Words with Friends | Erika Lee Sears

Erika Lee Sears: An artist from whom we can always expect the unexpected

Mallory Johnson (APP) for Amy Parry Projects

Erika Lee Sears is an artist out of Portland, OR whose work you may have seen on Portlandia or covering Lana Del Rey’s book, Violent Bent Backwards Over the Grass. Her work is made magical by her bold, expressive color palette, the way she captures the shimmer and shine of objects such as disco balls or the flame of a candle atop a birthday cake, and the nuance and contemporary feel she brings to her paintings.

Like many of us, she enjoys true crime podcasts and spending time with her family, and like very few of us, she makes art every single day. Her artwork encourages us to romanticize our own lives and to look differently at the objects all around us.

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APP: Have you ever had a moment where you wanted to stop making art every day and if so, what motivated you to continue?

ELS: The reason I create an original piece of art every day is that after the birth of my son I wanted to stay creative on a daily basis. I started when he was just six weeks old. I don’t know what I was really thinking, but I look at it as my time for myself. It is a lot different from when I first started; at first, it was always about 10 or 15 minutes that I would spend making a piece. Even the pieces I made over the weekend were 10- or 15-minute pieces, so they’re not always super lengthy in terms of time. You’re making something and it doesn’t always have to take several hours or all day; sometimes it can just be an expression of what’s happening in the world. It’s more like documenting my journey through creativity.

APP: What is the most difficult thing you’ve encountered as a self-taught artist?

ELS: I think when you learn something on your own it’s different. I’m an oil painter, that’s my discipline, and there’s a lot of opinions around oil painting. If you know any oil painters, or if you join a Facebook oil painting group you know that they can argue about things like the type of brush for days. I’m not that kind of painter, so I kind of had to dive in and figure out what worked best for me. Maybe that’s true in a lot of art-making. Being self-taught just makes me feel like I need to work harder. Also, as far as oil painting, I feel like it has come a long way. The way that they’re making oil paints is a lot different than it was 20 years ago, so a lot of the rules might not even apply anymore. There’s a lot of different ways to do one thing; you may not have to do it the same way it’s taught.

 

APP: How do you balance being a mom and a full-time artist? Do your kids help or inspire you? Do y’all make art together?

ELS: They love to be creative and they always have a place in my studio, but I’m not super strict about teaching them. My daughter’s really creative and she loves to draw, but right now she’s really into learning Procreate and coding and how to take her drawings and transfer them onto the computer in order to make eight-year-old gifs. For example, she’ll draw a puppy and put it into the code that makes it dance. I’m getting her Skillshare for her birthday, but I don’t want to push her into professional stuff too soon. I want her to enjoy being a kid.
 

APP: I only ask because I feel like kids can bring such a unique, unclouded perspective to really everything, but art especially that can be fascinating.

ELS: Oh yeah, I always think of this quote “stay hungry, stay foolish” and that’s kind of where you want to keep your mind.
 

APP: Has your background in finance benefitted you as an artist?

ELS: Well, I know how to answer a lot of emails at once! It is helpful, it’s just different. The only thing I learned from having a conventional job is how much I enjoy being self-employed. I think I’ve been self-employed for 9 or 10 years, and the longer I am, the more it feels like I’m supposed to be here.




APP: How do you choose your subject matter?

ELS: Right now I’m painting for an upcoming show in San Francisco. With this project, and really with whatever projects I have, I’ll start thinking about my series, but I can’t paint the same thing over and over. I can’t say, “okay I’m just gonna paint this one series” for five or six days in a row. I tend to take breaks so I can paint other stuff too. That’s the thing I like about making art every day: I can paint whatever I want and I don’t feel like I have to do something in particular. I can paint whatever happens to be inspiring me that day.

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APP: What attracts you to other people’s art? What are your art and design aesthetics?

ELS: I follow so many different kinds of artists and so many different kinds of designers. My favorites are the unexpected ones. In my work, I always try to put in a surprise. I think that’s my favorite thing to see and to have that reaction of, “Oh oooo” when you encounter something really surprising. That can apply to the subject, color, proportion or perspective.

 

APP: I love the still-life aspect of a lot of your work. I feel like a contemporary still-life is so telling of the world around us. For instance, I never would have thought of a peanut butter jelly sandwich as painting subject matter. How did you come to this?

ELS: I think about what is happening around us. We’re surrounded by objects, things and everyday life and thinking, “What does all of this say about us? What does that say about our footprint right now?” I feel like artists are documenting our time right now and what’s happening in our world at the present. Even though I do a lot of still lifes, these are the things we’re holding onto today.

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APP: I find a certain lightness in your art. Do you ever feel called by the world around you to go darker with your work?

ELS: I was talking to someone at a gallery and she told me I need to be painting lighter, and that my work is starting to get dark, haha!! I have to always paint from my shoes and my viewpoint on the world. I think people are going through the journey of expressing themselves. I’m just authentic to my journey, my light, and what’s happening with me. I’m just trying to survive in my own life; I think we all are.

 

APP: I think what people started to realize recently is how much of a debt they owe to creative people for basically every source of entertainment. I find it impressive how enduring artists and other creatives have been this past year.

ELS: I think we’re lucky as artists that people are paying more attention to people online. It’s this weird place like you said before where you can’t celebrate the wins because the world is going through so much; that’s what’s hard. We’re all in this weird place of survival. Should you celebrate the wins? Yeah. Are there a lot of people hurting and going through a whole lot? Yeah. I think the world is a lot more sensitive to what people are going through and that’s definitely a good thing.


APP: You mention on your website that you are always finding something extraordinary in ordinary moments. What makes the ordinary extraordinary in your opinion? Do you have a moment that sticks out to you?

ELS: That happens all the time. I mean even on my post from the other day, I did a painting of a cheetah because my son asked me, “Where do Cheetos come from and what part of the cheetah’s body do Cheetos come from?” He’s pretty wild. It’s just stuff like that. Or my peanut butter and jelly series started because I cut my son’s sandwich wrong and he was mad at me for cutting it in a triangle and not a square.




APP: That’s great. Keep painting, we love it!

Learn more about Erika by visiting her website.

Words with Friends | Shira Barzilay

A conversation between Mallory Johnson (MJ), Amy Parry (AP) and Shira Barzilay (SB), the brilliant and original mind behind the brand KOKETIT

MJ: What prompted you to start combining female figures with these images from nature?

SB: Everything fell together when I was drawing on images and drawing female figures. I started realizing that by combining these drawings on photographs I was able to tell different stories in a way that was exciting for me. Here, the images would serve as a canvas that already had a story. The more I practiced minimalism and abstract art rather than figurative fashion drawings, the more sophisticated the narrative became. There was such dissonance between how little of a change I would make and how much the story would completely shift. I always admired the aesthetic of minimalism. With minimalism I realized I would have to aspire to do that; I would have to bring myself one day to think like that, but it was always on my mind.

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AP: Your work reminds me of Henri Matisse. His style was maximalist in his younger years but transitioned to those cut outs in his later years. His later works could not have been as impactful without that earlier life experience.

SB: Same for Picasso as well! He had a realistic figurative style in his early years. People dropped that classic mentality to figure out the way to express who they were. That’s where things become interesting - when artists stopped going after the herd and started listening to their inner selves. Everybody has that, people are just too scared to embark on that journey. It set them free and that is why I’m inspired by them, not because of their style or aesthetic. I’m more interested in the story behind the work than the presentation because it’s like a well of knowledge that I can become inspired by. That is going to enrich me a lot more than if I respond to a line or a color.  

AP: There couldn't be you without Picasso.

SB: I believe every artist in the 21st century has been inspired by Picasso. I feel like he is the father of where art is today. He freed the art world to me and gave people the key to explore differently.

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MJ: You mentioned that you are able to tell a story within each piece. Do you see them as their own separate stories or is there an intention to connect them and make one larger story?

SB: Both. Every post is very unique to my experience and emotional journey. A lot of the time I create out of my own experience; it's kind of autobiographical. You can look through my feed that day and understand what I was going through, and what was on my mind. In that way they're all very individualistic but they are part of a series and that series is “The World is My Canvas.” The conceptual meaning of it is to free the mind of limitations. Through digital work I get to draw on a screen. I don’t have to climb a mountain and use crazy techniques to express myself, I can do it on a screen with a pen and convey the same idea. The idea is to really let the world be a blank canvas. Through my motifs which are the faces or the female body or some sort of female expression- because it's me obviously- I am able to explore that relationship between nature and the female form. The reason I use nature a lot is because nature is so objective and pure, and it relays a lot of emotion to me. The mountains to me symbolize my tribulations and obstacles and wanting to achieve my own limitations. Nature serves as a good canvas, but I hate sticking to one thing so if you look at my [Instagram] feed there are always going to be different elements that I try to play with because I don’t want to get stuck in one place.

MJ: It seems to me that there would be some catharsis in having a bad day, sitting down and working that out on the page and then having other people relate with what you’re feeling at that time.

SB: It’s so funny because this became very apparent to me more over the pandemic when I was stuck at home. I discovered what a satisfying role my own creativity serves in my life and how important it is to my well-being and my confidence. No matter what I'm going through, I always know that somehow, I can convert that to something positive. I know it sounds a little bit cliché but every time it’s satisfying. I cannot imagine myself doing anything else. Art makes me happy. It makes me really excited about what’s to come next.

MJ: Do you have anything in mind that you’re looking forward to doing in the future - collaborations or different subject matter that you've been thinking of incorporating?

SB: I’m really bad about planning for the future. Every time I plan something, something completely different ends up happening. Like with my art, I start drawing something and it becomes something else. I don't plan ahead on subjects; I just meditate on my intention. I have a vision even if it’s very abstract. Thinking about what I want to be doing, how I wanna be feeling, what material I want to be touching. So, I can’t see it but I can sense it and it’s kind of like an intuitive situation.

MJ: That’s interesting that you say it’s really intuitive, are you someone who uses this as a kind of spiritual outlet for yourself?

SB: Yeah for sure. I meditate every single morning, I started last year. I had intentions of meditating for five years, it was on my to do list. When the pandemic arrived, I thought ooh la la this is the perfect opportunity to sit my ass down and do it, so I did! I have been embarking on a spiritual journey and meditation is so unbelievably helpful and it's so approachable! I downloaded an app called Calm and I do it every day for like 12 mins and it's been amazing and now I advocate it.

MJ: We talked a little about your influences, do you have any creatives that you follow right now who spark something for you?

SB: I’ve always said that at dinner I’d love to sit down with Chopin and Picasso, those are my two biggest influences. I feel like an old lady, but Chopin is my go to guy when I wanna get serious work done. In terms of current amazing people, I am very inspired by the Spanish artist/actress Miranda Makaroff. I met her 2 or 3 years ago at an event in Barcelona for influencers. I’ve been following her art and her life ever since and she’s a huge inspiration because I love her art, and the way she approaches social media. She doesn’t take herself too seriously. She’s fun and she’s a complete original which is so hard to find these days. It seems like lately everyone is a copy of everyone else. I suffer from a lot of rip-offs. I have two people ripping off other things so when I see her work it’s like a breath of fresh air. She’s amazing.

AP: I am curious about your branding and about how making your art has become a career. Are you a full-time working artist?

SB: KOKETIT, my brand, has been around for about 6-7 years. It started as a temporary tattoo line, then I opened up the online shop for my business and it kind of grew from there. I used to be a graphic editor for a magazine and that was a full-time job, so I slowly built my brand on the side. Slowly but surely the brand got so much bigger than the full-time job that last year I quit and became a full-time artist. It was a dream come true because I always wanted to be my own brand and be my own boss. I used to draw portraits of people at events. Then all of a sudden, I was out of a job and the one thing that I had to rely on was the one thing I was scared to rely on the most - that was me as an artist selling my own drawings as is. No shticks, no gimmicks, no commercial aspects, no nothing, just my art and people would either wanna buy it or not. Covid kind of put that mirror in my face and I had to deal with it. I’m so grateful it did because now I get to live off of my purest craft which is actually making art.

People always ask me how can you make money from being an artist? Well, first of all I say I have an art business. I am a businesswoman and I handle my own affairs. It’s incredibly rewarding even when you have to do the gray tasks like accounting and not the creative stuff. It's all worth it because it's my business and I love it. It took me a long time to get there, but it’s the best place I could have wanted to be.

I really want to pursue more than digital work. I started doing canvas work, taking commissions, working with art dealers and really getting inside the art world. I’ve always been really scared of the art world because it’s scary! I don't come from that world; I come from Israel, a place where art is still standoffish and I feel like my approach is different and it creates something new. Covid really was the time for me to make that change and it’s all happening now.

AP: I think that’s the cool thing about the digital age of artwork is that we all have been brought together and there is room for everybody. It can’t just be the galleries anymore. We’re all allowed to see it, we all have access to it now which is a major change from how the art world used to be. Then with Covid too, we’re not going to events, so art has to come to us. Covid rocked your world in a great way.

SB: I also listened to a lot of marketing podcasts because with lockdown there was nothing else to do besides jog and walk, so I studied what it means to do art marketing in the Covid era. It was really interesting to see how Covid changed the art world; how people are at home staring at blank walls wanting to fill them with art and how online shopping has tripled in this quarter. Before I landed where I am now, I did so many different things, moving from one thing to the next and never sticking on one thing. I wouldn't give it the love and time that it needed, and I feel like right now the art world is changing so fast that we either change with it or get left behind.

View Shira’s complete website here: www.koketit.com

Words with Friends | Victoria Villasana

She’s So Punk Rock

Interview between Victoria Villasana + Mallory Johnson (for APP)

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Recently I had the pleasure of speaking with Victoria Villasana about her process, inspirations, spirituality and what we can expect to see next from her in the future. Born in Guadalajara Mexico, Villasana is an artist who creates powerful work through the combination of black and white photography and colorful yarn. Her pieces stand as a reminder of the capacity for greatness within all of us and calls on textile’s ability to connect and comfort. She finds beauty in imperfection, nonconformity, and in forcing an emotional reaction from a disconnected society. 


APP: I loved the quote from you about “painting with yarn” and “dressing your portraits.” Can you elaborate on what it means to you to combine fashion and art in this way?


VV: When you’re a kid you're not thinking about if you're doing it right you just start drawing. You get into this really fun energy where you don’t want it to be perfect, you just want to create and be playful. This medium really allowed me to connect with that sensation. I never plan anything in advance, I just really go for it. I follow my intuition and start layering and enter into a kind of meditative state where other parts of myself that are not normally at the front of my consciousness start to come out in the patterns and the colors. If I am creating an image of a musician I’m listening to their music or if I’m doing an activist maybe the night before I’ll watch a lot of commentary on that person or read about them. I try to understand them, more than just the celebrity aspect. I interrogate the story behind why they made certain decisions in order to bring that into my work by dressing them with all of these colors. 


APP: I noticed a motif across many of your pieces are these rays that radiate from the heads of your subjects, is there any meaning or symbolism behind this artistic choice?


VV: The rays symbolize the life and energy that we all have. I see how powerful we can be as humans. We are more than just matter, we have an energy and presence that we can’t entirely understand. Using this design, I try to capture that feeling of radiance and power.

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APP: What do you think is the most universalizing aspect of your work?

VV: There is something about Pop Culture that we can all feel connected through. To have a subject like James Baldwin or Nina Simone is a way for people from Mexico, Europe or the US to connect. We all know them and we relate with the art they created whether it’s their music or writing, it inspires some emotion in us. 


APP: What inspired you to start creating these portraits?

VV: When I started I wanted to say something with my art. Something that bothered me about the news was that it was a lot of statistics about war and violence, people are desensitized and the group, person or culture, are dehumanized. By using black and white portraits and then adding the color I am making people connect on a more emotional level rather than see them as just another statistic. This was my inspiration in the beginning, it has now become a collage of many experiences, many feelings I have at the moment, and things that I’m questioning.


APP: Would you agree that the care you take in creating these pieces counteracts the flat monotony of celebrity images that we so often see in the media?

VV: It is important to have a holistic approach not a binary one because for me there are always two sides of the story. I don't want people to see a character in exactly the same way as me. For instance with Nina Simone, I like to share it the way I see her and people can agree or disagree. People are more complex than to just put them in black and white and I’m interested in that complexity. To be who you are is something very important and powerful and it's why I admire these people and do these portraits. They broke the status quo and changed things for the rest of us.

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APP: What part does color have to play in your work?

VV: We are drawn to color because nature is very colorful. I think this attraction to color is a part of being human. There might also be a cultural ancestry background to it as well. We all had grandmas and aunties who knit or used color for something, this can bring up a really unconscious memory of a time when we were nurtured and we belonged somewhere. 


APP: Your subjects include celebrities as well as regular people such as farmers. Is there something rebellious in saying all of these people equally deserve our attention?

VV: I use a lot of famous actors and writers in my portraits, and sometimes I get annoyed with myself because I know there are millions of people who aren’t famous who are doing the exact same thing. I did a series of portraits of people in different trades, the focus being working class people who are really special to me. One example are Tortilleras, the women who make the tortillas. These women put a lot of care into these handmade tortillas and the tacos taste amazing because of it. Or, the guys in the streets of Mexico who you sometimes see on a bicycle carrying a basket with sweet bread. People such as these are so important in our society. They make us happy and often are taken for granted, but they are equally valuable. 


APP: Why leave the yarn uncut?

VV: I liked the concept from Japanese culture, where if a teapot breaks they highlight that crack with gold. They are able to see beauty in the imperfection. To leave these unfinished is a reflection of ourselves as well because we are always becoming. We are never perfect or done; we are always learning, evolving and expanding. I also chose to leave the yarn hanging partly because of the aesthetics; I liked the feeling of things not put into a box. I like letting things be wild a little bit, unrestrained by the edges of a canvas.

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APP: Can you tell me more about your street art pieces, how did it feel to let go and leave them to be experienced by people in the natural environment?


VV: It was really interesting to put it on the street and come back to them the next day and see that the wind had played with the strings and placed them in different ways. Sometimes I would come back one month later and see that someone had pulled the strings. They were ephemeral pieces and it was nice to see how the environment had kind of degraded the piece in what was a really natural process. I look at these changes in the same way as fruit that starts to rot, it is a beautiful process and part of the cycle of life. 


APP: Do you have a favorite piece that you’ve ever made or maybe even a least favorite?

VV: When I go through my early works some I’m very proud of, others I’m like oh my god I can't believe I was posting this! The more you do something the better you get, especially being completely self taught. I’m sometimes tempted to erase that but it's part of my story in the same way as my background with fashion and as a florist add to what I do now. I don’t ever have any that I like completely; it sounds really depressing but for me the most important thing is to be able to translate the feeling into something and be able to share it. Sometimes it’s not even the piece itself, but how people interact with it. For instance, I did a super simple piece with the words “Boys Do Cry.” It was amazing to see people actually connect with the piece and even feel inspired to share their own stories.

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APP: You bring this rebellious feminine spirit to your work, was this always a goal or is it part of who you are and it makes its way into your work?

VV: I think I’ve always been a punk. I was always a rebel with a cause, never just a rebel for the sake of it. From a really young age I questioned my culture. If I wanted to believe or think something it was something I really investigated for myself. I was able to think, at this point in my life I really resonated with this, and maybe 10 years from now I'm not going to relate with that any longer but I’m sure it will come from me and not because my parents or culture told me.  


APP: What does the future hold for you?

VV: What I have learned is that things arrive at the right time without needing to force them so right now I'm enjoying this and I'm going to give it 100% and I trust that when the time is right to leave this, and not completely, I will be more drawn to do other types of things. It would be amazing to connect textile with something like artificial intelligence or light or music. It's funny because I'm really interested in the past and history but I'm also very interested in technology and the future. I want to follow that interest and do large format artwork or art that connects with topics like spirituality, science, and the cosmos.


Please visit Victoria’s website / instagram to learn more.

The Wonderful Work of Eileen Braun

A couple of weeks ago we had an amazing studio visit with mixed media sculptor Eileen Braun and were fascinated by her transition in materials - from ceramics to rattan - in the creation of her extraordinary, otherworldly vessels.

Eileen Braun, Smoke, 2017, rattan reed, wax, pigment and string



We are sharing here, her description of the work and a glimpse at what she has been working on.

"In 2016, I put my clay work on hold and sought a new media less demanding of material constraints. After a lot of experimentation, I found it in encaustic wax and rattan weed. As I make the work, the forms grow increasingly more complex. Their sizes range from 3 - 7 feet high and the deep shadows (not easily shown in images), provide a completely different personal experience. The work is deceivingly light, weighing in at a mere 2- 6 pounds.

My art mirrors natural forms with a biomorphic edge. Often the exact life cycle stage one is viewing is too complex to pin down.  Is it focused on seed, mature growth, or the desiccation of this system? I leave that up to the viewer.

Movement, texture and complexity of form are integral to the work as well.  My hope is that the viewer will be drawn in by the shape. While approaching, they will be intrigued by the ever-changing views because one can see both through and around the form simultaneously. The texture, shadow and line created by the materials add to the multidimensional cornucopia of delights.

Process: The sculptures are constructed from rattan reed, encaustic wax, cotton string, and glue. In some instances I have added dress-makers pattern tissue - influenced by my research of Japanese Akari lamps.  The rattan reed is left natural or occasionally pre-stained; soaked, manipulated and secured at all junctions with cotton string.  Additional elements to the sculpture are constructed or texturized with encaustic wax. The exoskeletons in many instances have been en-robed in wax, giving them the appearance of metalwork."

Enjoy the work and imagine the possibilities - tabletop installations, wall-hangings, ceiling installations...

Just exquisite!

 

APP Words with Friends - Galen Cheney

Galen Cheney is a Vermont-based artist that APP has felt a strong gravitation to lately. Cheney's work is so expressive and complex, yet seems to fit within a multitude of environments. We look forward to placing her work. In the meantime, a conversation...


APP: Galen, we just love your work and have to give a nod to the abstract expressionists that came before you. We are huge fans of Clyfford Still, Betty Parsons, Helen Frankenthaler and Cy Twombly. Want to tell us about some of your favs?

GC: Yes, the Abstract Expressionists are my painting heroes, generally.  Their art was their life and vice-versa.  My favorites among them are Joan Mitchell and DeKooning. They had a willingness — perhaps even a compulsion — to risk everything in a painting in order to create something meaningful, something new. I admire and aspire to that degree of artistic bravery.  Like you, I am also a big Twombly fan, as well as Guston and Diebenkorn.  And there are so many good painters working today: Mark Bradford is at the top of my list; I relate to the physicality of his work, his manipulation of non-traditional materials in the service of sublime beauty.  A few other contemporary favorites are Cecily Brown, Susan Rothenberg, Leonardo Drew, Julie Mehretu, Bill Jensen, and John Walker.  There are really too many to name.
 

APP: Agree completely. How do you see the changes in your life reflected in your work, particularly in where you have lived? I know you were born in LA and spent time in both MD and MA before settling in Vermont. In terms of street art, and referencing layered urban mark-making, where does this come from?

GC: I have spent a lot of time in Italy, and my first visits there when I was 14 and 15 had an enormous impact on me.  Yes, the art that I saw was part of it, particularly ancient frescoes in Pompeii and frescoes in Florence by Giotto and Masaccio, but just as affecting was the ancient history that suffused everything.  Witnessing noisy, contemporary life, including the day’s graffiti, within that ancient context affected me deeply. 

I am drawn to the enduring human need for visual self-expression.  Graffiti, ancient and contemporary, is a rich example of that.  These days I spend a lot of time in New York, and even its walls covered in layers of torn-off posters are a turn-on for me.  I often employ a similar kind of process in my own work — laying paint on, scraping it off; gluing paper or fabric on, pulling it off.  It’s not a planned technique in order to achieve a particular effect, rather it is just a process of working.  All those changes of direction in the making of a painting amount to rich and varied surfaces that are a record of the process.


APP: And in 2015 you were a fellow at the Da Wang Culture Highland in China. How lasting of an effect did the residency have on you? I know you took just a brush, ink and a marker, so it seems you were already open to the calligraphic and to using papers more common there. Can you give an example of something gleaned in Shenzhen that inspired a significant influence within your practice?

GC: My time in China continues to strongly inform my work. When I was there I began really focusing on collage as a method for making work.  I love scavenging, and I did that, gathering cast-off papers, hand-written notes, paper trash, basically.  I combined those with special Chinese papers and passages of ink brush paintings that I was working on.  I was energized by the process that I began there and I am continuing to work in that way today, though with painted textiles more often than paper. I love paper, but I am sensitive to the needs of framing paper pieces and wanted to explore more durable materials.
 


APP: Do you sew outside of using that technique as a manipulation in your work? Can you comment on any feminist concerns you have as an artist? What your work says or ignores? 

GC: No, I do not sew!  I didn’t grow up in a sewing household, though I recently inherited a friend’s old sewing machine and I am determined to learn the basics.  Hand-stitching is such a slow process, and though I like the look of it, the speed of it is at odds with my preferred way of working.  And then there’s the feminine association that seems to inevitably arise with stitching.  That said, more and more artists — both women and men — are working with thread in various ways and it feels like it is losing that strict association with the feminine or feminist. I am a feminist, though my work is not overtly about that.  I just try to make strong paintings.


APP: And you succeed. When did you make your series of "War Paintings?" Are you anticipating more work in this vein given the current turmoil in our world/our own country?

GC: The War Paintings were a response to the bombing of Beirut in 2006. Sadly, since then there have been and continue to be other wars that might have inspired that work.  My work is abstract, though I think it has everything to do with the world we are living in. It will never be a narrative of current events.  While it embodies the complexities of contemporary life, my work, if successful will rise above the noise.  This is the promise of art, to enrich us, engage us, to help us make sense of being human.


APP: You've really shown your work everywhere. Was there a particular place or group of people that you felt just "got" your work?

GC: Mostly it has been other painters that have most appreciated my work. Though now, after many years of tenacious and uncompromising painting, things are beginning to shift and my work is gaining broader recognition and appeal. I am always pushing myself to become a better painter with every painting I make. For me, that struggle, that process of discovery is the whole point.  And just maybe the stars are beginning to align.


APP: What is a typical winter day for you?

GC: Coffee first, followed by hauling wood for the wood stove and filling the bird-feeder.  If there is time, I’ll do a little reading (right now I am reading the Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead), painting, hiking in the back woods with my dog, Viggo, answering emails, looking online for artist opportunities. There are always chores to do, but I get into my studio (which is in my house) just about every day.  I often paint at night, which comes early during winter in Vermont.

 

To learn more about Galen, please visit her website.

Source: http://galencheney.com/

APP Words with Friends - Jody Fausett

We reached out to Jody Fausett a few weeks ago, asking to start a dialogue with him about his photography, his influences and his fascinating conglomeration of fashion industry styling and Southern nostalgia. The following is what he sent back in response. This vignette, an explanation of his process and an exploration of his work through its pop culture and family muses is everything.

We're obsessed. Enjoy.
 

Home Theatre by Jody Fausett

Fashion Editorial for Vanidad Magazine

I never had a studio. When I lived in New York and a stylist got a box from Louis Vuitton for an editorial, we would shoot it in somebody’s apartment and order pizza. After the model is lit, nobody worries about those Home Depot cabinets. I love working off of a real space. Interior flaws and knick-knacks add to the model’s character in the story. Kitchen dominatrix: those floors will be spotless, I promise. I always watch the body, especially the fingers in a photo. You don’t want missing digits.

Growing up in a small town, all I wanted was to work in New York. When I got to New York, all I wanted was to return to Georgia and work on my personal projects. My grandparents’ house was my favorite studio – all that stuff that I could light with strobe. It made the familiar become surreal and created a different domestic tension that got shifted into my version of home theater. When my grandfather got sick, I felt that the one trip a year I could afford to come home was not working anymore. I returned to be nearby.

When he passed away, I continued taking pictures there. The airless silence could be too morose, so I pushed for portraits.  My favorite model over two decades has been my grandmother. This is how I connect.

When setting up, I work alone and quietly move the lights around to figure out what I feel works. Usually, she mows the grass, her favorite thing, while I work on the pose to find the light. That way I can walk her into the ready shot and not have her wait too long.

Test Shot // "Gloria" (1980), Directed by John Cassavetes // Five Shotguns, pigment print,
40" x 50"


Decades of guns line the wall next to the vanity.  This portrait came up out of the conversation of being a widow and knowing how to handle a weapon.  Understanding the weight of the gun, you can take care of yourself.  With no more big suppers to cook, she becomes svelte, decisive, and feminine.  

Test Shot // "Siren" (1975), Roxy Music outtake photographed by Graham Hughes // Photoshop screen grab
 

For a long time I shot this perennial series in the interior domestic spaces, but I decided to move outside and capture images without borders, images of infinity.  An oil leak that has altered the surface of my grandmother’s carport for over fifty years provided a welcome set for this narrative.  I have returned to this space many times for different ideas, but on this shot I saw waves crashing over the rocks.  The detached car door found in a shed would do.

From years of fashion work, it’s obvious for me now to retouch. It is not a documentary so much as part biography, part novella.


Occasionally, my grandmother is my assistant with great ideas on how she sees things. When we torched an old chair in storage, she helped with the fire. Later, she told me that the fire was unimpressive and we should try again the next day. We would find another chair in storage, she said. It feels good to catch furniture on fire. 

Test Shot // "Miss World" (1994), Hole video Directed by Sophie Muller // Outtake detail

The back bedroom has all the original furniture from when my mother was a teenager. Now it is the secondary vanity with all the perfumes and powders. I use seamless paper to change the reception of the interior, to highlight a specific piece of furniture with all that history (shoelaces used as a drawer-pull now). Even after I stood in to test the lighting on skin, the perfume powders took about 70 times to get the spray right.
 

Test Shot // The Swing by Jean-Honoré Fragonard // Wet Driveway, pigment print, 24" x 36"

The final portrait I shot again with the driveway in the background when it was pouring rain.  I watched those magnolias tower and slowly cut off the sound of the highway to become something pastoral - this private garden, a place to reevaluate. I carefully directed her fingers in my plein-air studio, the carport off the highway.

- JF

 

Jody lives in Atlanta. For inquiries about his work please contact Jackson Fine Art.
If you want more, find Jody on Instagram.