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Spraygraphic Interview with Artist Kara Joslyn
By Spraygraphic | March 4, 2009
Spraygraphic Interview with Kara Joslyn
SG: Please tell us about yourself?
KJ: My name is Kara Joslyn, I’m from SoCal - Encinitas/San Diego, CA originally but as a child I lived in Salt Lake City, Utah and Seattle for many years. I’m a Painter. My parents are my greatest inspiration. I like micro/macro things, weird junk, people, history, painting and plants. I like to DJ glam and other old records in my spare time. I’m a gemini and I’m Vegan.
SG: Where do you currently live and work?
KJ: Oakland, CA, baby.
SG: What mediums do you work with?
KJ: I mostly work with water-based paint and drawing, as well as photo-transfer methods. I do a lot of masking, and I have been painting with an airbrush for a little while now and I love it. I like to incorporate painting and drawing together, which leads me to mostly work on paper. I like really smooth paper that’s not all toothy. Lately I have been working on yupo polypropylene paper which is crazy smooth. I also like to make sculptures inspired by objects, usually found at junk stores or on the street.
SG: Describe your working process when creating a new work.
KJ: My process resembles that of a graphic designers’ before computers were invented - or were any good at least. I studied graphic design at Palomar College for a semester and I was lucky enough to be taught all these hand layout and G.D. techniques by Chris Polentz from Art Center. I guess it really influenced me, because here I am almost a year after getting a BFA from CCAC (in Painting) and I’m in my studio doing things I learned in 2002 for probably $50. Go fig. But really, my process combines painting, drawing and those hand design techniques. I refine imagery through tracing and layout. I used a lot of frisket, masking fluid, stencils, etc. so most of my bigger works require a degree of planning out. Since I like to combine drawing and photo-transfer with painting, I’m always having to plot out the process for each piece - what needs to be done first, and then how I can work loosely while still keeping certain spots tight and clean. It’s like making a problem and then working it out and hopefully solving it.
SG: What kind of things do you do when you get blocked or find it hard to create something?
KJ: Go on walks and take photos of plants. Go to see bands. Watch documentaries. Go to Urban Ore. Enter altered states of consciousness. Ingest drugs and/or alcohol. Have a good talk. If all else fails and it’s a bad day, watch a crappy show on the internet (don’t have a TV). Really, my blockage is usually having the time and discipline to make all the kajillion things I want to make!
SG: Where are you currently finding your inspiration?
KJ: Plants, Psychology, 16th century European still life painting, weird banal southwest artstuff and also art[ifacts] of ancient civilizations. I look to the past a lot, and I’m really into art history and ancient Mediterranean art. Looking at cultures from a time before mechanical and digital production, and art that was inherently intertwined with language, spirituality, and everyday life - it seems like a distant planet from where I live sometimes. What strikes me most often though, is how similar things remain to be, despite “progress.” I feel like there is some thread that connects us all in time through visual reference. I also like the question Buckminster Fuller posed, “Does humanity have a chance to survive lastingly and successfully on planet Earth, and if so, how?” I like to find out how people and peoples throughout time have answered this sort of question. I like big questions - why are we here, what is the nature of this universe, infinity - wtf?! haha. More tangibly, I find so much inspiration from the activist community around me. My sweetie, Hoyt Fay volunteers at the urban garden, City Slicker Farms - now that project is inspiring! I helped paint their bike carts and it made me feel really great and useful. On Sunday, I went to see Emory Douglass and Bobby Seale speak about the accomplishments of the Black Panther Party - another hugely inspiring experience, especially if you live in Oakland…and, ya know, hate the strangle-hold of capitalist imperialism. I just love to know how much can be accomplished in one lifetime, and I have so much respect and admiration for those that dedicate their lives to other people and to improving our culture and environment.
SG: Where has your work been seen?
KJ: My work has been seen at Maniac Gallery, Mua, 111 Minna, Lobot, Rowan Morrison Gallery and I currently have work in the flat files at Michael Rosenthal Gallery on Valencia and 14th-ish in SF.
SG: Where will it be seen next?
KJ: I’m going to participate in the Monster Drawing Rally for Southern Exposure at the Verdi Club Feb 27th, then an auction at The Lab and a TBA solo show at Forthrite Gallery is in the works for this summer. But stay tuned to my blog or my website for the future. My pal, and fellow artist/psychecosmonaut, Travis Wyche and I just took over a storefront at 4707 Telegraph with some other friends, so my studio is there, and we’ll be having an inaugural show in April.
SG: What is your dream art assignment?
KJ: Whoa,I totally have a dream assignment! This would be the ultimate art: I really want to sue clear channel, viacom, abc, nbc, et al in a class action suit for my mind (and the minds of everyone involved)! I feel the media giants stole my mind at a young age before I had any knowledge or choice to boycott and I want a large sum of money in exchange for the mind they took against my will. My argument for cash compensation would be that they stole my mind to convince me that money (acquiring it to live a certain lifestyle and buy products) is the most important thing, and since this obviously is working (because we live in a capital/money-based society), I want them to give me the one thing they stole my mind to promote - dolla$$$. Think about it - how many commercial jingles, products, slogans, television shows, celebrities, billboards do you have up in your mind? It’s sick. I want to recover everything from rainbow-brite to “I’m lovin’ it” under hypnosis (my mom’s a hypno-therapist) and use what will probably be a million example long list as evidence against them. And everyone’s invited to join so we can demand over 5 million and go federal! Muahaha!
SG: What is your favorite color?
KJ: Yellow…….or maybe black? White light.
SG: Who is your favorite artist? And Why?
KJ: The art I like most combines simplicity and complexity in a way that helps get to the heart of the matter. For painting, I like a lot of Modernist artists - Paul Klee, Stuart Davis, Agnes Martin, Max Earnst, Morris Louis, Frank Stella, Joseph Beuys, Georgia O Keefe and probably all of the Expressionists are just undeniable. I also like ancient art; Greek vase paintings, aboriginal art, Indian miniature gouache paintings - all for the craftsmanship and meaning. I’m obsessed with Dutch and Spanish still-life painting (16th century) for the coded reminder of death and opposition of art’s permanence and nature’s way of always ending and renewing. Thomas Hirschhorn’s installation about utopia and camouflage was a scary fun-time mindfuck and the Situationists are always the soup dujour. Olafur Eliasson takes the surreal to the contemporary limit. Films: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and anything Werner Herzog. I love art. In my art, I’m really inspired by the drawings of Nick Blinko from my teen-hood fave band, Rudimentary Peni. I also favor a lot of contemporary artist, and I’m fortunate to know and have been touched by some great talents. Mike Kelley, Jim Drain, Dana Schutz, Pepe Mar, Lari Pittman. Locally, I like Jovi Schnell and Brion Nuda Rosch’s art a lot (plus I loved the Pattern Pattern Pattern… show at the hallway bathroom gallery). Anna Fidler and Chris Duncan are artists I want to meet. CCAC teachers are amazing too - the sense of color of Linda Geary as well as the amazing drawings of Franklin Williams kept me going. Oh, and from my memory banks, the show I saw at Deitch Projects in 2006, After the Reality, changed my art life - I liked especially the animation/installation by Aya Ohki. OK, I’m stopping myself.
SG: What book/magazine are you reading this week?
KJ: In my studio, I glean a lot from this 80’s New Wave art mag. called, Wet that I got a couple issues of - one features David Hockney. I’m also obsessed with books I have about indoor gardens - great photos. I’m always reading too many books at once and rarely finish them - Now it’s the novel, The Moon and Sixpence by Sommerset Maugham, also Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Kandinsky and I just finished a cool essay I forgot the name of by Peter Halley. I read a lot of authors writing on the subject ecofeminism, animal rights and ecology through working for author, Marti Kheel. I cook avidly and am into raw food, so I like cookbooks such as Living Cuisine and Healing with Whole Foods. The most enchanting book I love to pick up is Mycellium Running by Paul Stamets - mushrooms can heal the world - believe it.
SG: Ever do a self portrait? Where is it now?
KJ: Yes, now it’s in my memory.
SG: Where is your favorite place to hang out?
KJ: I like to chill whenever it’s possible - my bf, Hoyt is also always busy studying Horticulture and whenever we can relax together, we indulge in watching the Wire or Battlestar Galactica! The best place to chill, though is a friend’s house - preferably Ranzo’s or Tana and Billy Sprague’s cuz their places are like a museum of the coolest furniture, art, music, shadow-boxes, plants and vintage stuff ever! Ideally, I’d like to be hanging on Moonlight Beach watching the sunset in Encinitas, where I’m from but seldom get to go.
SG: Any final words of advice?
KJ: Go Vegan! All Power to the People! And…Be excellent to each other.
Topics: Artist Interviews, Paintings, Women Art |
