Artist Spotlight: Gregory Climer

Gregory Climer is a professor at California College of the Arts and also will be in the upcoming exhibition, Queer Threads. Stay tuned for his future artist residency at SJMQT.

Two bodybuilders

What are materials and processes utilized in your body of work?

My old Singer sewing machine is a workhorse. It does one stitch, in one direction-- Doesn't even have a backstitch. I've had it since 2006 but I think it was made in the 1950s. I bought it from Hecht Sewing Machines in NYC. Teddy and Anita Hecht were Garment District godparents to pretty much every fashion designer I know. They insisted it was the right machine for me and they were right.
I couldn’t do my work without photoshop. I spend a lot of time on the computer, doing layouts, tweaking layouts, and designing textiles. 

Describe the main differences between your "old" studio to your Shelter in Place studio.

I teach at California College of the Arts. Before all this craziness, I would bounce between my apartment and the studios at school. When I needed great table space or the industrial walking foot machine, I would go to school. When I was piecing or doing smaller work, I worked from my home. 

With Shelter in Place, the school went into lockdown. Even though I would have been the only person there, they were not legally allowed to let me work on campus. But they did something incredibly generous: they let me bring home the industrial walking foot machine. The apartment is a little crowded now and sometimes I’ll have to move all the furniture on top of my bed to make room on the floor to work, but c’est la vie.  

Self Portrait, 2019

What has surprised you about your art practice since the Shelter in Place order?

I started out the lockdown with an almost obsessive drive to sew and make work. I suppose it was a survival instinct. Some sort of meditation or keeping myself busy to avoid noticing the endless time of being in a small apartment. 

That waned when I started working again. Now it's more even-keeled. 

What are the largest obstacles you need to overcome (immediately, near future, distant future)?

I’ve always been challenged by time and business. Not sure which is immediate and which is distant. I think they are the things that never get easier, no matter how much progress I make.  

I work constantly but it's not always the best use of my time. I need to make time for ideating new techniques or projects and testing out those seedlings of ideas which are in the sketchbook. 

I’m a terrible business person. I make the work but I don’t do the hustle. Getting it into galleries or into people’s homes is a huge obstacle for me. When I’m faced with the options of sit down and sew, or update my website, I choose to sew.

What do you do when you get "stuck" in your creative process? Where do you turn for inspiration?

I always keep multiple projects going so when I am stuck on one, I can shift to the other. There are aspects of my work which are very mechanical. The hours of sewing are meditative while the other parts require intense creative focus. If one area is stuck, shift to the other. 

What advice would you give to other creatives at this moment in time?

The same advice I always give people, which is to just do the work. Don’t compare it to others. Don’t judge it. Just do it. There is a fixation with being original or having a message or our work being important. That all comes naturally when you let go and just do the work. 

When I started making pixelated images, I wasn’t thinking about the things which now motivate me. I was thinking about Super Mario Brothers and 8-bit images. Then it got more complicated and everyone kept saying “it's like Chuck Close.” I adore Chuck Close’s work but I wasn’t trying to mimic him.

Eventually I reached a point where my work had a look and feel which was mine. That all happened organically because I just kept doing the work. 

What drew you to the fiber art medium over others?

I can’t draw but I can sew. 

I studied costume design. I worked in theater costuming and fashion design for decades. It's always been the medium which I had the most personal relationship with. 

What non-art related activity do you do to invigorate your body/ mind?

I’m a cyclist. I try to go cycling every day. I have some of my best thoughts when I am cycling as fast as I can through the park. 

Two bodybuilders, detail

What is your favorite place to look at art work on the web? In person?

I love going to the galleries in NYC. My two best friends, George and Timo, would join me about once a month to go gallery hopping. The NYC galleries are great because you get this insane mix of brilliant work and questionable decision making. You never know what you’d see.  Open studio days are always exciting because you get to see artists taking risks. It's the work before it's been curated and filtered for marketability.

I remember going to a show at the farthest, western edge of Chelsea. It was this tiny little gallery and the show was just perfect. I had biked to the gallery and got caught in a massive thunderstorm. But I showed up, soaked through, and went in anyway. I stood in the gallery for maybe 30 minutes, soaked and leaving a puddle on their floor, just trying not to weep. I was so moved by the show. I don’t know if they let me stay because they thought I was crazy or what. Those magical moments are something I associate with visiting galleries on weekdays when no one else is around. 

I also remember showing up to Urs Fischer’s show with the dancing office chairs a minute or two after the gallery opened. I was the only one in the gallery for quite a while, so I had this weird and magical ballet performance by robotic chairs all to myself. Seeing art in person is so important. 

Whenever you can, see it on a weekday at odd hours. The way museums are now limiting attendance is a silver lining to Covid.

What are you looking forward to doing again once Shelter in Place is over?

Hugging people. Seeing friends. Seeing family. 

Artist Spotlight: Hilary Brace

Next up on the Artist Spotlight Interview Series is California-based artist Hilary Brace. We hope you enjoy learning about her process and her inspiring experience navigating the last year.

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Untitled, (Tapestry/#3), Jacquard weaving from digital drawing, © 2018, 60 x 109 inches
Photo by Assassi Productions

What are materials and processes utilized in your artwork?

Drawing has been my primary medium for decades. I love the mutability of a dry medium. I have been working with charcoal on matte polyester film since 1996 (Mylar is a brand name) . The smoothness of the substrate allows for great spontaneity, but also enables me to achieve fine detail. Initially working on a very small scale, I began creating landscapes entirely from my imagination. I have been inventing otherworldly places, inhabited by clouds, water, and more recently ice, using these materials ever since. In recent years, doing preliminary studies using Photoshop enabled me to increase the scale of my drawings and eventually led me to create tapestries.

Drawings for my tapestries, as well as my charcoals, begin without a preconceived idea of what the image will be. An explorative process eventually suggests a scene. Then I slowly bring it into focus, refining it to make an unreal place seem believable. The details help provide a tangible sense of space. I consider my work experiential; I want the viewer to feel transported, or to have an emotional response. The work has always been a little confounding; people aren’t quite sure what they are seeing. The images initially suggest photographs, yet the situations are often impossible. I like that conundrum, because, somewhat like my creative process, the viewer has to bring the real and unreal together.

Untitled (2020 #4), Charcoal on matte polyester, 12.75 x 10.75”

Untitled (2021 #1), Charcoal on matte polyester, 20.25 x 17.25”

What drew you to the fiber art medium over others?

Since I had become proficient using Photoshop as a drawing and composition tool, I began thinking about how I might explore a different medium—a way to get a digital drawing out of the computer in some form other than making prints. I also wanted to increase the scale of my work. Mostly, I wanted to make something that would relate to the elements of light and space in my imagery and offer a sense of mystery as an object.

In 2015, I was a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome, where I became interested in tapestries after seeing Raphael’s tapestries in the Vatican Pinacoteca. After leaving Rome, I saw the beautiful, very detailed Lady and the Unicorn tapestries at the Musée de Cluny in Paris.

After Paris, I visited a friend in Tilburg, Netherlands, who happens to live down the street from the TextielMuseum. So there’s some real serendipity involved! Located in an old textile mill, the museum and its TextielLab are known for their explorative work in a broad range of textile processes. It’s a fabulous place—voted best museum in The Netherlands in a national poll, even over the Van Gogh Museum and Rijksmuseum! The digital revolution has created a multitude of new opportunities and has made working in textiles available to artists like myself, who don’t have formal training as weavers, for instance. Looking at the incredible range of samples in the TextielLab, I began to think about how I might make light reactive textile pieces from my digital drawings. Six months later, I returned and stayed for two months while I worked with a Master Developer to finalize a thread combination and means of translating the digital drawings to software that drives their Jacquard looms. I could then work from a distance, sending my digital files and having tests returned via Fed Ex. But changing any threads would require starting anew on site. It took quite some time to develop my drawing technique, as it wasn’t easy to predict just what would show up in the weavings. The drawings for each tapestry take me two to three months, plus I still have each piece woven at least twice, while I make changes to the drawing until I’m satisfied.

So it’s been complex, but I’ve loved exploring this medium and I’m thrilled with the results. I use metallic and translucent threads, which allow the weavings to change as the viewer moves or light source changes. The image might go from looking very atmospheric, to being high in contrast. So they are alive, like light and atmosphere in nature. The fabric has some life itself and undulates slightly, which and adds movement to the images. The texture in the weavings enhances the physical presence and makes the images very tactile; ice can really look like ice—especially with light reflecting off the threads. So the real and unreal come together in these pieces too.

(Untitled, Tapestry #1), Jacquard weaving from digital drawing, © 2016-17, 64x62 inches

Detail showing metallic/reflective threads
Images of the TextielMuseum and TextielLab in Tilburg, NL on Brace’s website:

https://www.hilarybrace.com/textielmuseum

Describe the main differences of your 'old' studio to your 'Shelter in Place' studio.

Just before the pandemic, I was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease that causes rapid, permanent blindness. I am fortunate to have had a speedy diagnosis and good medical care, and should be cured by the end of the year. But my medication compromises my immune system, so I’ve had to be extra cautious. I’ve been at home, where my studio is attached, for the duration, except for medical appointments. The year seems an odd jumble of gratitude for simply having my eyesight and having a comfortable place to be, along with feeling such despair and frustration about the country and pandemic. Overall, I’ve been surprisingly satisfied to just hunker down and work, with virtually no social contact, despite my friends being important to me. My drawing process, for both the tapestries and my work in charcoal, is so labor intensive that I never have time to be bored or stymied creatively—or to catch up with home repairs—and this year was no exception. I’ve been preparing for a solo exhibition at Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica, and deadlines always help one stay focused, although the show has been postponed twice due to the pandemic and is now set for January, 2022. It’s disappointing to wait, but it may give me the ability to include another tapestry.

What non-art related activity do you do to invigorate your body/ mind?

My garden has a lot to do with being happy while stuck at home. I developed it over twenty years, and now that the big work is done, it’s such a peaceful refuge with beautiful plants that never stop pleasing me. It’s a quiet joy to just rest my forehead on my studio window and look outside. I also enjoy a dance class that I’ve taken for years, fortunately now on Zoom. It’s a great workout and always gives me a way to explore movement. So that’s broken up time and provided some continuity with “normal” life.

Recent view of Brace’s back garden from her art studio, left, with garden details

What are you looking forward to doing again once Shelter in Place is over?

It will be a joy to go anywhere! I keep thinking about seeing giant redwoods and also about going to museums in New York. I miss the full spectrum! But travel, in general, is something I look forward to, however I can manage it. I’d love to experience some artist residencies, because the American Academy in Rome was such a stimulating experience. I definitely hope to return to the TextielLab to work out new thread combinations. One, on a different loom with a black and white warp that would enable me to weave higher contrast, more dramatic images, and another combination that would enable me to include subtle color that might come and go, depending upon changes in lighting. It’s a wonderful world out there with SO much to explore. I hope we’ll all be able to do that safely again soon.

Hilary Brace in her studio with pet Macaw, Ella / Photo by Hannah Ray Taylor

(Untitled), 2020, 18 x 16”, charcoal on matte polyester

Artist Spotlight: Deborah Zlotsky

It is truly amazing that during this time of sheltering in place, we can still expand our creative network through virtual channels. Meet artist Deborah Zlotsky, a (new-to-us) artist who creates colorful and uplifting works in paint and repurposed textiles.

What drew you to the fiber art medium over others? 

Yours, mine, ours
Vintage scarves
52 x 31 inches
2020

I’m a painter who fell in love with vintage scarves a handful of years ago. In my paintings, I accumulate and connect visual fragments that don’t necessarily go together. In the scarf and knit tapestries, I can create a similar kind of lopsided logic and visual fluidity between parts. During COVID time, I started using vintage afghans and throws, adding crocheted passages to both disrupt and connect to create something new. Sewing and crocheting are similar to painting: all allow me to work responsively to adjust and manipulate existing relationships. On a sensory level, I love the way the vintage scarves feel in my hands—silky, delicate, and so light—and the way the vintage knit pieces actually warm me as I work with them in my lap.

Originally, these found textiles created beauty, comfort, and ornamentation for the home and body. All connect to the story of American womanhood over the past century—its ambiguities, distinctiveness, and power, the latter often self-made despite discrimination and adversity. I respond to the way each vintage textiles has a distinctive visual and tactile identity, cultural and historical residue, and an actual history, the specifics of which can only be imagined. Often these textiles are stained, ripped or frayed. For me, the designs and colors are exquisite; but I am more interested in the way combining the textiles creates a complex hybridity of beauty, imperfections, and the passage of time. Repurposing items to create new works is a way to reevaluate the aesthetic poignancy of everyday craft impulses, historically undervalued by the art world. Recycling items also brings notice to systems in place that devalue, reuse and grow old.  

Badass
29 x 25 inches
Vintage doll blanket and crocheted yarn
2020

What has surprised you about your art practice since the Shelter in Place order?  

There were many surprises. The uncertainty and isolation of quarantining let me dig deeply into my practice without the usual interruptions despite my apprehension about what was happening in the world. I had created the scarf tapestries for a few years, but I had long wanted to work with vintage knit pieces to continue to make “soft paintings” in another medium. Because teaching full-time and painting usually take up most of my time, I  kept putting off figuring out how to do that. But between sheltering-in-place and a Guggenheim year off from teaching at RISD, I had time to teach myself to crochet by watching YouTube videos and trying out simple stitches.  Crocheting, I quickly realized, is the most efficient way for me to connect together and add to old knitwork.   

I shopped for vintage knit pieces on Etsy and Ebay and then ordered yarn on-line. What surprised me was the slightly eerie ease of getting information and materials. I was struck by the eccentric system I became a part of, a system fueled by a combination of hidden communities, desire, and entrepreneurialism that seems a little different from the more solitary activities and traditional procurement processes of my painting practice. Yet, it was truly interesting to engage in  conversations with Ebay and Etsy sellers. Friends and acquaintances gave me scarves once they saw the tapestries and many of them shared stories about their mothers, grandmothers, and aunts who wore the scarves they gave me. The process of obtaining the materials for this new series of works connected it with this cultural moment (as well as my binge watching of all 6 seasons of Bosch while I worked, something that would have never happened if I had been painting). 

Another surprise was the door that opened to the meditative power of crocheting, which gave me a sense of calm during this scary-crazy period. The last surprise was the relevance of the knit tapestries. In the context of COVID-19, they activate ideas about hominess, coziness, beautifying, and comfort as well as the need for warmth and care. 

Composing with vintage scarves

Describe the main differences of your 'old' studio to your 'Shelter in Place' studio.

She’s a rainbow
12’ 6” x 6’
Vintage afghans and crocheted yarn
2020

Until March, I painted in my studio which is a single car garage-sized space off of our single car garage and sewed in a room in our basement that originally was the “rec room” of our 1960s ranch house. During sheltering-in-place, I worked in more places: in the garage to work on spray-painted paintings using antique doilies to create patterns and overlay; in the living room to crochet; in the back yard with my iPad to work on digital images, and back to the basement room to sew and lay out scarves and knit pieces on the floor and on a series of folding tables.  I felt like I was moving around the house and its outdoor space to find the most conducive light, working surface, and air flow for the activity at hand. 

What non-art related activity do you do to invigorate your body/ mind? 

I’ve always needed to spend at least a short amount of time outdoors each day. Ideally, I find time to take a walk in the woods near my house—to breathe fresh air and experience the play of air and light. The freedom to move in space and light parallels the freedom to improvise with color and shape in my work somehow. 

What are you looking forward to doing again once Shelter in Place is over? 

Travel. I had to return early from a residency at Bogliasco Foundation in Italy in March because of COVID 19 and a residency in Spain scheduled from May was canceled. Bogliasco is beautiful, and my studio was nestled in an olive grove with a view of the Ligurian Sea. I felt so lucky every single moment of my stay at the foundation. Being a residency fellow in another country is an amazing way to experience the people, geography, history, and culture of a particular place. When a vaccine is available and air travel is possible, I’m hoping to travel to Spain for a “redo.”  

What advice would you give to other creatives at this moment in time? 

Unlike painting which requires a dedicated studio space, sewing, crocheting and working digitally on my iPad have helped me feel productive at home. Expanding my practice to include these new mediums has also helped me identify the essential parts of my thinking and making that transcend my more developed painting and drawing practice. Feeling clearer always feels good.

Even in the best of times, only a rarified handful of artists have the space, time, support, and assistance they need to make new work. In some ways, there might be more empathy now for the variety of lives artists lead as caregivers, parents, employees, etc. Perhaps it’s good to take solace in a greater understanding of the complexities of the time we live in.  We are all trying to navigate the constant demand of multi-tasking, the steady drip of alarming news, and the need to quickly respond to texts, emails, and social media.  Overlay all of the above by fear, anxiety, and what I consider a sense of collective PTSD, and perhaps there’s more appreciation for the way artists continue to be creative.  

Zlotsky
Studio Summer 2020
Delmar, NY

Vintage scarves

More often than not
28 x 24 inches
Vintage doll blanket and crocheted yarn
2020

Artist Spotlight: Jen Graham

SJMQT met textile artist Jen Graham while curating Guns: Loaded Conversations, where she exhibited two pieces of artwork. More recently, she has been using her front lawn as a gallery space, stitching tongue-in-cheek posters which reference political campaign yard signs. You can also check out her show, My Presidents, which was scheduled to be currently on view at SJMQT, but is now online.

What are materials and processes utilized in your body of work? 

 I make work out of fabric. I use a mixture of hand embroidery, machine sewn piecing and appliqué, and sometimes acrylic paint. I mostly make work that discusses current political and social issues, often reflecting on or referencing American History, as well. I’ve been thinking a lot about how fiber art has been used in protests and communication throughout history. With this in mind, I have recently focused on more text-based pieces, in the form of flags and banners.

What has surprised you about your art practice since the Shelter in Place order? 

At first, I think most of us were anxious and scared. We didn’t understand how to react to this kind of national emergency. My work has always been my way of speaking up, and so I felt compelled to say something. I had recently taken down the “Warren for President” lawn sign I had up during the Democratic primary, and I had the idea to use the frame from that sign to create new lawn signs out of fabric with messages to the neighborhood. I put a sign out on my lawn almost every day, making a new one every week or so. I am a very private person, and the vulnerability of putting my work in front of my home like this was slightly unsettling and certainly unlike anything I’d done before. But I loved the idea of someone out for a walk coming across my lawn sign and being delighted, confused, or even comforted. 

What do you do when you get "stuck" in your creative process? Where do you turn for inspiration? 

 I turn to history and all things Americana. I love to look at old photographs and graphic design (like WPA posters or political campaign buttons). The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (http://www.loc.gov/pictures/) is a wonderful source. I also love to read past speeches and slogans of protests or political campaigns. Usually I can find a jumping-off point for new work somewhere in our history.

What are you currently reading/ listening to? 

I have been listening to many of my old favorites on repeat for the last few months. This includes Neutral Milk Hotel, Wolf Parade, The Weakerthans, and the Mountain Goats, to name a few. I’ve also been obsessed with the album, “Lover’s Rock” by The Dears. No other album has felt as relevant to the experience we are going through as this one has (at least to me). I’ve also been seeking out contemporary protest songs, though they don’t seem to be as prevalent as I would think, in these volatile times (or I’m just not finding them).

 I’ve also been listening to plenty of podcasts. For politics, I love Pod Save America and  Lovett or Leave It. For design and general curiosity: 99% Invisible. For history: Throughline. For a laugh (or at least a smile): Judge John Hodgman.

What drew you to the fiber art medium over others?  

My mom had always sewed, and she had given me this old, mint green, metal Singer sewing machine after I moved away from home. I had been working in film photography, but I wanted to move into a medium that was more tactile and, in a way, more grounded. I worked on learning how to use that beautiful Singer, and when I started to make sewn pieces, it really did make me feel more connected to my mom and to the history of women. I like joining in on that tradition and being a part of carrying it on. 

What are you looking forward to doing again once Shelter in Place is over? 

I am a homebody, so staying at home isn’t as difficult for me as it is for other, more social, people. But I love to travel, and that is what I miss the most. I usually go somewhere new once a year, and I frequently travel to visit my family. These trips are what I look forward to the most every year.

Artist Spotlight: Sue Weil

Sue Weil wraps up our Artist interviews on CA-based artists who were accepted into American Tapestry Biennial 13. The exhibition was originally scheduled for Fall 2020 and will be postponed to July 2021. 

Sue was in the American Tapestry Biennial 11 at SJMQT and will also be in the upcoming exhibition MORE IMPACT: Climate Change in 2021. Continue reading for more information on her work:

What are materials and processes utilized in your body of work?

I began my weaving practice in the mid 1970s while taking a floor loom weaving workshop. At the time, I focused on cloth and clothing, though I also wove some tapestries. Nowadays, I almost exclusively weave tapestry. Ordinarily, my warp is of cotton seine twine and my weft is a combination of wool, cotton, linen and sometimes bamboo or paper. I tend to work with whatever materials best suit my design. In 2016 I attended a workshop in the pulled warp technique. I found the possibilities to be endless – I continue to explore and experiment with what’s possible using this technique. I also incorporate sumac, twining, eccentric and plain weave, wrapping and occasionally off-loom embellishment.

What are you currently reading/ listening to?

I’ve been reading “The Splendid and the Vile,” by Erik Larson (nonfiction that reads like fiction) about Winston Churchill’s first year as Prime Minister. One of my favorite activities on the weekends has been to tune in to Conversations with Authors, offered online through Book Passage Independent Book Store (Corte Madera and San Francisco). I strongly recommend going to their website to register for these sessions. They’re free and tremendously compelling.

What advice would you give to other creatives at this moment in time?

Continue to create – at times like these, it is tremendously therapeutic to make art when the world as we know it is in such flux. Create – but don’t expect or demand perfection. Now is a great time to experiment – shake up your artistic practice and remain open to whatever it reveals.

What drew you to the fiber art medium over others?

When I was a very young child, my mother taught me to knit and crochet. I was fascinated with the ability to make something from nothing. Over the years, I also learned weaving; first making potholders using stretch loops on a peg loom, then I learned the backstrap principle of weaving on a popsicle stick loom. Next I experimented on a frame loom, and finally began weaving on a floor loom. Once I turned to tapestry, I continued working on my floor loom – it was a method comfortable to my practice as well as my design sense. Working with yarn seemed to be hardwired into my being. From the early days, I was drawn to the simplicity involved in working with yarn; it was a warm and welcoming medium, easy to transport and inviting to wear and to adorn my surroundings.

What non-art related activity do you do to invigorate your body/ mind?

I walk a few miles to start my day – it helps keep me fit mentally and physically. Fresh air and the beauty around me help my spiritual well-being, too. My daughters returned from the East Coast to work and wait out the pandemic from our home. We’ve had the best time together in the kitchen; trying new recipes as well as the old. I have always been comfortable in my own company, often spending days on my own. The pandemic hasn’t changed that, but I’ve become more aware of consciously reaching out to my family and friends through email, text, phone or Zoom meetings. Thank goodness for Community!