It was Renoir who said that a work of art "must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself, and carry you away." Interviews with artists should have a similar effect. With "Artist's Statement," our weekly interview series with prominent and upcoming visual artists in San Francisco, SF Weekly speaks to the people behind the art you see in the galleries, in the museums, and in the streets.
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The Write Stuff is a series of interview profiles conducted by Litseen, where authors give exclusive readings from their work.
Ben Mirov is the author of two books of poetry, Hider Roser and Ghost Machine, and the chapbooks I is to Vorticism, Vortexts, and Collected Ghosts.
When people ask what do you do, you tell them ... ?
I usually tell them I'm a teacher. I don't usually tell them I write poems. I prefer to think of my relationship to poetry as a completely isolated aspect of my life. It feels good to protect it, like I don't need to incorporate being a poet into my identity to make it a thing. Even though it's integral to who I am, maintaining the illusion that my role as a poet is relegated to its own dimension is important to me for reasons I've never fully explored. I just take the impulse as something of value.
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It was Renoir who said that a work of art "must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself, and carry you away." Interviews with artists should have a similar effect. With "Artist's Statement," our weekly interview series with prominent and upcoming visual artists in San Francisco, SF Weekly speaks to the people behind the art you see in the galleries, in the museums, and in the streets.
Chris Sollars shaving himself with an axe, from his art project "Hairy"
Camille Rose Garcia A mad tea party
Growing up in Southern California not far from Disneyland, the celebrated "lowbrow" artist Camille Rose Garcia fell in love with all things Disney at an early age. Disney animation in particular has remained a key influence upon her work. In looking at her distinctive work, it becomes obvious that Garcia's vision of the world is darker and more complex than that influence alone.
Rife with dystopian ideas and phantasmagorical imagery, Garcia's paintings hold a central place in the pop surrealist movement of the last two decades. Still, there's a sense of her having come full circle as an exhibition opens this week at the Walt Disney Family Museum in the Presidio that pairs her interpretations of the Alice in Wonderland story with Mary Blair's imaginative, angular designs for Disney's Alice film of 1951. Garcia, who cites Blair specifically as an influence, spoke to us about the exhibition and her other recent work.
How did the exhibition come together?
I did the Alice in Wonderland book a couple of years ago, and I made the decision to keep all the artwork together. I was looking at the early Tenniel work -- the original Alice in Wonderland illustrations -- and I was thinking, "How great to have a whole body like that kept together." So I framed it all and showed it in Los Angeles. Then the Walt Disney Family Museum contacted me about doing a show, and I mentioned that I had this whole body of work in my personal collection. They loved it because it tied in with the Disney Alice in Wonderland -- and they do a spring, Alice in Wonderland-themed tea party every year.
The Write Stuff is a series of interview profiles conducted by Litseen, where authors give exclusive readings from their work.
Hilary Olson
Wonder Dave is a writer and performer from Minnesota living in San Francisco. His work has been featured in literary journals and anthologies such as Divining Divas (Lethe Press) and Aim for the Head (Write Bloody Press). He's been a featured performer at schools, burlesque reviews, poetry slams, science fiction conventions, and bowling alleys across the country. Dave is currently a regular cast member at the monthly Oakland underground variety show Tourettes Without Regrets.
When people ask what do you do, you tell them ... ?
My business card says "Writer, Performer, and Swell Guy." I also tell people I work at a tiny restaurant in SOMA.
What's your biggest struggle -- work or otherwise?
The same thing I think lots of writers struggle with: actually sitting down and writing. If only I could get paid to read whatever I wanted.
If someone said I want to do what you do, what advice would you have for them?
Learn to listen. Read. If you don't read you're going to be a terrible writer.
Do you consider yourself successful?
Yes, I enjoy my life and there are people in it I can be vulnerable with. Also I have more Twitter followers than there are people in the town I grew up in. @TeamWonderDave y'all!
When you're sad/grumpy/pissed off, what YouTube video makes you feel better?
Well because I am a terrible person I'm gonna go with this clip full of swearing Barbie Dolls:
It was Renoir who said that a work of art "must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself, and carry you away." Interviews with artists should have a similar effect. With "Artist's Statement," our weekly interview series with prominent and upcoming visual artists in San Francisco, SF Weekly speaks to the people behind the art you see in the galleries, in the museums, and in the streets.
More »
Gayle Walsworth
The Write Stuff is a series of interview profiles conducted by Litseen, where authors give exclusive readings from their work.
Kai Carlson-Wee was born and raised on the Minnesota prairie. His poems have appeared in Many Mountains Moving, Linebreak, Forklift Ohio, and Best New Poets 2010. He currently lives in San Francisco, California, where he is a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.
When people ask what do you do, you tell them... ?
Well, I try not to say I'm a poet. I try to avoid it. I say I'm a skater. Or I say I'm a teacher. Or that I spend my time looking out windows at trees. You know, it's funny, but this question actually makes me very nervous. I mean, I've been writing seriously since I was 19 years old, and I'm 30 years old now, so that's 11 years of writing, but it's only been the last year-and-a-half that I've actually been able to call myself a writer. I don't know why this is. I mean, what makes it so painful for a poet to admit that they spend their days looking at trees? Saying you're a poet has all these romantic connotations, you know, and every time I tell someone I'm a writer I see this film-roll of judgment start playing itself out in their brains. They think you're a poser. A self-ordained dandy. One of those faux intellectual hipsters who hangs around coffee shops quoting from Blake -- "To see the world in a grain of sand" -- that sort of thing. I don't know, perhaps it's a symptom of a larger disease.
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Benjamin Lzicar
The Write Stuff is a series of interview profiles conducted by Litseen, where authors give exclusive readings from their work.
Tatyana Brown is the founding Captain of The Lit Slam, a San Francisco-based, live-audience curated literary show and poetry journal. She ranked 4th at the 2011 Individual World Poetry Slam and has toured North America ever since, facilitating workshops and performing at venues for storytelling and poetry. Her work has appeared on NPR's storytelling show, Snap Judgment, and she holds the distinct honor of winning the longest consecutive string of XXX Haiku Deathmatch Championships at Oakland's Tourettes Without Regrets.
When people ask what do you do, you tell them ... ?
Some or all of the following: I publish an annual poetry journal based on live audience responses to a monthly reading series (which I also curate and produce). I tour all over the country performing my own poetry, teaching writing/performance workshops, and giving talks on subjects ranging from slam as a contemporary American literary tradition to how to tell ethical dirty jokes to practical methods for interrupting and dismantling systemic oppression in real time. I write essays about creativity, privilege, and my experiences as a working class queer progressive artist. I talk about my feelings way more than the average citizen and am perpetually annoyed with my inability to eat gluten. I climb on things I shouldn't. Sometimes I cry in public. I collect bad ideas and silly hats with a near professional level of expertise.
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If nothing else, 2013 is the Year of Maron. After a long career as a journeyman stand-up comic who moved from Boston to San Francisco to New York and finally to Los Angeles, Marc Maron has surged forward in the last three years, in large part due to the success of his unique and popular podcast, WTF. In extended, wide-ranging conversations, Maron interviews comedians, writers, musicians, and other creative artists, discussing their career arcs, the nature of creative work, and the meaning of success and failure. The podcast has revived his stand-up career, and in the next month alone, Maron is releasing a book of essays (Attempting Normal, out April 30) and a semi-autobiographical TV series debuts on IFC (simply titled Maron; the first episode airs May 3). In the midst of all this and more, Maron is stopping here in San Francisco on Saturday, April 13, for a performance at the Palace of Fine Arts, just a few days ahead of the New York City taping of his Netflix-exclusive stand-up special.
IFC Marc Maron at SXSW
Maron recently spoke to us by phone about the whirlwind his life has become, and we started the discussion by dissecting a recent episode of WTF, taped live at SXSW, at which guest James Franco took umbrage at a remark Maron made near the close of the interview: Franco, referring to his Freaks and Geeks days, said, "I took myself pretty seriously then," to which Maron rejoined, "Not now, though, which is good." It was said in good-natured jest, but Franco, apparently, was not having it.
It was Renoir who said that a work of art "must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself, and carry you away." Interviews with artists should have a similar effect. With "Artist's Statement," our weekly interview series with prominent and upcoming visual artists in San Francisco, SF Weekly speaks to the people behind the art you see in the galleries, in the museums, and in the streets.
More »
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