OtherPeoplesPixels Blog

La Balena (2017) Fiberglass reinforced plaster, wicker, paint. 19.75 x 11.5 x 16.375

JED MORFIT deconstructs and reconstructs—sometimes literally—classical sculptural forms like the bust and the bas relief. With an extensive tool belt that ranges from age-old mold-making techniques to 3D-printing and laser-cutting, he explores the changing expressions of fashion alongside the universal impulse to adorn oneself. The titles of recent works hint at the relationship between evolution in nature (e.g. Gills: Grow a Pair) and in culture (e.g. Deepfake National Monument). Jed received his MFA in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design. He was a Fellow at the Center For Emerging Visual Artists from 2007-2009 and received a New Jersey Council On the Arts Fellowship in 2009. His numerous awards include the Louise Kahn Award for Sculpture (2006) and the Dexter Jones Award from the National Sculpture Society (2011 and 2012). You can virtually view his 2020 solo exhibition Adapting to Change at Paradigm Gallery here. His work will be included in Paste and Cut: Contemporary Sculpture in Plaster, which opens August 31, 2021 at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art in Laurel, Mississippi. Jed lives and works in New Jersey.

OtherPeoplesPixels: A recurring form in your work is the bust. Older works—Vane (Natal Plums)(2017) or The Oyster (2017), for example—appear to be based on real living people. Is that the case?

Jed Morfit: I am a professor of sculpture at Stockton University, and my teaching practice has always had a big impact on my personal work. I assign projects I am interested in, and inevitably end up wanting to participate in the process. Around 2016, I had a class of upper level students create self portraits. In the process of helping them, I spent a lot of time staring at their faces in the unique way you do when you are creating a portrait. Anemone, The Oyster, and La Balena are all modeled on students from that class. 

At the time, I was interested in contemporary fashion’s relationship to sculpture and imagining how busts—which always reflect the fashion of their time—might look in fashions inspired by artists like Alexander McQueen, Philip Treacy, or John Galliano.

Anemone (2017) Fiberglass reinforced plaster, zip ties, paint. 22.5 x 11.5 x 9.75

OPP: In your most recent work, the busts look like modified neoclassical sculptures. What led to the shift in subject matter?

JM: While I was happy with this series, I ended up feeling like I had not pushed the relationship between the figures and the fashion far enough. The figures in that series were almost like mannequins, modeling imagined “fashion” that could, theoretically, be worn. That felt a little timid to me. These are sculptures, not people. Why not let the “fashion” go beyond skin deep? 

Thinking it over, I realized that I was too invested in my relationship to the subject and quality of the likeness to make real change. In my recent work, I attempted to mediate these attachments by restricting myself to working with 3D scans I could find online. Working digitally with “found” source material made it possible for me to maintain some emotional distance, to start modifying the form at the start of the process, and to make more dramatic changes to the figure along the way.

Paved With Good Intentions (2012) Urethane plastic, wood, nails, paint. 61 x 42 x 5"

OPP: You mixed contemporary and art historical imagery in earlier bas relief sculptures like You Wish and Paved With Good Intentions, both from 2012. Could you pick one of these all-over compositions and tell us about the imagery you’ve juxtaposed?

JM: I wish I could say there was a coherent rationale behind the imagery for this work, but if there was a logic behind those decisions, it was largely hidden from me. I knew I would need a lot of material to make this project work, and time is always a factor, so I couldn’t really allow myself to overthink the imagery (always a danger for me). My memory of this process mostly involves rolling out little slabs of Super Sculpey and free associating. 

Paved With Good Intentions is probably the piece from this series that makes the clearest reference to art history: the giant figures striding across the landscape are based on the central figure in Brughel’s Dulle Griet. At the time, I was a junior faculty member, perennially worried about tenure, with two small children and a house in the suburbs. I spent a lot of time feeling overwhelmed and anxious, and trying (in vain) to get some distance from the chaos of my daily life. I can’t remember exactly what inspired me to include Mad Meg in this series, but she looks like the kind of desperate, harried, and opportunistic scavenger I could relate to at that moment. 

Parting Lines (2020) Plaster, paint, yarn, adhesive. 23 x 14 x 37.75”

OPP: What materials do you return to again and again and why? 

JM: I am currently pulling together work for an exhibition at the Laurel Rogers Museum of Art organized around plaster, and I suppose if there is a material I return to again and again, that would be it. It’s such a generous and versatile material, and I really appreciate how humble it is. It’s strong, and it has definitely played a role in the history of the genre, but it’s not bronze, or marble. It’s not a good material for anyone who intends to make a statement across millennia, and that’s fine with me.

Deepfake National Monument (2020). 32" x 11" x 27”

OPP: Adapting to Change (2020), your recent show at Paradigm Gallery in Philadelphia, includes some shifts in terms of process and form, correct?

JM: Adapting To Change represented a huge change for me, and I’m still trying to process what it meant, or how to think about it going forward. I wanted that body of work to throw everything I knew into question—and it did—but it was hard. It’s probably not surprising, but making big shifts to the way you think is confusing and uncomfortable.  

Material diagram for The Good Sister (2020) Sculptamold, plaster, urethane foam, thermoplastic, wood, metal. 9.5 x 11.25 x 25”

OPP: How do these shifts relate to the content of the work?

JM: This body of work emerged from the desire to incorporate digital technology in a way that felt authentic and integral to the process. At the time I felt (and still feel) like most sculptures involving digital tools looked as though fabrication was the last step—the equivalent of hitting the “print” button. I wanted to make work that was informed by this technology at every step of the process. 

For example, The Good Sister started with a scan I found online and modified using 3D modeling software. The shape of the armature was extracted from the final 3D model, and a CNC router was used to cut it out of thin sheets of insulating foam. The face was 3D printed, then molded, finally and cast in tinted plaster. The armature was covered in a plaster-based material, modeled by hand, and then carved and sanded to reveal the underlying structure. The red “mask” is  actually 3D printer filament, anchored to the form by laser cut guides. 

Learning these new techniques and working out they might interact and influence one another made for a very slow, very challenging process, and ended up reflecting the larger theme of the show which was, (as the title suggests) about the difficulties of adapting to change.

Gills: Grow A Pair (2020) Plaster, paint, paper, beads, urethane foam, thermoplastic, wire, glue. 11 x 11 x 33.5”

OPP: The addition of bright colors and embellishments made me think of the relatively recent art-historical revelation that classical sculpture from antiquity was not originally as marble-white as neoclassicists thought. Is this body of work a response to this discovery?

JM: While I would say that seeing the Like Life exhibition at the Met Breuer in 2018 had a profound impact on me, I would have to say I was less influenced by the chromatic history of sculpture than I was by the sculptural qualities of fashion. Since color is such an important aspect of fashion, it felt important to incorporate it into this series. 

What really made a dramatic difference were a couple of studio visits with friends to look at what I thought was finished work. They encouraged me to think about the qualities of color inherent to material, rather than simply painted surfaces. Those conversations fundamentally changed the way I thought about the work and probably added a year to the process. 

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 Associate Professor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she 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), Indianapolis Art Center (Indianapolis, 2017), Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery (Palos Hills, Illinois 2018), Kent State Stark (North Canton, 2019), and Finlandia University (Hancock, Michigan 2020). Stacia is one of three 2021 Artists-in-Residence at Zócalo Apartments (Houston, TX). Follow her  @staciayeapanis to see what happens  @zocalo_air.

Get Messy (2018) Mop Cotton, Fabric Paint, Pine Frame. 21" x 44.5" x 2.5"

Informed by the history of abstraction in Painting, LAUREN SALAZAR turned to weaving as a method to create her own canvases and to explore the sculpture aspects of paintings. She is more driven by the raw material of canvas and frame than by image. But color, line and negative space still play starring role in both her framed works and her site-responsive installations. Lauren earned her BFA with a Painting Concentration from University of North Carolina at Greensboro and her MFA in Studio Art from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 2019, she was a Visiting Artist at the Textiles Department at Kent State University (Ohio) and was featured in the Emerging Voices section of Surface Design Magazine (Vol 42 Number 2). Her work was included in the group show Nuestras Realidad (2019) at Hooks Epstein Galleries (Houston), where she previously had two solo exhibitions: Ties That Bind (2018) and Togetherness Undone (2016). Lauren lives and works in Davidson, North Carolina.

I'll Braid (2018) Mop Cotton, Fabric Paint, Pine Frame. 38.5" x 23.5" x 2.5"

OtherPeoplesPixels: Your work can be discussed in relation to the disciplines of Weaving, Painting or Sculpture but each of these fields has different history of abstraction. Is one of those fields more influential in your history as an artist?

Lauren Salazar:  Painting is the traditional fine art medium that has had the largest impact on my development and thought-process as an artist. I was a painting major when earning my BFA from the University of North Carolina Greensboro. I was drawn most strongly to abstract paintings, specifically those that acknowledge the grid. I found such inspiration in the confident and innovative formal decisions made be greats like Agnes Martin, Richard Diebenkorn, Eva Hessa, Richard Ryman and Frank Stella. Their works have a reverence for material usually explored through repeated and often meticulous formal decisions.  

I quickly realized when making my own paintings that I am most drawn to the sculptural and woven aspects of painting. The frame is three-dimensional, something to be explored within and around. I use painting canvas as subject and line. Through weaving, I have the ability to incorporate hue and texture. I began and continue to make work that relates to the elements of abstract painting that I love through the use of woven and sculptural explorations.     

Innards (2017) Mop Cotton, Thread, Fabric Paint, Pine Frame. 22.5" x 22.5" x 2.5"

OPP: The most important distinction for me between painting and weaving is that the painted image—whether abstract or representational—sits on the surface, whereas the woven image is the surface. Your Thoughts?

LS: I had a professor in undergrad tell me that it wasn’t enough to just make a frame and prime a canvas, that I needed to paint something on it. And every time I did paint on one of my stretched canvases, I thought “I liked it better before.”  Not that I don’t like “the hand” in art work, quite the contrary in fact. I just have such an affection for raw material; I didn’t want to paint an image on top of the material beauty that was this primed and stretched canvas. When I started working with fiber, it felt like a way to get closer to the piece than I could with paint. Weaving became a way to physically build my own canvas.  

So yes, weaving as surface and subject in one is an idea that I wholeheartedly embrace, including the historical and personal relationship I have with weaving as an art form unto itself. Weaving as abstraction and as a gridded system that forms a strong design and cloth. Weaving as historically women’s work. Weaving as something my Aunts and Great Grandmothers did in their spare time, an act that they thought little of, that even perhaps, little was thought of. I embrace it all, accept it all, and hopefully celebrate it and its complexities in my work.  

Umbilical (2019) Cottolin, Cotton Twine, Mason Line, Pine Frame, Spray Paint. 24” x 23” x 2.5”

OPP: How do your framed works both respect and subvert the rectangle?

LS: It is my hope that my works first and foremost acknowledge the rectangle, the traditional frame, as an integral part of paintings. Many paintings simply use a frame as structural support for a painting on top.  But I love an empty frame. I think the wood, its strength, simplicity, physical depth is something to be seen, delved into, dealt with. What does the side of a painting look like, the inside, the bottom and top?  How is it attached to the frame? Frame can and should interact with the other formal decisions made in a piece. My pieces exist and are derived solely from the dimensions of the frame they inhabit. Even when my weavings spill out of a frame, it is still the frame to which they are attached. I don’t think frame or weaving, stretcher or canvas take precedence in my work. I more hope to reveal their utter codependence on one another.

Relation (2021) Cotton, Cottolin, Linen, Pine Frame, Spray Paint, Copper Nails. 43” x 36” x 2.5”

OPP: How much of your process is play and how much is plan?  Tell us a bit about how an individual work evolves.

LS: It is a lot of planning, it is tedious and repetitive.  For anyone who has ever wound a warp, dressed a loom, followed a draft. . . there is a lot of planning and precision to be had.  But I can honestly say that as clearly as I can imagine any work of mine turning out, never has one actually ended up the way I initially envisioned it would, and therein lies the play.  

All of my pieces start with the frame. Even in the installations, the room or space acts as the frame. I then have the dimensions I need to work within and can decide the size and type of weaving I want to inhabit that space. Sometimes I want the weaving to be larger than the frame with the ability to wrap around it or hang over it. Other times I make smaller weavings that interact with other weavings running in different directions. Sometimes I leave both warp and weft threads unbound, so that I can then install these loose-hanging threads within the frame or room in a variety of ways. 

Heaven Couldn't Wait IV You (2016) Handwoven Cotton, Maple Frame, Paint. 35" x 35" x 2"

I typically choose simple weaving patterns—traditional ones like tabby, lace, twills, overshot—that you can often see in many household textiles. And I use an assortment of fibers from Swedish cottolin, to hardware twine, to butchers twine, to wool, typically with a stronger focus on hue and texture than on the type of fiber itself.  

Once the weavings are woven/canvases finished, I then figure out how to best bring them to life on the frame. I drill holes, manipulate the wood and thread the many, many loose weaving ends in order to attach the weavings to the frames. This is how the weavings exist on all sides and locations of the work. This tedious process is a constant grind, but throughout I find myself tweaking my initial idea for a piece—changing colors, changing layout, turning over, undoing and redoing. So while weaving as a practice is incredibly planned, I certainly find room in all of my work for play, failure and surprises.  

No More I Love Yous (2013) Cottolin. Dimensions Variable.

OPP: You mentioned the installations. What do they do that the small, framed works can’t and vice versa?

LS: The installations are more of an homage to weaving whereas the framed pieces fall easier into a painting dialogue. In a large space, it is easy to convey the complexities, beauty and strength I find in even the simplest of weavings. I take a modest, everyday weaving, the size of a dishcloth or smaller, and I leave many yards of unwoven warp threads loose to be installed in large, tall and overarching spaces. The pieces reveal that even in small cloths, there are hundreds of threads. There is work, effort, design, artistry. Look at the magic within this practice, within this craft, amongst the women who traditionally have woven. The process of the installations requires a lot of planning, a lot of thread, a quick weave, and then a couple of sleepless days to install. Thread by thread, I walk each one across the span of the room from weaving to wall to create installations that are bigger than the viewer. For example, [insert title and year] was a 15 foot arch made of thread that viewers could stand beneath and look up at. In the installations, the viewers can exist within the frame, whereas  the framed pieces which are viewed more traditionally from the outside.   

To see more of Lauren's work, please visit www.laurenlsalazar.com.

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 Associate Professor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she 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), Indianapolis Art Center (Indianapolis, 2017), Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery (Palos Hills, Illinois 2018), Kent State Stark (North Canton, 2019), and Finlandia University (Hancock, Michigan 2020). Stacia is one of three 2021 Artists-in-Residence at Zócalo Apartments (Houston, TX). Follow her  @staciayeapanis to see what happens  @zocalo_air.

Closed Beginning Opens the End (2018) Materials: eggshells, rice paper, milk paint, epoxy resin, mirror. Detail.

MAMI KATO makes elegant, material-driven sculptures with egg shells, fabric and rice stalk. Some works are architectural in scale, while others can be held in two hands. Whatever the scale, Mami's craftsmanship and responsiveness to her materials is impeccable. Mami has a BFA in Painting from Musashino University of Arts (Tokyo, Japan) and a BFA in Sculpture from Philadelphia College of the Arts (Philadelphia, PA, USA). Her work is included in the public collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Wu Tung Art Museum in Shanghai, China. Her recent three-person exhibition Over Time (2020-2021) just closed at Wexler Gallery in New York. But you can see a virtual version of the show at Artsy. Mami lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. 

OPP: Do you have a favorite piece by another artist? How has this piece or this artist influenced you and the way you think about your own work?

MK: I would say that my favorite piece by another artist is Iso-Daich (which means “Phase-Mother Earth” in Japanese) by the artist Sekine, Nobuo. This work is the most famous piece from Mono-ha, which is the art movement in 1960s Japan.

I only saw this piece in a picture in some art magazine when I was living in my rural hometown in Japan. During that time I was hoping to proceed my art making practice and I was still very young and needing some guidance, but I couldn’t find any artwork/artist that I could admire around me. There was, of course, no internet, and I was surrounded by very traditional or unoriginal modern style art. When I saw the picture of this piece, I thought “This is it.” This piece gave me the hope and direction I needed at that time.

Ascending Filament (2014) jute fiber. dimensions variable.

OPP: What is your favorite piece of your own work?

MK: I don’t have only one piece that stands out as my favorite, but I would say, at this time, I’m excited about Ascending Filament and my works made of eggshells

I feel that Ascending Filament is unfinished work, which gives me inspiration as to what I would do with it. It is made of teased rope fibers, so it’s very light weight, as you can imagine. This fluffed up thread can be fit in various forms of spaces and squished down when you move or store it and you can fluff it back up when you use it. It still needs some improvement to get right (texture, color and etc) for me, but because of this flexibility and logistical benefit, I feel that it will open up options to make a different group of work from others of mine.

How Not to Be Small and Silent (2017) Installation view. 

SABA KHAN's multimedia work traffics in the language of memorial, monument and public art. From lush beaded paintings of cakes to miniature dioramas of a bureaucrat's boring office; from flashing LED signs of stereotyped "Islamic Art" to embellished textile banners honoring the mundane generator, she balances grandeur, artifice and satire in order to explore the cracks in the facade of life in her native Lahore, Pakistan. Saba holds a BFA from National College of Arts, Lahore and an MFA from Boston University, on Fulbright Scholarship. Her work was included in the 2018 Karachi Biennale and the 2020 Lahore Biennale. Her solo exhibitions include ONE (2019) at Contemporary and Modern Art Museum and Making a Contemporary Landscape (2018) at O Art Space. In 2014, she founded Murree Museum Artist Residency, an artist-led initiative in a British colonial hill-station, and in 2020 the satirical artist collective Pak Khawateen Painting Club was born. Saba lives in Lahore, Pakistan. 

OtherPeoplesPixels: Tell us briefly about your artistic path. Have you always been an artist?

Saba Khan: I think it is hard to say when one turns into an artist. It is usually declared by others, a title that one earns over time and with experience. 

I continued producing work after my undergrad. In Pakistan we are art educators during the day and artists by night. It is understood that most of us artists would pursue jobs in academia, where art colleges—rather than art galleries or art districts— become centers of contact and spark development of ideas and networks. However, teaching takes away a large chunk of the day and also slows down one’s practice. But both have been hand in hand throughout my career.

Big Halal Dreams (2017)

OPP: Satire and simulation are dominant strategies in your work. Tell us why? How do you use these strategies aid your conceptual agenda?

SK: Living in Pakistan is living amidst chaos. Although an outsider may view it as a monolithic, conservative, Muslim country but it is more complex and varied. With a 4000-year-old culture, while also being a young country, it intertwines and weaves many rituals, traditions and contradictions. Each day is a lived experience of navigating into the city, which is broken up into medieval, colonial, modern and new-town sections, as a time traveler through Lahore’s maze of concrete with patches of old trees and greenery. 

The country also has stark contrasts between the rich and poor. These strange experiences, interesting yet frustrating, are sometimes best translated into satirical imagery with tongue in cheek humor, rather than being didactic and self-righteous in ones’ work. 

Contemporary Islamic Art (2017) LED lights on flex print with gilded frame. 36 x 24 in

OPP: How do you use beads, crystals and flashing lights to emphasize un-flashy truths? I’m thinking about Contemporary Islamic Art (2017) and The Generator Series (2010), among others.

SK: My work took a significant turn once I came back from a two-year Master’s stint in Boston. I came back to materials which I missed and did not have access to in the USA. We have large complexes of bazaars that are a dizzying labyrinth of shops of artisans who are practicing their craft for a variety of clients. They range from electricians working on custom made LED signboards to embroiderers embellishing wedding outfits. I missed the qualities of the hand-made in the products of the west. The slight errors and unexpected malfunctions or the misread drawings/ instructions become part of the work.

Contemporary Islamic Art, a buzzing, flashy LED sign, was a commentary on the hype—or buzz—of what western art dealers would call ‘traditional’ or ’meditative’ art from the middle east and south Asia. These tropes, circulating out of context, are used to attract and sell the exoticized and faux images of art from this part of the world. Without any knowledge or research, these works are distributed in art markets as oriental pieces of fetishized ornaments.

The generator series was made on the types of generators observed around the city that were used as an alternate to frequent power cuts. During the time these tapestries were made, we were experiencing up to 18 hours without electricity from the grid. The commercial neighborhood I lived in would light up with a cacophony of generators emitting noise greater than the prescribed range in industrial zones, with smoke incessantly puffing out. Now with solar power and better government arrangements, things are not as bad.

More Prosperity (2010) Thread and buttons on fabric. 60" x 58"

OPP: Could you translate the Urdu text that hangs on the wall, highlighted by those luxurious drapes in Monuments and other Follies (2019)? 

SK: The text says: 

“Friendly Residentia Authority 

Undertaking development Inauguration 

By The Honorable Hands Of The Eminent Connoisseur 

Madam Saba Khan”

Monument and Other Follies (2019) Installation shot.

OPP: What drew you to the form of the plaque with curtains?

SK: There are hundreds of plaques around the city erected on footpaths and intersections, commemorating road constructions by local politicians. Plaques with curtains being drawn open is a regular site on the news with politicians opening mega projects or private housing schemes. The ceremonies are almost comical, because they are a repeat performance with different actors every time launching white elephant projects. Strongest commodities are the private housing schemes which are an answer to the government’s problem to housing. Large chunks of agricultural land are sanctioned over ‘for the public good’ and turned into plotted, pieces of private land by real estate tycoons, many of them falter or turn out to be fraudulent leaving behind hundreds of disgruntled and deceived civilians that fall into litigation suits for decades.

I went to a colonial bazaar to get this curtain made because I was told there was a curtain shop that specializes in ceremonial drawstring curtains. The young man helped me with the design, dimensions and also picked the official color.

Monuments and Other Follies (2019) Installation shot.

OPP: What are you choosing to memorialize/monumentalize in this body of work?

SK: The series of files in the project mimic government files; thick, rough, recycled cardboard with papers stuffed inside and tied together with a shoe-string. There are numerous monuments and decorative structures in every town commemorating unknown heroes and events or are a way to ‘beautify’ city corners. The low budget reliefs of dead men look like caricatures making the events even more unworthy of remembering. My fictional bureau for the project proposes monument-making for major, yet embarrassing historical events.

Other than the files, I constructed one monument in MDF with faux marble pattern painted on top, mimicking actual monuments that use ceramic tiles with faux marble pattern. A large folly, two adjoining staircases leading to nowhere. 

Monument for an Undecided Event (2019)

OPP: Tell us about Pak Khawateen Painting Club, a satirical collective of female artists. There doesn’t seem to be any painting in your recent exhibition of the same name.

SK: We don’t particularly paint. Instead we subvert the notion of a female artist by building large machines which don’t produce anything but generate information on power, electricity and water. 

Painting has always been a past time for upper middle-class women. In the pre-Partition era (before Pakistan separated with India), established artists would setup studios and teach women painting on the side as a means of a steady income. The stereotypical image of the ‘woman artist’ has been embedded in the collective psyche as an upper middle-class housewife painting on an easel inside her drawing room. Painting is seen as a hobby particularly for women as a pastime that doubles as a means to help decorate the walls of her husband’s home.

Pak is a short for Pakistan and also means pure (as women should be). These not so pure women of our collective, venture out into expeditions—women traveling without male chaperons is considered unsafe—entering into spaces where men make decisions for the nation on water and power. 

Pak Khawateen Painting Club: Indus Water Machines. New commission: Between the Sun and the Moon, Lahore Biennale 02, 2020

OPP: Alongside your active studio practice, you also founded the Murree Museum Artist Residency. Tell us about the residency and its location. How has the pandemic impacted the residency?

To see more of Saba's work, please visit www.sabakhan.com.

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 Associate Professor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she 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), Indianapolis Art Center (Indianapolis, 2017), Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery (Palos Hills, Illinois 2018), Kent State Stark (North Canton, 2019), and Finlandia University (Hancock, Michigan 2020).

PBR and Coke (2018) Red clay, colored underglaze. L18"x W13"x H20"

JESSICA BRANDL's narrative ceramic works use the landscape of the American Midwest as a backdrop. Animated skeletons lounge on abandoned sofas and drink from crushed beer cans while farm houses burn. Her hand-built vessels and commemorative plates act as contemporary memento moris, while referring to the dark underbelly of American history. Jessica earned her BFA in Ceramics and Art History at Kansas City Art Institute and her MFA at Ohio State University (Columbus, OH). She was the 2018-2019 Taunt Fellow and the 2019-2020 Joan Lincoln Fellow at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts (Helena, MT). Jessica won the 2017 Zanesville Prize for Contemporary Ceramics and was a 2015 McKnight Fellow at Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, MN. Notable exhibitions include her solo show Hazard (2018) at  Belger Crane Yard Gallery in Kansas City, MO and the Unconventional Clay: Engaged in Change, the NCECA Invitational at Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, MO). In 2014, he created 500 plates for Salad Days, the Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts fundraising celebration (Newcastle, ME). Jessica lives and works in Helena, Montana.

To see more of Jessica's work, please visit jessicabrandl.com and follow her on Instagram @jessicabrandl.

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 Associate Professor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she 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), Indianapolis Art Center (Indianapolis, 2017), Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery (Palos Hills, Illinois 2018), Kent State Stark (North Canton, 2019), and Finlandia University (Hancock, Michigan 2020).

It Means Desert, Desert (2020). Installation view. Photo credit: Vivian Doering

JACKIE MILAD thinks of her layered, mixed media works as time-based art. She employs layering as a strategy to protect, hide and transform recurring symbols like eye, snake, brick wall, and breast. She cuts and draws and paints and sews, cannibalizing previously-exhibited works to make new works. A part of one piece becomes the beginning of another. This ongoing, ever-evolving process of creation refuses the notion of artworks as static, archival objects. Jackie earned her BFA at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts and her MFA from Towson University. In 2019, she was named a Janet & Walter Sondheim Prize Finalist and a Robert W. Deutsch Foundation Ruby Grantee. Recent solo exhibitions include: Chaos Comes and Goes (2019) at C. Grimaldis Gallery (Baltimore), Portate Bien (2020) at Langer Over Dickie (Chicago) and It Means Desert, Desert (2020) at Julio Fine Arts Gallery (Loyola University, Maryland). Only three days left to see her work in Re-Materialize at Arthur Ross Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia). It closes on December 20, 2020. Jackie lives and works in Baltimore City, Maryland.

OtherPeoplesPixels: When I say the word layers, where does your mind go?

Jackie Milad: History. Ancestors. Information. Hidden. Protected. Removable or changeable.

Nope, No Way (2019) Mixed Media Collage on Paper. Photo credit: Vivian Doering

OPP: Who are your artistic ancestors? 

JM: It was during undergrad at SMFA where I was first introduced to Performance Art and was really inspired by the work of women performance artists of the 60s and 70s and in particular: Yoko Ono, Adrian Piper, Joan Joanas and Valie Export. It was their fearlessness and vulnerability I was drawn to and how they used their bodies to examine and critique the politics of othering and to deconstruct power structures such as white supremacy and patriarchy. Other influences include Howardena Pindell and Jack Whitten for their textural mixed media works and their processes. 

I love maximalist audio and visual experiences, it's hard to narrow it down because there is so much out there from mainstream pop culture to experimental work—however, my absolute favorite movie is Dario Argento's 1977 Suspiria, for its garish lighting and beautiful compositions. I also really love the synchronized dance sequences in Busby Berkley films of the 1930s for the extravagance of it all.

Chaos Eyes Redux (2020) Mixed media. 72" x 72"

OPP: You use recurring formal strategies like transparency, overlapping and reusing parts of old work to make new work. How do these serve your conceptual interests?

JM: Layering is a vital element in my work. Every layer shows a new choice; it’s a record of my decisions. History is a complicated thing; it is almost always told from the perspective of the dominant power. Showing the history of my hand is a way to tell my own story, my own history. I also dig back into the layers or cut and paste older works to reveal the past. My work is personal, and some of the layerings are meant to reveal and later protect or hide information. 

Additionally, I think a lot about how works of art are read. There is a general expectation that the work will be broken down into basic and understandable codes, whether by the artist themselves a writer, or by a curator. I like to defy this expectation by stacking layers, mixing up multiple signals, codes, and even languages. I rarely give it away. I want people to understand and accept that not everything has to be for them, not all symbols have to be revealed and explained—and sometimes it can be confusing and left a mystery.

The Flood Six - Hyena (2018) Acrylic, flashe, marker and collage on paper. 50" x 42"

OPP: Do you think of your mixed media collage works as representing some kind of space, be it physical, mental or social?

JM: I think of them as representing all of the above, or more accurately a record of time within the physical, mental, and social-political spaces. It takes time for me to layer the works, the pieces do not have an endpoint or finish point—they are more of an ongoing ever-changing, malleable record of my hand, my decisions, and of my observations of those things outside of my control. Ideally, in my studio, I am cutting from one piece to add to another in a fluid ongoing intuitive process. I compare them to doing performance art or time-based work.

OPP: How do you think about the works that you’ve sold or gifted in terms of being ongoing?

JM: Once the works leave my studio, they become out of reach or off-limits for obvious reasons. In a way, the objects become something else, they become more of a document or remnant of the performance/process. It would be amazing to one day collaborate with a collector to have work returned to my studio so that a piece could have another life yet again... and again and so on.

Yallah Sim Sim (2020) Video. 4 minutes.

OPP: You use a pastiche of found and created imagery in Yallah Sim Sim (2020), a digital animation with the feel of a sacred dance party. Many symbols have been accumulating meaning for most of human history—pyramid, eye, snake, tear drop—and you use them in a way that is completely idiosyncratic. Tell us about the combinations of images and sound in this work.

JM: I did this video in collaboration with my spouse, Tom Boram. We worked on this video after a research trip to my father’s homeland of Egypt in January. Going from ancient site to ancient site, and seeing a repetition of pharaonic symbols, but more importantly, the confluence of many cultures and epochs on one surface was very inspiring. The video recreates the experience of seeing the layers of Egyptian history competing with wayward touristic signs, a far-off Pizza Hut sign, or a booming car stereo playing mahraganat (Egyptian electronic dance music). This is really on point with what I’m getting at in my own 2D works In this video piece— information collapses onto itself in a chaotic pop kind of way. The writing is literally on the wall of tombs built for ancient pharaohs, turned Coptic monasteries, turned mosques, turned touristic sites. One fascinating architectural example is the pharaonic Luxor Temple which the Romans converted and renovated to be a church, and then later Arabs literally built a mosque (still in use) on top of the ruins of both the church and temple.

Untitled (2019) from Chaos Comes and Goes

OPP: Can you talk about the untitled golden necklaces works from 2019? The composition and palette in these predominately black works is so paired down compared to most of your recent work.

JM: This piece and the other work in this series were done as a counter to the larger collage works. I have several works in which I single out one pattern or theme. I like the idea that a viewer can get a very unfiltered view of a symbol that is repeated and layered throughout my larger dense pieces. I think of the series as a map key to the other work.

Quarantine One-a-Day Drawings (2020) 7" x 7." Photo credit: Vivian Doering

OPP: Tell us about your quarantine experience. It included making a drawing a day. How were these works generated by the early days of the pandemic.

JM: Ah, quarantine. Well, I live with my husband, two dogs, and my nine-year-old son. At the start of the lockdown with schools closing and our jobs going entirely online, there was no time or energy to work in the ways I did pre-Covid. Going to my studio seemed impossible, so to maintain momentum and some mental stability I cut up some small 7” square paper and started drawing, but of course, was regularly interrupted, so what I thought would be these quick simple sketches turned out to take all day to make. This slowing down of my process was important to do at the time. I needed to slow down and be okay with it. I’m not actively doing the quarantine drawings anymore, I’m back in my studio, but I do have plans to go back to making them at some point.    

Gold Bars (2020) Mixed Media Collage on Hand-Dyed Canvas.

OPP: What are you currently most excited about in your studio?

JM: These days in my studio, I've been using the time to think and experiment with materials. Just yesterday I cut up a canvas piece that I've shown in an exhibition recently and started to reconfigure it by sewing other remnants and painting over it with a palette of colors I rarely use. The pandemic and the general stress of this year have made it hard to be consistently productive, so I am taking small steps to find a way forward—and sometimes that means a dance break in my studio or lying on the floor for a different perspective. 

To see more of Jackie's work, please visit www.jackiemilad.com and follow her on Instagram @_jackie_milad_.

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 Associate Professor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she 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), Indianapolis Art Center (Indianapolis, 2017), Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery (Palos Hills, Illinois 2018), Kent State Stark (North Canton, 2019), and Finlandia University (Hancock, Michigan 2020).

ACTIVATE (Gay Liberation Front). White Line Woodcut with Toner Transfer. 14.5" x 20.5" (37 x 52.4 cm). Photo credit: Stephen Petegorsky

Printmaker ANNIE BISSETT explores the visual symbols and verbal cliches associated with various belief systems: from the religious to the political to the economic to the prophetic. Working primarily in moku hanga, she has tackled religious relics and spiritual cliche, the historical struggle for gay liberation and the idiomatic expressions associated with wealth and poverty in capitalist America. Annie's numerous solo exhibitions include: Playing with Fire (2018) at Oxbow Gallery (Northampton MA), Past/Present/Now (2016) at Charles Krause Reporting (Washington DC) and I Was a 20th Century Lesbian at Hosmer Gallery (Northampton MA.) Her work is in the permanent collections of notable institutions like New York Public Library, Boston Public Library, Portland Museum of Art, and Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College. You can purchase Annie's four self-published books here. Annie lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island.

Other Peoples Pixels: Can you explain moku hanga for the non-printmakers among us?

Annie Bissett: Moku hanga, which means “wood print,” is a centuries-old Japanese way of printing that uses waterborne pigments, brushes instead of rollers, and a hand-held printing device called a baren instead of a mechanical press. Woodblock printing was brought to Japan in the 8th century by Buddhists from China and was first used to reproduce religious texts. After a time colors began to be added by hand and then, as woodblock printing became the primary form of commercial printing in Japan, printers began to carve blocks for each color. Japanese woodblock prints, also called ukiyo-e, are known especially for their intense use of color. 

CLASS PICTURE. Japanese woodblock (mokuhanga). 14.5" x 20.5" (37 x 52.4 cm). Photo credit: Stephen Petegorsky

OPP: How long have you been using this method?

AB: In the early 2000s, after spending about 20 years working digitally as a commercial artist/illustrator, I found myself longing to make work for myself instead of clients and to work with my hands instead of on the computer. I tried painting and failed, tried collage but didn’t enjoy the search for source materials, and then I tried making drawings that I scanned and colored in Photoshop. That felt right, except that I was still at the computer. A friend noted that my drawings looked like Japanese woodblock prints and, serendipitously, I heard of a workshop being offered near my home by a New Hampshire printmaker named Matt Brown. I took that three-day workshop and fell in love with the method.

Selections from Secret Codewords of the NSA, each 6" x 6." Photo credit: Stephen Petegorsky

OPP: What keeps you returning to moku hanga? What do you love about the process?

AB: Although I’m a great admirer of Japanese art and aesthetics, I didn’t start working with moku hanga because of an interest traditional Japanese art. I took up moku hanga because it’s an artistic medium that is neither toxic nor messy, and it’s compact and portable enough to do on the side in my small home-based studio while I continue to serve my freelance digital commercial illustration clients. It’s also a beautiful method—wood, water, natural pigments, brushes, hand-held carving tools and handmade paper are the simple materials that make the method a pleasure to work with. And after my long career as a commercial artist working with four-color offset print technology, the transparent color overlays inherent in woodblock printing make intuitive sense to me.

Because the Japanese brought this art form to unimaginable heights of perfection, working with moku hanga can be a difficult burden to bear. Not many 21st-century western artists could hope to achieve the degree of perfection attained by the great 17th- and 18th-century ukiyo-e masters, but unfortunately that type of work is what many people think of when you say "Japanese woodblock.” I try to avoid this silent standard in people’s minds by calling what I do moku hanga or watercolor woodblock print—a term I especially like. Even though the method does come with a lot of cultural weight, I try to take the support of the beauty and elegance and history of the method without letting go of my own voice and my American concerns and identity. 

I LOVE YOU. Japanese woodblock (mokuhanga). 14.5" x 20.5" (37 x 52.4 cm). Photo credit: Stephen Petegorsky

OPP: What role does text play in your work?

AB: My major in college was English literature. That, plus my decades as an illustrator, where my job was essentially to read a document and then make pictures to go with it, predisposes me to work with words and text. 

Language is totally weird. It’s a mystery that we rarely treat with the awe and respect it deserves. If we were to spend just five minutes watching ourselves speak we would know this. Where do our words come from? Do we really know what we’re about to say before we say it, or do the ideas form simultaneously with the words? Are the movements of our tongue and lips conscious or unconscious? When I look at these questions I find language to be a strange fluid blending of conscious and unconscious, of mental and emotional, of controlled and uncontrollable. And I believe that we reveal ourselves and our innermost states in a brutally honest way through our speech.

MIXED FEELINGS (full set). Japanese Woodblock Print with transfer drawing. Each print is 12.5" x 19." Photo credit: Stephen Petegorsky

OPP: Printmaking—the origins of reproducibility of image and text—is the perfect media to address cliche. I’m thinking of the spiritual cliches on the banners from Relics (2016) and the economic cliches in Loaded (2012). Do you use cliche with sincerity or irony?

AB: To me, cliches appear to be ossified or “frozen” bits of language that we use either as shorthand or as meaningless filler in our speech. I guess the question I’m asking when I work with cliche is, what happens if you soften or “melt” a cliche? Does meaning return? Is there something to discover there? I think yes. 

So to answer your question, I’m 100% sincere in my use of cliches, although the results are often very humorous and/or full of irony, because people are funny.

A REAL FAKE: THIS IS NOT MUHAMMED. Watercolor woodblock print with gold mica, rubber stamp, and removable printed veil. Photo credit: Stephen Petegorsky

OPP: I also see a scholarly interest in the iconography and stories from all the major world spiritual traditions. Is this purely scholarly interest?

AB: I’ve always been a seeker—it seems to be a baked-in part of my personality. As a young child I was interested in my friends’ beliefs, religions and traditions and was invited to their churches, temples, mosques and celebrations. I was raised mainstream Protestant, I got “born again” in high school, and then, accompanied by a lot of pain, I lost my religion when I realized I was gay in my freshman year of college. But even in my post-Christianity period I continued to study various spiritual traditions, and I’ve practiced a number of them. 

Religion, as is true of all human constructs, can be a force for good or for evil. Religious power can easily be warped and manipulated to rationalize all manner of cruelty and bigotry. But at their best, the various religions are repositories of human wisdom, aspiration and spiritual technology that come to us from our ancestors, through centuries of history, and sometimes at great cost. I think there’s much of value to be found there.

DEFY (ACT UP). White Line Woodcut and Rubber Stamping. 14.5" x 20.5" (37 x 52.4 cm) Photo credit: Stephen Petegorsky

OPP: Tell us about the prints from the ongoing series I Was a 20th Century Lesbian that I’m reading as “flags” for various activist organizations that played a role in the history of gay liberation. Are these flag prints based on real flags from these groups?

AB: That group of prints, which I call Counterspells, uses a printmaking method called “white line woodcut” that was developed in the early 20th century in the gay mecca of Provincetown, Massachusetts. As in moku hanga, white line woodcut uses watercolor as ink, but instead of multiple blocks a single block (matrix) is incised with a line drawing and colors are painted by hand, one small area at a time. Although the matrix can be re-used, each white line print is a monoprint (one of a kind). 

Using the white line method allowed me to use a single matrix—a simple grid of equilateral triangles—for all the prints. I chose the triangle to reference the downward-pointing pink triangle that was sewn on the uniforms of imprisoned gay men and other sexual offenders in Nazi concentration camps. In the 1970s, the gay community reclaimed the pink triangle as an international symbol of gay pride.

Many of the gay liberation organizations I depicted were short lived, but they built on one another, so to use the same matrix for all of them let me express this in a tangible way. On the other hand, it was quite a limiting format, having to express the essence of each organization through this grid of triangles. I think you’re right that they do read as flags, but I invented them.

Selected images from Woodblock Dreams Tarot (in progress), 2018-2020. Photo credit: Stephen Petegorsky

OPP: What’s cooking in your studio right now?

AB: I’ve been working on a woodblock tarot deck for 2 years. For the four tarot suits (56 cards) I created woodblock backgrounds, textures, and illustrated elements which I then scanned and collaged in Photoshop. Thus, those digitally-collaged woodblock prints only exist digitally. There are 21 additional cards in the tarot called the Major Arcana, and I’m creating those as fully developed woodblock prints in very small editions (four of each). Each of those prints is scanned, reduced in size, and type is added digitally. For the sake of time, treasure and sanity, it’s the only way I could imagine making an affordable tarot deck that I could complete in my lifetime.The deck is called Woodblock Dreams Tarot, and I expect to have it ready for the printer by the spring 2021. It’s been a good project for the Time of COVID.

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 Associate Professor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she 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), Indianapolis Art Center (Indianapolis, 2017), Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery (Palos Hills, Illinois 2018), Kent State Stark (North Canton, 2019), and Finlandia University (Hancock, Michigan 2020).

The Maze (2019) Graphite, color pencil, watercolor, gouache on paper. 29 ½" x 41 ½"

Bodies become landscapes in the surreal drawings and prints of SZU-WEI HO. Braided hair weaves in between and around figures—human, animal and mannequin—engaged in fantastical and lively rituals. Szu-Wei earned her M.F.A. in Printmaking at Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, New York) after receiving her B.A. in English Language and Literature at the National Taiwan Normal University (Taipei, Taiwan). She has exhibited at International Print Center (Chelsea, NY), A.I.R. Gallery, (Dumbo, NY) and Gallery 456 at the Chinese American Arts Council (NY, NY), where she had two solo exhibitions in 2014 and 2019. Szu-Wei recently relocated to Taichung, Taiwan, where she and her husband are currently setting up an art studio and printmaking workshop.

OtherPeoplesPixels: Can you talk about the surreal qualities of your work?

Szu-Wei Ho: I come from a background of literature and love of storybooks. So when I started to create art, stories naturally came first. In my images there are a lot of natural elements, animals, fairytale motifs, human events, and everyday objects. These are glued together by rearranging and reinterpreting my daily encounters. This is the most fun and intriguing creative process I could enjoy for now, so I stick with it. But I also think my work is deeply rooted in reality, which is always more surreal than what I could imagine, especially the year 2020!

Reins (2019) Graphite on paper. 29 ½" x 41 ½"

SH: Human hair is like an extension of us, which grows but without senses. It plays such an important role in our appearances, sometimes even defines our look. Braided hair especially aroused me not only because of it’s woven and lush texture, but the action of braiding and the reason behind it could carry many sexual, social and cultural connotations. Braids can have different colors, which could imply race and point to beauty standards. As a girl, I had a popular doll with ankle-length, blond hair. I brushed and braided her hair everyday. It was like a rule of thumb that to be pretty and to be a princess, long blond hair is the standard.

Hair Salon No.4- Braid Me A Spring, Spider Man (2011) Etching. 9" x 12"

SH: Yes, braids show up in my work as tentacles, tails, ropes, fiddleheads, and question marks. Whichever shapes they take, they imply female existence and cultural restraints. From the Brothers Grimm, the image of Rapunzel letting her hair down from the tower bewitched me. The captive woman connects herself to her mother-like figure and her lover with the long braid, which was like an umbilical cord. And then she was pregnant with twins. 

How Intentions Differ (2020) Pine, OSB, Latex Paint, Carving Foam. 63” x 16” x 19”

ALEX SCHECHTER traffics heavily in material symbolism. His sculptures combine traditional woodworking methods, digital fabrication and found objects with video and animation to explore the myths of the Manifest Destiny and the Wild West. Alex holds a BA in Studio Art/Religious Studies from Grinnell College and an MFA in Sculpture from Rinehart School of Sculpture, MICA. Recent exhibitions include: Cowboys and Carpentry: Alex Schechter and Sutton Demlong at Sykes Gallery (Millersville, PA) and Its Construction Conceals:  Iren Tete and Alex Schechter at Ghost (Omaha, NE). He just completed a residency at The Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts in Georgia. Alex lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.

OtherPeoplesPixels: Before going to MICA for your MFA, you got a BA in Religious Studies from Grinnell College. How does that early focus on religion inform your art practice?

Alex Schechter: In so many ways! Religious studies has been the major heuristic for study for me for most of my career. One of the basic definitions of religion begins with identifying the “three c’s;" cultus, cosmology, and community. I find myself drawn to those frameworks as a space for most of my projects. What are the actions or rituals of this system? What does it explain? Who is involved? 

Myth Of The West (Genesis 32:22-31) (2018) Plywood, LED lighting, House Paint, Ebonized Ash Wood, Rubber, Pine, Cactus, Artificial Flower. 20”x 33”x 45”

OPP: Which system do you mean? The universe? Or something smaller?

AS: My work is primarily focused on American Mythology. As a country, I think we lack a defining national identity, with no ethnic or religious antecedents that define many (particularly european) cultures. We instead have a somewhat ad-hoc collection of symbols and rituals that form this constellation of “americanness.” I think a lot of my training, particularly when it comes to religious ethnography, helps to shape that understanding and translation of a deep ambivalence I have around my familial history as well as my personal embrace and revulsion of what it means to be American. 

I grew up on a horse ranch in rural Wyoming. In this environment, quotidian realities of daily life come into sharp contrast with the romantic idealization of the Wild West. For much of U.S. history, the West was an ordinal concept, an endless resource to compete with European culture, a blank canvas to be tamed with violence, or an escape route for self reinvention. Despite the clear and harsh consequences of climate change, the realities of colonization and genocide, not to mention the inconveniently finite nature of natural resources, the idea of the Frontier retains a perennial popularity as a Promised Land. The sculptural objects I make attempt to collapse the utopian ideals of Frontierism and the consequences of its reality.

New Frontier (Allegory of the Cave) (2020) Film stills, Wood, Enamel Paint, Rearview Mirrors, Plastic Rabbits Feet, Hardware. 45" x 42" x 20"

OPP: How does the combination of traditional craft, digital fabrication and found objects serve your conceptual interests?

AS: As previously mentioned, I did not go to art school for undergrad. While that education was great for conceptual development and critical thinking, it meant that I have come into making in a pretty circuitous fashion. I’m trying to make things in a way that works for the idea. I’m a decent carpenter, so wood tends to be a foundational structural material for many of my objects. I’m trying to become less precious about my hand being evident in the objects I make though. 

I love craft, especially woodworking, but sometimes it feels like a crutch, or a conceptual governor. My woodworking skills tend to build towards a human sized scale. I’ve been increasingly interested in branching into other methods of fabrication (including other people doing the fabrication) because they simply allow me to do things I cannot with my skill set. My interest in digital fabrication has really accelerated this drive to expand methods of making. If I can have something milled out in an afternoon rather than carving it for weeks, i’ll take it. 

For all that, I’m pretty enamored with found objects for basically the opposite reason. I love the embodied meaning in objects that are collected or sourced.

Heavy Lift (for Sergei) (2020) Monitor, Wooden Shelf, Potatoes, Zinc, Copper, Wires, Raspberry Pi, Digital animation. 24 "x 20" x 8”

OPP: That is evident in your comprehensive material lists, which give the sense that every object or material is included for symbolic purposes. I’ve been thinking about visual synecdoche and metonymy while looking at your work. Do you think those are appropriate words to describe how you approach materials?

AS: As a kid, I was really obsessed with the nutritional labels on foods. The atomization of say, salad dressing, into its nutritional attributes and a hierarchical list of ingredients, starting with the familiar (olive oil) and descending into the esoteric and sometimes frightening (sodium benzoate) felt like a mystery. A miniature scavenger hunt at the dinner table.

I’ve seen stage magicians do the same thing, they will explain how they are going to do a trick. That there is a trap door, that there a two assistants, that it isn’t their real thumb, and yet you are still astonished by the illusion you are seeing in front of you. The whole is not just greater than the sum of its parts, it is more exciting because you know what those parts entail.

My hope is that by listing the totality of the parts used in any given piece, there is a bit of alchemy that happens. The meaning of material is not just the shape of the whole object, but the embodied meanings of each individual object play with each other in a space. I think there is a difference between house paint and automotive paint, and house paint and a houseplant. Maybe its a bit onanistic but I think the indexing allows space for the creation  of meaning beyond the title and form of the artwork. It gives a peak into process without the explicit one-to-one mapping that happens with a full statement or artist talk. I think about some of the stories of Donald Barthelme, which work to morph impressionistic accumulations of single events or actions into a holistic understanding of an event or a place in time.

Further West (2019) Laser Etched Drywall, Pine, Maple, Hardware, Plastic Boot Tray, Perlite, Cacti, Artificial Flowers. 55”x 40”x 40”

OPP: Will you pick a favorite piece and talk us through all the materials and their meanings?

AS: Sure, let's look at Further West, 2019, which was part of a body of work examining the concept of the cold war era Space Race as an extension of Manifest Destiny. I would argue that much of the American project has been oppositional and reactionary to exterior political pressure. Much of the space race, and NASA in general—which I think of as the greatest public art project of all time—was in direct opposition to the Soviet national project. This piece uses the iconography of westward expansion to look a the moon race as an extension of that process, a need to push “American Greatness” to increasingly far reaching lands.

I wrote a computer program that converted data from select sections of amateur astronomer Walter Goodacre’s 1910 map of the moon into vectors that were laser-etched onto drywall. Using materials that are traditionally used for household construction in sculptural objects creates an uncanny feeling, making a material that is so ubiquitous but we never pay much attention to precious or elevated. Thinking about the walls of the home as something that moves, or is in transition is an important thought process for me. Being untethered is both exciting and disorienting.

I always have pine 2x4s around my studio, and they’re my go-to for anything structural. This main body of the sculpture mimics the radial arms of a wagon wheel, buried in the sand, an iconic image from western films. The crutch-like leg that props up the framed wall is American curly maple. Sometimes, you need nicer wood. I’ve become increasingly conscious of being able to assemble and disassemble work easily for installation, so the hardware was a necessity for transportation. Rather than hiding these connection points, I wanted to highlight them with brass hardware. I was looking at a lot of late 19th century surveying equipment. They are beautiful machines and the contrast of brass on wood is a gorgeous look. 

My weird color palette is generated through the remnants of other people’s discarded materials. I buy most of my paint from the “oops” section at the hardware store paint counter. They sell it for around $.50 (a pint?). It’s fun to see trends over the years of what colors people are almost-painting things.

I bought the plastic boot tray that holds the perlite—if there was a sandy desert on the moon, this is what I imagine it looking like—at a tractor supply store because I loved that shape. It is meant as a place to rest your boots when you have come in from a day of hard labor. I like the idea of this object designed for holding dirt to contain a different sort of dirt. . . in this case, a miniature desert.

I’ve been using cacti in a lot of my sculptures recently. I like the look of them and they are pretty resilient to changes in environment/don’t need to be watered very often. They also serve as a metonym for The West. I’ve been buying plants from Home Depot a lot over the last five years or so as sort of a treat for myself when I go to the hardware store. They clearly do not care about longevity for plants, and often it takes a lot of work repotting and nursing plants back to health after they are purchased. The cacti, which are non-flowering, are sold with these tiny plastic flowers hot-glued to the tops of them. I find this very funny and like to leave them on when I include a cactus in my work.

Pervasive Practitioners (2020) Ash Wood, Birch Ply, Latex Paint, Beeswax. 82” x 24” x 15”

OPP: Tell us about your newest body of work, M.E.K.A. I’m not familiar with that acronym. What does it stand for? 

AS: M.E.K.A. doesn’t really stand for anything, though sometimes I retcon titles Most Even Keep Alive? My Ego Korrupts All? But the title is more a nod to a 90s cartoon trend of creating tortured acronyms for a catchy nickname, like S.H.I.E.L.D. or M.A.S.K. And mecha is a term for a sci-fi subgenera where teenagers pilot giant robots. 

This has been an unusual body of work for me. I had a number of shows and longer-term projects put on hold or cancelled due to COVID-19. My studio practice had gone into a rut. I was fairly depressed and was having difficulty putting much conceptual rigor into anything. To justify being in the studio, I started playing around with arranging shapes and objects in an unlocked and unoccupied studio next to mine. I had made a scale model of a robot from the Gundam cartoon that I used to watch in my middle school days. I really liked the shape and the translation from the flatness of anime to a physical object. I started looking up more giant robot films and cartoons and isolating the heads from them. There was a certain challenge in replicating these cartoon shapes into something with heft and dimension. This has been an exercise in formalism, color, and installation, rather than the more conceptually driven objects I tend to make.  

The Shortest Distance Between Two Points (2020) Pine, Ply Wood, Felt, Automotive Paint, Latex Paint. 11”x 84” x 28”

OPP: I don't know. I think you are selling yourself short. You might be tapping into the collective unconscious. Either that, or I just can’t escape viewing everything made in 2020 through the politics of the pandemic (i.e. economy vs public health.) I see the robot heads as representing the dangers of relentlessly-onward-marching Progress. It seems very significant that the robots have been beheaded and are propping up the systems of objects. Your thoughts?

AS: I don't know that I'm selling myself short, as much as allowing myself to work intuitively, something I mostly only do with my drawing and illustration practice. I'm very enamored with the design of these giant robots even though have very little context for their stories or personalities—despite my visual fascination, I've watched very little anime. I'm both interested in and skeptical of this sort of science fiction, where incredible levels of technology, global and interstellar economic and political systems are all easily reduced to combat between between giant robots. How simple compared to the intertwined and endlessly complex realities of climate change and global economic collapse that we face in our daily lives.

I'm both interested in technology and skeptical of Positivism, this idea that progress is somehow linear and inherently good. A book that really caused me to rethink the understanding of technical progress was Keven Kelly's What Technology Wants (2010). Conceiving of a Technium, a "greater, global, massively interconnected system of technology vibrating around us." is both thrilling and, existentially, a bit nerve wracking. Perhaps the decapitation of these robots is a way of symbolically reestablishing a dominance over these systems, but I don't think that completely covers it. As with many of the topics I tend to fixate on, there is both a love and a revulsion that co-mingle. Even with my discomfort, I tend to want to ritualize and care for objects. In this case, I literally put them on pedestals.

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 Associate Professor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she 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), Indianapolis Art Center (Indianapolis, 2017), Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery (Palos Hills, Illinois 2018), Kent State Stark (North Canton, 2019), and Finlandia University (Hancock, Michigan 2020).

From Schoolhouse To White House (2019) Wood, tassels, flocking, yarn. 58” x 76” x 12." 
Title from Alice Allison Dunnigan’s autobiography, A Black Woman’s Experience: From Schoolhouse to White House. Kentucky History: Honors Alice Allison Dunnigan, first African-American female correspondent in the White House and member of the Senate and House of Representative press galleries.

LAURA MONGIOVI’s sculptures are material-driven contemplations of the past, both sociopolitical and geologic. She uses the repetition of stitching, braiding, and knitting to physically process local history. The resulting abstractions crafted from tactile materials, are paired with informational text, drawing attention to lesser-known people and events. Laura has an MFA from University of Colorado Boulder and a BFA from Florida State University. In 2019, she initiated and co-organized the Deeper Than Indigo: Southeast Textile Symposium at Flagler College (St. Augustine, FL). Recent solo exhibitions include The Grass is Blue (2019) at Georgetown College in Kentucky and Northward (2018) at Arts on Douglas in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Laura is a recipient of the Northeast Florida Individual Artist Grant (2018) and the Arrowmont Pentaculum Residency (2020). She lives and works in St. Augustine, Florida.

Laura Mongiovi: I often research a particular time and place. I am interested in exposing origins; I consider the past a vital component in understanding the present and navigating the future. I am most interested in sensual experiences and utilize associated materials. Our relationship with distinct materials taps into our senses, powerful conduits for reflection and emotional response. 

Upon researching Northeast Florida, where I currently reside, I discovered the history of indigo plantations. I began experimenting with indigo dye and ink to visually communicate stories about a color that led to enslaved labor. Such stories bring awareness to the humanitarian histories, as well as current textile practices, associated with the production of indigo. Another example, I collected water from the Atlantic ocean and boiled to produce salt. The salt was incorporated into a piece about Kentucky geographic history for a solo exhibition The Grass Is Blue at Georgetown College. Kentucky was once underwater, covered by the Atlantic Ocean and present day salt licks are residue of receded ocean water. The memory of salt and taste allows the viewer to connect with this information beyond the visual experience.  

Tracks (2019) Felt, faux fur, yarn, thread. 14" x 17"

The demand for fur in Europe was great. Indigenous peoples hunted beyond their own needs so they could trade fur for tailored shirts, guns and gunpowder.

OPP: You’ve stitched thread into felt for years. What keeps you coming back to these materials? 

LM: Tufts and elevated marks echo topography. As I work, I trace my hands over the surface, aware of valleys and mountains. I am mapping, connecting with space and time.  

OPP: Tell us a bit about your process? How do you start a new piece, generally speaking? 

LM: My process is deeply rooted in research. My research includes tangible experiences as well as gathering resources about a particular time, place or subject. I carefully consider how materials and processes can visually communicate content and meaning. If I don’t have the materials or process knowledge, I will embark on a search for materials and learn a new process. I then begin exploring materials and/or process. Sometimes my first attempt is successful. The majority of time, I am reworking ideas, learning about materials and process for future pieces.  

Claimed Union With The Earth (2019) Yarn. 45” x 56” x 5." 
Title from bell hooks poem #5. Kentucky History: The significance of hair and sweet grass among Indigenous Peoples. 

OPP: Many of your works might be viewed solely as material abstraction if the viewer didn’t read the title card. In two recent series, The Grass is Blue and This Land is My Land, the long-ignored histories of Indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans are highlighted via titles and supporting text. Do you consider this language part of the work or the context for the work? Is this distinction important to you?  

LM: This is a good question – led me to reflect on how I arrived at decisions to use language. I was a gallery monitor during my undergraduate years. I noticed the majority of visitors read the title card before viewing visual work. I came to the conclusion that people wanted to “know” what they were looking at, an explanation, and relied on the title card to guide perception. This observation led me to eliminate titles from my work for many years. I wanted the work to speak for itself, the visual experience to dominate and the viewer to arrive at their own interpretation. As I matured in my studio practice and expanded my research practices, I realized language providing historical reference can serve as context and not necessarily guide the viewer toward a particular conclusion. I also see this information as an additional honor toward the visual stories I am telling. Perhaps similar to a plaque that accompanies a visual commemorating a person or event. So, yes this distinction is important to me as my intent is to create visual work that provides moments for investigation and contemplation while acknowledging the past.  

This Land Is My Land (2019) Felt, metallic thread, air dry clay, wood, steel, paint. Detail. 
Shell middens, left behind by indigenous peoples, buried under colonialism. 

OPP: 2020 has been a challenging year—that’s putting it mildly—for most of us. How have the events of the past six months affected your studio practice?  

LM: With projects and exhibitions postponed, I have time to explore ideas that have been kicking around and finish pieces that have been patiently waiting for me in the studio. Some of these ideas and pieces may not work out and that is okay. Time spent investigating will lead me to new ideas. So, I would have to say the unusual circumstances of 2020 have afforded me time to reflect and catch up. 

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 Associate Professor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she 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), Indianapolis Art Center (Indianapolis, 2017), Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery (Palos Hills, Illinois 2018), Kent State Stark (North Canton, 2019), and Finlandia University (Hancock, Michigan 2020).