S/PLI/T: How do you view functionality and utility in relation to your sculptures, and do you see your own work as functional?
R: Yes, when I think about function in relation to the objects I think about their lifespan most particularly. Not that they have distinct function in use, but I’m interested in their interaction with space. Almost the energy they put off and absorb, and exchange with their surroundings. I think the work that I'm making has a primary function of depicting a cycle. I want to set cycles in motion; be it open or closed. Data is the way I’m trying to approach things now–I want to observe over time, analyze the entropic change of how the things that I make accumulate or deteriorate. I'd like to start collecting more data about how these objects experience their surroundings, influences and inherent lifespans. These ideas range from acoustics to permeability. Those transitions are wonderful to observe.
S/: Like vehicles for measuring change?
R: Vehicle is a really great word. Almost like a device or a medium. In certain ways I feel like most of the things I make are informal clocks–measuring devices, which is why I find myself making vessels a lot of the time–just the way that things are held by different materials or not held by different materials is a lot of what I’m interested in. Talking about the work as functional objects…it’s tough because even the word function is kind of difficult. I’ve been thinking about how to navigate trends recently. I always say I have a design background, but I think everyone starts out as an artist and then you make a choice, as in ‘things can have purposes’. I think creating is the jumping point and then you deviate and figure out different focuses. Design and art are very disparate things and I think that’s what people are kind of discovering now or are trying to re-introduce into art practice, which is kind of problematic actually. Not to deviate from the question too much.
S/: No, this is fascinating. What’s problematic about it?
R: I think you can kind of dig yourself into a hole trying to figure it out. I do my best to separate them and I am very interested in aspects of design but I find design lacking a lot of the time when I’m trying to express myself. I don’t think it ticks all the boxes whenever I am trying to create an object. I think a lot of the time, art is very selfish in how you create things, whether it’s something very simple and one-off, or an edition of something. It’s for oneself or it’s trying to emote a certain feeling or type of energy. With design the whole multiples issue and filling up space is hard because what often happens in design is things get branded with an ‘art object’ tag. It becomes a hazy middle ground between art and design, creating ‘art objects’, which is what a lot of designers are doing. Calling a chandelier they made an “art-object.” Ceramicists especially do this. What I have to do is focus on language a lot because I think all we really have are descriptors sometimes when it comes to those things.
S/: Yes, how designers will sometimes call their work “art objects” when they’re afraid that the object will fail in the structure that design has set out for what’s good and what’s bad. If you call it an “art-object” then it can be anything. It’s art! Artists are always breaking down templates for measuring quality–Jens Hoffman talks about this sometimes.
Speaking of labels and language, because this show is a call and response project, we’re interested in how writing has played into your own art practice, if at all.
R: It’s huge actually. I write a lot. I keep a notebook with me at all times that I get from Muji in my back pocket. For some of the etching plates I’m working on now there is some text, and I am trying to figure out different ways to incorporate them. I’m working on publishing a small zine. This personal narrative piece that I’m working on, I’d like to have text describing where I was at when I was creating the work. I love writing. The specifics of it, especially titles. Like BACK/TALK, really tight, totally into the title. It now sounds kind of trite, but in titling my own work when I was younger, I thought “ Let’s just call it Untitled and put the date and call it good.” Now, I find that I am more interested in titles. They matter. With the canvas pieces for example they all have pretty specific titles and I think they relate to the work really well.
The canvas pieces have this sort of domicile feeling to them. I think they are in some ways different iterations of drop cloths, just like small house work type things. Most of the materials from the work I make can be found at a local hardware store or Loews. Many things about it are tangible and common. It’s the way I use the materials I find fun and interesting. I’m always trying to apply materials in a different way and something about Emily’s writing really connects to my work. There is a sadness in their domesticity.
S/: Speaking of hardware stores and domesticity, can you talk about the worker or the physical laborer and how your work relates to them?
R: Yeah. It’s such an umbrella term…worker. It can be anybody. But when I say that I mean in particular very attritious physical labor I think. It’s also hard to be at a computer 24/7, hard on the body. Which in the future I might explore a little bit more. Right now I’m thinking about more of the work I’m familiar with doing. Lots of odd jobs. Sheet rock tapers, bricklayers and other skills like that, I want to learn them all. When I use the word laborer, I’m usually thinking about myself in a performative aspect too. It’s something that I am trying to become more and more comfortable with. I love the idea of performance but the one hangup I always have is whether or not I am the participator, the player in this kind of thing. I’ve gotten criticism before that sometimes I should just direct and set the stage as opposed to actually acting. Recently I’ve been thinking more about committing.
That sort of labor, people are very passionate about it. Even though it may not pay the best and it might be detrimental to the body.
S/: People want to be good at something and want to be useful.
R: Yeah, I think more than ever it’s a hard feeling for some people. Being passionate about a field of study is almost out of fashion. People would love it, but they’ve lost the incentive in a sort of way. I was on a construction site and I remember seeing the foundation of the house was at knee height. I remember seeing a tray of extra concrete off to the side of the site and I was so fascinated by it. It looked so funny because there were a lot of unintentional artful moments in it. The sense of community is really important to me. I think that can happen with a single person to when you're communicating with the work you're doing if you are being personal with it. Having an interaction or relationship with a task, that feels like a sense of community too.
S/: We were talking last time about your work and how it can be displayed in different ways. I wonder if you could talk a bit about that and how it changes the meaning of the work in different contexts. Is this flexibility intentional?
R: I think it’s inevitable. I like the flexibility of the pieces. That’s what I think about when I’m in the studio. I am always looking at the work in different ways. Addressing the interchangeability of the work, I feel that that sense of exploration and merriment almost is something that I really identify with. Recently what I’ve been trying to channel a lot is responding to materiality and I’m trying to make things like I was a kid again. I think I have been making work like this since I was 6 or 7 years old and I really identified with Donatello from the Ninja Turtles with his weird utility belt. He was always trying to figure stuff out and his idea of fun was very different from the rest of the group. Sometimes you have to sit with material for a little while for it to tell you how to work with it. The flexibility in the pieces gives them more of a life. I think they are more individual and with every move they have a unique twist and turn in their existence that is remarkable in the way that a conventional painting can’t really have. Going back to the writing question, I am trying to investigate a way not to be more prescriptive in a strict way, but to get into being diagrammatic because that is the way that I draw. I want to get into writing directions and leaflets and brochures for what it is I make. Similar to directions for a Sol Lewitt drawing.
S/: That’s what I was about to say.
R: Yeah, I think that’s the most interesting thing about how his work functions.
S/: Definitely, they have one at the Lumber Room here in Portland that lots of people worked on.
R: Again, with the sense of community, either with other people or with yourself and an object.
R: Yes, when I think about function in relation to the objects I think about their lifespan most particularly. Not that they have distinct function in use, but I’m interested in their interaction with space. Almost the energy they put off and absorb, and exchange with their surroundings. I think the work that I'm making has a primary function of depicting a cycle. I want to set cycles in motion; be it open or closed. Data is the way I’m trying to approach things now–I want to observe over time, analyze the entropic change of how the things that I make accumulate or deteriorate. I'd like to start collecting more data about how these objects experience their surroundings, influences and inherent lifespans. These ideas range from acoustics to permeability. Those transitions are wonderful to observe.
S/: Like vehicles for measuring change?
R: Vehicle is a really great word. Almost like a device or a medium. In certain ways I feel like most of the things I make are informal clocks–measuring devices, which is why I find myself making vessels a lot of the time–just the way that things are held by different materials or not held by different materials is a lot of what I’m interested in. Talking about the work as functional objects…it’s tough because even the word function is kind of difficult. I’ve been thinking about how to navigate trends recently. I always say I have a design background, but I think everyone starts out as an artist and then you make a choice, as in ‘things can have purposes’. I think creating is the jumping point and then you deviate and figure out different focuses. Design and art are very disparate things and I think that’s what people are kind of discovering now or are trying to re-introduce into art practice, which is kind of problematic actually. Not to deviate from the question too much.
S/: No, this is fascinating. What’s problematic about it?
R: I think you can kind of dig yourself into a hole trying to figure it out. I do my best to separate them and I am very interested in aspects of design but I find design lacking a lot of the time when I’m trying to express myself. I don’t think it ticks all the boxes whenever I am trying to create an object. I think a lot of the time, art is very selfish in how you create things, whether it’s something very simple and one-off, or an edition of something. It’s for oneself or it’s trying to emote a certain feeling or type of energy. With design the whole multiples issue and filling up space is hard because what often happens in design is things get branded with an ‘art object’ tag. It becomes a hazy middle ground between art and design, creating ‘art objects’, which is what a lot of designers are doing. Calling a chandelier they made an “art-object.” Ceramicists especially do this. What I have to do is focus on language a lot because I think all we really have are descriptors sometimes when it comes to those things.
S/: Yes, how designers will sometimes call their work “art objects” when they’re afraid that the object will fail in the structure that design has set out for what’s good and what’s bad. If you call it an “art-object” then it can be anything. It’s art! Artists are always breaking down templates for measuring quality–Jens Hoffman talks about this sometimes.
Speaking of labels and language, because this show is a call and response project, we’re interested in how writing has played into your own art practice, if at all.
R: It’s huge actually. I write a lot. I keep a notebook with me at all times that I get from Muji in my back pocket. For some of the etching plates I’m working on now there is some text, and I am trying to figure out different ways to incorporate them. I’m working on publishing a small zine. This personal narrative piece that I’m working on, I’d like to have text describing where I was at when I was creating the work. I love writing. The specifics of it, especially titles. Like BACK/TALK, really tight, totally into the title. It now sounds kind of trite, but in titling my own work when I was younger, I thought “ Let’s just call it Untitled and put the date and call it good.” Now, I find that I am more interested in titles. They matter. With the canvas pieces for example they all have pretty specific titles and I think they relate to the work really well.
The canvas pieces have this sort of domicile feeling to them. I think they are in some ways different iterations of drop cloths, just like small house work type things. Most of the materials from the work I make can be found at a local hardware store or Loews. Many things about it are tangible and common. It’s the way I use the materials I find fun and interesting. I’m always trying to apply materials in a different way and something about Emily’s writing really connects to my work. There is a sadness in their domesticity.
S/: Speaking of hardware stores and domesticity, can you talk about the worker or the physical laborer and how your work relates to them?
R: Yeah. It’s such an umbrella term…worker. It can be anybody. But when I say that I mean in particular very attritious physical labor I think. It’s also hard to be at a computer 24/7, hard on the body. Which in the future I might explore a little bit more. Right now I’m thinking about more of the work I’m familiar with doing. Lots of odd jobs. Sheet rock tapers, bricklayers and other skills like that, I want to learn them all. When I use the word laborer, I’m usually thinking about myself in a performative aspect too. It’s something that I am trying to become more and more comfortable with. I love the idea of performance but the one hangup I always have is whether or not I am the participator, the player in this kind of thing. I’ve gotten criticism before that sometimes I should just direct and set the stage as opposed to actually acting. Recently I’ve been thinking more about committing.
That sort of labor, people are very passionate about it. Even though it may not pay the best and it might be detrimental to the body.
S/: People want to be good at something and want to be useful.
R: Yeah, I think more than ever it’s a hard feeling for some people. Being passionate about a field of study is almost out of fashion. People would love it, but they’ve lost the incentive in a sort of way. I was on a construction site and I remember seeing the foundation of the house was at knee height. I remember seeing a tray of extra concrete off to the side of the site and I was so fascinated by it. It looked so funny because there were a lot of unintentional artful moments in it. The sense of community is really important to me. I think that can happen with a single person to when you're communicating with the work you're doing if you are being personal with it. Having an interaction or relationship with a task, that feels like a sense of community too.
S/: We were talking last time about your work and how it can be displayed in different ways. I wonder if you could talk a bit about that and how it changes the meaning of the work in different contexts. Is this flexibility intentional?
R: I think it’s inevitable. I like the flexibility of the pieces. That’s what I think about when I’m in the studio. I am always looking at the work in different ways. Addressing the interchangeability of the work, I feel that that sense of exploration and merriment almost is something that I really identify with. Recently what I’ve been trying to channel a lot is responding to materiality and I’m trying to make things like I was a kid again. I think I have been making work like this since I was 6 or 7 years old and I really identified with Donatello from the Ninja Turtles with his weird utility belt. He was always trying to figure stuff out and his idea of fun was very different from the rest of the group. Sometimes you have to sit with material for a little while for it to tell you how to work with it. The flexibility in the pieces gives them more of a life. I think they are more individual and with every move they have a unique twist and turn in their existence that is remarkable in the way that a conventional painting can’t really have. Going back to the writing question, I am trying to investigate a way not to be more prescriptive in a strict way, but to get into being diagrammatic because that is the way that I draw. I want to get into writing directions and leaflets and brochures for what it is I make. Similar to directions for a Sol Lewitt drawing.
S/: That’s what I was about to say.
R: Yeah, I think that’s the most interesting thing about how his work functions.
S/: Definitely, they have one at the Lumber Room here in Portland that lots of people worked on.
R: Again, with the sense of community, either with other people or with yourself and an object.
