Table Of Contents August 2012 6 Ashley Freeland
6 Debra Olin
Founder/Editor-In-Chief
Darius Loftis
Associate Editor
Claudia Puccio
Contributing Writers
Zoe Hyde Carina Wine
Marketing
Pete Cosmos Kevin Hebb
Graphic Designer
Darius Loftis
Web Designer
Nick Rachielles
Photographer
Nicklaus Pereksta
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Editor’s Note Zoe Hyde has been writing for Abstraks for over a year now. She has consistently delivered sincere and engaging pieces featuring some of Massachusetts’ most talented artists. She has sacrificed, for Abstraks, both her time and her sanity (unwittingly traveling by different route to the same building …more than once). And she has been an absolute joy to work with on this magazine. August is Zoe’s last issue with Abstraks; she is leaving Boston in September to go kick some serious ass in California. We will miss her enthusiasm, her wit and her contribution to our community.
Ashley 6 Freeland Written by Zoe Hyde
Since I work at an independent bookstore, whenever I go into other independent bookstores, I feel like a spy. I’m early to the Trident Café and Book Store, so before I meet Ashley for our interview I skulk around, checkin’ out the layout of the Trident’s sections. Obviously it’s not a fair comparison to my store, the Trident is in a totally different area and seems to be primarily a café rather than simply a retail store, but still, I find myself smugly wandering the aisles, like a mother-in-law wearing white kid gloves, checking for dust. When I meet Ashley she is not angry with me for repeatedly ignoring her emails, so I’m pretty certain this interview is going to go great. When, without my prompting, she orders a watermelon mimosa from the waitress, even though it’s noon and we both have work later, I decide I definitely like her. The watermelon mimosas arrive, and what usually is about a half an hour process stretches out into over 70 minutes worth of material, not all usable however, since the last half hour is mostly us exchanging book titles about horrific, homicide themed nonfiction and how much we both like dogs. Zoe: When did you first start getting into painting? Ashley: Probably not until, like, 6 years ago. I always did little things in art, growing up, but I skipped it for the majority of my life, didn’t go to school for it or anything. Then I just decided to start trying painting, oil painting, which I had never done. It’s kind of difficult to start with, but eventually I realized I wasn’t bad at it and it’s kind of fun. Zoe: It says something on your website about your grandfather?
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Ashley: Yeah, he was an artist, he died about 15 years ago or so, but he was a really good artist and when he died, they were giving away his stuff and I wanted his paint brushes, so I thought, I should probably continue on this tradition. Zoe: Have you thought about doing a project related to any of that? Ashley: Well, just one thing. He left a half-finished painting, which I have, and thought it would be really cool to finish. The only problem is he didn’t leave a picture of what he
was painting, it was a mountain scene, which I don’t usually do, but I feel like I’m at a level now where I could probably just finish it.
things like, “Well, that’s grammatically wrong”… Zoe: Why do you think painting affords you that freedom?
Zoe: Where did you go to school? Ashley: I went to the university of Wisconsin for Creative Writing. I liked it a lot but I kind of wished I had gone to school for art as well. Zoe: What kind of writing? Ashley: I haven’t done a lot lately, but I used to be more interested in writing as opposed to painting. I had a blog and wrote a bunch of humor stuff. I’d like to get back into that again, but it’s hard to push yourself to do that stuff. Zoe: I find a large overlap between artists and writers; a lot of them start out as writers and branch out. Ashley: I was pretty self conscious about writing because you get really in your head about it, thinking about like, “Oh that doesn’t sound good” before it even gets on the paper. When I started painting I think I was just less uptight about it and less afraid to show people what I’d done. I think people are less critical about your work, because they either like it or they don’t, they can’t say
Ashley: Well, to start, people will read your writing but it takes them more time. With art, you’re like “look at this painting” and I feel like people will have more to say about it. I mean there are thousands of books in here, and I might like the cover but I’m not going to take the time to read them all. I guess I’m less nervous about it, for some reason. There’s so many ways you can say something, write something, and they’re all completely different, whereas painting has fewer options? Something like that. Zoe: Well I think what you’re getting at is the difference between watching a bad movie and reading a bad book, which my roommate and I were talking about the other day. Ashley: Yes exactly. Also I’m just so much less inside my head when I’m painting, it just goes on the paper and it’s done. Zoe: How do you choose your subjects?
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Ashley: Well I’ve done some commission stuff for friends and people, but I really like doing animals. I also like really weird stuff, too. A lot of my art isn’t very weird but I kind of want it to move in that direction. Zoe: What is it about animals? Ashley: I don’t know; I like them! I think there’s just so much variety, there are so many different kinds and they all look completely different, whereas people all look like people. They’re interesting because they’re all so different, there are some crazy animals in South America, and it’s just interesting to think that they exist. Zoe: What kind of media inspires you? Ashley: The technical skill of an artist is one of the first things I notice. Some artists are so amazing, things look so lifelike, and the fact that they can do that - I’m in awe of that. I’d like to get there someday. Some people just really have that skill. I kind of like a little bit weirder artists, I didn’t go to art school so I don’t even really know a lot of artists, but Magritte is an artist I really like. It’s surreal, realistic but has weird things or inexplicable things happening. I like a lot of humor books, I just read one of Michael Ian Black’s books. I like a
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lot of nonfiction, books about crime. I really like those opposites. Zoe: Are you interested in illustration at all? Ashley: Yeah I’m doing an illustration certificate right now at The Museum School. It’s hard to break into it, I think, but I’m definitely interested. I took a class last semester; I’m trying to push myself in that. It’s a different thing because you have to learn how to put everything into a context that works, as opposed to having one subject. Zoe: When did you start taking this class? Ashley: It’s a certificate program, so it’s about 8 classes, and I just started. I don’t have a lot of art instruction, so it’s nice to be able to go back and do that because I can’t afford to get a degree now. Zoe: Are you interested in showing your stuff at all? Ashley: Yeah, I did a few shows; it was really fun.You guys may have heard of RAW artists Boston? I did one of those in April, it was a lot of work to put it all together, but it was like a big party. I’m really bad at trying to sell my art, and all my friends
came, and they were like “Okay you’re not even standing next to any of your pieces, you have to go talk to people who are looking at them.” and I said “But what do I say!?” but it was fun. I need to find some more shows to do. Zoe: What do you think compels you to paint? Ashley: I feel like I have a lot of ideas I like. I keep lists of things that are kind of weird, or I would like to see, and the challenge is of course, for any idea that is in your head, getting it to work on paper somehow. But I think of things that are kind of funny, or that would be cool to paint. Like I have this drag queen that I painted, and I still really like the idea, for some reason. It’s kind of like writing in that I have a lot of ideas that I thought were funny, or would be good to talk about, and I think it’s the same thing, it’s just a way of capturing whatever is in my head. Like with writing, I have all these ideas, and I just feel like I should put it in a book somewhere so I can just get it out. I think it’s the same with art; I just wanted to have it, and get it out.
Ashley: I’d like to illustrate a book, but I’d like the book to be a little bit funny. Zoe: Would you want to write the book too? Ashley: I’ve thought of that in the past too, and I’ve started things and realized that it’s still a lot of work to come up with a story. That’s always the hardest part. Eventually that would be good. I like artists that have collections of work, or a theme. I think that’s what I’m working towards. I don’t have that yet. I have a lot of goals, it’s hard to find enough time to get there, but I’m working on it. I’m slowly working on it. Contact information: Website: www.ashleyfreeland.com Email: freeland.ashley@gmail.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/ashleyfreelandart Tumblr: http://freelandart.tumblr.com/ Etsy shop: www.etsy.com/people/ Ashfree84
Zoe: What is a project or goal you’re working towards? Would you want to illustrate a children’s book?
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Debra 20 Olin Written by Carina Wine
Have you been to the Boston Public Library lately? Books! Who still reads paper anyway? Doesn’t everyone have a Kindle or Nook or iPad or have the works of Homer tattooed on their chest? The only way I can read these days is to strap a smartphone on each eyeball and blink really hard when I want to scroll down. Walking the cool marbled halls of the BPL it was easy to feel that I was in an institution that was sinking in to anachronism. How does a dead tree warehouse thrive in a world of shifting liquid crystal displays? In the months of April and July this year, the BPL reminded us that the art of printmaking has always been about knowledge, risk and community. Scattered throughout the BPL’s stately buildings are exhibitions with over 150 works spotlighting the new frontiers of printmaking. I am here to see Debra Olin’s installation called Free Falling. One of the largest pieces in the reThink INK collection, Free Falling hangs in an uncluttered space full of airy light directly below an impressively vaulted stone and glass ceiling. Debra immediately felt a connection to the library’s space: “This piece was really challenging for me since it is
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thirteen feet high. When I went to the gallery, I was so excited to submit my proposal after seeing that ceiling! I had to do something to bring people’s eyes up. I didn’t want it to be bulky.” As befitting the show’s goal to expand the medium of print making into multi-dimensional pieces Debra did not start off with a printmaking background. “I graduated from Massachusetts College of Art with a degree in Ceramics. I feel that printmaking and ceramics are very closely aligned. I have always been very interested in texture much more so than color. As you can see, I use a very limited palette.” Indeed, Free Falling is a large column of oiled okawara paper: more substantial then tissue paper but with the same ability to diffuse light. The paper shines and glows as the organic surface gently sways in the gallery’s micro-currents of air. The texture of the floating paper is on its own worthy of fascination and Debra has complimented the airy qualities of the paper by stacking prints of open worked stencils in earthy colors. If you threaded a wire through the dimensions of your body’s silhouette, and somehow managed to slip out, you would create a figure like
the ones suspended in Debra’s Free Falling. “Free falling can mean to let go without a safety net, to step out your safety zone. There is a sense of exposure and rawness to not knowing what lies ahead; to seeing pieces of the puzzle but not being able to connect all the elements and intuit the outcome. Once free falling starts, there is a loss of control. In this installation, there is an engagement with oppositional forces: soaring or sinking, exhilaration or fight, blind faith or scientific investigation. I used the time during which I worked on Free Falling to consider life’s complexities.” Looking at Free Falling can call to mind the sentiment evoked by Ella Wheel Wilcox when she wrote: “The river seeking for the sea, Confronts the dam and precipice, Yet knows it cannot fail or miss; You will be what you will to be!” Wilcox’s quote echoes what Debra says in regards to the process she used to create her piece. “While the end product is quite languorous, the change that the piece speaks to is violent with shades of catastrophe. Much like a heartbreak, that makes your whole body feel bruised, the stillness of Free Falling was actually created through uncontrolled action.”
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“I had this idea of working directly with my body as a stencil. I wrapped my body in plastic wrap rolled out some hot glue on paper, and then I fell on my foam core over and over! I did a lot of practice falls, and I used that same form and stencil. I lay on it so I could get more of my body and different parts as well.” Debra’s piece could be about a slice in anyone’s life when they underwent an unexpected transformation. “Someone in my life had emotionally fallen. That friend went through a breakdown of sorts. It was very painful to watch and it made me realize how vulnerable we are. We walk around with the illusion that everything is in place. But it doesn’t take very much for it to all unravel. It was terrifying to me, to see this happen. People struggle and it is hard sometimes to just have a regular life. Raise a child, pay the bills, but then something unexpected happens. Maybe you go for a mammogram and you find a lump on your breast. Your whole world caves in.” “I am not used to working in a way where I have one piece that I have to concentrate on. I like to work on two or three pieces at once, and I feel like the works feed each other. Free Falling is a work that feels a little rigorous, like this one
thing I couldn’t leave. I called it Free Falling, but is it falling or rising? A dear friend passed away while I was making the piece, and so I wondered is falling like floating?” “Now that the piece is done, I am able to work on the residual prints, the ghost prints. A ghost print comes after the first printing. The etching ink is very stiff and after you put the stencil down on the print, the residual ink that is left on the stencil is called the ghost print. Many times it is really dramatic since the ink picks up the texture of the last print. I end up with prints I can work on later.” At the base of the installation Debra has constructed a boat made out of paper and bent twigs. The panels glow with the same translucent light and are festooned with hand shapes, words and tiny mirrors. Debra and I discuss how the boat’s inclusion works with the piece. As a viewer, the boat evokes a cradle sized to hold exactly one person. I feel as if the body inhabiting that boat is going to be on a journey, but they are going to go alone. Although the boat is tethered down with delicate strings weighted by rocks, the moorings do little to temper the sense of fragility. I tell Debra all of this and she responds, “I have many prints that
include safety nets and hammock like forms. It’s true that it is a boat for one, as though it is meant to hold (embrace) one body.Very similar to the womb (usually) holds (protects) one body. Because of the material of the vessel, the “safety” is compromised and vulnerable.” “The hands around the boat are like hamsa: keeping out the evil eye. I am very interested in Yiddish and the folklore and the language of the Jewish people. I am very interested in the cultural aspects of Judaism and the rituals surrounding it. The quotes written on the hands were from the da Vinci Codex of Flight. I was trying to balance the scientific against the superstitious, and it seemed like the right form to have there.” “I have a print, “A Collaboration with Nature”, that incorporates the forerunner to the boat in Free Falling. A friend, who visited China, came back with a very interesting photo of a fisherman who had a cormorant fishing with him. The fisherman ties a string around the bird’s neck and onto the boat. When the bird dives for fish, it can’t swallow it. I thought this is a much better solution to dealing with cormorants, than what they want to do in this country- kill the pesky birds that are taking too many fish.”
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Debra works extensively with themes around folklore and superstition. Her series “Cosmic Inclusion” drew on imagery the different cultural forms that manifest in superstitious practices around pregnancy and childbirth. “Many people are interested in showing how cultures are unique and special from one another, but through my work I’ve found so many stories which point to similarities between cultures. I put a book out in my studio and asked people to write down cultural rituals about death, healing, birth and women. Some people believe you should not put a newborn in front of a mirror until they get their first teeth. Others that you should not name a baby before it is born, or let a newborn’s feet touch the ground.” I mention that my Chinese grandparents did something when I was born which involved passing me to each other though smoke. Debra asks me why it was done and what it is called. I think about it and realize I don’t know the answer! It was probably for some sort of luck or protection, but maybe since I did have asthma as a child they were just saying, “Get used to coughing, kid!” Debra laughs and says, “My Russian grandmother used the technique of cupping when I was growing up, and
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then I go for acupuncture and they do the same thing! The different herbs people use for healing: did they just come upon themselves or did they evolve from the trade route? The figure I featured in the prints comes from a chart for acupuncture. I took that figure and made it more androgynous, and then built up the imagery from many different cultures. I did 44 prints in that series and you can see I set them up as a giant accordion book. I liked having that matrix to work from and then it snowballed with the series after the first few.” Debra’s own journey into printmaking installations was not a direct one. “After I graduated I was stuck for a while. The environment was very nurturing and you didn’t have to explain yourself as much. When you get out in the world people do not always care to understand what you are doing. What I did was start this window display business. I thought I was getting away with something: people were going to pay me for doing an installation! They would give me fifty pairs of shoes and I would have to figure out how to use it with my idea. The work didn’t have any soul to it since it was about merchandising. At the end of the day I wanted to attract people to the window. Then The Gap and The Limited took
over and they took over all the small independent businesses that would hire me.” “So that was my crisis or turning point in figuring out how to be an artist. Did I really want to be an artist? I got very confused about what art was. I needed to figure out what is the difference is between doing a shop window, and doing an installation at a library. It took me a long time to figure out how to make art my own. I don’t know what it is like when other people ask themselves these questions, but it took me a long time to figure it out. At the time I would go to events and I would see printmaking, which I hadn’t done before but I really gravitated toward it.” “I feel like I am this cowboy printmaker! I don’t have the formal train-
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ing of a print maker and I’ve never done etching or lithography. I am making stencils with hot glue! Hot glue is a way I can have less control and have to work quickly. I put down parchment paper, start with a basic shape, and then start with the hot glue. I peel it off the paper and ink it. If I don’t like something I can just rip it out, so I am open to much more spontaneous feelings. A lot of printmakers work in editions, which are a pretty integral part of printmaking. Most of my prints are unique prints- I don’t have multiples. Since they are never the exact same print, that characteristic is another thing that sets my work apart.” And that is how a “cowboy printmaker” ended up creating one of the larger works in the 25 year retrospective on the Boston printmaking community at the Boston Public
Library. “I was kind of surprised that when I looked in the book that it was so well attended! A lot of people that do not usually come to gallery shows do like the idea of art in a library. I am not really in commercial galleries since my work is not easy to sell. My most recent show was in the gallery of the University of California at Santa Cruz, and I’ve shown in a lot of colleges and museums. Lots of schools have good spaces and it is a good learning opportunity for the students. I like the idea that in a venue like the library, people do not have to have art as a destination in mind when they set out. They can just run into the art!� As the paper publishing industries, and the institutions built around them, are experiencing turbulence, artists like Debra Olin are making sure the printmaking artists and community are falling up.
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