The Q&A collection
April 9, 2008
Tom Killion, artist
Lake Tahoe from Maggies Peaks, Desolation Wilderness (13.5x17 inches), by Tom Killion
By Dale Conour
Tom Killion is one of California’s most beloved artists. I realize that may harbor negative connotations— after all, unless you’re wielding puns dangerously, you’d never refer to his work as "cutting edge." But you could pull out the overused "timeless" here without shame. The master woodcarver and printer has been capturing the wilds and not so wilds of California and beyond for decades, and by capture I mean not only their likenesses, but more importantly as artistic work, their more elusive characters. It’s worth spending a few minutes on his site to learn more of his rich personal history, and his technique.
Q: How has woodcutting impacted your relationship with the outdoors, with nature?
A: Printmaking hasn't much impacted my time outdoors, other than it perhaps makes me do more sketching. On the other hand, I did a lot more watercolors and finished drawings in my youth, before I really accepted printmaking as my only "finished" artistic production. One thing printmaking does is it makes me "take apart" landscape scenes in my mind, contemplating how many color blocks and various split-fountain rolls and reduction-cuts it would take to get a particular scene look the way I wanted it. When I am actually "woodcarving" (your Q) I am in my studio, not outdoors. I do all my work from sketches made in the open however, so the sketching process gets me to spend time, between 20 minutes and an hour usually, "meditating" on the landscape—which is nice.
Big Arroyo, Foxtail Pines (10x12.5 inches), by Tom Killion
Q: How does your chosen art form allow itself to be pushed by the artist? What are the boundaries?
A: I like printmaking for several reasons: First, it forces me to abstract the landscape to some degree, as I must reverse the image, carve it into wood or linoleum for a "Key" bloc and then use that block as template for a number of color blocks, all carved in reverse as well. The reassembly of the landscape takes place while I am printing, layer upon layer of color. Otherwise, as one can tell by looking at my work, I would be too "literal" an artist and my landscapes would look very prosaic.
Second, I can romanticize the world into another time and place—maybe a place like pre-modern Japan in the time of the Ukiyo-e "floating world" aesthetic of the early 19th century, when people were smaller on the land, and more in harmony with it. It is kind of hard loving the visual landscape of central California in the late 20th and 21st century and seeing it violated and abused on such a massive scale by us humans. So my art allows me to remake the world the way I like to see it, to some degree—although I do not entirely remove the human element (my Ukiyo-e mentors taught me this lesson, as they always kept the human element as well).
The City from Grizzly Peak (14x17 inches), by Tom Killion
Boundaries in woodcut printmaking mostly have to do with the flatness of the printed surface and the hardness of the edge of the line—to get soft and fluid effects, clouds, mist, water, reflections etc. are the great challenges—but that is why it remains continually interesting as a medium. Far more challenging than painting, for example, when it comes to landscapes.
Q: By creating works interpreting places that are not only known, but held dear, by so many people, do you ever worry that your art is appealing to viewers for reasons of sentimentality as much as for the aesthetic quality of the pieces?
A: Perceptive Q.—I have heard so many people tell me they are buying a print because it depicts a scene dear to them—it is extraordinary to find how important some places are in people’s lives—childhood haunts, marriage proposals, weddings, ashes scattered, it runs the gamut of peoples lives—but I rarely choose places b/c I think they might appeal to others, it is b/c they appeal to ME.
Yosemite Valley II (11.5x16 inches), by Tom Killion
The most charismatic landscapes have universal appeal of course. I have one view of Yosemite Valley from the Wawona Rd. Tunnel—the classic view—I really hesitated to make a print of it, it has become such a trope, but it truly is one of the more stunning scenes nature offers, and lends itself so well to the medium of woodcut. So I did it anyway.
I know if I only did tourist sites and "flowers above the sea" I would make a lot more money, but I don’t—if you look at my website you’ll see most of my scenes are actually off the beaten path. I do love fields of poppies and lupines above the sea, one of the loveliest features of our old California land, but I try to only do them every few years, almost out of resistance to the general love of them.
Bolinas Ridge to Pt. Montara (Gulf of the Farallons), (14x18.5 inches), by Tom Killion
In the end however, the exciting part of printmaking is the overlay and juxtaposiiton of colors and patterns, and the subject could be almost anything. Sometimes I turn my prints upside down and just enjoy the color/texture mixes; and if they delight me upside down or sideways, I feel like I really got it right. Oddly, the ones that work best for me on this purely abstract level are also some of my most popular images.
Greenwood Cove, Mendocino Coast (11x14.5 inches), by Tom Killion
Q: As an artist, when you see strangers out in the world, do the ways they interact with the world ever frustrate you? Inspire you?
A: I am as critical of people as anyone else, especially as a fourth gen. Northern Californian. I particularly dislike bulldozers and roadcutters, but I also dislike ornamental invasive plant planters and eco-Nazis who would rather have coyote-brush everywhere instead of the beautiful wildflower grasslands that we have inherited from 200 years of ranching and 6,000 years of Native Californian burning. All power to grazers and old Indian women who burned the meadows for their brodaea fibers! There are few landscapes in the world more beautiful than the central CA oak-savannah steep hillside grasslands juxtaposed w/ redwood forest canyons and mixed bay, madrone, fir mountainsides. Keep California free, join the CNPS and Ventana Wilderness Coalition, but tell them to work to keep our grasslands open.
Where I live now, out in West Marin, provides a great example of what can be done to mix sustainable ranching with grassland preservation—it is really beautiful and it works. The model should be expanded, but instead the National Park service is a slave to bizarre ideas of "wilderness" where wilderness never existed since the last Ice Age. Let’s rethink people in the landscape—we are here, we belong here—but in a sustainable relationship, not in this dualistic, all-or-nothing false dichotomy that wilderness bureaucrats (can such a monster really exist?) seem to believe they are mandated to create.
Addis Abeba (8.5x9.25 inches), by Tom Killion
Links: Tom Killion’s website, California Native Plant Society, Ventana Wilderness Coalition
February 13, 2008
Ky Anderson, artist
On top of the mountain you can see forever #95, 2007, 24"x24", Oil on canvas, by Ky Anderson
By Dale Conour
Artist Ky Anderson dreams of mountains and then paints mountains as dreams. Her work has the weight of something primal and true, calling on the power the mountain has always held over us to create an iconography of the soul. Photographer Ky Anderson, like most of us, sets out to document, but with her artist’s eye, can’t help capturing those fleeting moments that tell volumes.
Q: In your 20x20o notes about your featured painting there, you wrote:
"Often when I start a painting I like to imagine myself as a traditional landscape painter..."
I read an essay (by Sophie Gee) in the NY Times Books review recently about adaptations of classics into films, and this thought of hers stuck with me: "...the best books always need rewriting, and the best writers know theyâre rewriters."
I wonder how this applies to art, especially to work like yours that re-imagines what a "landscape" painting is?
A: When I say I like to imagine myself as a traditional landscape painter it comes from a very romantic place. I do pull from a history of landscape painting, but I donât have a lot of landscape painting books around my house I look at. I am pulling more from the activity of being a landscape painter, being on a hillside with really good light and a cool breeze. This is how I put myself in the mindset to paint. I use it as a trigger. It makes me laugh to think of myself looking a hillside very seriously while what actually comes out on the paper is something completely different. Itâs a nice place to start from, and so loaded with great history and meaning, not only from an art history place but also from places of great beauty.
I do think that artists constantly remake other pieces of art. But it is rare to find an artist who admits this. Thinking about it simply, there are two sides to it. One side is that inspiration can come from a similar place, and the other side is that people can be inspired by each other. Both are very different, I find that most artists are very protective about where their inspiration comes from.
My parents are both artists and this is something they regularly discussed at the dinner table when I was child. (Now that I am older I get in on the discussion) Inspiration to make art, for both of my parents, comes from a similar place, but the final outcome of their work could not be farther apart. They both feel completely original and alone in their inspiration. I think as an artist you have to feel original to validate what you are doing. Its important to grasp the inspiration, own it and feel deep down that it is yours and only yours. If you sat around and thought about the fact you are just remaking art that already exists you might put the brush down and go to business school. On the other hand, there is a part of me that also thinks its important to be aware that you may not alone in your inspiration and appreciate those that came before you and those around you doing similar things.
Q: This leads to something else you wrote:
"My paintings tell stories but by leaving them abstract and simple I challenge the viewer to bring their own story to the work."
The way you use "stories" here doesnât literally mean plots with beginning, middle and end. Iâd love to hear more thoughts from you about the artist as storyteller, particularly in the context of landscape.
A: I think most artist are storytellers, but in many different ways. Sometimes artists have very elaborate concepts behind their work and sometimes itâs the simplicity that is the story. I am somewhere in between. I do tell stories in my work but your right it does not mean a plot with beginning, middle and end. I want the viewer to be involved and make up their own stories. In my work I talk more with metaphors for thought, a simple story can talk about much more. For example when I paint a mountain with an object balancing on top of it, the painting is about the balance and struggle of that object and all that it has to deal with when it spends its time only balancing, never falling. It becomes exhausting. I think in our modern world people can understand how that relates to their life.
The landscape gives the viewer an immediate place. Give it a horizon line and everyone knows where they are. Sometimes if I am feeling unsure about a painting, a simple horizon line can help me know where I am in the painting and it somehow tells me where to go next. As a story teller the communication between artist and viewer is very important. I like to think of the viewer having quiet moments alone with my work, and hopefully my work will cause question and wonder. Of course some people don’t get it. I was once trying to explain this all to a collector and they said "oh, isn’t that nice and happy". I don’t see my paintings as nice and happy. I see a lot of them as pointing out the bad with a touch of optimism.
Two pointy mountains, 22âx30â, Acrylic on paper, 2006, by Ky Anderson
Q: Another quote from you:
"To me the mountain image is filled with meaning. It comes from my first memorable dream of falling off the top of a mountain."
Love to hear more about your attraction to mountains, the resonance they have for you.
A: My first memorable dream started at the base of a mountain, my father and I were getting into our old truck. I had really long arms, so long that my hands flapped out the windows on both sides like wings. This mountain had a road that wound all the way around it like a spiral, as we started to drive up it the weather got worse and worse. Light snow, then ice and then full on blizzard at the top. The roads were very slippery but it was calm and peaceful in the truck. We were almost to the top and our truck started to slip on the ice, we slipped of the mountain and started to free-fall to the bottom. We crashed and I died. I floated up out of my body and saw the wreckage and our broken bodies, then everything went gray. I was about 5 or 6 when I had this dream. This was my first dream of dying, and since then I have one or two a year. I don’t know or really care about the psychology behind it all, but I find that I keep making art about it. It pretty wild to see yourself dead in a dream, it resonates with me for weeks after.
Something stuck with me when I had that dream, even when I painted as a child I painted mountains. Itâs a bit compulsive. When ever I get really into the mood from painting, I think the same simple thought, âman, that painting would be great with a mountain in itâ then I paint the mountain, and it feels really good, very satisfying, like really good sex. Then I sit back and think, "oh man, I painted that damn mountain again! What is wrong with me!?" Sometimes the whole thing feels ridiculous. But then I remind myself that I am probably not the only artist out there to be compulsive and repeat themselves.
Yellow Mountain, Blue Circle, 22âx30â, Acrylic on Paper, 2006, by Ky Anderson
Q: ..And I wonder how viewing Close Encounters, with the main character’s obsession with Devils Tower, impacted you... ; )
A: Actually when I first saw that movie it made me really uncomfortable, because I was already aware of my compulsion. I thought, just as long as I don’t start making mountains with my mashed potatoes everything will be okay! It was pretty funny.
Viewing the mountains, 2007, 22"x22", Oil on canvas, by Ky Anderson
Q: How is your approach to photography different than your approach to painting. How is it the same?
A: Sometimes I pull from similar themes that are in my paintings, but mostly I just shoot. I take pictures and then pull out the series later. Its great to see the series emerge from a pile of photos taken over the years. I love to document, and for me that is an instinct that comes from a sentimental place.
I have one series that emerged from my photographs after more than 10 years. Without realizing for years I had been taking photos of my friends when we went out to eat. I ended up with a really large series of pictures of my friends eating or looking at the menu or getting irritated with me for taking pictures of them. Itâs a great series, it shows time in a wonderfully simple way. It shows people coming in and out of my life, and the life long friends shine. Once I noticed the series I became too self conscious to take those photos anymore, and when I tried to take the photos they felt forced. So I learned that I don’t like to push anything when it comes to my photography. My favorite photos are spontaneous. I suppose my painting is the same, the spontaneous paintings are some of my favorites.
Jaime, 1995, by Ky Anderson
Q: What’s your favorite way to get a nature hit?
A: Gardening! Oh man, in the spring it takes over my life! I try to grow and can food to eat all year. I have a huge garden that is sometimes more than I can handle. I don’t know if most people would call that a nature hit, but I think it is. I love being outside all day and being completely covered in dirt and mud at the end of the day. When the garden catalogs start to show up in the spring I call them my garden porn magazines! I spend hours looking at them and planning my garden.
Swimming in calm rivers and tubing down them is also a favorite pastime.
Q: What’s a perfect world look like to you?
A: Wow that is quite a question. With all the politics in the air lately I have been thinking a lot about promises made by people no different that you or I. Sure they have more power and money, but they are still people ruled by their moods and emotions, people who make mistakes and regret decisions they have made in the past just like everyone else. One minute we think one horrible thing like lets bomb them, then the next we are ready to say we are sorry. How can we possibly have a perfect world when people are so irrational, and everyone has an entirely different view on how the world is supposed to be without any acceptance of the difference. I would like to think that if we all took some time out to really think about our decisions and think about the future the world might benefit. In a perfect world everyone would have compassion, empathy, and openly embrace difference.
Every week I drive over a huge bridge that was built 50 years ago and only designed to last 50 years. An 8 lane bridge over the Hudson river that tens of thousands of drivers rely on every day. Every time I drive over that bridge I think about the person in power who made a financial decision to not build a better bridge, they knew they were leaving a huge problem for future generations but they did it anyways, and nobody stopped them. That is a small example of something that would not happen in my perfect world.
Rodeo, 2007, by Ky Anderson
Q: What have you always wanted to be asked as an artist? And whats the answer?
A: Of all the things to do in this world why do you make art and don’t you think its kind of selfish?
I make art because if I don’t I turn into a real grump. I make it because it triggers a true joy inside of me that I cannot achieve any other way. In that way it is selfish, but not if you talk to people close to me, they know I am better person to be around after I have had some time in the studio.
I think about the selfish aspect of making art all the time, sometimes I think I should be doing more with my life to have an impact on the greater good. On the other hand, I do believe artists have a very important role in the world. A role to help others see things in different ways, I hope that throughout my life as an artist I can achieve this.
Handing it to me, 24"x24", Acrylic on Paper, 2008, by Ky Anderson
I have an old family friend who passed away a few years ago, he was also one of my painting teachers at The Kansas City Art Institute. Lester Goldman, he was an incredibly prolific artist, the amount of work he did in his life is enormous. His wife recently put all of work on display and last week I spent several hours looking through hundreds of paintings. Looking at all of his work together and seeing the timeline of his life in his art put making art into a different perspective for me. It made it all feel worth while. His wife and I did a painting trade, so I got one of his great paintings. I hope that after I am gone someone will feel something remotely similar to how excited I feel that I get to live with one of his paintings.
Links: Ky Anderson, Ky Anderson at 20x200, Sophie Geeâs NY Times article
February 2, 2008
Laura Levine, artist, photographer, filmmaker
Natalie Merchant © Laura Levine
By Dale Conour
You know those bios you read that make you feel like your entire life has been a waste and what’s the point in even starting to try harder now? Laura Levine, filmmaker, rock n roll photographer, animator, artist, author, etc., has done it all, with her work featured everywhere from the New Yorker and Rolling Stone to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum to the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe. I recommend reading her bio and converting the inevitable envy into inspiration—Laura’s been livin’.
With her recent forays into natural history, specifically her series of regional bird illustrations (the "Tweet Suite" series), it seemed like a nice time to bring Laura Levine into the fold of the New Romantics (surely a greater honor than the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, no?)
Q: You wrote recently about your work featured in 20x200: "Lately I’ve found myself focusing more on nature..." How does a subject usually make its way into your work? (If there is a "usually.")
A: It’s never a conscious decision, it just sort of happens. Sometimes the smallest thing can trigger it and off I go. I tend to work mostly in a series format, and I’ll usually choose a subject that fascinates me or strikes some sort of chord, as well as one that I’d like to learn more about. Once I get involved in the subject there’s generally a lot of research involved, and I can become rather obsessed with it.
So, for example, I’ve painted series of portraits of petty criminals of 19th century New York City, actual documented UFO sightings from the Fifties, Old West outlaws and heroes (cowboys, cowgirls), and of course, biographical portraits of musicians (which arose directly from my love of music and my previous career as a music photographer). It’s all documentary reportage or storytelling in a way, what I sometimes call "documentary illustration."
Years ago I picked up a torn old diagram of the Titanic at a yard sale and got a bee in my bonnet about the story (this was well before the Broadway musical and movie). It wasn’t a particularly popular subject at the time, but I dove right in (pun intended), even traveling to visit the Titanic Museum (which turned out to be the back room of Henry’s Jewelry Store in Springfield, Mass.). However, this was a situation where I eventually found the subject matter to be so utterly depressing that I never completed it. And once Titanic mania hit, that was it, I stopped. That was an exception though.
Birds of the Catskills © Laura Levine
Q: What was the evolution of the "Tweet Suite" series? Any surprise twists and turns or was it just intelligent design all the way?
A: Tweet Suite actually came out of a one-off illustration project. I was asked by Mark Murphy to contribute a page to a calendar project called Artistic Utopia. I sometimes paint up in the Catskills, and there are several bird feeders outside the window, where I can easily spend hours watching the birds. That was pretty much it, my idea of artistic utopia: painting and watching and being in nature. Up till then I’d mostly painted people or objects, but rarely the natural world.
I made a painting of the birds I saw out the window, called Birds of the Catskills, and it sold right away (to my old friend Laurie David the environmental activist, who’s been collecting my work for awhile now). I so enjoyed doing it, and it seemed to hit a nerve with other people as well, that I decided to continue it as a broader series of common regional birds of the US. I researched other regions of the US (Rockies, New York City, Los Angeles, the Pacific Northwest) and as usual, I really got into it - stacks of field guides, web research, and correspondence with ornithologists (who were incredibly generous with their time and knowledge).
The trading stamp background was kismet as well. I’d picked up several shoeboxes-worth at a yard sale years earlier, and had saved them, patiently waiting for just the right project.
When I take on these subjects, I take them very seriously, and I require that my research be thorough and accurate, a perfectionism which probably owes a lot to my background in photojournalism.
Birds of the Northwest © Laura Levine
Q: Did spending so much time looking at, and thinking about, birds, change the way you see them, experience them?
A: I’ve always been a big animal lover, but I never specifically related to birds until I started this project. I certainly got to know the personalities of my little visitors - the bullying bluejays, the skittish chickadees, the pair of mourning doves who never left each others’ side.
Q: Is there anything about the outdoors that you dream of being able to capture in a painting, or photograph, or even on film, but it remains elusive?
A: It’d be nice to tackle a landscape, but I wouldn’t even know where to start. Having never taken a painting class, and having gotten into the field later in life, I don't really feel I have a handle on that yet. I’m still working on the small subjects. Maybe someday.
Q: Are you at work on anything now with strong "nature" overtones or subjects?
A: Well, I’m continuing with the birds, as they’ve gotten such a great response and I feel like there are so many more species and regions I’d like to explore and learn about. I’ve got a solo show coming up this spring at the Varga Gallery in Woodstock, NY of the bird paintings, so I need to paint a few new ones. I’m also starting to produce prints of some of the bird paintings, which I’m very excited about.
Björk © Laura Levine
Q: You’ve accomplished such strong portraiture in your photography, seemingly capturing something true and natural about your subjects, and yet your participation in the process is clear: They’re distinctively your creation. How does that process work (or not work sometimes)?
A: Is my participation really that clear? I try to not impose myself into the photographs, aside from trying to make the subject feel comfortable, be themselves, and hopefully create an intimacy that will then come across in the image. Obviously I have a certain visual style and approach to composition, lighting, mood, etc., but my idea of a successful portrait is one that creates an insight into the subject; it’s not about me.
I often pick up on certain aspects of a person - particularly ones with a very public persona - that aren’t often illuminated, and try to show that more private side of them when I take their portrait. Maybe that’s what you mean -- I create the atmosphere in which the subject is allowed to be themselves, with perhaps a little nudge from me here and there to help bring them out.
Q: There seems to be a strong folk art influence in your illustrative work—how "studied" is that?
A: I came to painting rather late. I was a photographer and already in my late 20s before I picked up a paintbrush and decided to see what might come out, having had no training (art school or otherwise), so in that sense I suppose I am self-taught, and I think that most self-taught (or untrained) artists who come from that place inevitably have - on the surface - a similar sensibility and look to their work: naivete, lack of perspective, bold colors, etc. It's what comes naturally. Believe me, if I could paint "better," I would!
Mike the Headless Chicken [click for larger version] © Laura Levine
Q: So, uh, tell me more about Miracle Mike, the headless chicken. Where did that come from? : )
A: Miracle Mike the Headless Chicken is one of the longer narrative pieces I’ve been lucky enough to do for Blab! magazine. Monte Beauchamp, the editor, gives me two pages an issue and lets me run with it. I’ve mostly focused on writing and illustrating stories about real life people and events - the painterly equivalent of a documentary film, I suppose (another pursuit of mine). In fact, one of the pieces was actually based on a short doc film I’d made. My previous stories were about the Collyer Brothers, Veronica Lake, The Piccolo Midgets, and then there’s Mike. He was quite the celebrity in his time. All of the stories share certain aspects - truth, curiosity, humor, sadness, celebrity, and most of all, obsession.
Links:
Laura Levine, featured on 20x200
Fantagraphic’s offerings of Blab Magazine
Levine’s making a private run of Scarlet Tanager (limited to an edition of 100) as a gift for friends, family and selected collectors—"But there’ll probably be a few remaining, which will be for sale to the public"
December 16, 2007
Nik Schulz, illustrator, writer
Photo by Nik Schulz
By Dale Conour
Nik Schulz, an illustrator (Wired, New York Magazine, Make, and others), actually did something a lot of us dream of: He checked out and headed for a remote, one-mile-wide island, St. Agnes, in the north Atlantic, just before the changing of the millennium.
Actually, he did something else a lot of us keep saying we’ll do: He kept a journal.
Since many of us may not ever get the chance to do this, and because Nik’s descriptions of the island and his life there are so evocative, I’m running short excerpts from his journal every other day, along with his photographs. You can read his first excerpt under "Extras" at right; subsequent excerpts will debut here first, and then can be found through that link.
To kick it off, here’s an email Q&A between Nik and I.
Q: Talking with you about your trip to St. Agnes, I was really struck by your motivation for doing this, which was that you felt you needed to leave the city and go to a sparsely populated little island [70 people] in the north Atlantic ocean in order to find ways to reconnect with people. Makes quite a comment on society, no?
A: Yeah, you wouldn’t expect it but I think it sort of makes sense. The more people, the bigger the land on which they live, and faster the pace of their lives, the less chance they’ll have to run into and spend time with one another. Reduce all of the variables and the opposite seems to be true.
Q: How were you rewarded for taking this leap, for changing your life for awhile?
A: Well, at first I was rewarded with disorientation and loneliness. It was more difficult than I thought to
leap from fast pace of San Francisco to slow quiet of St. Agnes. Mentally, it felt a little like jumping from a moving train. After the initial tumble though, it was very satisfying. I had more time to spend with the friends I made (I always feel like the time we spend with one another is our biggest luxury). I had a sense of being part of the land. I noticed the changes in the color of the sea, the heights of the tides, the phases of the moon (there were no street lights, let alone streets—during a new moon, the night was bag-over-your-head black). The biggest reward though, was realizing that I enjoyed writing and could actually do it.
Q: What surprised you most about yourself during your stay?
A: The latter was the biggest surprise. Also, I found that I enjoyed pickling smelt. I was surprised to learn how much I was a product of my environment. In San Francisco I enjoy going to art openings and riding motorcycles. On St. Agnes I enjoyed soaking small fish in vinegar.
Q: How did keeping a journal affect your experience?
A: I found that I actually remembered it. It saved it from getting lost and fading away. In recording and rereading our experiences, I think we can learn from them. We can discover our own truth and make future experiences even better. In this way, I think journaling can be part of a powerful process.
Q: You wrote a lot, you took photographs, but did you draw too?
A: I didn’t. I’ve never been much of a sketcher. I know that’s probably funny, given that I’m an illustrator. I work on the computer, mostly.
Q: Any advice about the practice of journaling you can pass along?
A: In my experience, it seems like you need two basic things. The first is space, the mental kind. I didn’t have a TV, a radio, many books or even a job. I found that I only wrote because I was in a vacuum, and you know how much nature hates that. Writing rushed in to fill the void.
Then, of course, it helps to have some experiences or ideas that you feel compelled to record. I look at it kind of like making tea. You need your space (the water), your fire (the heat) and your experiences (the tea). They infuse one another. I’m not saying we all need to quit our jobs and move to an island but if your water is all full of the rocks and sand of everyday life, a) it’s hard to fit the tea in there too, and b) it’s just gonna taste all gritty.
Link: Nik’s website
September 25, 2007
Mary Daniel Hobson, multimedia photographer
#004, from the series Evocations, ©2007
By Dale Conour
Mary Daniel Hobson has been enjoying a personal Renaissance since moving beyond the two dimensions of photography, exploring her interior landscape, and ours, as much as the outer, natural world. We had an email exchange of questions and answers; here’s what they were.
Q: Do you still consider yourself a photographer? Can you see yourself ever returning to "just" taking photographs?
A: Yes, I do still consider myself a photographer. As an artist, photography is where I came from and is a strong component of all of my work. I became captivated with photography at the age of fourteen and spent the first decade of my photographic life working in a traditional black and white darkroom. Eventually, due primarily to my intensive studies of Surrealism, I became interested in expressing more depth and complexity in my work than I could achieve with a straight black and white print. At that point, I began experimenting with mixed media photography – creating layered collages and sculptural pieces. In all of these works, photography remains a crucial, if not the crucial, element.
Recently, I actually have returned to a more straight photographic process. In two new series, Evocations and Sanctuary, the final pieces are flat prints. Both series involve the creation of intricate still lives, which are then photographed. For example, in Sanctuary, I start by photographing a spot in nature I consider to be refuge for me. I then bottle that photograph in mineral oil with other elements like maps and handwritten texts, creating a layered sculpture, which I then re-photograph against black velvet. It is this photograph that gets printed and becomes the final work. In Evocations, I build still lives using bottles, photographs of the human figure, old maps, botanical drawings and other objects and then photograph these, creating a series of prints. Although I am still doing a lot of constructing and building, these two series do represent a return to the more traditionally photographic.
"In Memory" ©1996
Q: Do you know where you’re going when you set out to create a new piece? How often are you surprised by the results?
A: Some days I do. Some days I just leap in and see where it takes me. In general, I focus on creating series of work, so once a series has found its direction, I then seek to build on it. In beginning a new series, I often start out by daydreaming, journaling, reading, playing with the materials and objects in my studio. Once a series has defined itself, then there is a certain structure in place that I follow and play within. For example, in my series, Mapping the Body, I wanted to express the emotions and experiences housed within the body. The technique I settled on was kodalith transparency with layered collage, which I really loved because by printing images of the body on kodalith, the skin was rendered clear, so that you could literally look through it to the inner complexity below. To keep the series consistent, the pieces were all based on an image of the body printed on kodalith and then layered with other items and framed tightly. Within a series’ guidelines, however, there is a lot of room to play, and it is within this space that the creator in me revels and is often surprised by the results.
Q: When you reach for objects from nature in your collages, or capture scenes through your camera, do they represent the same metaphors to you; are there motifs that have remained throughout the body of your work?
A: I do really consider myself to be a symbolist. I love the poetic associations of objects. I have worked consistently with several elements over the past twelve years – objects like fishhooks, needles and thread, old maps, handwriting, sheet music, and in the past few years, bottles. Photographically, I have been consistently drawn to the human figure as well as the landscape close to my home which includes the Pacific Ocean. I hesitate to define the meaning of these motifs, but rather like to leave them open-ended so that the myriad associations they connote can emerge and co-mingle. It creates a certain ambiguity that I hope allows each viewer to find their own unique meaning within the work.
Sanctuary #3, ©2007
Q: From your introduction to "Bottle Dreams": "I have been particularly drawn to imagery of the natural world because it is nature that science has worked so hard to seal and study while paradoxically it is nature that holds mysteries larger than can ever possibly be contained." Does art hold any advantage over science in exploring nature’s mysteries?
A: I think the advantage that art holds over science is that art is much more open to the imagination. Art is also is not restricted by having to stick to the facts. Science allows us to deepen our understanding of the world around us. Art allows us to deepen our understanding of the world within us – emotions, memories, experiences, dreams – things that the scientific method is challenged to quantify.
Q: Photography seems to have a limited function for the artist wishing to explore her internal landscape; could much of your work be seen as an attempt to overcome that?
A: I did indeed turn to a mixed media approach in the early 90’s, because I was seeking to express something about the lives of emotions that I could not articulate fully in a straight photograph. Yet, I do know photographers who capture psychology, interiority, mystery, and surrealism in a simple straight photograph. I, however, was not able to achieve it, and so I took the path that opened for me, which was working in a mixed media manner. I felt that I really blossomed as an artist working in this way. Another way to say this is that each artist finds the tools they need to best express themselves, and for me those tools have been an expansive sense of photography that includes the tactility of collage and sculpture.
Grand Canyon ©2004
Q: Is it fair to say that your work also shows what can happen when a photographer, through the manipulation of nature, drifts into the realm of the environmental artist?
A: I would really hesitate to describe myself as an environmental artist. Yes, my work at times engages the natural world, but really from a distinctly personal and interior place. I know of many wonderful artists who are true environmental artists, creating work that aims to transform our current environmental crisis. You could see wonderful examples of those artists work on web sites like the greenmuseum.org, the Women Environmental Artists Directory, and also in the projects section of artheals.org.
Q: Is there an intent in your work to provoke the viewer into a re-engagement with nature, with the world around them?
A: I would not go so far as to say that I intend my work to provoke a re-engagement with nature. If that happens, that’s wonderful. However, I really feel my work is much more about interiority. I would hope that someone looking at my work might be inspired to re-engage their own imagination and inner world.
Q: Should artists shoulder the responsibility of re-engaging people with nature?
A: Only if they feel it is their true work. It is wonderful when they do – whether it is environmental artists like the ones on the web sites I mentioned above, or an artist whose work I love, Keri Smith, author of the Guerrilla Art Kit, which invites people to leave anonymous gifts in the environment (a chalked quote, a patterned collection of leaves, etc) that awaken a sense of wonder and surprise in those who discover it.
My feeling is that the main responsibility of the artist is to surrender deeply to the creative process and make the best work possible. I have this quote by Martha Graham tacked to my studio wall and have always felt it best describes the true responsibility of the artist.
“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.”
You can see more of Mary Daniel Hobson’s work at her website, marydanielhobson.com; for upcoming exhibitions, click here.
August 2, 2007
Ian Wharton, Edward Shires, animators
By Dale Conour
Another great new discovery from Motionographer: the animated short film, Solar, by Ian Wharton and Edward Shires, two recent grads of Cumbria Institute of the Arts. It’s a whole new take on energy. Check it out at their nicely rendered website, read the Q&A (conducted by email, [slightly edited]) below, and then say hi to the gentlemen themselves at their new blog.
emerson: What was the "seed" for Solar; the idea/concept/visual that started it all?
[Ian:] We really wanted to tell a unique tale that elaborated on an every-day [occurrence.] The story needed something that maintained a certain amount of fantasy but could also easily be related to. The moon and sun have been used to tell stories for centuries and we all have an innate fascination with their mystery as it were. It felt like [it was] a perfect scenario to build an animation around.Prior to story writing we also read classic books such as Roald Dhal’s The BFG. We don’t think stories are told with the same exuberance these days so went back to the good oldies stores we read when we were kids.
[Ian:] Obviously the most important thing for us is for people to enjoy the film and understand it at its most basic level - a story of cause and effect. If it makes people smile, that’s enough for us. Knowing we evoke some kind of emotion from what started out as doodles on a napkin in a cocktail bar is enough for us.I suppose the best thing would be for Solar to act as a catalyst for people letting their imagination run away, even if only briefly. We glaze over a lot of things these days - perhaps the sun and moon’s interaction with us for example. It would be great if someone watched Solar, then went off to think how something else might work under different circumstances.
[Ian:] Technology without doubt opens new possibilities to representing the physical world. Whether it is intrinsically better than medieval tapestries, poems or paintings is down to the individual. Digital media [definitely] allows a combination of real and make-believe that would have been much more difficult to achieve with pen and paper or Shakespearean theatre. Visual effects and CGI is [definitely] blurring distinctions between showing what is real and what isn’t. It all depends on how far you look back. Does digital media help creatives explore the physical world more easily? - Yes. Does it produce a better outcome? - Not necessarily.
[Ian:] Not at all. What we see these days on the cinema screen is what every person is capable of when exerting their imaginations - they are merely carried out in greater depth (ie the visual effects and filmography). Whether it is CG or real-life it is essentially the same process of realising dreams and thought and they only come from [engaging] with the "real-world".
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