Tell me a bit about where you grew up & what your upbringing was like. I grew up just east of Toronto, Ontario in Canada. My family and I lived further away from town on one of the Great Lakes, Lake Ontario, so I had a kind of remote and scenic upbringing. My father is…
Bryan Kring is an Oakland-based book artist and graphic designer. His enchanting images and dark humored writing are often enhanced with interactive mechanisms that pull you into another world held in the palm of your hand. I visited him in the studio to see more of his work in person and ask him about his…
Is embroidery a skill you learned as a child, or something you developed later on? My mother taught me to sew when I was a little girl, just simple stitching, and it was something I’ve always done. I never had any formal training. I don’t use proper stitches. I don’t use techniques that have a…
So I want to know, how do you make these? I understand it involves super thin wood and some kind of resin? Please tell me more! My work is very much making sense of different materials. I collect scraps like crazy and stash them at my studio throughout the year. Wood, fabric, paper, tools…it’s all…
Truth be told, I would have loved to sit down with Rebecca Reeves in person to pick her brain about her art work, which begs to be further investigated. However, as Bucks County and San Francisco are separated by a vast 2,900 miles, we had to settle for a digital exchange. My initial investigations of…
When I look at your work, I see of glimpses of intimacy — at times they are absurd or cause discomfort, but the intention is earnest. What do you want your work to do, to evoke in a viewer or participant? My partner once looked at my work and told me he thought my work…
When did you move to the States? I moved to Alabama in 2006 and enrolled at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, from where I graduated in 2010 with a degree in studio art and a minor in art history. Last year, 2014, I earned a MFA in painting and drawing from Wichita State University…
What is the backstory of the title “Acid Mass”? Does it refer to your whole body of work or your current series? It started when I was a rebellious teenager. I would take LSD, go to raves, and my mother would make me go to Catholic mass on Sunday morning while I was still hallucinating….
How long have you been collaging and how did you get into it? I’ve always made things, primarily taking materials apart and putting them back together. My mom and grandmother sew and quilt, so textiles were a part of my art practice when I was younger and throughout art school. That’s when I began “reconstructing”…
What was it like studying in Italy? Italy was a very eye opening experience for me. I immersed myself in the culture and the language. Everything was inspiring and creatively I had a new way of seeing the world. Italy was where I encountered machine knitting. Learning this technique in Italian was definitely a challenge…
