Conversation with Jade Lowder
Isolation in Blue, Oil on Canvas, 36”x48”, 2020
How was your art practice impacted by the pandemic?
At the start of the pandemic I found myself being more productive than I have been in a while. Being able to stay at home and be in the studio much more frequently was initially great. However, over time the stressors of the world came knocking and that boom of productivity I was experiencing waned and I was left wanting. I’ve found that my practice thrives on interaction. Even though I’m a painter and my work only really gets done when I’m alone, I need feedback, I need to see other’s work in person and to communicate about my ideas with studio visits, art exhibitions etc. Without that I felt really lost.
Slowly but surely my practice is acclimating. I communicate with my network much more via zoom/skype/instagram. I’ve participated in a number of “socially distanced” exhibitions, online and part in-person and working with fellow artists in new ways has been incredibly invigorating to my practice.
This renewed sense of connecting with others during the pandemic fed into the other side of my practice, which is my work with the community. I serve on the board of directors for two different arts based non-profits in Bozeman. Going into the pandemic, the non-profit, “Compassion Project” saw a need to help bring rest, creativity and mindfulness to those stuck at home: teachers, community members and families with kids. Alongside other artists and community activists, I helped create six weeks of art prompts and mindfulness exercises for these audiences that they could access for free.
Where my practice is at currently, is a moving target. I’ve found resilience in creatively working with others and those connections fuel my practice in the studio. The stressors are still there, but so are the people. Continuing to make work during this time can feel cathartic and simultaneously like the string quartet continuing to play as the ship sinks. That all being said, I feel that projects such as the CoLab project, where people can come together, even virtually to create something new: connections or art, is a step in the right direction.
Obscured Believer No. 1, Oil on canvas, 18” x 24”, 2020
What was your experience like collaborating with another artist(s)?
For me the best part of the experience is opening up the shared google folder between the two of us and seeing new work. That urges me to create something new and it’s just the jolt of excitement of creativity. Our project has been a kind of call and response to works we’ve been creating and seeing the new work always starts me ideating what I’m going to do next and how to contribute to this conversation we are building.
Collaborating with another artist, especially during the pandemic and especially when that artist lives in another country and very different time-zone can be tricky. That being said I think that for myself at least, that communication is best when it's left to the images we are producing, it feels more poetic that way.
Obscured Believer No. 2, Oil on Canvas, 18”x24”, 2020
What was a success to come from the CoLab project?
I think for me any project where I can get out of my head is a success. During the pandemic I think it has become increasingly easy to retreat inside ourselves and for me that just kills my work in the studio. The CoLab project gave me an easy way to jump into making and remove myself for a bit. Working with another artist gave me a connection to the work that was someone beyond just myself and that was incredibly valuable.
Obscured Believer No. 3, Oil on Canvas, 18”x24”, 2020
Tell us about your most recent solo exhibition?
My most recent Solo Exhibition was entitled “Seance No.3,” and was a part of the Frontier Space a University of Montana graduate student run space in Missoula Montana. Initially this show was slated to happen in person, in a physical space, with real live people in attendance. That shifted. For the most part the exhibition exists online, however I wanted to do something to bridge that gap and incorporate people from Missoula while I made the work in Bozeman.
I made an instructional art piece, ala Sol LeWitt. This piece was a set of instructions on how to create a simple drawing and to write in the center of the drawing a short inscription. The inscription was also a kind of instruction, a call for the audience of the piece to perform a guided collective meditation. Students at UM voluntarily completed these instructions and created works to finish my intentions for the piece. In that way the students also became my collaborators for the drawing and vital to execution of the exhibit.
The other photos shown are of my work as I installed them in a gallery in Bozeman and then sent in the photos for this exhibition. I love that this exhibition although now, only existing online, remains as a sort of artifact to things there were. Both in terms of the instructional piece and the art works I installed in a different space. The conversation between these two ideas is really what the show is about.
https://frontierspace.org/seance-no3
98 Failed attempts at making a statement with numbers, Graphite on Paper with string and clothes-pins, 8’x5’, 2018
Can you talk about the difference between being a maker/director of your own work and being a viewer?
I see the difference between maker and viewer as a sort of reconciliation. Meaning, that I as a maker and also fan or art, must reconcile between the works I make and the elements I respond to in other’s art. Most of my work is designed to be seen as part of a larger series, as a narrative. Viewing one piece out of the context of the rest, while fine, is not necessarily the ideal way to understand the work. That can be a tough place to be as a maker. We want each piece to dazzle, or to contain multitudes and often the hardest part about making a piece is to simplify the work. That's where this negotiation between maker and viewer comes into play. Viewing the work that I like I get inspired to bring into the studio different techniques, ideas of things to add to each painting and inevitably crowd the work with ideas not always my own. There are certain things that I wish my work could contain or ideas that I get while viewing work that I’m inspired by. Being able to edit down to something that contributes to the larger narrative of works while also being able to stand on its own, and indeed contain multitudes, is precarious. I think every artist has that spot in their studios where they like to sit/stand and stare at their work. It's in this spot and time that this reconciliation happens and I can edit my ideas.
Finally, the editing process really takes shape once I’m installing an exhibition. There I can play with how pieces talk to each other, and try to address the “viewer” outside of myself seeing the work everyday in the studio. Installing the work I think is where I can really stand back and be a fan of my work. I can find things about it that went overlooked in the studio and that I should both literally and metaphorically, shine a light on.
After the show comes down its back into the studio, and those things I discovered while viewing the work in another space are what drive the new works to be created post-exhibition.
I think it's important in the creation process to not get hung up on trying to be the viewer, there is time and space for that later. I often think of my contributions as a viewer of my work to that of a critic, and the studio is really no place for a critic. In installing and editing the work for an exhibition, that’s where I get to be a viewer and really focus in on what I like about the work and what I want it to say. In the studio however, acting as that maker/director of the work, it’s important to be present in the process and not consumed with how it looks. Your inner critic (viewer) will get involved eventually, so it's essential that when you are actually making the work, you (the artist) are involved and not that backseat driver (your inner critic). Otherwise, your work will become crowded by thoughts and opinions that are not your own and you will be left standing in that spot in your studio wondering where “you” are in the work.