Cait Finley: INTUITION
“My work is a choice to think differently about our environments, removing human-focused supremacy from our actions. I believe that this transition in thought is truly on its way and that the arts are a potent way to talk about this transition.”
2022 Artist-in-Residence at Missoula Public Library
Cait Finley next to their sculpture “Basketball” - images taken by Chris Autio
How was your experience as an Open AIR Artist-in-Residence?
I had a great experience as an Open AIR Artist-in-Residence! I was able to wrap my mind around how digital fabrication can work purposefully in my art practice. Through direct playful experimentation, I became more open to the things I like, and know that a door was opened within me to these technologies.
This was my second summer back in Missoula, after completing grad school and being an artist in some great art cities. Montana is my forever home, but it can be an insular place to practice. I feel differently about this after participating in Open AIR Artist-in-Residence.
The truth is that there are so many talented folks working in Montana and the region, but there are not many connective tissues that bind us. The work Stoney, Kelli, and the team at Open AIR are doing is a massive in-road to creating community and strengthening place-based artistic experiences. As a person involved in this work in my own practice, it was deeply encouraging to witness.
“Rose Petal” - sculpture created by Cait Finley
What was your research process during this time?
It was fairly open. I started out my residency playing with materials since this is my real true love in the arts and making. Then, I started getting well acquainted with the technologies that drive digital fabrication, and deciding which ones I wanted to use and why.
So often, I use my intuition when making, and it has been hard to incorporate Digi-fab in my practice because it requires a lot of planning. However, spending time with the tools, allowed me to see the intuition inherent in the toolsets.
“A Wheel of Cheese” - sculpture created by Cait Finley
What are you up to now (post Open AIR)?
I have an exciting year ahead, I am participating in art fairs in Mexico City (Mexico) and Stockholm (Sweden), and have exhibitions in Malmo (Sweden), Seoul (S. Korea), Los Angeles (California), and here in the Missoula International Airport from January to March.
I am an adjunct professor at The University of Montana and just finished teaching the inaugural Clay and Digital Fabrication class at The Archie Bray in Helena, Montana. I have some curatorial projects that I am working on, with talented folks who also live outside of major metropolitan art centers, and as always making artwork.
Sculpture created by Cait Finley
How would you describe your work?
I am a little unsure at the moment. I am most interested in time and materiality, and how geological time puts all materials into flux.
Here is a past artist statement…
My work is about the difference between human perceptions of time and its relationship with geological time. I use sculpture, moving images, and a heavy metal nature documentarian/alter ego; to explore the ways humans attempt to speed up and slow down geological time to better align with our corporeal, fleeting understanding of being.
However, at its core, my work is a choice to think differently about our environments, removing human-focused supremacy from our actions. I believe that this transition in thought is truly on its way and that the arts are a potent way to talk about this transition.
“Martha” - sculpture created by Cait Finley
What keeps you returning to this subject, body of work?
When I was young I got lost in the woods. I spent a cold night in a cave. It was a harrowing experience and I will never forget the things I learned intuitively that night. Nature does not care, but yet, somehow, all of it is made of love.
Through my experiences growing up on the wild lands in Montana, and seeing both the spectacular places and the places allowed to be discarded, where industry has destroyed or dramatically altered the landscape and ecosystem. I have witnessed firsthand the ways in which the earth and her changes are expressed through vast blankets of time. And the flighty ways that humans attempt to displace that void through destruction by means of control.
This is to me the real true subject of my work. And, though it is as hard to show as it is to write about, I hope my work has an intuitive back door into people's recognition of this fact.
Dr. Sussan Nautilus video still - by Cait Finley
To learn more about Cait, visit her website www.caitfinley.com & check out her Instagram @caitfinleydotcom
