art and science exhibit in Pasadena
The exhibit titled ’Worlds’ at the Art Center College of Design examines how scientific knowledge shapes our understanding of the world. Go directly to very cool images called The Hall of Moons by following this link: williamsongallery.net
‘Worlds’ continues through January 29, 2012.
Read more from the LA Times here: Art and science collide at Pasadena gallery
11 questions with artist Benjamin Meyer
The 11 Question Interview Series continues with artist Benjamin Meyer sharing his thoughts on art. Learn more about the artist and visit pivotartgallery to see his featured portfolio.
Cut
1. How did you become interested in image making?
I had an interest in drawing from an early age, the first subject I can recall drawing with any conviction was baseball diamonds on lined notebook paper. I must’ve done dozens of these before my sister taught me more advanced skills like shading and proportion. Subject-wise, my interest at the time was basically just sports, so I spent a considerable amount of the Midwestern winter months reproducing images from baseball cards and magazines. It wasn’t until undergraduate school that I started to consider things seriously, like what being an artist could mean long-term.
2. Do you have artistic/creative role models? If so, who are they and how do you relate to them?
I draw influence from a variety of people for a variety of reasons. I’ve been influenced by people’s work, the way they think about their materials, or even just the way they’re able to maintain a studio practice and exist day to day as artists. As far as a long term influence, I keep coming back to Philip Guston. In addition to his paintings, I admire how he stubbornly refused complacency and always fought against the constraints of his “style.”
3. How do you feel about contemporary art and your contribution to it?
As much as I often feel a certain amount of distance and/or alienation from a lot of contemporary art, there are always a lot of exciting things happening. I always feel like experiencing other people’s work in person, even if it fails in some way or is not my taste, is vital to my own practice and helps me to think differently or articulate aspects of my own work.
In the studio, l sometimes feel like I’m pushing directly against elements that are traditional or old-fashioned – and since I don’t intend to be ironic or casual, my attempts to make “good paintings” can magnify that distance or alienation from what I see in Artforum. But in general it feels sort of trivial to worry about whether I’m making “contemporary” work. I think the best I can do is to actively observe my surroundings, filter them in every way I’m able, and trust that my work will follow.
4. What is most satisfying to you about the creative process?
For me, painting is the act of reconsidering. I get to create problems and then try to solve them. I’m always looking for ways to question what I thought I knew, and I get to operate on my own terms. Having the opportunity to work on all of this sometimes feels like a total luxury, and while it’s not always fun, when I’m in that moment of honest engagement – it provides a satisfaction that I’m constantly striving for.
5. What do you learn through your work?
I learn constantly that nothing is fixed and everything is relative. In some way I feel like I’m constantly un-learning, questioning what I thought I knew.
Grand View Obstructed
6. Your work goes through many transformations before it is eventually transferred to a canvas. Can you describe the process and its importance to the final piece?
I think a large part of my work is about the transformation – the time and distance between our experience of a place and the translation into an image. My process typically starts with my everyday movements through the city. I’m drawn to a certain peculiarity of spaces that embody a lot of the language one uses when discussing painting. Space, color, form, structure, etc. I typically rely on photography as a way to record these moments, but I try to push the paintings past the photographic by working from more than one photo of the same location, or by processing the images digitally in different ways. Once I have a source image that feels coherent but slightly unstable, I start the relatively straightforward process of translating this image through the vocabulary of painting, trying to pay special attention to the structures of the image and the places where disparate forms collide. In a formal sense, these areas of the painting are the most important for me because they contain the most potential for pictorial invention. But I’m also interested in the tension between the logic and structure of representation and where this breaks down. In some way, I think these areas get closer to how memory works.
7. Do you have any favorite specific techniques that you use?
I don’t work with specific techniques necessarily, though I often find myself concerned with the idea of limitations, systems, and rules as a way of working. The rules can represent structures – spatial, representational, theoretical – which I use to provide a framework to work within. Depending on what each painting needs, I can choose to then follow these self-imposed rules, or decide to break them if it feels necessary.
8. Your work feels very much like re-imagined or re-conceived landscapes. How intentional is this?
It’s very intentional, though (for better or worse) a certain skepticism of spontaneity keeps me from working from my imagination in a very direct way. I tend to use my subject as a model to work from, and the re-imagination and reworking of the landscape results from compositional, structural and material responses to that.
9.The spaces inside your work seem both constructed and destroyed, or built and dismantled. How purposeful is this simultaneity?
I think that one of my primary concerns in painting is the idea of betweenness. I’m drawn to the tension between the materiality of the paint, the flatness of the support and the pictorial space that is always present when marks are made on a surface. I think the kinds of images/representations/situations I depict reflect a similar sort of this betweenness, so in a way they act as metaphors for the processes of painting. My primary subject is always painting itself – but I’m drawn to places that have a sort of competition happening amidst one space. These are virtually always very ordinary situations, but urban spaces in particular are full of spots when a variety of forms and origins (man-made vs. natural, for example) seem to bump up against one another and occupy the same space. I really like when, over time, the combination of these forms link and begin to make something new. I use the process of painting to rework the situations that are in the state of coming together and falling apart at the same time.
10. What is the most important thing you want viewers to come away from your work with?
I guess in the simplest sense I’m trying to make something that transforms something ordinary into something interesting. If I can uncover and demystify the painting process in some way, that would be great too.
Untitled
11. What can you add that would help us understand you and/or your work better?
Organizing chaos is my primary goal.
Remixing Revolution: Art, Music and Politics | National Radio Project
For many activists, supporting the arts is fundamental to creating social awareness, environmental sustainability and political change even when economic times are hard.Listen as artists talk about how they make an impact.
xs art gallery
very cool online art gallery showing work from artists around the world. check it out here: xs-artgallery.com
new featured artist
pivot art gallery is pleased to present the next artist portfolio in the ongoing series at pivotartgallery.com
visit the site to see paintings of war and power by Lillian Bayley Hoover
Hoover - War TV (detail)
new featured artist: Mark Isaac
Mark Isaac - 4 details
Arts Advocacy Day 2011
The annual Arts Advocacy Day is the only national event that brings together a broad cross section of America’s cultural and civic organizations, along with hundreds of grassroots advocates from across the country, to underscore the importance of developing strong public policies and appropriating increased public funding for the arts. More info here: Arts Advocacy Day 2011.
11 questions with artist danconnortown
The 11 Question Interview Series continues with danconnortown sharing his thoughts on art, life, and photography. Learn more about the artist and visit pivotartgallery to see his featured portfolio.
danconnortown 'Prayer'
1. Could you please give us an idea about how you became interested in image making?
There weren’t a lot of pictures when I was a kid. I couldn’t really show you a picture of me when I was 7, or what was going on in my world in say, 1980. So, I think it was the idea that I could actually prove that things happened. Even if they were boring, with a photograph, I could prove it. I could show you the Columbia bicycle I had with the banana seat, or the skateboard I made myself, when I was 10 or 11. I loved the idea that by pointing a box at something and pressing a button, I could prove that it actually happened. That what I saw was really there. I imagine that everyone thinks they see things differently. I don’t know if I see things any differently, but some things were always just more attractive to me. Sometimes those things seemed like the most ordinary things, a salt shaker, a trash can – i mean, i’m making it up, but really. Things that don’t get any attention because they’re just sort of ho-hum. I liked the idea of taking a picture of those types of things. To remember them by, because (for example) the dumpster behind the Cumberland Farms where I grew up? It’s a safe bet it’s not there anymore. But if I had a picture, I could prove it was. And if you saw it, you’d be like, “huh. I can totally identify with that. We had a dumpster where I grew up, behind the…” and so on.
2. If you have artistic/creative role models, who are they and how do you relate to them?
Gosh. I have no idea. There’s a million names that jump to mind, but I don’t know if any of them would be considered role models. I appreciate people who’s work feels like they weren’t really trying hard, it’s just who they are. Like, Terry Richardson, Jeurgen Teller – these guys aren’t busting their asses to get the shot. They’re just doing it and could give a damn what anyone else thinks. I admire that. I really loved the work of Mondino back in the late 90′s, he was really pushy but kind of getting away with murder, and I thought it was really funny. I admire work that makes me laugh out loud when I look at it. I remember being in Finland and I saw a billboard some 10 years ago, and it was that famous shot for I don’t remember who, but it was a billboard – it had the girl down under the cow drinking the milk from the udder. It was a fashion ad. It was Terry Richardson, and it was nothing short of raunchy, and especially by the standards of the day. I thought that was so bad ass, that all I ever wanted to do was photography like that forever. Is Terry Richardson a role model? Well… I don’t know about that, but he’s funny and he does alright on payday, and I’ll be damned if his work doesn’t stir the pot.
With that said, I really love the work of Stephen Shore. His work is just awesome. And though I didn’t grow up hearing his name, and I didn’t study his work in college, I sincerely hope that my work will one day make someone feel the way I did the first time I saw Uncommon Places.
3. What is most satisfying to you about the creative process?
There’s a moment of release when the shutter fires. It’s this feeling that you know you got it, or you know you missed it. It’s funny if it’s when taking a picture of something stupid like a piece of garbage on the street- I mean, how do you MISS that shot?! but there’s a definite feeling. You just know. And it’s in that moment that nothing else matters to me, where I need to be, what I’m supposed to be doing, how i’m going to process the file later, is it going to be saturated, desaturated, black and white, split toned, cross processed, is it even going to be processed at all? Will I just delete the whole card? What if I get in a wreck on the way home? – etc. – In that moment when the mirror flips up and the shutter is opening and closing, I am 100% in it. Me the camera, the subject, the light, everything – and it feels like new age hippy to say so, but that moment is truly why I take pictures at all.
danconnortown
4. What do you learn through your work?
I think patience is something I learn through my work. It forces me to slow down. To breathe. To think about the moment. To be a part of the moment. So many people go to places or events and it’s just 2nd nature to them to watch the whole thing through the LCD screen on their iPhone, they aren’t even really there. And nobody’s ever going to watch their iPhone video, and they’re probably never going to even take the time to edit it, they’re just wasting time and mucking up the view – for me, my work is really not work at all. It’s pleasure. It’s what I enjoy. I see the thing I want to photograph. I look at it. I soak it in. I breathe. I pay attention.
When the camera comes to my face, I look at the numbers in the view finder, I look back at the subject, i breathe. I do some calculations – do i want it brighter, do i want it dimmer? Do I want the lens wide open? Why not stop it down a pinch… and then I watch through the little window. I see something nobody else can see. Who ever is there around me does not see what I see when my eye is to the viewfinder. I am alone in that moment, so I have learned to be very patient before pressing that button. Once I press it, that’s my proof that it happened. So I need to make sure every corner of the frame captures what I’m seeing and feeling at that moment.
5. Do you edit your work into various categories, before, during, or after shooting?
I really don’t. I always say I will, but I never do. I do not have a library of “people” or “places” or “things” – which I consider to be the least time consuming and possibly the most simple or basic edit anyone should make. The reality is, I always assumed there would be an intern for that one day. Problem is, I’m probably so particular, I can’t imagine there’d be an intern out there with the stamina for my keyword and naming conventions.
6. Do you imagine a narrative when you are making your images?
Sometimes I do. Sometimes I’m talking right out loud when I’m making them. Sometimes I’m whispering to myself, other times the whole play is happening in my head, but for sure there is always some sort of dialogue. Many years ago I saw Dewitt Jones talking about his photography. The big take away from his talk was that it’s polite to say “thank you” after you’ve pressed the button. Thank the earth, the lord, or whoever whatever it is that made that moment possible. Kind of like you know, the Native Americans and the Earth- I’d like to think that I mean to say thank you all the time, and sometimes I actually do. I’ve certainly thanked a tree or two along the way.
7. Your images often feel very spontaneous. Is there any sort of conscious decision-making process that happens?
Yes. For a long time I couldn’t afford to process my film. I wound up with bags and bags of film in the fridge. To this day, I’ve still got great big bags of film I shot in the 90′s and early oughts before switching over to digital- There was a time when it seemed stupid to keep shooting so much if I was never going to process the film, so for a long while I took my camera out without film. I still checked my exposures, focused, framed, thought about it, and pressed the shutter – even though the camera was empty. Even now, if i’m somewhere and driving or walking or whatever, and I don’t have a camera close to hand (which is rare) I hold up my imaginary camera and frame it on the subject and shout “BOOM!” at whatever it is that I see. I can be driving by with the top down and my hand is out the car and any passerby would hear “Boom! … Boom! BOOOM!” – the decision is internal. It’s like when you catch yourself holding your breath. You’re just sitting there not thinking about it and you’re like, “hmm. maybe I should draw a breath.” You never say to yourself, “why was I holding my breath?” – I see an image, i see the finished product and my hand is on its way to my face, and my finger is on its way to the button, with or without a camera in hand. With that said, I absolutely do get up some mornings and say, “I’m driving to the desert, and I want a picture of something specific. I have no idea what it is, but I’ll show you once I see it.”
8 Do you have other creative outlets besides photography?
I used to paint a lot, though it’s been years since i’ve painted a thing. I like music, and wish I could play guitar about 10x better than I do. I like to drive a sports car quickly through the turns with the top down, and I love Video and Motion Picture too. I don’t do much in the way of video, but slowly my eyeballs have been turning in that direction.
9. How do you feel about contemporary photography and your contribution to it?
I love it. I love that everyone and their great grandmother has a $2500 DSLR or an iPhone or a little pinner cam, and that most people have flickr and tumblr and zooomr and every other possible photo sharing sites. I think it’s awesome. I love how much work there is to see, and I love the “bad” stuff just as much as the “good” stuff. I love that people just love to share their work, that’s another thing that keeps me shooting. Knowing that there’s an audience. That someone cares. Someone wants to see my proof. I am always flattered when people like my work, because I don’t know, it makes me feel like they get something more than the picture. It’s like, the viewer gets me. And I suppose that’s what your next question asks.
10. What is the most important thing you want viewers to come away from your work with?
For me it’s not so much important that a viewer come away with anything more than an understanding. This is who I am. This is what I saw. This is how I saw it. Sometimes a photograph may feel painterly, or emotional, or graphic, or ironic, but they all need to be seen together, understood as a whole. They are moments specific to my life. I’m sharing my life with you, and I’m hoping that there’s a bit of recognition in it for the viewer. Something that says, “hey, I’m kind of like this guy. I get it. I get him.”
danconnortown
11. What can you add that would help us understand you and/or your work better?
Hmmm. Well. I grew up in New Hampshire.
I was a punk rock kid in the 80′s.
I bought a 1 way plane ticket to California when I was 17.
John Steinbeck is my favorite author.
My work is really a testament to my life & lifestyle. The intent (I think) has always been to make images that stir the emotion in someway. My images are very regional. Like, the flavor is meant to feel different between my east coast and west coast photography. The feel and texture of my Los Angeles vs. San Francisco vs. New York, etc. photography is deliberate and 100% on purpose. The differences are meant to evoke my feelings about each place – for instance, though I love New York, my photos of New York are always a hell of a lot rougher than say, my images of Palm Springs. The images are all meant to reflect the most present state of mind and serve as a sort of diary as I grow. This is most evident when viewing from the beginning of the archives to the present, and will become more so in the years to come.
new images, old film
I recently went for a hike with the ol’ Nikon and some very old film (it expired in 2001). check out the black and white c41 processed images here. coming soon, the expired color film …
expired b+w
11 questions with artist Maria Zaikina
The 11 Question Interview Series continues with Maria Zaikina sharing her thoughts on art and creativity. Learn more about the artist and visit pivotartgallery to see her featured portfolio.
Landschaft mit Haus
1. Could you give us an idea about how you became interested in image making?
Both of my parents are artists, so I can’t really remember how i became interested in image making, perhaps I was born with this interest?
2. If you have artistic/creative role models, who are they and how do you relate to them?
Oh I have so many and they are different, I worship them.
3. What is most satisfying to you about the creative process?
Joy, if I were a music composer I would be creating hymns.
4. What do you learn through your work?
That beauty and god are large then I can reach.
5. You work in both painting and photography. What is it about these mediums specifically that you are drawn to? Do you favor one over the other? Do you work in other mediums?
I work in a different mediums, as for different ideas different mediums are suitable. Medium is important, but in the same time for the audience the impression they’ve got is more then medium.
You are My Sunshine
6. You often work in series, or variations on a theme. Are there specific reasons for this?
I live and work in a slow pace. I prefer to meditate about my subject for a long time. I’m used to looking at the subject from different points of view or contemplate on different subjects from one position. So my slow paced thinking concludes itself in series.
7. You have written of the importance of “…melancholic contemplation during a journey…” Could you expand on this?
Well I was talking about the way I think, a slow movement, a contemplation.
8. Though in a larger sense, most art can be seen this way, do you see your work as autobiographical?
Yes sure
9. How do you feel about the contemporary art world and your contribution to it?
I believe art should be beautiful, sublime and take you to a new level: make you better, no matter if you are looking at it or making it.
Landschaft mit Haus
10. What, if anything is the most important thing you want viewers to come away from your work with?
I would love to be able to give a viewer an ability to feel my work as I feel it, but i know it is impossible, I am myself not able to touch my work or anything else in the world with somebody’s else feelings.
11. What can you add that would help us understand you and/or your work better?
I would like to be able to see things as other people see them, or even better, to see them as they are seen from above.
artist Bulisova featured on Burn
Gabriela Bulisova - Iraqi-Refugee
artist Gabriela Bulisova (featured on pivot Aug 2010) series on Iraqi refugees featured on Burn magazine.
Burn is an online journal for emerging photographers curated by magnum photographer david alan harvey
here is the link: burnmagazine.org
Moving Walls 18
The Open Society Documentary Photography Project hosts an opening reception for the Moving Walls 18 exhibition, which focuses on a variety of social justice and human rights issues.
Where: OSI-New York
When: March 16, 2011 (reception) The exhibit will be on view till mid-October, when it moves to OSI’s headquarters in Washington, DC.
Photographers include:
- Samantha Box, Invisible: Homeless LGBT Youth
- Gabriela Bulisova, The Option of Last Resort
- Bénédicte Desrus, Persecution of Homosexuality in Uganda
- Andrea Diefenbach, Country Without Parents: Labor Migration from Moldova
- Carolyn Drake, Paradise Rivers
- Abdi Roble, The Somali Diaspora: A Journey Away
- Tadej Žnidarčič, Being Gay in Uganda
featured artist Maria Zaikina
pivot art gallery is pleased to present the next artist portfolio in the ongoing series at pivotartgallery.com
Maria Zaikina – 2 details
check out the site to see two remarkable, very different yet parallel portfolios!
unitednationsplaza
A special project of e-flux, unitednationsplaza was a temporary, experimental school in started in Berlin, moving to Mexico City (2008) and then New York City under the name Night School (2008-2009) at the New Museum.
Its program was organized around a number of public seminars, most of which are now available in the online archive.
This incredible archive, (more than two hundred hours of recordings of lectures and presentations) is organized into four chapters and can be found at: unitednationsplaza.org
11 questions with artist Ben Valentine
The 11 Question Interview Series continues with Ben Valentine sharing his thoughts on art and creativity. Learn more about the artist and visit pivotartgallery to see his featured portfolio.
valentine, ben
1. Could you please give a brief bio about how you became interested in the arts?
When I was young there was a disconnect from what I was thinking about and interested in and what most of my peers were interested in, so maybe I sought different avenues to express myself. I am lucky in that my parents both exposed me to the arts and supported creativity. I grew up in rural Indiana and I gravitated towards anyone with any passion and intellect and started college full time when I turned sixteen. I supposed I was always very good at school and memorizing what I needed to memorize, yet art was the one thing that was really hard and challenged me. If there is one thing I hate it is boredom and art has never stopped challenging me.
2. Do you have artistic/creative role models? If so, who are they and how do you relate to them?
Sontina Reid, who is a painter living in New Orleans. I met her through friends in high school, and she was certainly a role model. She taught me about painting, art, creativity, living, craziness, and about passion. She is a driven woman, and I deeply respect her. I remember a photo of her and Andy Warhol in a loft in SoHo, and I thought that was the coolest thing. One high school teacher I connected with, Karen Kimball, gave me a history of 20th century art book which I looked through religiously, I think these two woman really helped me realize I was an artist.
My parents too, one is a criminal defense lawyer who has saved people from death row, and the other is a professor of theology. Both of them taught me how to work hard and to learn as much as I could, and to go after what I love. They also exposed me to museums, traveling, reading, and so on. I might have been a very boring artist without them. Finally, Evan Livingston, Kaylee Roberts, and Chris Matlack, my three best friends. Without them I would have had nobody to bounce ideas off of, nobody pushing me to learn more, nobody introducing me to new ideas. They are three amazing people.
3. Who are you influenced by?
Olafur Eliasson, Tom Friedman, Marc Quinn, Roxy Paine, Robert Irwin, Tim Hawkinson, Mark Dion, Tara Donovan, my friends, my surroundings, my parents.
4. How do you feel about the contemporary art world?
I think it is the new religion of today’s intellectuals. I go to museums/galleries and make art to truly connect with my world and time. There are two places that have put me on the verge of tears from overwhelming sublimity, and those were a couple times in nature, and in art museums and galleries.
I think contemporary art has incredible power and yet is completely entwined with big business. The art world is made up of the most amazing children of our generation, all of whom are reduced to scraping and begging for recognition. I think the art world needs different buyers, on all economic levels, and many more of them. Artists also must admit they might not make a living solely from their art and be creative while exploring other options that could be equally fulfilling. Schools need more funding period, especially for the arts. Basically I think it is the most amazing entity, yet has severe monetary challenges.
valentine, ben
5. What is most satisfying to you about the creative process?
This is a hard question. I feel driven to make. I feel excited when I think of an idea I want to make, and seeing that come to life is an incredible feeling, not happiness, but something very good. I like when a stranger really understands and connects with my work, that is an exciting feeling. Yet really the best part of the creative process, for me, is walking through life with an artistic lens. I walk trying to keep really looking, and that is just a good way to be.
6. What do you learn through your work?
Everything I am learning is because/for/parallel to my work. Sometimes I want to know about coefficient of thermal expansion for a particular piece, sometimes I am reading about Robert Irwin because I saw a show of his that I fell in love with, sometimes I am reading about complex adaptive systems to understand patterns, sometimes I am talking about language with a friend. I think all of these are important to my life and my art. I learn about the world, and what I think about it.
7. What are your top goals as an artist? What are you trying to accomplish?
Haha… I don’t know, I want to be comfortable monetarily. I want to be involved in the arts completely. I will always make my art, if my income comes from that, awesome, if it comes from running a gallery, curating shows, writing reviews, teaching, or whatever, that is great too. What I want is to be surrounded by people who are as passionate as I am about learning and creative expression. There will never be a moment where I feel I have reached a goal.
valentine, ben
8. How important is the history of art to your work? How much do you draw from what has happened?
I don’t think that a contemporary artist can be fully appreciated without an understanding of art history. I am always looking at and remembering art that came before me, whether the Venus of Willendorf or Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. I want to make art that is important and relevant, so I look at art that accomplished that. It is a hard balance between being influenced by art and finding your own voice, and I don’t know if I will ever feel I have found that perfect balance…
9. Your work spans from blogging to sculpture to performance. How do you measure the effectiveness of each type?
I guess I could measure using google analytics or how many people are buying my works or whatever, but I don’t really do that. When I have an idea for something I want to make or do I ask what is the best way to make this? What medium will be the most honest to my concept? So I suppose I have to ask how effective each piece is, I don’t really classify them into categories like sculpture or performance but rather conceptual themes. As for measuring them, I have a couple close friends I show all of my work to before anyone else. I have not finished many ideas because they were not well received by that group. But really it comes down to a gut feeling that this is right, I have to make it.
10. What is the most important thing you want viewers to come away from your work with?
Wow, I am not sure. I want people to rethink how they and other objects are moving through time and interacting with stimuli. I want the viewer to simultaneously feel as though they have learned something and need to know more to understand.
11. What can you add that would help us understand you and/or your work better?
I could probably tell you a bit about my personal background that would contextualize certain pieces, but I’m not going to do that. Many of the works featured on your website are about emerging aesthetics, or the art that comes from the life of an artist. I am proud that my life is leading to these situations and pieces of art, and I hope the viewer chooses to do the same.
11 questions with artist Peter Tonningsen
The 11 Question Interview Series continues with Peter Tonningsen sharing his thoughts on art, work, and photography. Learn more about the artist and visit pivotartgallery to see his featured portfolio.
1. Could you please give a brief bio about how you became interested in the arts?
Tonningsen - Flotsam & Jetsam
Travel and scuba diving sparked my passion for photography as I looked to it as a way to record places that I found unfamiliar or remarkable. Disenchanted with a business career, I took a major trip abroad in the 80s where I made many photographs and did a lot of diving. When I returned to the States I bought an underwater camera, thinking I would pursue studies in Marine Biology, but soon I became so enchanted with the medium that I gave up diving and went back to school to study photography, first at San Francisco City College, then SFAI where I earned a BFA in photography, then to San Jose State for my MFA. It was graduate school that really cemented my commitment to and passion for fine art photography and art in general. That experience made me believe that art can be an enriching raison d’être
2. Do you have artistic/creative role models? Are you a role model to other artists?
I have many creative role models. Most come from the field of photography and they change constantly as I view new work and meet new photographers. Some teachers impacted my early development, especially Hank Wessel, Linda Connor, Jack Fulton, Robin Lasser, and Brian Taylor; however, teaching has been arguably my greatest source of mentorship and inspiration. I truly enjoy talking about and sharing photographs and that ongoing dialog greatly shapes and reshapes my creative approach. Students continually influence how I see and think and I am renewed by their abundant enthusiasm. Teaching is an interplay that requires that I stay informed about contemporary concepts, so I am constantly looking at new work and mining visual ideas. The photo community in general also has a huge influence on me. Photography is fortunate to have an active community that shares ideas, influences and images like no other medium. Organized portfolio events, such as PhotoLucida or Fotofest are important venues for fostering this community, as are my local community and colleagues, and there are a significant number of interesting blogs and online resources that I regularly peruse for inspiration. I hope that my work and guidance helps others rethink the medium too.
3. What is most satisfying to you about the creative process in general?
Discovery, invention, and the sense of participation in an intellectual, purposeful and meaningful pursuit.
4. How has your work developed over the years?
I look more and more to personal experience and how I can disrupt what I am comfortable with or have done before. I care less about how others perceive my work and more about how it satisfies me. I stay closer to home, using what is near and dear as subject matter, increasingly appreciating the virtue of the vernacular and provincial.
5. What do you learn through your work?
How to see more acutely and embrace what comes to me through the creative process (as opposed to trying to force or fabricate it.). A good dose of humility too.
6. How do you feel about contemporary art in the east bay as it relates to the broader art world?
Tonningsen - Mom's House
I’m not sure how to answer this question, whether you are asking about the types and content of art in the East Bay or if you are talking about the market. As a viewer, I try not to make such distinctions, preferring to just look and respond to what I see, although I’ll admit that at times it can feel parochial and partisan. As a maker, especially one positioned as a regional artist, East Bay art feels under supported and under appreciated. It is a struggle to be recognized or attain opportunities amongst tremendous competition and this is exasperated by the fact that I am a poor schmoozer and promoter. Expanding to broader markets beyond the Bay Area mystifies me even more.
7. You work primarily in photography and digital imaging. What is it about these creative mediums specifically that you are drawn to?
What appeals to me most about photography is that it is fundamentally about description and how you can arrange that visual specification within the frame. Gary Winogrand coined the aphorism “When you put four edges around some facts, you change those facts.” I’m captivated by this subjectivity and the challenge of composing within those boundaries. As far as digital imaging, I am drawn to its flexibility, immediacy, editing and layering potential, and the range of processes it entails.
8. Though in a larger sense, most art can be seen this way, do you see your work as autobiographical?
Absolutely. The more specific I can make my work to my experiences, the more satisfying it is for me and the more potentially interesting (and ironically, universal) it is for an audience. Personal perspective is what engages me in art, so I presume that is what engages others too. Something that is simply popular or stylish or from a conventional perspective is often just decorative and pedantic and thus at risk of being more easily dismissed
9. You investigate ideas in series rather than in single images. Do you have a specific reason for working this way?
I believe series allow for deeper introspection and innovation, which is the point of art in my view. In photography, it’s not so hard to make one interesting picture, it can even happen by accident, but to do repeat it with purpose and eloquence is an entirely different matter.
10. What is the most important thing you want viewers to come away from your work with?
To be moved or emoted visually: to delight in how I have framed or presented a subject and share that sense the beauty and discovery that stimulated me.
Tonningsen - Quadratic Equations
11. What can you add that would help us understand you and/or your work better?
I suppose it might interest some that I feel lost a great deal of the time, which I suspect is common to many artists as part of the fun and reward of making art is discovering what direction to take.
11 questions with artist Tallulah Terryll
I am happy to announce the next artist interview. The 11 Question Interview Series will allow the Featured Artists’ at pivot art gallery to share their thoughts on art, work, and life in a way that can extend our understanding of the work and background of these remarkable artists.
Learn more about artist Tallulah Terryll and visit pivotartgallery to see her featured portfolio.
1. Could you please give a brief bio about how you became interested int he arts?
blue panel
I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t interested in the arts. My family really encouraged me from a young age to be creative. I remember my parents put a greater value on creativity than doing things the right way. For example my cousin would spell words wrong all the time but there was this method to the way she was doing it. She was really figuring it out on her own. And my parents seemed to think that was better than just doing it the normal way.
2. Do you have artistic/creative role models? If so, who are they and how do you relate to them?
The most influential role model for me is probably Kathleen Rabel. She was one of my print professors at Cornish. She really instilled a love of paper in me, and a love of the print making process. I’ve always had a strong work ethic, but Kathleen was the first artist I’d met who had that same type of work ethic about making art. I still keep in touch with her. When ever I go up to Seattle I visit her and her husband, Stephen Hazel, at Studio Blu, their print studio. There is tea and cookies, we talk about how our art is going and the state of art in general. They are both so articulate and their ideas have influenced me alot and probably in ways I’m not even aware of yet.
3 What is most satisfying to you about the creative process in general?
I love getting to that space when I’m making art and time stands still. Sometimes I’m being super productive, sometimes its very slow going, but either way I have no idea how time is passing. I’m just completely absorbed by the act of art making. I often say it’s like swimming. It’s usually when I’m making my best work.
That said, the end product is really the most satisfying thing though. Having an object that dazzles and confounds me. The ability to make something that is beyond my everyday understanding of the world.
4. What has been the biggest challenge in your artistic career?
I tend toward modesty, so it took me a long time to just tell people that I was an artist. I’d be very shy about it. I might mention that I made art, but I wouldn’t claim to be an artist. When I finally started to really own it and use that label I was able to take myself more seriously and I think that’s really helped.
drain
5. What do you learn through your work?
The importance of taking risks. It’s easy to make a drawing or a painting that looks pretty. But to push it past that. For it to be ugly for a while. It needs that before it can really be interesting or beautiful. And embracing the unexpected. What I may have thought was the most interesting passage often has to be destroyed for the overall composition. Something that strikes me as ugly or a mistake is often the most attention grabbing.
6. What are your goals as an artist?
That’s alot like asking what my goals in life are. I’d like to keep up a vital practice. I’m curious to see how my work will change and evolve over the years, what will influence me.
Of course I’m also interested in showing my work more and to show in more places. I’m making it for people to see, experience and interact with after all.
7. You work primarily with mixed medias like ink and paper. What is it about these mediums specifically that you are drawn to?
Even though most of my work is technically painting I’m trained as a printmaker. And printmaking experiences have really formed the way I think about making things. With paper and ink and stencils I feel like I’m able to be in both worlds (painting and print) at once.
8 Your work is visually very rhythmic, are you influenced by music?
Yes and no. I don’t listen to much music when I’m working, and I don’t have the same analytical skills with music as I do with the visual world.
But I’ve always been a bit jealous of music as an art form. Music has never had the restraint of being representative. It has so much to do with patterns, repetition, math, themes… It seems to be more of the mind
9. How do you feel about contemporary art in the east bay area?
I feel lucky to be in such a rich nurturing environment. There is so much here and not just the murmur, or young people, but there is a really rich history and so many artists of all ages and artistic persuasions.
10. What is the most important thing you want viewers to come away from your work with?
A little break from thinking with language
aggie
11. What can you add that would help us understand you and/or your work better?
I thinks it’s more light hearted than some people would like to think.
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