October 12, 2012
An Interview
with Susan Graham
by Robin Tung,
DAILYSERVING
http://dailyserving.com/2012/10/an-interview-with-susan-graham/
On a Tuesday
morning in September, I
met with sculptor and
photographer Susan Graham
at Lux
Art Institute in
Encinitas, California.
Graham was more than
halfway through her
five-week artist residency
and opened her studio to
me, allowing an up-close
view of her sugar and
porcelain sculptures in
the process of assembly.
Graham shared stories from
her childhood in Ohio,
articulated her thoughts
about working, and touched
on how September 11 has
altered the view of some
of her earlier art.
Robin
Tung: Thank you
for opening your studio.
What are you working on
while you’re here?
Susan
Graham: I made
a sugar toile piece
previously, and I proposed
making one here and
expanding it with
porcelain. I’ve been doing
temporary sugar pieces
that are large-scale. I
have five weeks here and
estimated that by making
some pieces out of
porcelain, I could come
back in and expand the
piece by adding sugar
[while here] because sugar
doesn’t really ship well.
RT:
So the materials aren’t
mixed—it’s either a piece
of sugar or a piece of
porcelain.
SG:
Yes, it’s not sugar and
porcelain mixed together.
It’s sugar or porcelain.
In the piece, it’s mixed,
which is new to me. I’ve
never put them side by
side. So it’s different
whites, a different way of
doing an on-site piece.
RT:
What do you mix the sugar
with?
SG:
It’s sugar and egg whites,
an icing mixture. It’s
something I started using
a long time ago because I
was in New York and didn’t
have any money. I had
gotten a studio though,
but didn’t have tools and
just wanted to start
making things. I was
looking for a material
that would mean something
to me.
There was nobody artistic
in my family, really, but
my grandmother had a craft
club and she lived next
door. They made bouquets
of tiny flowers out of
salt dough. And I thought
they were amazing. For
myself, I was thinking of
something that seemed
feminine, sweet and
domestic, and also I
wanted to work off
material that was white.
RT:
Themes of escapism or
imagination with wide-open
spaces, natural phenomena,
and vessels like cars and
planes, are often visible
in your work. And it seems
like there’s this binary
to the pieces, like the
gun made out of sugar.
SG:
That’s something that I
always do—with the binary
you mentioned. It seems
whatever I’m doing, I end
up doing two opposing
things at the same. With
these photographs I try to
take something that’s
obviously very fake but
because I’m using either
really fast film and
making it super grainy and
flat, or pinhole images
which give a sense of
atmosphere, it makes the
photographs seem like
there’s a much bigger
space even though it’s
obvious that it’s tiny.
RT:
You cited “Puzzle
Bottle, 1995” by Charles
Ray in
an artist statement. How
was that piece
influential?
SG:
I was curated into a show
at the Whitney Phillip
Morris. They had us
respond to a piece in
their collection. I didn’t
ever really read what
Charles Ray said about
that piece, I just looked
at it and imposed on that
figure in the bottle what
he’d done, and turned it
around, depicting these
big open spaces. Did you
read what I wrote about
that?
RT:
You wrote about wanting to
create what that figure
was looking at, or
imagining.
SG:
What he was experiencing
given his tiny little
space. There’s this
existential problem this
little man has. There was
a Shakespeare quote that
was actually misquoted to
me, and then I came up
with something parallel
for my title.
RT: A
Universe with Edges
Would Be All Right if
Only I Didn’t Dream.
SG:
That’s what I came up with
though the Shakespeare
quote is something
different. Basically
something about the
universe in a nutshell.
RT:
I like that it’s misquoted
and then re-imagined to
fit the work.
SG:
It has a lot of layers,
and the more time I get to
think about it, the more
complicated it gets . . .
Everything that I make has
a personal beginning. It
starts with imagination
and associations, and then
in a lot of the pieces,
politics and things in the
real world will start
coming in. There is a
playful element to it. I
think everything I make is
a little humorous. I
manage all this stuff by
making it a little
lighter, and pretty
harmless in the
presentation.
RT:
Can you speak to
influences or inspirations
early on?
SG:
When I was in
undergraduate at Ohio
State University, I was
not allowed to study art
and—
RT:
Wait—why were you not
allowed?
SG:
Because it’s not
practical. I’m the oldest
kid. My dad, who worked
for General Motors, told
me what college I should
go to, that I should be an
engineer, and work for
General Motors. My first
semester I took chemistry,
calculus, and art history.
The second semester I took
chemistry, calculus, and
photography. I was
influenced by a book of
someone who had
photographed carnies. It
was a strange world. And I
really responded to the
black and white.
And, my dad had
a gun collection when I
was a kid. And my brother
came down into the
basement with a gun, he
found one of them. That
was a big childhood
experience that was freaky
because he was really
little and the gun was
really big. It took me the
longest time to recognize
that guns were a giant
part of my childhood.
Later after I became an
artist, and my father cut
me off financially, and I
moved to New York City,
the guns ballooned into
politics between him and
me, and I had to think
about guns in American
culture . . . I asked him
for a list of his guns,
and then I made a lot of
the collection. He died
about four years ago.
RT:
I heard this quote that
journalism’s
responsibility is to tell
you what happened, but art
and fiction should tell
you how it felt. I loved
your photograph of the
planes circling and
suspended around the
towers. It made me
anxious.
SG:
Right, nothing’s happening
[in the photograph].
September 11 is so taboo I
don’t really mention it.
This is something I have
not talked about during
this residency, or for a
long time. But, Lower
Manhattan Cultural Council
used to award raw space in
the World Trade Center to
artists. I was there
during the session before
September 11. After, the
Council suddenly got all
of this money and
attention for artists who
made work in the World
Trade Center and a show
was put together to travel
to museums. It turned out
that not one venue would
touch that show. A lot of
us had imagery with the
World Trade Centers even
though it had nothing to
do with September
11.
Our studios looked north
toward the Empire State
Building. And I had read
about a plane crashing
into the Empire State
Building . . . in the 40s,
I think. So I was doing
things with planes and
buildings back then. I
made the buildings out of
sugar, and had them lean
towards each other. It was
very sweet actually. I
also had images with the
planes because helicopters
would go below you when
you were up in the Towers.
But those images
mean something different
now even though I didn’t
intend that . . . And
that’s it, it’s done.
That’s one of those things
where politics and what’s
going on in the world
changes really changes
things. It made me aware
of how I can’t really
control the message of
what I’m making. Because
it’s ruined, it’s put
away. I can’t show those
photos. Maybe someday. But
they don’t mean what I
meant them to mean.
Graham
showed me around the
museum installations and
led me down into her
living space below the
studio so I could view
her permanent porcelain
gun brushed over with
resin. The Lux Art
Institute artist living
quarters were spacious
and designed with
contemporary
décor: antler
candelabra, animal print
throws on a leather
sofa, streamlined
kitchen appliances and a
hallway leading into a
minimalist bedroom with
a king size bed. We
returned upstairs
shortly after so I could
ask her my last two
questions for new
artists.
RT:
What struggles have you
seen for artists trying to
emerge?
SG:
If you’re trying to go
some place with a lot of
artists, an art market,
and actually emerge, I
think you have to really
figure out what your voice
is and what you can do on
a long-term basis. It
can’t be external. It has
to be very self-driven and
it has to be specific.
I was a guest artist at a
college and and there
would be graduate students
still doing a little bit
of this and a little bit
of that. You will never
get anywhere working like
that. Some artists can do
a little bit of everything
but they have an
overarching idea that they
can explain. I thought, You’re
not going to get
anywhere if you don’t
figure that out.
Otherwise no one will know
who you are because
they’ll never recognize
your work. You don’t have
to be so eccentric to be
recognized, but you have
to commit to making
something specific to you.
RT:
Any other advice for young
or new artists? How would
you encourage artists to
define success?
SG:
The first success is to
define for yourself what
you want to do. And then
figure out how to do it.
Do you need a studio or
not? Some artists that I
know dispense with the
studio because it’s
expensive. On the other
hand, not having a studio
can make it so that you
can’t do certain things.
Figure out what you need
to do what you want to do.
And then start pursuing
all those things available
to new artists: art
programs, studio programs,
alternative spaces. For
some artists, to not be
attached to a commercial
gallery with a brand
works; you can float
around showing in a lot of
different places and
situations. Show your art
wherever you can. Get
people to see your stuff
however you can do it.
Make what you want to
make, figure out how do
that in a way that you can
afford, and get people to
see it.
Susan
Graham’s work will be on
display through October
27 at Lux Art Institute
in Encinitas, CA.
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