Interview with Kathryn Clark

Before becoming a full-time artist in 2005, Kathryn Clark worked as an architectural and urban designer for many years. So it’s not surprising that she held on to her urban planning roots when she transitioned to the art world. Today her art focuses on global land use issues such as the US housing crisis and industrial agriculture, using utilitarian objects such as dishes and quilts to construct her message.

Kathryn’s “Foreclosure Quilts” are simply brilliant. When the housing bubble burst, she was alarmed by the overwhelming number of foreclosures and began to research hard data on the subject. She made the decision to express her findings through—ironically enough—a series of handmade quilts. “It was important to me to present the whole story in a way that would captivate people’s attention and make a memorable statement,” Kathryn says.

In their most basic sense, quilts help generate warmth on a cold winter’s night. Quilts also tell stories reflecting the lives of the people who create them. These eclectic objects use color, texture, and pattern to express political views, remember loved ones, and celebrate life’s milestones. Throughout history, quilters (a majority of them woman) have used familiar materials such as scraps of clothing to record the cultural history of a particular place and time. Kathryn poetically leverages this quilting heritage in “Foreclosure Quilts.”

The patterns are based on RealtyTrac neighborhood maps Kathryn used during her research. The lot locations are completely random, providing an improvisational quality to the overall design. Foreclosed lots are shown as holes in the quilts. These holes question the protective nature of the quilt —in fact, there are so many foreclosures that the top layers are quite literally dwindling away. Kathyrn states on her site: “The situation is so dire that even a quilt can’t provide the security one needs. The neighborhoods shown are not an anomaly; they are a recurring pattern seen from coast to coast, urban to suburban neighborhoods across the US. The problem has not been solved, it is still occurring, just changing shape, affecting more of us.”

Without further ado, here’s my interview with the imaginative and perceptive Kathyrn Clark.

Job description: A fine artist who uses craft in her work. I coined the term ‘articraft’ to describe people who do similar work.

Why do you do what you do? Both of my parents were artists as well as one of my grandparents. I was surrounded by it so it was a natural choice. Standing in my aunt’s art gallery in Atlanta when I was thirteen was when it clicked for me though. I’m generally a very quiet person but I can be very passionate about certain subjects and making art allows me to express it. My current and future series revolves around themes of crisis. I want to tell as many people as I can about some serious issues that I feel are being overlooked in the media.

How do you break through a creative block? Several different ways. I like to visit SFMOMA for inspiration. And sometimes just puttering around in the studio cleaning works. I can see my work more objectively then for some reason.

Education: My parents were both artists (my dad is also an architect) so I grew up having conversations with them about art and architecture. Going to college never really came up in conversations at home. It was only after I met my husband that he stressed the importance of it (we were very young!). At that point I couldn’t decide between art and architecture. I ended up studying painting and drawing at the University of Alabama before switching to Interior Architecture at San Jose State in California. But I always felt that college didn’t push the students enough. I often gave myself extra challenges in school which I think drove the other students crazy. So in some ways I’m largely self-educated. I believe you can learn anything with dedicated study and practice.

Mentors: I’ve learned so many different things from so many people. My bosses in architecture and urban planning, Steve MacCracken and Peter Calthorpe were enormously influential. My friend Neile Royston, a RISD grad, is the one who introduced me to fiber. After featuring Myrna Tater on my blog last year, we’ve become a great support for each other. She reminds me to loosen up and push the envelope with my work. And don’t get me started about the online art community! It has been a wonderful way to meet other artists. We mentor each other constantly.

World-saving mission: That’s a heady question! I wish there was a way I could remind people to be more honest and respectful of each other and our world. There’s so much nastiness in politics and around us every day. No one wants to be held accountable or admit to making mistakes. It’s really frustrating!

Office chair: I own a lot of chairs! Right now, I’m using a knock-off Aeron task chair on wheels that is always trying to roll away from my desk since my floor is sloped.

Office Soundtrack: iTunes podcasts, NPR, jazz from the bebop period and classical.

Most useful tool: There are so many I can’t live without but my sewing needle probably wins.

Favorite space: My vegetable garden in Sonoma.

Favorite design object: A Dyson vacuum cleaner. My work generates a lot of fiber dust so it’s made a huge difference in the air quality in my studio.

Guilty Pleasure: Design magazines and Kinokuniya Japanese bookstore. Kinokuniya has the complete line of Jeu de Paume design books. I have a complete weakness for those.

Underrated: Libraries. I’m fortunate to live two blocks from a small branch of the San Francisco library. I can request almost any book I want, download audiobooks, flip through their magazines and get a great idea of what other people are reading.

Overrated: Mass production. I’m so fed up with the rapid decline of quality made goods. It annoys me that the majority of the population doesn’t seem to have a problem with it.

What did you learn the hard way? How to focus my time in the studio. This is probably the hardest lesson to learn as an artist and it’s a constant challenge. The studio can be very isolating and there are so many distractions in today’s world thanks to technology. Banning the computer in my studio helped a lot as well as recognizing my work rhythms. I’m most productive in the morning. As soon as I drop my daughter off at school, I head straight for the studio.

Has your work ever got you into trouble? Ha! Great question! Surprisingly, not yet!

If you could cross over into other profession… what would you do? I would become a gardener or a geologist.

Dream project: To create a large installation of one of my series, either the foreclosure quilts or a new series I’m working on around global farming.

Where’s home? San Francisco and Sonoma.

Detroit Foreclosure Quilt

Detroit Foreclosure Quilt Detail

Albuquerque Foreclosure Quilt

Albuquerque Foreclosure Quilt Detail

Cleveland Foreclosure Quilt

Cape Coral Foreclosure Quilt

In addition to her art, Kathyrn maintains a thriving blog showcasing her most recent work as well as featuring other inspiring artists and craftspeople. 

Visit kathrynclark.blogspot.com.

Q&A With Eva Hild

Photograph by Carl Bengtsson

When my eyes glide across Eva Hild’s astonishing ceramic sculptures, I feel a rush akin to being on a roller-coaster. The rise and fall of the paper-thin oversize forms, the swaying undulating waves that appear to be breathing— it’s a truly exhilarating experience. Needless to say, I enjoy the ride.

Hild’s work is hand-built and is made primarily from clay with a minimal color palette. “I try to relate my work to my life,” says the Swedish-born artist. “What is happening and how does it feel? Pressure. Slow. Strain. Ramification. Inside turn outside. As a starting point, I put words onto my feelings, and use the vessel form to translate this into three dimensions. The size of the form relates to my body. The thin walls are pulled and bent in different directions.”

Experience these poetically sinuous pieces yourself at Nancy Margolis Gallery in Manhattan. Here’s my Q&A with the enchanting and talented Eva Hild.

Job description: Shaping my life as a sculptor. Mostly and originally in clay but nowadays in any material that seems to be interesting, appropriate, possible and challenging. I work with the relation between inner and outer worlds, mind and matter, volumes and mass.

Why do you do what you do? I am interested in materials, shapes and the way objects could tell stories about life. I love to work with my hands and body. After a short period as a physiotherapist and ideas about being a physician, I throw myself happily (zestfully, with confidence) into the art-world. Clay was a good starter; non-exclusive and almost infinite possibilities. I tried everything during my first years at the art-university, but as time passed my aim was to really find my own path. I found a track in my inner landscapes, and I still follow.

How do you break through a creative block? My work is very time-consuming and I think I break any block by patience, endurance and hard work. On the other hand, this could also be the block; being stucked in the material, the extended time and the on-going process. I need periods of less dirty hands, and more intellectual work. I need to step back, reflect over and formulate my themes, get impressions from the outer world. My work is a flow, very much connected to my life. I am interested in this slow development. I try to be true and consistent, but also curious and struggle to reach new viewpoints.

Education: University of Design and Crafts in Gothenburg, Sweden. And by learning the hard way: mistakes always take you further...

Mentors: A lot of people in different positions and professions has been important in my artistic life. For example a supportive husband. 

World-saving mission: Try your best (but do not be too harsh on yourself…).

Studio chair: Wood and metal from the 50s, from my grandfathers studio (rural painter).

Studio Soundtrack: P1 (talking, educational radio channel).

Most useful tool: My metal kidney.

Favorite space: Except my studio: In the airy forest, where the trees are high as in a colonnade hall, and the ground is covered with moss.

Favorite design object: 
Citroën 2CV

Guilty Pleasure: 
Picking the best parts of the muesli...

Underrated: 
Good and sustainable choices. Less is more.

Overrated: 
Quick fixes.

What did you learn the hard way? How to transform one of my ceramic pieces into a bigger scale, in stainless steel…

Has your work ever got you into trouble? Things could go wrong (stainless steel sculptures can rust) and I could feel troubled, but most things finally get solved, one way or another. I really appreciate good co-workers and learning things. Experience gives confidence. Working with fragile materials in a 3-dimensional way always contains a risk; how to handle, ship and maintain? And at the same time: that is part of the content, expression and challenge.

If you could cross over into other profession… what would you do? I have already changed direction in my professional life; now I really look forward to explore and broaden the horizons in this area.

Dream project: An architectural big piece, performed in a supersustainable material with a team of professionals. To be able to experience the inner world in an outer world scale...This makes me think of another possible favorite space, where I have not been yet (on my wish-list): Cloud Gate of Anish Kapoor in Chicago Millennium Park.

Where’s home? Where I keep my collection of wool sweaters, rubber boots and parkas…

Protuberance, stoneware, 2011, 90 x 56 x 69 cm

Gotland Art Museum, 2001

Track, stoneware, 2010, 105 x 50 x 40 cm

Extension Loop 1079, stoneware, 2006, 90 x 70 x 65 cm

Expansion (Wall), stoneware, 2008, 135 x 90 x 53 cm

Aluminum Sculpture, aluminum, 2011, 115.1 x  85.1 x  85.1 cm.

Bilateral, Stoneware 2008, 100 x 55 x 55cm.

Prolongation, stoneware, 2009, 85 x 37 x 25 cm

Spine, stoneware, 2008-2009, 105 x 65 x 69 cm

Eva working in her studio in Sweden. 

Photography by Anna Sigge

Link to Eva’s site.

Q&A with Michael Gillette

The beautifully executed artwork of Michael Gillette is, simply put, absorbing. Michael marries drawing and painting skills with an aesthetic underpinned by a love of popular culture, most specifically music. His sly sense of humor and artistic style creates haunting, cerebral work that isn’t easy to categorize. Never one to follow conventional paths, he was kicked out of art school in England for refusing to see the difference between graphics and illustration (it probably didn’t help matters that he was caught using the school’s printers for his own band’s album cover art). For the last 20 years he has been brilliantly visualizing the unreasoning vibrations of music, working with Elastica, Beck, The Beastie Boys, MGMT, and Paul McCartney to name a few.

Currently I am fortunate enough to collaborate with Michael on his monograph, appropriately titled “Drawn in Stereo”, to be published in 2013. In the meantime, here’s my Q&A with the inimitable Michael Gillette.

Job description: Artist.

Why do you do what you do? When I was a kid I fell in love with drawing and the way it made me feel, and there has been nothing that has come along since that has been as enjoyable so here I am.

How do you break through a creative block? I trust that creativity is a natural state. If there is something blocking it- that it is me. So, I try to figure out why and how I'm doing that. I used to do the Artist Way morning papers, where you write down your stream of consciousness. That has helped. I try and keep a very keen ear to whatever bullshit I might be thinking and nip it in the bud because I I know full well the ditches that lie either side of the highway. I wrote this to remind myself of some pitfalls which block creativity.

Education: I went to a British art school, so I consider myself almost entirely self taught. Thank the lord for the Public Library system of San Francisco.

Mentors: Roger Law is probably the closest person I have to a mentor. He was an illustrator in the 60’s, then went on to helm a satirical T.V. show which evolved around the caricature puppets he made. Now he’s a heroic ceramicist. We email sporadically, but he's always been a very generous and supportive person and I really dig him. He’s a force of nature and he keeps making work that is is plugged in and openhearted with a sly sense of humor.

World-saving mission: hah! I’m trying to save myself.

Office chair: I have a Aeron chair which I bought when I first moved to San Francisco, it was just after the dot bomb, so you could walk in to empty offices full of them and buy them on the cheap. I’ve recently switched back to an armless Knoll Pollock, the arms on the Aeron kept bumping in to my desk.

Office Soundtrack: BBC Radio 2,3,4 & 6 KCRW, Dunwich Radio.

Most useful tool: My brain.

Favorite space: I really love the inside of the Chapel At Sea Ranch. Actually all of Sea Ranch is aright by me, I love the Rec centres too. My wife describes it as communism for rich people.

Favorite design object: 1965 Epiphone Casino.

Guilty Pleasure: I don’t believe in Guilty Pleasures— if something is enjoyable, fair enough, I’m done being cool.

Underrated: Intuition.

Overrated: Technology.

What did you learn the hard way? That everybody is making it up as they go along, so there is no reason to feel insecure.

Has your work ever got you into trouble? Not since I was caught drawing an unflattering portrait of my French teacher on a rainy day in 1983.

If you could cross over into other profession what would you do? I always wanted to be a musician, or some kind of performer, but I’m happy making art, I’d like to do so more autonomously.

Dream project: I have an idea for an animated show which I’d love to see happen

Where’s home? Currently it’s very much San Francisco, I love this city so much, but I'm probably in the later days of being here, but I won’t stray far. California is really part of my mindset. I still have feelings for Wales where I grew up and am grateful that I got to live there too.

“The Little Angels” is an ongoing series of simple watercolours depicting recently deceased stars in the prime of their childhood. “The criteria is that the stars must have died at an early age, and the images must capture them before they are cognizant of their own image. My hope is that the sweet nature of the pictures and the tragedies that link them will invite the viewer to question both our obsessions with stardom, and the belief that fame is a cure all,” says Michael.

Beck for the his album “The Information”. Jean Michel Basquiat for the LA MOMA.

Bob Dylan from “Music Listography” published by Chronicle books.

“At home with Charity” painting for an exhibition.

“Happy Place” experimental work.

Video animation stills for the “Beastie Boys 5 Boroughs” album.

Dum Dum Girls, personal work.

Tommy Lee for Spin magazine.

B is for Beatles, for an illustrated alphabet exhibition in Dublin curated by Print Process.

Personal work.

“Drive” poster and cover for the film magazine, Little White Lies.

The 3 Disgraces, cover for Centerfold magazine.

A sampling from Michael’s sketchbook.

A possible cover for Michael’s book, “Drawn in Stereo” coming in 2013.

Link to Michael’s site.

Estelle Hanania

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of meeting French photographer Estelle Hanania. We were fascinated by the stories she chooses to tell with her pictures. One series called the “Demoniac Babble” captures a yearly pagan ritual in Switzerland where a group of men roam from farm to farm, singing and drinking in celebration for winter and to frighten the bad spirits away. For months men create their demonic outfits. At first glance in these images, the men appear to be plant-like sculptures but upon closer inspection you realize that they are humans dressed in these outlandish earthly costumes.

She also has an eye for fashion. I’m including some images of her latest catalogue for Urban Outfitters. They really elevated their look with this catalogue. It’s more minimal and sophisticated.