1. The work that is in the gallery space at Redline documents your process over the last year or so. How was that work produced, from a day-to-day perspective?
I work in the studio on average 20 to 25 hours a week depending on my teaching schedule. I often have from 2 to 10 pieces in development with numerous on hold (some for years). I work to have ideas rather then have ideas to work so simply working is much the point.
2. There are works in a variety of media, or similar materials are used on various substrates. In general, how does the idea relate to the medium and the material?
Medium is actually fairly limited to acrylic & fabric on canvas or paper with minor exceptions. This is both convenience and quasi-intentional. I’m more concerned with sensation then expression so the material of the paper is important. I have a strategy for working that I use and work against that travels across supports.
3. At what point did you become interested in incorporating fabric, and why?
It came out of my interest in ornamentation as a critique of an inherited modernist narrative about abstraction. The research around it was part of assimilating various postmodern ideas. I would also say that it seems to be providing a way out of the dilemmas of critique that I am no longer interested in.
Another answer is it faster than painting the pattern and I love pattern.
4. Gingham fabric conveys certain cultural connotations. What about that pattern appeals to you?
The gingham happened through my use of arbitrary processing, that is, I found some in my sister’s trash. It’s apparently used in pattern drafting as it makes the fall of a garment visible. It is thin enough and the pattern is rigid enough that it works well for producing a distorted pattern, which functions as an analogy to ideas I have about being and becoming.
The familiarity is seductive and lighthearted and I enjoy that it folds people in.
I have toyed with using pattern as cultural artifact some so I’m not unaware of it. I’m more interested in what seems to be the origins and its evolution. It seems to be a very early pattern probably starting as a simple stripe one direction then evolving to a stripe in two directions, a good example of a simple pattern emerging from a set of forces (in this case the technology of weaving) evolving towards greater complexity, not unlike DNA.
5. A majority of the canvases are 16 x 20, or 20 x 16. What drove the decision to focus on that format?
I’ve made a lot of small work so I have a history. Last year I saw a show of Thomas Nozkowski and Tomma Abts, who both have worked with a small format for extended lengths of time. I found the modesty and restraint very compelling.
I used cheap pre-made canvases, as I wanted to work fast without much intent except to made work and to use difference as a tool, so I accepted the standardization. I tried the size larger but found the compacted space of the smaller one more comfortable.
6. The erotic collages are a pretty distinct departure from the other works on paper and canvas in terms of medium, content and specificity. At what point did they manifest and how do they relate to the other work, if at all?
I started using gay porn in graduate school. That program was very steeped in feminist theory. At first it was way of insisting on my desire within what felt like a very heterosexual environment based on/in gender tensions. It wasn’t a disagreement with the theory but it felt like my desire was irrelevant to the conversation. Producing them seemed to make my desire present and thus complicating the conversation.
It also provides for another thing I’m interested in—pleasure. It’s part of the things in the world that I like looking at.
7. When looking at the work in the gallery as a whole, do you differentiate between more or less complete, more or less valuable, or is it about illustrating a continuity of output?
I ‘called’ the ‘show’ “Everything I produced this year, finished or not, with some minor exceptions,” so I do have a line of finished or not. However I did find some work I thought was unfinished was finished as well as the reverse.
The question of whether something is finished is/has been a very central question to me. Finished has to do with being convincing, and the visual question is how to make something that looks convincing, particularly over time. My approach has been to produce complexity through the use of difference. I have played this year with the thin edge, both in terms of amount of difference and subtlety of difference.
8. Why did you choose to display the work in a fairly casual format? How public and/or private is the show intended to be? Is it a "show," per se?
It is a show in that it was to show off the work. It was not an exhibition in terms of a formal event.
I wanted to see what I had done and I also had in mind a few others I thought might be interested. I make a lot of work but what gets shown is a limited selection.
Having access to the space at Redline gave me the opportunity to show it all.
There is a small bit of an organizing impulse I followed, but didn’t really care about the presentation—I just wanted to get it up and be done, so I worked fast.
I was also feeling resentful and belligerent at the time—caring in a negative sense might be considered a design strategy.
9. Once you put everything up on the wall, what went through your mind?
If volume counts I win…?
I noticed some color issues I’ll be addressing.
I remembered the initial impulse towards difference.
I felt exposed and had anxiety about showing something I thought unfinished.
The work is stronger (or more visible) in the context of the body of work then in individual works. Not sure if this is a weakness or not but it is clearly true.
10. Has observing your work as a continuum in any way determined where you are heading next?
I’m always thinking I should be more directed and intentful while continually wandering away. I’ve lived with myself long enough to know that while I’ve had a lot of thoughts about where to go next I doubt that I’ll get there though I trust I’ll get somewhere.
Intention and the arbitrary are tensions in my process. While I’m very concerned with the finished object I’m not very interested that what is present at the finish matches some imagined image. It’s a practice of seeing what is rather then what it ought to be. I don’t know that it’s true, but I think it’s a valuable practice to develop.
