In The Make http://inthemake.com studio visits with artists and designers Thu, 16 May 2013 02:34:45 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Bari Ziperstein http://inthemake.com/bari-ziperstein/ http://inthemake.com/bari-ziperstein/#comments Thu, 16 May 2013 02:30:59 +0000 admin http://inthemake.com/?p=6981 Read more »]]>

A lot happens in Bari’s Glasell Park studio. This became clear as soon as we set foot into her space— various objects and materials were scattered about and multiple projects seemed to be underway. Bari has a multifaceted practice that includes ceramic sculptural work, a design line, and various collaborations and she moves between each with a fair amount of ease and focus. I’m always a little surprised when artists manage to do this without becoming discombobulated or overwhelmed; there is always the risk of an effort becoming diluted or disjointed if there are too many influences and ideas on hand.

Yet a good deal of coherence was present in Bari’s work, particularly her series DECORATIVE PROTECTION which she was just finishing up when we visited and is now on exhibit at Emma Gray HQ in Los Angeles. This body of work examines how objects like fences and window bars relate to the female figure, specifically concerning notions of safety and seduction. Inspired by a ‘80s advertisement for wrought iron window bars, Bari draws a parallel between domestic security and womanhood, and explores how in both cases the expectation is that external appearances should be alluring yet simultaneously impenetrable. It’s an unexpected comparison, but by investigating outer displays and protection in the domestic realm Bari considers how female psyche and instincts are formed. Among the sculptural pieces from this series I was particularly drawn to those that took on a human-like size and shape, standing erect and stoic with soft strands of leather falling from their form. Staggering to look at, with a towering, intimidating presence, like fictional she-warriors, these works unapologetically convey both threat and beauty.

As Bari continues to work at many things, I will be curious to see how she balances the different directions that her interests take her. There is a fluidity to her work, she seems to dip in and out of projects seamlessly and is able to grapple with many questions at once… and yet having stood in front of those totemic, almost mythological sculptures I couldn’t help but think that sometimes just one question is enough.

How would you describe your subject matter or the content of your work?
My question back would be which practice? That answer depends on which body of work I’m focused on— whether it is my fine art, public art, BZIPPY & CO. design line, or collaborative practice. For clarity’s sake, they all focus on a deep investment in experimentation and whimsy that make connections between the female figure, decoration and the urban environment, often using clay. There is a freedom in having multiple practices in which I can discern specific topics instead of squashing all of my ideas into one body of work. Often times the different practices loop back into each other; that’s when the lines start to dissolve and things become really interesting for me.

Currently I’m focused on the series DECORATIVE PROTECTION (2010 – present), which collapses the female figure by creating connections between the urban environment and decoration, while simultaneously wishing to protect and exalt the role of decoration, in both the arts and society at large. I examine how simple objects such as fences and iron window bars relate to the role of the female form in society, how such objects are designed to seduce and repel, arm and disarm. These totemic human scale ceramic sculptures and photographs are inspired by a ’80s magazine ad for wrought iron window bars. The advertisement, which affirms “not prison looking bars,” navigates the uneasy relationship between domestic security while maintaining a facade of looking pretty. Through form, decoration and outer displays and appearances, I’m examining how the shadow side of the female psyche is asserted. These fragmented surrealist sculptures allow new mythic figures to emerge that have adapted and mark a new territory in our urban environment.

What mediums do you work with?
My mediums are really tied to the concept or body of work I’m undertaking, most often I’m juggling multiple projects simultaneously which lends itself to fluent shifts between clay, photography, paper mache, wood or collage. I’ve just finished up DECORATIVE PROTECTION sculptural works for a solo exhibition with Emma Gray HQ in Los Angeles made of clay and leather. For the past five years, my main medium has been clay while the leather is a new addition inspired by a proposed installation commission by FENDI that was shelved. The combination of leather and ceramic owes as much to mythic Roman warriors as it does a Greek Goddess, not to mention modern day female pop icons, whose outfits also actively seduce and repel. Clay is initially so transformative but ultimately fixed and the leather adds a sexy, supple component to the work, and it brings in a lot of movement.

Part of your practice is to re-assemble once functional domestic objects— how do you go about finding these objects, what’s your criteria for this process?
Currently, this part of my practice is focused on public artwork with the projects 1,095: One Year’s Worth of Other People’s Plates (LACMA & Bristol Biennial) and RECOLLECTED: longing for a home.

At LACMA and the Bristol Biennial, I invited the public to contribute their dinner plates to 1,095: One Years Worth of Other People’s Plates—a temporary, interactive three-dimensional installation of one year’s worth of other people’s plates in the shape of a mandala. The project is part swap meet, part sculpture. The plates were collected via social networking from individual donors and from local thrift shops. Donors would come by my studio for a drop off or I’d drive all over LA to stranger’s homes— I was constantly on an adventure! The collected plates were affixed with a commemorative sticker and edition number, and then were redistributed back to donors in the amount of their original donation. This sculpture-in-flux provided a point of convergence where ordinary objects were temporarily transformed before returning to their everyday status. Though a fleeting sculpture, the project lives on in the homes of those who participated. I’ve heard stories of people washing dishes at friends’ houses post dinner party when they discover the commemorative sticker on the back!

RECOLLECTED: longing for a home, was a site-specific public art installation in Long Beach that was funded by the Arts Council of Long Beach. With this project, I was primarily concerned with the absurd culture of collecting domestic objects and the desire associated with redecorating. I installed hundreds of colorful vases from Long Beach thrift stores and created a window installation in a former commercial space. At the conclusion of the exhibition, all of the vases were returned and the project lives on in the homes of the community as each vase is resold featuring a commemorative hangtag, marking the vases’ participation in this temporary installation. Similar to the plate project, I often receive pictures and emails from Long Beach thrift store shoppers who picked up a vase and have it displayed in their homes. That’s a treat to begin to trace the object as it lives on post-installation.

How has LA as a landscape, both culturally and aesthetically, influenced your work?
Los Angeles can be an isolating city with its car culture, traffic, lack of a walking life, and the entertainment industry. But I’m not very interested in hiding behind those LA stereotypes; I’d rather dive straight in. I particularly love Los Angeles on my 2 AM drive from my eastside Glassell Park studio heading west on Beverly Blvd to my apartment in Mid Wilshire West. These drives to and from the studio take me through drastic shifts in cultural neighborhoods and architecture. I’m constantly taking mental notes of the various metal gates and window bar patterns; how they are designed to protect and beautify homes. Those decompressing drives after a long day alone in the studio can be magical and eerie with its misty marine layer and empty streets. The possibility and pulse of the city shifts without the commuter buzz; there is a quietness, which I find very regenerative.

Culturally, I’m surrounded by innovative and rigorous artists and crafts makers who I’m continually inspired by. In Los Angeles, any thing is possible in terms of material sourcing and fabrication. Mitzi Guidry is one of the cofounders of the all female owned company Los Angeles Leather Craft and I’ve been collaborating with her on all things leather for the past year. Her full service leathercraft studio specializes in manufacturing private label leather accessories. As an artist this was an amazing opportunity to have her craftsmen develop custom leather decorative elements for my ceramic sculptures. With our two perspectives of fine art and leathercrafting, Mitzi has been able to bring my fantastical and often idiosyncratic visions of leather to reality. During our evening meetings we do as much talking as inventing!

Do you see your work as autobiographical at all?
The work usually starts from a place of autobiography with some projects more overtly personal than others— specifically, my public art focusing on reassembled found domestic objects. Culling thrift stores and seeking out strangers’ homes for the perfect object was how I spent many weekends in Chicago growing up. My father was an avid collector of ceramic cookie jars, bakelite radios, and vintage clothing. His hunger for the next object was normal— as palettes of his collection lay dormant while others were carefully curated into his home. While on these treasure hunting trips, I learned very early on how to understand the value of the object based on my father’s taste, color, shape, manufacturer, or edition. My projects that involve collecting domestic objects are a direct relationship to my own narrative. But there is whole consumer and TV culture around garage sales and collecting which makes these projects accessible beyond my own narrative.

The series DECORATIVE PROTECTION, started in a personal place of trying to physically and psychologically understand anxiety and how as a woman the urban environment is a bodily trigger. It’s so drilled into us as women to be sexy, but to simultaneously be on guard, to be tough. From its initial conceptual thread, the current sculptural works have opened up to find a more poetic formal relationship between urban symbols and seductive materials. I believe that my sculptures have the power to be transformative for the viewer in which they encounter a new mythic figure that has adapted and marks a new territory in our urban environment.

What does having a physical space to make art in mean for your process, and how do you make your space work for you?
I’ve been in this current studio since 2004, just after graduating from CalArts. My studio mate Jed Lind and I share a 2,000 sq. foot studio with private studios, a full shop and an urban back patio for dusty projects. Being a sculptor in LA is wonderful, most of the year I can work outside under the metal woven shade tarp.

This space has its challenges with an absent landlord, an ever-present hole in the ceiling, and deteriorating walls due to years of rain damage. Oh, and the giant water bugs, bees hives, black widows, and mice always keep me on my toes! Despite those challenges, this space has seen a lot of different configurations and bodies of work. As a sculptor, this space not only provides much needed storage but a space for privacy and magic. On this block, there are other artists such as Aaron Sandnes and James Melinat – where we are constantly exchanging tools, ideas, and feedback. Next door is a welder, the hardware store is a stone’s throw away, and the Verdugo Bar is around the block— it’s all here. If I ever moved out, it would be the end of an era. I’d miss my banter with Jed Lind the most, as he’s constantly telling me to clean my studio and huffing away in a humorous disgust.

Is there something you are currently working on, or are excited about starting that you can tell us about?
My upcoming public project, TOTEMS IN INDIGO, will be a temporary site-specific installation at Arcadia County Park commissioned by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission during the 2013 pool season opening on June 15. This project coincided with a Japanese indigo dying community workshop with Niki Livingston of Lookout & Wonderland where participants dyed canvas tote bags, which will become formal elements within my whimsical ceramic totem sculptures, and then will be given back to the community at the end of the project. These four totem sculptures of ceramic animal heads are glazed based on 14th Century Chinese pottery, which will mark the entrance of the newly renovated Arcadia Aquatic Center.

What three things never fail to bring you pleasure?
The transformative quality of clay, Marimekko patterns, and sleeping. I love to sleep.

Are you involved in any upcoming shows or events? Where and when?
My solo show DECORATIVE PROTECTION opened at Emma Gray HQ in Los Angeles, and it will be up until June 2.
Here are some installation views of the exhibition.

FORÊT INTÉRIEURE/INTERIOR FOREST, a multi-faceted project curated by Alexandra Grant and organized by Pilar Tompkins is currently running at 18th Street Projects in Santa Monica, CA and will be presented at Mains d’Oeuvres in Paris in the fall.

TOTEMS IN INDIGO a temporary public art project commissioned by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission at the Arcadia County Park will open in June 15.

I’ve got other things on the burner too, but under wraps for now.

To see more of Bari’s work:
Fine art:
www.emmagrayhq.com
www.bariziperstein.com

Design line:
www.bzippyandcompany.com
www.sightunseen.com

Collaborative:
Survey West Collaborative: Jill Newman & Bari Ziperstein
www.surveywestcollaborative.com

]]> http://inthemake.com/bari-ziperstein/feed/ 0 Needles & Pens 10 Year Anniversary http://inthemake.com/needles-pens-10-year-anniversary/ http://inthemake.com/needles-pens-10-year-anniversary/#comments Mon, 13 May 2013 03:58:20 +0000 admin http://inthemake.com/?p=6975 Read more »]]> The Luggage Store is currently hosting an exhibition to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of Needles & Pens, which has had a great role in supporting the San Francisco art scene over the years through its book shop and art gallery. An incredible range of artists are featured, including IN THE MAKE’s associates Chris Duncan, Jason Jägel, Andrew Schoultz and Monica Canilao among others.

Needles & Pens 10 Year Anniversary
May 10 – June 8, 2013
The Luggage Store Gallery
1007 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 USA

]]> http://inthemake.com/needles-pens-10-year-anniversary/feed/ 0 Field Note: Eternal Spring http://inthemake.com/field-note-eternal-spring/ http://inthemake.com/field-note-eternal-spring/#comments Sun, 05 May 2013 18:56:38 +0000 admin http://inthemake.com/?p=6938 Read more »]]> It started with the lilac trees. Klea first noticed the big, showy clusters of purple flowers when we arrived in Santa Barbara and was surprised they had already bloomed in mid-April. Since the beginning of the trip we had been paying attention to the development of spring as we headed north: the changes in weather, the duration of light, the eruptions of flowers, and the almost fluorescent-green of new growth leaves. As we continued north on our journey up along the coast we looked for the lilacs, noticed what stage they were at, and realized the rate at which we were traveling seemed to coincide with these spring blooms. The lilacs became our gauge. By the time we hit Sonoma County where we visited artists Kai Samuels-Davis and Esther Traugot and spent some time at Chalk Hill Artist Residency, it was clear that our trip was enabling us to experience springtime in a drawn-out, exaggerated manner—essentially, an “endless” spring.

We were invited by artist and Program Director Alice Warnecke to spend the night at Chalk Hill Artist Residency. This small and relatively new residency is near Healdsburg on the Warnecke Ranch and Vineyards, an impressive stretch of land that includes Russian River frontage, a lake, grassy meadows, and an 80-acre vineyard. Artists are selected to come one at a time to live in the 1920’s farmhouse and are given a studio space in a repurposed barn and are encouraged to explore the rambling property. Chalk Hill Residency also collaborates with local organizations to integrate artists with developmental disabilities and mental health challenges. This is an important and personal aspect to the residency, started in honor of Alice’s uncle Roger Warnecke who has been living and painting with schizophrenia since he was 20. Before starting the residency Alice had been living in San Francisco but after graduating from CCA she decided to move to her family’s ranch and help out with the vineyards. The inspiration for Chalk Hill Residency was based on her grandfather’s vision (John Carl Warnecke), a renowned architect who had dreamed that the land would someday be a resource for architects and artists.

Alice’s move to the ranch was conditional on being able to pick up where her grandfather left off. On the evening we arrived, over a home-cooked meal that Alice had prepared for us, we sat at her kitchen table along with Linda Rosso, the resident artist, and chatted. Alice said she knew taking on a more rural lifestyle might be challenging for her art practice and she was initially worried about being far away from a larger community of artists but she thinks of the residency as a lifeboat, telling us that “Seeing people make work on a day-to-day basis is inspiring and motivating.” She also said that for her and her family the residency is a way to share Warnecke Ranch’s beauty.

The topic of nature, community, and “getting back to the land” continued to come up… In Ukiah we spent the day with curator Larry Rinder, and friends David Wilson and Hannah Barr-DiChiara on Larry’s big sweep of land. Tucked away in the hillsides it encompasses far-reaching meadows, tangles of manzanita, and sturdy oak. We spent time walking and talking, lying in the sun, swaying back-and-forth from the rope swing, and eating together. Klea and I noted that the lilacs were in full bloom in the garden. Larry told us the story of how finding this land inspired him to jump ship from a high-powered job in New York to move to the West Coast. In his voice I could hear how much he loved the land, how lucky he felt to have found it. It also seemed pretty obvious that it is important to him to share it.

That day seemed like a hazy childhood memory to me— full of sun flares, slow-moving hours, and wonder… and I couldn’t help but think about the powerful pull of the land, and the many ways we have tried getting back to it… I thought about the Transcendentalists, and the Romantics, and all the more recent utopian movements that came out of the decades belonging to the ‘60s and ‘70s. All that Californian dreaming, all those flower children, all the groupings of people that have come together to try to live closer to themselves, each other, and nature.

Having been raised by parents of the ‘60s generation who chased after unconventional dreams only to have things fall apart, I’ve always been skeptical of overly earnest attempts at transcendence and finding utopia, and the inclination to sentimentalize our relationship to nature. And yet simultaneously I understand those impulses, recognize them in myself, and still I haven’t quite figured out what to do with them. On our way to Arcata, Klea and I picked up a young hitchhiker on his way to Black Bear Ranch, a commune out in Siskiyou County. Our rule with hitchhikers was if the two of us decided we could easily “take ‘em” then we’d offer a lift. Immediately, I rattled off about a million questions at the kid, wanting to know anything and everything about his perspective and experience with communal living. Like so many young people who seek out that way of life, he had grown up in East Coast upper-middle class suburbia. He responded with sincerity and generosity, and didn’t seem bothered by the interrogation. If anything, I think he liked sharing his worldview, and was proud to have unwavering answers to my questions. But I still have so many more questions.

Traveling through Northern California and into Oregon, Klea and I kept on obsessing over each flowering plant and shrub. We stopped along roadsides to gawk at the low-branched dogwood trees covered in bright pink, let ourselves ramble on about the endless color possibilities of azaleas, the richness of rhododendrons, and of course… the sweet, heavy smell of the lilacs. The verb spring originates from the Old English springan which means to burst forth or leap. The noun for the season, fittingly, derives from that term. In a way that idea of bursting forth or leaping applies to a lot of the people and artists we have encountered— it speaks to their choices, the continued instances of pushing forward. I’ve seen so many leaps of faith on this trip. I didn’t necessarily anticipate that would be a major theme on this road trip, but it has. It’s been something else to witness the world in this way… a world awash in both soft and electric colors, and to have conversation after conversation with people who are just really doing it… like really fucking going for it… whether that means foraging for food at a commune in the woods, starting a residency, creating a single day of utopia, or making art the thing that matters most even when everyone’s telling you to get a plan B. It’s not that I think it always works, but at least a leap was taken.

]]> http://inthemake.com/field-note-eternal-spring/feed/ 0 Kelsey Brookes http://inthemake.com/kelsey-brookes/ http://inthemake.com/kelsey-brookes/#comments Sun, 28 Apr 2013 16:01:57 +0000 admin http://inthemake.com/?p=6885 Read more »]]>

Kelsey’s current work started out as a distraction. About a year and a half ago while still doing representational work, he began making small circular paintings as a way to break up his fastidious process. These mandala-like paintings were simply an escape, a moment of respite from a practice that had become labored and overwrought; while interviewing Kelsey in his San Diego studio he stated, “I wasn’t having fun representing these figures over and over again anymore… I started doing these more abstracted paintings because they were a distraction, and I wanted that.” And now Kelsey is fully immersed in this work— large, colorful, and methodical paintings based on his understanding of neurobiology, with a focus on the molecular structure of serotonin as well as hallucinogenic and pharmaceutical drugs and the visual patterns they create in our brains.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had an artist tell me that a shift in their work originated from a brief act of diversion. In the midst of highly involved work, artists often turn to the making of something else to give themselves some breathing space. Usually these acts are thought of only as brief interruptions in one’s practice; there is no preparation or forethought, no research, no design. Artists use different names for these exercises: doodles, sketches, studies, experiments, pauses… but essentially the terms mean the same thing: a space in time in which one can make without thinking too much. This is an important aspect of any practice because it intuitively answers the inexplicable call to create artwork. It’s simply a response, like a shout back to a voice in the dark. These interludes are guided by spontaneity and flexibility, and because they are often devoid of judgment they are crucial to the evolution of process and work. This is where breakthroughs happen. Literally.

I think Kelsey’s recent direction is on to something. His background in molecular biology and his curiosity concerning the nature of existence and perception, both philosophically and scientifically, ground the work and lend it weight. Given his particular interest in subject matter of consciousness, the line of inquiry he can follow with his work is potentially boundless, and that’s very exciting. But though Kelsey’s work is content rich, the eye-catching colors and patterns do not necessarily reveal the full extent of his thoughtful approach. In a way, the brilliant colors and radiating patterns overshadow Kelsey’s investigations and not so much because they are beautiful, but more because they are systematically so. The ideas Kelsey is tugging at are significant and as his understanding around these questions continues to deepen, I’m curious to see how he will push his work to reveal that depth.

How would you describe your subject matter or the content of your work?
Molecular biology on acid. While working on my paintings I’m looking at the structures of certain molecules and also considering how they affect the brain. I’m particularly interested in the neurotransmitter serotonin and its impact on our general sense of wellbeing. But there are lots of other molecules in the human brain and in our culture that mimic serotonin in some way, and a lot of those are psychedelic molecules— such as DMT, psilocybin, LSD, and mescaline. These often elicit crazy visualizations, the way they affect the human visual system looks a lot like the abstract painting I’ve been working on.

Anything having to do with the brain is interesting to me; I have lots of curiosity and questions concerning existence, both philosophically and scientifically, and because of my background a good place to start my interrogation of life is through the brain.

What mediums do you work with?
Paint and canvas.

In my research on you and your work, I noticed much has been made of your previous work as a biochemist. What do you make of that? How has your background in science influenced your art?
In my previous work life I was a scientist, I studied it in school and for five years I worked in the molecular and microbiology field, so I think like a scientist. But the artistic and aesthetic values I’ve been learning as an artist had always seemed in opposition to my scientific way of understanding, until this current body of work. Art and science are often, and in my view incorrectly, seen as two opposing poles of a creative continuum. This is a misunderstanding of both. My recent work is a combination of my scientific background and current artistic interest— I have taken my understanding of molecular biology and married it with painting.

Your work seems to have recently shifted; you’ve moved away from more representational forms and instead you’re working with abstraction? How did that shift come about?
I did a show in London about a year and a half ago and I was still doing more figurative and representational work— I was painting animals with things like weird crystal patterns coming out of their eyeballs. But I could see that the work was beginning to head towards abstraction; it wasn’t an intentional choice, it just started to go in that direction. With my figurative work I would spend two weeks fixing the face of a bat because I wanted to get it just right; my practice was full of effort and care, but I stopped having fun doing it. I started to create these small circular paintings as a way to distract myself from the arduous figurative work I was doing. Repeatedly creating the same forms over and over got boring and I wanted to just paint and not deal with the figure and the small circular “meditation” paintings were a break from that. I took about four of these works to the show in London and nobody liked them, but I didn’t care because for me they were freeing; through the process of doing them I was finding release. Even though none of it sold in London I just decided to follow my instinct and that whole following year I didn’t do any figurative work. I love this new way of painting more than any other work I’ve done. But in a way, I am still a figurative or “representational” artist, except the things I am representing now are not seen as often (molecules and hallucinogenic visions).

What are you presently inspired by— are there particular things you are reading, listening to or looking at to fuel your work?
Oliver Sacks, Richard J. Davidson, Richard Evan Schultes, E.O. Wilson, Albert Hofmann, and studies within ethnobotany. These scientists are working at the edge of human knowledge and conscious and reporting back to is what they find. I want to paint what they find. I want to paint the edge of human consciousness.

What does having a physical space to make art in mean for your process, and how do you make your space work for you?
I like long walls with preferably high ceilings and south facing windows. In my current studio I am lucky enough to have everything except the high ceilings. I always want to get to the margins with my paintings, so it would be great to have higher ceilings so that my work has the possibility to be bigger. If my studio’s walls and ceiling were twice as long and twice as high, I would be in heaven.

Is there something you are currently working on, or are excited about starting that you can tell us about?
I’m working on two shows this year. In London in June I will be showing a new series of paintings inspired by hallucination and this fall in New York I will be showing a new series of works inspired by psychiatric medication.

Along with the work for my shows this year I am researching consciousness; more specifically how consciousness might have more to do with the behavior of atoms that make up the animal than any larger abstract notion of consciousness. There are lifetimes worth of interesting subject matter in there.

How do you navigate the art world?
With a lot of curiosity and a healthy dose of skepticism and caution. I eagerly enjoy art and I’m passionate about absorbing and observing the work of others, especially work that I don’t understand. All aspects of the art world interest me; I’m always curious about different galleries and what the reality of the business side of art is. But this is also why I’m a bit skeptical and cautious because the financial interests within the art world are often difficult and unspoken. Obviously as an artist, I have to sell work, but for me I have always wanted my financial viability to be slow-growing and sustainable. Sometimes galleries aim to make a lot of money very quickly, and that just isn’t the right model for me. I want to work with galleries that are long-standing cultural institutions that don’t push at an unsustainable rate. I’m looking to make work for the next 50 years— I want to live my life as an artist, I want to be doing this for the rest of my life. Here in San Diego Quint Gallery has been great; it’s exactly what I would hope for in a working relationship.

Do you have a motto?
This Chuck Close Quote is good:
Inspiration is for amateurs – the rest of us just show up and get to work. And the belief that things will grow out of the activity itself and that you will – through work – bump into other possibilities and kick open other doors that you would never have dreamt of if you were just sitting around looking for a great ‘art [idea].’ And the belief that process, in a sense, is liberating and that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every day. Today, you know what you’ll do, you could be doing what you were doing yesterday, and tomorrow you are gonna do what you [did] today, and at least for a certain period of time you can just work. If you hang in there, you will get somewhere.

Are you involved in any upcoming shows or events? Where and when?
I will have a show in London in June at Valmorbida
And another show in NYC in the fall of 2013 at Charles Bank Gallery.

Where can people see your work?
www.instagram.com/kelseybrookes
www.quintgallery.com
www.kelseybrookes.com

]]> http://inthemake.com/kelsey-brookes/feed/ 0 Field Note: Life is Long http://inthemake.com/field-note-life-is-long/ http://inthemake.com/field-note-life-is-long/#comments Tue, 23 Apr 2013 06:10:48 +0000 admin http://inthemake.com/?p=6848 Read more »]]> There is a book I never tire of, even after reading it over and over again— The Lover, by Marguerite Duras. It’s a short book, just over a 100 pages, written in unforgettable but brief impressionistic paragraphs. The novel is autobiographical, written in 1984 when Duras was 70 years old… and it begins like this:

One day, I was already old, in the entrance of a public place, a man came up to me. He introduced himself and said: “I’ve known you for years. Everyone says you were beautiful when you were young, but I want to tell you I think you’re more beautiful now than then. Rather than your face as a young woman, I prefer your face as it is now. Ravaged.”

I’ve considered those opening lines endlessly… not just within the context of the body and beauty, but also in thinking about the unrelenting thrust of time and its irreversible, momentous effects, particularly within the margins of a single lifetime. “Ravaged” is not a favorable word to describe one’s face, yet those sentences ask the reader to reckon with the consequences of time differently; to see an aged face as beautiful because it is evidence of a life fully experienced. I’ve returned to these lines by Duras because of two recent and very special studio visits with artists in their 70s, which have prompted me to mull over just how much one person can fit into a single life. These visits were with Larry Bell and Joan Tanner.

When we were down in LA we were lucky enough to visit Larry in his massive Venice Beach studio where he showed us his newest sculptural works called “Light Knots” in which sheets of acetate are coated with vaporized metallic particles, cut and looped into iridescent “knots”, and then strung up from the ceiling to lightly sway, refracting light with each slight shift in position and time. Larry has been making work for a long time (over 50 years) and is often associated with the Light and Space Movement and West Coast Minimalism, but when I asked him about these associations he shrugged, suggesting he doesn’t care much for labels, and said, “I’m just happy to be a part of the conversation.” In talking with Larry it was clear to me that despite his seminal role in the LA art scene and his well-established accomplishments over the years, he just wants to continue to push his work, to make it good, and to still allow himself to be lead by new questions. After our visit, he took Klea and I to lunch, along with curator Jay Belloli, and together we all talked about our backgrounds and Larry and Jay shared a few stories, but still I wondered about all the spaces in their stories I hadn’t managed to fill in.

We had a similar experience with Joan Tanner in Santa Barbra, who has lived and made work on her property for over 45 years. Sitting amidst the tangle of her garden Joan’s studio was full of newer work: minimal drawings and large sculptural pieces made of materials like wood, wire, metal, and concrete that look like the stripped but still-standing structures of a city that has been hit by a natural disaster. Joan’s practice has been incredibly varied, shifting between painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, and photography, and back and forth, again and again. She hasn’t quit thinking about different ways to approach her work, and she certainly hasn’t grown tired or jaded or uncurious about life. I know this because we spent over five hours with her…talking. First in her studio talking mainly about her art, and then on her deck, drinking wine with her assistants Gera Ayala and Bob Debris, chatting about… well, just about everything. She asked so many questions, wanting to know what Klea and I and Bob and Gera thought, what we had seen and read, what we thought we might know. Her curiosity seemed endless and so did her willingness to share her time with us.

Both Larry and Joan left behind the towns they were born in, went to school, moved out west, traveled, changed, had families and all while making art. Their lives are long, encompassing many known and unknown facts, dreams, losses, successes and still they continue to push at their practice, attesting to their flexibility and evolution as artists, and people. Meeting and spending time with them felt undeniably remarkable, and I knew it while it was happening; as every moment ticked by I told myself, This is something to be savored, something to be remembered. Larry and Joan reminded me that a single lifetime can actually hold many lives, that we can be many things at once, or successively, and that really the only way to meet with the blight of time is to endure, persist, and always shoulder into what you believe in.

Last week, when we stopped back into San Francisco to do a few Bay Area studio visits (and laundry!) I had dinner with my brother and grandmother. She is 91 years old and has lived through The Great Depression, wartime, the death of loved ones, and now she is close to being totally blind. But still she goes to her literary and political group meetings, gathers her family as often as possible, sings along to my brother’s piano playing, and flirts with any man below the age of 50. At dinner she was fretting about her grandchildren and their futures, particularly those of us who are still unmarried, and kept asking my brother and I hard-to-answer questions about big life choices up ahead. Finally my brother said, Gladys, let’s just think about how amazing it is that we are all sitting at this table together. Let’s just consider EVERYTHING you have seen and done and been through to get here, to be with us, at this exact moment. And let’s just be happy, ‘cause we’ve all managed to get to this table tonight.

People always say life is short. But it isn’t— it’s actually quite long, with so many possible chapters.

Photos: Images 1-5 are from Larry Bell’s Venice Beach Studio. Images 6-9 are from Joan Tanner’s Montecito home studio.

We’ll publish full studio visits and interviews with Larry and Joan in the coming months, along with the other artists we’re visiting during Western Edge. Larry Bell has an upcoming show at Frank Lloyd Gallery in Santa Monica, from May 4 to June 8, 2013.

]]> http://inthemake.com/field-note-life-is-long/feed/ 0 Christopher Taggart http://inthemake.com/christopher-taggart/ http://inthemake.com/christopher-taggart/#comments Fri, 19 Apr 2013 06:04:33 +0000 admin http://inthemake.com/?p=6789 Read more »]]>

The first thing you should know about Chris’s work is that his practice is not specific to any medium, ever. He jumps around a lot, letting his ideas dictate his choice in materials; but often his work utilizes ordinary objects or images that he then manipulates through systems of repetition. When we visited him at his Berkeley studio he had just finished his first public commission, a 50-foot tall engraving on aluminum in the new Veterinary Medicine Research Building at the University of California, Davis. He was also working on pieces for his solo show, Cuts and Splits, at Eli Ridgway Gallery, which is currently up until May 4th, 2013. These pieces included large-scale photographic image composites, engraved aluminum panels, and sculpture made from plastic molds. Upon entering Chris’s studio it’s initially very hard to tell what’s going on and where the work is. This is in part due to the fact that his CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machine, which he uses to make engravings, sits squarely in the middle of the space and dominates the view, but it’s also because Chris uses everyday objects and materials that do not take on a transformative quality until a work is completely finished. So coming in mid-process presented some challenges for me; I had to push myself to understand his methods and it was an effort to imagine what exactly his course of actions would result in.

While interviewing Chris he stated that much of his work is about trying to make sense of our fast-paced, overwhelming world and that “turning information overload in on itself to create intrigue and beauty seems like a worthwhile pursuit.” This statement got me thinking about the phrase “information overload” and what it means when the rate of change, especially concerning technological innovation, accelerates to a point that we can no longer adjust.

Over the last couple years I have had countless conversations about the impact of ever-increasing digital information and communication technologies, and more often than not these conversations are peppered with reoccurring words: anxiety, distraction, over-analysis, alienation, and depression. I think in many ways Chris’s work addresses the weight of these words in our daily lives and attempts to investigate the systems we’ve created by breaking them down into single objects or components that he then resurrects into unexpected forms. A perfect example of this is a recent digital photographic collage in which he dissected and recombined aerial photographs of 21 California state prisons that he had found and culled online. From far off, the work appears fixed and uncompromised, but up close it seems to jitter wildly— the unrelenting repetition, the claustrophobia of multiplication, and the hyper-intricacy give the viewer a sense that the work isn’t finished, that it will not yield to its borders and it will continue to grow. That rapid expansion can feel terrifying… sort of the way creeping ivy vines and spider webs are … and technological advancement, penal systems, population, communication modes, digital information… well the list goes on and on.

How would you describe your subject matter or the content of your work?
In the broadest sense, I am just trying to make the most interesting things I can. Usually that involves a systematic manipulation of common everyday objects or images as a way to denature perception and recast it into something surprising or just plain beautiful to look at. Often the work is based on a simple yet repetitive foundation that leads to a kind of complexity that has its own behavior. When it works best, the behavior outperforms my preconceptions, reveals something unexpected, and gives me a hint of how to make it work even better the next time. When it works at its ABSOLUTE best, it makes you laugh a little too.

What mediums do you work with?
I work with whatever seems to fit the idea. Photos, paper, plastics, metals, video, electronics, plaster. I’ve been moving away from complicated and/or toxic materials and back to things that are more directly manipulated by hand. My favorite medium of late is photos and glue!

You have a very varied art practice in which you employ a vast array of materials, how do you go about choosing them?
I just strive to keep myself engaged and interested and the ideas determine the materials. I don’t want to make super permanent, heavy work; everything is so fast paced and overwhelming right now, so I’m striving to make work that is simple in its materiality but complex in labor. I also try to make things that I can physically handle as an individual. Big heavy stuff doesn’t interest me any more. Even if it is big I want to be able to handle it by myself. I’ve strayed from this a few times, and it sure makes life difficult. If I can’t take it apart and carry it up a flight of stairs on my own I don’t want to make it. All that being said, I just finished my first public commission, a 50-foot tall engraving on aluminum in a new building at UC Davis. It’s 13 panels and weighs a total of 600 pounds. If it’s a public commission I guess I can break my own rules!

In my research on you and your work, I noticed much has been made of your undergraduate work in physics. What do you make of that? Do you think your background in science directly influences your art?
I do have an undergraduate degree in science. But I also have one in art and a Masters in Sculpture. The phrase “science and art at the same time” is a bit of a monkey on my back. Of course my education influences my work, but equally so do my chickens, and the time I spend on my bike, and the fact that the world is so overwhelming, and how amazing it looks when you snorkel, and my ongoing meditation practice, and even what I had for lunch. I feel like today’s art world is credential-oriented to its own detriment. I have a real aversion to looking at someone’s work through the blinding aperture of their CV.

All that said, my art practice can’t help but be permeated by my education in physics. I think a lot about time and probability and how we make sense of the infinite heap of human experience. Physics offers some perspectives that I can’t ignore. I would have never started cutting up multiple images and recombining them if I hadn’t learned about probability distributions in quantum mechanics. But I’m of course not doing particle physics, and the work is not ABOUT quantum mechanics, and I doubt I use any more math than a carpenter. My practice is about getting an idea and seeing it through to try and see something new and interesting and beautiful.

Do you see your work as autobiographical at all? Does personal history work its way into your practice?
Personal history is a weird term. Everything we know is in the past anyway right? Autobiography would mean my own story, which I don’t think is any more interesting that anyone else’s story, so I’m not really trying to tell it to anyone. I’m more interested in the general way we all try to make sense of things through the imperfect nature of our conditioned senses. The kind of self-portrait I’d like to make is one that could be a self-portrait of anybody else. But if there is one thing that is autobiographical it’s that I feel very overwhelmed. I’m not so much looking at narrative qualities in my work, instead it’s more about information overload and trying to make sense of a world inundated with technology and innovation. Turning information overload in on itself to create intrigue and beauty seems like a worthwhile pursuit.

Do you have a day job? What is it? What does it mean to you?
My day job is fixing up our little house. I tore the ceiling out of the living room this past year. It’s very meaningful to have a house of one’s own that you can make just the way you want… with your own hands.

Other than that I don’t have another career— for the last 12 or 13 years I’ve worked solely on my art. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I worked behind the fish counter at a market near my house for a couple years when working by myself all the time in the studio was just too isolating.

My art projects inevitably take longer to finish in the physical world than in my imagination, so I’m very blessed to have a spectacularly beautiful and generous wife who has supported me when artwork alone hasn’t.

What are you presently inspired by— are there particular things you are reading, listening to or looking at to fuel your work?
My inspiration comes in generalities that don’t necessarily correlate to or directly fuel the physical form of what I make. Lately I can’t get enough of Kora music (it’s a gourd-harp from Mali in West Africa). And I’ve been paying a good bit of attention to the sparkly things you see when you look at a bright light with your eyes closed. I have a vague sense that the curly, stringy, ropey way that lava solidifies (Pahoehoe) is going to work its way into my work somehow in the near future.Pruning fruit trees and thinning greens in the garden has a way of influencing idea creation, but I wouldn’t dare attempt to pick apart exactly how.
I also just finished rereading one of my favorite books, The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien. The combination of humor, time travel, and misguided perceptions of reality in that book always gets my ticker ticking.

Is there something you are currently working on, or are excited about starting that you can tell us about?
I’ve been rolling objects (mostly pieces of fruit and sports balls) around on a flatbed scanner to make these strange digital extrusion photographs. Honestly, the one piece I can’t wait to make, that I won’t have time for until after my upcoming show, is this: I’m going to roll the head of a plastic Burger King doll around on the scanner to make a sort of branching fire corral. Imagine swimming up to a coral while snorkeling and realizing the whole thing was constructed by little Burger King heads that had moved through space and left traces of themselves along the way, the same way coral polyps build hard calcium shells into forms that balance perfectly between order and chaos. I imagine it will be bonkers, but I can’t envision it and that’s exactly the kind of project I like to embark upon.

What risks have you taken in your work, and what has been at stake?
I often work in a programmatic fashion where I set up a set of conditions that I then allow to behave on their own to create an artwork. I often have only a vague idea that the system will lead to something worthwhile. Systems with less certain outcomes often lead to the most interesting results. But I’ve embarked on projects that have absorbed months of my life only to fizzle out into mediocrity.

How do you navigate the art world?
With a 10-ton boulder of salt. The art world can be a frustrating place; it’s so much about creating a brand-based career around your own name and less about making the work. It’s all about the quantity of shows, reviews, mentions, and images out in the world; it’s all about building an arsenal to create a brand. It’s very confusing. Often art world institutions seem less dedicated to supporting the process of art making, and instead are keen to follow trends at the rate of the fashion industry. It’s an issue of pace— artists spend so much time and labor on their work, but institutions move on so quickly. It’s impossible for artists to keep up, and I’m not so sure they should.

Who taught you the most about art?
That’s a tough one. Does it have to be a person? I think I’ve learned most about art from walking, sitting, and swimming in nature and not thinking. It’s all about new observations, that moment when your perception has been expanded and new impressions are being made. If it really has to be a person, it would be Mississippi John Hurt, but I of course never met him. Sure wish I could have. Listening to his music, and also learning how to play it, is an ongoing reminder of what I see as truly artful. All he needed were six steel strings, two hands, and his own voice to channel something uniquely magical. On good days I can muster that kind of spirit a little bit in the studio, or at least try to.

Do you have a motto?
I don’t have a motto per se, but I have a couple of favorite quotes.

My father-in-law is a unique and wonderful man. He once wrote me a letter that had the following salutation that I committed to memory: “Easy come. Easy go. Sweat sweat sweat! Pay the price for the greatness.”

A friend of mine was working with his automotive business partner one day. They had a big work load ahead and the business partner said to my friend: “OK. Today we REALLY need to FOCUS on remaining FOCUSED!”

Are you involved in any upcoming shows or events? Where and when?
In March I finished a permanent commission, called Blue Column, for the new Veterinary Medicine Research Building at the University of California, Davis. It’s a 50-foot tall engraving on 13 anodized aluminum panels.

I have a solo exhibition, Cuts and Splits, at Eli Ridgway Gallery in San Francisco that is up until May 4th.

Where can people see your work?
Eli Ridgway Gallery
Ace Gallery (I don’t work with Ace any more however).

Photo Credit: the photos of Chris’ public work “Blue Column” at UC Davis are taken by the artist. All other photos are IN THE MAKE’s.

]]> http://inthemake.com/christopher-taggart/feed/ 0 Field Note: LA http://inthemake.com/field-note-la/ http://inthemake.com/field-note-la/#comments Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:49:18 +0000 admin http://inthemake.com/?p=6765 Read more »]]> People love to hate on LA. I get it— it’s a town that sprawls, unfurling without restraint across a semi-arid expanse, massive freeways cut through the landscape, pollution sits heavy in the air, roads are bogged down in traffic, and the weather stagnates in sunshine. And then there’s that shiny veneer smeared over every surface, not just the towering palm trees, the swimming pools, the glamorous homes tucked into the folds of hillsides, but also in the people and the way everyone seems to go about living their lives: the excess of beauty, the Chiclet-like teeth, the suntans and sunglasses, the big cars and valet parkers, the palpable ambition in the air, the snatches of gossip that linger long after the conversations have died, and the dreams that drift, rising and dipping, underneath the iconic Hollywood sign.

But I gotta say, I love LA. There’s no arguing that it’s a weird town… I mean, a really, really weird town, but it’s so many things at once: it’s still young and rawboned but voracious and greedy, it’s mythical and frivolous, it’s got a giddy ‘endless summer’ vibe and then a singular kind of terrifying seediness… and it’s steeped in the arts… but somehow no one wants to talk about that. LA is full of artists, writers, designers, actors— people who have come from all over to “make it.” But “making it” can be understood both literally and metaphorically; not everyone is aiming to ingratiate themselves into the Hollywood machine, some people are just “making it” with their hands, hearts and brains no matter who is watching, toiling away with paintbrushes, sewing machines, typewriters…well, you get the point. People come to LA to create the work they’ve always wanted to, to go big or go home, because there is still enough space to go around and the rents haven’t spiked quite as high as places like San Francisco and New York, and there is still a legacy of art appreciation and the money to back it up. From my point of view… if you are an artist, LA is a good town to be in.

I love LA because it’s full of incongruities, because the light there really is a hazy golden color, because revulsion and desire are somehow always yoked together, and because mythologizing, storytelling, and image making and breaking is just as much a part of the scenery as those towering palms. In the week that we stayed in LA visiting multiple artists in their studios, we traveled from Echo Park to Venice Beach to Laurel Canyon to downtown. There are many ways to live in LA, and the most significant thing I learned during our stay is if you think you know LA, that most certainly means you don’t. – NG

Photos: images 1 and 4 are from Larry Bell’s Venice Beach studio, images 2 and 3 are from the studio of April Street. Full studio visits with Larry, April and many other LA artists will be published over the coming months.

]]> http://inthemake.com/field-note-la/feed/ 0 Western Edge: The Desert http://inthemake.com/western-edge-the-desert/ http://inthemake.com/western-edge-the-desert/#comments Mon, 08 Apr 2013 05:39:27 +0000 admin http://inthemake.com/?p=6721 Read more »]]> Writer Joyce Carol Oates said— night comes to the desert all at once, as if someone turned off a light. It’s true… things come hard and fast and full in the desert.

We didn’t have much time before the sun fell behind the horizon and the soft oranges and pinks would begin to fade into a dark-blue sky, and then quickly turn a perfect black. So we gunned the car down the road, holding tight to the curves, guessing how many minutes of pre-dusk light we had. Our eyes checked the horizon and we held our breaths in hope that we would manage to see Salvation Mountain under a wash of color.

We had just left the edges of the Salton Sea where we wandered under the pulsing afternoon sun, exploring the rubble of abandoned homes. I had picked through the fragments of strangers’ lives there and moved in out of sunlight and shadows thinking about what the now-gutted homes had once been during the Salton Sea’s short-lived heyday in the 1950s and 60s. Before the fish suddenly died and washed up on the sand, before the stink of desolation and poverty moved in, a booming resort town existed along the shores of Salton Sea… and then just as fast as the fish died the holidaymakers stopped coming. Standing amidst the apocalyptic landscape it was almost impossible to imagine its glitzy past. Dreams die all of a sudden in the desert, fast, without any warning.

Somehow Salvation Mountain seemed like the right place to go after Salton Sea. Made from adobe, straw, and thousands of gallons of paint, Salvation Mountain sits near the tiny town of Niland. It was created by local resident Leonard Knight who painted the hill with Christian sayings and verses from the bible, and considered it his life’s work to spread the message that God is love. In late 2011 Leonard Knight was put in a nursing home, but the monument lives on. Salvation Mountain is beautiful because it’s so unexpected— nothing can quite prepare you for what it’s like to drive up to in the middle of barren desert. It looks like something only children could dream up; it’s messy and bright and big, and it’s as though you can see the enthusiasm in the strokes of paint, those sweeping gestures of color. We ran up to the top as fast as we could and watched the streaks of hot pink and electric orange stretch across the sky. There were other people around, scattered about, most notably some musicians and their crew (which really meant two girls that must have been their girlfriends) filming a video. They were foreigners, and though we couldn’t know for sure, their accents and blonde hair hinted that they might be Swedish. They were dressed like a cross between Old West gunslingers and Jesus Christ (an unexpected and amusing fact considering their Nordic-ness), and frantically they moved about the top of Salvation Mountain trying to get their last shots in before the dusk. The whole thing was pretty weird.

And then it got weirder. We didn’t realize we were right by Slab City, a bizarre and lawless desert “campsite” of snowbirds, travelers, outsiders, and retirees living out of RVs. The site used to be a U.S. Marine Corp training base in World War II. It was closed, the buildings were decommissioned, and abandoned years ago, and nothing is really left except big concrete slabs that residents live on rent-free scattered amongst the cactus and shrubs. Right as we were leaving Salvation Mountain, a grey haired guy in a camo-painted dune buggy came roaring up to us and asked, “Are you going to Prom Night?” Sometimes you have to just say yes even though you have no idea what you are getting yourself into. We followed our new friend’s directions and headed into Slab City to check out what was sure to be a hell of a party. For Slab City folks Prom Night is no joke, they are all about getting dressed up. The women were stuffed into big puffy 80’s dresses, metallic sequined tunics, and lacy little numbers, while the men seemed to stick to big beards and hats. Mostly everyone looked rough- their skin was sun-scorched, their arms sinewy, their cheeks sunken, and their ill-fitting clothes almost made a mockery of their bodies… but it didn’t seem to matter, they moved about the transformed slab of concrete, chatting easily, dancing, drinking from flasks, chasing after their little children and dogs. Under the makeshift string of lights, on a stage that had been erected a band played slow songs and I sat on one of the many decrepit couches in total awe. Neither Klea nor I were dressed appropriately– in our “on-the-road” gear we looked decidedly plain compared to the Slab City residents, but nobody said anything. Everyone just let us be a part of their night; we chatted with a few folks here and there and learned that a lot of former residents and neighboring people come to hang out on Prom Night. It was obvious it was kind of a big deal. And it felt like one to us too, even though we had somehow just stumbled upon it. We stayed on for hours, we couldn’t bring ourselves to go. We hadn’t eaten anything all day and we knew we were miles from the nearest town and that everything would be closed my the time we checked into our motel, but still we stayed on, and on, and on… watching the night unfold under the desert sky. That night when we finally got into our motel room, we sat on our beds eating a meager dinner of tinned oysters and crackers and talked about how lucky we got with our day.

We’d like to apologize for originally stating that Leonard Knight had passed away. We have since corrected our mistake and sincerely regret having made the error in the first place.

]]> http://inthemake.com/western-edge-the-desert/feed/ 0 Western Edge: Week 1 http://inthemake.com/western-edge-week-1/ http://inthemake.com/western-edge-week-1/#comments Tue, 02 Apr 2013 15:32:52 +0000 admin http://inthemake.com/?p=6594 Read more »]]>

It’s been just a week of life on the road, and already so much has happened. The morning of our departure, after packing up the car with overstuffed bags and loads of assorted snacks we headed out of familiar territory and went south into the San Joaquin Valley. We spent those first few hours in the car talking too much; we were giddy, nervous, and totally ready— I think all the organizing and planning to make WESTERN EDGE happen had almost stripped it of reality; it had become something that only existed in our emails, post-it notes, excel spread sheets, and endless dropbox documents, and now it was actually happening. I kept looking at my hands on the wheel and the road up ahead and thinking, “Damn, this shit just got real.”

// sundown in Bakersfield / Painting by Nano Rubio / Backroads through the mountains east of Ramona, CA //

I didn’t know what to expect from our first stop over in Bakersfield, where we visited painter Nano Rubio. When I had told people we were going there, most people crinkled their noses and asked, exasperated and dumbfounded, “Why?” So when we rolled into town I was hoping it would somehow defy all the less-than-enthusiastic commentary I’d heard. Well, I gotta tell ya… Bakersfield is pretty much what people say it is: flat, hot, dusty, and seemingly without much character. The landscape is populated with oil rigs, sweeping agricultural tracts, strip malls, and generic homes. Granted, I only had about 10 hours to soak it all in but it left me with squirmy questions about chance and choice and how exactly do people end up leading the lives they do. In a way Nano Rubio was incongruent to my understanding of Bakersfield — his large multi-colored abstract paintings seemed at odds with his ordinary suburban surroundings and his consternation regarding humanity’s relationship to land, nature, and community was an unexpected attitude given his surroundings. And yet he had grown up in Bakersfield, left for some years, and now had returned… to make art, to have a family, and to live a life.

// driving south from Tijuana to Rosarito / sketchbooks and studio of Hugo Crosthwaite in Rosarito, Mexico //

My curiosity around the nature of choice and circumstance ballooned in our two days in Tijuana. We visited three different artists there: Hugo Crosthwaite, Charles Glaubitz, and Jaime Ruiz Otis. All of them shared their work, their ideas and process, and they also generously offered bits of their individual story, offering us a glimpse into how and why their paths had lead them to where they currently are, both creatively and personally. Pierrette Van Cleve, Hugo Crosthwaite’s studio manager, drove us from San Diego across the border and out to Rosarito; driving like a bat out of hell, she spoke wildly of her youth, of her longstanding ideals, and of never bowing down to what she was told to be. She said to us, “When I looked at you two young girls coming down here, I had to smile because I thought, look at them, forging out on their own.” As we swerved and bumped along the road, as flashes of the world whizzed past the window, Pierrette’s words swelled up in my insides, filling me with hope that the path Klea and I have been cutting will take us even further and wider than we had allowed ourselves to imagine. Together, Klea and I got lost in Tijuana, we asked for directions in out-of-practice Spanish, we shared long afternoon hours with strangers who began to feel like friends, we ate the most amazing tacos I’ve ever had in my life (no joke!) and no matter who we talked to somehow the conversations kept prompting me to consider how quickly a series of decisions turns into a life story.

// At the home of artists Foi and Charles Glaubitz in Playas de Tijuana //

Once we headed back to San Diego we visited painter Kelsey Brookes in his North Park studio and chatted about how his work utilizes his understanding of neurobiology to investigate human existence and consciousness, both visually and philosophically. We also talked about how rife with contradictions, inconsistencies and mysteries the world is and that just when you think you know something, you find out you don’t. At one point in our conversation, Kelsey said, “Life to me, generally, is about the acceptance of the duality of things… and that there is a certain amount of unknowableness in the universe.” To be fair, our whole conversation wasn’t exactly this heavy— we did spend quite a bit of time talking about different dog breeds and their characteristics…a subject matter that I never seem to grow tired of. But still, I thought a lot about the “unknowableness of the universe” that Kelsey spoke of, and almost like a love note I’ve been (metaphorically) carrying it in my back pocket ever since.

// Kelsey Brooks in his San Diego studio //

Klea and I have the ability to talk endlessly about anything and everything, and one of our favorite topics is how much we get to know people in a studio visit; so much is laid bare, so much is told and shared and explained, so much is remembered and questioned and offered. Though we’ve been doing studio visits for two years, we are still always surprised by this rapid, but real intimacy. So far on this trip we’re lucky enough to be encountering this same phenomena beyond just the studio visits. It’s been incredible to experience and one particular moment stands out. Leaving San Diego behind, we headed towards Anza Borrego State Park, eventually following a winding back-road through hills covered in white sage to finally arrive at a small ranch house on the top of a slope of green pastureland.

// collecting white sage / overnight stay at the home of artist & filmmaker Ellie Epp on Mesa Grande //

A woman we had never met, a recent friend of Klea’s mother, had invited us to stop over on our way to Salton Sea and spend the night. We just knew her name- Ellie Epp- and that she was a filmmaker. Within minutes of arriving we were sitting with her in the meadow behind her house, drinking wine, watching the sun descend. As we sat with the cool earth and overgrown grass beneath our legs, we talked and talked and talked. We never even started with small talk, we didn’t exchange predictable warm-up questions— we just launched right into it. Ellie shared a lot about herself, her story, her thoughts… but she asked Klea and I to do the same. And we did. Klea and I have a tendency to step to the side when heavy-hitting questions come our way, but Ellie somehow asked just right. She also made us dinner and breakfast and gave us chocolates for the road. Our time with Ellie felt like a moment stolen from time– the landscape seemed to hold still around us, only morning fog and wild turkeys rolled trough, and our voices carried out to each other, meeting each other halfway.

]]> http://inthemake.com/western-edge-week-1/feed/ 0 Leigh Wells http://inthemake.com/leigh-wells/ http://inthemake.com/leigh-wells/#comments Thu, 21 Mar 2013 02:30:21 +0000 admin http://inthemake.com/?p=6537 Read more »]]>

My attempt to write about our visit with Leigh started out rough. As I sat in front of my computer staring at the blank page on my screen, I tried to consider Leigh’s work freely and let all passing thoughts in. But there were no passing thoughts, there was just one frantic question that beat itself against the walls of my brain: What is the nature of knowledge; is anything actually knowable? This question moved wildly, like a trapped animal, throwing its body against the limits of my intellect, wanting an answer, wanting a way out. I didn’t want to write with this question in mind, because it felt too big, too fast-moving, and way too wild to wrestle with. But it just kept knocking about in my head.

Somehow Leigh has mustered up enough courage to make this question central to her art practice. I feel like I should have high-fived her, or given her the thumbs-up, or asked for a prolonged handshake because going toe-to-toe with epistemological concerns takes a substantial amount of mental fortitude. Leigh’s collage and sculptural works begin and end with her struggle to understand; her works decidedly offer no answers. Instead, they are only interested in revealing the tangled, intimate, sometimes beautiful, sometimes grotesque act of grappling with what we can know and what we can’t. The muted tones, the familiar but indeterminate forms, and the illusion of movement in her pieces express a haunting ambiguity. When I look at Leigh’s collages, it’s as if I’m looking through a window, and all of a sudden everything I know goes fuzzy— the world I see is slippery, ephemeral, and pulsing with doubt. It’s a disorientating place. It’s a place where unreliability reigns; where systems of knowledge are put into question, and where intuition is bewildered like a deer caught in the headlights.

But Leigh’s work isn’t dark or pessimistic, in fact I think it’s hopeful. Though her visual language is fraught with the tension brought on by uncertainty, her work still allows for the possibility that there are real truths, and that whether they are knowable or not… they still exist.

How would you describe your subject matter or the content of your work?
Until a couple of years ago, I made work inspired by the mysterious boundary between the truth and the unknowable. The ways we use religion, science, history and other systems to grapple with these questions are still of interest.

Recently, events in my life moved the work from the area of thoughts and beliefs into more personal territory, dealing with human betrayal, dishonesty and then loss and grief. The thread of questioning continued, but moved into what we can know about others and what can be deliberately hidden from us.

Inspiration in theoretical physics, religious belief, evolution, and history gave way to researching relevant psychology topics: narcissistic personality disorder, relational trauma, sex addiction, alcoholism, etc.

What mediums do you work with?
I work primarily with drawing and collage. The sculptural constructions I make feel like they move the collage process into three dimensions, and before it occurred to me to try sculpture, the 2D works often felt like renderings of 3D objects.

You make collages, assemblages, and sculptural constructions that employ gathered materials, which means you must constantly be hunting down source material— what’s your criteria for this process?
I am not usually hunting for particular materials, but somehow happen upon things that either smoothly fit into my thoughts at the time, or inspire a detour to engage with new topics. The detours usually don’t make it out of the studio.

Aesthetically certain types of printing do appeal to me more, such as duotone and mezzotint, so I keep an eye out for books that reproduce images in this way. I’m careful what I take from my source material though, as it’s very important that the imagery and paper I utilize doesn’t “land” in a specific subject matter— I need to be able to keep things open, slightly ambiguous.

I frequently go to Book Bay Fort Mason to peruse all the used books for source material, and for my sculptural work I get a lot of my materials, particularly wood pieces, from SCRAP.

The clusters of shapes, the curved lines and angular geometries, the ghostly colors in your collage works hint at a need to make sense of your surroundings and the subtlest of human experiences— what captivates your imagination when you are working on these pieces? Where do the shapes and colors come from?
In the last two series of 2D work, “Deception” and “Remains”, the thoughts are of psychological and physical states.

The “Deception” pieces are portraits of an imagined interior life. They address hidden compulsion, a struggle with maladaptive urges, shame, narcissism and turning in on one’s self at the expense of everything else.

“Remains” is basically about the dark emotional and physical experience of grief and loss, and what comes after betrayal.

I don’t sketch out my collages or sculptures before beginning to work on them, but instead I jot words and images down in my notebooks that in some way have captivated my attention so that I will remember them— and of course these bits of text and imagery often inform my work, either subtly or more explicitly. And actually sometimes I do sketch out my sculptural forms, but they never turn out like the sketch. But drawing it out can be a helpful starting point.

Do you see your work as autobiographical at all? Does personal history work its way into your practice?
The earlier work was autobiographical only in regards to how it reflected my interests and curiosity. An autobiography of my brain.

More recently, the work clearly has become incredibly personal, which was something I didn’t anticipate. But, working through a very difficult period, showing up at the studio and making that work kept me going.

Despite this shift into more personal subject matter, I’m not any more protective or connected to the work than usual. Though these pieces were born out of a time when I was grappling with a traumatic experience, I look at that work now and feel glad to have survived and to no longer be in that same place. I was so shattered and sad. It’s good to have begun to move on from all that.

Do you have a day job? What is it? What does it mean to you?
I have worked for the last eighteen years as a commercial illustrator, creating images that are easily accessible and communicate specific ideas. That has probably kept me away from that approach in my art practice, and in the art that moves me, which is usually not strictly representational or narrative.

What are you presently inspired by— are there particular things you are reading, listening to or looking at to fuel your work?
I tend to be oddly and strongly inspired by titles of books, poetry and artwork, a well written phrase, a randomly heard pair of words.

Reading the catalog from the recent Jay DeFeo show at SFMOMA, and trying to make it through my stack of ArtForums and New Yorkers.

Is there something you are currently working on, or are excited about starting that you can tell us about?
After working with intense focus on three sequential bodies of work, two of which were on tight exhibition deadlines when it seemed almost impossible to even get myself to the studio, I am working through some ideas in search of the new direction, re-engaging in my art practice. Not knowing what is next is exciting. I’m lifting off from the past and moving into much more positive territory and at this point I’m just playing around, trying things out, experimenting.

What risks have you taken in your work, and what has been at stake?
For me risk implies a choice in which there is always a price, an implied loss. For me making art has never been risky, it’s always been a pleasure, it’s always been a positive thing. It doesn’t take away from other things— I don’t have a partner, children, pets, or a mortgage so I’m not compromising other parts of my life for my art.

Of course, sometimes I still deal with the angst of getting myself into the studio, of being scared to disappoint myself and my ideas— afraid of making work that’s not good. But I try to remember that you just have to show up and slog through the rough patches and get through those long, disappointing hours to finally get at the “sweet spots.”

How do you navigate the art world?
I don’t think I do navigate the art world. I sometimes reach out to galleries and try to make contacts, but certainly I should be doing it a lot more. My background doing illustration has made me less shy about putting my work out there, given me the ability to accept critical feedback and let go of expectations that people will like my work. Not personalizing the experience has been a great asset to me.

Do you see your work as relating to any current movement or direction in visual art or culture? Which other artists might your work be in conversation with?
Not sure how the work relates to what else is being made right now.

I am, however, drawn to the work of Gabriel Orozco, Arturo Herrera, Francis Alÿs, Christian Marclay because of their engagement with collage or processes that, in my opinion, are collage-like in that they employ materials that have their own histories already. Orozco describes this engagement with an object when he says “by creating a new object from it, I bring about the possibility of communication, because it continues to have its own story, in addition to the story of the transformation which it has undergone.”

Maybe because I don’t do it, painting seems mysterious and alchemical to me, especially in the work of Amy Sillman, Nicole Eisenman, and Jay DeFeo.

Are you involved in any upcoming shows or events? Where and when?
I am excited to have had a solo show with Gregory Lind Gallery last spring and look forward to a future with him. My main focus right now is making new work, and bringing new content and optimism into my practice.I’m looking forward to being included in Range, a summer group show at PDX Contemporary Art in Portland, OR opening June 6, 2013.

Where can people see your work?
www.leighwellsstudio.com
Gregory Lind Gallery
49 Geary Street, Fifth Floor
San Francisco CA 94108

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