Interview with Lynne Allen
An Interview with Lynne Allen
by Sandra Murchison, Associate Professor of Art & Chair of the Art Dept. at Millsaps College in Jackson, MS
Lynne Allen is an accomplished artist, with international acclaim, and gracious enough to agree to answer my long list of of questions. Lynne Allen is Professor of Art and the Director of the School of Visual Arts at Boston University, in the College of Fine Arts.
(Click on “Printerviews” for my interview with Jane Hammond.)
S.M. In what direction (s) do you suspect printmaking will go? Are there particular processes that have already begun to obliterate all others? Are there thematic trends for printmaking different, or similar, to all of contemporary art making?
L.A. You know, this question (where is printmaking going? Is it dead?) has been asked for the past 30 years (now I date myself) and like painting, which Chuck Close said has died 5 times during his lifetime, printmaking is not going anywhere, and is actually getting stronger. I do think the popularity of certain techniques comes and goes. Woodcut has been on the rise for awhile, papermaking is now a full fledged medium of its own, and photogravure is making a resurgence. These trends are natural and unpredictable. I also believe that artists who are not printmakers are the ones who are helping to ensure printmaking’s longevity. I think most prints in major museums or collections are by artists whose major medium is not printmaking. The fact they want to make prints should be seen as a good sign. When we can blur the boundaries between ‘major’ medium and ‘minor’ medium, then we have made progress. And when printmakers make work that can hold a wall like a painting or video, that would be good too. I think each medium influences the other. You give an artist some tools and they’ll figure out a different way to use it.
S.M. What is your best advice for emerging artists?
L.A. Being an artist is a job, which means hours in the studio perfecting not only the craft, but the content of one’s work. The best advice is to keep making and keep pushing. Take risks, apply for everything, keep current and just keep pushing. I believe if you have a plan, you won’t fulfill it, but if you are open to whatever unfolds, things will open up for you. Although this is rather general advice, it is important. Everybody comes from a different place, lives in a different environment and the art world changes every ten years or so, so each person has to find their own path.
S.M. Which contemporary artists are most engaging to you?
L.A. My tastes are pretty varied and eclectic. Bruce Nauman, Glen Ligon (I love his neon), Fred Wilson, Jenny Saville, Alyson Shotz, Judy Pfaff, Francis Alys, Antoni Tàpies, Anselm Kiefer, Cy Twombly, Sally Mann, Ed Rusche, Rachel Whiteread, Marsden Hartley, Milton Avery…..the list goes on. You said contemporary so I won’t include Goya.
S.M. What do you consider to be your first real “breakthrough” exhibition? At what stage in life did that happen for you, and what types of obstacles did you have to go through prior to that opportunity?
L.A. I lived in Europe for 7 years before going to Tamarind in 1980. When I moved to New Jersey to work at Rutgers (1987), I had been away from the east coast nearly 15 years. I was very much out of any art scene there, so my first real exposure was at the Fleischer Art Memorial in Philadelphia. It was a competition and you got a one person exhibition if you were chosen. This was the first step in establishing connections on the east coast and validated my work. I was in my late 30’s then, I think, with a two year old and a new job.
S.M. How did you finally land that show?
L.A. I think there were two rounds. You sent in slides and then brought real work to be juried. I don’t really remember, I just remember I was applying for everything. You had to live within 50 miles of Philadelphia to apply. I lived 48 miles away!
S.M. Were you satisfied with the gallery you showed at and the review your work received?
L.A. This was a baby step, although Fleisher is affiliated with the Philadelphia Art Museum, it wasn’t a relationship that would continue. I did get some press but it was really just the first step in establishing myself in a broader environment. I also produced a cohesive body of work for this show, which was also important. It forced me to be focused on the content of the entire 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?
L.A. I was in a lot of group shows. I took my own advice, and applied for everything and soon I was getting into the juried print competitions across the country. I got some state grants and applied for other grants that helped me travel or produce work. I also began to work in print workshops somewhere else or had artist residencies, either on sabbaticals or during the summers. I taught litho every summer in Sweden and always made work there. I have always joked that until I moved to Boston, I made all my work somewhere else because it was the only time I had away from the job or taking out the garbage. In the early stages of a career, at least for me, group shows were the only real way for a printmaker to show their work. At first I would show anywhere, but after awhile I chose more carefully and looked for the important jurors or the best venues, in order to raise the caliber and status of the show. I applied to exhibitions that made a catalog. I also applied for things overseas and got into a few International Biennials. I was very lucky to get a show in New York. I asked curators into my studio. David Kiehl from the Whitney came and it was energizing. It was incredible that he came. I lived in New Jersey and later Pennsylvania, but I was close enough to New York, curators would visit. That was helpful in getting my work known and into collections that matter and in getting some exhibitions. I never looked for gallery representation, mainly because so few were showing prints then and also one had to be very productive to have editions and a continually changing body of work. I was always torn between family, job, and studio and never felt I had enough work. Maybe I did, but either way, I never pushed for that.
S.M. What sacrifices were you making at this early stage of your career?
L.A. My first reaction is to say ‘huge’ but when I think about it, everything I did was because I wanted to do it, so it can’t really be a sacrifice. I had a family and a demanding job, which compounded every decision about what I was going to strive for. There were huge financial hardships. We had no money. There was the mortgage and braces, and all the things one needs to produce art, and trying to travel, then framing work and shipping it, it was never ending. We always worried about money but spent it on what meant the most to us, so we did do without unnecessary things. I don’t think that is any different than any other working artists, truthfully.
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?
L.A. My biggest obstacle was lack of time or to be perfectly honest, better time management. The key is making the work and making enough of it to get it out there. Once it’s out there, it begins to be recognized. If you live long enough and keep working and get the work out there, you are bound to have somebody know your work! It was important for me to have museum curators look at the work and to network with people in the art world and other printmakers. I was asked to show in museums, which in one way didn’t produce many sales but at the same time it gave me exposure and validation. In the early stages I made a lot of work that sometimes was unfocused- I didn’t make anything in a series, which now is so important to what I do. The benefit of a sustained career or studio practice is the work evolves. As you learn more about yourself, you begin to make work that really says what you mean. And as your career improves and you make more money, you can spend more on that practice so the work is more professional and maybe spreads into other mediums, which would have been prohibitive before. The trick is to have the right people recognize the work! There is no career if curators and museum collections don’t know who you are. Having said that, there are many ways to have a career. One person might want to be in the Museum of Modern Art Collection whereas another person is very satisfied to sell enough work to support themselves and live where they want to, not where a job is or where the art world seems to think you need to live. I don’t think there is only one way to be successful.
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?
L.A. It is interesting to think back. I got a job teaching in Europe because I wanted to live in Europe and had my first real show there. The gallery was small, the work was very young and unfocused, but it was the first taste of a real exhibition. Once I moved back to the east coast, after years of juried exhibitions (this was even before the portfolio exchange craze), I was lucky to have Marilyn Kushner at the Brooklyn Museum put my work into the Digital Now show which was the last of their Print Biennials. That was an important show and although it was the beginning of a certain typecasting of my work, it was still very important for me. After that things did seem to open up a bit. But at the same time I was granted tenure and then full professor, so things in the rest of my life improved. I had more freedom and could focus on those things that would benefit me the most and which I found the most interesting. You ask about plateaus or stages and although I have never looked at my career that way, you could break it down to geography. I showed in Holland, then I moved to New Mexico and showed there. Then I moved to New Jersey/Pennsylvania where I think my work reached a new maturity. Everything builds up for you through experience and exposure. Living close to New York was educational and allowed me to figure out where I fit or didn’t fit and those years were pivotal in my development. If you look at the career of any artist, you can follow how their work changes and grows over time. I would venture to say I had no plateaus, I was, and still am, slowly trudging up the hill.
S.M. Where are you now in the trajectory that you have laid out for yourself?
L.A. I think a planned trajectory is the kiss of death. I never had a plan. I still don’t. I moved to Europe when I was 23 because I wanted to learn more about the world and returned when I was 31. That was totally unexpected and it had a huge impact on the content of my art work. I was teaching art and was a ‘jack of all trades,’ teaching everything from photography to ceramics and painting and printmaking. Then I went to Tamarind to become proficient in lithography. I was always drawn to prints, since undergraduate school, so it was natural for me to want to go into that medium, although it would have never dawned on me to apply to Tamarind if I hadn’t taken a summer course in Banff with Tamarind’s master printer, John Sommers. Tamarind was for the ‘big guys’ and I didn’t see myself in that league. Then I needed an MFA after that, so I could stop being a master printer, which exhausts your own creative potential. I was at Tamarind for 7 years and then looked for a teaching job. When I got involved in the Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper (Now the Brodsky Center for Innovative Editions) while teaching at Rutgers, which were a fabulous 19 years of my life, an entirely different world opened up for me. Helping to build that workshop and being involved in choosing the artists was life changing. I never expected to leave Rutgers, so the move to Boston was totally unexpected. Fortunately each of my job experiences has helped my work, my confidence, my skills and my knowledge of the contemporary art world. If anything, that has created the trajectory you refer to, although nothing was ever planned. Maybe some people know they are great and they’ll be ‘discovered,’ but more likely it works out that you work hard, you push, you don’t give up and you pray something good comes out of it.
S.M. Do you still work just as hard today to “get your work out there” as you did before you were so well known?
L.A. Of course, an artist never retires. I continue to push my work, to make meaningful work and work that challenges me, and I try to get it shown. Whether I am well known is another question. In the print world perhaps, but in the bigger arena I am not so sure. I am in some good collections, and I am very happy about that.
S.M. For years, you have taught, how difficult has it been for you to balance your teaching career with your artistic career? What makes you remain in academia? What do we academic types tend to focus too much on? And what not enough?
L.A. It’s very difficult to balance it all. Not just the teaching and the years of working towards promotion, but balancing your art career amidst the duties of raising a family and all that entails. It is much harder for women. Maybe that’s sexist, many men juggle a job, a family and a career, but motherhood throws a huge wrench into the mix. Regarding academia and why I have remained in it, I enjoy it. It isn’t just about giving, because you always get something back. Getting to the heart of why somebody makes what they make is rewarding. It is the unspoken things inside ourselves, that we can’t articulate, that make us visual artists in the first place. Many young artists don’t know what that is yet and working with them is exciting. I believe young artists need to read and educate themselves about the world around them and what part they play in it. Helping them to find their passion energizes my own. I am of an age where my father made me get a degree in Art Education, so if my husband left me I wouldn’t be a waitress. It was always thought a woman would get married and raise a family, so my father was being practical. I don’t regret that at all, it allowed me to move to Europe after I got an MA. My years at Tamarind also involved teaching because I was not just the master printer, but I taught the printer training program. Teaching is just part of what I do. I have stuck with it because I like it, although now that I am a Director I only teach one class a year. Once you get a tenured job, unless other doors open, it is hard to give up the security. What do we focus on too much? I am sure this is different for everyone and it depends on individual ambition. We tend to focus on those things that will get us promoted. If that doesn’t short change one’s studio practice, which is the thing we should be focusing on more than anything else, then it is just a balancing act.
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?
L.A. Not really. I don’t regret anything and don’t believe in regret. I think we do things that are necessary for that particular time in our lives. To look back in hind sight and question something is a waste of time. I believe in looking forward. When one door closes another opens.
S.M. Have you stopped making three dimensional prints, or have you merely put them “on hold”?
L.A. At the moment I am not making any and think I am finished with it. I got pigeon-holed into that genre after the Brooklyn Museum show. When I started to make the 3-D moccasins and bags, I had this incredible need to use my hands more, to grab anything laying around and use it. It all started after I got the writings of my great grandmother— creating my own artifacts was a way to make a connection to my native heritage. I never meant it to be my signature style. My work has always been about the disenfranchised, the homeless, those down and out and the dignity of the human spirit. That work was part of that, but now I am moving into other arenas because there is plenty of hardship to go around out there.
S.M. When you think back over the decades of art making that you have sustained, what individual works or bodies of work do you feel most satisfied about?
L.A. Although my MFA is in painting, I think some of my early large monotypes (from graduate school) are still pretty powerful, as are the large lithos. I was using drawing so much more then, they were very free and very black and dramatic. I like many of my 2-D prints that have a native reference because they are about educating the public. I like how I began to mix mediums together, nothing was ever just one medium. I am very satisfied with my new photogravures and the direction the new work is going. It is very, very different for me. I also like some of the stitching I am doing on packing blankets and think there is a nice direction to explore there. I’ve cast a lot of objects lately, for an upcoming exhibition, but not sure whether I’ll continue with that.
S.M. Your work relies heavily on historical events and a specific culture and its people. What are the potential pitfalls when referencing such sensitive stories?
L.A. The work about the homeless, hyenas, Alzheimer patients, and the brutality of the police all relied on reality and metaphor, not specific cultures. When the work touched my own background, which was only about 11 years ago, it became historical. The stories are sensitive but mostly forgotten. People believe Columbus brought the Pilgrims to Plymouth Rock. People think the small pox blankets were a myth. My main worry was not to appear to preach to that ignorance. I have tried to make people question the work, thereby actually learning a bit about the subject. I had a show at the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, N.D. and one person wrote and thanked me for opening their eyes to the history of the Native, when not far away there are Indian Reservations. People do not learn from history and history is rewritten every day. The pitfall of referencing my own heritage is that I am not an enrolled member of my mother’s tribe. She never enrolled my brother’s and me on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Even though I can trace back 6 generations and have family heirlooms, writings, and photographs and know more about that than my fathers side of the family, some might find it disingenuous because I did not live the experience myself. It was Melanie Yazzie who told me to ‘come out of the closet’ and gave me license to embrace my heritage.
S.M. What have been the most challenging dilemmas about depicting your relatives’ history?
L.A. It is very painful. Once you realize the falsity, the hardship and the untapped potential, its makes you mad. My great grandmother was an amazing woman. She was one of the first to be sent to the Haskell Institute in Virginia (a school for freed black slaves where the Indian was the lowest of the low) as an experiment to see if the savage could be educated. She came back literate, although with some domestic skills, like sewing. She was more educated than her white husband. She met President Grover Cleveland! She wrote letters to Washington, D.C. for Sitting Bull and wrote an entire manuscript about the move to reservation life, which included interviews with the chiefs who were at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. She realized their way of life was changing. My inspiration and imagery come from historical things I read and things she wrote. The particular body of work that came from that is an homage to her. Once you research the reality of the ‘taming’ of the West, it is very bloody and painful and nothing to be proud of. Making work about that, even in a subtle way, doesn’t always look great over the sofa. The sad truth is I make what I am driven to make.
S.M. What is the question that I should have asked?
L.A. I’m a limp rag after all these questions!