What Was the Best Advice Given to You as an Artist? #5

"What was the best advice given to you as an artist?"

All of the responses are taken from the 100+ interviews archived on 

www.Local-Artist-Interviews.com.

"What was the best advice given to you as an artist?"

My mentor Frank Agar advised me to exhibit as much as possible. Keep a passion for sharing and communicating your art to the public. Even if they are not ready for it, and reject it.

Margaret Gamache

(Interview)

“There are 24 hours in a day. Make it work.”

J.M. Culver

(Interview)

To follow my heart and do what I feel most passionate about, even if it’s unconventional. To not worry about what others might think. To feel confident in anything I create.

Mia Malone Jennings

(Interview)

Taking a chance and having it end in disaster is always better than playing it safe…which is fairly easy advice to follow especially since not taking chances with your work can also end in disaster.

Alison Hiltner

(Interview)

Amber White - Book Artist

Inside a Shell

Handmade book with Snapping Turtle Shell

Amber White

Altered Esthetics Featured Artist

for 

"Formed by Nature"

May 2012

Name:  Amber White
City/State: Shoreview, MN
Email: tangledantlers[at]gmail[dot]com
Website: tangledantlers.com  

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/amber-white/24/593/b01
MNartist.org profile:  MNArtists.org/Amber_White
Facebook page:  facebook.com/TangledAntlers
Etsy Page: tangledantlers.etsy.com

Bio~ 

 My early years were spent in central Minnesota, surrounded by nature and people who know how to live off the land. With a family history encompassing farming, hunting, fishing, trapping, and physical labor, I grew up with a healthy respect for the natural world and took to working with my hands. My first sort of creative training took place somewhere between the ages of 8 and 10 in my dad’s garage, where he and my uncle bravely allowed me to raid their tool chests for my experimental bird houses. This was around the same age I became adept at filleting fish, around the same age I encountered Jana Sterbak’s Meat Dress and Chuck Close’s cigarette-smoking Self-Portrait at the Walker Art Center during an elementary school field trip.

These experiences fueled a desire to learn more about art and to continue creating with my hands. Wanting more than fish fries and birdhouses (though I still love both), I left my hometown to attend the University of Minnesota Morris, where renewability and sustainability are core values. I completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in both Studio Art and Art History, with a focus in photography and book arts.

These days I live and work in the Twin Cities, though I still find time to escape and venture farther north. A local non-profit art gallery, Altered Esthetics, has been my main roost for the past few years. After completing an Assistant Gallery Director internship in 2010, I applied to join the board of directors as the Director of Group Exhibitions. Since January of 2011 I have managed over a dozen diversely themed group exhibitions. Altered Esthetics believes in art for art’s sake and provides opportunities for a wide range of creative types from students to emerging artists to working professionals.

 Moose Journal

Tell me about your work? What are you currently working on? How is this different from past projects?

Currently I am producing handmade & hand bound journals for artists and writers. This differs from many of my past projects in that my main undergraduate concentration was photography. Since I no longer have regular darkroom access, I do sometimes shoot digitally, but I find that bookmaking satisfies my need for hands-on interaction with paper and repetitive processes. I sell these books in my Etsy shop “TangledAntlers” and I have been known to take up personal requests such as a natural wedding guest book and a Tanzanian kitenge-covered travel journal. My favorite materials to use are old dictionary pages and paper wasp hives.

In the past my photographic work has focused on family and rural tensions between man and animal. I have often incorporated natural or animal materials into mixed media pieces and book art pieces as a way to salvage and upcycle the waste or scraps forgotten by my family members who hunt and trap. I collect and reuse what I can so that the animal is used to its fullest potential and can live on somehow through art. 

Hand-bound Journal with Wasp Hive Cover

"What is Art?" is certainly too big of a question to ask here, but what do you hope your audience takes away from your art? What statement do you hope to make?

Wait!! Going back to that “What is Art?” question, I can tell you what art is not. Art is not limited to what museum curators or wealthy collectors consider to be art. Art is everywhere, in all communities, for all people.  As far as my book art goes, I simply hope that the audience takes away a curiosity for the natural world, and a little more love for the handmade.

What was the best advice given to you as an artist? 

The advice given to me from other artists and colleagues can be boiled down to a few key points: Be persistent. Don’t let the fear of rejection stop you from creating, the way it stops so many others. We all have dry spells and times of rumination and that is perfectly okay. Always talk about your ideas or work with others, take yourself seriously and others will follow. Do what you know you can do, do it often, and do it well.

Dad and Uncle Rick in the Garage, Silver Gelatin Print

Tell me about your work space and your creative process.

I am thankful for my father-in-law allowing me to take over his former wood shop next to his basement utility room. There I am able to store all my “stuff” and keep things lying out on a table where I can return and work as needed without the interruption of packing things up and putting away. I do most of my binding and gluing there, which is great because it allows me to keep things in a separate space away from my dog, his fur, and other disturbances.  

Book binding very much has to be done in stages, so I will spend days just tearing paper, some days just sewing, and some days gluing or waiting for glue to dry.  After all the steps are completed and I have several books done, I set up my camera and photograph them all.

 Storage and workspace 

Who are some of the Minnesota artists you enjoy?
Jess Larson has been an instructor, mentor, and friend of mine since 2005. She creates subversive embroideries that reinterpret domestic objects and social messages directed towards women. http://www.jesslarson.com/

Margaret Gamache has been a friend of Altered Esthetics I believe since the very first years. She is a mixed media artist, a good soul, and I always appreciate her sharing of family history.

http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=174413

A photographer who lived and worked in Minnesota for many years, Celeste Nelms photographs and interacts with discarded objects. 

http://celestenelms.mosaicglobe.com/gallery/1375

Judy Onofrio’s bone sculptures celebrate the organic beauty in life & death.

http://www.judyonofrio.com/

Erin Hernsberger’s gorgeously printed photographs combine fascination and repulsion. I especially enjoy the series Dissect. 

http://www.erinhernsberger.com/

The women of Cave Paper are doing some incredible things with paper!

http://www.cavepaper.com/

If I were to follow you around to see art in Minnesota, which places would we go? What would we see?

MN Center for Book Arts  http://www.mnbookarts.org/

North House Folk School Grand Marais  http://www.northhouse.org/

Altered Esthetics   http://www.alteredesthetics.org/

Northtrup King Building  http://www.northrupkingbuilding.com/

Untitled

Pheasant feathers, wheat, and wasp hive paper on handmade coyote fur & tea paper

Where do you go online for good art resources, whether to find a new artist, or to see what is going on in the art world locally and otherwise?

Local Artist Interviews, of course! http://www.local-artist-interviews.com/

I also love MN Artists http://mnartists.org/

Northeast Minneapolis Arts District http://northeastminneapolisartsdistrict.com/

NPR News Arts & Life  http://www.npr.org/sections/arts/

What can we expect to see from you in the future?

This May (2012) I am the featured artist for “Formed by Nature” at Altered Esthetics [alteredesthetics.org], and you can expect to see many more exhibitions curated by myself and the awesome curatorial intern team at AE until the end of 2013 when my board term is complete. In August of 2013 I will be guest curating a group exhibition featuring Twin Cities’ artists at HFA Gallery on campus at U of M Morris.

When I have time off from managing exhibitions, I plan to continue my own work in binding books and potentially creating a line of other handmade paper products. In the future I also hope to have a small studio to provide portfolio documentation services to other artists.

Amber White

Margaret Gamache - Collage

Margaret Gamache

Altered Esthetics

Altered Esthetics Featured Artist for the Agents of Orange Exhibit

1/6/11 - 1/27/11

Opening Reception: Friday 1/7 7-10PM

Margaret Gamache
Website: http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=174413 email: gamaxs@aol.com

I have lived in N.E Minneapolis since 1985. I received a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in
Photography from the University of Minnesota, Dec. 1983. Over the years, I have exhibited at the Warm Gallery, Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts Exhibit, exhibited in shows sponsored by Forecast Gallery Public Space Productions. New York State Museum, Empire State Plaza, Albany New York, and the University of Reno Nevada Photography Dept. Reno Nevada.

In 2008, I became a Resident Artist at Altered Esthetics Gallery in N.E.Mpls. I have exhibited in 15 group shows there. I was the Featured Artist contest winner in ‘ Creative Blood ’ show, 2009 A&E Calendar March. In addition Altered Esthetics ‘America ‘, an international Juried Show winner best in category: mixed medium 2007. ‘ Grade F ‘


Tell me about your work?

Most of my artwork is mixed medium collage, photographs, Drawings, magazine images, paint,
constructed in a two dimensional 8in.x10in. Size. The work is then printed, or copied. In addition, some of my work is mixed medium sculpture in three-dimensional form, as well as photography. My style and subjects deal with family, subconscious guts, mass media’s junk and left over’s. My influences are, Family, a Catholic upbringing, Duchamp, Stieglitz, History and politics.

What are you working on now? How is it different from past projects?

I just finished a work called’ DEAD ASSETS’ which ended a four year period. It is an art installation involving 13 art works. It is about death, finding a place to rest in peace.

Now my work is more fun. I just finished work for ‘Agents of Orange’ show at Altered Esthetics Gallery in Jan.2011. ‘FALL BACK’, a digital photograph. I want to start another art installation next year. I always have ideas and never enough time to execute them all. I keep them in my art journal and plug away at them as well as possible. I will be excited for new ideas come to me, and the pleasure I will receive from them.


What was the best advice given to you as an artist?

My mentor Frank Agar advised me to exhibit as much as possible. Keep a passion for sharing and communicating your art to the public. Even if they are not ready for it, and reject it.

Tell me about your working space and your creative process?

I live and do art work in a huge, 100 year old duplex in N.E. Mpls. With a workroom in basement, storage in the attic and computer office space on first floor. How I work is mostly in my head, mulling over ideas and emotions that go together. This usually takes lots of time. I may make folders full of stuff to use eventually for these ideas. There is always many projects and different folders being created. To execute the work is usually fun and done quickly.

Which Minnesota artist do you enjoy?

The Minnesota artists I enjoy are many. Some for years, others newly inspired by. The artists I have exhibited with at Altered Esthetics Gallery have truly amazed me. As well as in the many Galleries in the N.E. Minneapolis Arts District. In addition, it is so much fun to just go on line and find Minnesota Art to inspire me. Here is a few.

Will Agar, photography
Wayne Potratz, sculpture
Amber Janey, mixed media/book art
James Powell, cartoonist
Lisa Elias, sculpture
Elias sisters: Anne Elias , painter; Meg Elias, Ariel Arts; Jane Elias, painter.

If I were to follow you around on an’ art day’ in Minnesota, which places would we go?

First, we would go to some, Art Galleries and studios in the Northeast Minneapolis Arts district. We would see local artist exhibiting and working in diverse mediums and themes, and prices. Altered Esthetics, Casket Arts, Northrop King Building, and Spotart Gallery.

We then would have to sit outside a while at Walker Art Sculpture Garden. Then go inside, and check out any new exhibits. Then back to my place to see my work, eat and drink.

Where do you go on line for good art resources, whether to find a new artist, or to see what is going on in the art world locally and otherwise?

www.mnartists.org
www.artsmia.org
www.alteredesthetics.org

Do you have any exhibits or any interesting things going on in your life or coming up in the near future?


I will be exhibiting at Altered Esthetics Gallery ‘Agents of Orange’ Residence show, opening Jan.7, 2011.

Also in a ‘Creative Blood’ show at North Hennepin Community College, Jan.12, 2011. In this Show, I will be exhibiting with my father, life partner, my son and daughter. Also my mentor Frank Agar and his son Will Agar, both Photographers.

Most exciting, I will be having a Solo show later in 2011, exhibiting my’ DEAD ASSETS’ art- installation. The Solo show is through Altered Esthetics Solo Exhibition Program, the details are yet to come. In the fall, Altered Esthetics has a ‘food’ show I am excited to exhibit in. I know there will be lots more…..


Margaret Gamache (1/2011)