Anna Russell
“I love drawing and painting landscapes from memory or feeling, but I needed to communicate more than that after a while. I wanted to express what I couldn’t express with paint. It needed to be quick and easily shared. The shift happened in 2016 with the Presidential election. Suddenly everything felt more urgent.”
what’s your craft / what’s your art. if more than one, or if once one now this other, what changed.
[AR]. I studied painting in college. I love the viscosity of oil paint, the play between thick and thin. I made large scale oil and varnish abstract landscape paintings alongside oil wash paintings on vellum. But now I draw with ink. My compositions are small and often in notebooks. I love drawing and painting landscapes from memory or feeling, but I needed to communicate more than that after a while. I wanted to express what I couldn’t express with paint. It needed to be quick and easily shared. The shift happened in 2016 with the Presidential election. Suddenly everything felt more urgent. I saw a Raymond Petibon show at the New Gallery in early 2017, he had drawings tiling the walls, a room of large paintings of waves, and display cases of zines. I had just completed a zine about the Women’s March. I felt an immediate connection. I was at the beginning of a prolific time of art making, and his show was a beacon. I still remember a drawing hung over a door in the exhibit that said “TRY EVERYTHING. DO EVERYTHING. RENDER EVERYTHING.” That spoke to me.
where (town, room, or country) are you right now.
[AR]. My partner calls it the breathing room. I call it the yoga room. The floors are lined with exercise mats, the windows are filled with plants. I have a low table with flowers, candles, incense, and rocks. The room has speakers and a stationary bike. I use this room to revisit my breath. To acknowledge my body. To sit with my thoughts. I’ve been through a lot of personal, physical, and spiritual changes in the last few years. Having and making this space has been important for me.
what are you reading right now. what are you listening to right now.
[AR]. I love listening to books. For the past few years both, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki, read by Peter Coyote, and Tibetan Wisdom for Living and Dying, a series of lectures by Sogyal Rinpoche, have been on repeat.
My mom just gave me Bell Hooks’ Communion, and The Will to Change. A while ago she gave me Breathe! You Are Alive, by Thich Nhat Hanh. She always has the right book for me at that moment in time.
I love the writings of Ta-Nehisi Coates. My favorites are Between the World and Me, and We were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy. This passage in Notes from the Fourth Year (We were Eight Years in Power) really helped me grow as an artist:
“What I know is that by then, I had absorbed an essential message, an aesthetic from Nas and from the hip-hip of that era.
Art was not an after-school special. Art was not motivational speaking. Art was not sentimental, it has no responsibility to be hopeful or optimistic or make anyone feel better about the world. It must reflect the world and all its brutality and beauty, not in hopes of changing it, but in the mean and selfish desire to not be enrolled in its lie, to be coopted by the television dreams, to not ignore the great crimes all around us.”
Hokusai, Mad about Painting was the last exhibition I saw before the pandemic. The show, at the Freer Gallery of Art, blew me away. There were prints from the Hokusai book, 100 Poets, 100 Poems, which I later went home and ordered online. When I don’t know what to draw, I’ll make copies of his prints and drawings, and read the poems.
As for music, I got pretty obsessed with Mac Millers’ posthumous 2020 album, Circles. Childish Gambino’s’ 2020 Album 3.15.20 also gets played a lot around here. I like to sit down and listen to full albums in the yoga room.
in the darkest of times, what material do you reach for.
[AR]. Nibs, a small brush, and walnut ink. The process is very ritualistic for me. I clean my desk, I light a candle and some incense.
Using nibs and brushes force me to slow down. It’s meditative. I clear my mind and draw from the heart. Drawing is an outlet that has saved me. I have hundreds of drawings stuffed in boxes and drawers. Eventually I’ll make another art catalog. I find connection with others in being able to share these drawings.
what is your current obsession.
[AR]. So many things… In 2020, I found my muse. I’ve spent a lot of time drawing him nude or sleeping. I’m also fascinated by psychedelics’ role in consciousness expansion and ego death, and I have a lifelong obsession with dreams and their role in processing experiences.
I am always someone who will listen to the dream you had last night. In 2017, I started a Stress Dream drawing project, where I’ll draw people’s stress dreams. I love it. It’s another wonderful way to connect with people and to connect people through these shared subconscious experiences.
Anna Russell (she/her) is an artist and museum assistant living and working in New Haven, Connecticut. Anna uses the medium of ink drawing to reflect, decipher, and communicate with the world.
Amanda Kohr
“Since women’s stories have historically gone untold, or our narratives dictated by male creators, it feels all the more important to me that I get out there and write, as well as support the work of other women.”
what’s your craft / what’s your art.
[AK]. My craft is writing, though I also acted throughout childhood and into my college years. I think I started acting for the same reason I came to writing—to play in a world other than my own. It’s not that I dislike the real world; I love it. The trials and tribulations of being a human serve as some of the most authentic and accessible inspiration for making art. I just also really love my imagination.
So I suppose my craft has always been world-building and communication, which I think it is for many creative folks. Technically speaking, I write fiction, creative nonfiction, plays, and teleplays, depending on how I’m feeling. I love writing dialogue, which is why I think I tend to gravitate toward anything fictional. Throughout my entire life, I’ve made up conversations between fictional people, or even actual people in my everyday life. I remember practicing monologues to ex-boyfriends when driving alone in my car. I thought it was fun, and I’m not sure what that says about me.
That said, I also love finding broad or nebulous topics and crystallizing them as best I can, which is why nonfiction and essays can be exciting, too. I think all of my writing, regardless of the format, tends to focus on discovery and interpersonal relationships. I also make collages when I feel like mixing it up. Sometimes working with images helps my mind think differently.
how does nature speak to you.
[AK]. The first time I felt nature truly “speak” to me (at least that I know of) was when I was driving across the United States from my home state of Virginia to California. I was 20 and with my father and I remember seeing the red mountains in New Mexico for the first time and having “a moment.” I felt inspired, humbled, like anything was possible.
When I’m creatively stuck, nature provides both a respite and a reset button. It’s an opportunity to get off the screen and mix up my thought patterns. And since I live in Los Angeles, there are dozens of 2-hour road trips that serve as the best and most beautiful antidote to writer’s block. Joshua Tree, Ojai, and Lake Arrowhead are some of my favorites. Los Angeles gets a lot of flack, but I think it’s a great city, and I love living in California. It feels like a playground.
how does your art speak.
[AK]. As I mentioned earlier, almost all of my writing is a demonstration of my fascination with discovery and interpersonal relationships. I’d throw evolution in there, too. I love watching people change and grow, both fictional and in real life. I love watching humans be humans in their messiest forms. I absolutely love stripping away the facades and the ego and boiling it down to emotion, vulnerability, and truth. In my opinion, the best art makes something personal feel universal. And to do that, you need to capture the rawest and authentic parts of being a human, even the “ugly” stuff.
I’ve been told I’m too sensitive before, and I know I can be very emotional, but I think I’m (hopefully) attuning myself to use said sensitivity as a gift. I feel things very intensely, for better and for worse. But I don’t mind this. I feel like my life is richer for it. And if we’re able to communicate deep feelings in a way that fosters connection, then it’s all worth it.
where are you right now.
[AK]. I live in Echo Park, Los Angeles. I used to live in Portland, which I loved, and East LA actually reminds me a lot of that city. There’s a pulse here.
what does being a female artist mean to your work.
[AK]. It means everything, haha. Since women’s stories have historically gone untold, or our narratives dictated by male creators, it feels all the more important to me that I get out there and write, as well as support the work of other women.
can you describe yourself as an artist in your childhood / at what age did play merge into art.
[AK]. I was obsessed with writing when I was a kid. I’d carry around this lime green notebook and call it “my story.” It was about this girl (the protagonist) who got invited to this other girl’s house for a sleepover, but the protagonist was convinced this other girl was a witch and lived in a haunted house. In the end, they became best friends, because I was 9 and friendship was the happiest ending for me.
I think the play merged into art when I started writing in a journal my sophomore year of high school. I had a pretty melodramatic high school experience: I fell in love with my gay best friend, my ex and one of my best friends hooked up, I developed an eating disorder, I shoplifted and did drugs and got drunk a lot. The journals became a precious exploration and documentation of my angst, and I took soooo much stock in making sure they looked good. I used different colored pens depending on my mood and often highlighted important sentences. I remember one day I poured nail polish over the cover just because I love the way it dripped glitter. But yeah, that’s about when I started seeing writing as a form of self-expression and discovery, something that was still in sense “play,” but also something much deeper than that.
in the darkest of times, what material do you reach for.
[AK]. Brené Brown to uplift. Page-turning fiction to disappear. A fresh journal to come home.
if applicable, why do you sell your artwork.
[AK]. I sell my articles and essays because it feels good to be paid for something I worked so hard on, but writing plays and fiction is often an act of faith. I don’t know if anyone will want them or buy them, but I do it anyway because I want to.
I think there’s a lot to say about the relationship between art and money. Money is certainly a tool, and I believe in carrying an abundant mindset or not letting the fear of losing money dictate your life. But I think Capitalistic America has really embraced this idea of equating a dollar amount with worth, and that’s something that really bothers me. Still, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to be paid for your creative work. It’s exciting to know that you can support yourself by doing what you love, but it’s not by any means a necessity for making good art.
describe a moment of a class, in academia or alternative learning that shifted your perspective.
[AK]. In my senior year of college, I was in a play called subUrbia by Eric Bogosian. The play was about a lot of things, but it was mostly about fear. It took place in 1993 in the parking lot behind a 7-11 in a suburb in Texas and all of the characters were in their early 20s. I had been acting for a while and had been lucky enough to participate in a variety of cool theatre projects, but during subUrbia something new clicked. Like I could get into the psyche of these characters and understand why they were making their choices, even if they were bad or good. I started looking at theatre (and in turn, writing) from a psychological perspective which planted a very important seed in my creative brain.
what is your current obsession.
[AK]. Taking risks. French press coffee. Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters. Search Party on HBO. Trusting myself. The desert, always the desert.
Amanda Kohr (she/her) is a writer living in Los Angeles. She writes essays, fiction, plays, and tv pilots. Her work has appeared in VICE, Refinery29, Repeller, and others, and her plays have been performed throughout the country. Her favorite topics include relationships, sexuality, mental health, and growing up. When she's not writing, she's running off to Joshua Tree and rereading Women Who Run With the Wolves.
Jacquelyn O’Brien
“I spent a long time in my early art making trying to find out what ‘my thing’ was and who I was as an artist. At first, I thought who I was as an artist had to be connected to being a womxn and I forced my way through that narrative. All of the pushing I did felt wrong, clumsy and heavy handed, so I stopped; which is when my work began to take form. I followed my material preferences, started to combine processes and began reading whatever interested me.”
did you study art / describe a moment of a class, in academia or alternative learning, that shifted your perspective.
[JO]. Yes, I studied art in college and graduate school. Specifically, I studied sculpture. When I was in college, maybe 20 years old, I took an introduction to sculpture class because it was mandatory. It unlocked something within me, expressing feeling through my hands resonated so deeply with me that it was as if I knew right away that I had to continue making in this way. I didn’t have to talk through my feelings or explain them to anyone, I learned that I could make them.
how do you allow for your values as an artist heal within the competitive realm of capitalism.
[JO]. It is hard to admit that I have spent a lot of time giving myself permission to heal from anything, much less the darkness cast by capitalism. Especially in graduate school, the competition in order to achieve what it means to be ‘successful’ drove my body into the ground. What I have learned afterwards, is that outside of academia, I owe no one my art. I don’t owe speed or making to any one or thing besides myself and I only owe myself because making artwork is what I need to do in order to feel whole.
can you describe yourself as an artist in your childhood. At what age did play merge into art.
[JO]. As a child I remember liking to put things together, not like legos or Lincoln logs though. What I liked to do was arrange pieces of construction paper, or layer colors with crayons and paint or make up pretend worlds. The only thing I recall as far as making art was when I was five years old, I won a construction paper penguin contest at the memorial art museum in Rochester where I grew up. I think it made me feel special and I loved making it, both of which gave me something that I needed, which was confidence.
what does being a female or female-identifying artist mean to your work.
[JO.] I spent a long time in my early art making trying to find out what ‘my thing’ was and who I was as an artist. At first, I thought who I was as an artist had to be connected to being a womxn and I forced my way through that narrative. All of the pushing I did felt wrong, clumsy and heavy handed, so I stopped; which is when my work began to take form. I followed my material preferences, started to combine processes and began reading whatever interested me. All of this formed a network of my research, how I view aesthetics and my artwork. This is when I became cognizant of my ‘womxn-ness’. My materiality often thrives best on the unification of unlikely couples, industrial and home based. I cast concrete because I can and because it is physically challenging. More-over I love that the viewer questions my gender identification when observing the materials. Seeing a large cast concrete element compressing a long pile pink shag faux fur mat is confusing; who made this? Were they strong? Could they sew? Do they work construction? All of these questions open sores that have been minorly healed by an oppressive patriarchy. It has always told us who is who and that we should slip back in the quiet. Being a womxn has given me mandatory perspectives that have informed my whole language as an artist.
how does nature speak to you. how do you use your art to speak.
[JO.] One of the things I like best about nature is that it doesn’t talk in a language that I can understand as words. Much like the way I enjoy how making artwork is a physical language, nature speaks in bird calls and the sound of water moving. I love to collect things, like shells and small rocks or skeletons and deer teeth. I like to watch water move when the tide comes in from the ocean and the Sand Pipers zipping around after tiny clams digging themselves into the sandy seaside. When I look to the sky where it touches the ocean and it is too far away for me to tell the difference, I feel peaceful; like I can stop moving. I love to hear the sound of my dog’s paws splatting into the wetness of the shore, chasing seagulls away from her pile of sticks. I could sit with the sun on my back or the ice on the tip of my nose for hours if it meant that I could be gathering bits of sea-glass and empty shells all while listening to the calming repetition of the waves. This is where mother earth lives, I am convinced of it.
Jacquelyn O'Brien is a working sculptor and fiber artist, gallery professional, college professor and the founder of Politits: Art Coalition. In the past 10 years she has been in over 40 exhibitions, most notably, 2011 in a two-person exhibition “Rough Relationships”, 2012 the 'Lombardo Award Exhibition', 2013 a solo exhibition “Second Thoughts", 2014 in a juried exhibition “Convergence”, 2015 in thesis exhibition "Open Up", solo exhibition "Hysterical" at the Joy Gallery, “Down Below” a solo exhibition of her mono-print work, the winner of the Rochester Contemporary Sculpture Award at Sonneberg Gardens in the summer of 2017 and two-person sculpture exhibition by invitation “A Day is Gonna Come” in 2019. Also, in 2012 Ms. O'Brien won the Lombardo Award at Buffalo State College, (at which she received her BFA in sculpture), involving a networking trip to New York City, an award exhibition and exhibition of work at the All-SUNY show. While working toward her BFA, Jacquelyn received four separate research grants to further her study of sculpture.
Once receiving her BFA in spring 2013, she was awarded a six-week residency at The Osage Arts Community in Belle, MO. After teaching at The Osage Arts Community and making work during her residency, Jacquelyn completed her MFA at Rochester Institute of Technology and began teaching adjunct there. In 2016-17 Ms. O'Brien was in three residencies at The Yards Collaborative Arts Space in January 2016, Osage Community Center in March 2016 and Main Streets Art Gallery in January – February 2017. In 2018 O’Brien relocated to Burlington, VT in favor of pursuing her work in arts administration and studio practices. Further, after this move, she attended residency at the Vermont Studio Center in 2020. Currently, Ms. O'Brien is working in her studio, running the gallery at Burlington City Arts, contributing to The Politits Art Coalition, as well as preparing for upcoming exhibitions.
Macey Mayfield
“Jewelry is so wonderfully personal. It’s gifted and passed down, it symbolizes love or achievement. It’s saved up for, holds secret meaning. It takes on the shape of its wearer and it carries the scars and flaws gained during the time it’s worn. I think the transformation that jewelry goes through, and the meaning that it’s imbued with, is very romantic and can only happen if someone else possesses it.”
what’s your craft / what’s your art.
[MM]. Designing and fabricating fine jewelry under my brand name, Lonerü. This is the art I make with my own two hands, from my own imagination and countless hours of solitary work. My jewels are made using the lost wax casting method, so I carve the designs in wax, polish the metal castings, and set all of the gems myself.
I’m also an actor. I love rehearsing and performing with my chosen family of theatre people.
what is your current obsession.
[MM]. ancient gold jewelry, lavender sapphires, Victorian kitchens, rare Tom Waits interviews, cat ponderings, hellscapes, dreamscapes, GBBS, mohair, Evelyn De Morgan paintings, gyoza, Jim Carrey playing Biden on SNL, spying on my husband while he’s chopping wood, and moonlit baths. But my enduring obsession is Joanna Newsom. I feel lucky just to exist in a time when I can experience her music.
where (town, room, or country) are you right now.
[MM]. At my home in Vermont, and it’s winter now so I’m sitting on the floor next to the wood stove.
what are you afraid of.
[MM]. Carelessness, Covid, the destruction of our planet - especially the beautiful, cold climate where I live. My phobias are heights, guns, and scary big dogs. But I love spiders, snakes, clowns, ghosts, aliens, and other creepy shit.
if applicable, why do you sell your artwork.
[MM]. Jewelry is expensive to make, so I can only afford to create more when I sell it. The good thing is that it’s pretty easy to recycle materials and experiment. If it all goes wrong, you can usually just melt it down and start again.
Jewelry is so wonderfully personal. It’s gifted and passed down, it symbolizes love or achievement. It’s saved up for, holds secret meaning. It takes on the shape of its wearer and it carries the scars and flaws gained during the time it’s worn. I think the transformation that jewelry goes through, and the meaning that it’s imbued with, is very romantic and can only happen if someone else possesses it. Every time someone buys one of my pieces, it gives me a burst of joy. I put my heart into making it, and I think that makes it very special.
did you study art. describe a moment of a class, in academia or alternative learning, that shifted your perspective.
[MM]. I was part of the Acting program at Texas State University, which was a beautiful and gruelling two years of constant preparation, presentation, and critique. I remember more than once hearing that a performance I’d rehearsed to the bone just didn’t warrant praise from professor or director. I used to really focus on that negative feedback, especially when it had to do with a perceived lack of preparation or my unwillingness to be vulnerable enough. I let it form a dark cloud and convinced myself over time that I was lazy and unauthentic, just because of a few off-hand criticisms from people who I had admired.
Lately, I’ve been asking myself where those deep-seated judgements I have about myself come from. Are they founded on my true nature, or are they the product of shame I’ve felt in the past that makes me cringe in retrospect, but isn’t worthy of carrying with me all these years?
what does being a female or female-identifying artist mean to your work.
[MM]. As a female artist, it means that I get a lot of feedback from men who know nothing about my art, that I often choose to ignore. Something about me just invites unsolicited advice. Oh well, I can handle it.
As a female jewelry designer, it means that I make a lot of pieces for myself and I wear them all the time. I’m now focused on creating more gender-free designs and sharing more photos and instances of male-identifying people wearing Lonerü.
in the darkest of times, what material do you reach for.
[MM]. In the darkness, I really appreciate things like knitting from patterns and cooking from recipes. When I’m feeling blue, my confidence is the first thing to suffer. It’s hard to create out of thin air in that state, but I still feel an urge to make something. Watching a movie while knitting soft wool or carefully chopping vegetables and kneading bread dough - they require some skill and a bit of concentration, but the stakes are low when it’s just for yourself. Plus, you get a pair of mittens or a warm meal out of it.
how many hours in a day do you make / how many hours in a day do you think about making.
[MM]. I spend about 3-4 hours daily focused purely on creating art. I currently have a couple of day jobs to pay the bills. My goal is to be able to spend twice as much time making art every day.
For now, when I’m not actively making jewelry, I’m usually thinking about it. I see jewelry when I close my eyes to sleep. Inspiration is everywhere, and ideas come at inconvenient times. I’m a night owl, so I usually like to sketch and carve wax deep into the night.
do you have artists in your family.
[MM]. I’ve always been the self-proclaimed artist in my immediate family, but I’m not the only one who makes art. I’ve been appreciating my dad’s artistic cleverness more and more. He can build an engine from scratch, used to race and repair motorcycles, makes guitars out of cigar boxes, makes welded metal sculptures.
I’m very femme, so I used to see him revving up race cars and I would assume our interests were worlds apart. Now, I think of all the years I saw him working and creating in his shop, just like I do now, and I realize how similar we are.
in the year 2020, what of your life have you let go.
[MM]. I’ve let go of regret that I haven’t pursued a singular career, regret that I haven’t wanted kids, regret that it’s taken me this long to get here. This year has changed us all, and my heart hurts for those who have lost so much. It puts things into perspective.
I’ve let go of the pressure on myself to be “amazing”. What does it matter? Just try to enjoy it and make the world a better place in whatever little way you can.
Macey Mayfield (she/her) is a jewelry designer living in Vermont. She likes cats, cannabis, cool tones, dive bars, and sourdough baking. Her favorite birds are swans, loons, and hermit thrushes. She dislikes cilantro, excessive CGI, and sunburns.
@loneru.jewels
loneru.com
Clara Diesen
“I try not to compete. I think this system drives us all crazy and we have to protect ourselves. I experiment with different discourses. Like we have to resist, but what does the dramaturgy of resistance really look like? We can’t wear ourselves out. We have to be allies. We have to hold space. We have to protect one another.”
what’s your craft / what’s your art
[CD]. I am a poet. I also worked with theatre as a director and playwright, and that evolved to performance art, and then visual arts in the forms of drawings, and installations with readymades. I think everything I do is basically poetry. Or the poetry is poetry, is text, and the other disciplines are a way of researching the themes I keep coming back to, further – multi-dimensionally. I think I am just restless and curious. I never stop at anything.
how many hours in a day do you make / how many hours in a day do you think about making
[CD]. I work with other things than my making art, to support myself and my family – but I think about it all the time.
where are you right now
[CD]. I am at home in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, where I was born and where I live.
in the year 2020, what of your life have you let go
[CD]. I had to let go of my good feeling of having reached solid ground, more or less – and it is with sadness and anxiety actually because I lost a lot of work opportunities due to the pandemic. I have to start all over in accepting the unknown, the insecurity.
what does being a female or female-identifying artist mean to your work
[CD]. It means a lot. I read a lot about post-modernistic theory when I was in my twenties, a long time ago, and it was the trend within literature, history, and science then. I can relate to the feeling of inherited doubt, in my capacity; I think a lot of women writers (and artists) feel they really have to overcome something that men don’t have to overcome, in order to take up the pen or the brush, to enter the room that for centuries wasn’t accessible for anyone other than white men. It is in the dominant system that suppression is so deep and vast. It sits in many of us. I acknowledge my own privileges as European and white, but as a woman, I do feel the struggle. I believe in intersectional analysis, and that we have to strive for equality. I read about the postmodern language theories when I was younger in reaction to the patriarchy that language is shaped by the dominant forces in a culture. Most of the spoken- and certainly the written- language is male. It is the language of the father, not the mother. Poetry is a way of being free. I heard opinions like it is not real writing but something that typically women do. While men write “real books” like huge novels.
can you describe yourself as an artist in your childhood / at what age did play merge into art
[CD]. When I was I child, I already distinguished art from play, and acknowledged that it had a different outcome, somehow.
At seven years old, I was at a friend’s house in the countryside in Sweden. I was an overly sensitive child, or at least that was the story I learned. In fact, I might just have been sensitive. I often got teased for my shyness. I grew up in the seventies with politically active parents. While many things were great in that era as well as with the way I grew up, it seems like there were many situations where I didn’t feel safe in that environment. It was lively, crowded, loud.
There were so many times I needed to withdraw from a crowd, and this particular time was one of these times which I will remember forever: it was a dinner with a lot of people, at this country house I told you about when I was seven. I decided to slip away, and I did. I walked out of the house. Then out of the garden. Out the forest and meadows – in nature, on my own. I went as far as I dared. I felt a great release. I was exhilarated by solitude. I felt perfectly safe.
I found a patch on the ground with yellow flowers, sat down, and I started to sing spontaneously. It was like the words came to me from outside of me, and not from within me. The words came from the flowers, and the sun, and from the color yellow. All of a sudden I heard laughter behind me, and it was my friend who was spying on me. I broke down right there and then, and I learned so much about the fragility of creation.
I also wrote my very first poem after this experience. It was about yellow – and I was thrilled to see how I managed to get something out of that moment, a life-changing moment in both the good and the painful. I wrote it on my dad’s typewriter. “The sun is yellow,” it is called. I didn’t write for many years after that, I was done. It was too perfect.
in the darkest of times, what material do you reach for
[CD]. I guess I try to write – so my notebook and favourite pen would be my answer – but I kind of got out of the habit. The answer might be that I tend to start a little performance or a tiny artistic research project with fellow artists, just for us. For instance, we’ll do a performance in nature – for nature.
The pandemic has inspired me even more to do that sort of thing. But right now I’m really tired. I might pick things up at walks, like a way of gathering material in the sense that it makes me present in the now. Aware.
what are you afraid of
[CD]. Climate change and its consequences. What it will mean for our children.
do you have artists in your family
[CD]. We have had many creative characters, like my grandfather and his father were inventors – and my sister is a musician. I am not from an artist-family though.
what are you reading right now
[CD]. I tend to read less fiction these days but a lot of zen Buddhist literature. That has been a fact for a few years actually. I prefer philosophy, theory, Buddhism, over novels. It is like I don’t have time for fiction somehow, but instead, I want to learn, to get inspired, and be awake. I have no patience.
what are you listening to right now
[CD]. A lot, I listen a lot to music. It’s my food. Here’s a playlist I made for you.
did you study art / describe a moment of a class, in academia or alternative learning, that shifted your perspective
[CD]. I went to a very high-profiled school in creative writing here in Sweden, called Biskops Arnö Författarskola. It was mindblowing to have so much time to work with whatever project in writing you chose to, as you have that possibility only in art schools. I loved that we had to take so much responsibility ourselves in that kind of setting. I also got a lot by being taken seriously, by teachers and fellow students; such respect for the craft, for the work we all put into our craft, and the attention that was pouring into each others’ writing, dreams, and striving. It was a beautiful… time of my life.
how do you allow for your values as an artist to heal within the competitive realm of capitalism
[CD]. I try not to compete. I think this system drives us all crazy and we have to protect ourselves. I experiment with different discourses. Like we have to resist, but what does the dramaturgy of resistance really look like? We can’t wear ourselves out. We have to be allies. We have to hold space. We have to protect one another.
Photo Credit: Patrik Qvist
Clara Diesen is a poet, artist, creative director who lives in Stockholm. Poetry, performance, objects, texts, drawings.
Jamie Swick
"Usually I am looking for water, unobstructed wild looking places akin to that childhood. Water bellies all, is us, makes us possible. And I am always looking for light. Seeking it. Doing light research. Waiting for it or the lack thereof."
what’s your craft / what’s your art
[JS]. I’m a film photographer. My work is predominantly made using expired and new era Polaroid stock, or 35mm. And I’m a writer, which is sort of a secret, for now. My cameras have been with me my whole life but in all the years after art school I’ve worn the hat of illustrator, printmaker, reluctant seamstress, and shipwright (even more reluctantly). In most recent years, poet, and miniature landscape and set artist at Laika animation studio. In my maternal family are these phenomenally talented people – sculptors, painters, textile artists – and by proxy I learned from them to embrace multiplicity. Even though so many things I am working on take ages to finish, I get restless without lots of hands in lots of pots. Speaking of, one day I hope to fulfill my daydreams of becoming a potter and thus buying luxurious hand cream.
how does nature speak to you
[JS]. Nature informs almost everything that I do; how I feel, the joy I know, what I am motivated by, where to be, why I make. It may just be what I think about most. I grew up on a quiet lake in the woods watching fox and deer and beaver, an occasional otter and the never ending autumn geese. Back then there weren’t any people around; it was all trees and wildness with our little house on the edge. Thanks to that, it bore the most sincere and longest communion I have ever known. Nature feels like my safest and most ardent companion, which is obvious and abundant throughout my work. Usually I am looking for water, unobstructed wild looking places akin to that childhood. Water bellies all, is us, makes us possible. And I am always looking for light. Seeking it. Doing light research. Waiting for it or the lack thereof.
how do you use your art to speak
[JS]. In so many ways the art I make is a direct representation of my deepest desires for quietude, for calm, for a lack of glossy modernism. I like exploring isolation and self-sufficiency. There is a vacancy or stillness I hope to discover when photographing, something of a memory. It aligns with many personal experiences. People often comment that there are almost never people in the images I make, as if images of bodies are the only way for a place to have value or hold interest. It’s deliberate, not to mention an intentional self portrait. The natural world does not need us, but we need it. Now that we live in this vapid constant state of expectancy – social media creating a 24 hour demand for instant gratification - a crowding has infiltrated everything across the American landscape. That doesn’t sit well with me; it’s unsustainable and pedestrian, and worst of all it has diluted what it is to be human, to have come from earth and remain part of it.
I like making people see what many perceive as a lack, especially in my use of dilapidated structures or the gloomy looking northwestern skies, something uncomfortable or solemn yet equally pretty that doesn’t just spell it all out. It’s important to show people how the world without us holds this potent glory and unavoidable change that is being missed in favor of… what, narcissism?
I want people to pump the brakes when they see what I do and to be totally honest, I want people to shut up when they’re outside because to stand in what looks like nothing would show them the abundance of life around them, humming underneath and above with immense interconnectedness. My hope is that giving one person pause, to think with more reverence about their surroundings and our planet at large, could have a domino effect, could inspire change, could be a tool to fight for the fragility of our home as this climate crisis makes haste on us.
what’s something that doesn’t appear in your bio, and why
[JS]. When I was a child I was suddenly and mysteriously crippled and nearly died. It was 23 years ago when a surgeon saved my life but it has been with me every day since as a voice of reason. Getting a second chance to live and walk has unsurprisingly profound psychological influence. The isolation of that time is processed to this day through literally everything I make, regardless of medium. The observant and deliberate approach I try to live with and make art from is directly because of that trauma knowledge, because I have known too well how swiftly we can be toppled.
All my life’s movement (which at times has created immense uncertainty) is in pursuit of fulfilling methods that may reclaim years of joy I lost in my childhood and as a therapy to my post-traumatic stress disorder. The knowledge can be a double-edged sword and I would never wish the excruciation I went through on anyone, but the clarity I move with because of living through that is something I wouldn’t change for anything.
““Usually I am looking for water, unobstructed wild looking places akin to that childhood. Water bellies all, is us, makes us possible. And I am always looking for light. Seeking it. Doing light research. Waiting for it or the lack thereof.””
what are you afraid of
[JS]. Capitalism ruining the chances of “getting ahead” and thus never getting to try certain things on that I have long dreamed of. Climate change. Americans. Becoming old without children (I’ve never wanted any). Being back in a wheelchair. This colony of enormous spiders who have decided to join forces in an army above my back door. I’m certain they’re plotting something.
what is your current obsession
[JS]. Paying attention to morning. Watching the stellar jays strategically obliterate the birdfeeders I fill out back. Lying outside with the long shadows to watch the bugs and clouds. Walking hills in town under fog. Nitpicking the book I am working on. The way Cormac McCarthy wrote All the Pretty Horses. Vintage paintings of portraits left unfinished. The way the air smells right now, telling and anticipating. Becoming friends with a crow. Finding someone to make a daily photo project with. Light. Always light.
in the year 2020, what of your life have you let go
[JS]. Oh boy, so much. I’ve been unemployed this entire year which has allowed me to strip most conditions of identity under capitalism away. It has been a lesson in self worth, confidence, fear, and questioning as much as it has been a gift because I’ve never felt more confident or content in my being, all while living on and with very, very little. We are not made up of job titles. Any ideas I had about the future are gone, projects had to be released from my grasp, daydreams that would be possible dissolved in most cases. I’ve let go of people, of places. Those were the best to rid the weight of. Most of all though, adios to self-scrutiny; I am doing my best.
