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Bibles and Rhymes: An Interview with Why?'s Yoni Wolf
Saturday, November 22 - Sunday, November 23
Various Venues (Austin)
free, 10am-5pm both days
[info]
Debra’s work can be seen during this weekend's East Austin Studio Tour at Pump Project, located at 702 Shady Tree Lane.
Can you talk a little about your newest works: what is the inspiration behind them and what do you hope viewers will walk away with?
Broz: The self-portraits started out with something I heard in an interview with Neil Young. He was talking about how he writes songs "when the muse calls to him." Often I feel like my work comes from a place that is subconscious or even exterior—that is what I felt he meant by "the muse." I started the works to explore my relationship with "the muse", my subconscious, the creative force, whatever you want to call it. All the self-portrait works are about various forces affecting the self.
Overall, my work is often about finding relationships between fragments: connections between words, ideas, processes, and materials. I hope that each viewer will connect to the work in their own way—drawing from their own experiences to create their own meaning. Art is a subjective thing. The meaning of my work is not mine; it is something that is created by everyone who experiences it.
What first made you want to become an artist?
Broz: I've been making things and drawing since I was a little girl, but it was in high school that I started understanding the whole intellectual, philosophical process of art. I remember the first time I read art theory—I was researching Claus Oldenburg's object sculptures and had an epiphany about how much thinking and complexity it takes to make even something simple. Everything, even things that seem simple or silly, is infused with meaning. It was fascinating to me—I always knew art was more than just "making things" but I'd never quite fully understood it before that point. The freedom, the challenge, and the nuance of art also appealed to me. There is nothing else like it.
Describe your creative process.
Broz: I collect different bits of text, imagery, collage materials and old books so I have these things to draw from when I begin to work on a piece. My process is fairly unplanned. Most often, I follow my intuition—choosing a bit of text, or an image and building on it. I also work with the sensibility of the materials: their textures, their forms, their limits and how those elements can be used to create a larger idea. I like to make work that feels open and visually simple. However, I often obscure certain elements—I am intrigued by the ability of the artist to reveal or hide things from the viewer. Sometimes if I make a piece that I feel is unsuccessful I'll dismantle it and recreate it until I feel like it works.
How did you get involved with EAST?
Broz: I moved to Austin from St. Louis three years ago, just before the 2005 tour. I went on the tour and saw what was happening and it was really exciting. In 2006 my friend encouraged me to rent a space and show my work. The space I rented was at Pump Project. By January I'd relocated my studio there. This will be my third year on the tour and it seems to be getting better every year.
What will people be able to see when they visit your studio?
Broz: I will have a lot of new work on display, but I also will have some works in progress around for people to see how I work. I always encourage people to ask questions about my work. That is one of the best parts about the studio tour: talking to the artists, questioning them, understanding their work. Because my studio is at Pump Project, the public will be able to see not only my work but the work of 30 other artists who have studios in the building.
What are you currently working on?
Broz: My work goes in cycles. I will go through a period where I'll use a lot of imagery (hands, birds, portraits), then through a period where I'll use more text and language based material. I am moving out of a period of imagery and into a period of language right now. I've been starting to make some works on paper mounted on wood, which for me is a new way to address texture. I've also been working a lot with text using metal letter stamps—the process of punching the paper is very tactilely pleasing. I've been terribly interested in the development of strings of words after finding a book of experimental poetry by the artist Vito Acconci, Language to Cover a Page, last year.
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