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S1E73 my-covid-year-stitching-woolf-words

Natalia Sobery15min

Melissa Johnson

00:01

I plan to travel to talk to different artists to look at work. Of course, like everybody else, I found myself in my home pretty much confined there. And so things just slowed down. But it allowed me to kind of take pleasure in having that time and having the slow time to stitch in having the slow time to read

Steve Fast

00:26

difficult times can both challenge and inspire us. The COVID 19 pandemic can definitely be described as difficult times. This is random acts of knowledge presented by Heartland Community College. I'm your host, Steve fast. The Heartland Community College Art exhibit my COVID year includes a diverse range of artists working in mediums like sculpture, glass, collage, painting, photography, and much more.

Melissa Johnson

00:49

My name is Melissa Johnson. I'm an art historian and I teach art history and visual culture at Lowell nice State University. And I have some work in the show my COVID year at Portland Community College,

Steve Fast

01:04

explain a little bit about your work that's featured in the exhibit.

Melissa Johnson

01:08

So my work is based in text and textile. And it's comprised of a number of phrases that I extracted from the writing of Virginia Woolf, who was an early 20th century modernist author. And those phrases are phrases that I posted on Instagram over the year starting in March 2020. And the phrases that I use spoke, I think, spoke to things that I was feeling things that I was thinking about at the time. And so they're, they're actually in chronological order, as you read down that center part of the piece. And then surrounding the text part of the piece are a series of embroidered stitched pieces that I made throughout the year starting in March 2020. And going up to actually the summer in July. And they're stitched pieces that are sometimes made in response to wolf and other times might have nothing to do with Wolf, but are simply pieces I was making during long stretches of time during the COVID year.

Steve Fast

02:19

Now did you begin this conversation or inspiration of Virginia Woolf's work before the pandemic happened?

Melissa Johnson

02:27

Both of them started before long for years, I mean, dating all the way back to undergrad. When I was first introduced to Virginia Woolf writings, I have loved Wolf, she's somebody who's been a constant companion for me, I find the way she writes absolutely beautiful, I connect to a lot of the things that she writes about, probably around 2010 2011, I was introduced to the work of Chicago artists named Deanna Fred, and the Anna's book called The waves, which she made in response to Wolf's novel The waves. And it's a book that is embroidered, it's made out of fabric, and embroidered with stitches, and collage with all kinds of materials. And of course, that I teach on the history of collage and montage at ISU, I taught will snuggle the waves, as a novel that's built upon a kind of collage and montage structure. Whilst novels don't have a, well, there might be a kind of linear narrative, but that's not what drives them. And so both of those things kind of came together. And I started to return to wolf in her writing. And to read it differently, more carefully, on starting to, as I said, extract phrases that I connected to, and thinking about the structure and texture of both writing and not just a narrative story that's being told.

Steve Fast

03:58

So was there any particular phrase that really took a new meaning for you or gave a different perspective on the writing because of the conditions of the pandemic? That

Melissa Johnson

04:09

phrase rolling me over the waves will shoulder me under was it just it's from worse novel The waves and it just hit me as something that I felt in an incredibly embodied sense? I don't know quite how to articulate it, except that when I read those lines, when I hear them read to me, when I read them in my head, when I read them aloud, I feel the emotion that is described through those words. Yeah. And so I think that phrase started the wolf words project specifically, and started me in that process of paying attention to the way in which we'll write the way in which she puts words together in order to convey A sensations but also feelings, emotions, and a rhythm with which we experience those. During the

Steve Fast

05:09

pandemic, we certainly all experienced lifestyle changes, there was a period where we were locked down. And there was a period where many of us didn't engage in the same way socially, our work situations changed in many cases. How did those conditions change your approach towards your artwork? I don't know if there was a different situation that you found yourself working in, or maybe just everything surrounding that situation. But did you see yourself having more opportunity, less opportunity, a different approach, or less inspiration to create?

Melissa Johnson

05:45

Well, a lot more slow time. And I think part of that is because in spring 2020, I was on sabbatical. So I wasn't teaching. I had that semester in which to do my own research, in which I was, I went to New York City, actually, in early March right before everything shut down to do research, in the papers of the city company theater that Anne Bogart founded. And some plays that Bogart and city company made in response to the writings of wolf. And so because I wasn't teaching, and I didn't have to make that transition from in person face to face to online teaching, I found myself with even more time than I imagined in a very different kind of time, I had planned to, for example, to stay in New York a lot longer, but I had to cut my trip short, and come home earlier, I had planned to travel to talk to different artists, to look at work. And I thought, of course, like everybody else, I found myself in my home, pretty much confined there. And then when I was socializing, spending a lot of time with people on Zoom. And so things just slowed down. I don't think it really changed anything. But it allowed me to kind of take pleasure in having that time. And having the slow time to stitch. I also knit, in having the slow time to read, to write and to think about all of that. So I'm bringing my own research in here to my academic research, because I see the two projects, the academic research in this making is actually integral to each other. When I'm writing, of course, I'm reading, I'm thinking about stuff. But sometimes I hit a block, and I can't get to words, or I need to pause and wrap my mind around ideas. And so I find that when I stop and I stitch, or I think about Wolf's words, through the wolf words project, it makes it activates a different part of my brain. But it allows another part of my brain to still keep thinking about the other stuff that I need to keep thinking about. And I found this happening throughout my entire life. I mean, I just remember when I was working on my dissertation, I was also walking a lot. And I would, while I was walking, I would have these breakthroughs, of ideas of how I wanted to tackle something in my academic work. And then when I'm doing academic work, oftentimes I'll think, Oh, look at this. Look at this idea what happens if I try and work through this in the stitching? Or how does this affect the way I'm thinking about the the wolf words that I'm extracting, during that spring 2020. And the following summer, especially, things slowed, slowed way down. And then in the fall, when I went back to teaching, and we are entirely online, the making the stitching, the wolf Woods project was, in some ways, a kind of relief, a time to slow down and during a life that on zoom that felt incredibly, sometimes very hectic and disorienting. And for me, and I know also, for my students, and for my colleagues,

Steve Fast

09:07

I was going to ask a little bit about what you alluded to in that second part there about when you went back to teaching. I think for many, the uncertainty of the pandemic, the fear of getting sick, the fear of your relatives getting sick, the change in the life, that many of us have the change in the economic situation that many have that relied upon an open society, cause that a whole lot of uncertainty and anxiety. But some of the things that that you talked about that you did in your work that stuff stitching, knitting, doing something and having the opportunity to slow down and contemplate

Melissa Johnson

09:47

and kind of sit just sit with those feelings and examine them rather than mean of course I stress about them I have anxiety about them but the stitching and the the other work allows me to kind of sit with them and just I think about them as it's something I'm kind of holding in my hand and can hold away and look at and somehow figure out ways to respond that might be helpful to me and productive, not just with work, but in my my life in general.

Steve Fast

10:19

You talked about how you were inspired to think about some of Virginia Woolf's writing during the pandemic in a different way. There was one thing in particular with the waves that inspired you, did it make you want to go back and revisit any of the other work you've done in relation to that? Or do you find that entire project is sort of more malleable that

Melissa Johnson

10:43

the other thing I can say is that the all of my work on Wolf is grounded in while the making, but that's a parallel practice, along with my academic writing and scholarship on Woolf. So I am working on a project in which I'm examining the work of contemporary artists making work in response to Virginia Woolf. And that started with discovering Deanna Fred's book the waves around 2010, or 2011. Since that time, I have discovered a group of while there are many, many artists who have made work in response to both but I think I'm focusing on somewhere between 15 to 20 different artists, and I've written about them, given papers at conferences. And in 2016, there was an exhibition at the university galleries at ISU called strange oscillations and vibrations of sympathy. And it was an exhibition in which that featured the work of women artists in response to women writers, and mainly contemporary women artists. And I wrote a essay for that exhibition catalog about contemporary artists making work in response to the writing of wolf. So it's, it's been an ongoing project that keeps, I think, you use the word malleable, it's intertwined with each other they're making in the writing since around 2010 2011. And it just keeps developing. So I'm not. I'm continually going back and looking at previous writing I've done about artists making work in response to wolf, but I'm also thinking about how the work I'm making continues to respond to wolf both in the wolf words, and the stitching, and in my writing, about Wolf's writing, and also about the artists who are making work. So this ends up sometimes this project feels like a kind of octopus that has many, many tentacles. In my head, it all makes sense. But trying to put it into words and explain all the pieces, how they fit together, and how they're going to fit together can be a little challenging. And maybe that's because I'm not sure what the final project will look like. And I'm okay with that. Actually, I know what the different pieces look like and what they can be now in terms of making and in terms of publishing, but I don't need to know how this will manifest itself, even five years or 10 years. I think of this as a long term project.

Steve Fast

13:38

Well, how do you feel about the overall exhibit your piece in it and how it fits with the other artists that are involved in my COVID year,

Melissa Johnson

13:46

it was a real pleasure to be asked to include my work in the exhibition. Most people know me as an art historian, and not as someone who is a maker unless they follow me on Instagram and see what I'm doing there. And it was a real pleasure to be included among all of the other artists, many of whom I know and admire a great deal. Yeah, I'm happy that the show happened I visited last week, and got to see people's responses to it and was really pleased by how how all of the work was touching different people who come into the gallery while they're at Heartland and allowed them to kind of share what they were thinking and feeling during the past year and a half or so.

Steve Fast

14:32

Oh, great. Melissa, thanks so much for taking some time to talk to us about the exhibit and your piece that is featured and your overall work. Thanks for talking to us today.

Melissa Johnson

14:42

You're welcome.

Steve Fast

14:45

Melissa Johnson is an associate professor of art history and visual culture at Illinois State University. She was featured in the Joe McCauley gallery exhibit, my COVID year for more interviews about art, history, creativity, and much much more. Subscribe Random Acts of knowledge on Apple podcasts Spotify audio boom or wherever you found this one thanks for listening

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