Lisa Bergh, Artist (Repost)

Hello! In honor of Topography, Lisa Berghs's awesome new exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, I am reposting my 2019 interview with Lisa with some updated photos. (Artist photo courtesy of the artist / Instagram: @lisambergh / Website: www.lisabergh.com)

Jackson: How do you get your ideas? Your art is different from anything else I have seen.

Lisa: I am always looking at and thinking visually about the world around me, the mundane visual poetics of the day to day are often a formal source for my creative output, but rarely the direct content. For example, the installation you enjoyed titled "Unfurled" was cued visually by watching my young daughter flying a kite, but the piece has nothing to do with that experience, me, or my daughter. The piece is ultimately about moving through landscape, engaging the architecture of the specific gallery it was created for, the language of painting and sculpture, visual gestures, beauty, movement, engaging the audience in a way that questions who the real actor is - is it the sculpture that is walked in and around, or, is it the viewer moving around the work? I also allow the objects and ideas I am experimenting with in my studio to organically inform and lead me to the next project or point of inquiry. There is a list of ideas/concerns/goals I am continually working to dissect/contemplate/achieve in my studio practice:

objects which are simultaneously presented as drawings/paintings/and sculptures 

abstraction and conceptualism with figuration and narrative 

tension and gesture - formal, intellectual, and emotional 

beautiful and thoughtful moments and casual and residual artifacts 

specific and vague experiences intimacy and aloofness 

I am trying to connect all these dots in the most visually direct way I can.

Jackson: How old were you when you first became interested in art? Did something happen that made you think wow?

Lisa: I was not a child who plugged into the arts beyond the basic art classes in school. I drew and wrote stories, but I did not have a kind of overt affinity for picture making that when children showcase it, adults immediately nurture it, until it becomes natural for a child. Instead I was given real access to the arts in college when I was working towards a degree in Cultural Anthropology and was required to take a Basic Design Course. I loved the process of making and thinking about ways to articulate the principles of design for the class assignments - learning a new language. After that first class I signed up for a photography course. The next thing you know I had a BFA in printmaking and photography, and soon after, an MFA in spatial arts. My visual language was developed and nurtured through the practice of photography and I still feel a strong aesthetic alignment to the works of Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, and Edward Weston - photographers I deeply admired as a beginning art student. My work may seem different than theirs, but the foundation of my art ABC's was constructed by studying these artists.

Jackson: If you could meet any artist living or dead, who would it be and why?

Lisa: I would relish a conversation about art, aesthetic experiences, materiality, New York City, politics, and the 80s with Felix Gonzalez-Torres. I have long admired his work. While I am not driven to create art rooted in political activism, I am deeply drawn to his aesthetic, his ability to change mundane materials with intense poetry and intimacy, and of course, the theatrical nature of his work. While has long ago ago passed away, when I have the opportunity to experience his objects in a museum space they feel incredibly alive and present. It is always exciting for me to stand in front of his artwork. I marvel how he masterfully achieved many of the objectives I strive to achieve in my studio practice. His works are tools for experience and contemplation; curious and mysterious while being incredibly direct and intimate. I can't think of an art work by Felix that is not a slam dunk. He died so young...I wonder what he would be interested in making/expressing if he were still here. Oh and I would love to time travel to 1927 to spend a long weekend in New York City with Dorothy Parker - that would be a real education.

Deb Grossfield, Artist

 

Hello and welcome to the 60th 3 Art Questions With Jackson interview! This time I interviewed Deb Grossfield who I both recently discovered and recently met. She's great! The thing I really enjoy about Deb's art is that it is unlike anything I have seen before. I really enjoyed her answers and I think you will too. Thank you for reading! (All images courtesy of the artist. Instagram: @debgrossfield / Website: debgrossfield.com)

Jackson: When did you first become interested in visual art? Did you have a specific experience?

Deb: I've a strong memory from when I was about six. I was playing with watercolors when I was introduced to my aunt who was visiting from out of town. She asked to use my brush and drew a portrait of me with the paints. It was a huge moment for me. It was like an immense door opening to a new world. It was a moment when art materials were no longer toys to me but instead became tools. 

Jackson: When I met you recently you said you had stopped making art for awhile. What led to you beginning again? Has your process changed?

Deb: I never stopped making art, but I did stop engaging the art world. I don't know any artists who really enjoy the business side of being an artist and for me, it requires a draining amount of energy. I am not a natural self-promoter. I had to steel my nerves and work up the gumption to approach curators and gallerists.

Then about 20 years ago, my family obligations increased quite a bit and I was working full time as a controller/bookkeeper for several small businesses. Something had to give and that was the work involved in finding galleries, maintaining my website, and entering juried shows. Over the last year, I've been able to shift my time away from accounting to focus on the art world. 

My process has not changed much over the years but my artwork is always evolving. The biggest difference now is being able to follow my ideas through without interruption and I have more time to experiment.

Jackson: If you could meet any artist living or dead, who would it be and why?

Deb: Sometimes you can love a person's work and find out that they are a terrible person. Sadly, the work you loved is tainted and you can't ever see it the same way again. That is a risk. 

I'm from Minneapolis and I started going to MIA sometime during grade school. I'd make regular visits and sit in front of my favorite paintings as if they were friends. While I didn't speak out loud to them, these encounters were important to my development as an artist. 

There are several pieces in the MIA collection that I admire, but my first real love was Vincent Van Gogh's "The Olive Tree." I collected postcards and books of his work. A lot is known about Vincent Van Gogh and my understanding is that he was a very gentle person who had bouts of self-destructive mental illness. I finally had the opportunity to visit the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam a few years ago. This may sound silly, but my eyes welled up with tears as I walked from one drawing or painting to another. If I could, I'd hang out with Van Gogh for a while and watch him work. I'd give him a big hug and thank him for making such beautiful paintings. 

Priscilla Briggs, Artist

 

Hello and welcome to the 59th 3 Art Questions With Jackson interview! This time I interviewed super skilled artist Priscilla Briggs who is currently doing an arts residency in Italy. Her art has always been very impressive to me and I first saw it when I was 11 years old at Rosalux Gallery -  a picture of an ad for luxury homes in a not very luxury setting always stuck with me. I'm so glad Priscilla agreed to be interviewed and I think you will enjoy her answers as much as I did. Thank you for reading! (All images courtesy of the artist / Instagram: @priscilla_briggs_ / Website: priscillabriggs.com)

Jackson: What inspired you to become an artist as a way of life? How old were you? 

Priscilla: My grandmother was a painter and had a studio in her house. My siblings and I all inherited a creative gene that was fostered while we were growing up, but my understanding of "Art" was mostly painting and sculpture and it wasn't something I ever saw myself doing as a career.

My mother gave me my first camera as a birthday present when I was in high school. I experimented with it in art class and then took a class in college as part of a graphic design program, but the school only offered that one class. I was smitten with photography, mostly for portraiture, and used the darkroom as much as I could until the professor told me I wasn't allowed to use it anymore. I still wasn't thinking of art or photography as a career. 

After college I moved to Tokyo to work for an English communications company. I edited scientific papers and taught English for a year, and then spent a year backpacking around Southeast Asia. When I returned to the U.S. I didn't really have a plan. I tried to get work as a writer, but there was a recession going on and every job I applied for was given to someone much older than me with a lot more experience. I did temp work, and, in my free time, took another class in color photography at The Pittsburgh Filmmakers. After a year or so, I got a job managing a small photo gallery. I was poor, but spent every spare cent I had on photo materials. Then a friend told me about a photo teaching position at the Manchester Craftsman's Guild, a community art center for youth. I thought it was a long shot because I didn't have a degree in photography, but I applied with the portfolio I had developed and got the job! It changed my life! 

I worked there for four years teaching photography to teenagers, but I also was able to use the facilities and unlimited materials to make my own work. I experimented with every process I could and learned how to mat and frame work for exhibitions. It was an education for me. Just as important, all my colleagues were artists! Those of us who didn't already have an MFA eventually left and went on to graduate school. By the time I started graduate school I was 30 years old. Prior to my job at the Manchester Craftsman's Guild, it had never occurred to me that I could make a living as an artist.

Jackson: Where do you get the ideas for your work? Do you intend the photos to be social commentary or is that secondary?

Priscilla: Generally, my methodology is to identify as subject that interests me, and then to explore it photographically. I never know what I'm going to come up with ahead of time - it is an investigative process. I suppose the social commentary is inherent in that process and the final editing, but I try to leave the photographs as open as possible. 

My collage work in the exhibition Reading Between the Lines was definitely a social critique. It was also somewhat depressing. From that point, I made a choice to work on a subject that is both close to my heart and more positive. I am currently investigating different models of sustainable farming. The project was instigated by an artist zine I made about my dad's organic farm. My goal is to put together a series of zines that represent case studies in models of sustainable farming that offer alternatives to industrial farming. I'm thinking of sustainability holistically in terms of environment, economics, and community.

Jackson: If you could meet any artist living or dead, who would it be and why? 

Priscilla: A living artist I greatly admire is Hito Stereyl. She is a brilliant thinker and interdisciplinary artist/writer who addresses the issues of our time (media, technology, surveillance, image distribution) in a wholly original way.

A historic artist I admire is Artemisia Gentileschi. I recently had the opportunity to see her paintings in Florence. Specifically, the painting Giuditta che decapita Oloferne (Judith beheading Holofernes) reflect her rage toward the male painter who raped her. She made the painting shortly after she won a court case against him. I imagine she was a courageous, independent woman working as an artist at a time when women artists were rarely acknowledged.

Rajine the Queen, Artist

Hello and welcome to the 58th 3 Art Questions With Jackson interview! This time I interviewed super talented visual multimedia artist and teaching artist Rajine the Queen. I discovered her art at Rosalux Gallery and then went and looked at her Instagram and website. So cool, so much unique art to see. I enjoyed what she had to say about her relationship to art and I think you will too. Thank you for reading! (Instagram: @whataweirdkidcreates / Website: www.rajinethequeen.com/ Images 1, 2, 4 and 5 courtesy of the artist) 

Jackson: How did you first become interested in art? How old were you when you knew you wanted to be an artist?

Rajine: I've always been inclined towards creativity. My first memory of doing something "artistic" was when I was 7 or 8 years old. I was at an after school program called Rainbow Kids Club. I was transfer tracing a Betty Spaghetti character (2000's throwback toy, IYKYK). I remember the older kids and the teachers being amazed at how good it was. I was like, "What's the big deal? I'm just copying it." But the level of dexterity I was exhibiting at such a young age and not even being taught beforehand I would say looking back is impressive. I guess being encouraged by peers and adults swayed me towards art.

I went through adolescence drawing, (mainly during classes I should have been paying attention to) taking every opportunity to explore any other creative outlets like pottery (in middle school), and drawing in high school (I failed btw). I didn't see myself as an "artist" or a creative. 

I didn't claim myself as an artist until I was at a crossroads in my first semester at the U of M Twin Cities. I transferred from Inver Hills Community College on a pathway program track for communications. The semester was rough, I had no interest in my classes, oddly enough my family was trying to persuade me to study art. I finally decided to pursue an education in art. Even then I didn't consider myself an "artist" when I was an art major in college. Yes I was studying art, yes I was making art, but I never claimed to be an "artist". It wasn't until 2019, my last semester of school, that I claimed to be an artist, since then my practice has evolved into what it is now. I'm a visual multimedia artist and teaching artist.  My artwork centers around Black femininity, Identity, and body. My aesthetic is Afrocentric eclectic, I explore with different elements and mediums what Black women do with their hair.  

Jackson: I've noticed that you make many different kinds of art. What is your process? What does art mean to you personally?

Rajine: I like to showcase through my art what it means to be a proud Black woman, especially in America. I like my artwork to tell a story (all art tells stories) that looks fun but has many different meanings to them. I don't want to be the "Black" artist that has to be hyper political, I not very much into politics but my work tends to always tie back to commentary of my Black experience. 

I like using found recycled materials in my artwork. My first piece I made that I exhibited in undergrad was recycled Coke products. I still have the piece to this day. It's sentimental to me and surprisingly is holding up. I have an inception of the piece that I want to make. I don't sketch it or really plan it out. I just do it, putting it together piece by piece like a puzzle.   

Jackson: If you could meet any artist living or dead, who would it be and why?

Rajine: I would want to meet Bisa Butler. I'm not very well versed on all the famous artists, styles, and techniques (people get art history confused with art, a lot of people are shocked that I don't know every artist and art style to exist!). 

Bisa Butler is a textile artist famous for her quilts that she makes. Her quilts feature famous African (American) iconography. As soon as I saw them I was enthralled by her work. She is a huge inspiration to me as she started out similar to me. She was a high school art teacher way back when and her work exhibits across the world. One of her pieces was valued at $37,000! I would want to meet her. 

Tim Tozer, Artist

Hello and welcome to the 57th 3 Art Questions With Jackson interview! This time I interviewed the talented painter Tim Tozer. I met him years ago at Rosalux Gallery and I liked him and his paintings. His paintings are amazing! I have wanted to interview Tim for a long time and I am glad that it has happened now. I enjoyed what he had to say and I think that you will too! Thank you for reading! (Instagram: @tim.tozer / All images courtesy of the artist)

Jackson: How did you become an artist? Were you around art or did you have a specific experience? 

Tim: I was lucky to grow up in a household where art in most forms was always present - music, literature, painting, etc. My dad was an architect and my mum was an art teacher; I think I draw more like my dad, but my mum took me to London to see the exhibitions that would inspire me to become a painter. There was a Lucian Freud retrospective in 1984 that was particularly important to me; I remember looking at a painted knee and thinking that yes, this was what I wanted to do!

Jackson: Do you think being from England has informed your paintings? Do you ever feel nostalgic?

Tim: I've been in the US for over half my life now, but I still think of myself as a British painter. I'm skeptical of that kind of sentimentality, but yes, I think a lot of my figurative work has been a way to relive a sort of unfixed version of my past. My more overtly abstract work has been my attempt to strip away the nostalgia and exist in the present, although of course everything shares the same formal DNA. I do miss England all the time, however, and I can't separate that from what I do.

Jackson: If you could meet any artist living or dead, who would it be and why?

Tim: This is a really difficult question! I'm afraid that if I met an artist I admire, something in their personality might taint the work for me forever - not necessarily in a negative way, just in a way that limits it. However, it would be fun to sit in a corner and watch Vermeer paint; I wouldn't want to chat (I don't speak Dutch anyway), just to see how a human made those paintings. I'd like to shake Julie Mehretu's hand to salute their epic accomplishment; that retrospective at the Walker was one for the ages. And having a drink with Francis Bacon would've been something to brag about, even if you couldn't remember much of it afterwards. 

Mckenzie Cassidy, Author

 

Hello and welcome to the 56th 3 Art Questions With Jackson interview! I am very excited to be interviewing author Mckenzie Cassidy. I read his debut novel Here Lies A Father with my Dad and I really loved it, parts of the book really stuck with me and I get into that in the interview. I think that you would love the novel and I believe you will enjoy his answers as much as I did. Thank you for reading! (Website: https://www.mckenziecassidy.com / Author photo courtesy of the author)

Jackson: How did you become an author? Were you a book lover when you were young? Did you feel like you had stories to tell?

Mckenzie: Growing up I never thought of myself as a writer and I wasn't interested in the act of writing. In school I was an average student (mostly Bs) who did enough to get my credit and move on to the next grade. One thing I did love was watching movies. I grew up in a small town in upstate New York in the 90s and in my free time I rode my bike to the video store. Back then it was all VHS tapes, 49 cents for old movies and 99 cents for new releases. I would end up riding home home with a plastic bag full of VHS tapes. I did some reading as a kid but not as much as you would expect. Most of my extensive reading started in my 20s. The truth was I considered myself a storyteller rather than a writer. It wasn't until I went to college to study Political Science, which probably should have been English or Literature, that I started writing a ton and getting positive feedback from my instructors. After that I slid into journalism where I wrote news and features for years, and finally started writing fiction. In my 20s I worked at a newspaper in southwest Florida and started reading memoirs (some of my favorites being This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff, Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt and The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls). These books inspired me and that's when I realized I may have my own interesting life story to tell.   

Jackson: The good wolf/bad wolf story from Here Lies A Father really stayed with me and I have repeated it to many people. Does it have personal meaning for you? Is that how it ended up in the book?

Mckenzie: I also love this story. Originally, it was a Cherokee legend demonstrating how no person is all good or all bad. I can't remember where I first heard it but it resonated with me in the context of addiction. We all have internal conflicts, urges that are both good and evil, but unlike wild animals we have the choice on whether to act on those thoughts or feelings. Mental disease makes it difficult for some people to make the right choice and substance abuse is like pouring gasoline on a burning fire. When I used this legend in Here Lies A Father, it was during a scene where the main character Ian was speaking with his mentor, a small-town boxing coach named Bud. It would actually be the last time Ian saw him. He talked about how for decades men had shown up to the gym trying to get control over their own demons. They spent too much time feeding the bad wolf and as a result their lives were a mess. I wanted Ian to have an epiphany about the importance of feeding his good wolf with healthy activities like exercising, education, reading, or the arts. This would be the opposite of what Ian's father Thomas had done for most of his life. For the child of an alcoholic or addict, that meant not following the same path by drinking or using highly addictive substances. I also think it's important we all stop seeing each other in such black and white terms. As a society, we're starting to lose the ability to see shades of gray. I'm not sure if it's our education system, television, or social media, but we tear each other apart and forget that each of us is flawed. We all have the good and bad wolf, everything about life is so nuanced.     

Jackson: If you could meet any author living or dead, who would it be and why?

Mckenzie: This may sound like a cliche, but Ernest Hemingway. When I was at Wilkes University working towards my MFA in Creative Writing I remember writing a short piece of fiction about having lunch with Hemingway. For one, I adore his writing style and enjoy most of his books. If I am ever in a writing funk and need some inspiration, I simply read some Hemingway to get the creative juices flowing. Even though I'm a fan of his writing and the legends around his life as "Papa" Hemingway, I also know he was an alcoholic, a womanizer, a bully, and an all around asshole (this could fit into a different conversation about whether we should separate the art from the artist). The most interesting part about meeting Hemingway would be separating the man from the myth. He was brilliant at branding himself in a certain way but who knows if that was really the man behind it all? Over the years, I've read various theories about his childhood, sexuality, and his real war experiences. Hell, his first novel is about a character who is both physically and emotionally impotent! He wouldn't be an easy person to understand or accept. To be honest, I'd probably end up hating his guts but at least I would've showed up. I also think Hemingway is another perfect example of feeding the good wolf and bad wolf.

  

 

Daniel Buettner, Artist and Musician

 

Hello and welcome to the 55th 3 Art Questions With Jackson interview! This time I interviewed the very talented painter and musician Daniel Buettner. I particularly liked his 2019 show at Rosalux Gallery and I have listened to his bands (Broken Hearts Are Blue and Skulpture) with my dad on Bandcamp. Really cool! Check them out! I really enjoyed his answers and I think you will too. Thank you for reading! (Instagram: @danbue / All images courtesy of the artist) 

Jackson: What cause your interest in both art and music? Do you feel art and music are connected for you?

Daniel: Growing up, there were a few artists in my family and in the neighborhood I lived in, in Upstate New York. To be an artist was never a crazy idea to me. It was something I saw other people doing, and even though it wasn't something that was necessarily nurtured in my immediate family, my parents recognized it was something I drifted in and out throughout my childhood. It wasn't until high school that I started taking it seriously, which is when I think my parents started to encourage me to turn it into a career. High school is also when I started playing music. I hadn't given playing an instrument much thought before then, but somewhere around 16 or 17 years old I noticed many of my friends were taking music lessons and/or starting punk bands. I was heavily involved in skateboard culture, and the two seemed to go hand in hand. I wanted to be part of that. I don't know when the DIY ethic became mainstream, but it was very ingrained in everything we did. We built our own ramps, printed our own photographs, started our own zines, and made our own t-shirts for our skate team. When it came to playing music, it was the same - you bought an instrument and started a band. There was no concern with learning how to play first. For me, visual art and music are not connected at all. Painting has always represented pure individual expression to me. It's you vs yourself. You celebrate your wins and learn from your loses privately. Being in bands and writing music with people brings collaboration to my life. The value is in creating a piece of art with others, whose contribution you can't control. It's a much different experience.

Jackson: What inspires your ideas for painting and playing music? Do ideas just come to you or do you have to work at coming up with things?

Daniel: With painting, I have to work at getting my ideas. My art has always been about finding humor in the small moments in life, and those are not always easy to find. I get inspired by looking at photographs. People, animals, objects - all things. I sift through photographs in magazines and online constantly, looking for something to jump out at me that would make a good beginning concept for a painting. I use a lot of other people's work in my own; mostly their photographs, but sometimes even artworks other people make appear in my paintings. When I do that, I always reference the original artist in the title. I'm inspired by interesting poses, expressions, patterns, and of course shiny things. Songwriting is much more organic. Though I do write independently for a long-distance band I'm in, I prefer to write in real-time with other people, which is why I also play with some local musicians. Our songs usually start out with everyone just kind of making sounds and looking for interesting patterns in what we are doing. Either something will come together and be the beginning of a song, or it won't and we will move on. I think to make interesting music you have to subscribe to the philosophy that there will never be any shortage of creative material, and therefore no need to force yourself to fall in love with something that is "good enough". It's always obvious when one member of a band wrote a song and forced it on everyone else, if for no other reason than they spent time writing it. I don't slave over songs. If it doesn't come easy, it doesn't stay long. In order to write this way you have to be playing with the right people. Bandmates are like spouses; the best ones have opposite interests but similar goals.

Jackson: If you could meet and artist living or dead, who would it be and why?

Daniel: This is a tough one! There are so many artists I'd like to meet. Julie Mehretu would definitely be in my top five. Kehinde Wiley for sure, Duchamp, Rauschenberg...but I'm going with Ben Shahn. I absolutely love his work and have tried any times to pair colors like he does, and I feel like I fail every time. I want to know how he chose his palate and his process for layering paint. He used Tempera, which I also find fascinating. I think I would learn a lot from a conversation with Ben Shahn.