my love for you.

Q&A: Michelle Blade for RVCA.

Talented, skilled and all around awesome artist, Michelle Blade asked me to interview her for RVCA's blog a few week's back. As I say in the intro I have long loved Michelle's work so it was a real honor. We chat about her current work and the installation up in RVCA's shop on Haight. Check it out:

I had the pleasure of sitting down and having a virtual conversation with San Francisco Bay Area artist, Michelle Blade. Although we both live in SF, and pretty much live blocks apart — neither of us could find the time to meet. So we did what comes naturally to most of us now; we took our convo to the series of tubes: the Interwebs.

I’ve covered Michelle’s work a few times but never had the opportunity to chat with her in detail around what drives her. So it was delightful to have a couple different conversations with her via email to get such a personal approach to her thoughts. We chatted about her work, inspiration and thoughts behind her latest installation for RVCA’s Haight street store. As you’ll see Michelle was gracious and articulate, giving vivid and lush visuals of her approach. Enjoy!

Where did you grow up?
In the hills of Los Angeles.

Does your youth and upbringing inspire your work in any way?
LA was such an incredible and unique place to grow up. I was in love with the magic of the city and always on the hunt for where the natural world pushed up against it: Train rides through Griffith Park, ghostly encounters with lone coyotes roaming neighborhood streets, long runs to the Observatory, Catholic all girls school vs. LA subcultures, exploring underground sewer tunnels by flashlight, swimming at hidden beaches, and running around the LA river…I’m still in love with those kind of adventures.

Images of Michelle's installation at the RVCA store on Haight street.

Tell me about the window for RVCA store on Haight Street:
It’s a large scale installation filled with wooden sculptures of hands, mountains and abstract forms precariously leaning on one another, paintings on Mylar hanging from the ceiling, and a billboard sized painting of a psychedelic tapestry as the background.

What is the inspiration behind it?
About a month before I started working on the RVCA window I drove south through LA, toward Palm Desert on my way to a funeral. I had taken this drive dozens of times and always felt hypnotized by the expansive landscape. On this particular trip, I kept thinking about Ken Kesey and his stories about being part of the acid tests at Stanford and his documented trips around California.

I remember feeling particularly sensitive to the shifting color schemes — the orange and purples of the desert, the speckled hills, the strange shapes of the vegetation, the blue mountain slopes. I thought this would be a good place to start for the project — hallucinations, pastel colors, reflection and the California landscape.

Michelle was asked to do a mural on the Albion Mural off of 16th street in the Mission. Again, she kills it with rug imagry! She always manages to make rugs look so incredible.

It sounds like this trip in many ways influenced you. Has it spread beyond your work for RVCA?
Around the time of the trip I was reading A Separate Reality: Conversations with Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda. There is a section in the book where Don Juan describes Death as an ally who sits next to you throughout life. It’s a wonderful, visual concept that I found to be both comforting and disarming. In that regard I think my ally has been sneaking into some of my projects lately, but I’m not exactly sure about the breath of it’s influence. I’m definitely still marinating within that experience.

Talk to me about the symbolism through out your installation.
The Western frontier is a historical symbol of possibility, wanderlust and idealism. With my window installation I wanted to tap into some of those mystical qualities. California has always felt like a landscape I am perpetually trying to get a bit closer to. The epic coast, the desert, the mountains. I’m always trying to hold onto understanding its intangible vastness. This is obviously an impossible task but a romantic pursuit nonetheless.

Within the installation there are aspects of everyday life: mountains, pottery, rocks, plants, people walking, connecting with each other and their environment. Visually I think the installation can be read like someone’s accumulation of experiences: a living room filled with a non-linear, mystical collection dedicated to encapsulating the California landscape.

One of the things that I have always admired about your work (and noticed) is that you seem to work within a world of mysticism and symbols. Talk to me about that.
Yes! I love how Religions are chock-full with symbolism and incredible visual tools, each attempting to explain some of the most mysterious philosophical questions about existence. Lately I’ve been really caught up in themes of transcendence and transmigration, especially how that is depicted through Alchemical practices.

The transmutation of lead into gold is a beautiful analogy for personal growth and change. Somehow the act of paintings feels relateable to this process. It’s the struggle of trying to create a representation of your internal landscape and turn your insides out for a moment. It’s experimenting with seeing your spirit in other forms.

Would you say that is why you paint/create? To express the “accumulation of experiences”?
Yes, I think that’s a huge part of it. Art making has always felt like a tool for processing life, ideas, inspirations, mysteries to me.

Rugs seem to play a large role in your work, although totally beautiful not very common…what is the story with that?
The first tapestry painting I made was inspired by a rug I painted over everyday in my grad studio. At the time I was thinking about magic carpets and traversing mystical plateaus through black holes. I combined the two ideas, replicated the the rug in my studio, and painted a black hole in the middle. After that point I started doing actual research on textile art and fell deep into the history of it. During that time I started to exhibit the textile paintings I made on the floor. People would walk on them and over time they would change due to the marks left behind from the gallery visitors. I really love the politics behind people walking on paintings.

What is coming up for you for 2012?
I’m currently working on a new project called 366 Days Dedicated to the Apocalypse. I’m creating a painting, documenting it, and posting it online everyday for all of 2012. You can follow this process along at: http://michelleblade.tumblr.com.

Show wise, I’m organizing a series of collaborative performance and video works with SF State students as part of a new series of shows curated by Chris Finley. The finished project will be exhibited at The Martin Wong Gallery in April. Around that same time I’ll be in a couple group shows, one in SF, curated by Alexis Mackenzie, and the other in Japan, curated by Serena Minik-Miller.  In May I’ll be having my first solo at Carter & Citizen in Los Angeles.

All photos courtesy if Michelle. Check out the original post here.

Studio Visit & Q&A: Serena Cole.

A few months ago I met up with Serena Cole on the last night of CCA's MFA show to see the culmination Serena's work for the year. We also stopped byt her studio before she moved out. I've always been drawn to Serena's combination of fashion, style and her own personal twist within her paintings. There always seems to be a somewhat darker vibe below the surface of her work -- calling out the darker side of fashion. Along with images from the show and studio -- Serena and I chat about her take on fashion and her interpretation of it through her own work. (above image courtesy of the artist)

When I was in your studio recently you mentioned that you do not consider yourself a fashion illustrator. Why is that?

To me, I think of a fashion illustrator as someone who draws clothing, a fashion designer illustrating their designs. That's completely different than what I am trying to do with my work as a painter. I never 'design' anything, but instead use images at my disposal to try to create something new.

A lot of your work is derived from fashion magazine spreads and fashion advertising. What is it about fashion that you draw inspiration from?

All of my work is based on the appropriation of fashion imagery. I personally find the images in ads and editorials inspiring on some level, because of the over-the-top beauty and fantasy of the images. However, what I am most interested in [is] exploring why these specific fantasies appeal not just to me but an entire demographic of the population. The photos in magazines are not just artistic images -- they are always used to sell or promote something. Fashion images are fascinating in how they feed the consumer the identity of the brand. But as advertisements they also say a great deal about who we are as a culture; what is desirable, what is a common fantasy, what is unattainable, yet totally longed for. This is where the meat of my interest lies: sure, it's easy to understand the basic tools used in fashion like sex, but if you look closer, there are narratives of death, violence, and ambivalence that suggest darker fantasies we share.

Some of your recent work is named the 'ecstasy faces' -- tell me about these.

The Ecstasy Face series is one of many small series that I have begun. I categorize the images I previously mentioned into narratives that repeat throughout my magazines and develop into tropes. The Ecstasy Faces are just some of the photos I have culled from magazines which all make the same expression, directed over and over again to different models on sets. I think that's funny, and a common theme throughout history. Since even before the Ecstasy of Saint Theresa, we have seen imagery of people in ecstasy that make you want what they have -- be it religion, orgasms, opiates, or the Fred Perry polo ad.

Your MFA work that you recently walked me through has a more grotesque vibe to it compared to some of your older work. Would you say that is an accurate description?

I know that the two new headdress pieces have a more in-your-face violence to them, with actual blood, fire, and bones, but I have always thought that if my pieces did not have a slightly disturbing tinge to them, then they weren't doing their job. Anyone can like a pretty picture. I have always wanted to communicate a more complicated side of beauty, which incorporates the dark underbelly we all share. Nothing real is perfect or completely saccharine.

Talk to me about the headdresses in your two paintings.

The two headdresses are culminated piles of tropes. One is imagery of the glamorization of death, one is imagery of destruction and violence. I have taken each pile and created a headdress for each figure to wear; a metaphorical headdress where the figure embodies what she is wearing -- either the death or the destruction and [it] is really just an apparition.

Do you think you're trying to tell a specific narrative?

Well, I don't think I am necessarily telling a new narrative but showing you specifically what imagery is used in the ads. By taking it out of the magazine context, I hope to show it more clearly and without the noise of other pages what is happening, and to startle or surprise you.

What are the darker fantasies you think we share?

Some of the categories I have started to collect: Women dressed like little girls, women beating the crap out of each other, men being dominant/sublimated with women, people setting things on fire, people drugged out on couches, car crash scenes, and death in various scenarios. I title them things that I hope helps pinpoint the

(The above piece is an older painting of Serena's that she emailed me. I loved it and had to include it. Image courtesy of the artist)

Does your research influence your own personal style?

I don't really think I can avoid being influenced by my constant barrage of fashion imagery and not get swept up in consumer longing and style trends. However, I do feel that even though I like to go shopping, my interest in my subject matter is more on an image level. I like dealing with the complete unattainability of the scene in my work. The reality of clothing is so much more anti-climactic; the clothing in a Dolce and Gabbana ad of a fight scene with two beautiful women in a luscious setting in an airbrushed unreality say nothing when you find it on the rack in the store. And I'm poor and I get stuck with the knock-off of the knock-off version of that clothing anyway and then there's nothing that whispers of even a shred of any of that fantasy.

What fashion houses/brands do you lean more toward in your research and painting?

 Of course I was very influenced and inspired by Alexander McQueen and I think he was a total genius. His runway shows were so much more of a production than a mere walkthrough of his clothing, and he seemed to be influenced by dark and beautiful things which he juxtaposed with the weird world of consumer culture and fashion snobbery. I also love the Rodarte sisters and their completely random inspirations, like Japanese horror movies and Northern Californian redwood forests. I also really liked looking at Christian Lacroix, who is bankrupt now, for his over-the-top embellishments and patterns.

Who do you love to paint and build off of?

I have my favorite models, for their completely weird faces, like Gemma Ward who I call "Fish Lips" and Vlada, who looks like a dying vampire. As far as artists, I am very inspired by figurative art, especially historical portraiture like Bronzino for the Mannerist style he used and the psychological expressions his subjects wore. For contemporary art, I like looking at Kurt Kauper and the photographer Hanna Liden.

What is coming up for you, both personally and professionally?

I recently graduated from school at CCA, and just got back from Bosnia visiting my boyfriend and doing some major relaxation! Next, I'll be starting work at CCA as the new 2D Studio Manager, where I can stay inspired by lots of art. Professionally, I will be showing (tentatively) in a group show in NY in November, and the rest is open at the moment! I'm just trying to do the opposite of what they warn happens to grad students -- they say within two years most of us stop making art. So, here's to beating the odds!

Studio Visit & Q&A: Ben Venom

Above image by Ryan Hendon.

I caught up with Ben Venom recently to check out his progress on his biggest quilt to date, The Mega Quilt, a 13' x15' quilt made from over 125 Heavy Metal band T-shirts. The quilt will be on display in Yerba Buena Center for the Arts upcoming show BAN6: Visual Arts Exhibition, which opens July 8th, 2011. We also got to chat about the quilt, how he fell into the craft and what's coming up for him. Enjoy! - meighan

Let's get down to brass tacks, quilting isn't a male heavy medium. Why quilting? What brought you to a craft/art medium that is traditionally women owned? And how long have you been quilting? 

In 2008 I was invited to be part of an exhibition in Berlin, Germany and wanted to make a really large piece for the show but not have to pay a lot of money to ship it. I had been sewing large flags and banners while in graduate school at the San Francisco Art Institute and recently saw the Gees Bend quilt show at the De Young. At the time I had a bunch of all Heavy Metal T-shirts hanging in my closet. So...I decided to combine the two: Metal and Quilts!

Are you self-taught?

Yes...I am self-taught. I made a couple of phone calls to my mother and bought a couple of beginner guides to quilting. Basically, I just started designing, cutting, and sewing and learned new tricks along the way.

In your current work you combine a traditionally feminine craft with a male dominated style of music; heavy metal. Tell us how those two come together in your work for you. Why juxtapose the two?

I see it as a high speed collision of polar opposites like Large Hadron Collider, particles are shot at each other at a extremely high rate of speed and scientists measure the resulting explosions. It is at this point when something new is born. In addition, quilts are traditionally made from soft fabric and Heavy Metal music refers to a load, aggressive, and heavy sound. Just in the definition of each you can see the complete opposite sides of the spectrum.

Heavy Metal has always had this over the top mentality with the 70's and 80's dominated by all these dudes wearing makeup and looking like strippers. Dee Synder, Alice Cooper, KISS, the list goes on and on. Even dressed up in some ridiculous clothing and makeup these dudes scored all the babes! So...I was thinking about that absolute contradiction, and thought by combining quilts with Metal I would be able to achieve a similar result.

Sometimes I like to ask artists who they are watching or inspired by as in terms of other artists -- but I'd like to keep this to strictly quilting. Can you tell us about who you've watched in the quilting and fiber world -- who has inspired you and/or influenced your work?

Since the Gees Bend quilt show at the De Young I have been constantly looking through the exhibition catalog and online for ideas. I bought The Architecture of the Quilts book from the exhibition which has some great images of the more colorful and abstract quilts. Also, some quilts made entirely from worn out levi jeans and other denim scraps. They're some really amazing pieces made by some amazing women.

More recently, the De Young exhibited a selection of Amish quilts from the collection of Faith and Stephen Brown. These quilts dealt more with faith and spirituality rather than the creators surrounding [the] enviroment. Both shows have been a great influence to my recent work and continue to give new ideas on how quilts can be constructed. Plus...I've recently been in email contact with Joe Cunningham who wrote the forward to the Amish quilt catalog.

I honestly do not know many fine art artists working with textiles that I admire or am influenced by. However, Erin Riley is someone I see that is definitely killing it right now. Her work takes textiles into the modern day...beer, bikinis, and drugs. Awesome!

Can you tell us about how you educate yourself around the craft?

I have recently made some contacts within the quilt world and have learned a whole bunch of new techniques and shortcuts from a couple of nice ladies. Old ladies love me! Everytime I go to a sewing/fabric store I ask a ton of questions and go home and try out what I learned. I am considering taking a sewing class or two at the Sewing Machine Shop in Walnut Creek cause I was recently asked to teach a quilting workshop at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and at Workshop SF. So...I need to get my learn on.

Tell us about the quilt you are currently working on.

The Mega quilt! It measures 160" x 180" and has over 120 different Heavy Metal band T-shirts sewn into a Medusa Skull design. I had to buy a new sewing machine (Juki F-600) cause my previous one is too small for all this fabric. Think bitchin Camaro compared to a shitty Honda Accord...that is one hell of an UPGRADE!

This quilt will be the largest I have made thus far and also the most expensive. I have been using the floor space at Guerrero Gallery to lay it out and position all the pieces together. Andres (owner of Guerrero Gallery) has been very helpful in allowing me unlimited access to the gallery in the evenings. Many thanks to Andres Guerrero (the Janitor)!!!

The quilt consists of a detailed Medusa Skull surrounded by a sun shield and smaller stars. Heavy Metal band T-shirts form the Medusa head and surrounding star shapes. At least 3 different quilting patterns are used to accentuate the design and add another level to the piece. This design combines the interest of Metal music with Mythology and the Occult while simultaneously attempting to represent the B movie Horror film style. By addressing the softer side of Heavy Metal this piece plays with the idea of tension between the grandiosity of Metal music and the more domestic nature of craft.

You have also worked with embroidery -- are there other traditional crafts you have utilized in your work, or that you would like to work in?

I've been thinking about learning to crochet or knit some pieces to wear. However, in the near future I plan to make a couple more embroidered pieces influenced by Metal and Occult culture. I like to watch football while I embroider...the new season starts in August. Time to get to work!

What is coming up for you, both professionally and personally?

Three of my Heavy Metal quilts will be on view at Wolverhampton Gallery in Birmingham, England June 18 for Home of Metal: You Should Be Living. This show is in conjunction with a couple of other events put on by the Home of Metal organization. The Mega quilt and two other new pieces will be on view July 8 for Bay Area Now 6 at Yerba Buena Center for Arts. I have been working on these pieces for the last 5 months and am looking forward to the exhibition...should be a good one. As part of my work in the exhibition, I am hosting a Heavy Metal concert September 22 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Black Cobra, Hightower, and Walken will be playing in the gallery in front of my quilt with Glass Coat Photo Booth on site offering FREE polaroid pictures to attendees. Its gonna make your head EXPLODE!

Aside from the art exhibitions...I just returned from Atlanta, GA where I taught a 2 day printing intensive class at the Atlanta Printmakers Studio and gave a lecture sponsored by the online magazine Burnaway based in Atlanta. This summer I will be teaching Screenprinting to High School students at the San Francisco Art Institute and to adults at the Kala Art Institution in late August. Somewhere in between I may be assisting a  3 hour quilting class at Workshop SF. Thats all for now. 

One last thing, will you make me a quilt for my birthday next month?

HA! One jamming Bday quilt coming up!

Studio Visit & Q&A: Aaron Nagel.

A few weeks ago I headed over to Oakland to check out Aaron Nagel's studio as he prepared for his upcoming show, A Thin Line at The Shooting Gallery. It was great to spend some time with Aaron and see his work in such an intimate setting. The pictures you see here are a combo of my own, along with images of Aaron's. And for this visit, I also combined a Q&A for your reading pleasure!

A Thin Line opens June 11th - July 2nd, 2011 at The Shooting Gallery.

Can you tell us about your inspiration behind your newest body of work for your upcoming show, A Thin Line at The Shooting Gallery?

I'm really inspired by the models that lend their time and likeness to me. Trying to capture the beauty of these women is something that I don't think I'll ever get sick of, it's an amazing jump off point for the direction I want a given piece to follow. "A Thin Line" is a nod to a new graphical element and a reference to the issues I had putting the show together. 

You are an atheist - yet a lot of your work deals with religious iconography - can you give us a peek into the symbolism you paint? Are you exploring something in particular?

I've always been intrigued by religious art, both because I find so much of it appealing despite it's motives, and because I'm endlessly fascinated by the frequent use of torture, suffering, and violence, to serve those motives. The symbolism I paint; halos, arrows, etc, are all common in European iconography of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but I'm trying to take them out of context a bit by placing them around figures who, instead of appearing as martyrs, are unaffected.

Talk to me about the hands dipped in black, there is something extremely sexy about this - and I have no idea why. Can you help me understand why I think this ;)? What do they symbolize/signify?

I came upon the black painted hands entirely by accident. First and foremost, [I] paint them because I love the way [they] looks; more specifically, the way [they] reflect light and flesh tones. (I think it's almost taboo for an artist, but i'll happily admit that my first concern is always whether or not the image is aesthetically pleasing to me). The more I painted them though, the more I started to think of the painted hands as a metaphor and/or as a symbol. What they represent isn't so specific, I'd rather that the viewer make up their own mind...but I find that it adds depth to an image without being overbearing or too obvious. I have no idea why the painted hands can be sexy in their own right, even without taking the rest of the figure into consideration. I could come up with a whole bunch of possible explanations -- but no one explanation has ever struck me as definite, and I do love the uncertainty.

What are the words in your work?

They're all different, I mainly use them for the look more than the meaning of the text, but it's usually creepy latin phrases. Of the two with text in this show, one is a quote from Satyricon in Latin, and one is a passage from a book that I coded with an enigma machine. Nerdy!

During our studio visit, you mentioned to me that this group of work was particularly hard for you. You said you struggled a bit around your first few paintings - can you tell us about that period and how you got through it?

I did have a really hard time planning for the show, and after a few months and a couple failed paintings, decided that the problem was that I didn't really know what I wanted to paint. More specifically, I was torn between wanting to do much more elaborate and narrative pieces with complex reference shoots, lots of compositional elements and more straightforward portraiture. My brain couldn't really make a decision and more often landed somewhere in the middle, which wasn't what I wanted to be painting either. While I still haven't gotten into making paintings as large and elaborate as I hope to one day, I finally discovered that if I did both the larger surreal pieces and straightforward portraits, instead of trying to mush the two ideas into one piece, the two directions I was being pulled were more or less satisfied. 

You are self taught, which is incredible after seeing your work in person. How did you get to where you are now?

I'm a very obsessive and disciplined person, often to a fault (like, real often). That is probably the one thing that's helped me most. Once I decided I wanted to be painting, and once I decided how I wanted to be painting, it was fairly easy for me to lock myself in a room for the better part of 8 years and figure it out. I don't mean to say that painting is easy, because it certainly isn't -- or that spending so much time in a room with only a cat and an audiobook for company is easy, because that can really suck too (not the cat, he's fresh) but making myself do things (or attempt to do things), particularly if they are very hard...that's easy. 

Having no formal instruction has hurt me in some respects I'm sure, but it's also allowed me years of trial and error, without anyone to regularly step in and point me in the right direction. It's certainly not the fastest way to learn to paint, but It allowed me time to come up with my own system and made me a whole lot less prone to discouragement. This is all conjecture of course, but it might be true. 

I should point out that even though I didn't go to art school, I do a lot of reading up on oil painting techniques and theory, and try my best to pick the brains of those in the know every chance I get. Plus, there are hundreds of years of fantastic paintings to learn from. So I don't consider myself entirely without education, it's just not terribly formal. 

Aaron's little friend, Ty -- the fresh kitty. ;)

That brings me to my next question; having been self-taught, how do you continue to educate yourself?

Lots of reading, lots of blogs, lots of museums, lots of art shows...that's the plan anyway. It's easy to get stuck in the studio, but simply being around art that I really admire, is hugely educational.

When doing research reading up on you - one of the things I have read a lot is this: "he is entirely self-taught; a fact at odds with his classical approach to surrealism" - what does this mean?

I'd like to think it means that my technique appears to be traditional. I'm not really trying to break any new ground with figurative painting as far as the execution is concerned. I do try my best to capture the subject exactly without too much deliberate interpretation. I think that's where the comparison to traditional/classical painting might come in.

Then there [are] all the halos and black hands and things I add that pull the piece away from just straight representational work, that usually lands me in "surreal artist" territory. This is part explanation of the latest show title; as in a thin line between realist and surrealist directions. That's my interpretation anyway, I'm really not sure -- odd, because I think I may have even wrote that.

What's coming up for you next, both professionally and personally?

I have A Thin Line opening June 11th at The Shooting Gallery, then a 3 person show in LA with Thinkspace Gallery in September. After that I'd like to see if I can get a show planned for NY next year. Personally, I'm just going to keep at it and continue to keep myself way busy and avoid injury and neurosis.

Thanks Aaron!

Q&A: Kate MccGwire.

By far the most clicked on, most shared post I have ever written was the very first post I wrote on Kate MccGwire. And it's no wonder, her feather sculptures are otherwordly not to mention incredibly fierce in their sheer volume and demand attention. Kate and I have been in touch over email since last year. She is always gracious, kind and a delight to deal with. I am really excited to share this Q&A we did recently - we chat about feathers, pigeons and the power of words. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Kate's current show BOUND with artist Alice Anderson is on show at All Visual Arts. It runs through April 28th, 2011.

How did you come about using feathers as a medium in your work?

There are so many reasons. I think one of the most important is their sense of otherness. When you find one on the ground they always look so utterly separate from the bird they've been discarded by. It's difficult to imagine when you look at a quill that this flesh-less stem was once attached to a bird. It's part of the mechanism that helps it fly and keeps it warm but seen in splendid isolation a feather becomes detached from these physiological concerns and becomes something 'alien', an object, and a carrier for meaning in its own right.

One of the reasons I got turned on to feathers in the first place is that when I moved to my current studio, a Dutch barge on The Thames, I found I was moored next to a dilapidated old shed that had been colonised by pigeons. It was impossible to ignore them, as the sound of the birds' cooing was totally deafening. Whenever they moulted I'd find hundreds of feathers on the ground. I'm always collecting stuff so it was inevitable that these materials would make their way into my work. It was also around the time of the bird flu epidemic. I found myself intrigued by the dichotomy between the physical perfection of these feathers and their potential for disease, by the way we brand birds with particular qualities, according to their cultural associations. Thus we think of the pigeon as dirty, as ‘a rat with wings’, whereas we see the dove as a symbol of peace and purity. But it's the same bird; one just happens to have white feathers.

I also like the fact that biologically feathers link us with our selves, since they share one of the key structural components of human skin, hair and nails - keratin. They also tap into a historic fascination with the human potential for 'otherness'; witness the numerous depictions of winged human and hybrid creatures in sculpture and painting down the centuries

Where do the feathers come from?

A vast amount of my time is spent sourcing feathers, from all sorts of different places, so I suppose I am the predator when it comes to sourcing – a bit like a magpie. I have to be pretty inventive when it comes to procuring enough for a large-scale piece of work. No one source can give me what I need so it’s a question of having quite a few contacts and continually building on them.

Your sculptures are epically intense and brooding, the feathers take on a whole new look and life once pieced together in your work. What do you think it is about feathers together that create such an intensity?

I think it is un-nerving to see an object that resembles ‘the thing’ that we know (the bird, in the sense that the feathers are layered like a bird's feathers would be) but the scale is abnormal - an object seen out of place can sometimes be really uncomfortable.

Heave, Retch, Fume/Seethe, Brood, Gag...many of your pieces have such physically negative names, yet the pieces themselves are breathtaking. Can you tell us a little bit about how these names come to you? 

For me it is important that the naming can have a dual / multiple meaning.  Often bodily/ visceral/ violent using words that can have multiple meanings open up the possible interpretation of the work:

Gag – to choke or to retch – restrain speech – put something over somebody’s mouth – comic words or actions. 

Fume – to smoke / burn – acrid small – fit of anger.

In your earlier work wishbones were a predominant medium and now in your newer work you have begun to explore feathers. Was this a natural progression for you?

Very much so, I have been an avid collector of ‘stuff’ for many years and am fascinated by the natural world. I’m drawn towards a natural object that has a strong cultural/ historical identity and utilize that story to enrich the reading of the work. There was quite a period of time in between working with bones and then moving into feathers where I was working with completely man made materials.

Talk to me about pigeons, a lot of your work focuses on the fact that pigeons have been given the name "rats with wings". Was it your intention to start with pigeons when you first embarked on working with feathers?

Pigeon feathers were my raw material , I found them lying on the floor next to my studio and in the park whilst walking my dog. Having found about 200 feathers myself I realized that I wanted to make work with them but I would need thousands and there was no way I would find them on my own. So I began to contact pigeon fanciers and racing pigeon enthusiasts to ask them if they would send me their birds moulted feathers.

Did you have any idea how gorgeous pigeon feathers could be once placed within a pattern?

I had no real notion of what may happen when I started to collect them and I only really established a patterning when I had in excess of 200 pigeon feathers to play with.

Do you contact certain bird racers/breeders with specific bird feathers in mind?

Not really but I would love some more white pigeon feathers.

For instance do you set out with an idea for a sculpture in mind and then contact your 'suppliers'?

Each feather requires a different sourcing solution. Corvid (my new piece) is made of crows' feathers and so the work's very existence relies on the fact that these birds are shot for being pests, for damaging crops and killing off fledgling birds. (Some experts think they're also responsible for the decline of song birds in the UK.) But I'm not picking over road-kills, nor are they're being shot to order! It's because the birds have a reputation for being scavengers, and are being culled, that I'm ensured a constant supply from gamekeepers and farmers. So I'd say my personal relationship with the materials is more symbiotic than predatorial. It's the same with the pigeon feathers I collect. I've got a whole network of pigeon-racing enthusiasts out there who are primed to send me envelopes of feathers during the moulting season. Again, it's not an exploitative relationship; it's developed into something quite mutually rewarding. I keep them up to date with what I'm making and they've become a vital part (in every sense) of the process.

 

Discharge. Image Jeffrey Bussman.

How many feathers on average are in a piece?

I have no idea – I would think it's thousands – ‘DISCHARGE’, shown in MAD in New York had 10,000 pigeon feathers used in making it.

A few of your sculptures have been site specific installations. It kills me to think that something that is so beautiful and clearly took a lot of work to create is only temporary. Is that in essence part of the pieces?

It's really important to me the work is seen as a temporary installation - something that is only in existence for the period of the exhibition. It’s a sort of a performance piece, I suppose.

A lot of your work deals with death; whether it's 23,000 wishbones circling a wall (Brood), or 'marching' towards their old home (Home from Home I) or 62 pockmarked gunshots on paper (Waste). Has this been a conscious undertaking?

I am not morbid but death is never very far from us. My studio is on the river Thames – everyday I am very aware of the elements and the wildlife around me. It’s a constant battle. A swan laid its eggs right next to the barge. When they started hatching, crows surrounded the nest and stole away the cygnets to eat. Crows also fly low over rabbit burrows, as soon as a young rabbit (Leveret) pokes its head out of the burrow crows come down and swipe them, fly them up high into the sky and drop them to kill them prior to eating. It’s a brutal world.

What else is coming up for you for 2011

I am really excited about [my current]  joint exhibition, BOUND with an amazing artist Alice Anderson from the 31 of March to 28 April. It’s going to be a busy year. [Recently], solo show of an installation and various smaller pieces in Soho, London [ended]. I have various commissions coming up and will also be making an installation piece for Attingham Park another historic National Trust building.