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
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An artwork that you’d like to live inside for a week?
An artist whose work you can’t stop thinking about?
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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?
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
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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
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