Clare Benson is a contemporary artist based in Arizona who grew up in Michigan. Benson’s work explores rural landscapes, hunting, and identity. We chose to speak with Benson because we felt her work, post election, showed a unique perspective into rural America through exploring gender roles, our relationships with the land, and climate change. Benson…
How long have you been collaging and how did you get into it? I’ve always made things, primarily taking materials apart and putting them back together. My mom and grandmother sew and quilt, so textiles were a part of my art practice when I was younger and throughout art school. That’s when I began “reconstructing”…
Is embroidery a skill you learned as a child, or something you developed later on? My mother taught me to sew when I was a little girl, just simple stitching, and it was something I’ve always done. I never had any formal training. I don’t use proper stitches. I don’t use techniques that have a…
Tell me a bit about where you grew up & what your upbringing was like. I grew up just east of Toronto, Ontario in Canada. My family and I lived further away from town on one of the Great Lakes, Lake Ontario, so I had a kind of remote and scenic upbringing. My father is…
What is your background in music, and what led you to combining it with performance and visual arts? Early on I had the standard parent-enforced piano and guitar lessons, and since then I’ve taught myself a handful of other instruments, but I’m not accomplished in any of them. As a kid, where I really excelled…
After graduating from Rhode Island School of Design with a B.F.A. in Textiles, Lane taught art and facilitated community based art projects in programs for adults with developmental disabilities in Portland, OR and Portland, ME. She has created community engaged bodies of work as an Artist in Residence at Elsewhere Studios in Paonia, CO and…
Dustin Harewood brings to canvas colliding worlds, where east meets west, both above and below sea level. His works mesh the importance of our climate and the heavy hand that media has, using the imagined to discuss our human footprint. Heavily influenced by the submerged landscapes, Harewood has used his memories to create a vibrant and…
How did you realize or notice that you were an artist? Much of my work is performative, through writing and composition of texts, plays, and songs. I was crafting these at a young age. In college, I was more interested in film and photography, but I was always writing and performing my words. After starting…
A boy in red pajamas, perhaps eight years old, walks quietly and with purpose to an area in the woods where he is partially overlapped by a moss-covered tree, bending a vine or a limb out of his way as he passes. What must be morning light coruscates slowly up the tree and along the…
Tell me a bit about the role of art in your life and when you found an interest in illustration. I look at art–broadly, across disciplines–as a pathway or a conduit toward an altered consciousness. Even before I knew what that meant, I could still feel it, and I think that’s true of anyone. As…
