5. Karyn Olivier: Social Sculptor

Karyn Olivier is the type of artist who transcends her actual work; composed of a life of complex  backgrounds, finding her artistic stronghold, and continuing to make evolving, meaningful, breathtaking ideas. When I think of those I consider to be true artists, those who have a deep seated understanding of creativity and the way is moves through not only artistic mediums but the very core of everyday existence, I think of Karyn. I am consistently amazed by those who have strong voices, strong visions of the world, and are able to express themselves without borders or boundaries to create their beliefs for others to experience. Karyn is a thinker. A sculptor of social concepts. A woman who, in this interview alone, recalls fashion, poetry and art criticism to develop her rounded understanding of what it means to be a human, creative and otherwise, in today's world. So, without further ado: Karyn Olivier, an amazing human as well as an amazing artist.

1. You didn’t discover you were an artist until you were 30, is that true? That seems crazy! Do you see it like that, that you were always an artist just manifesting it in a different way, like through a retail fashion career or as a psychology student somehow? Or did you have a stark moment of creative discovery/understanding that you feel changed who you were, what your objectives were?

I actually had a hard time claiming the title artist — even after grad school! I was in the ceramics program at Cranbrook, which was amazing, but it was strange to believe my formal art education was over, I was making what would be classified as sculpture, but had never taken a sculpture studio course. I must admit, there are times I look out at my students and ask myself —“am I a fraud?” Don’t get me wrong — at the end of the day, I do treasure my non-traditional path to a career in art, but every once in awhile I think it would be nice to know I hold that B.F.A. foundation in my back pocket.

Despite this, I’ve always been interested in art. I can recall countless afternoons spent in the Brooklyn Museum in my early years. I even won an art award in third grade (which I’m still very proud of). But I also excelled in math to my parents’ delight and was gently nudged in that direction. But by the time I entered undergrad, I had abandoned math, was intrigued by psychology and ended up majoring in that. An interest in fashion had always been there — it’s just a part of life when you grow up in New York City (and other cities I suspect,  too). So when I graduated from Dartmouth, being a retail manager seemed like a good fit— visual stimulation and engagement with a “population.”

At Urban Outfitters, and even Bloomingdale’s, I was surrounded by creative people, but it was during my tenure as wholesale director at J. Morgan Puett (an exquisite clothing line from the 80’s and 90’s) that I had my “aha” moment. I watched this designer who really was the quintessential artist — living art at every moment. It was incredible to witness. I realized through watching her every day that life didn’t have to be compartmentalized — all of it can be imbued with art. A month later I quit my job, started a little business selling infused olive oils, vinegars and homemade candles at street fairs and began taking ceramics classes with the purpose of getting enough credits to go to graduate school.

2. It seems your work keeps increasing in scale beginning with clay pots and eventually moving into gigantic sculptural playground pieces (which include an enormous two sided slide that leads to a crash in the middle, a huge, merry-go-round for one and an extended, delicate cooperative balancing act in the form of an overreaching see saw), how did you expand your physical scope? Did you/do you ever see boundaries?

When I started out, I was attracted to the ceramic vessel — its ability to engage us intimately and (dare I say) profoundly through its simple function: holding food, containing nourishment none of us can live without. We each have eating rituals with foods that enliven our senses— from our favorite dish to a comfort food or a meal that conjures up good memories. This interest in containers led to an exploration of architecture when I arrived at grad school. Take a tea bowl — it has a physical and sensorial relationship to the body. This experience shifts or maybe expands in the context of architecture. A building or a room invites not only a physical and sensory experience, but also psychological, emotional and social engagement. As I started to make more and more installations and large objects that begged for an active participant, I realized if done well, they can be quite powerful. Being confronted in a room by that huge slide or sitting on that rotating carousel for one rider demands your physical attention. But over time, the physical weight of the object is often eclipsed by the psychological weight of the piece.  A viewer has a heightened awareness of himself and his present-ness in the situation. It was really satisfying to make this kind of  work and after a few years it became “easier” to make these installations. Not the fabrication per se, but the ability for my work to achieve the “desired” result.

You asked about boundaries, and I think, perhaps foolishly, I never see boundaries. I think that comes with not having much formal training (I did take a beginning drawing class a couple of years ago). For years, and still very much to this day, whenever I come up with a great idea, I enjoy fifteen minutes of utter bliss and butterflies before the high comes down and I realize again “I have no idea how to make this thing.” But grad school taught me to be resourceful. I often bought beer for fellow grad students in exchange for showing me how to use something — a table saw, a drill press, etc. It’s often daunting to begin a new project, but at this point of my career, I’m use to feeling this way. I just work to figure it out or I find someone who can.

Some of my public work has increased in scale so that my hands don’t even touch the process — a CAD drawing gets sent to the fabricator and the object is made or photo files are sent to a billboard advertising company who print the 14 ft x 48 ft images which are then installed by their subcontractor. I’m working on a Percent for Art commission right now and too much of my time is being spent on the computer — there is almost no engagement with materials. 
And coming full circle, my most recent challenge has been to make small work again. Work that doesn’t require any experts, work that can be made with just my hands. I think I’ve been secretly afraid to try making small objects again, but I’ve been giving it a go the past few months.

(More on space, action & a library in a grocery store after the jump!)
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New Hampshire Picture Post #2

New Hampshire Picture Post

Lunch Hour

Lunch culture in New York City. It is a subculture that I know all too well. In my previous career as a publishing lackey the fabled industry "three martini lunch" was most certainly alive and well, and a major perk of the low paying job I was so happy to have! Business was discussed some but the social aspect of eating, drinking and learning about your colleagues is a thing that I think should be a mandatory part of every workplace- you are vulnerable and open in a way that humanizes you & your co-workers, co-workers that usually only exist on the other end of an e-mail! There are so many times when I recall the days of the exquisitely grilled swordfish sandwich, or the co-ed bathroom of The Modern, or the rowdy, headache inducing vodka infused pineapple mistakes that made for hilarious workplace memories and a feeling of community inside and outside of the maze-like halls that aren't always the most approachable spaces. So, when I saw that there was a show at the New York Public Library about the ever evolving lunch of New York City I immediately rushed to see it! Titled Lunch Hour, this show went beyond expectations, so good it made me hungry for more museums to be as historically comprehensive and still stylish in presentation as this one managed to be!

The culture of a lot of young librarians is a nerdy chic that often comes in the form of sleekly designed state of the art accessories mixed with a fondness for the vintage fonts of the letterpress! A future past aesthetic that makes sense for those working in a career that is all about making information- from any era!- accessible. This distinct style was seen in the exhibition design & the subject one that was highly conducive to a more personal, human touch.  From origins of the word lunch, to a detailed area on the malnutrition epidemics as told through school lunch programs, to the hot dog truck lifestyle this exhibit took a sweeping subject and filtered it into a cohesive, flowing, layered meditation on a major part of New York life! Moving through different eras of NY lunch lifestyles (the 50s homemaker, the bustling automat, the power lunchers, the etc.) books (cookbooks!), media (menus!), film (a compilation of the automat as the centerpiece in several Hollywood classics!) and even a nice cross section of modern/contemporary art (Claes Oldenburg made a few appearances! Even R. Crumb!) were on display in amazing settings- a pink kitchen with formica table, a long school lunch table with trays, a real automat (with original automat recipe postcards for the taking!) set the back drop for it all. O and not to mention the love of well places graphic font too as (what seemed like silkscreened?) text added to the feel of the curatorial vision. Big props to the fabricators/exhibition designers too- I feel like this style is a hard one to capture properly, bordering crafty or kitschy or sugary, and to capture it so well, while retaining the depths of information, and on this scale? Well played!

Besides making me incredibly hungry...the show was highly informative and touched on all kinds of social issues (malnutrition, racial issues, gender equality and more!) explored through the plates of lunch! So, so good! This show was also a case study in what a museum exhibition should aspire to be: informative, interactive, well designed, cohesive and timeless! Is the NYPL the new museum of choice? For me, the answer is a hearty yes! A show that can encapsulate and explore all levels of such a broad and distinct culture in a precise yet fluid way is a superb thing that I want to see more of...just like I want to see more of those Samosas I devoured in the concourse of Grand Central Station that my growling stomach fondly remembered and insisted upon after viewing this extensive portrait of a city, it's eating habits, and the social melting pot that it really is!

Lunch Hour, The New York Public Library at Bryant Park, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Gottesman Exhibition Hall. Through February 17th, 2013. M, Th, Fri, Sat: 10-6pm. Tues & Wednesday: 10-7:30pm.
Curators: Rebecca Federman and Laura Shapiro

Schiaparelli & Prada: Impossible Conversations

Sometimes you just need to sit in an entirely empty museum in front of a gigantic, intricate, overwhelming Jackson Pollock in complete and utter silence to get a handle on things. And by some bizarre twist of fate early this week I was able to do just that. An amazing, hardworking, glowing friend of mine has been interning at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and was recently hired on at their Costume Institute (CONGRATS!) and a major perk of working in this cultural institution is being admitted to the galleries when closed to the public on Mondays. Apart from being able to quietly commune with masterpieces of art I found that watching the inner workings of the closed museum interesting too, a thing I have experienced often during my days facilitating museum installations but the scale of operations at The Met were fascinating as elaborate, elegant flower displays were trimmed to classical perfection, frond clippings falling from huge heights onto the marble below and priceless bronze busts tarped with regular old packing blankets and carted off on raggedy handtrucks as if they were just things as opposed to experiences. But the highlight of my day here was most definitely a private tour lead by my friend of the Schiaparelli & Prada: Impossible Conversations exhibit which I was dying to see and so lucky to see without the gobs of fashion lovers that hang like heavy costume jewels around these shows! No offense fashion lovers but your purses (and personalities) are just too big!

As with almost all the fashion related shows that The Met sponsors this one was no exception in it's complete and utter visionary perfection, taking an art that is not always considered as such and transcending it to something beyond form or function into a utilitarian high art that is hard to describe. The backdrop of the entire exhibit was a series of videos conceived by Baz Lurhmann! Yes! That Baz Lurhmann whose epic showy bombastic dreams are the types of films that auteurs are made of! (And whose upcoming version of The Great Gatsby looks like it won't disappoint in what we've come to expect from him!) This series of films was no exception in talent either of course...more subdued than his normal displays, the videos imagined a conversation between female Italian fashion idols Miuccia Prada and the late Elsa Schiaparelli (as played by a curt, sharp Judy Davis).

Schiaparelli's words were mostly compiled from her writings about her life and work, and Prada responds to Davis/Schiaparelli with her own ideas on fashion, culture, politics, gender- all of the things that make a life and a life's work. The films were beautifully executed with graphic interludes, typed words scrolling around that further impacted what the women were saying, the scene set with them seated across a large shiny wooden table with a chandelier above, speaking in strong voices with even stronger accents- I have never seen an exhibition exposition made so vividly! An inside scoop told me that the women were filmed apart form one another too, not actually in the same room, a blending that was nearly seamless but does account for the sort of ghostly absent quality that I felt but a quality that managed to ease the concept of an actress channeling a real person and a real woman speaking with her- a kind of separation similar to me sitting here typing words to strangers that would be made strange if we were in the same room and I was reading them to you perhaps...? And these films were just the foundation of the show! The clothes! The shoes! Schiaparelli's collaborations with Dali! The newer bold neon accents and platformed shoes on a thick, light color line that everywhere I turn there is a knock off of! The perfectly refined black dress with such small geometric variation that makes it a nearly hidden structural masterpiece! All of these things tracking the ideas that are important to the designers and the zeitgeist of the time and place from which they hail.

Seeing this show made me have an understanding of where fashion fits in today's cultural landscape too. Even though fashion can be seen as a sculptural textile artform it is also a commercial one making it skate a fine line of how seriously we take it in the artworld but, as accessibility, the increase in the commercialization of the fine art world, a serious internet/blog/photo journalism culture and a recent boom in documentary films on the subject suggest new platforms are allowing for the ubiquitous nature of fashion to become a more defined thing and a more studied thing as patterns emerge, care is taken in preservation and academia seems to take more interest in the fact that what we wear can define so much more than the actual things we are wearing. One of the shoes on display was the best sculpture I have seen in awhile with just as much elegance in a curve as any Brancusi, as much history of an era in it's color palette and composed of a shiny leather & wood so expertly crafted...a beautiful artifact with an undeniable aura, a thing that is much, much more than merely something I would want to wear upon my foot! Not that I am saying I wouldn't mind a pair of Prada pumps though! The entire show, from concept to staging, was absolutely incredible. Even if you don't consider yourself a fashion lover there is an element of formal perfection present in all forms of media at the Schiaparelli & Prada show making it easy to find some element you can appreciate, appreciate through the eyes and clothes of these women and their unwavering, unapologetic ideals.

I grabbed these images from the web as to respect the no photo policy and not be removed from my childhood dream of sneaking around The Met in off hours! Afternote: After I read this post I realized something was lacking. It is nearly impossible to try and relate the beauty of these very tactile, wearable, personal crafts. The strength in them is seeing them come alive as they fit around a very important element that is necessary to their aura: the human form. They are created as a thing to be felt and admired by the wearer and those around them as they sit upon a body in a way that one must experience in person and, if you read the very complex, specific dialect of Vogue there is an art in writing about them that is just as rich that I am not capable of. So...maybe you should just see the show? Or head on over to Soho, stare at the beauty and wonder, and if you play it right, try on and experience fashion in the real way it is meant to be appreciated.

Movie Review: The Dark Knight Rises

I always see the Batmen movies because I think they are really indicative of pop movie culture for the time they are made in, tiny little case studies in style, sound, movie technology, actors, etc. And, if my feelings of them being representative of a larger whole are true then....it's bleak out there folks! BLEAK! (Shutters windows. Sips whiskey & soda. Breathes deeply.)

Take This Waltz

Sarah Polley is a writer/director who moved from in front of the camera (most memorably to me in Wim Wenders image of a doe eyed American smalltown West in Don't Come Knocking) to behind it in recent years, an intriguing move that I often think adds a depth of understanding to the possibilities of what stories films can tell, knowing how to push an idea using people & emotion as opposed to just placing ideas on top of a picture & skimming concepts that barely need to be in cinematic form. Her directorial debut, Away From Her (2006), was a quiet beauty of a film based on an Alice Munro story. The film poignantly told the tale of an aging couple as one of them slowly eased into senility. A subject I have witnessed first hand watching someone slip from person to an otherwordly state of existence, a change so hard to describe, so specific emotionally and physically that upon seeing Polley's film I thought everyone needed to see it as a form of empathetic dementia education for the widespread epidemic of Alzheimer's that we so silently ignore... Away From Her showed the complications of a partner slowly dissipating with age/illness and how this change effects their relationships, romantic and otherwise, all imagined in a very specific eye (richly composed shots, like moving oil painting tableaus in snowy fields and drab, decaying, graying suburban & nursing homes). With her newest film Polley takes on the often unexplored complexities of romantic relationships again but this time in a younger stage as she muses on how we have a tendency to grow within, apart and sometimes too close together in her depiction of a particular modern mode of marital status.

Take This Waltz, like the poem by Garcia Lorca Pequeno & the Leonard Cohen translation the title is derived from, is a screechy sunburst, water color meditation on what coupling, and its dissolution, is. The situations Polley poses in this film present a real side of how we've come to pair off and make lives nowadays, told from a younger indie-feminine cultural perspective (my friends own many of the outfits in this film) in a true tone that is rarely encountered on screen. A perfect example of the ongoing settling that happens in some relationships, an important sentiment in this film, was a sweetly harsh gag between the film's protagonists: Lou (Seth Rogen! And he wasn't annoying! And Sarah Silverman his alcoholic sister was wry, serious & non-cringe worthy too!) and Margot (Michelle Williams) fondly volleyed elaborate mocking versions of how they would grotesquely kill eachother (ex. "I love you so much I want to take your skin off with a potato peeler.")- a jokey familiarity, a warm, comforting routine, but also a representation of the nervous complacency that sits on the fringe of every Queen sized duvet cover.

Clunky heavy handed scenes (like that of older women in a gym shower that showed what is the fate of every perky breast) after the horrors of pool jazzer-cise (I have never seen the terror of gym culture portrayed so vividly & true to form- Zumba people, Zumba- shudder!) were also a kind of constant small nod at things that normally don't make it to the content of the big screen. Even though sometimes the dialogue was a little forced or twee, or the film plodding, it was the truths that propelled the film through the rich complex actors, ideas that are important parts of the day-to-day stories that need to be told about the dread of monotony, heteronormativity and that thing we all ignore everyday but is the fate of every person. Take This Waltz is about what we do to love, the forms it takes and, maybe, that that form may never be found anywhere in a real external form despite our greatest efforts to find, keep and understand it.

Vermont Picture Post #7

Some Like It Hot

Summering in New England feels like I am living a life not my own...as I attend lectures on astronomy by meterologists at local Masonic Temples, sit on an empty lake eating softserve ice cream (which they call "creamies" here- what an anthropological journey!), go see cinema classics in an opera house dating from 1926 (complete with clock tower!), dreaming of a lost America of love, past blue automobiles in driveways, home to my silent cottage...it all seems like a distant beautiful life as the cool mountain breeze dries me off and I sit riverside on a bank of hot rocks. The local opera house, The Bellows Falls Opera House to be exact, has a year round series of cinema classics on Wednesday nights and it really is completely wonderful to sit in an audience of retired folk, small children and everyone in between to share with them films that are the foundation of Hollywood and that, like a good classic novel, everyone should really experience! The audience was so lively that a brief moment during the intro to Marilyn Monroe's musical number "I Want To Be Loved By You" at the screening of Billy Wilder's black & white comic masterpiece Some Like It Hot there was a pleasant, quite hum/sing along in the most subdued and sweet way possible- now that is cinematic magic folks! Where did that go? We need that back! So beautiful!

I had never seen Some Like It Hot (!gasp!) and I am actually glad this was the way I got to see it for the first time as I felt transported back to a golden age of the movies with a lovely willing audience in such a memorable setting. Everyone always speaks of the tragedy of Marilyn Monroe and you never really think of what that really means until you see her perfect comic timing bubble out in front of you on screen, her curves (!) languidly ooze around the camera sticking to the eyes of everyone who sees them, filling the big screen to the brim with all of her glorious being! And there was the equally stunning presences and performances of Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon as they propelled the story forward escaping the Chicago mob, masquerading as women, millionares, speakeasy musicians, telling a story heavy on the conventions of gender roles, slyly progressive in content like almost all of Wilder's work! And, speaking of which, there was the directorial perfection of Billy Wilder!

I always forget that his cuts and framing and writing and just general gift (comic and otherwise!) is something every filmmaker should really study, a true master in the art! I remember seeing 1,2,3 once in a movie theater in New York, Film Forum I think, and thinking to myself there is no way this plot is going to last: but it did! Wilder always does! In terms of comedy he just knows when to punch, how hard and what the punch should look like and not just scene to scene, for a whole entire movie- a thing I realized as I looked at clips on the internet to post here and noticed the lead up to everything is so calculated that every single part & detail is a necessity from beginning to end (and upon further inspection, a fact that Jack Lemmon talks about in this great clip)! What a genius! What a great movie! Such a beautiful night! I think every household should implement a summer cinema classics night! Even if it means some tough conversations are to be had after the closing title, "I'll explain to you what you saw later," the poor mom sitting next to me said to her young son as transvestites, sex and a level of extreme wit dumbfounded the kid whose movie brain is probably mostly conditioned to explosions....bring back the Golden Age of Hollywood! THE END

Vermont Picture Post #6

Sorry the blog is on a mini vacation right now. We will be back shortly bringing you arts & culture & science and...what else do you want? Cookies? I can do that too if you really think it would help your blog withdrawal...I have been known to make a mean cookie! Summer love to you all!

Vermont Picture Post #5

Vermont Picture post #4

Vermont Picture Post #3

Vermont Picture Post #2

So I haven't done too much searching out of the arts & culture here yet but I am on my way....! If culture includes waterfalls! And sunsets! And mountain housecats! Which, in my opinion, all do count as culture...a compressed time line of a the evolution of summer - rocks to cats folks! Ok! More soon, and again, e-mail Southern Vermont leads to donnak3@gmail.com!!