INTERVIEWS
V: Is it really hard today to live only by your art? Have you had any difficulty at the beginning? A.F: There are as many different ways to move through the artworld and support oneself as there are artists. I don’t solely support myself financially through my work, I wouldn’t want to put that burden on it, but I do know several people who do. I have a day job- I’m a full time professor at a small liberal arts college. It’s a rather traditional route, teaching, but I love it. What could be better then talking about art every day with people, who for the most part, really want to be there having a conversation? Don’t get me wrong it can be trying, but it’s rewarding and it makes me accountable in my own practice in ways where I might let slip if left to my own devices. Teaching also means freedom. I have several friends who feel entirely trapped by the academic environment, or any job really, but I see it as a different kind of freedom. With teaching I’m not beholden to make a specific kind of work. I can go where the work takes me. I can be obliged only to my ideas and intuition and feel completely free of a market that is fickle and demands you change when you don’t want to, or stay the same when you want to change. I’m not without those psychological demands. I want to be successful but I know the only way to stay true to myself and to the work is to sever those ties to finances/ career and to allow the work to function without the demands of financial support. Making art and making an art career are two very separate endeavors and I find having a separate source of income helps ensure that. When I first graduated from Boston University I moved to Seattle with a few friends and waited tables. I lived in a small house with three other girls. We shared rooms to keep the rent low. I rented a separate studio space and tried to create an art community for myself. I think that is absolutely essential. Half of the battle of getting anywhere in this field is just staying with it. Taking responsibility for yourself in the way that you keep working. You find like-minded people. If you can’t enter the system where it is, find a back door or create a new system. I would take my work down to the street on first Thursdays just to have it seen. Friends of mine and I started an arts collective to create exhibition opportunities and somehow managed to convince bars, coffee shops and, most surprisingly, galleries to let us take over their space for a few nights to a week. It was fun to see how much we could create for ourselves just by asking and trying. Those early days were hard but exciting. It wasn’t the first time I realized I had power over the direction of my life but it definitely helped solidify that belief. V: If you had an advice for someone aiming to do the same, what would it be? A.F: The biggest hurdle I think is figuring out how to transition from student to artist- how to go from having a constant audience, to being alone and how to stay engaged in your practice without deadlines or accountability. It’s important to plug into a community of like-minded people in a city or town that won’t swallow you up. Finding a good starter city, a place that has a great art scene but isn’t so mammoth that you’ll get lost or have to work 70 hours a week just to pay the rent. Set up a studio space if that’s how you work, respect that space, respect your time and your work with the reverence it deserves. Take yourself seriously… But have as much fun at this whole thing as you can. It’s a relationship and it needs to be nurtured, challenged and loved as much as any relationship does. The other thing is to remember how much power you have. It can be so easy to become jaded and feel like no one is paying attention or what you do isn’t important… but that is never the case, you get to decide who you are, what your work is, or means, you decide what you make and to large extent who sees it. Everyone out there is just a person with his or her own interests and agendas. No one is holding you back or making things happen for you. We’re all co-creating these wonderful lives for ourselves. Have as much fun as you can. V: What have been your best experience (collaborations, exhibitions...)? A.F: Right now I’m longing for those times when I had more artists around. The last place I had that was in Houston during my time at
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the CORE program. Houston has an incredible art scene, vibrant and supportive. I live in small town at the moment and most of my closest friends here are professionals from different fields. We have incredible conversations that have often produced fodder for my practice but I miss the kinds of relationships that are generated by studio culture. The popping in unannounced to get a quick opinion on a new painting or spontaneously going for a cup of coffee… I’m romanticizing I’m sure but that’s currently where my daydreams take me. V: And as a conclusion, can you tell us about your new projects coming soon? A.F: Well, I’ve just left the Roswell Artist in Residence program. I was there with my husband while he was on the fellowship but they generously granted a studio to me as well. It was an incredibly fruitful time of rumination, reflection and production. I currently have a solo exhibition on view at Inman Gallery in Houston, TX and I’m working on publishing a catalogue that will be available on my website shortly. My work will be in the exhibition entitled Synthetic Supports: Plastic is the New Paper at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston in October. Other than that I’ll be enjoying some studio time, continuing this new series of works and looking forward to teaching again this fall.
You can find Angela on the internet via:
www.angelafraleigh.com