Interview: Jesse Boardman Kauppila

Image from Inside Out Printer Improvised Explosive Devise (I.O.P.I.E.D.).

Jesse Boardman Kauppila is an artist whose work includes a series of prints that replicate the beautiful weave and simplicity of Italian tartan, a series of circular copper prints made while listening to the Anthology of American Folk Music (the finished pieces can be both printed and played on a record player), and most recently, a gorgeous series of images made by exploding printer toner cartridges onto glass plates. As you might guess, Kauppila is at once a skilled craftsman, a technophile, and a conceptual artist. His images and his process are captivating.

You grew up in rural Vermont. And you write that your work explores the way that this place, and in particular, your family--values, aesthetics, and way of life--impacted you. Can you talk a bit more about how you grew up, and how your work probes into the influence of environment?

I grew up in a town of 1,500 people. In many ways it was quite idyllic. My Mom was and is an elementary and middle school art teacher. My Dad is a county agriculture agent. My Mom was interested in figuring out how different artistic technologies (felting, plaster casting, weaving, pottery, etc) worked so that she could teach her students.  In general there were a lot of crafts people around; people that made stuff and did real things.  Most of the jobs had you understood immediately what they did: welder, truck driver, teacher, logger, farmer, etc... Being a lawyer seemed pretty abstract to me as a kid... and kinda weird. 

It was also a very puritan community.  We lived across from the manse and the minister definitely got looks when she bought beer. The fact that the minister was female was a whole other issue.  There was a local production of "Our Town" which seemed to nail our community.  Also, as a kid, I always assumed that Lake Woebegone was in Vermont.

So, at one hand there was this rural sort of conservativeness that had a religious tinge, not that people were very religious though there were some quite religious families around, even some cults, but that didn't enter into daily life.  This conservativeness sort of eked into an aesthetic sensibility, which I currently think of as a sort of all-American minimalism. The clapboard house just always made sense to me as the way a house should be.  

I guess the gist of it is that growing up in this environment, which was very homogenous, meant that there were always generally shared assumptions that went unexamined. Leaving Vermont made me realize that there are always assumptions about things like aesthetics, culture, technology, etc. that people don't really examine. 

Print from Kauppila's piece Remastering the Anthology of American Folk Music. From his website: "I listened to Harry Smith's influential "Anthology" while engraving a circular copper plate. These [copper] records could both be printed on a press and played on a turntable." 

 Was there something you liked to draw/make as a child? Was art something you always did?

Since my Mom was an art teacher we always were doing all sorts of projects.  I would really get in to stuff and make a huge mess doing a big project.  I remember wrapping presents so they looked like stuff that wasn't inside of them.  Like a book to look like a battle axe or something like that.  Also, writing my name so you could only read it from an angle. Papier mache was big. My Mom would go to art schools and thrift stores and recycling places so there was really never a shortage of materials or tools. I don't think I bought any art supplies until college. 

You use technology a lot in your at. How did your fascination with technology develop?

As a kid I liked science museums, but I really liked technology that I could understand and play with.  I sort of took a weird turn in high school because of some bad experiences with science and good experiences with art, that being said I did do some really weird science projects which were great fun.  I remember creating a maze to figure out if fruitflies were left or right handed.  Totally ridiculous…I also got really into water rockets, building launchers and two stage rockets and all sorts of stuff, basically out of trash.  There's some great stuff online.  I loved doing it and playing around with it, but I didn't really get the physics of it.  I think I would have been an engineer if they didn't emphasize the abstract part in school but the making part.  Also, there was an academic and a vocational tract in school and the two types of students didn't really mix, which I now think is a real shame, but that's a different story. 

Installation of Remastering the Anthology of American Folk Music.

Where do you draw inspiration from these days? What type of things do you tend to keep near you to inspire your work?

I like to read a lot.  Some of my projects have been inspired by novels and non-fiction; for some reason the ideas in novels often resonate with me more than visual art.  I guess it's the story. If there's a story it kinda hooks me.  I'm a sucker for narrative and narrative structures.  But I like good, clever ideas. Probably one of my favorite books is Goerge Perec's "Life: A User's Manual." It's one of the greatest books with the worst possible name. Perec's a french guy whose famous for writing a book with no "e" in it.  He was part of the Oulipo group which would create conceptual games/rules for making their work.  What I like about Perec's book is that the conceptual rigor is there, but it's very readable, it’s extremely engaging. I like that. 

I recently listened to a Bryan Eno interview.   He talks about how Steve Reich's work started by playing conceptual games with interesting material, but gradually that interesting material left and his work became just conceptual.  I think that's a problem. I like ideas and I like playing with ideas, but I think artwork should also be engaging, even beautiful.

Where do you find aesthetic inspiration?

Aesthetically, I really love the work of Hiroshi Sujimoto, Vija Celmins, and Gerhard Richter.  I am particularly interested in the way that Gerhard Richter's work goes back and forth between abstract and representational as part of the same project. I kind of think of that work in the same way I think about Werner Herzog, who often makes the same or a similar film twice, once as a documentary and once as fiction. This is the case with "Little Dieter Wants to Fly" which was remade as "Rescue Dawn" and "Encounters at the End of the World" which was remade as "The Wild Blue Yonder."   

I had an aesthetic epiphany in front of Barnet Newman's "Vir Hiroicus Sublimus." I am currently interested in exploring the sublime, which was Barnet Newman's project. I am interested in how we can understand the sublime today. That's an aesthetic project, but I want to try to get at it from different directions in the way that Herzog and Richter pursue projects tangentially, from different angles.

Copper plates from Remastering the Anthology of American Folk Music.

Can you tell me a little bit about your process? 

Process is very important to me. I think about it all the time.  I am always trying to find the most elegant and meaningful way to make work. For a while I made rules for making work and would try to follow these rules, and I was meticulous in an almost scientific way.  I still think of my work as experiments and write about my work in lab reports.  This means that before making something I have figured out a pretty exact set of parameters for making the work, I then make the work. 

I see the process of making as performative and I've made work specifically as a performance.  I'm starting to get more interested in process as a story, a narrative that helps the viewer and myself understand the meaning of my work. 

The parameters I have created are generally loose enough that I'm flexible once I start making work, I know that things never go as planned. I have also realized that the parameters I have created, the restraints are often what makes the work interesting.  The process of creating the parameters and developing the process for making a piece are a whole separate process which often involves a lot of materials research, reading, and experimentation.  Also a lot of thinking.  I think about projects and sketch things out, and talk about ideas with friends, for a long time.

Did the concept of the Inside Out Printer Improvised Explosive Devise ( I.O.P.I.E.D.) piece, which involved exploding printer toner onto glass plates, change a lot over the course of sketching/ conversations?

Yeah, absolutely.  It originally started as an examination of the representation of violence. I was interested in the process of abstracting a violent event (the explosion) with the representation of that violence (the final photographs). 

Image from Inside Out Printer Improvised Explosive Devise (I.O.P.I.E.D.).

Now, I am really interested in how this process rematerializes digital technology. Usually digital photographs are used to capture the real physical world.  Here I am am taking a product of the digital world (printer toner) and using it to create something in the analog world (the darkroom).  I am reversing a process that often goes in one direction. I am interested in further problematizing this path, the direction from analog to digital and the mixing of these categories. 

I've also become more interested in the formal aspects of my final prints and how they look like stars exploding and how they perhaps approach a contemporary notion of the sublime. I'm interested in playing with that and exploring that, but it can get pretty heavy handed especially with the recent cross formations of explosion captured in three dimensions.

Interview: Louise Kohrman

Louise Kohrman is a printmaker based in Western Massachusetts, who teaches at Smith College and RISD. The fine lines, lovely aesthetic, and calm, focusing effect of her work drew me in from the start. Kohrman kindly allowed me to ask her a few questions, and her answers, to me, feel similar to her art: focused, meditative, quiet, and compelling.

What themes seem to occur/reoccur in your work?

Repetition/seriality – The act of repetition is what first drew me to the medium of printmaking, since it is inherent in its process. I work with multiplicity – always working in a series. I never work on one piece alone. Working in a series provides me with a structure to work within and allows me to explore a certain sequencing of thought- or how the viewer reads the image, the recurrence, the repeat.

Collecting/specimens – My methods are hyper-organized, detailed and obsessive and focuses on collecting, in a way. Collecting of objects, thoughts and repetitive motions. It explores aggregates and clusters of marks and, more recently, the idea of the work as a specimen-object, actually encasing and presenting it as a specimen.

Meditation/introspection - The work exists as a working meditation for me as I create. I hope that the viewer may have a similar experience or at least find a sense of contemplation or stillness from viewing the work.

Quietude/Invisibility - I think there is a lot that can be observed in what is not stated. The quietude in the work, or absence, is there to evoke a space for reflection and softness.

Core/Focus – There is always a central focal point in my work, whether it is an axis or mid-point where the work begins. I am interested in creating a hermetic space, a nest, a pod, again, a place for contemplation.

Where do you draw inspiration from?

There are certain objects that invoke inspiration, but I like to keep that to myself as I don’t consider them relevant to the end result. I look at the natural and man-made patterns that imbue my environment and the ways in which things disperse and become almost decorative.

I do not work from observation, but I am not sure if I consider my work to be “abstraction”. My recent work is more stream of conscious, in order to evoke a certain structure and process of working. In fact, I almost think of the newer work as little stories or narratives. They tell the tale of how the piece was made, of the thoughts in my head. They are specimens and collections of marks and thoughts. So in essence, my inspiration comes from the “now”.

Do you have any favorite artists?

It varies moment to moment but here are a few that are currently on my mind (in no particular order): Agnes Martin, James Turrell, Anish Kapoor, Dorothy Napangardi, James McNeill Whistler, Kiki Smith, Victoria Burge, John Cage, Tara Donovan, Astrid Bowlby, Johannes Vermeer, Anne Appleby.

You were born in Denmark. Did you grow up there? Do you still feel a connected to or in any way shaped by Danish culture?

I was born in Copenhagen in 1979 and my family moved to the States in 1986. My mother is Danish and my father is American – from Kentucky. I don’t think one can avoid the influence of the place where one grew up or the culture that infused them at a young age, so, yes, I am still very connected to the Danish culture and traditions. I definitely feel a bond with the Danish aesthetic and am seemingly influenced by the quality of craftsmanship, meticulousness and sparseness of design, as well as the simplicity and orderliness of things that defines the culture.

The Danes have a word “hygge” that is difficult to translate into the English language. It was a concept or tradition I grew up with and essentially epitomizes the feeling I have when I am making work. It can somewhat be defined as a feeling of coziness or comfort or enjoying a quiet moment, usually with friends. For me, in this case, my friends are my art pieces. This is the mental space I enter when I make work.

Interview: Bruce Paulson of Fortress Letterpress

It takes a minute for me to find Bruce Paulson. I’m parked on his street in NE Portland, trying to find his house, talking with him on my cell. I hear his voice up above me but can’t see him through the branches. Finally we catch sight of each other and he comes down to street level. He’s a lean, handsome man in a plaid shirt and a cap, with a solid handshake and a ready smile.

A graduate of the Pacific Northwest College of Art, Paulson started his business, Fortress Letterpress, three years ago. Initially he worked out of a shared warehouse, which, he says, was fun both for the camaraderie he developed with other artists and for the half-pipe against one of the walls. Now he works in the garage beneath his building, a compact wood-walled space with just enough room for his press, his paper cutter, a flat file and a small table. He and partner Rachel Demy put out elegant and arresting business cards, invitations, and art prints; though not all of their work is designed in-house, the pieces that are tend to be geometric and somewhat spare--again the word elegant comes to mind. Everything is hand-made, the paints are hand-mixed, and the press is treadle-powered, as in powered by foot. Light pours in through the open garage door, and the occasional chipmunk runs through. Paulson has obvious enthusiasm for his craft, and was kind enough to give me and my pal Aimee a tour.

Where are you from, originally?

I grew up in a very rural town in Wisconsin called Clear Lake. The population was around 900 and there weren't any stoplights or fast food restaurants. The town was comprised of very modest homes, a trailer park, tons of churches and just as many bars. It was very sheltered. Very calm.

One in a four part series produced for an event at the Ace Hotel in Portland

Were you always keen on art, as a kid?

I was always drawn to the visual arts. My grandmother had an extensive collection of National Geographics and I would spend hours copying images from the magazines. I had a strong interest in Egyptian and Mayan art. I’m not sure what it was that resonated with me then, but I still feel a pull to the iconography of those cultures.

Print for a group show called at Giant Robot in NYC

Nice. Are there any artists who’ve particularly inspired you?

Richard Serra, Joseph Boise, Agnes Martin, Mark Rothko, Banks Violette. To name a few.

Richard Serra

You got your BFA at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, right? What was your work like as an undergrad?

I did a lot of work with intaglio. My final project was on five huge sheets of copper. Two feet by three feet. I did a huge sheet of paper that was just one long print. It was about the process, etching and scraping and burning a ton, and using a ton of spray paint instead of resin. It was a big experiment. I still have all of it. And I have all of the copper… it’s all oxidized and getting all black and weird. It’s nice.

Was that abstract as well?

Yeah, the surface was really worked a lot. So there’re a lot of soft areas and sharp areas and dark places. The last panels were just black.

What are you working on right now?

There are a couple of bids out with clients, but I haven’t been working on any of my own work recently. I’ve been feeling a bit of a creative slump; I have some drawings I’ve been working on, but as far as printing, there’s nothing coming from me right now.

So mostly commissioned projects?

Yeah. Most of the stuff we do is business cards, some of which is exciting, and some of which is, you know, work.

Business card for Una, a store in Portland, OR

I have a lot of friends who are designers here in Portland, and they send things my way, and I like their aesthetic, which is great; I know the work is going to print well because of how it's designed. Sometimes clients come and their expectations are really huge—like they want full color….  And I say, ‘maybe you should just get that offset printed.’ Letterpress is really good at representing line work, and simple two or three color designs.

When you say we, you mean, you and your girlfriend?

Yeah. Rachel just joined on... and it’s been awesome. Her job is actually managing bands: she’s a tour manager, she’s on tour right now with St. Vincent and The Shins. So she’s busy doing that and then helps me juggle mostly logistical stuff like client correspondence. She’s a very good writer and she’s got that touch that I kind of lack. 

She’s also my print apprentice, so I get to teach her and that’s really fun too, and she gets to help out. It’s really good.

Interview: Tim Wilson

 'In progress,' Harpooner, 20x24, oil on canvas, 2012

Tim Wilson creates stunning portraits. Using rich earthy hues and scattered, gestural strokes, he depicts figures with faces obscured, eyes painted over, the end result being a rather ghoulish look, as if the characters are either tormented or tormenting. Or perhaps they are just otherworldly. Tim’s backgrounds tend to be rich and grand, thick swaths of paint hinting at clouds, brooding sky, thick black night. Born and raised in Southern Maine, he came back here to work after receiving his BFA from RISD. Although he has mixed feelings about people saying this: watch this guy—I really enjoy his work now and I’m incredibly curious to see what his work will be like in three years, six years, fifteen years.

(((Unless otherwise specified, photographs for this piece were taken by Julia Wood)))

What’s on the top of your inspiration pile right now?

TW: I went to a few antique shops last week and picked up an amazing children’s pillow, with French maritime tick and fraying seams. Four dollars. It's amazing! I have a Maritime Bank check tacked in my studio that I picked up at the same location as well. From the 19th century. The whale stamp in the middle is what did it. Having those historic images just helps to inform my senses, whether or not I directly use them in my work. I have a book of old saw woodcuts, a large format book of Velsaquez, and a book of Alchemy right in front of me right now. Oh, and a little still life on my window sill of some old hunting knives and a broken seashell and an old copper cow bell. They look really nice together when the sun hits, and feel simultaneously like an adventure story, a Wyeth still life, and a seaside flotsam pile. I can just look at them and be happy for hours.

Do you collect anything?

I'm a big collector of ephemera. I frequent little antique nooks and shops, and although I lust after the higher end items, the sturdy objects that have survived wear and tear, the ephemera is really the only type of item that is within my budget ~ and it is also what informs my graphic work: readapting what is old into new labels and textile graphics. I do have a small collection of antique claws from bathtubs, and books, books, books....I used to have a collection of driftwood and knick-knacks, but without a solidified place to keep them, I ended up slowly displacing them the past few years.

On the digital front, I literally have gigabytes of images, each under different folders and labels, ranging from occult, anatomical practices, medieval woodcuts, barn broadsides....to individually labeled artists. The advent of the internet has made my obsessive image collecting a dangerous addiction.

On the wall in Tim’s studio.

Who are your favorite artists?

Favorite artists! So many. So many movements, artists, random effective images. At one point it was only sci-fi illustrators, then comic artists… however, for the past five years or so my inspiration has been very [consistent].

Jusepe Ribera is by and far the most influential, his color palette and gritty realism and depiction of martyrdoms have truly struck a chord with me. My book of his work has been re-bound once already. Rubens and Van Dyck are always on my desk; the 'rubenesque' curves and obvious love of anatomy and character are so romantic to me. Memling, Weyden and Gossaert pick up the more baroque element of things for me, their altarpieces and stylizations are always a forefront, and, I believe, mix well with the more modern 'antique' folk paintings that inspire me, the way the backgrounds are flattened and almost comically and poetically depicted.

I am greatly inspired by Phil Hale for the tension in his characters and compositions, and what he manages to do with such a limited palette. Nicola Samori is someone I have been fond of in the past few months ~ not in the sense that I feel inspired to create after seeing his work (in fact the opposite, i feel exhausted after looking at it--out of amazement!).  He takes the notions of decay and pentimenti and thrusts them in such a bewitching direction.

Self Portrait, 11x13, oil on canvas, 2010.  

And the Wyeths and Winslow Homer. The entire romance and lifestyle of Andrew, Jamie and Winslow are a constant drive for me, and perhaps the reason why I yearn to find a way to move to a more northern location in Maine and truly rekindle a connection with the land and my childhood. A collector of Homer bought a series of my paintings, and I was literally beaming for days.

And Edward Gorey. Edward Gorey. Edward Gorey. Not only his images, but his wordplay.

People say I must be inspired by Francis Bacon. I see the resemblance, but I never actually get anything from looking at his work.

The Sighting, 40x50 roughly, oil on canvas, 2012. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Interview: Martha Kearsley of Strong Arm Bindery

Martha Kearsley is such a badass. She’s animated and articulate, a bookbinder who makes playful and handsomely-crafted books, boxes, and stationery, as well as flower presses for drying flowers, Chump awards, and a huge variety of commissioned pieces. A long-time contractor at Harvard, Martha runs her own business—Strong Arm Bindery—from her studio in Portland, Maine, and also teaches at the North Bennet Street School in Boston.  I caught up with her in her studio last month, and we talked about her latest projects—which include camp logs whose plaid patterns are based on old thermoses and “Dude Journals,” leather bound books based on a form that dates back to the 3^rd and 4^th century. 

Left image via Swallowfield

How’d you get into bookbinding?

Well, I think I’d been out of school for about ten years. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but I’d always liked books. And I went to the Chester Beatty library in Dublin—that’s a collection that’s all based on the word—the written word and the printed word. They had a collection of the most beautiful versions of religious texts from all different religions. And I looked at them, and they were all different, they were all crazy structures, and I thought, somebody has to make them, and I want to do that. 

And I moved back to Boston, and it turns out the premier bookbinding program happens to be there: North Bennet Street.  And then I got hired to do conservation work at Harvard. And I did that for a long time, even when I moved here and started my own business, I was traveling down to Boston, and still working with as many people as I could, because that’s how you realize, ‘oh, I don’t have to always do this the same way…’

Are there any new projects that you’re working on now?

Well, [the camp logs are one thing; they're based on old thermoses from the 1950s]. And then this, this has nothing to do with Camp Logs anymore, we’ve moved on to Dude Journals. This is one variation on a leather travel journal, and this is from the 1700s, it belonged to this guy, this dude, who was a boot-maker. It’s is called an occasional diary, a cash account while he’s moving around, making appointments…and it’s a form that I am crazy for… the way it wraps is a really old form—the earliest examples we have are from the third and fourth century . It’s a Coptic form—the copts were a Christian sect in North Africa, in Egypt, and they were famous for their monasteries. They would have a text block of papyrus and then wrap it with whatever leather they had around. Isn’t that nuts? And it was the fourth century so there were no rules, they were just like, ‘Well, we need something to protect it, so they just make this crazy band…’ and it works! It just totally got me going, I was so excited about it.

Interview: Jessica Seamans of LandLand

LandLand is a two-person design collective based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They make band posters, record sleeves, and art prints that are just gorgeous. Sometimes their work is diaphanous and loose--all watercolors and organic shapes, and sometimes more line-based and concrete, reflecting the different design styles of the two artists, Jessica Seamans and Dan Black. Always the posters contain richly interesting hand-drawn typography. I recently got the chance to shoot a few questions at LandLand's Jessica Seamans, and I'm so excited to share with you her answers:

Where are you guys from originally?

I grew up in rural central Minnesota, and Dan was born in Texas and then lived in rural Utah and then Mankato, MN.  

How did you each get into drawing and making art? When/how did you meet each other?

We're both lifelong drawers, which I guess is pretty typical.. There was a lot of really visually exciting stuff around my house as a kid, for example, my dad had an amazing record collection and I spent so much time at a very young age kind of poring over the album art and fantasizing about the worlds being hinted at by the paintings on the covers of his albums. He and I spent a lot of time analyzing them and I think as a result I kind of learned to use drawing as entry point into more exciting imagined realms. That was kind of how I played- I would draw out my fantasies. Anything I've done since then is probably just an extension of that.  

   

Dan's actually always been really into letters and signage- it's really kind of funny to think about how the things we get to do now are very much exactly the same things we liked doing as kids. It feels pretty dang lucky. He used to make little books of drawings of road signs, for fun. His dad used to steal traffic signs for him as presents. He loved thinking about and drawing letters and lists and diagrams. 

We met when I tried out for a band that he had just started. It was pretty random. I was 18 and he was 23. We had actually been in contact before that- I was living in Seattle and had bought a poster at a show and then noticed it had been printed in Minneapolis. I was about to move back to Minneapolis and had a vague idea that I wanted to be screenprinting and so I decided to take a shot in the dark and email this Dan Black person and ask if he needed help or anything. We emailed back and forth a few times but the ultimate answer to my question was no and we never had any plans to meet or anything when I got to Minneapolis. After we were in this band together for a few days we discovered that we had had this previous interaction and I think maybe because it then felt like some kind of weird fate, I was able to weasel my way into being part of his tiny 3rd-floor apartment living room print shop, which was at that point called 2222 Screenprint Facility. This was late 2001. 

What do you find yourself drawing most often? Where do you find yourself drawing most often, or most fruitfully?

I used to draw a lot more animals or natural-world type stuff, now I guess I make more things that involve people or structures or patterns. We both draw a lot of buildings and patterns, actually, but we have pretty different approaches. Dan tends towards more technical-looking imagery. He does a lot of lettering and objects that involve lettering, like billboards and building facades and postage stamps. My stuff tends to be a lot looser-looking, to put it gently.  

We both try to do a lot of our Landland-related drawing in the studio. I get really easily distracted, especially when I'm in my comfortable home, so kind of trapping myself in a dungeon like basement actually helps me to stay focused and get more drawing done. For me, more important than the physical space is actually just being able to get into a totally focused mental zone. Which can be hard anywhere but can also happen anywhere, if you make it. 

Profile: Olive Pierce

"It requires constant vigilance to see people as they are."
-Olive Pierce

I first came across Olive Pierce's photo series Up River a year and a half ago. The series is of a Maine fishing community, taken in gritty black and white, and I remember being struck by how intimate and revealing the images were; they were able to convey so much about who the people were and how they lived, making me feel as though I had a solid handle on what the community was like. And the photos are simply beautiful. When I found out that Olive lives in Rockland, only a few hours from Portland, I decided I needed to ask her for an interview. My recording device failed me, so I can't give you all the back and forths, but I wrote up what I learned from talking with this incredible woman.

When I show up at Olive's home, she is making her way up her icy walk, wearing a down jacket and using a ski pole as a cane. At 86, her body is slight, her movements delicate, but when I catch up with her just before she ducks into the house, she turns around and grins, slinging me a hearty, "HEY!" 


We enter the kitchen, simple and spacious. There's a New Yorker on the counter, soup bubbling on the stove, and an airy breakfast nook set out for lunch with china in various shades of blue. And I'd thought I was going to have to skip lunch. I nestle my recorder between the serving platters, and we sit across from each other, eating our meal--"soup from a can doctored with tahini and rice vinegar," salad, cheese, crackers, focaccia, and, for dessert, orange slices and "German Christmas cake." She seems to watch my face for a reaction to this out of season dish, delighting to think I might really believe she is serving me two-month old cake.  

Olive Pierce is a documentary photographer best known for her photographs of two families in a tiny Maine fishing community, which were gathered over the course of ten years living in the community and have been collected in the book Up River: The Story of a Maine Fishing Community. She chose grainy high contrast film for this series, and the resultant photographs are incredibly gritty and human, providing a rare and intimate glimpse into a community known for its insularity.  


Let me emphasize the time-line: for ten years, Olive went out fishing with the Harveys and the Carters, attended their weddings and their funerals, and joined in their Christmas celebrations. She even slept over at their houses from time to time. This type of extended immersion is not unheard of in journalism--one thinks of Gay Talese and Leon Dash, of Ted Conover spending a year as a prison guard to report on corruption amongst prison employees. And yet this immersion is incredibly impressive: I heartily cheer on anyone who can dive completely into a project and then emerge from its gaping maw, years later, eyes shiny with adventure and a finished work in hand. 

Even given the serious commitment of time, how did Olive navigate through the complexities of her subject to create something so candid? In her images, Olive manages to create a portrait that is neither saccharine nor patronizing, that sidesteps the romanticism typical to images of coastal Maine as well as the contempt and distrust that some show toward this poverty-stricken community. I figure it must have taken a pretty unique person to become welcomed into a community that has reason to distrust outsiders, and then to take intimate photographs of that community that are neither critical nor idealized, but simply straightforward. 

Interview: Bryan Nash Gill

Bryan Nash Gill, Hemlock 82 1/2, 52" x 39", relief print on Okawara paper, 2008

I came across Bryan Nash Gill’s work a few months ago on Cold Splinters, and I’m completely taken with it. Using a laborious rubbing technique, Gill makes large-scale relief prints of the cross-sections of trees. The results are gorgeous.  Gill also makes sculptures and installations, using found objects such as tree branches and orange peels as well as bronze, copper, aluminum, and other unwieldy material. Writing in 2002 for Sculpture Magazine, Patricia Rosoff summarizes 1:   

“Gill works in wood, gathered in winter forays and sledded back to his studio over snow-covered ground. He takes apart these logs, branches-even whole trees-and then puts them back together in the studio, employing any process that suits: splitting them, slicing them, carving back into them, stripping them of their bark, flattening the bark, even casting elements in bronze. “

Bryan Nash Gill's art pulls viewers toward a closer connection with the outdoors, the woods and the earth. Which is perhaps not surprising, given that, in addition to making art, Gill is a farmer, a  woodsman, a hunter and a naturalist2. I'm delighted to have had the opportunity to interview him:

You often use found objects in your work. Are you always on the lookout for material? What kinds of things tend to catch your eye?

I find a lot of my materials by accident. The sense of discovery is exciting that way and gives the objects bigger meaning. I am always looking. There is the occasional dumpster dive and always walks in the woods which are full of fascinating stuff. I also have friends bring me stuff, which I may use in my work. I generally like objects that have inherent beauty; the form, the color, texture. Sometimes, these objects are tossed or placed on a shelf and may stay there for years until they find a place within one of my works.

Can you tell me about one thing that you’ve recently collected—what is it and why did it catch your eye? What kinds of things do friends know to bring you?

Friends bring me wasp nests, bones, found wood, old tools... The last thing I found was a Ceropia moth that had dropped out of the sky in our back yard.  One of the largest and most beautiful moths I have ever seen.

Sculpture Print, 44" x 43 1/2", relief print on cotton sheet, 2010

What are your favorite materials?

 Wood, copper and bronze.

Sulfur Shelf, 7" x 12.5" x 4 1/2", bronze, 2002

 
I really love the prints you make using sections of trees. When did you first start making prints this way? How did the idea come about?

I started making these woodcuts in 1993. I cut wood to heat my home and studio. Looking at split wood all day long gave me the idea to print logs. These prints are called relief prints or wood engravings because I am printing the end grains of wood. Traditional woodcuts are made from the longitudinal grain of wood.

Gill creating a woodcut print

I read that you grew up on a farm, raising vegetables and livestock, and that this turned you on to art at a young age. Can you talk about this? Do you still raise animals or garden?

Yes, my initial fascination with art came about when I was [very young], working with my hands on the farm.

My wife and I have a working farm and raise all the veggies and chicken for the summer months. I am in the process of building a root cellar for winter storage.  We have started our own farm share / co-op  with other farms in the area. We will be sharing with a select few customers: veggies, goat cheese,and fruit, along with local chicken, ducks, geese,quail and rabbit.