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…
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 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….
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…
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…
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…
I was curious about the deeper inspiration behind her sculptures, like people always are when looking at contemporary art. We ask ourselves, ‘Why? Why do YOU make this work.’ From simple observation, we can see that Alyssa’s sculptures and videos speak toward the raw and vulgar side of the body. Something which she has been…
After graduating from Rhode Island School of Design with a B.F.A. in Textiles, Lane taught art and facilitated community based art projects in programs for adults with developmental disabilities in Portland, OR and Portland, ME. She has created community engaged bodies of work as an Artist in Residence at Elsewhere Studios in Paonia, CO and…
Hiba Schahbaz is a Brooklyn-based artist who works in the centuries-old art form of miniature painting. She trained in miniature painting at the National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan and received an MFA in Painting from Pratt Institute in New York City. Schahbaz, a Muslim woman of color, speaks critically and poetically about western…
JH: How would you describe your subject matter or the content of your art practice? SL: I’m interested in the overlap of the body and the home space, which stems from a fascination with permeable and blurred boundaries. I see a lot of similarities between the body and the home as containers, facades and places…
