Short Answer Sunday: Katherine Knight

Welcome to Short Answer Sunday, an interview series where I ask artists, art adjacent individuals, and other interesting, creative people the same set of questions. With the intent of getting to know the person behind the artwork as well generating new avenues to artistic discovery, participants respond with a few words or an artist’s name, always with the opportunity to elaborate if they wish!

Guys, say hello to Katherine Knight. Katherine is a delightful human, a long-time friend and an artist + professor that I truly look up to. Longstanding readers (aka the real heads) will know that she is also a co-founder of the Art Habit blog and a member of my artist support group (remember that thing you need that you don’t think you need?).

Katherine’s figurative paintings and drawings are exquisite and she is always pushing the boundaries of what is possible, with scale, material and installation. I love hearing about her material research—how to manipulate fabric to look like snake skin, how to find the perfect fabric to simulate pool water, how to unify hand-knit elements with drawing on paper, how to work with horse hair, etc., etc. It is mesmerizingly cool and a good reminder that an artist’s research takes many forms and usually starts with a question and lots and lots of experimentation in the studio. As you soon will see, she’s also a great storyteller and had me laughing to the point of tears many times during her Short Answer Sunday.

It’s the first Sunday of Virgo season and Short Answer Sunday drew its first breath on the first Sunday of Pisces season. For my readers not versed in astrology, this means that we now have a half a year of Short Answer Sundays under our belts. Tomorrow is the start of Fall semester and my first day of classes. This year (ahem), I have taken on some new responsibilities at work and I’ve just found out I’ll likely have another solo show next year (won’t say more at this juncture for fear of jinxing, but more soon, I promise). All this is to say that Short Answer Sunday will be moving into freewheeling mode with a more intermittent schedule for a while, and a big break at the beginning of the semester.

Anyways, Short Answer Sunday partially owes her existence to Katherine Knight and Nikki Painter, because it was through my conversations with them that I realized how interesting this project could be (our answers were all so different)! Ginormously grateful to Katherine and everyone who has participated thus far.

For more about Katherine and her work, go to her website and follow her on Instagram.
xo, Lauren

Name: Katherine Knight
Occupation: Associate Professor of Art
Astrological data: Pices. Picees? How do you even spell it? Pieces?
Hometown: Columbia, SC
Current location: Washington, DC

Other than Instagram, how do you find new-to-you artists?

From my friends!

An artwork that makes you laugh?

My students make me laugh all the time. They’re very good at being witty in their work. A recent midterm featured a portrait of Frida Kahlo, and her eyes were very intense. There was also a coffee mug with intense eyes, and a pair of glasses, which even though they didn’t have eyes, were still definitely staring at you. You felt under the microscope and scrutinized by these ridiculous items. It was so funny.

An artwork that makes you cry?

Soooo many paintings have made me cry! The first one I really remember was ‘Nude’ by Euan Uglow at the Tate in London. It’s a painting of a seated nude pushing herself up from a chair. It was hung so you’d see it first from the end of a long gallery, and I don’t know, something about it got me. I remember practically running towards it (like the slow motion run in a rom-com), and then standing in front of it crying. Her effort and physicality are just so REAL, and yet it’s very much a painting. Years later, I got special permission to visit it in storage, and it made me cry again, even though it was hung sideways to save space.

Most underrated artist?

Paula Rego.

An artwork that you’d like to live inside for a week?

Liza Lou’s beaded kitchen. I kinda want to live in her hyper version of reality for a while. Not forever, but for a bit.

Liza Lou, “Kitchen” (1991-1996) (detail), glass beads, wood, wire, plaster, and artist’s used appliances, 96 x 132 x 168 inches
image source

An artist whose work you can’t stop thinking about?

In highschool I developed an intense crush on a painting of David with Goliath’s head after seeing it IRL. Like, I would have passed him notes in class, and I daydreamed about him for YEARS. This was pre-internet, as I am old, so he mostly lived in my head. Recently, I realized I COULD look him up, so I did, and I was totally underwhelmed, like ‘what was I THINKING?’, much like running into an old (and disappointing) boyfriend. I’m not going to tell you which painting, because I don’t want you to judge me.

An artwork that feels like a warm hug?

Interiors by Bonnard. But not the bathrooms, those are sad.

What’s your favorite characteristic in an artwork?

I like it when the colors, or some other feature, transport you to a different place, like a specific time of day, or type of weather. I like it when you feel like you can smell the air there. I’m especially impressed if an artist is able to do this within the confines of a rectangle, vs an installation or other 3D format, because it seems harder to make a 2D space that swallows you up.

Erotic artwork? (Ed. note: this is a multiple choice question)

Other: Meh - not for me.

What’s an artwork that doesn’t look like art?

One time I was on an escalator, and I heard this delightful chiming noise. It wasn’t a melody, but it was musical. When I got to the bottom, I saw a handful of those fruit-shaped candies (are they runts?). They’d ride down the escalator, hit that thingie on the bottom, then bounce up a few feet and repeat the ride, ping-ponging all the way. Because they were all different shapes, they made different tones when they hit. It kept going and going and going. I thought ‘how marvelous! I wonder if it’s Art?’ I’m still not sure. Was it intentional? Does it matter? Can it still be Art if it’s unintentional? I choose to believe that it is.

What’s an artwork that you suspect that you shouldn’t like, but you do (guilty pleasure)?

Thomas Kincaid. JUST KIDDING. Though I do have more respect for him (or the arbiters of his estate) after they pushed back on his imagery being used for MAGA ads.

Ummm.... I think I’m not supposed to like ‘For the Love of God’ (the diamond skull) by Damien Hirst because it’s crass. And controversial, because he cast a real human skull. But you know what? That many diamonds is cool. They’re so sparkly.

Damien Hirst, For the Love of God, platinum, diamond, human teeth, 2007, image source

What’s an artwork that you secretly hate?

Fragonard. Blegh.

Most insane art piece?

Heard*NY by Nick Cave. I wish I’d seen it! Oh, that reminds me. Puppets ALWAYS make me cry. Last summer I ugly-cried in the 20 minute stage performance of ‘How to Train your Dragon’ at Universal Studios because the dragon puppets were so moving. Dragons! In the real world! Gah! Sob!

Fav monograph or art book?

I’m currently reading ‘How Painting Happens (and why it matters)’ by Martin Gayford. A student recommended it, and it’s SO GOOD.

Fav museum or gallery in your current location?

The National Gallery. I’m such a huge fan.

Last exhibition you saw irl?

Women Artists of the Dutch Golden Age at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. I cried there, too - several times. They had TWO self portraits by Judith Leyster - the one everyone knows, and a recently discovered NEW one where she’s middle aged. Uggghhhh so good. 

Judith Leyster, Self Portrait, ca.1630, image source

I wanted to see the Amy Sherald exhibition at the BMA, but it sold out and I missed my chance! I will have to chase it to Atlanta! (Ed. note: Happy ending because I know for a fact she made it to the High Museum in Atlanta)

Amy Sherald, Planes, Rockets, and the Spaces in Between, 2018, oil on canvas, 100 x 67 in., image source

An artwork that packs a spiritual punch?

ummmmmm. Is mentioning a cathedral too on-the-nose? The Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, designed by Antoni Gaudi. I’ve been twice, and both times I’ve thought, I’d go to church every week if I could just sit in this space regularly. I don’t practice any sort of religion, but I feel at my most expansive when out in nature. The Sagrada Familia’s pillars are giant tree trunks, and the windows evoke light streaming through jewel toned leaves. It perfectly captures the grandeur of nature, filtered through the genius of one person’s vision, actualized by the thousands of artists who have worked on it for the past 140+ years. ooo, I’m getting chills just thinking about it.

An artwork that you’d like to see before you die?

the Slav Epic, a cycle of 20 ENORMOUS paintings by Alphonse Mucha, chronicling the history of the Slavic people. They’re so big and fragile, they don’t travel much. I’ll have to go to Prague to Czech(ia) it out.

What art material do you love to nerd out on?

Oil Paint!

What was the last thing that you listened to in the studio?

KEXP!

What’s a book that changed your life?

Art Book: Secret Knowledge, by David Hockney.

Non Art Book - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

What song, book, podcast or film do you think everyone should know about?

Wellll, discovering KEXP changed my life.

Also ‘The Run-through’ Figure Skating podcast is my current obsession. You don’t even have to like Figure Skating to enjoy it- they’re so funny. The first episode of the ‘Ice Dance Lore’ is the funniest thing I’ve heard in a looooong time. I was incoherent while listening. It’s a long listen, but the payoff is SO worth it.

❤

Katherine Knight grew up in Columbia, South Carolina. She received a BA in Studio Art from Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, and an MFA in Painting from American University in Washington, DC. She has completed additional studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Slade School of Fine Art in London. Her work has been exhibited at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, VisArts in Rockville, MD, the OU Gallery on Vancouver Island Canada, Gallaudet University in Washington DC, Shrine NYC’s virtual Group Show (room 5), and the Indie Grits Film Festival, where her short film Sunday Mornings won the Southern Lens Award. International artist residencies include the OU Gallery on Vancouver Island, Canada, and the Burren College of Art in County Clare, Ireland. She is associate professor of painting at Montgomery College in Silver Spring, Maryland, and splits her time between Washington, DC and rural Appalachia.

Short Answer Sunday: Amy Shapiro Esswein

Welcome to Short Answer Sunday, a weekly interview series where I ask artists, art adjacent individuals, and other interesting, creative people the same set of questions. With the intent of getting to know the person behind the artwork as well generating new avenues to artistic discovery, participants respond with a few words or an artist’s name, always with the opportunity to elaborate if they wish!

Amy Shapiro Esswein is a wildly popular tattoo artist who also has an MFA in Painting. If that’s not impressive enough, she is also the drummer of the very cool and very good punk band Kitchenette (Kitchenette’s demo is available on Bandcamp and has been in my ears on repeat as I've been slogging through Fall semester syllabi prep.) I’m such a huge fan of her tattoo design as well as her quilted wall-hangings so naturally I am thrilled to learn more about her tastes through her Short Answer Sunday.

I met Amy through my German Historian colleague (shout out, Melissa) a few summers ago and was immediately intrigued by her background in the arts and how this led to her career in tattooing. As people who are both interested in the devotional labor of the hand-made and material-based painting, I am not surprised that we have a lot of overlapping art loves (hello Mike Kelley, Miranda July and Peter Schjeldahl). AND I learned about Chawne Kimber’s mind-blowing quilts and Ithell Colquhoun’s tarot deck, so a total winner of a Short Answer Sunday, imho. Giant thanks to Amy for her insightful responses (and I hope we get to talk more soon)!

For more about Amy, you can find her on Instagram and on her website (book your tattoo appointments there too).
xo, Lauren

Name: Amy Shapiro Esswein
Occupation: Tattooer
Astrological data: Gemini sun, Leo moon and rising
Hometown: Vienna, Virginia
Current location: Richmond, Virginia

Other than Instagram, how do you find new-to-you artists?

Stumbling on something unexpected at a gallery, or in a book, or through conversations with friends. I do a lot of chatting with clients during long tattoo sessions and we talk about whatever’s currently inspiring us. I get so many good suggestions I have to write them down right away so I can look them up afterwards.

An artwork that makes you cry?

Nan Goldin’s Ballad of Sexual Dependency.

Most underrated artist?

I don’t think she’s underrated as a writer, but Miranda July’s body of work including her feature length films, videos, and performances deserve to be more widely seen. I reference her movies The Future and Me and You and Everyone We Know all the time! She’s so funny and fearless and quirky and makes you feel validated as a weird human because we’re all weirdos struggling to connect in the world.

An artwork that you’d like to live inside for a week?

James Turrell’s “Unseen Blue.”

An artist whose work you can’t stop thinking about?

Mike Kelley. I was lucky to see a retrospective of his work at PS1 and pretty much spent an entire day taking it in- it was so emotional. I still remember that frigid day in Queens and having to go outside to get air and go back into the museum multiple times.

Mike Kelley, Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites, 1991/1999, image source

An artwork that feels like a warm hug?

When I moved to Brooklyn in 2011 there was a mural painted by Steve Powers on the downtown Hoyt Street Garage that said “Euphoria is you for me.” I’m pretty sure it’s been demolished since then but there is a photograph of the piece hanging right next to my tattoo station.

What’s your favorite characteristic in an artwork?

Sincerity, love, ecstasy, warmth, spirituality.

Erotic artwork? (Ed. note: this is a multiple choice question)

Yes: ✅

What’s an artwork that you suspect that you shouldn’t like, but you do (guilty pleasure)?

I’m a sucker for Fragonard and almost anything Rococo, as well as any big-eyed kid paintings but especially Margaret Keane’s.

What’s an artwork that you secretly hate?

Anything overly cold and digital. I took my husband on a date to the Hirshhorn museum shortly after we got together and the basement galleries had an exhibition of contemporary digital work. I think it was the first time he heard me give a really impassioned critique and he was pretty taken aback! I can’t really handle art that feels too detached from the maker.

Most insane art piece?

Two quilters come to mind: I am in awe of the work of Chawne Kimber, for her mathematical precision and quantity of cut pieces she’s stitching together, her use of language and stitched words- they’re so powerful. And Chelsea Rhea makes large scale figurative quilted pieces inspired by tattoo motifs and creates such a sense of intimacy, warmth, and longing. Both artists use hand stitching that reads to me as very devotional.

Chawne Kimber. hope, half-empty, 2019; embroidered cotton, quilting cotton, denim, perle cotton thread; improvisationally machine pieced, hand quilted, hand bound; 41 x 48 inches, image source

Fav monograph or art book?

Currently working through “Hot, Cold, Heavy, Light” by my all time favorite art critic Peter Schjeldahl.

Last exhibition you saw irl?

Abigail DeVille’s “Orion’s Cabinet” at the ICA.

An artwork that packs a spiritual punch?

Ithell Colquhoun’s abstract Tarot paintings really do it for me. Pure color and form expressing archetypal energy.

Ithell Colquhoun, Taro as Colour, image source

What art material do you love to nerd out on?

Really well-mixed, thick, impasto oil paint, applied in layers. Fabric that is stitched together in layers, creating a sense of the passage of time. There’s a theme here! Textile materials that bring their own meanings and histories to the work.

What was the last thing that you listened to in the studio?

The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin.

What’s a book that changed your life?

Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg.

What song, book, podcast or film do you think everyone should know about?

The song Tunic (Song for Karen) by Sonic Youth from their 1990 album Goo. It’s a gut wrencher about Karen Carpenter, who I’ve always felt an affinity for as a drummer. When I was young my mom told me about Karen dying from an eating disorder. It was my first time processing how our perception doesn’t always match reality, that there can be a disconnect there. When the bass drops for the chorus, it’s such a visceral feeling. Kim Gordon sings, “I feel like I’m disappearing, getting smaller every day- But I look in the mirror, and I’m bigger in every way.”

❤

Amy was born and raised outside of Washington, DC. Inspired by the riot grrrl and DIY punk scene of the 1990s, she got involved in bands and making zines and flyers. She studied painting at the University of Delaware with a minor in East Asian studies and philosophy. After a couple of life-changing art residencies she moved to Tucson, Arizona in 2003 to pursue an MFA in painting at the University of Arizona, where she taught figure drawing, painting, and color and composition classes and was represented by Platform Gallery. Shortly after finishing her degree, while teaching part time at Pima Community College she began a traditional tattoo apprenticeship under Robert "Mac" McKai and Tracy Ledbetter at Black Rose Tattooers.

In 2011 Amy moved to Brooklyn, New York and worked at East Side Ink and its sister shop Graceland, and then Three Kings Tattoo. She then moved to Denver, Colorado in 2016 and worked at Lifetime and World Tattoo alongside her now-husband Matthew Esswein.

As of December 2021, Amy and her family reside in Richmond, Virginia where she works by appointment at Curio, a tattoo collective. She is entering her 20th year tattooing. She plays drums in the post-punk band Kitchenette and sews quilts and clothing whenever she can. Her visual art these days mainly consists of quilted wall hangings and black-and-white painted sheets of flash. She would love to teach an art class again someday.

Short Answer Sunday: Amy Boone-McCreesh

Welcome to Short Answer Sunday, a weekly interview series where I ask artists, art adjacent individuals, and other interesting, creative people the same set of questions. With the intent of getting to know the person behind the artwork as well generating new avenues to artistic discovery, participants respond with a few words or an artist’s name, always with the opportunity to elaborate if they wish!

Happy Sunday and greetings from the great state of Michigan. Today I am psyched to share a Short Answer Sunday with fellow maximalist Amy Boone-McCreesh. Amy’s mixed-media work often has installative properties and references items and processes associated with the domestic world (noticeably windows and window-related accessories, napkins, knick-knacks on shelves, home decor in general, etc., etc.). Her vibrant, irregularly-edged collages are pattern-laden and bounce between the recognizable and the incomprehensible (loads of fun to look at). She uses a wide-array of materials and approaches, many of which are grounded in the tools and techniques of traditional ‘women’s work.'  Rich with Lippardian “transformational rehabilitation,” I really just love how Amy’s work plays with accumulation, excess and control, through which she explores and disrupts conventions of “high” and “low” class, taste, and value.

In addition to her prolific and ambitious studio practice (and teaching), Amy regularly curates exhibitions and runs Inertia Studio Visits, an online platform for studio/exhibition visits as well as interviews with artists (I’m sure you remember how I feel about artists supporting other artists). Needless to say, she is awesome, as is her Short Answer Sunday. For more about Amy Boone-McCreesh’s work and studio practice, go to her website and follow her on Instagram.
xo, Lauren

Name: Amy Boone-McCreesh
Occupation: Artist and Educator
Astrological data: Gemini :)
Hometown: Born in Maine, Raised in Southern Pennsylvania
Current location: Baltimore, MD

Other than Instagram, how do you find new-to-you artists?

Art Openings, suggestions from artist friends, going to exhibitions, reading, and research for my own studio and teaching

An artwork that makes you laugh?

Most things by Borna Sammak

An artwork that makes you cry?

Ragnar Kjartansson: The Visitors

Most underrated artist?

Oh wow, what a question - right now I am thinking about Florine Stettheimer, Grayson Perry, or Elliot Hundley

Elliott Hundley, Hyacinth, 2006, Paper, photographs, pins, plastic, corkboard, wood, string, found objects, feathers, silk, charcoal, pastel, oil stick, cardboard, fabric, wire, ribbon, 96 × 84 × 18 in., image source

An artwork that you’d like to live inside for a week?

An Alex Da Corte Installation

An artist whose work you can’t stop thinking about?

Suzanne Jackson

Suzanne Jackson, Installation view 'In Nature's Way...', The Modern Institute, Osborne Street, 2021, image source

An artwork that feels like a warm hug?

Anything by El Anatsui

What’s your favorite characteristic in an artwork?

Evidence of the human hand - a little rough

Erotic artwork? (Ed. note: this is a multiple choice question)

No: ✅

What’s an artwork that doesn’t look like art?

A Quilt? A sewing sampler? A functional textile?

What’s an artwork that you suspect that you shouldn’t like, but you do (guilty pleasure)?

Jeff Koons, Puppy, made up of many live flowering plants and on view at Glenstone in Maryland

What’s an artwork that you secretly hate?

Probably something by Anna Weyant, John Currin, or Jackson Pollock

Most insane art piece?

Liza Lou installations

Fav monograph or art book?

With Pleasure - Pattern and Decoration in American Art 1972-1985

Fav museum or gallery in your current location?

I Love/Hate Glenstone

Last exhibition you saw irl?

A local show at Current Space in Baltimore, MD and the work of the Low Residency MFA grads at MICA, where I teach

An artwork that packs a spiritual punch?

Anything Felix Gonzales Torres

Felix Gonzales Torres, “Untitled" (Blood), 1992. Installed in Dancing with Myself - Works from the Pinault Collection. Punta della Dogana, Venice, Italy. 8 Apr. – 16 Dec. 2018, image source

An artwork that you’d like to see before you die?

Really tough question - I’m not sure!!!

What art material do you love to nerd out on?

Fibers / reuse / materials maybe not intended for art

What was the last thing that you listened to in the studio?

Punk Rock

What’s a book that changed your life?

Another tough question! I am just going to tell you a recent highlight - which was Zadie Smith’s “Intimations: Six Essays”

What song, book, podcast or film do you think everyone should know about?

I recommend BBC Radio 1’s mixtape series called “The Essential Mix” it has been going in the UK since 1993 and each week provides a new two hour mix by a contemporary electronic musician - great for studio time

❤

Amy Boone-McCreesh (b.1985 Caribou, Maine) is a multidisciplinary artist whose vibrant and maximalist works explore themes of decoration, material culture, and constructed environments. She has exhibited widely across the United States, with recent solo presentations at Morgan Lehman (New York), Penn State University, the Academy Art Museum (MD), and Pentimenti Gallery (Philadelphia). Her work has also been shown at the Kreeger Museum, the Walters Art Museum, Asya Geisberg Gallery, and David B. Smith Gallery, among others. Boone-McCreesh was a finalist for the 2024 Janet and Walter Sondheim Prize and a 2023 Joan Mitchell Fellowship nominee.

She is the founder and editor of INERTIA, an online studio visit series, and has contributed writing to BmoreArt. Her work has been featured in Hyperallergic, Artnet, Artblog, New American Paintings, and Beautiful Decay, and is included in collections such as Facebook, Capital One, and the U.S. Department of State's Art in Embassies program.

Boone-McCreesh holds an MFA from Towson University and a BFA from the Pennsylvania College of Art and Design. She is currently an adjunct faculty member at both the Maryland Institute College of Art and Towson University. She has held visiting professorships at Dickinson College and Franklin & Marshall, and regularly lectures as a visiting artist and critic. Her residencies include Loghaven (2024), the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and a two-year Hamiltonian Fellowship in Washington, DC. She lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.

For more about Amy Boone-McCreesh, visit her website and follow her on Instagram

Short Answer Sunday: Franchell Mack Brown

Welcome to Short Answer Sunday, a weekly (#goals) interview series where I ask artists, art adjacent individuals, and other interesting, creative people the same set of questions. With the intent of getting to know the person behind the artwork as well generating new avenues to artistic discovery, participants respond with a few words or an artist’s name, always with the opportunity to elaborate if they wish!

Today I’m over the moon to share a Short Answer Sunday with Franchell Mack Brown. I have been totally captivated by Franchell’s work since we were both included in a group show at Ada Gallery last year. Her studio practice is extensive and dedicated, and I’m so inspired by the way she combines and transforms many familiar materials into stunning displays of visual ingenuity.

Much of Franchell’s work fits beneath the umbrella of textiles, however she also incorporates a broad range of skills and wide assortment of materials. She welds! She crochets (not like your grandma) using vibrant ribbon, synthetic hair, brown paper, industrial paracord, etc.! And when I learned that she makes her own glass beads (over 1000 handmade beads in her recent solo Aww Sookie Sookie Now at Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville), I needed several moments of silence afterwards. These pearls of studio wisdom (and so many others worth knowing) are shared in her conversation with fellow artist Justice Dwight as part of Second Street Gallery’s Artists in Conversation series (lucky for us, we can watch it online here). Her insight into her process informs and expands my understanding of her work, as do all of the personal stories that she shares. Every detail, no matter how small, is imbued with intention, endurance, care and passion. Her Short Answer Sunday is no different—get to it!

For more info about Franchell Mack Brown and her work, visit her website and follow her on Instagram.
xo, Lauren

Photography credit: Bethany Brewster

Name: Franchell Mack Brown
Occupation: Professional Artist
Astrological data: Mighty mighty Virgo!
Hometown: Washington DC
Current location: Richmond VA

Other than Instagram, how do you find new-to-you artists?

Google search, others recommendations, visiting galleries and museums

An artwork that makes you laugh?

Justice Dwight’s outfits make me very happy.

An artwork that makes you cry?

All the black trauma art… EVERY-SINGLE-ONE

Most underrated artist?

Me

An artwork that you’d like to live inside for a week?

Torkwase Dyson work on the high line in NYC

Torkwase Dyson, Alice (Hand to Hand, Heart to Heart), NYC High Line; image source

An artist whose work you can’t stop thinking about?

Other than my own… Barbara Chase Ribaud

An artwork that feels like a warm hug?

Nastassja Swifts sacks

What’s your favorite characteristic in an artwork?

Divine repetition like the buttons on a Nick Cave Sound Suit.

Erotic artwork? (Ed. note: this is a multiple choice question)

Yes: ✅

What’s an artwork that doesn’t look like art?

People’s fashion choices… the good the bad and the ugly of it all.

What’s an artwork that you suspect that you shouldn’t like, but you do (guilty pleasure)?

No guilt just pleasure, black and white erotica.

What’s an artwork that you secretly hate?

No secret, black trauma art. Just stop.

Most insane art piece?

Anything by El Anatsui

El Anatsui, Stressed World, 2011, Aluminum and copper wire, 442 x 594.4 cm; image source

Fav monograph or art book?

Book of Symbols currently… but this answer changes frequently.

Fav museum or gallery in your current location?

1. The Branch Museum 2. The VMFA

Last exhibition you saw irl?

Aww Sookie Sookie Now at the Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville, VA

An artwork that packs a spiritual punch?

Hilma Af Klint

An artwork that you’d like to see before you die?

Barbara Chase Riboud in person

Barbara Chase-Riboud with her sculpture, Le Manteau (The Cape) or Cleopatra’s Cape, 1973; image source

What art material do you love to nerd out on?

Textiles/ribbons/buttons.

What was the last thing that you listened to in the studio?

My playlist on shuffle. Last song: everything is everything Lauryn Hill

What’s a book that changed your life?

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

What song, book, podcast or film do you think everyone should know about?

Willow by Joan Armatrading

❤

Franchell Mack Brown is a multi-disciplinary artist who employs an amalgam of materials in her practice, from the pliancy of crocheted ribbon and industrial cording to the solidity of welding and fused glass, and embellishment with natural pearls, gemstones, and flamework beads. She tells stories that encourage and empower. Since arriving in Richmond, Virginia in 2018, Mack Brown has expanded her studio practice. She is a VMFA Fellow (Richmond, VA; 2021–22), a cohort of Interlude Residency (Hudson, NY; 2022), Monson Arts Residency (Monson, ME; 2023), and The Visual Arts Center of Richmond (Richmond, VA; 2023–24). Mack Brown teaches creative workshops for CultureWorks and facilitates an art-based mentor program for sixth-grade girls, and is the Professional Artist Development Co-Ordinator for The VisArts Center six-month residency program (all Richmand, VA). Her works are held in the collections of Capital One and Pam Royall.

For more about Franchell Mack Brown, head over to her website and follow her on Instagram.

Short Answer Sunday: Geoffrey Aldridge-Duncan

Meant to elicit quick, intuitive responses, Short Answer Sunday will introduce readers to a wide variety of artists, educators, writers, curators, art enthusiasts and art adjacent individuals whose inclinations I admire. With the intent of getting to know the person behind the artwork as well generating new avenues to artistic discovery, participants may respond with only a few words or an artist’s name, always with the opportunity to elaborate if they wish!

Geoffrey Aldridge-Duncan is an artist who employs the tension of opposites in his work, chromatic ones, but also those of value, surface, and material. I’m head over heels for his recent sculptures, assortments of paring knives and structural I-beams that are constructed from porcelain, stoneware and colored glazes. These interpretations of common, utilitarian objects still carry symbolic resonance; however, any expectation of actual functionality is undermined by the surprising material switcheroo.

With shifting, sensitive surfaces that retain traces of the making process, I find Geoffrey’s I-beam sculptures particularly captivating. No longer capable of bearing weight (even the weight of my expectations), they become objects open to new interpretations. Rectangular colored glazes wrap around edges and corners, disturbing the physical shape with optical interruptions that flatten and distort the form (color power in action). I’m thinking, too, of the way Ali Smith writes about edges in her book Artful (excellent read recommended by recent S.A.S. subject Barbara Weissberger) as places of transgression, borders to cross over, and thresholds of forbidden magic. Finally, chef’s kiss to the whole installation of Geoffrey’s recent solo Heavy Load at Wagner College, esp. the pairing of the ceramic sculptures with plywood pedestals. I really wish I could have seen it in person.

Geoffrey is a grad school friend so that means I’ve been following his work for just about 20 years now. I found Geoffrey’s opinions incredibly insightful in school and I love how he speaks and writes about his work now (yes please to thinking about color as an argument) so go see more on his website and follow him on Instagram. Geoffrey never ceases to amaze and inspire so I know you’re going to love his Short Answer Sunday.
xo, Lauren

 

Name: Geoffrey Aldridge-Duncan
Occupation: Artist
Astrological data: Sun is Taurus, Moon is Scorpio and Rising is Virgo. Year of the rabbit
Hometown: Paxton, IL
Current location: New York

Other than Instagram, how do you find new-to-you artists?

Visiting galleries, alternative spaces, art fairs, museums

An artwork that makes you laugh?

Oops, Laurel Nakadate

Laurel Nakadate: ‘Oops!,’ 2000, 3-channel SD video installation, color, sound 3:42 min, video still; image source

An artwork that makes you cry?

Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), Felix Gonzalez-Torres

Most underrated artist?

Most of us

An artwork that you’d like to live inside for a week?

Farnsworth House, Mies van der Rohe

Farnsworth House by Mies Van Der Rohe; image source

An artist whose work you can’t stop thinking about?

Anne Truitt

An artwork that feels like a warm hug?

Any Monet Painting

What’s your favorite characteristic in an artwork?

how it engages the body

Erotic artwork? (Ed. note: this is a multiple choice question)

Yes: ✅

What’s an artwork that you suspect that you shouldn’t like, but you do (guilty pleasure)?

A guilty pleasure would be figurative paintings from the late ‘90’s/early aughts.

Most insane art piece?

White Snow, Paul McCarthy (insane in a good way) installation at Park Ave. Armory in 2013

Paul McCarthy, WS, 2013, mixed media. Installation view. Photo: James Ewing; image source

Fav monograph or art book?

Agnes Martin, Felix Gonzales-Torres, Anne Truitt, Tracey Emin…so many

Fav museum or gallery in your current location?

Mrs., James Cohen, Theta, Alexander Gray, Matthew Marks

Last exhibition you saw irl?

Helen Frankenthaler at Gagosian

An artwork that packs a spiritual punch?

Any of the Sinks from Robert Gober

Robert Gober, selected works from The Heart is Not a Metaphor, The Museum of Modern Art, October 4, 2014–January 18, 2015; image source

What art material do you love to nerd out on?

Making my own slip and coloring it.

What was the last thing that you listened to in the studio?

The Daily, NY Times

What’s a book that changed your life?

Moby Dick

What song, book, podcast or film do you think everyone should know about?

The Grid Book, by Hannah B Higgins

❤

Geoffrey Aldridge-Duncan lives and works in NYC.

For more about Geoffrey’s work, go to his website and follow him on Instagram.

Short Answer Sunday: Darien Arikoski-Johnson

Meant to elicit quick, intuitive responses, Short Answer Sunday will introduce readers to a wide variety of artists, educators, writers, curators, art enthusiasts and art adjacent individuals whose inclinations I admire. With the intent of getting to know the person behind the artwork as well generating new avenues to artistic discovery, participants may respond with only a few words or an artist’s name, always with the opportunity to elaborate if they wish!

I write a lot like I paint, which is heavy on the cutting, pasting, rearranging, tearing away, and covering up. It’s a lot of editing, really, and I’m drawn to other artists and art forms that involve working in this way. Maybe it’s the use of destruction to access something new and different? Maybe it’s my obsession with fragments and scraps of all sorts? Regardless, it makes a lot of sense that I’m into Darien Arikoski-Johnson’s ceramic work as he is also interested in pieces, arrangements and destruction as a means of creation (watch this Instagram video). 

I met Darien when we both lived in Detroit (my husband’s hometown) and now that he lives in Atlanta (my hometown), I thought it would be especially cool to check in with him. My instincts paid off because I love the perspective Darien offers in this Short Answer Sunday. For more about Darien and his work, head on over to his gallery’s website and follow him on Instagram.
xo, Lauren

Name: Darien Arikoski-Johnson
Occupation: Associate Professor/Artist
Astrological data: Aries
Hometown: Hibbing, MN
Current location: Atlanta, GA

Other than Instagram, how do you find new-to-you artists?

Honestly, not a lot of time is spent searching for other artists. but I enjoy the occasional interview/video on Art 21 or the Louisiana Channel

An artwork that makes you cry?

I can’t think of a time I’ve actually cried while viewing art, but the closest emotional experience I can remember was in a small gallery at the Walker in MN. It was a Sol Lewitt exhibition. Can’t remember the name of the piece but it was lines on paper. The horizontal line drawings by individuals one under the next in the middle of each paper. If my recollection is correct, I was by myself at the time and entering an intimate gallery surrounded by the subtle evidence of a group of people stirred an unexpected emotional response that was close to tears. It’s a strong piece, and surprising that a group of simple lines could evoke such an emotion.

An artwork that you’d like to live inside for a week?

I realize this is looking for something more fantastic but the honest thing that comes up is actually possible and it would be the Pantheon.

The interior of the Pantheon, Rome, Italy
Image Source

An artist whose work you can’t stop thinking about?

I tend not to dwell on the work of others, my own work has me perplexed enough.

What’s your favorite characteristic in an artwork?

Work that balances tactile knowledge and abstract ideation well. While I don’t have an underrated artist to point out, I do think material fluency is often underrated, or maybe the issue is that it’s often polarizing.

Erotic artwork? (Ed. note: this is a multiple choice question)

Yes: ✅

What’s an artwork that doesn’t look like art?

At this point that’s impossible to say. Placing anything in the right context identifies it as art. There’s olfactory work that doesn’t “look” like art as it doesn’t look like anything. Pull the banana off the wall and it stops looking like art. assemble some trash in a gallery and it looks like art. Everything and Nothing looks like art.

What’s an artwork that you suspect that you shouldn’t like, but you do (guilty pleasure)?

The idea that I would feel guilty for liking an artwork is a little absurd to me. There is some amount of subjectivity in this arena and if somebody disagrees with my taste that’s their prerogative but not my concern... When thinking of things I like that some portion of the art world has turned away from Klimt comes to mind. One would need to see his paintings in person to fully appreciate how well he could articulate subtleties of the body and portraiture.

Gustav Klimt, Portrait of Fritza Riedler, 1906, oil on canvas, 153 cm × 133 cm
Image Source

What’s an artwork that you secretly hate?

it’s not much of a secret to those who know me, but approximately 90 to 95% of what is being produced I’m either indifferent to or strongly dislike.

Most insane art piece?

hard to label a “most” but it would probably be pulled out of the performance art movement in the 60’s 70’s. Chris Burden’s Shoot comes to mind. Yayoi Kusama comes to mind as somebody who uses more traditional media.

Chris Burden, film still from Shoot, 1971, performance/video
Image Source

Fav museum or gallery in your current location?

Hard to play favorites locally after having lived in Copenhagen for three years. My favorite in Denmark was Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, they have an amazing location and great shows. The layout to get lost in also created a fun experience.

It’s not to say there isn’t good work being shown in Atlanta, There is. My current routine doesn’t involve much going out and as such I can’t point to a favorite.

Last exhibition you saw irl?

Chelsea galleries a few months ago on a NYC excursion. not sure which was the last one I saw.

An artwork that you’d like to see before you die?

It doesn’t exist yet, or I’d stop making things.

What art material do you love to nerd out on?

Clay

What was the last thing that you listened to in the studio?

Prob some finance podcast or a 90’s alt or punk station on Prime.

What’s a book that changed your life?

It’s probably the case that all new information/interaction changes ones life to some degree and as such all the books have done that. There’s not one particular that I feel drastically changed my trajectory.

What song, book, podcast or film do you think everyone should know about?

Lex Fridman does a good job of digging at information.

❤

Darien Arikoski-Johnson’s work is recognized internationally through awarded grants, exhibitions, and residencies. In 2012 he was awarded the Emerging Artist Award through NCECA, he has received multiple grants including one from the Danish Cultural Ministry to complete a residency and exhibition opportunity through C.R.E.T.A. Rome. A-Johnson’s work was awarded the Gold Prize in the Korean International Ceramics Biennale 2021 and in 2023 his work was featured in the 62nd Faenza Prize – International Competition of Contemporary Art Ceramics. A-Johnson resides in Atlanta, Georgia and is an Associate Professor at Georgia State University. His work is represented by Alan Avery Art Company.

For more about Darien Arikoski-Johnson, find him at Alan Avery Art or on Instagram.

Short Answer Sunday: Carlie Kinto

Meant to elicit quick, intuitive responses, Short Answer Sunday will introduce readers to a wide variety of artists, educators, writers, curators, art enthusiasts and art adjacent individuals whose inclinations I admire. With the intent of getting to know the person behind the artwork as well generating new avenues to artistic discovery, participants may respond with only a few words or an artist’s name, always with the opportunity to elaborate if they wish!

Happy Sunday, everyone. This week I am so excited to share a Short Answer Sunday with artist Carlie Kinto. Carlie and I went to the same grad program in DC, and even though our time there didn’t overlap, I’ve been an avid follower of her work since about 2010. I most often think of Carlie as a painter, although she also works with jewelry, metals and 3D mixed-media arrangements. Her paintings combine a broad range of paint media (gouache, acrylic, oil, Flashe, ink, etc.) and also less traditional painting substances like rhinestones, glitter and sand. Carlie’s use of the conventional and the idiosyncratic extends into her supports which run the gamut of size, shape and material.

There are many reasons why I am drawn to Carlie’s work, but one striking reason is her investigation into two ongoing, yet distinct, bodies of work—one that is primarily abstract, and another which is based on the observational, natural landscape. Although they are different bodies of work with varying agendas and processes, to me, they are cumulative and in dialogue. Carlie’s abstractions often include spiritual symbolism—spirals, moons, stars, mandalas and double ellipses. Much of this imagery references phenomena in the natural world, but Carlie’s renditions feel like a turn inward, an inner vision that feels both familiar and unnameable. Her deliberate, chromatic landscapes encourage close looking and evoke a similar sense of solitude, wonder, pattern, and time. Whether representational or abstract, all of Carlie’s paintings show the artist’s penchant for layered mark-making, vibrant, complicated color/pattern relationships and her awe + reverence for the natural and spiritual worlds (which are maybe not so separate after all).

Carlie’s responses are wonderful and provide such a great foundation for looking and thinking about her work. For more about Carlie Kinto, go to her website and follow her on Instagram. Thanks for reading, pals 😊
xo, Lauren

Name: Carlie Kinto
Occupation: Artist (day job- Administrative Assistant to a design team)
Astrological data: Sagittarius Sun and Rising, Gemini Moon, Libra MC
Hometown: Bend, Oregon
Current location: Portland, Oregon

Other than Instagram, how do you find new-to-you artists?

Art books, word of mouth, art shows

An artwork that makes you laugh?

Medieval paintings of cats

An artwork that makes you cry?

“The Artist is Present” by Marina Abramović

Most underrated artist?

It’s hard to answer this one because I feel like there are so many great artists making art today that don’t get enough recognition

An artwork that you’d like to live inside for a week?

“Paysage méridional: Le Cannet” by Pierre Bonnard

Pierre Bonnard, Paysage méridional: Le Cannet, 1929 - 1930, oil on canvas, 55,5 x 46,5 cm

An artist whose work you can’t stop thinking about?

Raina Lee stoneware paintings, Lily Stockman, Yevgeniya Baras

An artwork that feels like a warm hug?

“Two sunflowers” by Joan Mitchell

“Mimi’s Garden” by Hayley Barker

Joan Mitchell, Two Sunflowers, 1980. Oil on canvas, 110 1/4 x 142 x 1 1/4 inches

What’s your favorite characteristic in an artwork?

Soulfulness… the artist’s hand, a bit of tension, texture, imperfections

Erotic artwork? (Ed. note: this is a multiple choice question)

Other: Depends

What’s an artwork that doesn’t look like art?

Jewelry doesn’t get enough credit as art

What’s an artwork that you suspect that you shouldn’t like, but you do (guilty pleasure)?

“The Kiss” by Gustov Klimt and in general decoration and pattern

What’s an artwork that you secretly hate?

David Hockney iPad drawings

Most insane art piece?

“The Four Seasons” Charles E. Burchfield

Light Years, “finite sequence of mathematically rigorous instructions” by Judith Pfaff

Charles E. Burchfield, The Four Seasons, 1949-1960, watercolor on joined paper mounted on board, 55 7/8 X 47 7/8 inches

Fav monograph or art book?

Another World: The Transcendental Painting Group

Fav museum or gallery in your current location?

PAM and Nationale

Last exhibition you saw irl?

A Queer Arcana: Art, Magic, and Spirit at Palm Springs Art Museum

An artwork that packs a spiritual punch?

Tantric paintings from Rajasthan, India. (From the book ‘Tantra song’)

An artwork that you’d like to see before you die?

“The Ten Largest” by Hilma af Klint

What art material do you love to nerd out on?

Sennelier oil pastels 💸

What was the last thing that you listened to in the studio?

Aphex Twin

What’s a book that changed your life?

You Were Born For This by Chani Nicholas

What song, book, podcast or film do you think everyone should know about?

The Telepathy Tapes podcast

❤

Carlie Kinto is a multidisciplinary artist who creates abstract and landscape paintings, jewelry and installations.

Her abstract paintings reveal the metaphysical and otherworldly through a meditative process of building layers through repetitive mark-making, using intuitive techniques like scrying to allow images to unconsciously emerge. These coalesce into compositions that embody primal ecological forms and processes such as the spiral or cell division and evolution, reflecting Carlie's interest in the patterns the universe reveals from the cosmic to the microcosmic.

Her landscapes are painted on location. Similarly to her abstractions they are created through a process of building layers and repetitive marks with the intention to capture the energetic vibration, and the constant change and motion of nature. She embraces the chaos and bright colors of lush gardens and tress to capture the emotionally expressive feeling of a place.

Carlie Kinto received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing from University of Oregon in 2007 and her Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art from American University in 2010.

For more about Carlie Kinto, find her on her website and Instagram.