OtherPeoplesPixels Blog

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.

(for the bisexual dykes who lost all their lesbian friends after they fucked a guy), still from the tv show The Bisexual, 2019. Hand-embroidered sequins, imitation silk, thread, and interfacing. 36" x 18."

DANI LOPEZ uses textile processes to "reimagine her closeted queer youth into an out loud one." Informed by autobiography and pop culture, her weavings, soft sculptures and sequined banners balance narrative and abstraction in an exploration of queer and femme identity. dani earned her BFA in Drawing and Painting at the University of Oregon in Eugene and her MFA  in Textiles at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. In January 2020, dani’s solo show dykes on the dancefloor was on view at Root Division in San Francisco. Her work was recently included in Typos + Spills + Broken Glass at Amos Eno Gallery (Brooklyn) and the 33rd Annual Materials: Hard + Soft International Contemporary Craft Exhibition (Denton, TX), and her work will be included in a show titled Notes on Erasure at CTRL+SHFT (Oakland) in August (hopefully). dani lives and works in Oakland, CA.

OtherPeoplesPixels: Tell us about the relationship between abstraction and narrative in your work.

dani lopez: The oscillation between abstraction and narrative has been present in my practice for over 10 years. When I feel like I rely on narrative too heavily, I shift to abstraction to make things more oblique and harder to read. And when the abstract work is being read in ways that aren’t specific enough for me, I move back to the narrative work. In the past, I worried that I’d have to choose one side over the other in hopes of a coherent practice. It’s only until recently that I have become more comfortable with this back and forth. When I look at my entire body of work, I see that the abstract and narrative work need each other for balance, and they inform each other as the work grows. The constants that connect the two are the role of my hand, the way that color factors in and materiality.

tell me that love isn’t true, 2019. Handwoven cotton yarn and novelty hand cut fabrics. 36" x 108."

OPP: What materials are you most attracted to? 

dl: My materials are purchased at Joann’s Fabrics, Michaels and local fabric outlet stores. In the past, this was a financial necessity for me. As time went on, I realized that my high school drop-out/working-class background, the necessity for these “cheap” materials, and the dialogue I was having with queer art history and culture were a stable ground for me to work upon. Looking back to the 90s DIY culture—I was a teenager in the mid/late 90s—and to the queer aesthetics that I was so attracted to, the material choices became easier and easier for me to make. It was also an act of refusal to more sophisticated, clean, minimal materials/aesthetic choices that I can’t separate from the cishet male painter canon (I was a painter in undergrad).

The work evokes a campy, sad aesthetic in the way that we often find ourselves calling a friend after a break-up/rejection and as we’re crying, we—or at least me—make jokes at our own expense for levity. That space between heartbreak and humor, in attempts to alleviate the pain, if even for a moment, is where a lot of my narrative springs from. 

Fuck…, 2018. Machine sewn and hand embroidered cotton. 22" x 17."

OPP: What does the recurring form of the bow mean to you?

dl: Initially, I was attracted to its connotations of decoration, frivolousness and hyper-femininity. As that body of work grew, my interest in narrative and the posture that these objects were holding became more and more developed. Each bow came to embody a personality, a feeling, or an archetype. With the work maybe the feeling just comes and it goes, I realized the bows could symbolize something I was going through at the time (coming together and coming undone, over and over). These static objects were also activated by the act of tying them up and pulling apart, hinting at time.

baby femme, 2017. Handwoven fabric; cotton dyed with commercial dye, acrylic yarn, wire, and sequin fabric. 34" x 29."

OPP: dykes on the dancefloor is a series of hand-embellished, silk banners. Each one is dedicated to dykes that share a common experience (for example, ACT-UP dykes who cared for their gay brothers while they were dying of AIDS and trans dykes who were able to feel free and fall in love). Are the TV shows and movies referenced in the titles the impetus for the work? 

dl: This body of work began with me watching the French movie, BPM. There’s a beautiful dance sequence throughout the movie and it made me think about the moments on the dance floor when someone is partially illuminated. For the first work, ACT-UP dykes who cared for their gay brothers while they were dying of AIDS, I chose a still from BPM that features a lesbian on the dance floor. I had these stills printed on fabric (imitation silk and now velvet) and began embroidering sequins over the illuminated areas. I think of them as reinterpretations and interventions of queer culture and history. They also contribute and participate in the culture and history as well. The titles refer to what is happening at that moment, but they are my titles (with the reference to the still after the title).

(for the dykes who only came out to themselves and in their fantasies), still from Black Mirror’s San Junipero episode, 2019. Hand-embroidered sequins, imitation silk, thread, and interfacing. 36" x 18."

OPP: Sequins can serve the contradictory purposes of hiding and highlighting the surface of fabric. This seems conceptually important in this series.

dl: This is another example of my balancing act of representation and abstraction. In some of the stills, you can see a figure, but I make sure to obscure it. Other times I purposely choose stills that are confusing or look like flashes of light, but there is always a figure in each work. To me, seeing queer womxn on the dancefloor losing themselves in the moment, dancing with their girlfriend, or trying to make their ex jealous are really beautiful and intimate moments that I wanted to capture. I’m also protective of these moments, I want queer womxn to be visible and for them to feel seen, but I don’t want these to be easily consumed images. The viewer needs to do a little work with these works, just in the way that I needed to really work to find these images to work with. Finding images of queer womxn on the dancefloor was challenging and that frustration is definitely a part of this body of work.

(for the trans dykes who never felt safe enough to come out), still from tv show Euphoria, 2019. Hand-embroidered sequins, imitation silk, thread, and interfacing. 36" x 18."

OPP: It’s been more than a month since the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic. How are you coping? How is your studio practice being affected? 

dl: This answer varies from day to day. My studio practice has been dramatically affected, partially because I’m no longer going to my studio—it’s in San Francisco and I’m in Oakland. I’ve also lost access to a loom I work on in a different space. But my headspace has also been affected as well. Some days it feels so good to work on embroidery or to work on writing for future performance work. Other days everything feels pointless and I just call friends, watch tv, eat cookies, or zone out.

I’m employed (for now) and that feels like enough on any given day. The one constant is that I’m still reading, which is the foundation of everything for me. I’m working out more, doing yoga more, and meditating twice a day to manage the anxiety and depression. These are the things that feel doable and also really good because so many things don’t feel good right now. I daydream about having a huge house party at my place (I’ve got a great roof for it) with all my friends and hugging each and every one of them, once all of this is over.

To see more of Dani's work, please visit www.danilopez.us.

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 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) and Kent State Stark (North Canton, 2019). Her work was recently included in the three-person show Manifestations at One After 909 (Chicago). Stacia's solo exhibition The Thin Line Between One Thing and Another was on view in January 2020 at Finlandia University.

OPP: What have you learned about this material over the years?

MBC: Elastic is the perfect material for creating physical art work that you can feel. . . art that you touch and play with. Its main function is to move with the body. It responds to your movements, your action, and then it recovers. It holds a variety of tensions until it is released and returns back to its original form. 

I love elastic. I love how, like many textiles, we are using it almost 24/7. Our underwear, our bra straps, our pajamas, our swimming suits, our exercise clothing, our pants, skirts, hair ties all stay with us because of elastic’s ability to respond and hold tight while our bodies are constantly moving through space throughout the day. It is really hard to break elastic.

OPP: Can you talk about interactivity versus performance with your elastic installations? You’ve allowed for both.

MBC: I am still learning and experimenting with interactivity, performance and even non-interaction. There are many possibilities for how the work can behave in the world. I knew the work could lend itself to rigorous interactions with dancers, so when opportunities arose to collaborate, I took them. The only way to find out was to research it  and try it.

I see interaction more as the audience playing with the work. This exists when viewers physically handle the work or when they simply move around it. When someone looks up, bends down, or cranes the neck for a different view, they are moving with the work. They are physically engaged. When they dare to touch the work and manipulate it with their hands or body, I have gotten to a whole other area of the brain for them. The more sensations the work gives them, the richer the aesthetic experience, and the more they will remember, think and feel about the work.  



2005

OPP: I assume Pick-ups are meant to picked up by the viewer. How difficult or easy is it to get viewers to overcome the convention of not touching art?

MBC: I have always thought of getting people to touch the work as a design problem. How can I get the object to inherently communicate to the viewer to touch it. Fiber and ceramics lend themselves to touch naturally, and those are the main materials I work in. Half the battle is won. But the socialization to not touch in a gallery or museum is pretty strong, so often I resort to giving permission to touch on the signage. 

Luckily, I have been involved in two shows lately where all the work in the show was intended to be touchable. The title of the exhibitions were Touch, Touch, Touch and Please Touch.  I also curated a show called Handle with Care. This was a great way to go about it, and the spirit in the gallery is just terrific when people are playing and exploring art in this way.

There are other design problems: How do I allow for touch to happen and protect the work from damage? Do I control the way a viewer touches the work? Or do I allow for the destruction of the work through the interaction like in the wear and tear in my Pinch Pot installation. I have had an installation totally destroyed by dancers who didn’t understand the work’s limitations. In retrospect, I would have insisted on more practice time with the work before the performance. But work does get damaged, and I often struggle with whether I should fix it or should I let its disintegration be a part of it.

OPP: Is it harder with small objects than installations?

MBC: For me, the large scale installations are more satisfying because they are more open-ended and engage the whole body, but the smaller works like the Pick Ups and Snaps! are fun for the fingers and create a lot of visual pleasure too! I also don’t underestimate what the imagination can fill in. One reaction I often get from the Pick Ups is that people want to taste them! It is much better for them to imagine the taste than to actually taste stretch netting and porcelain!



OPP: I see a formal connection between the warp of your hand-woven drawings and the taut vertical lines in Tensions and various interactive elastic installations. But the weavings are so static and discreet compared to the other projects, at least for the viewer. Is there an underlying conceptual thread between these two seemingly disparate bodies of work?

MBC: I think you hit the nail on the head. It’s all about the warp! I came to weaving after I had been creating my interactive installations for many years. I teach weaving and fiber arts full time at the Kingswood Weaving Studio at Cranbrook Schools. The verticality of the warp and the tension held by the loom were visually the same as my elastic installations! I quickly became immersed in figuring out how weaving could be integrated into my own work. My BFA is in drawing and painting, so I have been playing with how can I bring a more spontaneous, quick way of drawing and almost graffiti effect into weaving. Nothing in weaving is quick, but I found the handwoven drawings to be quicker and super satisfying for me. I am coordinating all these elements: the drawing, the string, the colors, the density of the strings. Once it is off the loom, I work back into the surface of the handwoven drawing with paint, stickers, and even embroidery. 

These works are pretty new for me; it’s been just a year. I am really intrigued by how I can draw on the wood slats, then veil the drawing in the warp. It reminds me of how my installations optically transform and even veil space. The warp does the same to the drawings. The warp appears and disappears, adding incredible depth and texture. If you look at the handwoven drawings from the side, you only see the warp threads and not the drawing. I also suspend the weavings out from the wall and paint the backs in bright colors, so there is a glow that surrounds the piece from behind. Shadows of light through the handwoven drawings are pretty incredible too. Even though space is treated two-dimensionally in the handwoven drawings, it is still about space and maybe that space is more inward than outward.

OPP: Please talk about the imagery in your most recent Abandon drawings. Will these become weavings?

MBC: The imagery in Abandon is very similar formally to the psychological Rorschach ink blot tests. I built upon these tests, though, by mirroring abandoned homes and locating the psychology in the home. One of the main indicators of abandonment is the foliage around the house, which takes over almost like a creature or unstoppable “destructive” force reclaiming the space back for nature. I also thought a lot about what it means to walk away from a home, to abandon it. So many memories, relationships, so much dysfunction, as well as familial, social and financial security are held in a house. So many of our psychological experiences occur in the space of a home. I flattened and ghosted out the houses and the surrounding foliage to abstract them and allow for a more imaginative interpretation. 

For the large weavings, I have used only the tree and foliage imagery so far. I really enjoy trying to give a tree personality and employing some of the textile design structures like repeating motifs and borders as in rugs, but these structures are not woven. They are drawn and then woven. Like I said, they are pretty new works, so I won’t eliminate the possibility of the houses working their way into them in the future. 

Featured Artist Interviews are conducted by Chicago-based, interdisciplinary 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 instructor 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 2012-2013 Mentor-in-Residence at BOLT in Chicago. Her solo exhibitions include I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For (2013) at Klemm Gallery, Siena Heights University (Adrian, Michigan), Everything You Need is Already Here (2014) at Heaven Gallery (Chicago) and When Things Fall Apart, a durational, collage installation in the Annex Gallery at Lillstreet Art Center (Chicago). Form Unbound, a two-person show, also featuring the work of Aimée Beaubien, closed in December 2015 at Dominican University's O’Connor Art Gallery (River Forest, IL). Most recently, Stacia created a brand new site-responsive installation for SENTIENCE, a group show at The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art in March 2016.

MELISSA LEANDRO creates complex, sumptuous surfaces using traditional textile techniques in unconventional ways. Her diverse repertoire includes drawing, hand embroidery, machine sewing, paper-making, felting, heat-fusing and weaving, and she ultimately balances all these in a symbolic exploration of her cultural identities as both Latina and North American. Melissa lives and works in Chicago. She is currently pursuing her graduate studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, while maintaining an active exhibition record. After winning the Juror’s Award at the 57th Annual Beloit and Vicinity exhibition in 2014, her solo exhibition Recuerdos de Un Paseo is on view at the Wright Museum of Art in Beloit, Wisconsin until August 2, 2015. Her work is included in the group exhibition, Mom & Pop: Family Business in Art and Life, curated by Anthony Stepter. It opened last week at Arts Incubator at the University of Chicago and will be on view until September 11, 2015.

OtherPeoplesPixels: Tell us a little about your history with the various techniques you use in your practice. How does each feed into the others?

Melissa Leandro: I originally began with traditional floor loom weaving and then quickly moved to weaving with the aid of a digital Jacquard loom. I also have an obsession with learning and inventing new techniques while using my hands for repetitive and methodical systems of making.

Weaving and stitching follow a particular pattern—over under, up and down—but intentionally causing inconsistencies in that pattern to achieve an unconventional outcome is extremely satisfying. I’d like my work to constantly generate or branch off into new ideas. My process of making and thinking through ideas never completely ends. I often go back and fourth with imagery and process by using reoccurring marks and patterns from finished or in-progress works.

At the root of my practice is a perpetual interest in considering how to create harmonious combinations of process, material and pattern within a given object or textile. Over time, I’ve developed a working method that often calls for the fusion of materials into new textiles and surfaces through processes like heat-fusing, weaving, felting and paper-making. For example, I often build up multiple layers of plastic, paper, felt, yarn and fuse them together to create a new substrate. The materials are often cheap, cast-away domestic objects, like upholstery, tablecloths and polyester fabric. Through the process of weaving, elements of the original materials are hidden, exposed and thus fragmented. I use embellishment techniques like embroidery and stitching to further build up, expose or hide pattern and color.

OPP: What role does translation—in terms of materials, media, and language—play in your practice?

ML: I’m interested in moving sourced pattern and drawn lines through multiple processes of translation. I often begin with a base process—small-scale line drawings, two-dimensional collages or cyanotype prints, for example—that is consistent and has limited freedom in its output. I create these intimate, abstract works during moments of transit, extended travel or moments of boredom, usually in a sketchbook. Then I translate them through embroidery, machine sewing, paper-making, felting, heat-fusing and weaving. I enjoy the idea that my paper pieces can move through multiple iterations until they are drastically different from their original form, both in scale and texture.

Lately, this has been through the use of cyanotype or “sun prints.” Cyanotype, a photographic printing process that uses the sun for exposure, leaves only an impression of the original object. I imprint family trinkets and mementos, fabric, lace, leaves, rocks and small sculptures, but their nuanced textures and colors are stripped away. What remains is a distorted—translated—image of shapes and lines.

From here the image is traced, photocopied, cut and collaged to create new drawings, weavings and sculptural objects that only slightly echo the original linear elements of the cyanotype. The sentimentality of these objects becomes blurred and sometimes totally lost. My titles connect the final work with its original inspiration. Spanish phrases, words and slang in my titles often refer to being on journeys, endless paths, lost in mazes. Alternatively, there are more specific cultural adjectives about character and class.

I am conflicted by being a part of two different cultures, identifying myself as both American and Latina. I struggle with bouncing back and forth between thinking and speaking in English and Spanish. I’m continually concerned that one culture is becoming more dominant than the other. My practice has become a means to seek out systems that highlight these stark differences while forcing them to coexist within the same plane.

OPP: I love your idea of language as the "warp and weft of a mixed culture." Can you expand on that as it relates to Spanglish?

ML: In Miami, it’s common for people to speak in English but regularly use Spanish words or phrases as a form of slang. Although, I don’t live in Miami any more, I still occasionally use Spanglish and process thoughts and memories in both languages. As time progresses, it becomes difficult to differentiate whether memories were in one language or another; things are lost in translation.

This mixing of languages has often lead to the creation of new slang words, which correlates to the mixing of material textures in my practice. I combine natural with synthetic, bright with muted, digital with analog, just in the same way Miami was a collision of cultures, music, food and so on. There is also a huge contrast between the rural landscapes of Costa Rica—my family’s home country—and the more urban, party town that is Miami and now my urban home of Chicago. I find comfort in merging the physical qualities of a very rural landscape with the rich, hyper extreme colors that surround me in the U.S. Through material investigation, I believe this play between local and foreign influences will impact my work for some time to come.

OPP: What's a "gradient stitch?" Tell us how you use it in your work.

ML: A “gradient stitch” is a term I use to describe a very dense zig-zag machine stitch that requires gradated sewing thread. Every sewn inch, changes thread color, fluctuating between three-five colors in one given spool of thread. The thread has a smooth transition between each color, allowing for solid, colored lines to be “drawn” on fabric. I frequently choose colors that are vivid or neon because they give a desired effect of vibrating on the fabric’s surface. Similar to my pen drawings on paper, I use sewn stitches to draw repetitive lines, dashes and shapes. By making crucial decisions on thread color, the sewn plane is alive and in constant transition. The end results are illustrations that resemble warped and deconstructed topographical maps.

OPP: In works from 2011 like Mi Mama, Mi Papa and La Familia, there were more literal references to your family and heritage. But in recent years, you have shifted more towards symbolic abstraction. In your statement, you say, "I create an inventory of symbols connected to [childhood] memories based on abstract structures, systems of map making, topography, and landmark images." Could you highlight a favorite recurring symbol for us?

ML: One repeating symbol in my work is a cluster of linear, mountainous forms, forming landscapes. Specifically, they are hill-like shapes that stack on top of one another, often consuming the paper, woven cloth or stitched fabric I’m working on. This symbol represents my affinity for rural environments. Growing up, I spent many summers in Costa Rica. I later realized the rural, mountainous and lush landscape subconsciously influenced what I was doodling in my sketchbook. As the imagery became more pronounced, my doodling turned into a body of drawings that depicted mountains, valleys, dirt mounds, roads and river paths. Now I spend much of my time in urban cities, so my drawing practice reconnect me with surroundings that are currently quite foreign to me. My drawings shift between landscape and aerial views. The symbols have also begun to mesh urban and rural elements together. I associate squares and straight lines with urban environments, while circular shapes represent rural/natural environments.

OPP: You've also been working with the doily as a material symbol. What does it mean to you?

ML: Doilies have recently become an incredibly prominent symbol. The doily has a rich connection with home decoration, dinning and social class. I’m interested in thinking about how the doily has moved through materials; first as silk ornaments made for furniture coverings, then cotton doily placemats, to recent uses as plastic coasters and tablecloths. There is a fascinating juxtaposition between a handmade cotton doily heirloom and a mass-produced plastic, disposal doily coaster, which hints at a huge shift in class status and value for the handmade. The disposability of this symbolic object make me want to invest in it as pattern.

I have begun to weave with plastic doily tablecloths. I cut the material into strips, weave them together using a tabby construction and then heat-fuse the whole piece; the heat melts the plastic strips to form a new substrate. The imagery of the doily is fragmented and obscured by other woven-in, synthetic materials like plastic rug liners, disposable tablecloths, fabric gimp, trim and sequins. These cheap, domestic materials were a huge part of my childhood home, which was decorated with plastic dishware, textiles and furniture. My work reincarnates these utilitarian and disposable textiles into something surreal, gaudy and precious.

Featured Artist Interviews are conducted by Chicago-based, interdisciplinary 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 instructor 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 2012-2013 Mentor-in-Residence at BOLT in Chicago. Her solo exhibitions include I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For (2013) at Klemm Gallery, Siena Heights University (Adrian, Michigan), Everything You Need is Already Here (2014) at Heaven Gallery (Chicago) and When Things Fall Apart, a durational, collage installation in the Annex Gallery at Lillstreet Art Center (Chicago). Stacia recently completed an installation for Chicago Artists' Coalition's 2015 Starving Artist Benefit and is currently working towards a two-person show, also featuring the work of Aimée Beaubien, for O’Connor Art Gallery at Dominican University (River Forest, IL). The show will open on November 5, 2015.

The snags and unraveling edges of STEVEN VASQUEZ LOPEZ's colorful, hand-drawn textiles embody the accidental beauty of mistakes, acting as a graphic metaphor for an optimistic way of viewing life's chaotic moments. Influenced by the perseverance of his seamstress mother and mechanic/welder father, he reveals the connections between drawing, textile production and manual labor in his patterned grids, which echo Minimalist painting, the weave structures of plaids and the color palette of Mexican serape blankets. Steven received his BA from UC Santa Barbara and his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. He is a past recipient of the William Dole Memorial Scholarship (1999, 2000), Abrams Prize (2000), Murphy and Cadogan Fellowship (2006), and the 2012 ArtSlant prize. He has exhibited widely throughout California and is represented by CES Contemporary (Los Angeles), where he had his first solo show Accidental Moments in 2014. His work is currently featured in the San Francisco-based The New Asterisk, now available in print and online. Steven lives in San Francisco.

OtherPeoplesPixels: Your paintings and drawings are dense with color and pattern. Where did your love of pattern come from? What influences your color palate?



Steven Vasquez Lopez: I grew up around a lot of sewing and fabric. My mother became a seamstress at a very early age in order to earn her own money. I spent a lot of time next to her while she worked, so I have an intimate relationship with fabric swatches and pattern. Also, I went to Catholic school, where we wore plaid uniforms. Then, during high school I took some architectural drafting classes that nurtured my interested in linear and geometric drawing. Over the last five years, these influences have merged into my current work with pattern and color. Now, I continue to be influenced by plaid and color from uniforms, men’s clothing, and Mexican serapes that I see around me.

OPP: The ink drawings from Patches and Some Strings Attached, equally recall Agnes Martin's abstract grids and woven textiles. Of course, the entire history of painting has been covering over the natural grid of the woven canvas itself. Do you have any weaving experience or interest in learning to weave?

SVL: I’m glad you mentioned that. I received my MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute, where there is a real importance on understanding the linage and history of the work you are making and ideas you explore. I’m well aware of and influenced by prolific artists like Agnes Martin, Cy Twombly and Sol Lewitt, as well as contemporaries such as Jim Isserman, Amy Ellingson and Nike Schröder, for their use of color, form and ideas as they relate to art history, culture and technology.

My domestic sewing machine and overlock/serger machine never has time to collect dust because I use both so frequently for alterations and making my own clothing. I’m obsessed with well-tailored clothing. A few years ago, my mom taught me how to crotchet. I have to be careful because I love compulsive, laborious projects, and drawing already consumes a lot of my time.

I would love to get some instruction on weaving or creating textiles on a loom. Do you know anyone in the Bay Area you can introduce me to? Haha! My work has been used with a few research projects in fashion and textiles. It would be fun to collaborate with a designer on avant-garde and conceptual textile designs. I get a lot of recommendations to put my work into fashion. For me, it would need to be the right project. Although the drawings are influenced by fashion, I don’t envision just silk-screening them onto t-shirts. It would be important for me to get my hands and understanding on the technical side of a fashion project, then develop the conceptual parameters. There is a lot of potential there. I’m sure when the right opportunity presents itself, I’ll be on board.

OPP: Tell us about the process and experience of drawing so many straight lines. Free hand or ruler?

SVL: I can’t give up all my secrets! However, I will tell you that I don’t use any pencil or preliminary under-drawing. It’s all hand-drawn with ink, and it’s a one-shot deal. I like that intense precision. I’m obsessed with the notion of a human imitating a machine to produce work. It makes the drawings more personal and valuable on both a conceptual and tangible level. Also, I have to learn a formula for each pattern and repeat the math in my head as I’m drawing. I don’t write down or record any formulas. Instead, I sing the numbering in my head. All these years of drawing, I have developed an ability to measure out the spacing really accurately. The entire process feeds my obsessive-compulsive need to make laborious, challenging and meticulous hand-made work. I thrive off it. It’s fulfilling and rewarding!

OPP: On the one hand, the drawings from Patches (2013) are pure color and pattern. They evoke plaid fabric scraps and bring to mind patchwork quilts and mended clothing. But these patches seem to have personality. The more I look at them, they become blobby beings hugging one another instead of flat scraps of fabric. Could you talk about your intentions in this body of work?

SVL: After making about 30 of the abstract pattern drawing from Some Strings Attached, which is a ongoing series, I wanted to work on drawings that could be a little more organic, personal, quirky and silly. By using blobby shapes, the swatches transform into these interesting characters with personalities. I come from a very big, supportive, funny, loving Mexican family, and I wanted to use these amoebas to tell stories about the relationships with my family and friends in a vaguely narrative way. The patches are beautiful and resourceful support systems for one another, disregarding judgment based on economic elitism. I’m glad to hear that you see a few of them hugging each other. That is exactly what is going on.

OPP: Talk about the metaphors of the snag and the unraveling edge.



SVL: Initially, I didn’t intend on any unraveling in the drawings. I needed a project that I could do while traveling so the series started without “imperfections.” I made about fifteen perfect uninterrupted pattern drawings. Then I hit some turbulence on a plane and messed up a drawing that I had been working on for about five hours. I put it aside and had to deal with the disappointment. When I pulled the drawing out a few days later, I realized that moment of disruption was the precise moment of awareness in the work. It turned out that a happy accident was my awaking into Some Strings Attached.

One metaphor is that we spend so much of our daily lives on autopilot, trying to keep life stable, predictable and consistent. This way of living is so consuming that we forget to look around and be in the moment. We need to get off our phones and devices and pay attention to the real nuances and quirks that make life special and memorable.

On a personal level, I spent a lot of my younger years making sense of diversity. A large part of the population conforms to preconceived ideas of success and lifestyle. We need to teach both our youth and “old dogs” to embrace difference. There’s nothing more boring and depressing than a homogenous culture. Self-deprecation based on the ideals and expectations of others is a disease learned at an early, impressionable age. Let’s embrace and celebrate our uniqueness, rather than oppress and demonize anything or anyone outside of our comfort zone. I’m optimistic that it’s getting better with more awareness and visibility, but there’s still more terrain to cover. A snag in my drawings can either be viewed as a mistake or a beautiful, unique moment. It’s all perspective. How do you look at life?

To see more of Steven's work, please visit stevenvlopez.com.

Featured Artist Interviews are conducted by Chicago-based, interdisciplinary artist Stacia Yeapanis. When she’s not writing for OPP, Stacia explores the relationship between repetition, desire and impermanence in her cross-stitch embroideries, remix video and collage installations. She is an instructor 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 2012-2013 Mentor-in-Residence at BOLT in Chicago. Recent solo exhibitions include I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For (2013) at Klemm Gallery, Siena Heights University (Adrian, Michigan) and Everything You Need is Already Here (2014) at Heaven Gallery in Chicago. Stacia is currently looking forward to creating a site-responsive collage installation in her hometown. NEXT: Emerging Virginia Artists opens on July 11, 2014 at the Peninsula Fine Arts Center in Newport News, VA.

Magic Carpet, detail

KATIE VOTA’s delicate cut-paper works appear to float off the wall, casting shifting shadows that evoke the gentle motion of leaves rustling in the breeze. The combination of material and image—paper, sometimes cut to the brink of disintegration and enlarged micrographs of the cellular structures of natural dye plants—is a testament to the simultaneous fragility and robustness of nature. Katie was an artist-in-residence at ISLAND Hill House in Michigan in 2011. Later that same year, she received a Fulbright Fellowship to study natural dyes in Cuzco, Peru. Her work is currently on view in the group exhibition Under Construction at the Indianapolis Art Center through August 4, 2013. She will be a first year MFA candidate at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the fall of 2013, and you have 9 more days to support her education by contributing to her Indiegogo campaign. Katie lives and works in Chicago.

OPP: How did your older work in weaving lead to your current body of work?

KV: In the fall of 2009, about the time natural dyes began appearing in my work, I was working exclusively in weaving, manipulating structures on the loom to create large, fragile open weave textiles. There were too many structural limitations on the loom, so I started “translating” the weavings onto paper. I projected light through them and traced the shadows. Then I began cutting into the paper to create faux open weaves. Something clicked, and I began working between paper and weaving, allowing one to influence the other. The structure of the paper works would decay until it was almost unrecognizable and suddenly I’d have an "ah-ha!" moment and I would go back to the loom with something really fresh, something I never would have come to otherwise.

OPP: Could you expand on the theme of decay in your work?

KV: I approach decay as part of a cycle of transformation and recreation. Natural dyes are fragile. They fade over time with exposure to light. As I projected light through the weavings, I ran the risk of destroying the color. By using these dyes, I embed decay into the work because their colors are fugitive. Every time I show them, I have to consider how the exhibition space will affect their color. Are there windows? A skylight?

Decay and transformation show up in the site-responsive installations I’ve done. I love the freedom of someone saying “here’s this space, breathe life into it.” In 2011, I was given a chance to show in an old brewery that had since been turned into a music venue. It was dank and humid. The staircases were dark and dirty and littered with cigarette butts. The space was chilly and had high rounded ceilings; it used to hold beer casks. The paint was peeling away. I created a cut paper piece that mimicked the look and feel of the paint. I was so drawn to its faded colors and the slight greying that resulted from exposure to moisture. I suspended the piece from the ceiling and let the paper be exposed to the moisture and decay in the same way the paint had. The piece cast shadows on the walls and looked as if it belonged there, floating, sagging and swaying.When I took it down, it had to be recycled. There was nothing more that could be done for it—it had decayed past saving, but that was the point. 



OPP: You'll be starting graduate school at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the fall of 2013. How do you feel on the verge of being an MFA candidate?

KV: I can’t decide if I’m more excited or terrified. I’m leaning towards excited. Since I finished new work for Under Construction, a group show that opened in June at the Indianapolis Art Center, I've had the time to just goof off, generate ideas and make mock-ups. This summer feels like the calm before a storm. . . the more time I spend wandering aimlessly through my sketchbook, the more I want it to start already.

OPP: Tell us about your plan to make it happen without taking out any privatized loans.

KV: SAIC gave me a financial aid package, but after scholarships and federal loans, there’s about $3,000 left. It’s not a large amount of money, but it’s not something I just have lying around. I started an Indiegogo campaign so that I won't have to take out a private loan on top of my federal loans. I’m offering editions and prints, small cut works and even some of my previously-exhibited large works as incentives. People of all different demographics and income brackets can own a piece of my work. 

22.5" x 60"

OPP: How is crowdfunding particularly relevant to visual artists?

KV: Sometimes I feel like people in the sciences might have an easier time getting donations than those in the arts. Potential funders look at their projects and say, "yeah, curing cancer is something I can put some money towards. But what does art give people?" I had this problem in choosing a country to apply to for my Fulbright grant. Many countries only wanted scholars, scientists, doctors—people who could do physical good on the ground. But what about cultural enrichment? Isn’t that important too? 

I’ve seen friends raise money via Kickstarter and Indiegogo to do research and large-scale art projects that otherwise would have been outside their budgets. It doesn’t take much. If 100 people donate $10 each, that’s a good chunk of change.

And, as I’ve seen time and again in community arts, people like to be involved in the making of art. The ability to fund a project lets people feel connected to the work. They helped it come into being and that gives them sense of accomplishment and ownership. 

Most artists don’t have a steady cash-flow in order to make larger works, so crowdfunding allows them to dream bigger and to make those larger works a reality. As grants and art endowments continue to shrink, it will be harder and harder for artists to land the funding to make work. That’s not a great place to be, but most of the artists I know are resilient and will find a way. I think crowdfunding is going to be one of those ways. 

To contribute to Katie's Indiegogo campaign, go here.