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Lauren Redniss
3k Plays1 year ago
Lauren Redniss is an artist, author, and the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant." Her books include Radioactive, a finalist for the National Book Award, Thunder & Lightning, winner of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, and Oak Flat: A Fight for Sacred Land in the American West, called "astonishing" and "virtuosic" by the New York Times. She has been a Guggenheim fellow, a fellow at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars & Writers, the New America Foundation, and Artist-in-Residence at the American Museum of Natural History. She teaches at the Parsons School of Design in New York City
https://www.laurenredniss.com
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host Ken Zalante. Editor and producer Peter Bauer.
Interview with Lauren Redness
00:00:18
Speaker
This is Ken Volante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast, and I am very pleased to have for an interview, Lauren Redness. Lauren, just first off before me babbling a little bit, welcome on to Something Rather Than Nothing. Thank you so much for having me.
00:00:37
Speaker
Yeah, I want to say that in introducing you, I noticed something very particular. I had seen the book and I've heard of your name in red.
00:00:52
Speaker
radioactive about the Curies and and I ran into Oak Flat at Powell's bookstore in Portland which is a unionized bookstore and a wonderful place and so they had this book and of course just honestly it was it was gorgeous and so appealing I was surprised to find it so readily and
00:01:16
Speaker
And on the back I noticed a review for Oak Flat, and it was by an individual who I've read his writing, David Truer, who I had recognized as a very
00:01:30
Speaker
very sharp, critical mind. And so I was interested as a book buyer in what he had to say, knowing that. And he said, Oak Flat left me stunned. History, testimony, art, landscape. Lauren Redness weaves these elements together to evoke the rock incient in sky of the Arizona desert and to bring to life the story of people for whom that land is sacred.
00:01:57
Speaker
Rarely is a book simultaneously so heartfelt and so brilliant. I read that and I was already ready to run out of the store with the book, but I properly purchased it.
Lauren's Artistic Journey from Childhood
00:02:09
Speaker
And so you're a renowned author and recognized for your unique art.
00:02:22
Speaker
and style. What I wanted to ask you, Lauren, starting off is, when did you see yourself as an artist? When did you maybe inhabit that or feel that? Yeah, I mean, as a kid, I was always making things. So that was just a very natural part of the day. You know, my dad had a workshop in the basement and
00:02:52
Speaker
I would take stuff from the workshop and I would make shoes or I would make dolls or I would make houses, miniatures. And my grandfather and his brother, my great uncle had a small grocery store in Worcester, Massachusetts, which is where- I think it's Worcester. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I think it's Worcester. Okay, sorry for the interruption, but it was in Worcester, Massachusetts.
00:03:22
Speaker
Right. Yeah, exactly. So when you said you were going to run out of pals with Oak Flat, I picture, you know, Abby Hoffman, of course, famous for steal this book, just a couple of streets away from my grandparents in Worcester. So, so, yeah. But so I was very connected to. Oh, well, anyway, in terms of in terms of art, I spent a lot of time at that grocery store in Worcester, Worcester, making things, you know, I used to make
00:03:52
Speaker
jewelry for the customers out of rubber bands and garbage ties. I would make a lot of signage. Just like all of the material of the store was fodder for making stuff. And so I remember, as I got older, people would ask me, are you going to be an artist when you grow up in that kind of way, adults talk to children? And I always felt so bewildered by that question.
00:04:19
Speaker
because it didn't seem like a thing I was doing. It just seemed like the most natural kind of way of going through the world. It wasn't like its own thing that would have to have a label. So I remember that just consciously,
00:04:39
Speaker
kind of recoiling a bit at that idea that there's this future thing that will later have a label and later be official when I was like, wait, isn't this just like what it is?
Art as a Natural Path and Adult Perception
00:04:55
Speaker
And I think later on, I guess like I had to declare a major in college, so I declared an art major, but it was always just kind of natural and automatic. Yeah, I was really struck by
00:05:08
Speaker
the common phrase you had mentioned about that, that adults will say, cause I hadn't heard it kind of the way until you had said it there about it being like the, what do you, what do you mean? Right. And I think, I think, um, here's one of the things I believe as, as, as an adult, um, about adults, some of that kind of power in that dynamic and pointing towards adulthood is, uh, a bunch of BS.
00:05:37
Speaker
It's, it's, it's, um, there's, there's no greater world out there, you know, it's, it's inhabited by kids and kids are kids. But by saying that it's like, you have to enter the adult world and have to find yourself as an artist. And I talked to, I know this is 180 plus episodes, so many artists where I know that they weren't called an artist. So how do you hear the word or inhabited or know how to,
00:06:07
Speaker
connect with it and become it.
Self-consciousness in Art Creation
00:06:10
Speaker
And I think the shock of that question to you, I could imagine it, you know, precocious and like doing your thing. You're like, what do you mean? I'm the only artist in the store right now. Like I'm doing it. Like, you know, what do you mean when I'm older? So I was really struck by what you had to say there. It's funny, right? Because it introduces like a kind of like, as you said, an adult self-consciousness that children might not have. And that I think is slightly anathema to art making, actually.
00:06:37
Speaker
You know, when you're in that kind of self-conscious part of your brain, I think is when you start to self-censor or make choices about what you think you should do rather than what is kind of like an organic or, you know, kind of, what's it called?
00:06:58
Speaker
I don't know what's the opposite of self-conscious like, you know, flourishing, like a flourishing, like, or like an outflowing of Yeah, just like, um,
00:07:09
Speaker
You know, something that's like, I don't know, there's like a specific word that's eluding me. But yeah, it's right. Just some whatever the opposite of self-conscious. Well, it's it's fine, Lauren. You know, we're going to stumble on this episode to, you know, book geeks not allowing the episode to continue until the right word is spoken. But we'll we'll we'll.
00:07:32
Speaker
We'll continue with it. No, it's a question I asked so much and I've become fascinated by early childhood and maybe some conversations I've had along those lines of how we developed. I want to tell you a curious quick story before my next question connected to this. So I started identifying as an artist overtly myself five years ago.
00:07:59
Speaker
And that changes my composition, how I breathe, and all those type of things. So in my head, I would have things that I can and can't do, right? Like us all. We all have that story.
00:08:12
Speaker
And I'll tell you something interesting. I've never been at all the type of an artist or a painter or illustrator that can reflect what I see to what it is. It's more abstract or I can't connect those things exactly in my head. But I'll tell you one thing that happened. One month ago, I was taking my first organized art class online for two months. And I had a drawing exercise, which was the upside down exercise.
00:08:41
Speaker
So the figure was upside down and I'm looking at this and I'm starting to do that. And my ability to illustrate sketch and to understand the connection between dimension and shape, I was like, oh, so for my entire life, for me to feel some particular things in this process, I needed to look at things upside down.
00:09:10
Speaker
to help develop that. And it was just just so amazing. And who knows, like when you think about with kids, you know, maybe that type of activity when you're young, and rather than me saying I can't sketch, I can't think in that way, I can, but maybe my mind's tilted one way or the other. It's really strange.
00:09:28
Speaker
Yeah, well, I think an exercise like that is a way of trying to shed our, to shed convention and to shed all of the habits and kind of cultural, you know, moss that's grown onto
00:09:45
Speaker
our way of seeing the world and no shade on moss, no pun intended. I mean, love, love moss. But, but I think like it's, you know, when you see something upside down, you can see it in a way for the first time because you don't see, you don't distort it in your mind based on a kind of hierarchy of what's important.
Art as Creation and Connection
00:10:10
Speaker
I wanna, yeah, I wanna,
00:10:14
Speaker
I wanna ask you one of the big questions and I'm gonna do a quick intro to it. Listeners wouldn't be able to hear this, would be able to hear this, not see this, but this, I got Oak Flat by Lauren Redness, the book. And I would say I could get into complicated arguments about art, but what I would tell you is that the experience of,
00:10:40
Speaker
reading this book and almost feeling the illustrations of the people and wanting to place my hands on the book to feel the contours of the land as reflected in your drawings. That's art. But Lauren Readness, author of the book that I just described, what is art? Wow. OK. That's a big question.
00:11:11
Speaker
I don't want to be glib or too narrow either. I think that art is surprisingly slippery to try to define. I think it's easy to kind of slide into the waters of taste and subjectivity. So I want, that's not where I would position my relationship to art at least,
00:11:40
Speaker
how I would understand or define it. When I think about that question, I find myself returning to definitions that are more verb than noun, if that makes sense, more like action and process rather than thing. I guess I think of art as a struggle to express the ineffable. I think of it as a deliberate
00:12:09
Speaker
active creation that helps us see things more clearly or help us unsee something that we thought we saw clearly, complicate what we thought we saw clearly. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I
00:12:31
Speaker
I've had conversations recently with guests, and I noticed the verb thing. I had somebody answer the question, and they had answered it mostly in action, like listening things. And I hadn't heard that in a while, but it was all verbs. And I was like, oh. And so it's interesting that you just said it in that way there, because I've been thinking about it, how that was such a different answer.
Choosing Complex Subjects in Art
00:12:55
Speaker
It was all in action.
00:12:59
Speaker
Okay, I have a particular question just for you as far as the range of the work that you've done and with Oak Flat and the time machine and thunder and lightning and radioactive
00:13:24
Speaker
Um, I would surmise that, you know, in order to go into what you create, you, you go in with a heart in connection and all in, how do you choose? The assumption for me is that you're going to be deeply interested in a lot of things that you could do in, in creating.
00:13:50
Speaker
And there's a disparate quality to what you have chosen. I'm particularly interested in how do you choose to go in this way in art in your projects.
00:14:05
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, just in case your listeners don't don't know exactly what we're talking about. So I write or the books that you've mentioned, which has been the focus of much of my work in the past many years, is nonfiction books that are also visual books. So what I'm trying to do is
00:14:24
Speaker
create a complete work of art. So I report and write the text. I create artwork that's on not every page, but many, most of the pages. So it feels like a kind of, you know, fully visual, fully color object, but I also designed the cover and the end pages and usually the font.
00:14:50
Speaker
So it's like a kind of whole gestalt that trying to make like sort of an immersive experience of reading and looking. So how do I choose a subject? It's really, really different each time. I think that if there's a continuity or a thread, it's the not knowing that brings me in. It's like, is this kind of subject
00:15:19
Speaker
gnarled and complicated and nuanced enough that I will make discoveries in exploring it, in digging further. And I want something that doesn't have clear-cut answers or simple dichotomies. I want to explore complicated questions and make connections between
00:15:49
Speaker
I mean, it's different in every case, but for instance, you mentioned radioactive. So in that case, I'm making non-chronological connections between the lives and love affairs of Marie and Pierre Curie, the great scientists, and the more recent repercussions of their scientific research. And then in Oak Flat, there's a whole different set of
00:16:15
Speaker
of questions that are a more contemporary set of, well, in its own way, more contemporary. It's a story that's still unfolding about a copper mine that's being developed on Apache sacred land in southeastern Arizona. So yeah, so there's always a different set of questions. And I don't have a formula for what makes a project something that I'm going to spend four or five years on, but it's really about
00:16:43
Speaker
Is it messy enough to get into? Yeah. Well, I on a particular point, excuse me, on a particular point you had mentioned.
00:16:58
Speaker
The grander story that you tell, such as in Radioactive, I think for me that is the part of the success in doing it. Because you have to pull off the expansive thought from the events and maybe the love story and the historical events. But for you to advance through those decades, and that's the task and that's why it's successful because
00:17:25
Speaker
It's getting and moving through those extrapolate, that ain't the right word, the development, the development of the story. So to bring everybody along with that development, that's just incredible. What is the, what do you think the role,
00:17:51
Speaker
of art is, or if you want to talk about it personally, when you're putting out your art, what do you think it should be doing? Oh wow. Okay. So yeah, I definitely see those as two different questions because I don't even know. I mean, oftentimes I will, if someone says, what do you do? Sometimes I will say I'm an artist because it's easy.
00:18:15
Speaker
to say that and not, it's the most kind of general. And as we've been talking about ill-defined category, so I like that about it. It also sounds kind of pretentious in a way. Well, people might stop talking to you unless I'm over at the gallery and then you're like, oh, this usually works, but not with this guy. Right, no, totally. It's like sometimes people just think, oh, that means you're unemployed.
00:18:44
Speaker
Rifter. Yeah, exactly. So, um, I don't, and I mean, I don't, I approach my work in a pretty kind of like brass tacks way, you know, like what I'm drawn to, like, I mean, I do nonfiction work and I draw oftentimes or usually from life. So, um, I'm drawing from reality. Um, and, um,
00:19:12
Speaker
in terms of like, so I don't know, in a way it's a more uncomfortable question for me about my own work, but what do I think about what do I value in art? What do I think its role is in a bigger picture? I mean, to connect us with the sublime, to give meaning to our lives beyond the quotidian or the kind of everyday
00:19:41
Speaker
making a living, getting by. It's, it's something bigger. It's something grander. It's something, you know, that is almost out of body. And I think that is, you know, it's, I think for a long time, I question like, you know,
00:20:05
Speaker
you know, following this path because I wondered, is it, does it have enough kind of relevance in the world today? Are there more kind of direct practical things I could be doing to, you know, I don't know, address the climate crisis, like what could, you know, what, what, what am I going to do with my life? And, and, and I think like, like, I don't know, I've found myself coming back to art. And I mean, I think I do it,
00:20:35
Speaker
I try to address practical things in my work, if not in a practical way. But I think it's so beautiful and I think it is universal and we see it. You can look back tens of thousands of years and you see
00:20:51
Speaker
people making beautiful things. It's asking the big question, sets you up the answer to the big question, but going back to Oak Flat for me, as far as the practical matter of this, I'm an organizer by trade. This is a story. This is beautiful images. This is connection between people.
00:21:16
Speaker
organized and working together as a community. So it's tough, like how do you talk about it? But I would talk about it in all those ways as an accessible piece in that way. I would have this on a table at my union hall or wherever just to celebrate the images and indigenous folks, but also
00:21:37
Speaker
Yo, people can band together and you're going to lose sometimes and you're going to win sometimes. So but there's different ways of approaching this. Like I said, I was pawing over the the painting. So I guess there's different ways, you know, it's very inviting. And if you don't invite people in with the art, you're not you're not connecting. And I don't know.
00:22:06
Speaker
I'm just talking out loud. No, I mean, I'm really happy to hear you say all of those things. And even that you would put it, you know, put the book on the table in your union office or something. I mean, that's there's sort of no better review that I could get than what you've just said. I mean, I remember
00:22:27
Speaker
For a long time I thought, oh, I had this idea that I'd be a painter and I was like alone by myself painting and then I would go to galleries and I felt like this was so disconnected from anything that I really cared about and I remember I started doing drawings for the New York Times and
00:22:43
Speaker
And I saw one of my drawings for the New York Times book review one time on the steps leading down to the subway in New York, getting stepped on and smushed and just, you know, decimated. I was like, I made it. You know, that to me was just so much more meaningful that here is this thing that you could put out in the world that anyone could get just about. It was so accessible that that meant a lot more to me than, you know, having a painting in a gallery.
00:23:08
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I, um, well that's that, you know that's that's, that's the unique way but I think that's right there and I just loved that that entry point and there's so many ways to do it but um, and I think the power of the story your ability to tell the story where it feels like you're telling the story and not.
Books as Complete Art Pieces
00:23:28
Speaker
kind of overt angles and things like that you're telling the heart of the story and there's some complications and inflections and but like the story um the story itself is there so uh yeah oak oak flat thanks pals for having that and um uh just just just great stuff yeah and talking about the um uh the role the role of art um
00:23:55
Speaker
I wanted to mention one other piece about the book, which probably just finishes out the point of how the book as a whole, you really have the book as a whole, including the book cover design.
00:24:14
Speaker
And when you made the comment about it being encapsulated and all there, I got a greater sense of that whole thing. So we're going to have words, images, jacket, painting, display. And is that something you always try to do? Let's say it's a book.
00:24:43
Speaker
have it all there and to have all the pieces there that you've created, is that what you want to do? Yeah. I mean, I'm a real control freak, you know, and I love books and I love like, I mean, I think, you know, it always, it just, I would sometimes I'd see a book that would have certain beautiful aspects, but then other things that didn't fit or like, you know, you can, I mean, I, I think like a few things, um,
00:25:12
Speaker
I mean, yeah, because the text is so important and the artwork is so important, it just made sense that the letters on the page would have to have that significance too. And I mean, if you think about the history of writing, right, this comes from hieroglyphics when everything was a pictogram at one point, right? All of every single letter that we are now familiar with is, you know, connected to this history of drawing. And all of those marks that we make, when we write words, we are drawing.
00:25:42
Speaker
handwriting is drawing, and typography is, you know, and digitized fonts, or, you know, lead type setting, all of these connect to that history too. So that just made sense to me that
00:25:58
Speaker
I'm making this artwork, I'm telling this story, I'm interviewing these people, I'm conveying their words. Those words should exist on the page in a considered way, in a way that is taken into account with as much care as any other aspect of this.
00:26:15
Speaker
you know, it's like forgetting an ingredient in your dish or, you know what I mean? Or like not putting something all the way through. So it just made sense to me that the artwork is the book itself. And so every part of that needs to be considered. And, you know, like if you frame a painting, a framer takes real care in thinking about the mat, the frame, the, you know,
00:26:41
Speaker
what type of wood, what style, all of that is so obvious to us, right? Or if a filmmaker does a score for their film, again, it's completely natural to think that that score should really fit and really amplify the themes and the ideas of the film. So that's what I think I'm doing when just kind of having each piece be part of the whole
00:27:09
Speaker
Yeah, that really answered the question, right? So next question. I want to tell you, before my next question, I have things like I'm going to say even before, but I have this. So I prep for my guests. And I've usually read the books or listen to podcasts. And I take notes. And I take more direct notes of some of the questions, asking what is
00:27:39
Speaker
what is art and all those. And we get a couple more of those. And then I had these looser notes, which were, I'd say my art notes on this. And I'm going to tell you what they say. And I don't think it will help us in the conversation, but just for the sake of it. So I have Lauren Redness and says,
00:27:56
Speaker
art slash philosophy, science slash art, science slash philosophy. Okay, so those weren't the guideposts, but I was definitely thinking of
00:28:10
Speaker
the combination of those and your movement between those of the science, art, philosophy for me. And the other one is, I have a note, and I know you've been really into science, and I said, I think she likes worms.
00:28:29
Speaker
And I'm just, I'm just being really open here. I'm in, I'm in Oregon. I have a worm hut in the back that I like use for like, we use the compost and fertilize and everything. So even though I'm a city kid from Rhode Island, I got my Oregon stripes cause I get an Oregon, a warm hut. So I don't, I hadn't worms written down there too. So I don't know. Uh, uh, but it went all the way from.
00:28:57
Speaker
art, philosophy, science, and then the word worms. So that's what these notes say. So that makes perfect sense to me. So great.
00:29:05
Speaker
Well, maybe this is it. Maybe this is the whole, this is the whole, uh, interview. I wanted to, let's do another big, let's do another big one.
Existential Question: Something Rather Than Nothing
00:29:14
Speaker
Um, uh, the philosophy one, which is the, why is there something rather than nothing? And I would just say quickly, the words that I mentioned before I see how they're connected to that, cause it's for me, the answer is always like art, philosophy, science, why, why is there something rather than nothing? And what your thoughts were.
00:29:37
Speaker
Well, I'm not sure I know what nothing is. I was talking to my son the other day about the cosmos and the universe, and he said, well, beyond the universe, there is nothing. And of course, immediately, we both start to picture nothing, right? Which makes it something. Earlier,
00:30:06
Speaker
I heard that Dali Lama say something to the effect of nothing exists as it appears, I think is what he said, which is almost like a riddle in a certain sense. And then if you think nothing has something, it's like, here's the thing, nothing, which exists as it appears, which is like a kind of inherent paradox.
00:30:36
Speaker
So I don't know. I don't know. I have no idea. Hey, nobody's, nobody's, nobody's answer. I'll tell you, I'll tell you the quick, I haven't mentioned this in probably a little while since one guest gave the correct answer to it, or at least an answer that I accept.
00:30:54
Speaker
that I accept is correct to it. And I'm a huge Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fan, Douglas Adams, great science fiction writer in the series. You can't answer the question I just asked by saying 42 and you will have won the game show. Just the number 42 can win the game show. So if any, yes, you know, in the future, really like the show, but do not want to deal with
00:31:23
Speaker
a silly or absurd question. You can say 42 afterwards. I wanted to ask you about a piece that you had mentioned.
Displaying Art: Fine Art vs. Complete Book
00:31:40
Speaker
with the way that you put your books together, you're incorporated in these forms of art. And I heard you talk about, you know, consideration of painting. If you take a discrete, let's say paintings, if you took the discrete paintings that are here and they were displayed differently, would that work for you?
00:32:07
Speaker
Like, I heard you talking about the context, right? I guess what I'm asking is, could you see yourself identifying as a painter with those there, pulling that piece out? Yeah. Well, I think, yeah, so, I mean, sometimes our work is displayed, you know, as with the kind of pages pulled apart, and it's like exhibited as if it's fine art. Right now, I think
00:32:37
Speaker
they're in Boulder on one of the underpasses, they have like a blown up series of pages from Oak flat that are blown up as a kind of wall mural on the underpass, which I think is super cool. And I love that because I'll check, I'll check the GPS how far that is right now. Yes. Okay. But, um, but it's,
00:32:59
Speaker
It's not, I think, how the work is best experienced because I really think of the book as one piece of art. The book is one thing, you know, so it's like to take out any page or sometimes I get, you know, I'm asked to do a reading and I find that really awkward because
00:33:19
Speaker
everything is really interdependent. So if I pull out a piece, I find it doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense out of context, or it's certainly deprived of most of its meaning, and most of it's like resonance. So
00:33:36
Speaker
you know I try even if I'm including like a set of facts I try to have those facts like be embedded in a series of contexts that that makes them more robust and have like just mean that much more and um so I find it kind of flattening and like
00:33:57
Speaker
you know, sort of a minimizing effect. It's like less than some of its parts or whatever, or the parts are reduced by not being experienced together. Yeah. Yeah. I, um, when you were talking about even like frame and things like that, I'd say that I myself, because of hyper focus, maybe I'm one element, I think now, uh, maybe leave in some of those details behind I've been shited.
00:34:25
Speaker
or frames or the framing or frames of paintings that I do so, which I appreciate. Whereas I've received a photograph from an artist, Anya Khan, for example, who had been on my show, and the frame,
00:34:49
Speaker
the metal frame and there's like rivets and absolutely gorgeous. And I'm like, whoa, this is the great art, great frame kind of melding. So I I really feel that with the framing or how it's presented. Yeah. All right. So what's next? I wanted to I wanted to ask about
00:35:17
Speaker
the a little bit more about the science piece. I know you've had a deep interest in that. And of course, reflected in the incredible story within radioactive.
Marie Curie's Discovery of Radium
00:35:33
Speaker
There was one piece in there that
00:35:37
Speaker
was so beautiful to me in radioactive and I hadn't considered because I don't because I hadn't considered I hadn't considered as they're extracting a radium and doing all those scientific processes and it's glowing and has these properties that are that are mystical and people don't know it's really something not to apply to yourself but there was this description of
00:36:06
Speaker
the curies working in their lab and by the colors that were now appearing and I imagine them appearing in this scientific way for the first time and that visual just blew my mind because I didn't think of
00:36:23
Speaker
this new, you know, the radioactive material and these mystical light properties and how people are looking at it. Is this the God juice or like, what is this? I thought that was so, and of course I would say magical. That was the first word that would come out of it, but it was the science in the magic there.
00:36:48
Speaker
Did I really capture what that, I mean, I got that visual and it was like a new magic, new sorcerers or new science. It was so fantastical, but real. Was that what was really kind of there? Yeah, so I think what you're describing is when the Curies recognized that certain rocks
00:37:17
Speaker
emitted radiation. And that's a word that Marie Curie coined, radioactivity. And so they wanted to distill the, you know, to get at exactly what material in that rock, which was like, you know, a composite. It was like what they had tested to, that
00:37:42
Speaker
gave that effect was what they call a pitch blend, which was a waste product of mines, ceramics mines in southern Bohemia. And so they, you know, this waste product was not considered to have any value. So they were able to get many, many tons of it delivered to their lab in Paris, which was
00:38:01
Speaker
You know, a kind of rundown shed that had been used previously for human dissection, which, as it turned out, may have saved their lives because it had inadvertent ventilation because there were so many, so it was so drafty.
00:38:16
Speaker
So in any case, it took them years. But this kind of backbreaking labor, they were able to distill down about a tenth of a gram of radium chloride from these mountains of black rock and a tenth of a gram, a tenth of a gram. Yeah. And it glowed in the dark. So
00:38:35
Speaker
I mean, you can imagine, right? You're doing backbreaking labor night and day for four years with this just like what feels like a pile of junk. And then all of a sudden you get this tiny specimen that's blowing in the dark. Whoa.
00:38:49
Speaker
And you can imagine, right? That's the goosebumps. And so needless to say, they were completely enamored of this. And so Marie started sleeping with a little vial of the straight and chloride by her bedside. And when they would go to the lab at night, she described that experience as being surrounded by faint fairy lights. And so when the public caught wind of this,
00:39:13
Speaker
you know, it was a sensation. And like you say, it started the curious were, were adamant that they didn't want to patent radium, they didn't want it to have, you know, they didn't want to profit commercially from their discoveries, but other people were totally fine with that. And so, you know, there's, and I'm sure a lot of the products didn't even have any radium in it, because at that time, it was extremely expensive and hard to get. But, um,
00:39:40
Speaker
But there were radiant chocolates, radium, I mean, you name it, any kind of beauty product, there was radium-laced water. People were really poisoning themselves left and right. And this is before the big class action lawsuit by the radium girls who painted the watch styles in New Jersey. They would lick their brushes and they would ingest that radium paint. And some of them, they would look in the mirror and they'd be glowing from the waist up.
00:40:07
Speaker
whoa yeah yeah so you know yeah it was like um it was a kind of magical or seemingly magical but the magic was in the misunderstanding right the magic I guess that's part of what magic is it's something inexplicable right and yeah the the problem was what was yet to be explained was that this was deeply toxic
00:40:31
Speaker
Yeah. Wow. Thank you for talking more about that. That was just so striking. And I hadn't ever considered the whole backdrop of the newness that's produced and what the newness could possibly look like. Just completely fascinating. And it's like, you mentioned the work towards that within science or
00:41:00
Speaker
doing books that at the end, oh, there it is, you know, right there and it's glowing.
00:41:11
Speaker
Just I love the consideration of science and magic and just the complete unknown. I saw the scene that I was reading in there in a way that was in like a 1980s horror movie aesthetic as well. So it was kind of in the basement in the only form of life. So my brain translated it into a film so I could understand it.
00:41:41
Speaker
Uh, um, so one of the, one of the things I want to ask, and you don't have to, um, you know, reveal anything, but, um, I know you teach and that's an active part, um, of, you know, your, your encounter with, with art. Um, what is that experience like, uh, for you as far as, you know, your, your,
00:42:06
Speaker
your role and being able to connect in that way and bringing art forward.
Teaching and Mentoring in Art
00:42:14
Speaker
How's that process for you? Because I know teaching, I've taught before at the university and as a different animal, it's not easy to explain to other people, but how's that work out for you as a creator?
00:42:28
Speaker
Well, I think what I try to do with my students in recent years, the focus of my teaching has been a senior thesis class. So I'm working with students on their own project, self-generated work. And so I see my role really as helping them figure out what they're trying to do and helping them identify their strengths and build on those, helping them
00:42:56
Speaker
figure out what questions they're really asking in their work, helping them get to like
00:43:03
Speaker
something kind of substantive at the heart of the work rather than say an aesthetic choice or a stylistic kind of, you know, quirk or something like that. So it's not so much about like, oh, you could make that red. You know what I mean? It's like, why did you make this blue? You know, it's like, what are you trying to do? Why are you, you know, like if say someone's making, so the beauty of the senior thesis class is like,
00:43:31
Speaker
I'll have people making, say, a graphic novel, a children's book, an installation, a video about
00:43:42
Speaker
you know, growing up in a place where there are a lot of earthquakes. What else? I mean, people make animations, people, like, so it's just like, absolutely varied. So that keeps me on my toes. I have to go from student to student and be ready with like, you know, technical advice, but also conceptual guidance. And yeah, so I think like I see my role not as kind of,
00:44:07
Speaker
trying to get students to do anything specific, but as bringing out something that is in them and helping them develop the skills that they can then use to evolve as an artist over a career. Wow. Thank you. Thank you for that. I grew up a city kid in Rhode Island, but right next to Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island, which was a
00:44:37
Speaker
a mystical place for me. It was, you know, a, you know, kid growing up, um, you know, it's not like art museums and stuff. And I was, you know, curious, but I was, they took us on a field trip there once. And, uh, Pawtucket, Rhode Island's not in
00:44:58
Speaker
It was kind of like down industrial at the time, 70s and 80s. But they took us over to Rhode Island School of Design and they let us loose in the museum. And I can't describe the experience to you. I was young, I was like 10. But the biggest part of my experience, which just froze in my head was that there was this room with 11th century Zen
Personal Art Influences and Zine Culture
00:45:24
Speaker
a wooden Buddha. So I'm a little I'm little Kenny and then this thing's like 17 feet tall. I can fix it. Yeah. And my, my, my kid mine, I'm staring at it because you could see kind of like chips out of it. You know, I'm had to be out in the
00:45:47
Speaker
and weathered conditions but altogether and the chips and I'm just looking at I'm like how's this thing like when's that year and I'm staring at it I was so moved by the image of the Buddha of the wood Buddha it froze in my head and I even had a poster of it in my office when I worked for Teachers Union in Madison had that up for years and
00:46:13
Speaker
I went back just a few years ago because I'm like, I haven't been here in years. Now I'm like Mr. Art Guy. Maybe I can understand a lot of this more. And I go to see it and just what the experience was. Now the experience was still incredibly moving, but of course it wasn't like the size of King Kong like it was in my head. And the amazing part of it was that
00:46:39
Speaker
The intent of that piece, of the work, of the statute is to invoke, you know, maybe the calm of the Buddha and things like that. And I tell you that room for me, even when I was a little kid, was different than any other place I had been. I don't know, I'm not trying to like build it up into something, but it was so different that I'm like, what's going on here, at least in this room is like,
00:47:07
Speaker
is what is this? And that that piece for me has always been always been been incredible. So it's like City Kid and then the art experience of having a world renowned school, Rhode Island School of Design that you take a trip over to and
00:47:25
Speaker
what I do, you know, what I think about now to this, to this very day. And so that's like the power for me, you know, of it. And I think, you know, what if you're not like, what if you're in Nebraska and there isn't a RISD or maybe, you know, they cut arts programs all over the place. Schools are a little bit like a factory or a lot like a factory dependent on, you know, there's a lot of stuff going on.
00:47:50
Speaker
So those moments I think are incredible. And I think for you, just like in the works that you have and encounter them and how they impact people and affect people, I always try to talk to the artists themselves and say, this is a big deal. This is what's happening.
00:48:12
Speaker
So I just really appreciate what you do. I want to ask generally and see what we tap into. Where do people find you? How do they find you, your works, or maybe what's coming up? You can say anything you want about what's coming up, but I know it has to be said in a certain way.
00:48:37
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, the easiest way to connect with me is just to read my books. They're really easy to get either ordering online and from an independent bookstore or any of the evil corporations. And I'm going to have a website that has all of those. And I'm also on Instagram. I don't really post very much, but I'm there lurking.
00:49:06
Speaker
And those are the kind of easiest ways I pop up in other other places with shows and stuff from time to time, but those are the most straightforward ways. Yeah, I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to ask a question that always falls flat, Lauren. I'm feeling adventurous. And I have the sense it could fall flatter for you. And what I'm saying, it's a it's a compliment what I'm saying within this, but
00:49:35
Speaker
I'd be interested in what you see, watch, or reading that you're like, shit, this is art. This is going on. This is changing the neurons in my brain. Anything doing that? Oh, well, I just saw this is a really mainstream recommendation, but I just saw
00:50:01
Speaker
that incredibly beautiful film, All That Breeds, which was nominated for an Oscar. Yeah. Tell us about it. It's so beautiful. The director is 24 years old.
00:50:15
Speaker
Indian director, and it's a documentary, but it feels like a feature. I screened it for some of my students and some of the other faculty were there, and I had two faculty who thought it was a feature film. These guys know film, like they know on Inside and Out, but the director spent so much time with his subjects who are two brothers and a friend of theirs who run a bird hospital in New Delhi.
00:50:43
Speaker
It's the guys are like philosophers. The pacing of the film is so elegant and transporting. Visually it's stunning. It's just so moving. The politics of it are very subtle or at least, I think that's a fair assessment. They're subtle, but they're no less effective and, you know,
00:51:13
Speaker
strong because of that. And yeah, so that's just really, really sublime. And I'm reading a few books. I read a lot for works, so those aren't always like the recommendations that I, you know, because I might be reading something that's not like what I would consider a great book, but it's a useful book for what I'm researching. And I'm reading an oral history about, I don't like
00:51:43
Speaker
I'm not gonna be able to say it because it has a clique in it come woman called Misa, which my husband and I found at a used bookstore recently, and we're creating a Walter Mosley novel. And yeah,
00:52:04
Speaker
Well, to pull it in a different direction, I've seen cocaine beer twice in the movies. I have. No, I mean, you look behind me, Lauren, this this highbrow stuff, I got my creds and I've read them. But yeah, I did cocaine twice, which
00:52:21
Speaker
Let me tell you one thing. The first time that I saw it, I needed that absurd 1980s jumpsuit aesthetic and the relief of the crazy story. I laughed for an hour and a half. I felt better and laid down afterwards. So I still don't even know what cocaine bear is.
00:52:48
Speaker
Um, so I'll tell you, all right. So, uh, it's good. Yeah. I mean, you just gave a, a, a, a delicate, a considered, uh, recommend art recommendations and I'll try my best as well. So there's this, there's this guy. So in the, with regards to the mood, the store, the real story is dude falls out of a plane with.
00:53:12
Speaker
Millions and millions and millions of dollars of coke and it falls out of plane plane crashes There's cocaine all over the place in the woods think of some down in Georgia that's what happened and the dude died because He had too much weight on him. And so they tell this The the scene with it where the guy falls out at the beginning Well, that's the end of the real story
00:53:37
Speaker
Everything that happens after is the cocaine develop the barrier develops a cocaine predilection and goes on a rampage. And that's the whole rest of the story. It is like in this weird and it hits it hits here. And it's tough to pull this off like gruesome comedy. That's just gruesome comedy. And it can be way too much. But I went
00:54:07
Speaker
I went twice, so I don't know what that reports about me. I have read the New Cormac McCarthy novels that I had been waiting for forever and ever.
00:54:23
Speaker
and really, really enjoyed those. And another thing, Lauren, final question I wanted to ask you, and this is the curiosity. I've been reading a lot of zines and getting a lot of zines in Portland and such. I wonder your thoughts about those, if you interact with those at all. Yeah. Oh, I love zines. Yeah, for sure.
00:54:47
Speaker
I mean, I love, they have a couple of comic and zine fairs in New York where I live. And I found this object one time, like a little book, and it is all pattern. There's no title, there's no author identified. There's absolutely no text or letters anywhere on this object. You can't, there's, and I've never been like so delighted by a book. It was like so,
00:55:17
Speaker
separate from any kind of capitalist possibility, you know, there's no way to find like where this thing was made or who made it or how to, you know, market it or whatever. And that is just so fantastic. But you know, my students make lots of scenes and yeah, I think they're just like a great, great form.
00:55:39
Speaker
Yeah, I really I really love them. The podcast is putting out its second zine. I could send you a copy of the first one, but the second one is going to be all indigenous issue and just figuring out some printing on that.
00:55:57
Speaker
But yeah, yeah, it's been a vibrant and it's very big out here as well and connected some things I'm really interested in, such as kind of mutual aid work amongst people. So it can fill in a nice niche as far as organizing, but just beautiful poetry and such. So love the creativity, love the creativity there.
00:56:23
Speaker
Lauren, I know you have a life, and I think a New York City life, which is for my recall, a different pace, shall I say, reporting here from the sleepy idols of Oregon most of the time. So I know, I just wanted to say, I mean, I really enjoyed talking to you.
00:56:48
Speaker
Encounter you work was exciting for me and the way I the way I approach this and do the show is I don't Try to buffer that enthusiasm so pre appreciation for for all those Tons of rocks you process through over years To get the bright magic I really appreciate you Lauren
00:57:16
Speaker
Thank you so much. It's been really, really great to talk with you. Yeah. Well, I hope we get to talk again soon and take care. Okay, you too. This is something rather than nothing.