What drew you to submit your work to RED SKIES?
RED SKIES is a great title. I am not sure what it means for Splintered Disorder Press but for me it refers to the urgency of our historical moment. Interestingly, it refers also to the cold war era and McCarthy's Red Scare. The title resonates with concerns I have expressed in my art practice for over a decade. These concerns are being developed in my current studio projects.
What writers or artists have inspired you?
Artists who inspire me are those who take creative risks. I am particularly attracted to the discipline of drawing: Eva Hesse and Canadian Betty Goodwin.
I am inspired by John le Carré who died on December 12, 2020. Last winter I read all his novels. I admire how he was a commentator of his era when writing about the horrors of the cold war period. He was an anti-war activist speaking out against the inequities of corporate globalization.
Anna Tsing's The Mushroom at the End of the World combines many of my current preoccupations.
Sometimes, I just pick up my collected Emily Dickinson.
What projects are you currently engaged with?
I am currently working on several studio projects. One is a gallery exhibition looking at mid-century designs of atomic living through contemporary design colours and patterns. The protective role to humans of buildings, houses and shelters mirror the body’s primary role of creating a distance between itself and the dangers and conflicts of the world outside itself.
I am working on a web-based recounting of the first year of COVID-19. This online exhibition is driven by living with the impact of physical distancing. Through image and text, I hope to convey the experiential quality of physical isolation and temporal dislocation under the restrictive conditions compelled by COVID-19. With the onset of the global pandemic my investigation into cold war rhetoric has taken on new meaning.
As a visual artist with a research-based drawing practice, I make work for gallery exhibitions where I combine my drawings with objects, both found and made: Accommodating the details and Stories Nearby. In these works I want to offer a space for reflection and another look at what is familiar.
How have you spent the year 2020?
Researching, drawing and walking or hiking most days in nature's bio diversity. The more-than-human-world refreshes my mind and body.
Pervasive closures at the onset of the pandemic forced me to make sense of the overwhelming circumstances seemingly out of anyone’s control. I began thinking about how to visualize my personal response and to make connections with my own creative work. Before the pandemic I had been similarly questioning the appearance of things and disrupting dominant narratives through strategies of framing, visual dissonance and repetition. These strategies inform most of what I do from studio work to watching a film. I am driven to know what is under the surface. I am always asking why things appear as they do.
When you create visual essays, how do you begin? What inspired you originally in this craft?
New works begin from something I need to say. An emotional interpretation of events in the world guides a slow process where emotions grow into an idea that gets formulated through a concept. After the idea, the process becomes more open and leans into formal ways of working that I have developed over the years. Preserving and interpreting information from a personal point of view allows me to explore and situate my local story and personal experience in the context of world events.
My studio practice considers systems of control in their real and psychological presence. These are shadows. Working with cold war imagery focuses my concern with the larger consequences of human violence.
If you had to pick exactly one museum to visit, which one would it be?
That's easy, the Ottawa Art Gallery. It is a friendly local gathering place and the new building recalls world class museums.
Are there any magazines or small presses that you feel particularly fond of?
My respect for artist-driven initiatives is deep. I learned my craft from being part of the artist-run-center network in Canada. Learning comes out of doing and it takes great courage because it is all about risk.
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