Author Archives: Lou

This is the twenty-fifth in a series of interviews with each of the Sondheim Award Semifinalists. Finalists have been announced, and will be on exhibit at the Walters Art Museum June 21 to August 17; those not selected as finalists with be exhibited at the Decker, Meyerhoff and Pinkard Galleries at MICA  July 17 to August 3, 2014.

Name: Trevor Young
Website: www.trevoryoung.net
Current Location: My studio is in downtown Silver Spring.
Hometown: Takoma Park, MD
School: University of the Arts, Philadelphia (BFA)

Current favorite artists or artwork: Valeri larko, Stepehn Magsig, Glenn Barr, Joe Deal, Olivia Rodriguez, Lewis Baltz, Michael Massaia

What is your day job? How do you manage balancing work with studio time with your life? I am a full-time artist. I get the pleasure and challenge of working every day. I work with a two fantastic  gallery’s.  J.Cacciola gallery, NY and David Klein gallery in Birmingham MI.

How would you describe your work, and your studio practice? My work focuses on “non-places” such as ATMs, gas stations, airports, highways, and factories that appear to me as minimal architectural forms. I am drawn to the spatial relationships and specific light found in these places. The geometry can be really dramatic.

What part of art making to you like or enjoy the most? The least? I like all the aspects and the challenges that painting and spatial relating imposes on me.

What research do you do for your art practice? My research starts with my grabbing my camera and getting into my car.  I photograph on road trips and in my own neighborhood. I rarely don’t have my camera and sketchbook with me.  I consider photography to be part of the drawing stage of a painting that allows me to collect images from either my vehicle or from my tripod.

What books have you read lately you would recommend? Movies? Television? Music?Wayne Thiebaud talking about Giorgio Morandi.on the Morandi Museum website.

Do you ever get in creative dry spells, and if so, how do you get out of them? Rarely do I dry out creatively. I am worker not a dreamer. If I slow I get busy adjusting my process.  I might slow but I have never had a dry spell thankfully.

How do you challenge yourself in your work? I create new problems to solve in each painting.  I sometimes choose difficult compositions that I don’t fully understand and have to find a way to make them work.

What is your dream project? My dream project would be producing a large series of panoramic view of airports from above. I have always loved DFW airport. It’s grand place that’s void of the short comings of natural space.

This is the twenty-fourth in a series of interviews with each of the Sondheim Award Semifinalists. Finalists have been announced, and will be on exhibit at the Walters Art Museum June 21 to August 17; remaining semifinalists with be exhibited at the Decker, Meyerhoff and Pinkard Galleries at MICA  July 17 to August 3, 2014.

Name: Amanda Burnham
Age: 34
Website: www.amandaburnham.com
Current Location: Hampden
Hometown: Toledo, OH
School:  undergrad/BA – Harvard ’01 grad/MFA – Yale ’07

Current favorite artists or artwork: Anyone who draws. I’ve always really enjoyed Barry McGee’s work. Dieter Roth is another huge favorite. Locally I think there is a lot of great stuff being made, but I especially like Nora Sturges’ work (she is a colleague at Towson) and Gary Kachadourian’s work.

What is your day job? How do you manage balancing work with studio time with your life? I’m an Associate Professor in the Department of Art+Design, Art History, and Art Education at Towson. It’s a full time position, so, during the school year, I tend to work in fits and spurts – in the evenings and on weekends. Summers, however, are expansive and wonderful for studio time. I try to get as much done as possible! Throughout the year, I travel several times to do installation projects at various spaces, and the large scale and quick turnaround on these works keeps me going when my studio time is otherwise sparse.

How would you describe your work, and your studio practice? Maximalist. I like packing lots of tiny little novelistic details into all the drawings I do. Lately (over the past several years) most of my work has had to do with describing cities, which is a theme that attracts me, I think, because cities contain so much. I also work best between extremes – very small, dense, and tight sometimes –  big, explosive, and rough other times.

What part of artmaking to you like or enjoy the most? The least? I love seeing something that had me nervous for weeks finally snap together. Of course, the uncertainty that precedes that immense feeling of relief and surprise never ceases to be uncomfortable…

What research do you do for your art practice? One of the most important research activities I engage in these days is running. Running is an incredibly direct way to encounter the city and see things I’d miss from a car. The speed of running is a great balance between covering a lot of ground without compromising an awareness of detail. I get compositional ideas from seeing elements of my surroundings converge and separate as I approach and ultimately move past them. It’s a terrific way to get a sense of a new place – I make a point to go for a long run (or several, if possible) anywhere I travel. It also reliably puts me in a headspace that is more energized and inventive. Walking, sitting, and watching are also terrific, but I usually use my runs to generate ideas about *where* to return and subsequently linger.

What books have you read lately you would recommend? Movies? Television? Music? I’ve recently discovered Mary Roach and am tearing through all of her books – “Packing for Mars” is great, and I’m eager to get going on “Gulp”, which is a tour of the human digestive system. I read “The Tender Bar” by J.R. Moehringer lately, and thought it was a lovely memoir. The currently airing remake of “Cosmos” with Neil DeGrasse Tyson is gorgeous, occasionally very pleasingly biting – a wonderful homage to the original.

 Do you ever get in creative dry spells, and if so, how do you get out of them?
Sure – but I’ve come to regard “dry spells” as a necessary and inevitable part of the overall process. I find that at times that I have a hard time making, I’m often soaking in a lot of stuff that will come out in later work.

How do you challenge yourself in your work? I analyze past work, and I try to keep apprised of my conceptual peers (both past and present). I ask myself whether I’ve made something too conventional, or whether I’m repeating myself too much. I always try to do something new and untested (by me) in everything I do – whether that’s an idea or a process, there has to be some element of the unknown and potentially worrisome for work to stand a chance of being interesting.

What is your dream project? I’d like to construct an installation work in a large, dedicated, and very public venue, inviting participation by passersby, for a very long period of time. I imagine a huge living drawing that goes through many permutations and has no real endpoint- much like cities themselves.

This is the twenty-third in a series of interviews with each of the Sondheim Award Semifinalists. Finalists have been announced, and will be on exhibit at the Walters Art Museum June 21 to August 17; those not selected as finalists with be exhibited at the Decker, Meyerhoff and Pinkard Galleries at MICA  July 17 to August 3, 2014.

Name: Elizabeth Crisman
Age: 39
Website: elizabethcrisman.com
Current Location: Baltimore, MD
Hometown: Vienna, VA
School: BFA Virginia Commonwealth University, MFA Maryland Institute College of Art

Current favorite artists or artwork: Uta Barth, Kiki Smith, Big Man by Ron Mueck and too many more to list…..

What is your day job? How do you manage balancing work with studio time with your life? Currently adjunct professor and run a gallery at a community college. It can be hard, especially mid-semester when everything is happening at once.  I try to incorporate moments here and there, such as stopping somewhere on my way to work and taking a few photographs or work on the mold making in between other priorities.

How would you describe your work, and your studio practice? It has many layers. It’s hopefully thought provoking and poetic. Slow and steady with pausing moments to think about what I’m doing.

What part of artmaking do you like or enjoy the most? The least? I like the playing and experimenting that goes on in the studio.  I sometimes don’t like to finalize a piece cause it has so many possibilities and directions it can go.

What research do you do for your art practice? Depends, I’ve researched techniques and used them in my work. Sometimes it is more reading and experiencing new places. These days, I’m interested in archaeology and the sociology of man kind where I’ve done a bit of reading on evolution and how man lived through Paleolithic and Neolithic time periods. I’ve also volunteered on archaeology excavations in Israel as well as local areas in Anne Arundel County.

What books have you read lately you would recommend? Movies? Television? Music? In the Woods by Tana French, Radical Face – The Family Tree: The Roots

Do you ever get in creative dry spells, and if so, how do you get out of them?Definitely! Play with materials and ideas until something peaks my interest.

How do you challenge yourself in your work? Try to incorporate new concepts and techniques over time.

What is your dream project? Would like to travel more in the US and overseas and create a series of images/artifacts. Maybe even create a series specific to historical sites from these travels.