Prada x GatsbyJust got home from the Prada Dress Gatsby exhibit, which was a simply delicious look at some of the 40 dresses Miuccia Prada designed for the movie. Maybe it was jetlag (I got back from Hong Kong 36 hours ago), but everything was extra enchanting and sumptuous.
This man is rather wonderful. (You mean you don’t know many 80something year-olds who paint street art?)
Georgia O’Keeffe, Light of Iris, 1924
Adaptation 1 by Sommer Roman
How did you get into comics?
I didn’t really start drawing comics until college. I decided to attend art school and ended up around a lot of people who were involved in the comics scene in Portland, OR. I was an illustration major so it was easy for me to see how comics fit in with how I was thinking about drawing and where my ideas were beginning to expand. I started out making zines with drawings, words, and lists. From there I began integrating those ideas further and building narratives. I’ve never read many comics and I still don’t. It helps me keep a clear perspective on the type of work I want to make, rather than being influenced by what’s already been made.
You have an amazing hand - what is your drawing background? Who have you studied and admired?
Both of my parents were artists so I was drawing and crafting from a very very young age. My sister was always a little better at the hands on projects though so I think it was easier for me to just dedicate myself to drawing. I have countless sketchbooks starting in middle school and used to draw on everything. Naturally, choosing an art school for college solidified it as more than a hobby. Right now I do art full time.
My tastes have changed quite a bit over the years, but I will always be obsessed with classical and impressionistic art. My favorite artist of all time is Odilon Redon. Others to note: Balthus, Matisse, Degas, Titian, Delvaux…
Was it intentional to use variations on the golden ratio/divine cut for almost every page of The Whale? If it was intuitive, then your sense of design could very literally be called divine.
Thank you. I must admit is was very much unintentional. Even looking at it now, that book is quite raw. I came at it with basically no forethought as to how a person ‘makes comics.’ I’ve always worked very intuitively, but I’m much more aware of tools and constructs in comics now.
How did that story emerge? It subtly resonates.
It really started with about the last ten pages. I was living back on the Puget Sound, and there was a news story about a tropical whale getting beached on a nearby island. The character and scenario just grew out of that initial inspiration.
Where did your travels for Field Studies take you? Can you tell us about that project?
That was a really incredible project. I happened to already have a good deal of travel plans for the year and as they continued to expand and grow I became much more compelled to find a way to tie them all together. The first step was simply creating a blog from which I could share small drawings from my various settings. It worked in so many ways. I didn’t have a camera most of the year, but I did have a scanner, so I used it to share with my friends and family where I was and the special little things I was experiencing. It helped me to raise extra funds as I was traveling so that I wouldn’t have to get nervous about being gone so long. On a personal level too, each time I would sit down in a new city or home to draw, it would connect me deeper with the physical reality of my environment, by having to really study it.
I really believe in maintaining a strong life drawing practice to the point that this project felt very indulgent for me. And then getting to publish a book of it all at the end!
Was Asymmetry based on a real experience?
No. I have given quite a number of tattoos in my day, as well as received them, but its all fiction. I think I just wanted to express the intimacy of that experience.
Can you tell us about The Dark?
This was one of my first minis. When I started drawing comics, I was especially interested in more abstract content and visuals. I still am, but the form it takes is much different.
What art materials do you have on you at any given time?
Only a mechanical pencil. I keep a lined notebook with me, but I very rarely draw in it.
Are you still working on the Letter Project with Jaakko Pallasvuo?
Oh, no. We ended it quite some time ago. It was a really interesting endeavor but we did it without any objectives or constraints, so it just naturally tapered out as our lives got busier.
What sorts of projects do you have in the works right now?
I just made a big move to California. I’m hoping to make this my base, so its a bit more serious than the traveling I’ve been up to. This has taken away from my being able to focus much on any personal projects. I’ve got ideas, but mostly I’ve just been doing a little this and that for other people. Once things have settled down here a bit, I’m hoping to start oil painting again. I’m quite excited to see where that might go.
Any upcoming shows or publications we should be looking forward to?
I have a show opening May 3rd at Nationale in Portland, OR and a show in December at Farewell Books in Austin, TX. Those are the bigs ones this year. As far as publications I’m in the upcoming Sonatina anthology edited and published by Scott Longo as well as putting out a little collection of artist related comic strips I did for The Comics Workbook blog with the help of Colour Code printing in Toronto.
You have a ton of different projects - what are your studio habits like? Do you work on multiple projects at a time?
My hands are constantly working to keep up with my mind. I try not to impose a specific number of projects on myself at one time, but somehow I naturally end up overlapping series and methods of working. I have dealt with anxiety my whole life, so while I’m always striving to achieve a balance, I do feel an urge to keep more than one thing going at once. When I hit a mental block with one work, I can play with something else for a while.
Can you talk about your collage works? Where do you get your collage material?
Collage is something I started seriously exploring only recently. Returning to the medium with a fresh eye is something really special. It allows me to work fast, I grab scissors and cut immediately when something catches my eye, using the cut line as an editing tool and a drawing tool. Actually, I use my sewing machine in the same way, sketching out curious shapes and then pairing them to speak to each other in an interesting way. The visual texture found in discarded magazines is a treasure trove of material. Mostly, I source snippets of images that can fool my eye. I like how the 2-D surface is an inherent great equalizer. Scale is completely disrupted when you isolate samples of an image, so texture becomes the focus. I know artists who work exclusively in collage quite successfully, but I use it more often to create a visual vocabulary that I can later jumble and layer as part of a more complex piece.
These pieces are an homage to figures in the long history of pathologization and medical/social fetishizing of intersex persons. I was inspired to create work in this vein upon reading Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality, by Anne Fausto-Sterling. Levi Suydam was a 19th century resident of Connecticut whose body was critiqued and interrogated for political gain. Saint-Hilaire and Bell were researchers who focused on “abnormal” (ambiguous) genitalia. The works are acrylic with ink transfer, ‘drawn’ on using a burnish tool and worked back in with an eraser. I haven’t worked in etching so far but I’m entertaining the idea of incorporating it into more additive processes.
Do you feel like there’s a switch in your mental processes when you are working with separate materials as parts of a whole in comparison to drafting a image directly to paper with a pen or any type of mark?
I can’t say that there is a hard line of distinction between my methods of working. For my practice, I see it all as playing a role in birthing ideas. I don’t know if it speaks to an inability to compartmentalize or simply my refusal to dictate a hierarchy in craft. I dothink at this moment there is great pressure on emerging artists to make a name for ourselves with a singular method of craft, almost as a shtick. We value becoming “that guy who paints birds on buildings” more than considering what it means to push the boundaries of our own work. Living in a time when it seems everything has been done forwards and backwards, putting pen to paper can be a radical act.
What do you think the benefits of working in groups of multiples are?
Working in multiples relaxes the sense of an image’s preciousness, and allows for spontaneity in a way that proves to be more difficult when concentrating on a single piece. Like many artists, I am my harshest critic. Working on more than one piece at a time helps combat overworking an image and loosing the sense of earnestness and accessibility that I appreciate so often in art.
You work with a lot of textiles - how is that process different for you? How do you decide what material will be more appropriate for a project than another?
Trial and error. Arriving at a visual solution is the purely intuitive part of my practice. I choose material based on instinct, but I suppose I think mostly about contrast, color relationships, and tactility. I try different things (gluing, painting over, peeling off, stitching back on…) and eventually, when the work feels like more than the sum of its parts, I step back. Paintings are like relationships, what feels like the right approach with one can prove disastrous in another.
Can you talk about Body Theories?
Body Theories were made to re-imagine my works with ink transfer on muslin from my BFA thesis show, Where We Are Both & Neither. I wanted to keep embroidering with transferred elements on fabric, keep the scale intimate and make them plush, to be easily handled. I was thinking a lot about comfort objects and our tendency to look for ourselves in others. They are like my version of the strange companion dolls marketed to girls that you can customize to look like you, even down to the placement of freckles. I wondered what it would be like if we carried mirror images of how we felt our bodies looked. The Theories are inherently abstract, but you can hold these in your hands.
Can you talk about the Hysteria paintings and their accompanying partners with gender themes from 2010?
Hysteria has origins in the Greek word hystera, meaning womb. The paintings are asking the tongue-in-cheek question of “what would a hysterical uterus look like?” I was interested in the long history of hysterical illness as a medical theory to explain supposed irrational or erratic behavior, and the persisting association between the “feminine” and the emotive. I’m fascinated with the relationship between our anatomical and our emotional selves, but the color palette I developed at the time put me in a more playful direction aesthetically.
Tell us about your paint with fabric pieces - the colors are so rich.
These are what I like to call painterly pastiche works, meaning paintings that rely on relationships between literal bodies of material—surfaces differentiated by color and texture. I’ll often source imagery from my collages or gouache paintings, changing the scale and amplifying the texture and contrast. I let the forms have a conversation.
What are you thinking about and inspired by these days?
I’m inspired by people with stories to tell. Louise Bourgeois comes to mind, but so do the Baltimore City kids I teach art to during the week. I was raised reading, and I love poetry by Eileen Myles, and a lot of non-fiction. I mine the free bookstore for vintage gems like “Gender and Disordered Behavior.” I collect articles on genetics, biology, sexuality, memoirs of gender-variant, trans* and intersex persons, articles from the website autostraddle, and work by peers. I am inspired by handmade oddities and small gestures of kindness.
What are you working on now?
I’m working on a new series marrying embroidery and painting that I started while in residence at Vermont Studio Center. I have a few projects in the works, but whenever something becomes a sure thing, I post it to my blog.
Jolein Jeursen via The Artist and the Others
The Artist and the Others on tumblr
Members of Ukrainian feminist group Femen staged protests across Europe as they called for a “topless jihad.” The demonstrations were in support of a young Tunisian activist named Amina Tyler. Last month, Tyler posted naked images of herself online, with the words “I own my body; it’s not the source of anyone’s honor” written on her bare chest. The head of Tunisia’s “Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice,” reportedly called for Tyler to be stoned to death for her putatively obscene actions, lest they lead to an epidemic. Tyler has since gone quiet, leading some to fear for her safety.
This is amazing. Fuck yeah
fuck your morals
(Source: adventuresinhires, via everrrybodytalks)
