{"id":340058,"date":"2021-10-07T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-07T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecreativeindependent.com\/people\/visual-artist-kerry-st-laurent-on-finding-ways-to-keep-going"},"modified":"2021-10-07T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-10-07T07:00:00","slug":"visual-artist-kerry-st-laurent-on-finding-ways-to-keep-going","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/10\/07\/visual-artist-kerry-st-laurent-on-finding-ways-to-keep-going\/","title":{"rendered":"Visual artist Kerry St. Laurent on finding ways to keep going"},"content":{"rendered":"

You said you were more productive during COVID. Can you talk a little bit about what that was like for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

It was really the Negative Space<\/i> project, my set of pieces based on the novel by B.R. Yeager<\/a>, that kicked off a really productive art phase for me. I was getting back into it in 2019 after just a rough personal time and also I was getting my doctorate and I was just not making much art for several years. A little here and there, but it was nothing too noteworthy. And then in 2019, I pulled together my mental health and wanted to make more art again. Ironically, I also need to make art to be mentally healthy.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

By the time COVID hit, I was welcoming the ability to say no to everybody to not do anything. I just had time in the studio. I think that doing collaborations made me accountable. I will be a little bit more productive if I know there\u2019s an end goal. Somebody else is not even necessarily relying on it because if I had bailed on something, it wouldn\u2019t have been the end of the world, but it was just creating that accountability for myself.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

You originally studied painting. You were saying you\u2019d bought and first started using alcohol inks<\/a> in 2019. What was that shift in process like for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

If you trace my art back to undergrad I would say that moving paint has always been a really big part of what I do. I lived in a van for a while on purpose, so I was doing ink drawings because I just didn\u2019t have the space to spread out to do things with moving paint. I would say the consistency through my work throughout my painting career has been some form of chaos mixed with some form of a really meticulous work.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

I loved the forms I was getting, but something that was really frustrating me with that process for a while was everything was coming up so pretty. I do make pretty work. But because I was using watercolor, which is a translucent medium, and I was working on white paper, it often created these candy pastel colors and I\u2019m not really a candy pastel person. I kept trying to get richer and darker. I was so dying to make grungier, heavier, deeper work. I had tried layering stuff before, it just didn\u2019t work. So alcohol ink was just a solution to basically continue that style.<\/p>\n\n

\"Something<\/p>\n\n

Something Wants Us Gone<\/i><\/em><\/p>\n\n

On the note of collaboration, you seem to love creating work based off of writing. Can you talk a little bit about your desire to do this? What is that process?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

If you look at my ink drawings, I created a specific iconography of how I interact with my spiritual self, my physical self, the world around me. It was trees, maps, cathedral windows, and microbiology. Part of it is that I\u2019ve already said so much about myself. I want to express how I feel about what someone else is saying. I think that\u2019s part of what\u2019s drawing me to collaborations lately. You have so many interesting things to say, how could I express that through my lens?<\/span><\/p>\n\n

I completely inserted myself into the Negative Space<\/i> project. I was close enough friends with Adam (aka Burial Grid), that I knew he was working on this score for his friend, B.R. Yeager. I said to him, \u201cYou\u2019re doing an audio piece based on a book that\u2019s not released? That\u2019s so cool. Would you be open to me talking to Yeager and doing a visual component?\u201d<\/p>\n\n

That just lit a fire because I read Negative Space<\/i> literally in two sittings. Then I put on my noise canceling headphones and just listened to the score several times. At one point, I remember I was in such a zone, making those ink pieces that my face felt numb. I was just completely in a different place. I had a few drafts where I was being a little more literal. And then when I hit my stride they poured out of me like an alien being, which every artist knows that feeling, it\u2019s like something is escaping through you. You don\u2019t even understand it. Sometimes the process is like that. It\u2019s just very responsive, I have some types of synesthesia, I can associate certain people with certain colors or certain sensations, sometimes I\u2019ll hear something and I\u2019ll just picture it and then I\u2019ll try to create it.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

\"Balthus.jpg\"<\/p>\n\n

Balthus<\/i><\/em><\/p>\n\n

With the Nudes<\/i> series that we did together [editor\u2019s note: based on interviewer Elle Nash<\/a>\u2019s short story collection, Nudes<\/i>], there\u2019s a little bit more of an intellectual approach. I hadn\u2019t read the whole book, just the one title story. I was really intrigued by your motivations, but I didn\u2019t want to ask you. So I was asking myself, \u201cOkay, what\u2019s my interpretation of this?\u201d<\/span> What is this story saying about reclaiming the body and the self and what does this mean about being a woman, too, and how we move through the world and how we express ourselves and how we adjust to expectations? That process had several iterations. It was talking about a color palette and thinking about how it might represent flesh and all different flesh tones and then thinking about how it also represented violence. So bruisy, very specific colors. It wasn\u2019t like I read this story and decided, \u201cThese are the colors.\u201d It was more of a thought process of where I was headed.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

The series I\u2019m working on now for Maggie Siebert <\/a>and her story collection Bonding<\/i>, they\u2019re what I call \u201cwhen you know, you know\u201d illustrations. If you\u2019ve read the book, you could probably easily pick it out and think, \u201cOh yeah, that\u2019s definitely this story.\u201d But if you just look at the pieces, it\u2019s not giving anything away, it\u2019s not actually telling the story. It\u2019s very different project to project. There are common threads in an artist\u2019s style, but I don\u2019t know any artist where that\u2019s the goal. I don\u2019t think I know any artist who\u2019s just like, \u201cYeah, I just want to recreate the same thing over and over slightly differently.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

I think when you\u2019re in the midst of creating you\u2019re not thinking about your voice or your style. You\u2019re making it because you want to make it, you\u2019re driven by pure desire to make the thing.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I always tell my students if I could leave them with one thing this semester it\u2019s to make a lot of crap, just let go and make a lot of crap because in that process, they\u2019re going to make great stuff, too. But if you\u2019re so hung up on the thing you\u2019re making and what it means and what the end game is and how people are going to receive it, then you\u2019re not going to reach that point where you\u2019re just actively creating.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

That\u2019s actually advice I\u2019ve heard too from my writing teachers: \u201cYeah, you have to write a lot of bad before you get any of the good and it just will happen.\u201d Have you ever gone through that process of overthinking something and how do you get out of that?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I\u2019m an overthinker in life. My closest friends would attest, the way that I get out of it is to completely spin out. Which means that, in the creative process, that might translate to frenzy.<\/span> I reached that point in the Nudes<\/i> series, where I hit a frenzied wall and was redoing this one drawing, at least seven times.<\/p>\n\n

I just hated it. I had to see it to the end until I was able to set aside this pile of drawings because I\u2019d taken them as far as they would go, then start with a clean slate. Sometimes it\u2019s hard for me to reset in real time. I\u2019ll completely spin out and people around me just know, \u201cOh, there she goes. Just let her go. She\u2019ll get to the end eventually.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n

\"Not<\/p>\n\n

I\u2019m Not Leaving You Here<\/i><\/em><\/p>\n\n

We\u2019ve talked in the past, too, about the pitfalls of trying to be a part of the gallery circuit as an artist. It sounds like that\u2019s connected to donating the proceeds of the sales of your work. Can you speak to that?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Donating my profits of course benefits a good cause, but also helps me detach my definitions of self worth and success from my sales. It opens me up to a more authentic creative freedom. It\u2019s the same as the publishing community, and it\u2019s the same as the music label community. There are the same types of traps and the same types of popularity contests and the same types of things that are ultra consumable that define popularity and actually being able to make money. I\u2019ve never been drawn to the gallery scene. Obviously as an artist, I\u2019ve dabbled in it plenty, but I haven\u2019t put a lot of effort into it because it\u2019s so much rejection.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

I\u2019m pushing 40. I\u2019ve been doing this for a long time and it\u2019s not that I can\u2019t handle rejection. I just don\u2019t want to. I don\u2019t want to send out my work and for art, a lot of it\u2019s juried shows, which means you\u2019re paying $30 to get rejected. I don\u2019t want to spend money to get rejected. It doesn\u2019t mean anything about my work. It\u2019s the same thing about writing. It\u2019s not about you 99% of the time. It\u2019s not about you or your work. It\u2019s about the show It\u2019s about the juror. It\u2019s about the whatever.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

I got tired of that. You have to have not just a thick skin, you also have to have a little bit of an ego edge in the art world to go into it because that\u2019s the model. Then there\u2019s, of course, the luck. I\u2019m not saying that every famous artist is an egotistical asshole. There are plenty of lovely people that have well-deserved fame and are doing amazing work. I definitely try to focus on those artists for my students, but some of it\u2019s just who you\u2019re connected to and who discovered your work and how you were raised and your drive to actually try to get into the gallery scene.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

I joined a local co-op gallery. I\u2019m sure there\u2019s a literary equivalent of somebody opening up a small press with some people that they know and saying, \u201cLet\u2019s just make stuff and put it out there.\u201d I was ready to give up showing my work in a physical space completely. But part of me likes that, especially after I did the Nudes<\/i> series, because that series has these really beautiful tulle overlays. They did photograph pretty well, but in person they\u2019re really striking and I feel sad that nobody\u2019s seen them, and that motivated me to find a way to be able to stand in a space once in a while with my work on the walls. I\u2019m working with metallics now too, and you just can\u2019t see all of it digitally.<\/p>\n\n

When did you know that you wanted to teach art to others?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Very, very early on. It was probably high school. I come from a long line of teachers and I went into college thinking I was going to be an art education major to teach high school. Then I got to college and realized I don\u2019t want to teach high school, I want to teach college because I\u2019m actually not really into discipline at all. If you want to go outside and smoke a cigarette, fine. If you want to go to the bathroom, fine. I hate the idea that people have to ask me to do basic things that they want to do.<\/p>\n\n

In undergrad, I realized that you don\u2019t get a degree in art education to teach at the college level. You get an MFA, which means you get a degree in whatever you want to teach. I went right into an MFA program and then about halfway through my MFA program, it was revealed to me that it wasn\u2019t the same as if you wanted to teach in high school, where you would get your degree, you get your certification, you\u2019d apply for jobs.<\/p>\n\n

My professors basically told me, \u201cOh, you\u2019re going to get your MFA and then there\u2019s going to be about 500 applicants per position. And you also live in New England and want to stay here, which is really a hotspot of where people want to live and work. So basically you\u2019re not going to be able to find a job.\u201d And now I\u2019m thinking, \u201cI just got a fricking degree in painting and I\u2019m halfway to a second degree in painting. And you\u2019re telling me that there\u2019s no job prospects? What the fuck am I going to do with two degrees in painting?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n

After grad school, I moved to California and did the ski bum thing for a year. My partner got a job offer in Montreal and they moved us there. So I lived in Montreal for three years and I was a dog walker and trainer, then I found a job through for-profit education, which by the way is the worst, but I still did love working with my students. I had a very flexible job. I taught online and that\u2019s when I lived in my van because I was teaching from McDonald\u2019s parking lots outside of national parks, so that was pretty cool.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

But since then, I\u2019ve been an adjunct. if I had enough drive, I could move across the country, get something tenure track. If I wanted to give my career all of me, I could do it. I know I\u2019m fully capable and I know I\u2019m talented enough. That\u2019s not a question. I just don\u2019t want to. I want to live in my little house and I want to have time to make things and I want to have time to be outdoors and do other stuff. I\u2019m at the point now if a full-time position opens up, then I\u2019d definitely be open to it, but I\u2019m making my life as an adjunct.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

If I have to make more money, I do it doing design work or other things versus piling on a teaching load excessively. But I always knew I wanted to teach. I love it.<\/p>\n\n

\"best<\/p>\n\n

Best Friend<\/i><\/em><\/p>\n\n

Were there ever projects that you did that you couldn\u2019t complete or that you really struggled with?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I\u2019m really good at abandoning stuff. Not people at all. I\u2019m really bad at that, and I\u2019m really bad at abandoning other people\u2019s expectations. But if it was my own project that\u2019s not working, it\u2019s gone. I will get rid of it.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

I do believe in revival though.<\/span> I will say that. I think there\u2019s a time and place for whatever reason, for certain things, and sometimes the idea is not right at the time. I guess I would say I\u2019m really good at walking away from things that aren\u2019t working, but I\u2019m also not afraid to revisit them and that\u2019s definitely happened quite a bit.<\/span> There was a dog training and behavior project I was building with my friend and we and it didn\u2019t go anywhere and we dissolved it, but it was on the back burner for nearly a decade. Now it\u2019s starting to revive again in a new way.<\/p>\n\n

Instagram is so pervasive\u2014have you found much traction as a visual artist online? You did this one [cosplay makeup] recreation of Pan<\/i> which looked amazing.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I just binge watched Glow Up<\/i> during COVID and thought, \u201cWhatever. I can do that.\u201d Most of it is done with Wet and Wild black eyeliner. I got some better paint at one point, but all the earlier stuff was just literally black and white eyeliner and a palette of eyeshadow. I have pretty minimal makeup. It\u2019s so weird because people, when I first started doing it, were saying, \u201cOh my god. This is amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

And I\u2019m thinking, \u201cOkay. This is almost on the verge of insulting. I\u2019ve spent how many years in art school? I\u2019ve been showing you my art for this many years.\u201d People love the stuff. I will put my heart and soul into my artwork and you prepare for it, thinking, \u201cI\u2019m ready. I\u2019m going to put it out there,\u201d and it might not get much reaction. And as soon as you put something dumb out there, like, your new haircut, people are like, \u201cOh my god!\u201d<\/p>\n\n

I\u2019ve come to the conclusion that people love things that are either super relatable or super unexpected, but there\u2019s this chasm in between of things that qualify as, \u201cI\u2019ve seen that before from you. It doesn\u2019t really impact me.\u201d<\/span> \u2026 You must have that too, people who don\u2019t relate to your work when you\u2019re making things that are abstract or things that aren\u2019t just hyper palatable to the general public, it gets this very different response from your peers, which is why the creative community is so important because they\u2019re the ones who are going to be like, \u201cThat\u2019s sick, awesome job.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Yeah. It\u2019s been almost like a running trope in the lit community for a couple years I\u2019ve seen going way back where it\u2019s like, \u201cI should just post poems on my selfies.\u201d I\u2019ve seen people say that a lot because they\u2019re like, \u201cIt just doesn\u2019t get the same attention.\u201d It\u2019s funny because I remember you saying when you did that makeup skull, you were just like, \u201cI\u2019m actually upset that people like this more than my real art.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Yeah, I\u2019m like, \u201cHere\u2019s a skull that I\u2019ve painted within my artwork and it actually means something,\u201d and people sort of shrug. But I saw a raccoon skull in the woods, took a picture of it and painted it on my face, but I put some eyelashes on, and oh my god. It broke the internet.<\/p>\n\n

\n\n

Kerry St. Laurent Recommends:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Boondocking
<\/p>\n\n

Hedonistic sustainability (see: Misadventure Vodka!)
<\/p>\n\n

New England Octobers
<\/p>\n\n

Celebrating platonic love
<\/p>\n\n

Fresh orange juice paired with salty, buttery popcorn
<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This post was originally published on The Creative Independent<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You said you were more productive during COVID. Can you talk a little bit about what that was like for you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1359,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[268,428],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340058"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1359"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340058"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":340133,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340058\/revisions\/340133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}