An Interview with Jane Hammond
by Sandra Murchison, Associate Professor of Art & Chair of the Art Dept. at Millsaps College in Jackson, MS
I had the pleasure and unusual experience of interviewing the internationally acclaimed artist Jane Hammond, as I sat in my car on a rainy day and laughed with her over the phone. Who says you can’t stay in touch even when temporarily living in a rustic cabin in Black Mountain, NC? I tried to imagine what kind of wonderful NYC loft Jane was in as she generously allowed me to reflect on her life. After transcribing my notes, I wrote a draft of the following and then Jane filled in any gaps for me over an email exchange.
S.M. Jane, thank you again for agreeing to take the time to talk with me and answer my questions. Everyone I spoke with at this year’s Southern Graphics Council Conference was very interested in your Chicago exhibition and in your slide talk which you gave as one of the conference’s keynote speakers. Since you did have that opportunity to explain your work to hundreds of printmakers just this past March, I wanted to instead focus more on your art career and the tough decisions that you may have had to make along the way. Your artwork has certainly been influential for so many of our blog readers, so I am even more curious about how you managed your exhibitions along with your studio time. I suspect that you are a role model to the majority of faculty and students alike that you have had contact with, as you are to me, after serving as a Visiting Artist at Millsaps College and generously telling me about some of your experiences as a professional artist.
For years, you taught at MICA, but gladly left academia for the possibility of making a living as a working artist. Looking back on your time at MICA and based on the many conversations that you have had with professors and students as you have served as a Visiting Artist at countless institutions, what do we academic types tend to focus too much on? And what not enough?
J.H. Well, first of all, it’s an oversimplification to say that I gladly left academia. In fact, I wasn’t entirely sure I was doing the right thing, but it’s true that my instincts were heading towards maximizing my time in the studio.
Now to the heart of your question: When you teach art, you teach what can be put into words. You teach what can be taught. What can’t be taught is what can’t be put into words, and that is so often what makes something good. Chris Hocking (Assistant Professor of Printmaking at the University of Georgia) once asked me “how come you don’t talk about the way you make the work?” By this he meant the way that I paint as set apart from the ideas in the paintings. But I find that you can’t really talk about that because it is really both pre and trans-verbal. Furthermore, it’s not so evident in reproduction which is what usually accompanies talks.
I’m very thorough when I teach studio art. I bring a lot of art history, a lot of reading into the class and I encourage students to study. I tell them: You don’t want to go to a doctor, or a lawyer or an architect who is trying to invent their field. You need to know what the influences were in Eva Hesse’s work. I encourage them to talk about art, as well as read about it, and to talk about what they have read—as a way of clarifying and detailing what the ideas are. I realize this might sound like a conflict with the first point I made (about the importance of the missing non-verbal elements) but I also believe that language is a significant medium for how we think about art. It’s not irrelevant to the task of becoming an artist—it is part of how we think.
Now, all of that said, you and I both know that some of the coolest stuff comes from someone who’s a little naive, but has soulful, work that is really connected to them. I don’t exactly know how the teacher cultivates this. Robert Frost once said “Poetry is what gets lost in transition.” It speaks to the anti-denotative side of art-making which is the harder part to put into words. We probably over emphasize the intellectual side of art because that can be developed, but there is something else you can’t teach.
Don’t forget that there are also these important teachers, like Albers was to Rauschenberg—that inspire because the student is prompted to develop in contradistinction to that point of view.
S.M. Do you ever have a desire to return to academia?
J.H. Yeah, I do. When I go places as a Visiting Artist, I really get into it. Although it is difficult I think the experience of going into a room and seeing something you have never seen before and getting a handle on what it means to you and why is very challenging. I always say to the students, use me, make me work for this. Don’t tell me what you are doing, see if I can figure it out and listen to what it is that I think I see—that is where you are getting something new from me. That is where, in effect, I am earning my money. I could easily be teaching again. Of course, probably the ideal thing is to teach half time, or every other semester you know.
S.M. You’ve mentioned that you didn’t have your first big NYC show until your late thirties, what were the obstacles that you faced up until that point?
J.H. I had my first show in 1989 at Exit Art Gallery, I was 39. The biggest obstacle to showing before that– was me. I didn’t feel ready. For the first six or seven years of those years working, I was very engaged in my work and teaching. But I constantly had this feeling that the next thing will be so much better. To some degree I still have it– just today I told someone “come in October, when I’ll have new work” in spite of the fact that there is work here right now.
I just wanted to keep moving forward and never felt like I had a body of work that obviously hung together as a group. Another thing I did a lot of in those days was what we would now call “networking.” I had studio visits. I did a lot of that, at least once every two or so weeks. I rarely do that anymore. But we would have studio visits instead of doing other social things like going out to dinner. It was social and it was an exchange of ideas. You would tell one another what to read, what exhibits to see, etc. This was a big part of my early years in the city. I did have some dealers over starting in the mid eighties or so.
S.M. How did you finally land that show?
J.H. Both galleries (Exit Art in 1989 and fiction/non-fiction later in 1989) came from other artists volunteering to make that connection. The first show came from Ursula von Rydingsvard who sent Exit Art to the studio. And the timing here was that Judy Pfaff had just given me a friendly talking to as to how I should just start showing already. Marilyn Lerner got me my second show, at fiction/nonfiction. Word goes out amongst your friends when you’re making interesting work. I would say that once you get your work to a certain place sometimes people are eager to help you. Some critics came over to my studio, as well and they also networked with dealers in those days. This was all time consuming but not that hard because I lived in NYC. I imagine that being in NYC in those years was somewhat similar to being in other large art centers like San Francisco or Chicago. I realize this is not the only way to go about these things, but you asked about my own experience.
S.M. Were you satisfied with the gallery you showed at and the review your work received?
J.H. Yes! Looking back on it, it was great to be showing at the same place as David Hammons and Ursula von Rydingsvard –they each had “breakout” shows with Exit—Ursula before me and David right after. Exit Art was an alternative space, not a commercial gallery and mine was a big show with 22 paintings. In the end I think it was a very good thing that I had a big NY show before I had a gallery—but I didn’t plan this nor could I have. It happened because they made me an offer at the right time. I was in the mix of things and starting to feel ready and to witness the affirmation of that sentiment by my fellow artists. The Exit Art exhibition was reviewed in six places. I don’t think I’ve had a show since then that has had so many reviews. That most likely happened because I was new to the scene and largely unknown, because Exit had a burgeoning reputation and because it was such a large show.
S.M. What did it take to gain a second and third show? How aggressive did you have to be to perpetuate a constant exhibition schedule?
J.H. I think I’m pretty aggressive actually. What I’m actually saying is that I’m willing to admit to it. But sometimes I think I’m not as aggressive as many other people are and I just have a low standard for it. I am not really sure. My boyfriend says I spend half my time hiding and half my time reaching out. He said it once joking but we both knew it was true.
You know, I tell people, you knock on doors A, B and C and then door W opens for you two years later. You can’t make the things happen that you want to happen. But you can increase the likelihood of something happening by being active and engaged in the larger world around you.
Having a career is like having a fire. First you have to get it started and then you have to tend it. As everyone knows starting a fire is much more work. Sometimes I wise crack that for a woman artist it is like starting a fire with wet wood. It can be done, but it is definitely harder.
The second show was in a commercial gallery and as I said Marilyn Lerner made that connection for me. Jose Freire of fiction/non-fiction called me and came over to the studio based on her recommendation. I stayed with this gallery for four shows. After the first two it changed its name to Jose Freire Fine Art—but it was the same gallery. He was an amazing person. He was a film major at NYU so he was very knowledgeable about visual culture. He was hip and sophisticated and very, very sensitive and passionate about art. He was more interesting in the studio than most artists, by far. The third gallery came from a writer friend, Josephina Ayerza, who hooked me up with another gallery, Luhring Augustine. I had a painting show there in 1997. In 2000, I joined Galerie Lelong where I have now had three shows. It has a wonderful stable of artists and supports them in doing the work that they want to do.
One thing I’d like to say about this– trust your own instincts about when you are ready. As hard as it is to get people to your studio the first time, it is way harder to get them over again if you don’t wow them. When you actually have something special people start calling you. You can feel it turn.
S.M. What sacrifices were you making at this early stage of your career?
J.H. This is what I wanted to do. Oh, you could say she hasn’t had children or that she spent most of her adult life in this urban environment – away from nature. But I feel like a very lucky person. There are not that many people who get to make art full time. I spend quite a lot of time doing what I want to do.
You know I always tell this story of when I left teaching and decided to try and live off my work. I had been teaching for a decade, 1980 to 1990 in Baltimore—commuting back and forth from NYC. It is not an easy commute. I was teaching both art history and studio art so my day went from 8 in the morning ‘til 10 at night. It was kind of intense. In 1989 I got 4 grants and I was in a show in Chicago in which the gallery burned to the ground. I lost 14 paintings. The insurance money plus the grants was almost $100,000. At the time, I didn’t even have a savings account. I had been thinking about quitting because things were happening in my career and I couldn’t be in NYC enough to do it all. But, financially I was scared and didn’t want to put that pressure on my work. When the grants and the fire happened I knew it was a once in a lifetime thing. So I thought– I’ll jump now. I promised myself that I wouldn’t change anything about the way I lived so that I could always fall back. I have no idea what will happen in the future, but it has worked out so far.
S.M. It seems as though we all experience plateaus both in our art making and in our careers. Looking back, when were you able to move from this preliminary stage of exhibiting and progress towards becoming well recognized?
J.H. You know, I just read about this photographer in the NY Times who has just had like six major successes happen all at the same time. I’ve never really had that. I have never been in the Whitney Biennial or any of these “breakout” shows. I’ve never really had a paradigm shift; although the four grants did feel game-changing. It’s been more of a steady accumulation of things. In 2006-2008, I had a works on paper show that traveled to seven museums. Between 2006 and 2009 I have had 12 museum shows in all, so this has been a very helpful and solidifying period for me. At the same time, there have also been a number of articles written on my work.
S.M. How many plateaus or stages do you feel your career has taken? Can you point to certain events or exhibitions which projected your career forward at each of those stages?
J.H. Sooner or later you have to have museum shows. Otherwise, it’s sort of like the bloom is off the rose. Recently, all of the attention that Fallen has received has been significant.
S.M. Where are you now in the trajectory that you have laid out for yourself?
J.H. I don’t have this completely worked out. But I have a career because I wanted to have one. No one ever gets one forced on them from the outside. The question for me now is whether I want to be mostly involved with photography or painting and whether I have the energy to do both well. I don’t know what will be in my future. And right now there is a very nervous art world because of the economic downturn. But I always make things that I want to make. And I can work within my own means, so I’m not so worried about it. But, yes, having a career can be quite time consuming and energy consuming. It may take as much time away from art making as having a teaching job does, in the final analysis.
Years ago Marina Abramowitz did a performance where she changed placed with a prostitute in Amsterdam. The prostitute went to her opening and played the role of the exhibiting artist and Marina went and sat in one of those storefronts they have for prostitutes in Amsterdam on the night of her opening. I think it is interesting to think about a full time teaching artist and a full time exhibiting artist swapping. I think they each would learn from the other.
S.M. Over the course of your career, are there some sacrifices that you wish you hadn’t made? Or any choices that you might have modified with hindsight?
J.H. Nothing completely springs to mind. I’m kind of a forward thinking person. I don’t think I’ve made any major mistakes.
S.M. While you are widely recognized as an international artist, with exhibitions at so many of the most influential museums, do you still work just as hard today to “get your work out there” as you did before you were so well known?
J.H. No, I probably worked harder in the beginning—it goes back to my fire analogy. One thing I do now, quite consistently, is when somebody does something nice for me, I try to do something in return. When people are there for me, I am there for them. I have a bit of a mafia – like sensibility and memory for reciprocity. This isn’t what you would call a job, but it takes time.
S.M. What is your best advice for emerging artists?
J. H. I’m old enough that this is a different world now. Every artist is a part of the world in which they enter. The last ten years have changed the art world more than the twenty before. There is globalization, but now, and I think more importantly, there is disintermediation –an effacement of the importance of the middle people. The internet is changing the distribution of art, the making of art and the very ways in which we think about what art is. So, of course, there are different ways to enter into the art world. I recently saw a presentation of artists supported by Creative Capitol, young artists at the beginning of their careers. Not one of them had a studio. They’re traveling around the world and making work that comes out of their interactions with other people in other places. I think that emerging artists should not look to me. They should look forward into the future.
S.M. What suggestions do you have for folks who wish to function as professional artists outside of a supportive college or university?
J.H. You have to figure out how to finance it. I still don’t have a good handle on that. You have to embrace an entrepreneurial spirit which is always a love/hate thing for artists. With self-employment, you have to make up your job and then you have to do it. And it is lonely. It’s wonderful to have colleagues, I wouldn’t put it down. Maybe the grass always seems greener.
S.M. It’s a bit of an aside, but I feel compelled to ask, which contemporary artists do you find to be the most engaging?
J.H. I really like David Hammons, and Judy Pfaff, and Bob Gober. And I loved Elizabeth Murray’s work. I like Polke a lot. And I like John Wesley. I love Jess. And Bruce Connor and Wallace Berman and George Herms and Wally Hedrick. I like Alfred Jensen. Cindy Sherman. I’m starting to fall in love with photography but my taste is still pretty unformed. Oh, Oyvind Fahlstrom—he is a favorite of mine. And John Cage, I’m a huge fan of him. I love the early Peter Saul paintings. All the early hand-painted pop I’m crazy for. Smithson is fascinating. I saw this Francis Alys video the other day of a man pushing a block of ice down the street—it was wonderful.
Thank you so much Jane! – Sandra
