Clockwise from left: A Mother of Cats, Oil on Canvas, 44 x 30”, 2006, Cling, Oil on Canvas, 36.5 x 36.5”, 2010, Some Kind of Complete Happiness, Oil on Canvas, 58 x 38”, 2011, Falling Away, Oil on Canvas, 12 x 16”, 2010
Having recently performed Butoh dance, do you see yourself expanding the worlds of your paintings into three dimensions, using elements of performance or installation? No. I’m happy working in 2D. But being in the studio stationary for so many hours makes it mandatory to move when I am not working. Dancing seemed to be a way to do this. I have a fascination with Japan. It comes primarily from Japanese woodblock prints and Japanese cinema. I’ve used Japanese paraphernalia; kimono, tabi socks and geisha hair-dos in paintings and I’ve been accused of exoticism because of this. Taking a butoh class was partially to widen my knowledge of Japanese dance. I was first introduced to Butoh in a Japanese cinema class in graduate school. It immediately seemed related to German and Austrian expressionism in mood. I think of the morbidly-obsessed Egon Schiele who
believed “Everything is dead when it lives”… or Mary Wigman’s Witch Dance. Of what I have experienced of Butoh, I like the restlessness and the juxtaposition of fluid movements against uncomfortable right angles. I look at it like a painting, something that needs to be deciphered. I don’t know that much about it but I am curious to learn more. Tell us about your passion for vintage clothes, and how your thrift finds become part of the process of constructing your images. I have always thrifted. I was ashamed of it when I was kid because it was out of need not desire. By the time I was in high school I knew all the good spots and branched out of suburbia to NYC and frequented vintage and army surplus shops that were affordable. In college I ended up working in a vintage shop in Harvard Sqare in Boston. I was there for about eight years. Being in that environment really changes how you
think about clothes. Everything you touch is a piece of history, recent or otherwise. Each dress has a story imagined or real. Having access to these objects imbued with past lives became part of my life and I am now addicted. For better or worse, Chicago is thrift heaven! This city is unbelievable. Don’t get me started… Everything in my life works its way into the paintings at some point. I collect vintage fabrics and I have all kinds of clothes from various eras. How I put items together varies from painting to painting. Sometimes the fabric comes first sometimes the costume. Either way I like making clashing patterns and colors become harmonious in a painting. What are you working on right now? I have just begun a new project. I am going to be doing paintings of my artist friends living in Pilsen. I am excited to look outside of myself and work with so many interesting and complex individuals. We were all attracted to Pilsen for the same reasons—in order to have time and space to make art. Chicago has a huge advantage over other major cities in that artists don’t need to make much money to survive here. That said I want these paintings to go beyond documentation. In order to do this I will be placing them in worlds I have created for them based on my interpretation of who they are through their artwork.