Where are you from and where do you live currently?
I am from Halls, TN. It's a quaint little farming community about 75 miles north of Memphis. I currently live in Chicago, IL just a few blocks from the lake and have lived here for almost 12 years. I know, city living is a bit different from the country in TN. Luckily, I spend time in TN several times a year. I'm always pleased when my southern accent gets stronger while there. :)
What inspires the rooms and scenes you paint? Do you ever paint scenes from your own home?p/>
I am inspired by images that make me stop and think; wow, i've never thought about doing that. Rooms that have an unexpected color combo or texture/pattern mix, I want to eat up. I devour design blogs and magazines and my new love, Pinterest! Don't ask my husband about my addiction... Yes, I bounce back and forth from painting scenes of little vignettes in my own home and images that I have discovered elsewhere.
Your recent paintings are on canvas made lumpy and messy with gesso. Tell us about this development.
I started experimenting with layers and layers of gesso about 3 years ago. I happened upon an Elizabeth Peyton painting at Art Chicago and I loved it's edges. They were rough and uneven. They were fantastic. Since that encounter, my canvases have been more and more lumpy. I enjoy the combination of flowy watercolor and acrylic with the goopy layers of gesso. Just as my images often contain unusual patterns or color combination, the delicate treatment of the paint paired with the lumpiness of the gesso is a fun and unexpected combo.
How long have you been selling your paintings online? Seems like you have a very healthy following!
Although I've been making art all of my life and I've had a blog and web site for over 5 years, it's just been in the last year that my work has been selling consistently online. It's been a really fun year! Fortunately, I have gotten some wonderful reviews from design bloggers. The first major traffic driver was when Anna Spiro of Absolutely Beautiful Things wrote about me early last year. Then I was featured in the August issue of House of Fifty magazine. Since then, I've had a fun ride of making new work and shipping it all around the world. It's a delight to know that people enjoy my work enough to want to live with it. Makes me smile. :)
Color is front and center in your work. What shades are you currently fawning over?
Ohhh, don't get me started. My all-time favorite color is a golden yellow. I could eat yellow for lunch everyday! Right now, I'm having a love affair with oranges. Tangerine Tango has been on my nails for the last month and it's making its way into every painting lately. My favorite color combinations of all time are pink/orange and red/orange. My love affair with pink/orange/pink/red came about when I bought my first baby stroller. It was a red stroller with a pink inset. I haven't looked back since. Inspiration comes from everywhere, and that stroller seemed to spark something in me about 5 years ago just before my daughter was born. Love it!
What are a few of your most favorite blogs (perhaps a few biggies and a few lesser known blogs...)
Absolutely Beautiful Things, Design Sponge and Brabourne Farm are my go to when I really need a jolt of color and pattern inspiration.
The Glow, Design Mom and NieNie Dialogues is where I go when I need a little boost from other mothers of young children.
Emersonmade, Milk and Honey Home and Trail of Inspiration are simply lovely retreats.
What's next for you? Any exciting projects to look forward to?
I'm currently working on a fun post for Apartment Therapy. I'm excited about this one! I am also starting to prepare for a show here in Chicago which opens in May.
I have been itchin' to do some work on paper- maybe working with collage a little bit and creating another linoleum print. I'm always full of paintings that need to get out, and I've got several canvases waiting on me as I write. I can't wait to get my hands back on this big green one I started a few months ago (she's 48 x 60 inches)!
Written by Kate Singleton — February 14, 2012
Where are you from and where do you currently live?
I grew up in Seekonk, Massachusetts. Seekonk is a little town close to the Rhode Island border--about a fifteen minute drive to Providence where I went to college. After graduating in 2008 I moved to Pittsburgh and have lived here ever since. I think Pittsburgh is a great city for young creatives. The cheap cost of living here has really afforded me the time to focus on my work.
Tell us a bit about the work in this show.
Process wise, my work starts with a collaged "under-painting." I like to use insides of envelopes, old drawings, found scraps, sheet music, receipts, letters, photos… almost any type of flat, vintage ephemera I can find. I try to be as gestural and haphazard with this initial process as possible. As I continue the collage, a dimensional foundation is revealed. I'll sand down the many different surfaces and use a medley of charcoal, pastel, ink, acrylic and graphite to bring definition to the subject. On most pieces I go back-and-forth between drawing and collage, covering and uncovering previous layers.
All of the studies in this show incorporate this process and are informed by deteriorating architecture. The aesthetics of collapsing barns, worn down walls, and abandoned homes have always been very attractive to me.
In another life i would be a _______ and live in _______.
carpenter, a house I've built
house, observance of those walking through me
I am fascinated by your book "96 Houses." how did that work come about?
I drew "96 Houses" when I first moved to Pittsburgh. I was living on a friend's floor without many art supplies and no studio space. Searching through craigslist apartment listings and exploring different neighborhoods led me to thinking about the concept of "home" and what type of environment I wanted to build for myself. This little book was a playful way to indulge these thoughts. I have been working on "196 Houses" and "296 Houses" where 2-3 houses appear on a page, interacting in some way. Maybe a clothes-line hangs between them, or there is a button in one house that activates a machine in another house. In these future editions, I'd like to challenge myself to create a stronger narrative within each page.
You're a designer as well as an artist, do those roles run parallel for you?
This is a difficult question Kate! The difference between artist and designer is constantly on my mind...
In practice, design has specific functionality. On a day-to-day basis I am working with clients to answer questions like, "Who is your audience? How can we capture their attention and effectively relay your message?" The project is not solved until the design communicates effectively. Keeping this in mind, the design work I am most passionate about will incorporate some type of artistic sensibility. Art (for me anyway) is more expressive and honest than it is functional, so there is a challenging imbalance here.
I guess as an artist who designs I try to stand on a line between expressive aesthetics and effective communication. I don't think my design sensibility takes as prevalent a role when I am art-making (or at least I am not as aware of it doing so). Things like creative problem solving and experimentation inform both practices.
The shorter answer: Yes, for better or for worse.
What attracts you to the buildings and places we see in your work?
I have been drawing deteriorating architecture for over four years now. I see something innately human in these structures. They were once enormous, man-made assemblages--huge forces of permanence, but they are collapsing in on themselves and wallowing within their frame. Somehow, it always feels as if the subject is content with its circumstance. I think I have been trying to capture this sense of dignity.
I started this series a while back, doing portraiture of abandoned buildings and referencing a lot of photography coming out of Detroit. Recently I've been focusing on specific points of collapse within a building. It allows me to experiment with the composition and tension of the page a bit more.
What are a few things that are inspiring to you right now?
I really enjoy reading books about different artists. Two that I always turn to for inspiration are Off the Wall: A Portrait of Robert Rauschenberg by Calvin Tomkins and Guston in Time: Remembering Philip Guston. Rauschenberg valued play and experimentation through every fold of his life and the way Guston describes his personal artwork and the world around him is extremely intriguing.
Written by Kate Singleton — January 09, 2012
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