Feature in World of Interiors March 2024

Maud’s Bed—words on the exhibition

April 2024

There is a piece in the show that is a small clay rendition of the Canadian artist, Maud Lewis’s, bed. I was able to see her bed in person, long after her death. Maud Lewis painted, painted, painted, every day. She was born with a disability which would make it difficult to use her hands to paint, but that didn’t stop her. She lived her life in poverty with her fisherman husband. Maud died in 1970 and her husband passed away 9 years later. The house they shared had once stood left to decay in rural Nova Scotia, until it was resuscitated by enthusiasts and presented at the art museum in Halifax, where it became part of the permanent collection. The entire home was transported and put back together exactly how it stood when her husband died. A monument/replica of the house now sits on the original site. It is really the size of a shack. I think often about when I looked right into her house at the museum and saw her bed first – how this was once her private place that we all get to see now. I’m drawn to other beds too, such as Antoni Tàpies’ Llit Obert and Tracey Emin’s My Bed. Conceptually diverse, but each referencing this same place that to me feels vulnerable, loaded and lonely.

Other subjects and places explored in this body of work: a crowd of anonymous people with Eames house colors; 2 Ukrainian women smoking; a sink from a café in the country of Georgia; a boy jumping rope; a sailor smoking a pipe; confused lottery ticket scratcher (did not win); a girl considering her new womanly self with hands on hips; a nameless nun; Salt n’ Pepa, etc. Many of these serve as souvenirs of my experience, influences of my formation, objects for the viewer to wonder how they fit into the context of their surroundings, which mostly they do not.

I’ve also been thinking about waterflow as a metaphor for life experience – the draining downhill into a bigger body of water. There is a song by artist Antônio Carlos Jobim called Águas de março, which translates in English to Waters of March. It was a chart-topper in Brazil, although universally overplayed, but I still always turn it up when I hear it. Águas de março, as described in its Wikipedia entry “doesn’t so much tell a story, but rather presents a series of images (“a stick, a stone, a sliver of glass, a scratch, a cliff, a knot in the wood, a fish, a pin, the end of the road, and many other things …”) that form a collage.” Likewise in the exhibition, one can imagine the objects as momentary descriptors, functioning akin to the lyrics, referencing the artist’s muses, influences and references. Maud’s Bed features a watershed of pop stars, a memorable piece of furniture, bits of food left at the table, residue from poignant conversation. A hermetic logic bridges the disparate pieces, connecting gaps in time and space, yet also registers as memento mori, a reminder of life’s passing, or a season’s end, such as the rains of March in Brazil herald the end of summer.

Interview with prompts by Michaela Lee for 0fr. catalogue

May 2023

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Your origin story and how you came to love art and ceramics

I grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas. I didn’t have much exposure to art, in fact I didn’t realize it was a field of study that you could pursue seriously. My high school had stacks of National Geographic magazines for making collages and maybe a few colored pencils. It was depressing. My dad lived in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, so in 9th and 10th grades, I went to live with him. My parents kind of let me trade off with them whenever I wanted, from a very young age, which forced a strong independence on my part. In retrospect I think it was tough for my understanding of relationships, but I’ve learned a lot since then. The high school there had amazing art resources, and the teacher was a potter. Glenwood, being a tourist town, had many shops with handmade things, so craftwork or work made in some sort of tradition was on my radar, but in this cheesy, cottage sort of way. At 15, I moved back to Little Rock, and when I was old enough to drive, I got a restaurant job and took night classes at the Arkansas Art Center. They have a museum school there, so I explored all kinds of media like photography, jewelry-making, and pottery. Pottery stood out of course because I had a bit of experience back in my dad’s town. One striking memory is going to the pottery instructors’ home, and opening the cabinets, and seeing all sorts of handmade pots, cups, all made by other potters. My mind was blown. I had grown up with such mundane, ordinary objects, so that really lit a fire in me. This sight also contrasted nicely with the antique shops my mom would drag me to as a kid. I hated it so much back then, but I realize now I must’ve gleaned a lot about ornament and historical adornment that way. I realized I was in fact interested in the plastic arts and learning more in the medium of clay and beyond. I ended up studying political science in college and got my degree thinking I would in some way engage in radical politics. But it was very boring in Little Rock, and I didn’t really have the resources to get to a more exciting place where the course offerings were beyond Constitutional Law and American Government. The art instructors were all very old and burnt out, except for a few, so I did minor in studio art. But still I did not see an energy around the art department that meant that it was a viable, exciting, and meaningful place to be. I just didn’t understand. I always made sure I had access to the pottery studio, either at the college or at the Art Center, so I was able to really hone my skills on my own when I wasn’t working or in class. One great thing about Little Rock back then (and to some degree now) is that rent was dirt cheap, we lived on very little. Therefore, we were able to spend more time riding bikes, making art and music and meals together, drinking beer on rooftops and empty bleachers until all hours of the morning. It was a lot of fun in those days. I became more and more curious about how I could make a living as an artist and how I could learn more about the art and the material as it became evident that political work would be soul-sucking for me. When I graduated from college in 2001, I got my UK work visa and went to London. I got a job at a natural foods store in Notting Hill. I chose London because I had spent my teen years listening to so much of The Smiths, so places like Earl’s Court and Sloane Square seemed like places I should see. The ephemera, that went along with the music, like Smiths liner notes and posters, like the one where they are standing in front of Salford Lads Club, generated this curiosity about the place and the culture, all tied together with this strange English language and customs. All I really knew about the world was from music, such as The Smiths and REM but also British punk music, like Crass, Subhumans, etc… The visuals that came with albums and flyers helped shape my aesthetic, very much so then, and still up to today. It also influenced why I chose the path of politics. Somehow still, while working there and becoming aware of a much bigger world than I was accustomed to, getting ceramics/pottery experience in the UK was a priority. I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum one day and at the museum shop I looked in the back of a Ceramic Review magazine in the “situations vacant” section. There was an opportunity listed for an English-speaking person with clay experience to work in Centola, Italy for the summer. I called the number and Maria answered. We chatted and she said “well, when can you come?” My friends in London sent me off with good cheer. I made my way to Centola, and it worked out ok for a while, but honestly the work was making ashtrays and bells for tourist shops, which was fine, but I was very isolated, and the family drama got me down, so I decided to leave early. I was so glad I did because I had also been in touch with a potter in Scotland, on the Isle of Iona, who also needed a seasonal worker. His first choice for a worker fell through, so he offered me the position right away. I could barely understand him on the phone, so no telling what I agreed to, but anyway I got there, and Gordon and Fiona and their son, Malcolm, were such delightful people. I lived in a caravan on farm property on the main island of Mull and rode the bike they gave me to the ferry over to Iona every day. My first day was awful. The clay was different, the wheel was different, I felt like an idiot for getting all the way there and to fail like this, to waste their time. I cried. Gordon saw that I was upset and said, “what can you make?” and I was like, I can roll out some slabs and make some plates? So they kept me on for the remaining summer weeks in this gorgeous place to mind the gallery and do other odd jobs, and the occasional potting. I can’t believe they paid me. I worked with the clay a lot but not much would make it to the final stages. We had tea in the sun every day and one day he said to me, “you’ve grown wings.” I didn’t want to give up my time in the UK/Europe yet, so I extended my visa and worked in Ireland for a few months at a pub. At that point I was up for whatever, so I just had a lot of fun. But I did see the culture of ceramics alive and well in Ireland, too. I couldn’t get a job in the field in Ireland, but by that point I had seen a thread running through British and European culture that made way for handcraft. They respected it, it was important; they made a place for it and had a culture and an economy for it. I was sure that did not exist in America. I was seeing you could make a life doing it. I committed myself to finding yet another way to stay overseas, so that I could get more experience. Eventually after teaching English in Barcelona for 6 months, mostly so that I could be close to my French boyfriend (without being too close) I was barely scraping by and the relationship ended badly, so I went back to the UK to be with friends. I was about to head back to Little Rock, when a friend suggested we drive down to Somerset where maybe an arts opportunity would present itself. So off we went. His mother was a prominent artist in the area and was teaching a figural sculpture course. I took the course and lived with her and helped her around the house and in the garden. One day we drove around, looking for potters whom I could maybe apprentice with. We had an art tour pamphlet to guide us. I stopped in at a few whose studios looked promising. While some really considered the possibility of having free help in exchange for knowledge and meals, no one could really figure out how to have me there, either no room or no jobs cut out for someone else. The last place we stopped was in Butleigh, near Glastonbury, at Mike Dodd’s studio at Dove workshops. I had no idea who he was (one of very few of England’s greatest living potters), but he was casually like yeah, I could use some free help, why not? I kept staying with Sukey in Pilton, and kept helping her in exchange for board, and rode my bike through 5 villages or so to get to Mike’s every day. It was at Mike’s place that the decision to make a life working in clay was cemented. We got on very well, which evolved into a life-long friendship. We cooked together and ate garden lunches by his pond. On my last week working with him, we went on a road trip around southern England visiting potters like Clive Bowen, Richard Batterham, Svend Bayer and Nic Collins. The conversations I had with them, and to witness up close how they lived their lives—from kitchen, to garden, to studio—stood out to me as the only way I felt I could live my own life; integrating all things that mattered, keeping it small and authentic. It was the life and attitude of the English folk potter that I desired and reference when thinking about my dedication to working in the medium of ceramics, even though my work has changed very much since those days. I wasn’t beholden to the idea or medium, but it was for me the place where I started, my origins as an artist. I saw these people doing it in a way that I knew would be different from my own way, but it is the seed from which my livelihood (and personhood) was to grow. I am so thankful for that experience. I’ve always loved clay because of the possibilities to explore all aspects of humanity and most of all of how reflective of a medium it is. To paraphrase both Alison Britton and Walter Ostrom, ceramics is a literal vessel in which you can view politics, economy, culture and history. Richard Batterham stated that, to paraphrase again, that clay is a material that holds, and from which your own self is put through, an imprint that cannot be feigned. The art cannot be “injected.” Pots/vessels hold an importance just as much as the conceptual works I make. The line between idea and utility, concept and skill, is fuzzy, I don’t worry too much about that. I have so many ideas and such little time; all I can do is make the work I have to make, think on it later.

Coming home, I had a better idea of what opportunities I should look for. In the time I had been gone, the ceramics instructor at the University in Little Rock had retired and a new fresh person had arrived that had the energy to help keep my momentum going. Missy hired me as the studio manager and helped me put my portfolio together to apply for clay opportunities. From there I went to a residency in Kansas City, worked as an intern at Anderson Ranch, and finally ended up in Minneapolis to do a residency at the Northern Clay Center. Minnesota has a particularly strong clay community it turns out. I ended up going to graduate school and received my MFA at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and have been in Minneapolis ever since.

After graduating I struggled with figuring out how to continue working without a studio. It was a dark time. Additionally, the relationships I had created were mostly with people in my program, so in the city temporarily, and they had all left. Luckily, I was hired to teach ceramics adjunct at the university so that helped keep me at least working and thinking. Eventually we bought a tiny house, and I carved out a tiny workspace in the basement. We have since moved to a larger house since having 2 kids, and my studio is still in the basement. There is a long-running joke in the clay world about ceramic artists/programs/equipment being kept in the basement. In 2015, I was awarded a travel grant to visit the Potteries in England. Adam and I took our 11-month-old Lewis to London and by train we visited the main pottery towns of Staffordshire, specifically Stoke-on-Trent and Burslem. There I was able to research (mostly visually) the moment when the person was overtaken by the machine. I loved this clash of aesthetic and I felt that visually it represented what capitalism had become. Again, to stress how ceramics is so totally reflective of who we are at any given time in history, cannot be understated. I was inspired in some way to explore this moment by using some of the motifs and forms on typical industrial Staffordshire pottery, giving voice to the haunted past, the dissolution of life and culture involving art and handcraft in favor of a material culture that seeks to remove that enjoyment from our lives. These are things I still think about and that 5 week-long trip made a lasting impression, mostly in how we leave places to rot after their resources and values have proven exhausted. I find this powerful metaphor resonated in some of my family relationships also. Having a place and time to tie my thoughts about relationships and adding more concept and expand on the ideas in my work—especially a place that I already had a connection to previously-- that my work was political and had the ability to stretch further out into simply existing as an object to be used and admired just for that. I finally felt that I had things to critique in my work, that I had made way for being able to express feelings of loss and abandonment through this framework. I had always known there was more, but this trip, this experience, really helped me to articulate it, and figure out ways to work it into my studio practice.

I have always enjoyed creating an installation-based supportive contexts for the ceramic objects. This is more the direction I am headed. To really lean on that setting, the pieced together house. It’s important to note that just because I am a woman and make work in a medium that is traditionally tied to the home, my work isn’t about domesticity and the home or the woman’s work, or whatever. I mean there is no denying that those topics have a seat at the table for the discussion, but it’s more about creating a situation where I can visually and metaphorically tie together personal narratives, a record of my exercises with the medium, and moments in history, particularly relating to human folly. It becomes a mash-up of time periods, materials, ceramic history but also human history. It’s my way of telling a story through my lens, my filter.

Art history, which artist/ periods / mean the most to you / your biggest influences

I never took many art history classes in academia, simply because it wasn’t required. I was offered a teaching position at the community college here in Minneapolis teaching a survey art history course (meaning skimming the surface). I was a bit burnt out teaching ceramics, so welcomed this change. It is hard for many reasons to teach visual art courses, which is another conversation, but I really thought I would enjoy a lecture/conversation-based course. I was really left to organize and teach the class how I wanted. I loved this experience because I finally had a motive for really diving into art history, something I never made time for before. I was learning right along with the students. Thank goodness I was interested, it was the only way I was able to dedicate a lot of time to it, researching articles and videos to supplement the courses. With 2 small kids at home, it was a lot. The first course was prehistoric art to pre-Renaissance, and the second was Renaissance to Contemporary. My plate was full in terms of making 2 beginner courses that touched on major moments and movements in the entire span of documented/imprinted human existence. My favorite thing to teach is Egypt. Holy hell, I mean, it never failed that we, as a class, would completely lose our minds when talking about Egypt. Artistic conventions that remained the same for 3,000 years? It’s mind-blowing. I think aesthetically I was attracted to Greek and Roman art, and that has influenced recent work and ideas. Modern art movements like De Stijl and Bauhaus are also huge influences in how I think about art and life. I mean the list goes on but I do look to Mesopotamian art, such as the magnificent Assyrian palace reliefs, and the span and influence of Islamic art and architecture is utterly incredible. I think we should be looking more at art history in early education. It is a great way to learn about empathy, and that humans will always find ways to express themselves. But I also think there should be classes on childbirth and cooking, too, but that’s just me.

Essentials of expression, books, music, poetry, philosophy and the thread that binds it all together.

I do love interiors magazines, books that have a visual draw, books on photography, zines. For instance, right now I’m looking at Mary Manning’s book Grace is like New Music. There is poetry in the pictures and how they are arranged. This kind of visual material is essential for me. I order a lot from Mast Books in NYC, Nieves in Switzerland, Mack in UK, Yvon Lambert and 0fr in Paris. I am always looking for the independent publishers that do small runs of artists books and carry a nicely curated selection of literature. I have these 2 friends, we are all living in different cities, and we talk a lot about what we are reading. It’s a casual book club situation. Literature, but not usually contemporary fiction, at least how we see it in the average bookstore. I find what is popular is often… disappointing. Is that bad to say? Just like everything phenomenal, you must look for it, and when you find it, and it really gets you, you keep going and looking further. Friends are good to have in that journey. Naturally, it’s the freaks and the weirdos that are making the best work, the best performances, movies, books. They are sadly not so prominent in popular culture; you have to look for them.

Is nature important to your practice?

When I was young, I spent all of my alone time outside, in creeks, in fields. I collected acorns and caught frogs and counted caterpillars. I held roly-polies and granddaddy longlegs and wove crowns of red clover. I do think this has an influence on my material connection with clay, like it was more familiar to me than for some people when first working with it. I see my daughter looking at pinecones and sticks the same way I remember looking at them. Being outside is essential, but mostly as it relates to having kids and us getting out and being in it. It soothes us as a family especially after having spent so much time inside because of the brutal winters here. Recently I have been cross-country skiing, even coaching for my son’s team! Skiing has really given me life by acclimating me to the weather, making life easier in the winter in general. I try to go for walks every day, whatever the season. I have never been a person that listens to anything while walking. I think walking is my meditation. Whenever I travel, I walk everywhere.

It’s great fun noticing the world come back alive in the spring with the kids. First, violets! Next, tulips! End of May means Peonies! Luckily, the house we bought was from people we knew and they planted things in a way so that something is always blooming or peeking out, perennially. I have spent a lot of years foraging and making things like dandelion oil, lilac wine, herbal tinctures and salves, etc... I don’t do that so much anymore, but I do involve the kids in easier things such as gathering violet petals for violet honey first thing in spring. That is something Lewis and I do every year. It’s early May now and it’s almost time. This year he is 7 and he’s like meh. Hopefully he comes around in the next few days! We will go for walks, and I’ll gather nettles in my trusty patches around the paths and parks in the city. That’s about the extent of it these days. When the kids are a bit older, I know I will put more time into expanding the garden and making dandelion wine again. I also want to get chickens. But not yet because they shit everywhere.

Some thoughts on connecting nature to the next topic, motherhood:

I have a memory of walking along our neighborhood in Kansas City with my friend Lacey. It was very early spring. She stopped and pointed at a little day lily or whatever, peeking its pointy, spiraled green head out of the brown ground. She squealed with excitement! I remember feeling, why don’t I ever notice the new growth of the seasons? That is something I really didn’t even become aware of until that moment, sometime in my late twenties. Little Rock had very mild seasons, but spring growth wasn’t anything I ever really took time to notice. It came, and there was green all the sudden, but it had already been warm for months already so whatever. I think it’s so strange now since I live in a place where people look forward to spring with unusual enthusiasm. Anyway, I want my kids to understand and be able to acknowledge the changes occurring around them. I want them to have an awareness of the cycles of things, to help them better understand life and death. It is so important to be plugged into all of that for so many reasons. I can’t believe I went for so long without giving it any attention.

Motherhood.. children, the joys the pains… perspectives that being around children brings to expression,

I think motherhood has made me nicer, more empathetic, and has opened me up in ways I did not expect. When I reflect on the very early years of mothering (not that long ago!) I am shocked at what I went through, what women go through in general. I remember having these very—what I thought were-- animal-like, primal, protective thoughts, imaging something horrible happening to Lewis. It would happen mostly when we were out walking. I kept expecting a car to come out of nowhere and crash into his stroller. I kept it to myself and chalked it up to my new protective role as new mother. It was just super primal thinking I thought, maybe even too much so for this world, which is what a lot of my feelings about this sudden newborn were like. Extraordinary. I felt bad for letting myself have these thoughts, as if I could control it. It’s just wild, all of the layers of guilt and worry and fear. I realized recently, after reading a very well-researched article on postpartum psychosis, that what I experienced was likely perinatal anxiety. It is normal, but it can really be very serious. I can’t believe we have to go through that shit, and the fact that it is so often overlooked or not discussed, that even as I was experiencing it, I had no idea. No one did. Luckily, it was mild, and it eventually faded with time. Thankfully, I did not experience that with Ida at all.

Besides all of the biological changes, having children has really only affected what I make in the sense that my attention to other things, besides them, is very limited. I had to learn to work fast and in spurts and I still do that. I step on a cracker on the way to the studio. I stop to clean it up. I run downstairs when the kids are watching a movie. I come up when someone yells for something. I am used to not having much time to work on my own things, so it’s not that different. I notice that I look around and see what I can do based on what is near me more often now. Maybe that is something that has changed? For instance, lately I’ve been wanting to make larger sculptures using wood and plaster, because from my idea, I can’t get what I really want with clay. Also, it is springtime, and I am outside more, and I can work in the backyard and materials in nature are more visible now. So I’m in the backyard collecting a few branches while the kids play. I arrange them differently, experimenting with composition. I imagine colors and other possibilities with the giant rocks in the garden. I realize I am limited in what I can do because of time and place, and even the seasons. I am home, and my time is spent with my family. That’s ok. I’m a firm believer in using your limitations as inspiration. Not because I’m overly optimistic, but because I believe good work can absolutely come from the things right around you. Use that first and then figure out ways to push it later.

In the winter months it is freezing in the basement and putting my hands in water repeatedly just sucks. If it’s unbearable, I will bring clay upstairs and work on sculpture or do some painting in the living room. Adam jokes that living in our house is like living in my art project. He’s right. My aesthetic and design choices run through the whole entire house. This is possibly how I’ve survived with this family of mine for so long. Ha! The house is full of art of all kinds that I’ve collected over the years, old rugs, thrifted furniture, kids’ paintings, and books. It looks like a garage sale up in here. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I involve my kids a lot in what I do in the studio, the kitchen, and in general daily life. You have to survive, so you involve them in the daily rhythms and activities. I mean how else do you do it? I think there is a feeling in this country at least, that in order to be a good mother or caretaker, you have to give your entire being to it. You have to forget about yourself and give yourself up to raise kids. On the other hand, some people just have to give themselves up because they don’t have help, and I get that. Caretakers in general usually do not have enough help to get by and expect to get it all done in a healthy way. Help being money, nutritious food, basic resources, all of those things. Recently I was made aware of this term “bureaucratic violence”, which describes a systemic problem with social services in this country. People looking after children that must spend hours on the phone fighting with hospitals, insurance, and for what? I have been there. If you know you know. If you have trauma response to the music they play when you’re on hold with the state insurance office, you know. Because you know that you will be on hold for two hours and all you want is for your child to see a doctor. 

A friend of mine once said, in absolute sincerity, that she is a mother, but not a mom. It took me a while to process what she meant exactly. But this is someone who is so totally sure of who she is, so I knew she wasn’t bullshitting. I had to think on it for a while. I get it now. We can caretake but not fall into a mom role that society has carved out for us. There is not one way to do it, to be a mom or to be in the world. Being creative helps manage things differently or see things differently. But that takes time and energy and not everyone cares about being creative.

My daughter is always coming down to work alongside me. She loves to paint mostly, so I’ll set her up while I work, and we talk. Lewis used to love smashing his matchbox cars into clay, but he is more into his books and his stuff now. Both kids are growing up in a house where art is talked about, experienced and important. During the winter months the art museum is open late on Thursdays. We usually go there and pick one room or floor to look at, because that’s as long as they will last. They are surprisingly into it. Ida likes the period rooms and the knights in shining armor. Lewis is intrigued by the medieval European and renaissance religious artworks, bloody Jesus’ and all.

Community, fellow artists, friends, family, people and businesses that keep you going, nourished, and fulfilled. 

I have always had a strong and consistent group of friends that live in other places. That is because I moved around a lot, and so did they. I stay in touch with them and often get to see them. Because I traveled so much in my early 20’s, I think I really crave that movement and change, that transport to another place for a switch in sensory experiences, not as an escape, but to enrich to my already full and vibrant life. I just got back from New York City a few days ago. This trip was so moving for several reasons, first was to experience the Noguchi museum, then to see the Martha Graham dance company perform, and all of this intertwined with dear friends from all different times of my life that happen to live there now, eating and walking with them. Also meeting new folks that I have built relationships with mostly on social media with connections through my work and theirs, and finally meeting them in person after such a stressful last few years. The point of the trip was to do a ceramics sale with a friend of mine who runs her knitwear business in Madrid. The sale is always a success and folks come out to meet us and talk about our work. It is such a pleasure to be able to combine work and relationships in this way, it truly is the best thing about what I do. I stayed with a friend who has a vinegar business, and whose life is a lot like mine in that we love to eat, cook, and talk about what our young boys are into. I have built quite a few relationships like this through Instagram. It’s a place, or I should say a tool, that we use to show that what we make is so much a part of who we are. I think it’s important for small businesses to have a face of a human. It’s important to envision a future where we are supporting small and local economies, and this is a way to do that. I love to see how Marta thinks about color and honors the shepherd’s that tend to the sheep, where they source their local wool. It’s fascinating to see Chris show images of her adventures upstate New York to gather mulberries or whatever to make this incredible vinegar that no one else is making. I mean, I want to see the blood sweat and tears of the businesses! Because I’m going through that, too. We are sharing how life intersects with work, how meaningful work is tied to living the life you want to live. I love that so much.

Some thoughts on what Chris and I talked about recently, since we talk about our businesses, our relationships, and respective experienced injustices together a lot. and It’s vinegar and it’s ceramics, but we run very similar operations. Someone commented once to me on Instagram, someone I know, said, “wow, how do you have time to do all that and take care of your kids?” That really bothered me. I relayed this message and feeling to Chris, wondering out loud why it bothered me, it didn’t seem like it should that much, and she got my reaction immediately. She was mad for me, because she knows the criticism, the misogyny, that runs so deep in everything we do. I mean, I felt a little bit of shame in that comment, though it was likely totally harmless. I felt shame for working hard and doing what I love and carving out a giant space in my life for it. I shouldn’t have to feel bad for choosing to do my work and live my life. I am working my ass off because I have things to say, things to express. Currently there is this moment, where people are saying stuff like “if you work hard and don’t take that valuable down time for yourself, what even are you?” Part of me probably goes into super hard-work mode because deep down I fear that if I stop, I will have to go back to any of those restaurant jobs I had where some mediocre, insecure boy, angrily managed me.

The impact of covid.. did anything change for you?  how did you get through the hard aspects… were there any silver linings…  any surprising outcomes..

Every few weeks I have an epiphany about how hard the pandemic was, and how I am just coming out of it. Two years before the pandemic, we moved into our new house. We got a deal on that house from friends essentially because we accepted it in a very lived-in state. It was livable but was really worn: the doorknob never worked, the screens were coming out, the washing machine leaks (still does), etc... I was 8 months pregnant when we moved in, so with the arrival of Ida, we just learned to live with all the small problems, which I think really added up and made us a bit crazy. Adam recently fixed the front doorknob, and we talked about how it shifted our attitude toward the entire house, like suddenly it’s a real house! Adam also started his English PhD at this time, so it was a strange time for him to go through the program, in this unprecedented way. My art history classes shifted all to online, so I was ok, even somewhat relieved. Both kids were preschool age, so it was hard, but I saw parents of older children go through way tougher times. My ceramics business picked up. I think folks were really looking for connection in whatever way, and of course had more time to scroll, see what folks were up to. People were at home more, suddenly their surroundings felt like they should be more special.

Hands down the hardest part of the pandemic was the murder of George Floyd. This happened about 4 blocks away from where we live. There were many months of peaceful mourning and profound collective sorrow in the face of that tragedy. There is still a ripple effect 4 years later. We’ve braced ourselves for the summer months in recent years because the area attracts the wrong kind of attention-seekers when it warms up, and the neighborhood is left to deal with it. The sound of helicopters would jolt me, and later I realized, we all pretty much had PTSD from the whole experience. The national guard and the curfew, the utter apathy of our elected officials, and eventually the trial, it was too much, and I guess we were living in just a constant state of worry and uncertainty.

My sense is that the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd woke us from a collective sleep, but there’s still so much work to do.

Any places that you want to travel to?  places you love to go as a family, vs places you would love to travel to on your own..

I want/need to visit Japan. I think for my next big birthday, I’ll try to push for that one. I can only imagine doing it with my family. I really wish I could travel everywhere with them, on all of my little trips, but it’s just too hard and expensive. I like to daydream about taking each kid on a joint journey, just me and them, to a place that they will really like on their 10th birthday, or some other life marker or time. I love to imagine them meeting other kids abroad. I always try to prepare them for new things, mostly new food experiences. I think this helps them to understand that the world is big and beautiful, there is so much, and it’s important to know that life is a dream, and you can dream as much as you want.

~

Ginny Sims: Brief Histories

by Ryan Fontaine

July, 2022

There are many threads, many types of objects within the three rooms that make up Brief

Histories, Ginny Sims’ triumphant exhibition at Nemeth Art Center. And yet, a remarkable sense

of cohesion and visionary unity holds firm as the viewer moves through these distinct spaces

that function as three separate installations in conversation with each other. Within each room,

arrays of objects exist in conversation with other arrays. Within each array, discrete objects are

in conversation with each other as well. From macro to microcosm, undeniable and distinct, the

expressive presence of Sims’ craft is forefronted throughout. In her stylized small figures

projecting movement and emotion so effectively, through the abstract representational paintings

of interiors with their hyper-saturated palettes, utilitarian vessels and platters, wall-hanging

backdrops that implicate us in the scene through scale, excerpts of architectural

embellishments, and all the other twists and turns on these themes, the human hand is

everywhere.

One of the most compelling aspects of Ginny Sims’ oeuvre is the small figurative sculptures,

displayed here solitary or in tight juxtapositions of several objects entwined through proximity.

The subjects in this thread of her work can be further sub-categorized.

Three of the figures (Untitled 1, Untitled 2, Untitled Figure in Brown Leotard) are convincing

studies of movement and energy shift. Untitled 2 is a ground oriented figure in repose, limbs

truncated, washed of color, drawing attention to her expression and posture of rest or reflection.

By considering Untitled Figure in Brown Leotard in relation to Untitled 2, Sims’ command of

expressive form is clear. While also reclined, this character is active, a dancer or athlete about

to make moves, muscles stretched or flexed. Finally, Untitled 1 is upright, fully unfurled but not

holding the intense kineticism of Figure in Brown Leotard. There is a careless ease and

liveliness in this figure that when considered with the other two figures shows an ability to

convey, with only the most necessary of gesture, a depth of human emotional understanding

that is profound.

A particularly strong sculpture is the figurative diptych Swimmer with Wave. We recognize this

as a “swimmer” immediately, by bathing suit, goggles, cap. The absence of legs effectively

evokes the water line below. The swimmer has seen something or understood something

suddenly that has frozen a motion towards adjusting their goggles or cap. Hands paused

absently, half-raised in front, they stare into the distance or perhaps look deeply inward. The

“water” half of this duo is a hard-edged, abstract, geometric, minimalist depiction of a wave or

water surface. It is the hand of the artist that ties these two quite different approaches together

and that is what keeps happening throughout the show that makes it all work so well together.

Several of the small figures are portraits of artists that are influential or at least of interest to

Sims. Flannery O’Connor, Leonora Carrington and Kehinde Wiley are all depicted. There is a

figure on horseback inspired by a Mamma Andersson painting that might also be included here.

The influence of these artists can be seen in Ginny’s work: O’Connor’s subtle conveyance of

internal life, the expressive figuration of Carrington and, like Wiley, a subversion of historical

meaning embodied in a particular form. Kehinde Wiley does this by placing the contemporary

black figure in the context of historical portraiture from which they were in the past excluded.

While clearly a very different approach from a very different perspective, in her collection of

Staffordshire influenced stoneware Sims’ uses historical forms to draw attention to the way in

which capitalist globalisation and mass production led to the marginalisation of craft and

community. The Staffordshire Potteries were developed in England near the beginning of the

Industrial Revolution. On her research and fascination with Staffordshire, England, the

birthplace of industrial pottery, Ginny writes, “I became interested in the moment when craft

becomes industry, when the logic of the factory takes over the logic of the artisan.” Sims’ art is

deeply concerned with this shift that occurred as the Industrial Revolution created a new

wage-based economy that made obsolete many of the skills necessary in maintaining a

domestic centered existence. Her work directly references and evokes a feeling of nostalgia for

a past when there were few options for acquiring the utilitarian and decorative objects

necessary to outfit the domestic space, before we had access to so many things that are so

easily replaceable. The blurry, abstract landscapes on her mugs and commemorative plates, for

instance, distort a common decorative element in English pottery, suggesting a sense of loss or

the absence of something that perhaps never really existed. Also, the rough, hand-made feel of

Sims’ vessels stands in opposition to the cold perfection of the original Staffordshire product.

Distinctly different from the distortion inherent in her take on the English inspired vessels, she

adheres more closely to the traditional form of Korean pottery in her drum-shaped bottles such

as Buncheong-Style Vessel with Red Dots and Buncheong-Style Vessel with Pink Dots. A

hallmark of Buncheong pottery was the originality and creativity that each artisan brought to

their personal take on the style, as well as the sense of the hand-made. Sims’ versions read as

homage to a craft more in line with her own practice than the original Staffordshire vessels

which required the aggressive and purposeful twist of form and decoration to be claimed as her

own.

In Brief Histories there are also a series of small, abstract still lifes. Clearly influenced by Henri

Matisse’s interiors such as The Red Studio, Still Life with Pomegranates and Still Life with

Magnolia, Sims’ compositions are more flattened and simplified. This motif of the table setting is

repeated over and over again, each a formal experiment in color and space with strict

parameters. These groupings of super-saturated and solid forms give us objects with all

surfaces revealed in an exaggerated two-dimensional orientation that contrasts nicely with the

fluid three-dimensionality of her sculpture. Her assured and straightforward brushstrokes are

fast and effective and the echo of these pictures of kitchens, dining rooms and living areas are

found in the large wall hangings that work in the same way theatrical backdrops do. They inform

us of the domestic nature of the space the actors inhabit, or in this case the viewer.

Another intriguing type of object appears occasionally in the show with Shell, Clock and Sauce

Boat. Here the color has been stripped away. These ghostly shapes are barely defined, roughly

and quickly worked. More than the identity of these common household items, we see the

fingers and hands of the artist in absentia, the gouges and pressure applied to a malleable,

tactile medium with little attempt to smooth over or hide these marks or the markmaker’s

presence. This is the bare minimum of what is needed to signify their nature in the same way

the figures convey the weight of emotion and conscious intention with just enough information

and not a stitch more. In Brief Histories Ginny Sims has confidently placed her flowing and

instinctual signature on every part of the show, effectively weaving together a surprising variety

of objects both utilitarian and non-utilitarian.