Spotlight on our Next Community Challenge Guest
Check out Sierra’s interview with our next Community Challenge guest: Kat Singer - Autistic multidisciplinary artist, educator and therapist. Read about how identity, sustainability and mindfulness intertwine in their practice. We’re super excited for them to come to Community Challenge #6 (December 16th 7-8PM) and show us how to create props with objects from home!
How did you get your start in art? Do you have any inspirations?
I can get inspired by many random things, so this really depends on the project. I’m always inspired by the world around me and the stories I come across. Art helps me learn and process things in a way nothing else can.
Art is my passion and my calling,, even though it’s not the biggest piece of my professional pie. I use art as a way to explore and express what I am thinking. Expressing myself visually, comes naturally to me, even though I wasn’t encouraged to do it. Art saved my life when I was a teenager, but for a while after thatt, I stopped practicing it, thinking there was no point unless I could do it professionally. Then in my late 20’s I realized I wasn’t myself if I wasn’t doing art so I went to art school! I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the top ten percent of my cohort since as an adult I had a clear vision and developed self-discipline. After graduation, I started working in the arts while doing other jobs to finance my art practice, and started collaborating with other artists in my community! Art helps me learn and process things in a way nothing else can.
How many mediums do you work with? Do you have a favourite?
I’ve done a bunch, from photography to sculpture to performance, and I’m dreaming of doing a big street art installation, or a mural one day! I joke that my list of media is ever-expanding, and I’ll try almost anything once.
I like materials that aren’t precious, like plasticine, recycled fabrics, even old packagings. It’s super interesting to take something that was used for another purpose and turn them into materials for myself.
You can make art out of literally anything! I use household materials a lot, like for example for a watercolour course I taught, I used food colouring instead of regular watercolours since it’s body-safe, very affordable, and you get much more vibrant colours out of it! As a society we waste a lot of materials - I do as well, but I try to be mindful of what I consume. I’m both an aspiring minimalist, and someone who hesitates to discard things that can be adapted to serve a purpose. So instead of buying new decorations for the holidays, I make ones with the materials I have. It’s important to remember that we only have one planet and we should make an effort toward sustainability.
How do you intertwine your identity with your art?
I think it’s impossible not to! Our life experiences and identities show up in ways that are both visible and invisible. For example the portraits and figure drawings I made during my formal education, I did it the way I was instructed, using the “right”, or idealized proportions, and instructor-approved techniques. If I were teaching myself, the end result would look very different, more distinctive, perhaps. Like for my digital art, which is all self taught, I started doing things in a way that is very different from what an instructor would suggest. I am really stubborn sometimes when it comes to reading manuals and following instructions, and I end up, for better or for worse, figuring things out on my own. The process I use can be slower, and less efficient, but sometimes I come up with unconventional techniques that become part of my signature style.. The materials and techniques you use to make art reflect what you’ve had access to. I grew up in Russia in the nineties - there wasn’t a lot available to either budding or professional artists at the time, so everyone had to improvise. I still like to be inventive and make art with materials that are financially accessible to me. It’s a special pleasure to use brushes and tools that are just meant for one job, but I’m not able to use that all the time. A lot of my art is also connected to my activism. My passion for sustainability continues to fuel my creative reuse of materials. A few years ago, I used to be very involved in health advocacy, and I did many projects that reflected on my experience with the medical system. In high school, as a new immigrant, I made a children’s book about racism (I am relieved to say that very few people saw it, and no copies of it currently exist).
People assume that art that we make accurately reflects who we are, but it only reflects some facets of us at a given moment. I come across pieces of poetry and sketches that I did when I was a teenager, and I realize that I don’t hold the same beliefs anymore, and that my values have shifted. I’ve grown as a person, lost and gained multiple identities, and the world around me has changed.
What kind of an impact do you want to make with your art?
I like introducing multiple, nontraditional narratives and points of view into the public discourse.Promoting diversity is important, because having one dominant narrative and relegating all other experiences to being side narratives causes so much pain and strife . As an arts educator, I guide folks to self-empower, and try to facilitate them telling their story in the truest way possible. You can paint flowers and rainbows all day, because you think that’s what people like and want, but if it’s not true to who you are it can feel like self-betrayal. Why make someone else’s art?
I also want to reform art education, since there’s so much focus on skills and results in classes, when the focus should be on imagination, creativity without worrying about grades. There is a book by Alfie Kohn called “Punished by Rewards”, that emphasizes that grades and other reward-based incentives sap intrinsic motivation, and inhibit unconventional thinking.. I don’t see how art can exist in today’s education system, given the institution’s reliance on rubrics and evaluation. A lot of art education is very instruction-based and rigid, but I want to create a more learner-centered environment, like a playground of exploration and expression. I’d like it to be a kind of environment where people can be introduced to a variety of media, and figure out independently (but not without support) what forms of expression they gravitate towards. I’d like there to be this inherent flexibility to allow for experimentation.. I believe everyone is inherently creative. It’s a natural human instinct to create and to storytell, and making these cages for art doesn’t help.
How has engaging in the process of making art helped you?
It’s really helped me be with myself. By that I mean make room for processing feelings, and engaging with ideas. Some of my artworks, particularly involving textiles, take a long time to complete, and the process is usually very soothing. It helps my thoughts to slow down, and to flow more gently.
A lot of the time we’re tricked into consuming, rather than creating, and that has seeped into art as well. , There are these art project kits, and they have pre-measured amounts of materials, and they come with instructions telling you what you should do with them. The end result is pretty much predetermined. This slaughters creativity, in my opinion.
Since we’re wired as humans to move, and to make things, I feel that just sitting and consuming media is passive and not engaging your mind in a creative way. While this is a valid form of rest, and can even be a source of inspiration for future creative endeavours, it can also be mind-numbing in an unhelpful way.
Making time for art and listening to what my brain wants me to do has been really essential for my mental wellbeing - I’m a much happier person when I choose to connect with myself. I almost always feel better emotionally after 5 hours of sculpting, rather than after 5 hours of watching TV, or studying. I’ve recently arrived at the conclusion that I’d like to start incorporating more movement and outdoor time into my practice, because the repetitive motions, and hours of sitting still, slouching and squinting are not things my body appreciates.
Finally, my art has also helped me connect with like-minded people. It’s really important for humans to be witnessed and to be seen, and my art helps me with that!
When someone sees my work and gravitates towards it, I might make a new friend! They may even be a fellow artist, interested in collaborating with me!
I saw a photo of you melting vinyl records into bowls, how do you come up with unique concepts like that?
That was a craft in Soviet Russia actually! There weren’t many art supplies available, so we would express ourselves with what we had, like making vases out of vinyl records and making miniature furniture and decor out of tin cans!
It’s funny how some ideas come full circle. When I was about 5 or 6, I was harvesting potatoes with my uncle: a stern, gaunt, quiet man. I was intimidated by him. He must have noticed my shyness, so he approached me, holding a large, misshapen potato. I eyed him suspiciously as he took some matches out of his pocket, and plunged them into the potato flesh to give it four legs, and a tail. He made it eyes out of match heads, and carved a mouth with his nail. The resulting creature was both monstrous, and endearing. Fast forward to last year, and I’m teaching an online workshop that involves making cute characters using fruits and veggies.
Now if my gruff Soviet uncle could be creative like that,, that goes to show everyone else can be too!!
What other unique projects are you hoping to do in the future?
I have any specific projects planned yet, I know I will continue creating art! I want to make brave choices about what art I make, and what kind of media I use! For example, I’ve always wanted to work on a mural, or create an earthwork, so I put my feelers out for some opportunities. I’m also hoping to see more art, and make new connections through that!
A light installation out of recycled pill bottles.
This postcard was made with food coloring, wax crayons and coarse sea salt!
“I like materials that aren’t precious, like plasticine, recycled fabrics, even old packagings. It’s super interesting to take something that was used for another purpose and turn them into materials for myself. ”
“I want to make brave choices about what art I make, and what kind of media I use!”
Abstract freehand embroidery on recycled fabric.