Fiber Arctic- Vivenne Strauss

The Fiber Arctic show is just around the corner and I am really excited. I gotta get through Maker Faire (which I am so excited for it's rather sick). As we get ready for the show, we have sent out a few interview questions to some of our participants.

First up is the lovely Vivienne Strauss

S- Your work whisks us to other eras and thats where we wish we were every time!

Do you often feel like you were born into the wrong era?

VS- I think I spend the majority of my time feeling like I'm living in the wrong era! I find very little inspiration from the present time. I think I paint the world I wish I lived in. One that is more glamourous, fanciful and full of humor and irony. I think people have a tendency to think we are more evolved as a species because we have all this modern technology to work with when really we aren't much different than we were a hundred years ago. We still fret and worry over the same types of things.



S- How do you get excited about new projects?

VS- I usually try to keep my mind open and let it wander, jotting down anything that comes to mind. I try not to look at other artist's work because instead of inspiring new ideas, it seems to block me in some way. I find that happens most with collage where I become very easily blocked. Without realizing it, my mind wants to create work in someone else's collage style and almost immediately, I'm unable to produce anything at all.

S- Read any good books? And if so can we see them in your new pieces?!

VS- I read quite a bit and watch a lot of movies. While I get inspiration from both, sometimes just a title, name or phrase will get my mind going. Often by the time the piece is done though, it has gone through so many phases that I often can't remember what got it started in the first place. I can only think of one painting off hand that is directly related to a scene from a movie. "Alice Adams" starring Katharine Hepburn inspired my piece titled "Laura Did Her Best to Look as if She was Having a Splendid Time, Though No one Was Asking Her to Dance". Another painting was inspired by a vintage photograph but the feeling I was trying to get from it was more like John Updike's Rabbit Angstrom novels, "There was a long uncomfortable silence between Mr. and Mrs. Schultz and Mr. Rassmussen".