6 + 1 Questions with Sharon Servilio

Over the next few months, my Art Habit contributions will take the form of short interviews with selected artists. I am starting with artists that I know personally, but may eventually expand to artists outside of my existing network. The interview structure will remain (mostly!) consistent. Each artist will be given the same set of six questions, plus one wild card question, hence the name 6 + 1 Questions. Of course, I reserve the right to change course at any point and modify questions along the way. Because where would the fun be otherwise?

Portland-based Sharon Servilio is one of my longtime favorite humans and artists. She has graciously agreed to be my first interviewee. I have the lofty goal of writing one smashing, descriptive sentence to introduce readers to each artists' work. When I begin to write about Sharon's work, however, I find my sentences lengthening and entangling. I add "ands" until the sentence becomes a paragraph becomes a page and on and on. This failed endeavor may speak to my writing skills, but it also suggests the expansive, polymathic quality of Sharon's work. I love Sharon's acute ability to link personal histories to universal bodies of knowledge, disrupting conventional notions of time, history and painting alike. Many thanks to Sharon for the generosity of her responses and allowing us a small glimpse into the mind of one of my favorite contemporary artists.

 

You can see Sharon's work in person at Unit B Gallery in Baltimore, where her solo exhibition, A Phone Call from the Zone, runs through Saturday, August 26. There will be a closing reception and artist talk at the gallery from 5-7pm on Aug. 26.  Later this fall, look out for her work  published in the Anthropology of Consciousness Journal.

 

Sharon Servilio, Under Story, 2022, gouache on paper construction,

15 x 9 x 3 inches. Photo: Mario Gallucci

Lauren Rice:  What’s your sign? If you are astrologically literate, feel free to give your Sun/Moon/Rising. Do you identify with the characteristics of your sign(s)?

 

Sharon Servilio: While my pragmatic Capricorn side is always reluctant to put too much stock in astrology, my curious artist side finds it fascinating as an attempt to systematize the fractal nature of the universe. In other words, as you zoom in to the micro or zoom out to the macro scale, you see the same patterns repeating. Fractals occur visually with patterns like the nested spirals of a growing fern, which are further nested inside a spiraling galaxy.  They can also be applied to human patterns of behavior and relationship - how can exploration into the personal facilitate insights on a collective or structural level, and vice versa? Astrology also looks at natural processes through the lens of mysticism and mythology, and uses geometry to form a visual map of relationships. These are all themes I think about a lot in my practice and life!

 

At a personal level, I find it most helpful as a language to frame the process of personal growth - where do I have innate tendencies and where do I need to move towards? I have a Capricorn sun and Aquarius rising, an earth and air sign. I do relate to these in that I feel most comfortable in the earthy realm of materiality and practically, and the airy field of ideas.  I also have polarities that speak to tensions between public and private, the individual and the collective, conventional and unconventional ideas of success, all of which I grapple with when I question what I want for my life as an artist.

 

 

Sharon Servilio, Symbiogenesis, 2023, gouache on paper construction,
31 x 41 x 2 inches

LR: What is your morning routine?

 

SS: If I don’t have to be anywhere, my ideal routine is that I make tea and then putter around the house in a reverie, stopping to look at things in the studio, reading or sketching, or sitting outside if the weather is nice, enjoying the company of the damselflies or jumping spiders or whoever’s around. Liminal spaces like airports and train rides are fruitful for generating new ideas in my sketchbook, so I try to cultivate a bit of indeterminate space in my daily life whenever my schedule allows.

 

On the other hand, if I do have to be somewhere, my routine is rushing around and trying to leave the house on time without forgetting something!

 

LR:  Have you ever cried in front of an artwork? If so, what was it?

 

SS: Not that I can remember, although I did cry in other public places while living in NYC - it is an underrated quality of that great city that it is an ideal place for anonymously crying in public.

 

 

Sharon Servilio, Time Machine 1, 2022,
gouache on paper construction, 10.5 x 9 x 5.5 inches

 

LR: What are you reading now?

 

SS: One current read is Marija Gimbutas’ The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, a visually-rich survey and interpretation of archaeological finds from 6000-3000 BCE, in an area spanning present-day Ukraine, the Balkans, Greece and southern Italy. These cultures had begun practicing agriculture, and created clay figurines, pots, and miniature models of buildings, many referencing animals and other elements from nature.  It seems that they revered the interspecies collaborations that sustained them, and that there was little separation between domestic and ritual or sacred spaces. In addition, some scholars believe these were more egalitarian societies, both in terms of class and gender. It’s less important to me whether these theories can ever be proven historically factual, and more interesting how they can inform my own imagination and be metabolized in my studio practice.

 

Other books rotating through my stack and earphones are Sophie Strand’s The Madonna Secret, Tricia Hersey’s Rest is Resistance, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars, Anna Tsing’s Mushroom at the End of the World, Lars Chittka’s The Mind of a Bee, Dick Rauh’s The Science Behind Flowers, and Heather Davis’s Plastic Matter. Similar to how planets have varying orbit speeds, I like to zip through multiple easier reads while slowly making my way through denser books.

 

LR:  Tell us four truths about yourself and one lie (in any order, just don’t divulge which is the lie!):

SS:
a. I’m the youngest of 5 siblings.
b. I’ve had a home studio for the past 4 years.
c. I find math fun.
d. My first job was at a business that promoted apparitions of the Virgin Mary.
e. The only paper I use is Rives BFK.

 

LR: Wild card! What do you like most about being an artist? What do you like least?

 

SS: Most: so hard to choose one thing, but maybe the euphoria of discovery, like when you make a visual move that surprises yourself, or when your work helps you connect the dots in making sense of your life and larger unfolding processes that you are embedded in.

 

Least: Artists, along with most other humans and non-humans, are not valued or supported within a capitalist, extractive system. It’s a constant struggle to sustain an artistic practice while balancing your material needs and interpersonal obligations, not to mention all the admin work it takes to maintain the career/visibility aspect of being an artist, and sometimes it seems impossible.

 

Sharon Servilio, Permeable Self, 2023, 

gouache on paper construction with wood frame, 

21.5 x 29.5 x 6.5 inches

LR: What other artist(s) would you like to see answer these questions?

 

SS: This is a hard question to answer without listing 100+ names! One artist I’d love to read interviewed is Yvonne Shortt, a New York social practice artist I follow.  She has developed several alternative models for how artists can organize themselves outside the scarcity mindset that drives much of the art world, which is something I think many artists are longing for. It would be incredibly interesting to hear more about her ideas!

 

 

 

Sharon Servilio received her BA from Brandeis University and her MFA from American University. She has shown in solo exhibitions at Unit B in Baltimore and Long Island University in Brooklyn, and in two-person exhibitions at Gallery 114 in Portland and Loyola University in Baltimore. Her work has been included in numerous group exhibitions nationally, including at ChaShaMa, Field Projects, Ortega y Gasset, Printed Matter, Paradice Palase, Trestle, LABspace, and Eastern Michigan University.  Servilio was awarded the RACC Make|Learn|Build grant, the RACC Public Purchase Award, and the Oregon Arts Commission Career Opportunity Grant. She lives and works in Portland, OR.  Find her work at https://www.sharonservilio.com/ and on Instagram @sharonservilio.

All images courtesy of the artist.