OtherPeoplesPixels Blog

Cottleston pie, 2017. Oil on canvas. 48 inches x 36 inches.

DEBORAH ZLOTSKY's paintings and drawings emerge from a process that embraces accidents, coincidences and contingencies. Whether she's working in powdered graphite, chalk or oil, her abstract, interconnected compositions explore "the necessity of change and the beauty and complexity of living." Deborah earned her BA in History of Art from Yale University (1985) and her MFA in Painting and Drawing from University of Connecticut (1989). In 2012, she won the NYFA Artists’ Fellowship in Painting. She has received residency fellowships at Yaddo, MacDowell Colony, the Saltonstall Foundation, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Ragdale Foundation and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art. In 2017, she opened two solo shows at galleries that represent her work: Fata Morgana at Robischon Gallery (Denver) and BTW, at Kathryn Markel (New York). Deborah’s most recent work was an outdoor, interactive work for Out of Site: Contemporary Sculpture at Chesterwood. Deborah lives in Delmar, New York and teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island.

OtherPeoplesPixels: What role does contingency play in your process?

Deborah Zlotsky: Contingencies and accidents fuel my process. I like to joke that my mother told me at an early age that I was unplanned, and that notion of accident probably permeated my thinking about being in the world starting in childhood. Certainly I never thought of being an accident as something negative—it was not presented that way, and the idea of hidden confluences of forces at work seemed important and revelatory.

As an undergrad studying art history, I loved the research part of scholarship, trying to gather and document all the forces at play to explain a particular decision or situation or mindset. But now I’m much more interested in harnessing or experiencing the variety of rules and responses that activate a process than explaining or describing,

After I research how to begin a painting, I’m buoyed by the thought that I’ve done my homework and feel equipped to start. However, I never know enough or am prescient enough to know how to proceed once I’ve started. Constantly assessing what in the painting is offering a way forward via a stray mark or an unanticipated proximity opens up possibilities and guides the way I value relationships and construct the painting. My reliance on contingencies and coincidences is hugely consoling. I need to work within a process that is, in a way, magnanimous. If I stick with the work long enough, not only am I not penalized for the fuck-up, but I’m actually indebted to the fuck-up.

Plan B, 2016. Oil on canvas. 60 inches x 48 inches.

OPP: A phrase that keeps popping into my head as I scroll through all your work is “abstract systems.” In some cases these systems seem bodily, as in the graphite drawings. In other works, non-uniform, angular blocks appear to grow out of one another, as in The inundation (2014). In paintings like The encyclopedia of obviously (2015), these angular blocks become more fluid and interlaced, evoking networks of air ducts. Does this resonate with you?

DZ: If you go back even further, my first serious paintings were figurative,  exploring the body as an intricate structure with complicated interconnections of form and movement and interval. I was interested in the poignancy of what the body could do, the weight and gravity of fleshiness,  and the complexity of color on and under the skin. Then, for a long period, I worked on a series of dark, invented still lifes, in which all the interconnected forms were cobbled together from disparate 17th, 18th, and 19th century painting sources. Combining still life and figurative imagery from diverse sources  and recontextualizing them somewhat surreally in one space created a new construction that straddled the past and present.  Even though I used a realist vocabulary in these earlier figurative and still life works, I treated the structures as abstract Rube Goldbergian configurations within the pictorial space.

Katchumpination, 2010. powdered graphite on mylar. 60 inches x 48 inches

OPP: Your on-going series of drawings with powdered graphite on mylar that you began in 2005 has such a different surface and line quality than the paintings. The forms are distinctly more organic and the edges are soft, almost blurred. They seem like bodies of creatures I’ve never imagined. Do you think of these as bodies?

DZ: In the drawing series, LifeLike, I manipulate powdered graphite on sheets of mylar through a particular Ouija board-ish  process. I like to say I draw what I imagine I see, as the velvety graphite is spread, painted, blown, erased, wiped and smudged on the surface. At the risk of sounding ponderous, when I’m responding to the graphite smears, I feel like I’m searching for signs of life. I don’t look at anything but the graphite, and I fabricate form and light from a muscle memory that comes from years of teaching observational drawing.

Munter, 2012.powdered graphite on mylar. 48 inches x 40 inches

OPP: Are the titles nonsense words?

DZ: Each drawing is named through soldering together fragments of sounds and grammatical parts to construct a whole, much like my drawing process. While the resulting descriptive drawings are fictitious forms developed from collaged, invented parts, I feel the concreteness of the illusion I conjure up blurs boundaries between documenting nature and inventing nature. The uncertainty between what is credible connects to what is identified as natural at a time when so much is researched and implemented to distort/exploit/mimic/redirect nature. I continue to make drawings through this process as it’s always thrilling to see what it yields, especially because the botanical/biological forms in the best ones acquire some of the irregularities, complexities and beauty of the natural world.

Pillow talk, 2017. Oil on canvas. 48 inches x 36 inches.

OPP: Your most recent paintings tackle the interplay of flatness and volume. Can you talk about the “process of accumulation, rupture and shift” in these new works?

DZ: In a general human way, my neural gravitational compass seems calibrated to discover the purposefulness and connectivity in things that initially appear disconnected and not quite operational. Finding that connective tissue launches a long and unpredictable process. For years, I thought of my role as a constructor, constructing relationships that perhaps weren’t that self-evident at the start. Now I see myself more as a repairer, patching up relationships that need a little TLC and introducing relationships to create a more nuanced infrastructure. That probably sounds overly anthropomorphic. It’s also rather biographical—my mother went to art school and my dad was an orthopedic surgeon. I always thought of my dad’s rarefied actions repairing bones, ligaments and tendons as super-smart and helpful, but grim and bloody, something alien to my squeamish, illusion-based, two-dimensional activities. However, the older I get, I seek remediation, creating flow and access by cementing together necessary relationships. Perhaps this is something I’ve inherited from my lovely dad.

Peccadillo  2017  Oil on canvas. 48 inches x 60 inches

OPP: “The paintings materialize out of a friction between intention and coincidence, much like the daily processing and deciphering required to be in the world.” This is such a precise description of the process that drives the work. How does this investment in process gel with the finished piece as a discrete, complete object?

DZ: There is a moment when the process and product become enlivened together—enough of one and enough of the other to work together. A painting is also painting: both the noun and the verb, which allows for a certain simultaneity of being in the process and deciding that the process has reached a moment of synthesis.

My paintings are about figuring out relationships as much as they are about the relationships themselves: a process of continual revision, revealing the history and poignancy of the making/experiencing/seeing/sensing. Anoka Faruqee said that “a painting is finished when it asserts a presence that I can only describe as the right balance of discipline and unruliness, when its structure unravels in the act of looking.” Her definition connects to what I’m aiming for when I make the decision to let go of the painting and release it to others to look at and fill in the blanks.

Sara and Angela with their sons

Extended Practice, founded by artists Angela Lopez and Sara Holwerda, is an artist-led curatorial project focusing on creating family accessible events, exhibitions and screenings that support and make visible the work and needs of artists who are also mothers. Upcoming events include the one-night exhibition Ways We Make - Mothers of Color Nurturing and Building Our Creative Communities. This is the second event lead by Wisdom Baty and it takes place on November 7th (5:30 - 7:00pm) at Experimental Station. Also at Experimental Station on November 19th, Extended Practice will host Empowered Production: An Afternoon for Artist Parents with Selina Trepp, which includes an artist talk and discussion by Selina Trepp, a brief break-out session and networking lunch, and a family-friendly performance by Spectralina (Dan Bitney and Selina Trepp). In Summer 2018, Extended Practice will host a new artist moms group at Roman Susan in Rogers Park. This will be an activated exhibition that rotates with work featuring and curated by participating artists. In this way, new moms will get direct social support, as well as an immediate space and time to show and discuss their work. Angela and Sara both live, work and parent in Chicago.

OtherPeoplePixels: How did the two of you meet and what led you form Extended Practice?

Angela Lopez: We met at a networking event at Chicago Artists Coalition. They set up something that was like a speed dating scenario, where the participants hopped from person to person with brief five minute introductions. Someone in that group organized a critique group with us and other participants that lasted about a year. We fell out of touch, then ran into each other again at a prenatal yoga class. It was a surprise because I didn't know that Sara was pregnant. Our kids are only a month and a half apart.


Sara Holwerda: We’re both a part of EyeSplice Collective, and the artist who founded that collective, Megan Hildebrandt, is a mom. She reached out to see how many of us that were moms wanted to organize an exhibition of artist mothers. It was literally a one sentence email that sparked this, and since Angela and I were both in Chicago and somewhat isolated brand new moms with infants, we decided to start meeting to work on it (and to get outside and talk to another adult!). The exhibition idea lead us to think about other kinds of programming we wanted to see, which lead to our DCASE grant application, which lead us here.

Megan Hildebrandt working with her daughter, 2017

OPP: How did you go about connecting with other mother/parent artists?

AL: We started with people we knew then began to branch out from there. Selina Trepp, for example, was someone I went to when I was pregnant so she was one of the first people we connected with. She then connected us with Christa Donner. I met Tracy Marie Taylor and Emily Lindskoog at a new moms group and was so happy to learn that they are also practicing artists. We have a growing list of more people that we want to connect with in the future. Some we already know through our artist networks and others that people have refered to us.
 
SH: Selina and Christa, who started Cultural ReProducers, have both been amazing resources, especially at the beginning of this project. Also, several of our artists are, or were, a part of EyeSplice collective, and these artists live outside of Chicago. Angela also had some connections to other moms in Chicago that she met at a new moms group that we started doing studio visits with. I stumbled on a manifesto by Wisdom Baty about being a single mother of color, so we reached out to her and she’s now leading an event series with us. We’ve got our ears to the ground and we’re slowly branching out. We have plans to connect with people we know in Kansas City, Detroit and New York City, to potentially do events in those cities. We’ve made some international contacts through our latest animation screening, including with some women that are active in the artist/mother groups in the UK.

Wisdom Baty with her daughter

OPP: Talk about how you highlight the artists on the Extended Practice website.

AL: A big part of the project for us was making artists who are mothers more visible. In a very literal sense we want to have actual images of artists with their children in the studio. There are not many images of this kind, and they can be very impactful to young parents or artists thinking about having children. Equally important, these images ideally bring attention to how many artists are mothers.

We plan on growing this page with many more artists. Before adding anyone, we really want to get to know the artists, visit their studio and understand their practice. These are artists that we feel are making strong and challenging work while balancing parenthood. 

SH: Angela and I are like loudspeakers for our artists. We hope more artists who are parents see this work and read these stories, and we’re glad to help facilitate this growing network. We act as curators, in that we’re making a lot of decisions—on and off the website. Most of these decisions revolve around presenting the artists’ work in the best light possible and making sure we’re aligning with our EP mission and best practices.

Christa Donner with her daughter

OPP: Why isn’t your own work as artists highlighted on the website? That seems like a very intentional decision.

AL: We actually do plan to add ourselves. We just haven't yet. Sara will select images and quotes from me, and I will do the same for her. Although there are many curatorial aspects to EP, it started with wanting to create what we needed at the time. We wanted to feel connected to and supported in an art world, that is not very receptive or understanding of the particular challenges of being a mother. In many ways, we really started this for ourselves but know that it needs to be much larger to work well. We will add ourselves because we are not separate from the people that we are working with.

Sara Holwerda. baby love, 2017. Mixed Media. 23" x 12"

OPP: Tell us a bit about each of your individual practices. Sara?

SH: My work is part auto-biographical, part social commentary, and has included performance, video, animation and performing objects. I am interested in the very rigid and socially-constructed ways women—and men—are expected to perform gender. It’s effectively a form of social control. My work is definitely figurative and usually centers around the female figure. I’m drawn to any hyper-feminine performing roles: the chorus girl and pop star, food service roles, burlesque dancers, drag queens. The fact that I’m raising a son now is making me think more broadly about gender expression, and similarly constrictive expectations for masculinity. In a lot of ways, gender expression for boys is much more limited than for girls.

Right now I’m working on a series of hand-fans that I started before I was pregnant. I saw a show in Paris at the Museum of Decorative Arts a few years ago that was a massive private collection of advertising paraphernalia dating back to the Victorian era and the first printing presses. I saw a set of “portrait fans” that were functional objects as well as advertisements. There was one fan in which all the tines of the fan were a human figure. I was like, “it’s a chorus line!” The repetition, the flattening and the reduction of the human figure to a decorative object that you can manipulate are threads from past work that have carried into this project. I just made one that is a selfie I saw of Kim Kardashian while she pregnant for the first time that I couldn’t get out of my head.

Angela Lopez. Living Prosthetic, 2017. Ceramic.

OPP: What about your work, Angela?

AL: My work explores embodiment as a way to reveal primal instincts, desires and fears. The surfaces are often slippery, gooey, fleshy and in flux. They move between various states of metamorphosis, exploring the familiar and the unknown of embodiment. I work in watercolor, video and sculpture.

I currently have a show up, Magic Like Death, at Indiana University Northwest Arts and Science Gallery (Gary, IN). The work is heavily influenced by my son, although not directly about him. Watching his senses develop and his body grow—including new knee caps and a closing fontanelle—is fascinating to me and reinforces the concepts in my work in new ways. He is strong and healthy, but I am always aware of his corporal and psychological fragility. This has highly reinforced and further developed the concepts of the familiar and unknown of embodiment in my work. There are many living prosthetics and crystals growing on dismembered body parts in my newer works.

Angela Lopez. Paula's Thumb. 2017. Watercolor on paper

OPP: Although I’m not a parent, I can imagine the biggest challenge for parent artists is having less time available for making. Is that true or is that a simplification?

AL: Yes, it is true. I used to have what I'd call “ramp up time.” I'd get to my studio, leisurely clean up, move things around, snack, stare, think, and/or read before getting started. That is just a silly thought now. Studio time is very broken up and squeezed in. The “ramp up” time is now any time I'm not in studio. When I get the time to work, I know exactly what I'm going to do and just get started.

SH: I actually find lack of sleep to be the worst part. You can adjust to the lack of time, but there’s no substitute for sleep! The magnitude of exhaustion is not something you can know without experiencing it. I think Angela and I had the same sort of expectations—that now seem crazy—for parenthood, like our lives and art practices would continue and there would just be a baby chilling in the room that wouldn’t take up all of our energy. NOPE.

Sara Holwerda. Chair Dance (Adagio), 2013. Performance Still.

OPP: Aside from exhaustion, what changed in your practice after your son was born?

SH: The lack of time has forced me to contend with some of my self-destructive thinking habits. As a new artist mom, I was afraid to waste time on failures. I spent a few months just sewing baby hats and quilts for other people’s kids because I could complete them in a few hours. Finally, I had to confront that I was avoiding the part of the process when you’re making things that aren’t good. I had to convince myself that if I went to the studio for three hours and all I did was make a bunch of seriously terrible stuff that I would never show anyone, that it was okay. I’ve never been so happy to not have any shows lined up! My studio is filled with failures and I am kind of proud of it.

In terms of content, the experience of pregnancy and parenting is yet another area in which women are expected to perform a certain way. It’s like everything I’ve done has been reaffirmed and amplified already by this experience. I didn’t even know the half of it before. I will return to the performance part of my practice when I sort through all the crazy things that have happened to my body. I’m not sure all my bones have returned to their normal places, if that’s even ever going to happen!

Sara Holwerda. Homemaker (climbing), 2013. Inkjet Print. 14" x 20"

OPP: Were there surprising benefits to your art practice that you didn’t anticipate?

AL: I’m much more focused and use my studio time more efficiently. I am more selective with opportunities and applications. I didn’t expect—or even want—my work to be so strongly influenced by motherhood. I’m really glad that in many ways being a mother has reinforced existing concepts in my work.

SH: This trajectory of EP is a huge one. We received the DCASE Individual Artist grant in the first few months of our sons’ lives, and I certainly hadn’t anticipated doing this kind of organizing and curating while my son was so young. Being able to connect to other artists through motherhood has been awesome. I love our studio visits and being able to extend the modest platform we have to help elevate other artists that I admire. In my personal practice, parenting has given me a bit more perspective. For one thing, I have been forced to place more reasonable expectations on myself. There are things I just can’t do, and it’s easier for me to not even try to do those things now.

Angela Lopez. Untitled, 2016. ceramic.

OPP: What challenges do artist mothers specifically face?

SH: Mothers still carry the majority of the burden of childcare, especially when their children are young. Even in more progressive parenting partnerships, this still happens. Same-sex couples have been shown to have the best chance at finding some equality within in their parenting roles. In the art world, there’s no question that a father who is an artist will continue to have a career, whereas motherhood is often still presented as a career-ender for artists.

We’ve talked to lots of women who were explicitly warned by colleagues, mentors and professors that having a child would hurt their art career. Luckily I didn’t hear this much myself, but I did hear that there was a “right time” to do this, which is basically when you’re already fully established (and maybe also at the age where getting pregnant is more challenging or riskier).

We’re also interested in supporting mothers in the current political climate. We are barely able to get health care, maternity or paternity leave. Childcare is so expensive, and preschool isn’t free everywhere. It’s crazy. The struggle lots of artists have to even get paid for their work and their time is combined with the struggle lots of working and stay-at-home mothers have to get any kind of support outside of their families.

We do our best to support our artists with childcare, opportunities, and stipends. The money we are securing through grants goes to mothers who are artists to pay for their work and time, to parents who own businesses or run arts spaces, and to childcare providers (many of whom are also mothers!)

Pop Up Exhibit: Accumulated Gestures and Speculative Futures, 2017. Present Place Chicago. Featuring artists and mothers, Christa Donner and Megan Hildebrandt

OPP: What makes an art exhibit or event “child-welcoming and family-accessible?”

AL: More daytime events are an easy way to be more inclusive to people with young children. And to get changing tables in all bathrooms. In an ideal situation , a venue would provide a space for kids to play while parents look around and talk with other artists. Even better, they'd provide a caregiver (with experience and background check) in that space for younger kids. Oh, and kids are seriously drawn to outlets! They will find them when you're not even thinking about it. So put some covers on the ones that aren't in use.

SH: I have a toddler, and right now every event I would want to go to is dependent on my paying for childcare, coordinating with my husband’s schedule or having family help. Maybe I bring my kid instead, but then I have to plan around sleeping, eating and diaper changing. So many art events fall right at a child’s bedtime. Some of this burden should be on the venues and organizers to create spaces that are accessible for artists with family obligations. The implications of not making events accessible are far-reaching and contribute to underrepresentation in the art world. The consequences of not making events family-friendly are that it is exclusionary for mothers, single parents, and low income parents.

Mock-up for Extended Practice: New Moms at Roman Susan Gallery (Chicago), Summer 2018. The gallery space itself will be divided in two “zones” from floor to ceiling. The bottom half will be designed for children and the top half will serve as the exhibition space for the artists. The installation will show visually both the separation and interaction of the two worlds: the art world and spaces for children and babies.

OPP: What’s different at your events and what would you like to see at other art events?

AL: Childcare is the biggest asset to our events. It gives parents the opportunity to focus on each other and the art. Simply showing up is a huge challenge when you have children. The art world, that we look to for critical thinking, new ideas and philosophies, excludes a large underrepresented part of the population. Taking steps to be more accommodating can significantly help with growing and expanding the points of view in art.

SH: We also explicitly welcome nursing mothers, children and families with intergenerational events and activities. We find venues that can accommodate families and children with play spaces and changing tables! We offer real food and drink options to help families plan meals. We also do our best to schedule daytime events or have nighttime events start and end earlier to accommodate bedtimes. Keeping parents in the room is huge! Sometimes museums and galleries try to accommodate children and nursing mothers, but end up shoving them way off to the side where there is no art and no interaction.

We have a super tiny budget for these events in comparison to many organizations, and yet we have been able to offer many accommodations for parents. Clearly, we are not able to do all of these at once, and some events and venues do not lend themselves well to these considerations, but we do it. It is possible, and it’s time for these larger organizations to make better choices.

AL: Although we really want venues to change, a lot of our workshops and the upcoming talk with Selina, focus on strengthening the networks of artists who are mothers and brainstorming alternative venues and support systems. The work needs to happen on both sides. We want to find ways to support artists who are mothers and empower them to have a voice, position and representation in the art world.

(walnut) screen. 2016. walnut, clay. 49" x 49" x 13"

Sculptor JOSHUA WEST SMITH makes to understand what he doesn't know. His objects are part of an ongoing investigation into the ever-shifting nature of time. To this end, he makes fixed sculptures that seem barely balanced, implying a next moment that never comes, one in which they tip or move or crumble. Joshua completed his BFA at Oregon College of Art and Craft in Portland in 2008. He went on to earn his MFA at University of California Riverside in 2016. Joshua is currently preparing for two upcoming solo exhibitions in 2018, one at Northview Gallery (Portland, OR) and the other at Elephant (Los Angeles, CA). His work will also be part of From the Guts of Stars, a two-person exhibition with Jenene Nagy—another OPP Featured Artist! The show will open in February 2018 at Whitter College in California. He is one half of the curatorial team Tilt Export:. Joshua lives and works in the Inland Empire of Southern California.

OtherPeoplesPixels: When I look at your work—and I sadly feel like my experience viewing them online is incomplete—I think about the poetry of physics. Your sculptures remind me of the beauty and the challenges of the physical world. How much are you consciously thinking about the laws of physics while creating your work?

Joshua West Smith: I think a way for me to start talking about physics and poetry is to point to my interest in the separation of our bodies and our consciousness. The body—to me—is a tool developed in the physical world, and that body is constantly struggling or working within the constraints of a specific environment, which according to popular belief and observation is ruled by the laws of physics. This fundamental experience which our bodies share with so many other bodies allows for us to have an empathetic response to physical gestures and materials. I think in some ways those responses are intuitive responses which may slightly precede language/consciousness.

This moment before we cloak something we perceive in language is of the utmost importance to me. I would say that my practice is immersed in the poetically observed reality of physics. It is a flow—at times smooth and at others irregular—where my focus shifts within the spectrums of time and scale.

side pony, 2015. paint, wood, wire, cardboard. 38" x 36" x 38"

OPP: When you talk about shifting focus, are you speaking about the moment to moment experience of making a single piece or across your practice?

JWS: At this point I'm trying for all of those things. . . I want to shift my focus within every discrete sculpture or temporary body I create, and I want to be consistently doing the same across my practice and in my efforts outside the studio. I'm trying to figure out how to stay open. A big part of that is not becoming engrossed with one thing or way. An analogy I have been using to describe my work has been to compare the pieces to musical compositions with materials and forms as notes. I want to create compositions that are at times pleasing, always texturally rich, and flirt with moments of discordance. As an artist I want to play with our focus while being sensitive to the empty spaces within each piece and between moments of making. These spaces are not empty but full of the world.

The Oracle. 2016. wood, vinyl pigment print, hydrocal, aqua resin, cast concrete. 104" x 58" x 18"

OPP: In your statement, you say “I strive to make shaky ambiguous things, whose imbalance and openness exemplify my belief in an unstable world.” But I would argue that your sculptures are very much balanced, just precariously so. They, however, don’t seem entirely stable. Are balance and stability the same thing?  

JWS: Words like balance and stability exist as fixed signifiers but truly represent concepts that are mobile or transitory. They function to indicate a temporary state. A stable geological formation erodes and becomes balanced before it crumbles, becomes sand, and is washed to the sea. I think my use of the words shaky and imbalance is an attempt to physicalize—through language—material differences in the works which become symbols for different states of time and my own understanding of it. Material operates in my work as a metaphor for our malleable perception of time. We live out time as one moment after another, but I want to prompt the viewer to cognize the uncanny ability to imagine time outside of the present and to think of nanoseconds alongside things like geologic and cosmic time. Balance and stability are transitory and dependent on the viewer's focus and their variable investment in a thing which is observed.

screen. 2016. cnc cut pvc, wood, steel, clay, gold leaf. 85" x 60" x 65"

OPP: Tell us about the repeated circles in nomad (2015), dummy (2015), (walnut) screen (2016) and screen (2016). At first I thought this was based on construction fencing (usually orange), but then I realized that these are perfect circles. Is this motif based on something found? Why do you return to it repeatedly?

JWS: I started this inquiry after a conversation with artist Hannah Karsen. We were discussing pattern, its history in textiles and its evolution in current fashion trends. I was struggling with color and mark making on a new body of work, Hannah suggested I look to other patterns for inspiration to avoid some of the pitfalls of the subjective mark and color choices that I was trying to avoid. I was trying to make things that were fixed but becoming. In essence what I was looking for was pattern that would in someways disguise the form and in other ways highlight it. nomad (2015) was an early piece that really relied on the viewer moving around it to resolve or dissolve the image and object. As I progressed, I realized I was more interested in pattern as a consistent system that could create a memory of something it had interacted with and communicate that thing’s essence with a minimum of information. dummy (2015) became a piece but also a model for photographs which became (walnut) screen (2016). For me, this use of pattern becomes an analog for language.

end of running line. 2013. constructed plywood tubing, wood, cardboard, plaster, acrylic paint. 60” x 64” x 66”

OPP: You work with a wide range of materials: wood, steel, concrete, resin, hydrocal, clay, cardboard. Do you have a favorite material?

JWS: I really do love working with wood. It is beautiful and surprising and a little unforgiving if you have the wrong goals. At this point in my history of making, I enjoy working intuitively and avoid measuring as much as I can. I think it brings out some of my favorite aspects of living—being sensitive and perceptive while ready to improvise, being excited to be surprised and challenged.

OPP: Aside from your sculpture, you also design and build custom shelving, benches, tables, etc. Is the creation of functional furnishings just a way to support your sculpture practice? Or can you accomplish something in this work that the sculpture cannot do?

JWS: In the past I did support myself and my sculpture habit by making furniture, but that was hard living. Now I only do about three or four commission pieces a year and view it as a way to remember what it is to be humble. Every time I make a piece of furniture it feels like I’m doing it for the first time. It’s different clients different locations, different objects and different materials. It’s always fresh and stressful but invigorating and inspirational. Furniture making is a hard reality of form and function with the added stress of my desire to create long lasting, good objects that are truly in service to their users.

I guess what keeps me engaged with furniture is my love of material and my desire to have another way to share that with people. If I make a sculpture I am usually one of the few people to touch it, but when I put a furniture piece into someones home it lives a life with them that is intimate in a way that an art object rarely is. Furniture is touched and known. I like having a dual practice which comes from the same hands and experiences but works in different ways.

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

TENDr Pod, 2016. Ceramic, Electronics, Plants.

MARNIA JOHNSTON combines a very old technology—ceramics—with new technology—electronics and robotics—in interactive works that tend to exist outside the white cube. Her TE+ND Rovers and TENDr Pods roam through the landscape, engaging bystanders to help them find light and water in exchange for education about native and non-native plants in the area. Marnia earned her BFA from San Jose State University (2007) and her MFA from the California College of the Arts (2007). She has been an Artist-in-Residence at John Michael Kohler Center for the Arts (2016), Kala Arts Institute (2015), Anderson Ranch (2014). Her numerous exhibitions include shows at Paragon Gallery (2017) in Portland, OR, Portand Museum of Contemporary Craft (2016), Richmond Center for the Arts (2015) in Richmond, CA and The American Museum of Ceramic Art (2015) in Pomona, CA. Most recently, Marnia participated in a Disaster and Climate Risk Artathon over the summer with Stanford doctoral students to create artworks that illustrate ecological resiliency. The results from that event will be shown at the Stanford Blume Earthquake Engineering Center from October 4 - December 1, 2017. Marnia lives and works in Concord, California.

OtherPeoplesPixels: Can you talk generally about how you use technology in your work as an artist?

Marnia Johnston: I think that people forget what technology is. It’s the zipper on your jacket, your shoelaces (or Velcro/elastic for those of us who like slip-on shoes), a fishing net, very basic stuff that we no longer consider technology because it’s so ubiquitous. When we talk about technology today, we neglect our history, our long culture, our techne. That’s why I like to use ceramic techniques, some of the oldest surviving technologies we have, and mix them with rapid prototyping techniques, motors, Raspberry Pi, and various sensors.

I’m not an engineer, but for the TE+ND rovers I had to learn the iterative engineering design process. This meant learning how to design robot parts using a variety of CAD programs, learning CAM programs that transform my models into gcode and then learn how to use 3D printers, CNC mills and water jet cutters. It’s been a long process.

TE+ND Rover Ceramic Version, 2014. Ceramic, PLA, MDF, Electronics.

OPP: You mentioned the TE+ND rovers. “The rovers are robotic fostering environments that care for their own garden of native plants by interacting with participants and actively seeking out light and water.” How do they tend their own gardens? Where do they rove?

MJ: TE+ND Rovers, designed after space exploration vehicles, are intended to investigate a range of environments, from cityscapes to less urban locales. Locations for deployments have included Mt. Diablo, Joshua Tree, and Briones Park (all in California) and the Kohler factory in Wisconsin.

I refer to the audience as participants for this project. The participants are encouraged to assist the rovers by watering their plants and herding them (using their obstacle avoidance systems) toward the resources they need—light and water— to keep their garden healthy. In the future, rovers will use an optical sensor to locate water. In an urban setting, rovers will find water in sprinkler systems, drip irrigation, rain, fog, and from participants. In helping the rovers, participants learn about cultivating native California habitat and stretch the limits of human-robotic empathy and engagement.

Rover field test

OPP: Do you monitor them or just release them? How do other humans encounter the rovers?

MJ: The rovers are currently monitored during deployments. I would like to just let them roam but there are obvious complications to that. For example, how to inform participants of the project efficiently when a monitor is not present or how to keep people from just taking them home. The rovers are usually deployed along popular hiking routes and participants encounter them without previous knowledge of the project. TE+ND monitors are on hand to answer questions and to initiate dialog about what participants consider “native.”

Succulent Surrogate: Legs2010. cast porcelain, steel, plants.

OPP: What kinds of assumptions do participants make about the plants surrounding them? What do you hope participants will understand about “native” plants?

MJ: From my experiences, most participants don’t really have an opinion until they remember that the Eucalyptus trees they see are from Australia or that most of the grasses underfoot are brown during the summer because the majority of them come from Europe. The non-native grasses grow so quickly that they’ve crowded out the native grasses, making it hard for native grasses to compete. I’d hope that the experience leads participants to understand that when they try to go for a hike to get back to ‘nature,’ what they are experiencing is managed landscape; that their opinions and actions help shape that landscape. I hope their experience with the project enables participants to make conscious decisions about local habitat that will benefit future human and nonhuman populations.

Swarm. Robotics.

OPP: SWARM is another robotic project that you’ve been involved with since 2007. What is your role in this collaboration?

MJ: SWARM was the brain child of Michael Prados and is funded by the Black Rock Foundation. Many people have contributed to its design, construction and presentation. In the beginning, we needed lots of volunteers with specific skill sets to help with R&D. We needed every type of labor, from building electronics to designing control interfaces. I helped to weld the aluminum shells, helped design a performance laser perimeter, presented the project to the public, among other things. In 2010 we were lucky enough to be invited to India to perform and give a presentation to students at the Indian Institute of Technology. I’ve also helped perform at Coachella, the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, at NASA Ames, and in New Orleans as part of the Multispecies Salon. I’ve been involved with the project for 10 years now.

OPP: Tell us about DIYbio and how it impacted your current practice.

MJ: DIYbio was established to create a vibrant, productive and safe community for people who wanted to work on their own biology projects. Projects range from creating cheaper equipment that could be used more efficiently and effectively in the field, to synthetic biologists working in community labs to develop medicines (the Open Insulin project), food (Real Vegan Cheese), and renewable energy (biofuels).

I’m currently looking at cultivating oyster mushrooms and how they can be used for soil remediation as part of an art project. The Bay Area, where I live, had an important ship-building industry in World War II. There were over 30 shipyards, and their supporting industries covered the bay shore and estuaries. This industry, along with the use of lead paint, contaminated the local soil with lead. I’ve been going to Counter Culture Labs, a wonderful community lab in Oakland, where Bay Area Applied Mycology (BAAM) meets and has begun the soil remediation project. It’s a valuable resource and the Bay Area is lucky to have such an amazing and giving group of DIY biologists.

Orchid: Cast Clone, 2014. Translucent porcelain, steel.

OPP: Most of your work seems to make more sense outside the white cube. Can you talk about the role the site plays in your projects?

MJ: Unfortunately, because the projects are so conceptually tied to the site, they can be difficult to present in a gallery. For example, many of the native plants on the TE+ND rover growing platform can’t tolerate being inside where they dry out or don’t have the correct light level to flourish. It also just doesn’t have the same impact. Rolling along the California hills, you have a little rover laboring over vast, sometimes difficult landscapes. The rover’s size is diminished in this environment, compared to being situated in a white room.

It’s also encouraging to interact with people who are not prepared for art, as they usually are in a gallery. I get a wholly genuine response when people interact with my projects outside. Besides, who doesn’t like going for a hike?

Revisionist History, 2016. Flashe and spray paint on canvas over panel. 72 x 96 inches.

RYAN PIERCE's large-scale paintings operate more like pictoral diagrams of the interconnectedness of nature and culture than representations of the physical appearance of our world. In his most recent solo exhibition, Dusk is the Mouth of Night at Elizabeth Leach Gallery (Portland, Oregon), he continues his ongoing investigation of the "the historical links between natural history exploration and conquest." Ryan earned his BFA in Drawing at Oregon College of Art & Craft in 2003 and his MFA in Painting at California College of the Arts in 2007. In 2016 he was the Keynote Speaker at the Thin Green Line Conference (Oregon State University) and an Artist-in-Residence at the invitational Crow’s Shadow Institute for the Arts (Pendleton, Oregon). He also had two shows with artist Wendy Given: Nocturne at Whitespace Gallery (Atlanta) and Eyeshine at Portland State University. Ryan is a cofounder of Signal Fire, a non-profit that "builds the cultural value of the natural world by connecting artists to our remaining wild places." Ryan's home-base is Portland, Oregon.

OtherPeoplesPixels: The relationship of nature and culture is a primary theme in your work. How do you see this relationship?

Ryan Pierce: Dominant society tells us that nature and culture are separate and perhaps even mutually exclusive. It may sound simplistic, but I think this is at the root of so much injustice in our world. Judeo-Christian creation myths teach us about being cast out from The Garden, and capitalism builds on that binary to encourage the plundering of the Earth. Everything the European settlers of this continent associated with wildness (Native Americans, women’s bodies, predators, intact ecosystems) was simultaneously romanticized and denigrated to allow for its exploitation. Now climate change, in the form of more extreme and unpredictable weather events, is forcing the messiness of nature right into our lives and living spaces, breaking down our walls against the outside in very literal ways.

Retrospective, 2016. Flashe on canvas over panel. 72 x 96 inches.

OPP: In paintings like Retrospective and The Free Museum, tree branches seem to have grown through the walls and floors. Is nature reclaiming cultural spaces, returning them to the wild? (Or do the trees just want to see the art?)

RP: In these paintings, the floods and fallen tree branches have ruined the gallery’s climate control, but they’ve also possibly liberated these stuffy spaces. I often think about Marilynne Robinson’s 1980 novel Housekeeping, in which the eclectic aunt Sylvie allows weather and animals to move through the open doors and windows of the home, the sort of radical embrace of natural systems that eventually compels CPS to intervene. The Free Museum addresses an additional idea: What if all the sacred objects that were never intended to be “art” in a Western sense— objects stolen from their cultures of origin and housed in museums— what if they are all just sleeping, and the storm that destroys the museum walls and floods the galleries allows these things to become re-enchanted and primed for magic in the present day?

The Free Museum, 2016. Flashe on canvas over panel. 72 x 72 inches.

OPP: It often seems that your compositions move back and forth between depth and flatness within a single work. Can you talk about that perspective shift?

RP: That shifting perspective is probably related more to my stylistic impulses. I’m no minimalist, and ideally a viewer would look at my work for awhile and experience multiple levels of visual interest. Like many artists of my generation, I’m influenced by a panoply of picture-makers, including self-taught Balkan painters, comic books and probably the video games of my youth. In a sense, approaching a painting more as a diagram than an illusionistic space allows one to try to impart the essence of an aspect of nature, as opposed to its appearance. I jump back and forth between those approaches, or both in the same composition.

Mask for the Venomist, 2016. Flashe and collage on canvas over panel. 24 x 24 inches.

OPP: Masks show up in works like The Free Museum and Stanley Falls, where I take them to be literal masks, as exhibited in museums. But what about the series of paintings from 2016 with “mask” in the title? Mask for the Venomist, Mask for the Bandit Queen and Mask for Night Farming are just a few.

RP: I had a transformative art viewing experience some years ago, at the mask collection of the Museo Rafael Coronel in Zacatecas, in Mexico. The collection exceeds 13,000 masks from different Indigenous groups of Mexico, with maybe a third of that on display at any time. They often include imagery from animistic spiritual traditions, cloaked in biblical guises to survive the Spanish laws, and they're innovative and debaucherous and meticulous and funny.

I fixated on the mask as a formal starting point for the paintings where they're singular in the composition, piecing together objects that, along with the title, suggest a loose narrative. In the larger works like The Free Museum, the masks are stand-ins for looted archeological relics but I invented them all without source material because I didn't feel that it was my right to recreate any culture's holy objects.

Mask for the Welfare Rancher is a direct jab at the bozos who orchestrated the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge a couple years ago. The degree of entitlement necessary to seize Federal land for any reason other than to return it to its original Paiute caretakers, let alone to claim it for a bunch of ultra-rightwing Mormon militiamen. . . ugh! I hope they're just a plastic bag hanging on the cruel barbed wire fence of this decade, soon to degrade and blow away.

Casta, 2016. Flashe on canvas over panel. 46 x 42 inches.

OPP: Tell us about Signal Fire, which you co-founded in 2008.

RP: Signal Fire’s mission is to “build the cultural value of the natural world by connecting artists to our remaining wild places.” Public lands activist Amy Harwood and I started Signal Fire as an attempt to merge our respective communities, to get artists outdoors for inspiration and to fall in love with public land, as well as to provide activists with new, open-ended strategies for their campaigns.

Eight years and 350 artists later, we have a real community of people who are sharing critical dialogue about wildlands and ecology, and our role as culture-makers is catalyzing social change. We offer a residency in wall tents, backpacking and canoe retreats, and an immersive arts and ecology field program called Wide Open Studios. Our Tinderbox Residency sponsors artists to work as temporary staff among environmental groups and our Reading In Place series offers a day hike book club in the Portland area. We highlight the work of our alumni in exhibitions and events, such as a film festival this coming fall.

Amy and I share the administrative work with our Co-Director Ka'ila Farrell-Smith, a splendid painter and activist, who brings her work in support of Indigenous survivance into everything she does. Amy and Ka'ila's leadership has helped our organization to evolve from a mix of arts, ecology and recreation, to highlighting the social justice issues that should be integral to any conversation about public lands in the American West.

The Mountain That Devours Us, 2016. Flashe and spray paint on canvas over panel. 42 x 46 inches.

OPP: It took a while to get in touch with you to do this interview because you were actually out in the wilderness, with no reception for long stretches of time. I think many contemporary artists believe they need to stay connected to social media all the time, posting on Instagram and checking Facebook. Why is disconnecting a good idea for all humans? What about for artists specifically?

RP: I’m actually writing these answers in a tent in Oregon's Eagle Cap Wilderness, on week one of a four-week trip. The stars are brilliant tonight and I can hear a rushing, glacier-fed creek, about fifty feet away. Some of the students on our Wide Open Studios trips are young enough that they've never gone a week without a cell phone before.

I'm not a technophobe, but I believe solitude is healthy and increasingly hard to find. Disconnecting is good for building one's attention span and patience to work through a challenge without clicking away. It's reassuring to feel a lasting sense of surprise and the profound smallness that comes with living outside, away from the built environment. It cultivates wonder.

The friendships forged while backpacking through bugs and storms are precious and enduring. The internet is the gold rush of our day: sure, a few artists’ work goes viral, but most of those people are either a flash in the pan or they were damn good to begin with. For the rest of us, myself included, it's a mildly unfulfilling time suck. Every time I hear the little voice encouraging me to scan around for obscure things to apply to, or to sign up for new ways to network online, I try to redirect that energy back into the work itself, or else go do something IRL.

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 shows at Siena Heights University (2013), Heaven Gallery (2014), the Annex Gallery at Lillstreet Art Center (2014) and Witness, an evolving, durational installation at The Stolbun Collection (Chicago 2017), that could only be viewed via a live broadcast through a Nestcam. Now that the installation is complete, you can watch it via time lapse. Her solo show Sacred Secular is on view through October 4, 2017 at Indianapolis Art Center.

One Million and Six Hundred Thousand Years Ago, 2016. Acrylic and Oil on Canvas. 47 x 60."

KRISTEN SANDERS describes her paintings as "prehistoric science fiction." In a satured pallette of pinks and greens, she explores the origins of human existence, mark-making and self-awareness. Her work is populated by both female hominids and female AI robots, both of which call into question our contemporary understanding of what it means to be human.  Kristen earned her BFA in 2012 at the University of California Davis and her MFA in 2016 at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her work has been included in exhibitions at Present Company (Brooklyn), Pro Arts (Oakland) and Basement Gallery (Davis, California). In 2017, she collaborated with artist Devin Harclerode for Maternity Leave: Para-Natural Pregnancies at Sediment Arts in Richmond, Virginia and mounted her solo show Soft Origin at Sadie Halie Projects, an artist-run space in Minneapolis. Kristen lives and works in Minneapolis.

OtherPeoplesPixels: Tell us about the recurring pink hominids that show up in paintings, ceramics and costumes. Who are they and why do you keep telling their story?

Kristen Sanders: The pink hominids are all ambiguous human ancestors (or perhaps future human descendants). They are fluid characters who fluctuate between the prehistoric and the futuristic, and sometimes they appear as green or red in addition to pink. They are nonhuman discoverers and inventors, and they allow me to explore ideas of origin, consciousness, gender and ultimately, humanness.

It all started when I became curious about the origins of image making—what kinds of images were made before cave paintings and petroglyphs? What was the first image? I imagined that the first image, unpreserved in the fossil record and therefore unknowable, must have been a line in the dirt drawn with a finger. I designated the hominid as the maker of this first mark, and I have explored and expanded upon this narrative in my work ever since.

Painters in the Grotto, 2015. Acrylic on Canvas. 48 x 64."

OPP: Your palette is distinctly pink/red and green. Why do you choose these colors for this subject matter?

KS: I want to keep the images I paint within the realm of fiction (a "prehistoric science fiction" as I like to call it) so I knew I didn't want to use any naturalistic colors. I chose pink/red and green as color compliments. The green initially came about as a mysterious, sci-fi glow, which confounds the timeframe in which my painted imaged might exist. Pink is an interesting color because it feels strangely plastic and uncanny when used to depict something in nature or something prehistoric. I am also interested in examining pink's initial connotations of the feminine and what happens as it shifts into red.

Prehistoric Posthuman, 2017. Acrylic on Canvas. 22 x 30."

OPP: How do you balance research and myth in your practice?

KS: Research is typically a starting point in my work. I read books and essays, watch movies, conduct google image searches and check in on current anthropological findings. I will pick out an idea as a jumping off point, whether for a single piece or a series of works, and I will then imagine scenarios or invent narratives surrounding the idea. The latter is the myth. However, sometimes myth comes first and then I use research to clarify or expand the narrative. If I consider my larger body of work over the past several years, then I can see that research and myth are continuously bouncing off one another—this is the process by which I conceptualize the images and objects I make.

The First Self Portrait, 2017. Acrylic on Canvas. 30 x 40."

OPP: Why is it important to challenge the patriarchal bias of Anthropology?

KS: It’s important to address the history of patriarchal bias in Anthropology because it has shaped our understanding of our evolutionary history. If biases influence how anthropologists have pieced together the lives of our ancestors, these biases can then reinforce the gender stereotypes that initially generated them, and it becomes a cycle. For example, say an anthropologist theorizes that male hominids were aggressive hunters while female hominids focused on mothering offspring. The theory then gets published, and perhaps a museum installs a diorama that illustrates this scene. The public can then conclude that the stereotype that women are nurturing and men are aggressive must be true because it has an evolutionary basis. However, the ways in which a particular hominid species might have conceptualized gender (if at all) are simply unknowable. It's important to remember that any reconstruction of the day to day lives of our ancestors is based on our own human projections.

OPP: What books should we read if we want to know more?

KS: A great book that addresses this history is called Women in Human Evolution, edited by Lori D. Hager. It's a collection of essays by women anthropologists, and one essay in particular, The Paleolithic Glass Ceiling: Women in Human Evolution by Adrienne Zihlman has been very influential for my work.

What Happens When I Turn Around and Tell You I'm Real 2, 2016. Oil on Wood Panel. 16 x 20."

OPP: What Happens When I Turn Around and Tell You I'm Real 1 and 2 (2016) hint at AI instead of our prehistoric ancestors. What’s the connection between robots and early hominids?

KS: For me the AI robot is a futuristic mirror of the hominid. One is pre-human and the other is post-human, and I merge these two figures into one within my paintings. That is why the hominids sometimes have mask-like faces or peeling skin. One anthropologist once asserted that female hominids were incapable of inventing anything useful, and therefore incapable of crossing that threshold into ‘human.' I am interested in drawing parallels between this de-emphasis of women in prehistory and the tropes of sexualized female robots in film.

Maternity Leave: Para-Natural Pregnancies, 2017. Installation view.

OPP: You’ve recently collaborated with artist Devin Harclerode to create Maternity Leave: Para-Natural Pregnancies (2017) at Sediment in Richmond, Virginia. Tell us about the show. How did the collaboration come about?

KS: Devin and I are friends and colleagues from Virginia Commonwealth University's MFA program. We became interested in future collaborations after seeing our work exhibited together for our first year candidacy review. Devin, who is currently based in Richmond, approached me last summer when Sediment had an open call out for proposals. We both had been thinking about different ideas surrounding pregnancy and birth. We decided to make outfits and suits because that is where our practices overlap formally, and each suit addresses a myth or narrative surrounding birth or anti-birth. Some examples are the dated idea that maternity was incompatible with invention for female hominids and the historic ritual of placing an onion in the vagina to test for fertility. We made objects and accessories corresponding to each suit that were sold to raise money for Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project, where Devin has also been working.

OPP: Can you explain what you mean by the term anti-birth?

KS: Anti-birth can refer to the opposite of a birth or an obstruction of birth, such as Devin's use of the abortifacient tansy in Heretic Suit. It can also refer to an alternative birth, such as my Future Suit, which considered robot birth as an assembly of parts rather than a gestation and a delivery.

Soft Origin, 2017. Installation view.

OPP: Soft Origin just closed at Sadie Halie. What new explorations do you tackle in this show that you haven't addressed before? And new directions for the next body of work?

KS: Sadie Halie is a small space so I got to play around with smaller scale paintings. I also wanted to make some paintings that don't feature a figure, and instead focus more on the objects and tools that the hominid characters might have made. Moving forward, I am beginning to research some of the robots that exist today, such as Sophia the robot, and I want to further explore the connections between the hominid and the AI robot.

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 shows at Siena Heights University (2013), Heaven Gallery (2014), the Annex Gallery at Lillstreet Art Center (2014) and Witness, an evolving, durational installation at The Stolbun Collection (Chicago 2017), that could only be viewed via a live broadcast through a Nestcam. Now that the installation is complete, you can watch it via time lapse. Her solo show Sacred Secular is on view through October 4, 2017 at Indianapolis Art Center.