable community in the art world since graduate school. It is also providing background for many of the stories that I photograph for my current series tentatively named Art Department. I would not hesitate to say to the MFA is a gift that keeps on giving.

Megan Stroech | Read the Interview

Catch and Release, 2016. Digital print. 24 x 36 inches

For me, getting an MFA was integral to my further development as an artist and gave me the confidence and motivation to continue pursuing my work. It really forced me out of my comfort zone in terms of making the work and most of all talking and writing about the work which becomes incredibly important in the evolution and progression of the work. I attended a smaller state school with a program that came with a tuition waiver, modest stipend and allowed for us to gain a good amount of teaching experience over the course of three years. However, MFAs from those very notable institutions often come with an incredible amount of debt that is seemingly impossible to ever pay off especially in the beginning stages of an art career. Because those programs do have so much stature and clout, they have the power to propel some artists to the next level of their career path, and can often seem like the most lucrative option even with shouldering all of that debt. In many ways I'm grateful for the path I chose, and feel that more emphasis should be placed on the actual work that artists are making versus their pedigree.

Travis Townsend | Read the Interview

Painted Boatstack, 2016. Wood and mixed media.

I don’t think that an artist with a degree is automatically a better artist than someone without a degree.   And I find it frustrating that the MFA degree is considered “expected”.  With that said, I do have an MFA, and my experience was quite positive.  I feel confident that I would have found a way to be an artist without the MFA, but in my two years of graduate school I progressed quickly, learned lots of theory, looked at and considered a wide range of challenging work, and expanded my circle of artist friends.   And met my wife!
 
However, there are some crappy MFA programs out there that don’t seem to do much for their students. And some that are far too expensive. Crippling debt is no way to begin your career!  Young artists should not be convinced that the MFA degree is some sort of golden ticket to artistic success. 

Molly Springfield | Read the Interview

Chapter IX, pages 246-247, 2015. graphite on paper. 16.5 x 25.5 inches

I have an MFA and I can't imagine being where I am now without one. The graduate programs I attended (I also have a post-bacc certificate) gave me the time, space, and resources to become a professional artist. And, most importantly, a cohort of artist friends who know and understand my trajectory as an artist in a way no one else can.

I don't think you can talk about the value of an MFA program without talking about how much they cost. My advice for anyone thinking about applying to MFA programs: Go to the best program you can get into that costs you the least amount of money. Like anything else in life, what you get out of something is determined by what you put in. Getting an MFA from a trendy, highly-ranked, expensive program isn't a guarantee of art-world success. But, unless you have a full-fellowship, it is a guarantee of burdensome student loan debt.

In my experience working with MFA students, I've come across people who probably should have waited before starting their program. They aren't used to working independently. They haven't had the life experiences that fuel productive art-making. So they spend too much of their time catching-up rather than moving their practice forward. Don't be in a rush. The experiences and opportunities of your MFA program will be all the more valuable if you're prepared to take full-advantage of them.

untitled (s15.5), 2015. Ink, Watercolor and Pencil on Paper. 16" x 12"

ZACH WHITEHURST's process-driven practice results in meticulous, textured and patterned drawings. In a often-monochrome palette, he both fills the void of the page and uses negative space in decisive ways. The resulting images evoke aerial views of landforms, bodies of water and cities, as well as collections of rocks or unnameable found artifacts. Zach completed his BFA, Magna Cum Laude (2003), and his Post Baccalaureate Study (2006) at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He went on to earn his MFA in 2008 from Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. In early 2016, Zach's solo show Dissecting Pattern opened at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery and he recently gave an artist talk at the Brooklyn Art Library. Zach lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

OtherPeoplesPixels: Repetitive mark-making is the foundation of your practice. What does repetition mean to you outside of your studio? Where do you encounter it? How do you experience it?

Zach Whitehurst: In the studio my obsession with repetition is more complicated, but outside of the studio, repetition for me is mostly about patterns. There has always been something appealing and comforting to me about pattern. I see it everywhere. In architecture, nature, books, music, numbers, everywhere; the way bodega owners stack fruit outside their stores, subway tiles, the bark on a tree, bar codes, textiles. . . the list is endless. And pattern, for me, is not limited to a same shape or theme being repeated over and over. Sometimes my favorite patterns are the ones which form from a lack repetition.

Pattern and repetition are things that I have always been draw to. I think that I have a bit of an obsessive/compulsive nature and for me there is something meditative and therapeutic about pattern and repetition, especially in terms of routine and organization.

untitled (s16.2), 2016. Ink on Paper. 14" x 17"

OPP: Tell us about the recent introduction of color into what has previously been a distinctly black and white oeuvre.

ZW: For a long time I didn't want to introduce color into my work because I didn't want to take away from the process and pattern. The patterns I was using were, at times, so complex that they needed a minimal plane (white paper) on which to be presented and a minimal tool (black ink) with which to be made. Those drawings were all about process and pattern and often the larger organic shapes—as in the Repetitive Series—which formed as a result. When I was making those pieces, I was very drawn to the simple act of mark making. I would take a pen and paper and let the drawing come out of the process.

More recently, my work has evolved and has become, at times, more experimental. The process I use to make most of my work is, while minimalistic, also very time consuming. The larger pieces can often take so much time in the studio that I don't have any time to work on new ideas. As a way to experiment with new ideas, media and with color, for a year, I did a small 5”x7" drawing everyday. These were involved enough for me to flush out new processes and ideas but small enough to almost be “sketches.” This allowed me to maintain my studio practice and experiment at the same time. A lot of the new work that I have been making has come out of that experimentation. I have started to introduce color, but cautiously and purposefully. The process is still as important to me as the final piece and I am hesitant to have any of my drawings become too heavily imbued by color.

untitled(rs7), 2012. Ink on Paper. Detail

OPP: What’s your favorite mark-making tool and why?

ZW: I have tried, used and  continue to use many different tools in the studio. But the one that I can't live without, the one that I use everyday, is the Sakura Pigma Micron pen. Size 01 (.25mm) is probably the size that I use most often. For me, it's about the consistency of the line, the durability of the tip, and the quality of the ink. I've been using them for years and they have always performed well. Often I am working with a repetitive pattern that is very detailed and which involves tiny shapes. The Micron gives me the ability to work consistently on a small scale without the lines bleeding into one another.

untitled(rs11), 2012. Ink on Paper. 24" x 19"

OPP: I interpret your drawings as partly about a compulsion to fill space. . . what do you think? And can you talk about the moments you choose not to fill the space of the page, as in the Repetitive Series?

ZW: I don't know that I would say that they are "about" a compulsion to fill space, but I would agree that I often do have a compulsion to fill the space (depending on the series or piece) - and I think that this can come through in the work. In the Repetitive Series, I was working on a creating an organic process for myself to not fill the entire space and the series grew from there. What is exciting for me about that series is the negative space, especially when it is very tight. I like the energy and excitement that comes out of keeping the shapes just far enough apart to leave some space between them. At times in the series, I took that process to its extreme by leaving barely any negative space on the page at all. I have some forthcoming work which highlights the discomfort of leaving a piece "unfinished" or a space not "completely" filled.

untitled (gs12), 2014. ink on paper. 19" x 24"

OPP: Your Repetitive Series evokes aerial views of landforms and cities as well as drawn maps, whereas the Grid Series make me think of geology, rock collecting and the cataloging of found artifacts. Both of these are about observing the world, documenting it and trying to make sense of it. Thoughts?

ZW: I would agree that those elements exist and that the drawings from those series can be interpreted in those ways. And I have heard many people describe other things that they see or feel that are different from these. I can see elements of numerous ideas and themes in my work—most of which are entirely the result of the subconscious.

I have a very active "daydreaming" part of my brain that runs on autopilot most all of the time. It's sort of lives between the conscious and subconscious. It feeds from a constant stream of information gathered through conscious observation and study. When I'm working, it's running in the background, processing the information and informing/influencing the subconscious. The larger themes or concepts that come through in finished pieces result greatly from this cycle; starting with conscious thought, filtering through the middle layer and ending up in the subconscious. 

Almost all of my work is process driven. In the Repetitive Series, the overall shapes of the drawings are completely organic and resulted from a desire not to fill the entire page with pattern. Within each of these larger drawings are little "moments" that I found more aesthetically pleasing or exciting than others. I wanted a way to highlight those. That led to the Grid Series, which started a just a way to capture these exciting "moments" and give them a space to inhabit all on their own.

untitled (s14.9), 2014. Ink, Watercolor and Gouache on Paper. 20" x 16"

OPP: What’s different in your New Drawings?

ZW: The New Drawings are much the same in the sense that they are mostly process-driven works. Many of the different directions that I have gone with the newer work are a result of explorations from the year of small drawings that I did. Rather than create work out of research and concept and use process more as a means to the end, I let the process drive my work. Often I notice themes subconsciously seep into in finished work that relate to different aspects of research that I've done, or different ideas or concepts that I am interested in, but I hardly ever start from from that side of the fence. I am constantly trying to figure out how things are made or put together and am always interested in the processes behind the "product" and this is the same approach I take in the studio.

Illustration for a story in the New York Times Sunday Review about having to say goodbye to something you love, even when it's a very old Saturn. Gouache and cut paper. 2016.

Painter, illustrator and graphic artist LARA ODELL uses gouache and cut paper to create emotionally-evocative works, whose power extends beyond their commercial origins. She enlists the challenges of cut-paper—the difficulty of precision and the moveability of the parts—to underscore the alienation, anxiety and loss represented in the images. Lara has art degrees from UC Irvine, SUNY Buffalo and Alfred University. Her illustration credits include The New York Times Magazine and The Rumpus. In summer 2016, her drawings were included in a Perimeter, an online journal published annually. Her work was recently included in the group exhibition UNPACKED at the PACKARD in Long Beach, California. The show will run until December 3rd, 2016. You can follow Lara's cartoons at laraodell.blogspot.com. Lara lives and works in Long Beach, California.

OtherPeoplesPixels: When did you first start working with paper cut-outs? What does this medium offer that drawing and painting alone do not? 

Lara Odell: I started working with paper cut-outs about four years ago. A cut-out has an unanticipated element that the immediacy of painting or drawing doesn’t. Since I’m working on all the elements separately, I won’t really know what they look like together until I compose them into a singular image, set it on the copy-stand, light it, and view it through the lens of my camera and then on my computer. On the other hand, my process involves a lot of drawing and painting, so it is difficult, finally, to separate what one offers that another does not. I’d say that the cut-outs are both drawings and paintings as well as expansions upon those practices: instead of drawing a line, I’m cutting a line with scissors, delineating and altering shapes as I go. Also, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the cut-outs are sculptural, but they are works in relief, so there is another level of illusion or artifice going on – are the shadows real or painted? And because all of the component pieces exist independently of each other, there is an active improvisation when creating the compositions of moving and removing, placing and replacing, and so concepts of impermanence (or at least a defiance of certainty or finality) come to mind. It is important to me that the execution and materials reflect the content.

One of two illustrations for The New York Times Magazine, about the increasing loss of government jobs and how it's affecting mainly African-Americans. Gouache and cut paper, 2016.

OPP: Many of your cut-outs are illustrations for articles. For example, one illustration for The New York Times Magazine supported an article about how the increasing loss of government jobs is affecting mainly African-Americans. Another, for the Dove Self-Esteem Project, illustrated how a girl's first love influences her self-esteem. Many others are illustrations of stories and essays for The Rumpus. But viewed on your website, they are coherent as a body of work exploring a sense of emotional precariousness. I see loneliness, anxiety, and alienation. Are you intentionally picking illustration gigs that feed your own interests?

LO: Thank you for noticing that. I think that, yes, those themes tend to be a driving force and are central to all of my work, no matter the assignment. I’m not sure if this is an asset or not. I’m a relative newcomer to the illustration world, and I am not at the point where I have the privilege of selecting illustration jobs that align with my own interests. I typically say yes to what is offered. However, I think that to be a skilled and sensitive art director is to intentionally seek out an artist who is likely to sympathize and engage with the content on a familiar, intimate level. Maybe I’ve been fortunate in that many of the assignments I’ve received have resonated with particular preferences I have, but maybe that is true for most illustrators, in that they’ll be selected for certain jobs because they may already seem to have a sympathy for the content in mind.

Based on the essay "I Did Not Vanish: On Writing" about finding a way to speak through writing. 2013. Gouache and cut paper. 9" x 13"

OPP: Do you ever exhibit these works in galleries outside of their original context?

LO: Yes, I like showing the work because of the opportunity to see how the pieces relate as a cohesive body of work. Its also important to me to show them in a real-life setting in order to expose the hand-made features: the tactility, imperfections, detail, and nuance of color that gets lost on a computer screen or printed page. I've recently participated in three shows in Long Beach, California, where I live. Last fall, I exhibited the original cut-outs at the Long Beach Library, and this summer I exhibited prints of the cut-outs at a local diner. The cut-outs are currently part of a group exhibition organized by the Arts Council for Long Beach of this year’s Professional Artist Fellows at the old Packard Building in downtown Long Beach.

Cartoon, 2016.

OPP: A practical question for aspiring illustrators out there: how do you get clients?

LO: Here are a three things that may have helped me find clients: 1) Directly emailing art directors of publications I’d like to work for; 2) Submitting my portfolio to art / design / illustration blogs that attract a large number of viewers, like It’s Nice That; 3) Submitting work to competitive illustration annuals like American Illustration (these cost money which is depressing). Honestly, I am still wondering myself. It seems to take a relentless perseverance of continually reaching out and introducing yourself and then constantly reminding people you exist.

Broken Hearse and Tree, 2016. Gouache and cut paper

OPP: Tell us about all the mechanical vehicles—hearses, police cars, airplanes—that fall apart in your hands.

LO: I try to be aware of objects or situations that I think would lend themselves to the process and effects of a cut-out. The airplane was one of the first cut-outs I made. The shape of the airplane is also cut out of the sky (background), as if the sky was not atmospheric, but a flat plane (ha) with maybe nothing behind it. For me, that registered a feeling of existential terror. The windows of the plane are not windows, but flat elliptical shapes that for me double as passengers, floating off into space.
 
With the vintage police car, I was attracted to the simplicity of form and color. The cut-out version almost resembles a toy car or a still from a children’s animation. The piece made me a little sad . . . like when you think something is real, and then it is not. If the police car represents a kind of authority, to have it break apart calls to mind the fragility of authority, the tenuous (in)ability to trust authority, and the failures of authority . . . and with these apprehensions come fear, disillusionment, uncertainty.
 
Whereas both the airplane and the police car were based on found photographs, the hearse was modeled on a photograph I took. It wasn’t obvious to me at the time, but I began working on the hearse when my mom was in the process of dying. I know that sounds literal, but at the time, I had almost continuous thoughts of death and dying so I guess it makes sense. The breaking-apart hearse / the destruction of the hearse / the exploding hearse: it felt like an angry, violent act. It was a gesture of defiance, which is ironic and misguided, but there nonetheless.
 
I could say that the vehicles are stand-ins for things and people from our everyday lives that transport us—sometimes as reluctant passengers.

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, and was a 2011-2012 Artist-in-Residence at BOLT in Chicago. Her solo exhibitions include I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For (2013) at Klemm Gallery, Siena Heights University (Adrian, Michigan), Everything You Need is Already Here (2014) at Heaven Gallery (Chicago) and When Things Fall Apart, in the Annex Gallery at Lillstreet Art Center (Chicago). Stacia created site-responsive installations for two-person show Form Unbound (2015) at Dominican University's O’Connor Art Gallery (River Forest, IL) and SENTIENCE (2016) at The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art. Her work was recently included in SHOWROOM, curated by Edra Soto, at the Chicago Artists’ Coalition. Stacia is currently preparing for a two-person show titled Resist the Urge to Press Forward with Brent Fogt at Riverside Art Center (Riverside, Illinois) and Sacred Secular, a solo show at Indianapolis Arts Center in Indiana.

Lawn Job

RYAN B. RICHEY paints humorously poignant vignettes that exude a humble awe of the everyday. His signature close-cropped compositions suggest an intimate point of view, one so close, in fact, that we can't always recognize what's in front of us. Ryan received a BFA and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has published written work in online literary journals including independent presses Beard of Bees and Spork. Selected solo exhibitions include Everyday Romances (2016) at Illinois Wesleyan University, Ghostbuster (2015) at Loyola University, and Gathering Smoke (2010) at the now-defunct Rowley Kennerk Gallery. His work has also been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including the recent Chicago and Vicinity at Shane Campbell Gallery. Ryan’s work will be included in an upcoming group show—also features the work of Mel Cook, Em Kettner, Celeste Rapone, Allison Reimus—at Roots & Culture in Chicago. Close to Me opens on January 27, 2017. Ryan lives and works in San Francisco.

OtherPeoplesPixels: What’s the underlying thread that ties all your paintings together, whether style, content or process?

Ryan B. Richey: The paintings I make come from a combination of stories from my past and daily ruminations. A while ago, I started writing down everything I could remember throughout my life and what my relatives told me about their lives. I continually add to these writings as the present becomes past, and experiences begin to take shape. The writings serve as a reference when I begin imagining a new painting. I often think about how I internalize the world around me. I consume individual and collective experiences, personal outlooks and political views everyday. I think about how they relate to the past, future and to everyone on a micro and macro level. Every painting I create is tied to this narrative.

Husky

OPP: Your titles ground your imagery by adding an emotional tone, which I would describe as humorously poignant. Is that an accurate description of the tone you want to evoke? Could you talk generally about pairing language with image for effect? Have your strategies for titling changed at all over the years?

RBR: I really like those two words to describe my work, “humorously poignant.” The word and image pairings usually begin with the text. I go through a struggle between the image and words, oscillating between the too obvious or not obvious enough, too cheesy or sentimental. I relish in the challenge of taking on overdone ideas and making them my own.  The crux of the challenge is to have all of life captured. Things are funny and sad and weird, funny, beautiful, ugly and unknown. My goal is to uncover the vulnerability of living, and for me it’s also punctuated by a desperateness to belong. I want to communicate a universal truth to everybody, and be someone everybody can relate to. My paintings, narratives, and titles, are an extension of this yearning. 

The titles of my paintings have evolved. My older works had titles that included most of the text from which they came. Through the years, the titles have been consolidated to a sentence, a few words or only one.

Laundry Day

OPP: Can you talk about your use of the zoomed-in and cropped perspective in paintings like Misfit, Ether Arms, Laundry Day and Sad Song?

RBR: I like to have just enough visual information and text for the viewer to be able to figure it out. Zooming-in and cropping are a few of the tools I use to focus on my subjects. I also employ the perspective from how the viewer would see the image, which also determines the painting’s size. My paintings are intimate experiences for the viewer. There may be a vast sky, but the you can only see so much of it at one time. Most of what I focus on are small moments in life, like the sandwich you are bringing up to your mouth or a glimpse at the hand of a loved one.

L Couch, 2008. Fabric Charcoal Chairs on Paper

OPP: Back in grad school, you were working with fabric and charcoal to make portraits. I’m looking at works like L Couch, LOVE and Elvince, all from 2008. Now it appears you work exclusively in painting. Have you turned away from sculpture?

RBR: I don’t feel that I’ve turned away from sculpture altogether. I base my art medium on what makes the most sense in terms of delivering the message, understanding the context and working with the physical space of the show. Most recently my paintings have sculptural elements: underneath the oil paint is a surface of carved gesso, and carefully added textural elements.  

Most recently I have been working on a project that represents spending time with family. I have been making little pillows out of relative's clothes that I would like to like to display where the wall meets the floor all along a space. In 2014 I collaborated with the members of ADDS DONNA for Sunday Afternoons, a show that took place at SWDZ Gallery in Vienna, Austria. I drew each of the ADDS DONNA member’s facial portraits to pair with a piece of their clothing which created a three-dimensional portrait of each of the members.

Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain was a show hosted at Pilsen Village in Thrift in 2010 that included Pea in My Bed, a piece I created in reference to the popular fairy tale The Princess and the Pea. The small pea disrupting the massively large, stacked mattresses is an analogy we can all relate to.

Over the Bridge

OPP: You were a Chicago-based artist for quite a long time and most of your exhibitions are there. But now you live in San Francisco. How has it been adjusting to a new art scene? What’s different in San Francisco?

RBR: This process of moving has inspired a number of new paintings too. Of course the weather is consistently pleasant, which leads to good painting conditions. But I miss being physically close to the Chicago art community. Before I left I helped with getting ADDS DONNA into their new space. It was a labor of love. Everyone, please support galleries like ADDS DONNA. They are vital to the art scene in Chicago.

I haven't been in the Bay Area that long, however, I have found some spaces that feel like home, Chicago. Kirk Stoller runs a space out of his dwelling, c2c project space, that connects artists from the coasts. Takeshi Moro has a gallery in his house, tmoro projects, which reminds me of The Franklin, Terrain, and The Suburban. He cooks the best food for his openings too! There is also Minnesota Street Projects that has a Mana Contemporary vibe. Jessica Silverman Gallery is my favorite blue chip space. There is a lot going on in Oakland. I like the Land and Sea gallery there.

Used Cars

OPP: Do you have a favorite painting that doesn’t get enough props in your opinion? Will you tell us the background story?

RBR: A painting that I really enjoy is Laundry Day. It sprang from the years I spent doing our laundry at Yo-Yo Coin Laundrymat in Chicago. This painting was about relationships to me. It highlights how two people can be mixed in each other’s lives and sharing the same experience. It also brings to surface the cycles we go through, as well as the routines.

A painting that has sentimental value to me is Used Cars. All of my cars have been used cars. As a teen I was driving home one night from my job as a dishwasher at Ponderosa Restaurant when my car broke down out in the country. The hood was up and the stars were reflecting in the windshield. It was sad, but beautiful. My mom came and towed me home using a quilt we connected to both cars, which became another painting.

We've invited former Featured Artists to answer a series of questions about being an artist and to highlight a new work made since the time of their interviews. Some questions are practical; some are philosophical. These compilations will be interspersed with new Featured Artist interviews every month and will include links back to older interviews. And don't forget to sign up for the monthly blog digest if you prefer to get all your Featured Artist action in your inbox once a month.

Erin Washington | Read the Interview

Untitled (take care of yourself), 2016. Chalk, acrylic, gouache and found object on panel. 16" x 20"

I struggle to define this (although perhaps it is a justification in my mind). The days of teaching right after the American election results were a trial. How to define the role of the artist in contemporary culture when I myself am unsure how to justify making art right now? How to digest that conversation and regurgitate it for students in an appealing, easy-to-understand nugget?

curley Q, 2016. 4 ½” (l) x 38” (w) x 5” (h). bronze

Toys are the foundation of P. ROCH SMITH's bronze sculptures and installations. Mass-produced, plastic toy soldiers have lost their useful appendages; their weapons, arms and legs have been replaced with dramatically larger branches, compromising their balance and their purpose. Skateboarders perch precariously on the edges of Legos, on the backs of galloping horses, and on more Legos balanced on unstable constructions of tinker toys. Still more figurines push bronze balls uphill, lift houses at their foundations and carry Legos like lumber. Roch unifies the disparate toys in bronze, mini monuments that celebrate their hard work, conflate work and play and question cultural expectations of masculinity. Roch earned his BFA from Emily Carr University of Art and Design (Vancouver, British Columbia) and his MFA from York University (Toronto, Ontario). His numerous solo exhibitions include three recent shows in Toronoto: play–replay (2013) at Earl Selkirk Gallery, equilibration (2015) and fields of play (2016), both at loop Gallery. Roch lives and works in Toronto, and you can follow his work-in-progress on Instagram @rochsmith.

OtherPeoplesPixels: Tell us about your favorite toy as a kid?

P. Roch Smith: My favorite toy was my GI Joe Air Adventurer. My two older brothers and I each got a different model one summer in the 1970s when we were in Charlottetown on holidays. It was the version with the “lifelike hair” and “Kung-Fu grip” and came with an orange flight suit. We created so many scenarios with those figures. We were always saving up money to buy new uniform kits and accessories like a Jeep and hang glider. When I was at art school in Vancouver, I started to use my GI Joe in photographs and sculptures and he became a way to speak about play, masculinity and memory. As a kid, I can remember asking my mum how to sew because I needed to fix a tear in his flight suit. The hackneyed black stitching is still there after all these years.

I think it was probably the start of my interest in the tactile—the real. Instead of representations of reality, I had the capacity to manipulate artifacts and create scaled down landscapes or playscapes. I wasn’t very graphically-minded as a kid. I didn’t (and still don’t) do a lot of drawing. But the idea of manipulating objects in real time and space was pretty liberating. 

phantoms (detail), 2007. Plaster GI Joe figures. Dimensions variable to fit gallery.

OPP: Is it your favorite toy as an adult?

PRS: There are some items which hold memory so strongly that it is tough to find a replacement. While I have collected and inherited many figures over time, my original GI Joe is still my touchstone. I have accumulated a lot of GI Joe gear over the past 20 years that I keep in crates in my studio. As a maker of objects, I think a lot about the artifacts and memories we acquire and carry. As we move through our lives we are in a continuing cycle of acquiring,  discarding, modifying and mythologizing. Respect for the real, for the integrity of the object, and the act of making are all integral to me.

This summer, I wanted to cast some bronze versions of a selection of GI Joe rifles so I took out the crates. My 11-year-old daughter, who had never seen all these figures and equipment, was kind of stunned. Her response was, “Dad, you sure have a lot of dolls” which I thought was pretty great and knocked all my theorizing down a peg.

hide & seek (no. 1), 2016. 8" (l) x 26” (w) x 48” (h). Bronze.

OPP: How do you both employ and subvert the monumentality of bronze in your recent show fields of play?

PRS: The choice to work in a reduced scale really dictates how the work might be read in terms of its monumentality or conversely its anti-heroic stature. Taking a plastic original and transforming it into bronze upsets the usual notions of value and materiality. I use an organic burnout foundry process where each original figure or branch is lost during the casting process. Each sculpture is a one-off; the mass-produced is returned to the singular. Some people categorize bronze as historically-weighted, but I view it merely as a means to an end. 

At first glance, the pieces don’t appear that impressive or imposing. With further viewing, however, viewers begin to register the level of detail and the fact that the figures are doing things that are structural (e.g. holding up a larger house form or a tree branch), and that plays with one’s expectations of what is possible. The figures need to be transformed from plastic to metal in order to do the “heroic” actions that their small scale simultaneously minimizes.

house stack - prototype, 2014. bronze and assorted hardwoods

OPP: Are you more interested in balance or precariousness?

PRS: With sculpture, balance is critical. I dislike using hidden fasteners and pins to defy gravity. However, I am continually drawn to representing moments that are precarious: an object that is just about to topple over; a figure that is straining to keep a much larger object aloft; or an object balanced in a way that strains credulity. Tentative moments capture my imagination: things at the margins; moments just before something uncertain happens; or a memory that is just outside the reaches of easy recall. I ponder how these moments might be represented in concrete form.

OPP: Do these formal and structural challenges become content, metaphor and allegory in your work?

PRS: Viewers often see the Myth of Sisyphus as an allegorical arc in my work. I am partial to Camus’ interpretation of Sisyphus as one who undertakes an honorable pursuit by completing an insurmountable task and then having the integrity to repeat the feat over and over again. It is what most people do everyday, going about their work. I often joke that everyone has to work in my studio—meaning that all the toys have to be engaged in an action that requires a great effort. My underlying ethos is that working is a supremely human condition of being and is what links us in a fundamental way.

sisyphus, 2013

OPP: You did a lot of early work using the form of the white dress shirt. Now tiny toy army men are a recurring visual motif. I see these as representing the limiting, culturally-masculine roles of businessman and soldier. Are you commenting on masculinity?

RPS: Definitely. I think a lot about how masculinity is constructed, presented and examined. Arguably clothing is one of the most immediate ways we convey identity and where we position ourselves or are positioned by others in society. We wear “uniforms” every day.

The white shirt as a marker of power is so prevalent as to be generally invisible or is seen as normative. By taking the shirt and elevating it as an artifact—whether behind a glass frame or left to decay in a forest—I was hoping to make the power of the shirt evident and visible and hopefully lead to a questioning of its effects. The white shirt is such a longstanding uniform and represents a circumscribed notion of what it is to be male. The endurance of this trope fascinates me: male political leaders, businessmen, experts and talking heads wear them as a symbol of implied credibility. But I’m not sure that this blanket respect is at all deserved.

Toy soldiers are scaled-down, idealized versions of the romanticized reality of war. There is certainly nostalgia involved as it has been a few generations since these toys have been in use as children’s play things. The contemporary equivalent of the toy soldier would be video games where gamers fight bloody online battles. While toys require imagination to function, video games are a more scripted form of play. Toy soldiers speak to the desire to “play war” but without the graphic reality of war ever intruding. It might be a universal impulse.  A few years ago I came across a photo in the paper of Syrian children “playing war” with cardboard AK-47s and RPGs, which is something I don’t think we would readily see in North America. 

The miniature invites us to be omnipotent and to imagine and control what occurs. It is within this ecosystem that I can physically alter the toys and re-imagine new narratives.  I must be honest, however, and acknowledge that playing around with the toys is a ton of fun. A lot of my work begins with, “what if I took this and joined it with that.” It is within the final resolution, however, that some themes that question masculinity emerge.

as i came upon a clearing (installation view), 2005. Bronze GI Joe figure torsos, tree branches. variable dimensions

OPP: What do these uniforms say about the societies they exist within?

PRS: I think that military dress is perhaps a more honest expression of the hierarchies and unmarked castes that exist in our lives. In the military, a uniform can be read like a book to garner a lot of information about a person’s rank, unit, valor (decorations) and service time. Of course, these judgments occur outside the military, but I would argue it is of a more insidious nature. Similar readings are made but are done so under the myth/belief that we have some modicum of equality. However there are still clear class structures which exist between blue and white collar workers. It is interesting to think that the military, which has no qualms of putting one in a hierarchical system, results in a lack of artifice, which at once flattens and spotlights the structural nature of identity.

duet (detail of right side figure), 2016. 4 ½” (l) x 56” (w) x 6 ½” (h). bronze

OPP: Bronze sticks, branches and string have been present in your work for years. Could you talk about the relationship between these organic references and the toys, especially in your most recent exhibition, fields of play?

PRS: The original idea for fields of play came from a friend at university whose hippy/anti-war parents finally relented and gave her some plastic army men to play with when she was a kid, but not before cutting off all the rifles and weapons that they originally held. Turning this story over in my head in the studio, I decided to replace the guns with branches and unify the results in bronze. Organic forms such as branches possess a beauty and formal clarity. Coming from the earth, they are an odd pairing with the mass-produced, plastic soldiers. Fusing the natural to the plastic/industrial creates at once a disconnect and a unity. My hope is that the resulting objects are hybrids that are opened for reconsideration. It begs the question whether replacing guns with branches alters the reading of the figures and their purpose.

I always have a lot of materials lying around to try out ideas. In the exhibition, I also cast yarn from inside old baseballs into bronze. String is a connector; it binds elements together. At the scale of my figures, a string becomes a rope. It becomes a means of grounding and holding the figures. The drooping ropes are a conceit in that an actual string would not fall exactly in that way but it is a close enough approximation so that the viewer believes the illusion.

slackline, 2016. 36” (l) x 60” (w) x 24” (h). Bronze and LEGO blocks.

OPP: Do you see art-making as a type of play?

PRS: As kids growing up in Canada, we used cutoff hockey sticks for all sorts of play artifacts: swords, guns, clubs, bats. Our parents often used them to prop open a window or act as a door stop for a sliding door. These examples remind me of the fluidity of objects and that the creativity of (mis)use is often more interesting than the intended purpose of the original object. I think that this type of re-purposing is what allows me to fuse the organic with the manufactured. I am pulled into the playfulness of using materials in the studio much like when I was a kid, always searching for one object that could be turned into or used as another. The genesis of so many solutions is centered in of creative play.

Definitive Actions, 2015. Detail. Mixed Media.

HOLLY POPIELARZ's whimsical sculptures juxtapose play with "the uncontrollable harshness of reality." In interactive spinning wheels, she addresses the anxiety of decision-making, while other static works featuring flags are a definitive expression of challenging emotions like anger and longing. Holly earned her MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston and is currently teaching drawing at Rhode Island College in Providence, Rhode Island. She has been a Lending Artist for the deCordova Corporate Art Loan Program since 2013. Her group exhibitions include shows at artSTRAND in Provincetown, Massachussetts (2014), New Bedford Art Museum (2013), The Vault Gallery at New Hampshire Institute of Art (2012) and Hudson D. Walker Gallery in Provincetown, Massachussetts (2012). Holly lives in New Bedford, Massachussetts.

OtherPeoplesPixels: What is the role of play in your practice?

Holly Popielarz: My number one material/technique is play. I try not to be too serious with art, and I aim for a lighthearted aesthetic. Making things must be fun and challenging, otherwise it’s boring. Juxtaposed with play is the uncontrollable harshness of reality. Games and play, where I look for inspiration, distract us from that. Play is similar to the physiological idea of flow, a term coined by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. Simply put, flow is when you are in the zone during any given rewarding, intrinsic activity. Whether I am thinking, drawing, painting or building with more structural materials, my favorite moments are when I am so into what I am doing, playing so freely with materials, techniques and my thoughts, that new ideas emerge. Play solves the challenges in specific pieces, and I have fun doing it. That’s good advice to remember.

Bullseye, 2015. Mixed Media. 4 x 7 x 5 inch

OPP: The titles of your recent sculptures refer to common cliches that humans dole out when trying to make sense of emotional experiences. I’m thinking of The Grass is Always Greener, Out of Nothing Grass Will Grow and Wise is She Who Lets it Sail On, all from 2015. Tell us about this work and how you choose titles.

HP: Selecting titles for art is difficult. I choose based on what is happening to me during the time of the construction and the final look and feel of the piece. The title usually is found after the sculpture is completed, but during the build I am asking myself what I want to say about what I am dealing with, and how does it relate to what other people experience? With these three sculptures, I set myself the challenge to make them look like they were formed effortlessly with little thought or fuss over everything. I selected cliche phrases or proverbs for the sculptures as titles in order to attach a narrative as a way in for the audience. The phrases are maybe not universal because all cultures have their own words of wisdom. But these titles are cliches that western people say when they are either giving advice about accepting a current situation or mutter to ourselves as reminders that this is what is available to us. I think of these sculptures as trophies.

Mad Enough To Spit, 2015. Mixed Media. 8 x 3 x 14 inch

OPP: How do you think about chance and coincidence versus control in your life as a human? How do these concepts show up in works like Definitive Action and The Wheel of Hope and Dread?

HP: I think the only control we have in life is the choice of continuing to participate. . . in whatever is in front of us. Without participation, without  “spinning the wheel” or “playing the game,” there is no opportunity for chance or coincidence to make its way around to you. The element of play encourages us to press on, accept and not regret the past, understand the present and foresee the future. Giving up on the game leads us to paralysis and stagnation, which for some leads to boredom, depression, and a foreboding sense of failure. I find it a paradox that sometimes the fact of participating leads to rejection or failure, but in order to overcome failure we have to continue to participate. Best to keep pace. This clarity comes from loads of rejections, emotional stress, conversations, research and reflection about chance and fate itself. Some days there is only fog, and I am just angry at another rejection. On a personal level the wheels are responses and coping mechanisms. But the wheel of fortune is a universal symbol uised throughout history and across cultures as a method for understanding fate. In Roman mythology, Fortuna with her wheel was the goddess of Luck, Fate and Fortune. William Shakespeare, too, incorporated Fortuna and her fate-controlling wheel as a metaphor for the fickle ebb and flow of luck and fate. Medieval tarot decks feature The Wheel of Fortune. Buddhism has the Wheel of Dharma. Across cultures and history the wheel is seen as a tool for both understanding of and distraction from tragedy.

Wheel of Hope & Dread,, 2016. Video

HP: The wheel of hope and dread does not always land on Hope. There is a just as much a chance to land on dread. The day I made the video clip on my website, I was just luckier than some days. Other days dread is circling above. I do think of rigging some of the wheels to control the outcome. Not sure if that is the “right thing to do.” I wonder if it’s fair, but I also ask myself, do I care if the participants of my sculptures get a fair chance?

Rolling City, 2012. Castors, paint brushes, sticks, styro-foam, paint, papier-mâché. 12 x 16 x 10.5 inches

OPP: Earlier works—Car (2011), Cement Roller (2012) and Rolling City (2012)—involve a different kind of wheels. Is there a connection?

HP: I like wheels; they are a symbol of progress, movement and play. However there is no intended connection. The series that includes the sculptures, Car, Cement Roller, Rolling City evolved at the tail end of graduate school. I was thinking a lot about the human impact on the environment from our industrialized world. I was using economic materials, paper mache, card board, toothpicks, plaster, and acrylic paint. I was into a bric-a-brac method of construction because of my funds and really into the idea that materials can communicate and reinforce content. I doodle a bunch and during the creation of this work, even more so. While doodling, I would pick a culprit—a car, a cement roller, a cesspool, or a city itself—to reinvent and build. I thought of them as salesman samples. In the early 20th century, salesman needed portable versions of their products to show off to retailers. Most of these works have a carrying case, too. But each item pollutes our air, changes our surroundings, or is a product of our careless industrialization.

Wise is She Who Lets it Sail On. 2015. Mixed media. 14 x 5 x 12 inch

OPP: What materials you are drawn to repeatedly and why?

HP: Sculpturally, I love papier-mâché, and the way it makes me feel like a kid, I enjoy wood because of its additive and subtractive qualities and its connection to the natural world. Paint changes the surface and adds color and helps reinforce my interest in games, carnivals and sign painter aesthetics. I collect stuff—paper, shiny things, little pieces of unique wood scraps, plastic bits, metal doodads, ceramic parts—that I store for a later use. These materials are free, found and personal; each has a story. For example, a good friend gave me that ceramic piece for the “boat” in in Wise is She That Lets It Sail On. I didn’t know it was a boat at the time. He found it on a beach walk in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He gave it to me in my last few days of work at a wonderful place in Provincetown, and I was sad to see my time there to be over. I knew I wanted to use it in a sculpture someday. Then one day by playing with the strange odds and ends in my studio, I placed it on the red shelf that I had been working on. . . and I saw a boat peacefully sailing away. The boat is often a metaphor used in psychology as a way to compare human functioning and our journey through life. This ceramic piece is not altered at all only set snuggly into that hull made of museum book board, I didn’t change it, so that the viewer can wonder were it is from and where it is going.

Striped Sheets, New Bedspread, 2016. Toned Cyanotype. 11" x 15"

More often than not, cyanotype work is beautiful but boring. But not in the hands of TAMSEN WOJTANOWSKI. Where many artists working with this alternative photographic process use the distinctive blue tone as a crutch, Tamsen infuses cyanotype with humor, poetry and romance. Her graphic, hand-cut negatives yield thoughtful, poignant representations of abstracted intimacy. Tamsen earned her BS in Cinema and Photography from Ithaca College and her MFA in Photography from Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Philadelphia. She has had solo exhibitions at 110 CHURCH Gallery (2014), NAPOLEON (2012) and Grizzly Grizzly (2010), all in Philadelphia. Tamsen is preparing for two upcoming solo shows. Daydreaming About Us will open in May 2017 at 621 Gallery (Tallahassee), and SHITEATER will open in April 2018 at The Fleisher Art Memorial (Philadelphia). Tamsen lives and works in Philadelphia.

OtherPeoplesPixels: Your early 35mm photographic essays are overtly narrative, while your recent cyanotypes are much more graphic and abstract. Is there a conceptual string that ties the new work to the old?

Tamsen Wojtanowski: The work I make has always been directly related to my personal worries and wants, and the shift towards abstraction had partly to do with moving away from a few different core friend groups. My life and work were inseparable during those early periods of film photography. I carried a camera everywhere and was always on my way somewhere, with somebody. But when I moved again to attend graduate school, I started working more in the studio instead of out on the streets. This was a time without a core group of friends, which necessitated finding a new way of working and communicating through my art.

My day-to-day was changing; life was less exciting. I was done going through puberty and had made it through my early twenties. First kisses, late night adventures, and long lazy afternoons turned into a mind full of financial due dates and anxieties about home-ownership and job placement. I cared nothing about making images about these topics. I want my work to take me away or at least act as a way to carve out static time where I can detach from all that worries me.

Diva Cup, 2016. Toned Cyanotype. 11" x 15"

OPP: How do your most recent works function as “autobiographical images with an interest in our natural human disposition of storytelling?”

TW: I consider these more recent, more abstract works as personal fictions. Like my relatives who live down South might say, “I’m praying on it.” My most recent works use handmade, paper negatives. It’s an intricate, more drawn-out process from start to finish. I think of this process— from initial idea to under drawing, from cutting to exposure to final print—as similar to the creation of a mandala or working one’s way through a set of rosary beads. The time I spend with these processes are my prayers. I set a framework and a cadence, I focus and repeat.

Embedded in these images are my wants, my worries and my love. They are a physical embodiment of what I need to get off my chest. They are mark-making as a way to vent frustrations, ask questions or focus on wants in a meditative way. The act of creating these prints helps me focus and lends spiritual guidance. I have always depended on art-making to keep me upright. It’s how I am able to move through the day and deal with stress. Art-making is also a means to enjoy the world and celebrate the beauty and stories that surround us.

Salvaged (Power Company), 2015. Cyanotype. 15" x 20"

OPP: When did cyanotype first enter your photographic toolkit?

TW: Cyanotype dates back to 1842. It predates the invention of the camera or film, but not the human desire to capture what we see and somehow keep it. Cyanotype uses a hand-applied, light-sensitive emulsion to create photographic images. It can be used to create images on natural materials like paper, fabric, wood, but synthetics will not accept the chemical. For the creative and patient artist, the possibilities of what one might sensitize could be endless. The emulsion uses UV rays to expose the image and cool running water to develop it. I first became aware of the process in an elective I took as an undergraduate student. At that time, I had a common reaction. . . why make a blue photograph? It didn’t reflect the world we live in, and I didn’t think it had the onus of a B&W image, so why use it?

I came across the process again in my graduate studies under Martha Madigan, an artist well-known for her use of alternative and historical photographic processes. Her love and dedication to these processes was contagious. It was great timing because the world of photography was becoming more and more digital, and I had a very hard time connecting with that way of working. I began questioning what a photograph was and what it’s role in society was. I grew less interested in the truth or in documentation.

Lawn Art, 2016. Cyanotype from Handmade Negative. 18" x 24"

OPP: What makes cyanotype stand out from digital or film photography from a process point of view?

TW: I found delight in shaking up those given expectations that the camera would make the image, there would be a digital file or a negative, and the final product would be a rectangular photographic image on paper or in a book. These were replaced with new vocabulary. There wasn’t a camera, there was an “image-making device.” No more negative, now we had an “image matrix.” A print sure, but not necessarily on paper; it would lie on the “image support “of my choosing.

It was some time before the process worked its way firmly into my studio practice. It wasn’t really until after I was given the chance to teach a course in alternative photographic processes at area colleges that I really got in deep and started to consider all the possibilities and opportunities of the process. The chemicals used to create the emulsion are inexpensive and stable, so they last a long time. The whole process is hands-on and forgiving. I don’t need any special tools or environments. I just need the sun and a hose or a sink. I can work as much as I want without sacrificing too much in the way of finances. . . which is really important as I make my way in the world while paying off graduate student loans.

AND. REPEAT. 2016. Toned Cyanotype. 11" x 15"

OPP: How has your use of this process evolved over the years?

TW: I have moved through many different ways of producing the image. Using materials to create photograms of found materials, creating collages with multiple prints, using ortho-litho and digital negatives, toning prints, painting on prints, and finally, for the time being anyway, creating images using handmade negatives created with cut paper. I have also started to experiment with multiple exposures, creating layers of information and further abstraction.

I’m inspired by an interview I read with Robin Hill, who also works with cyanotype. She talks about the idea that the camera sees the world as we do. We see the light bouncing off of subjects, we see them as one thing. The cyanotype sees the light that falls around the subject or pushes through the subject. Hill talks about this as being able to “see the potential of an object.” I love that idea. The idea that things are not fixed, stuck as they are, but underneath all of these different surfaces there is potential, like a lifeline, things can always be different.

Interior, 2016. Cyanotype from Handmade Negative. 18" x 24"

OPP: How is that distinctive blue both a blessing and a curse?

TW: You have to love the blue or at least train your eye to ignore it, while still keeping it in mind because the question will always be asked. . . why blue? It can become an instant wall for some viewers. The process is viewed as old, outdated, fixed in many minds as a certain thing that can’t be anything else. So the process can distract from seeing the image. People think they know what to expect, so they don’t really look.

I have come to love the blue because it gives the process and resulting images a sense of play. It’s a bright blue like the sky or a body of water; it’s the blue of daydreaming and deep thought. And it's not a blue you are necessarily stuck with. The cyanotype process is very accepting of different toning techniques. Using a weak bleach to activate the emulsion and various household products, the cyanotype can be toned and the blue shifted to a variety of warm and cool browns or deep blue-blacks.

The blue is detached from a realistic recreation of a subject via photographic image. Like B&W darkroom photography, it is a way of working in tones, and I have trained my eye and mind to see in tones. My heart lies in abstraction and fantasy. I have never been too interested in reality. Even with a B&W image there is a level of abstraction; the world is not B&W.

Tig Bitties, 2016. Toned Cyanotype. 11" x 15"

OPP: I see a new humor in recent works like Jay’s Mustache, Tig Bitties and Say Anything that didn’t seem to be present before. Is this an intentional shift in tone?

TW: After graduate school, I got stuck. I created expectations for myself that my work would be at least “x” in size, at least “x” complicated in process or technique, at least “x” clean or professional looking, and in that same vein - the language I was using, or the content, must remain “x” sophisticated, sterile, cold, thinking but not feeling. Certain topics were off-limits. I was worried about seeming too nostalgic or romantic, convinced these were scarlet letters and meant certain death for an artist. Unconsciously, I was limiting myself, thinking things had to be a certain way to be taken seriously. It took a lot of time and making to realize it. It also took getting a lot of rejection letters and not being offered the opportunities I thought I deserved. I wasn’t aware that I was doing this to myself. . . until I was.

Someday, 2016. Toned Cyanotype. 11" x 15"

OPP: So humor became a new possibility? What led to the introduction of text in pieces like One Thousand Percent and Someday?

TW: Winter 2015, my worldview hit a tipping point and boiled over just before the start of this last election cycle, where we are now. It seems the whole world has turned upside-down and all the farfetched, forgotten and crazy beliefs from every back alley, basement and overgrown field are being said out loud, written about in the headlines and on our t-shirts and lawn signs.

All of this, the personal and public turmoil, has made it’s way into my work in the form of humor because I didn’t know what to do with my anger or my sense of hopelessness. Feeling totally overwhelmed with all the negativity and bullshit and defeat, all I could muster was joke. And if not for that, then nothing at all. Luckily I am not one to give up, though I was close.

What they say is true: once you see behind the veil—like that moment of seeing the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz—nothing matters anymore. The old rules and expectations can’t touch you; they can’t hold you down. You are free. You are free to say and do and make whatever you want. You still have to have integrity though, so you still have to work hard, often and a lot. Unbound and ungagged, in my own small way, the text is a tool for being more direct with my work.

Our House, 2016. Cyanotype from Handmade Negative. 18" x 24"

OPP: What about the work for your upcoming solo show Daydreaming of Us? This work has a more romantic tone. It seems to be about nesting, settling down and making home. How does it relate to the SHITEATER work?

TW: So, I am currently pursuing two bodies of work in my studio practice. . . the one being SHITEATER, the other being Daydreaming About Us. Together they’ve become kind of yin and yang or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ways of working for me. The series SHITEATER is made up of reactive work. Impulses I have concerning current events and social phenomena. Work that I view as very much part of the conversation, existing in response to the real world. Daydreaming About Us is the opposite. It’s where I get to hide away, lick my wounds, imagine something different for my family and I, settling us down in an idyllic, self-sufficient, overgrown, homemade, landscape.

SHITEATER purges, while with Daydreaming About Us, I binge. I feed my emotional self. I fill up on good thoughts and sweet daydreams. Daydreaming About Us definitely lives in and comes from a more romantic space, though I wouldn’t call it more intimate than the SHITEATER pieces. Wants and worries are equally as hard to communicate, to say out loud. Daydreaming About Us voices my wants; SHITEATER voices my worries. 

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, and was a 2011-2012 Artist-in-Residence at BOLT in Chicago. Her solo exhibitions include I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For (2013) at Klemm Gallery, Siena Heights University (Adrian, Michigan), Everything You Need is Already Here (2014) at Heaven Gallery (Chicago) and When Things Fall Apart, in the Annex Gallery at Lillstreet Art Center (Chicago). Stacia created site-responsive installations for two-person show Form Unbound (2015) at Dominican University's O’Connor Art Gallery (River Forest, IL) and SENTIENCE (2016) at The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art. Her work was recently included in SHOWROOM, curated by Edra Soto, at the Chicago Artists’ Coalition. Stacia is currently preparing for a two-person show with Brent Fogt at Riverside Art Center (Riverside, Illinois) and a solo show at Indianapolis Arts Center in Indiana.