A is for Art an Interview with Kate O'Connor

Kate O’Connor is a Master of Fine Art…so says Yale and so says I. Previous success in the field of illustration has not narrowed the art practices of this talented lady. Her newly updated web site is a quick lesson what she can create with, or without, paper...

Dear Kate,

I miss you and I wish you lived in my spare bedroom, but I am excited to know you are moving to NYC after spending 2 years at Yale for your MFA. Congratulations! Please sum up those 2 years in five words:

Awww. I'd love to be your spare bedroom-roomie!

Intense. Liberating. Obvious. Exhausting. Transformative.

I was so happy to see your web site with so much new work displayed. I am assuming(though I may be wrong) that some or all of these new works were projects within your degree. What parameters/esthetics/practices/themes are a common thread in your work, if any?

Yes most of it was work I did at Yale. My thesis was called I Feel Funny which basically summed up the work methodology I developed and learned to articulate here at school. The ideas, themes and motivations that I developed were just extensions of what I've always been interested in, albeit it sometimes, in new ways. Design is rooted in the idea of setting up rules that govern the way a project is seen though. One of the things I began to explore was setting up rules that didn't necessarily correspond, or make sense, or make things easy or clear. This meant that the results of a given project would often be unexpected and usually funny or irreverent in some way. Kind of an eff-you to the traditional notions of graphic design, which I like to look at I guess, but bores me to death to have to do. Working this way helps reassure myself that I'm an artist or something, and makes it really fun. I also learned to work the way that feels good and natural to me, because the results will be better in the end. The old "be yourself" mantra is the obvious I mentioned in the 5 words above. It's so stupid, and true. I can't believe I went to Yale to um, figure that out.

You are funny. It seems like humor is an important aspect of your life and your work.Your portrayals on the absurdities of life are hilarious and endearing. What is your “sense” of humor?

Humour mashed with tragedy. I think it's the result of being Canadian and Irish–both countries suffer from inferiority complexes spurred out of having super-power neighbours. I think both places have very particular brands of humour...it's darker and more absurd than American yuk-yuk.

I can’t describe the J-O-Y I felt watching your videos. What do you like most about making video art? If you could make a music video for the Who is this Goo? by Pastoralia what would it look like?

Thank-you Natalie! Video art is liberating because all of a sudden you've got time, and sound to add the usual visual stuff. It's really challenging to do after working in the 2-d for so long.

Ooooh. The idea of making a Pastoralia video makes me REALLY excited! Ray are you reading this!? I need to make you a video! It would be absurd and beautiful, have a really controlled but janky aesthetic. I'm seeing an above ground lavender pool with purple water (obviously), a semi-detached McMansion and yellow autumnal leaves, blue, blue sky, shot in Winnipeg because Ray Fenwick of Pastoralia is from there and I've never been there. Or if we had the budget to go to a pineapple plantation, we'd go there. Pineapples growing in the wild are C.R.A.Z.Y looking!

Your previous embroidery work with uncanny Craigslist postings has now evolved into a “Personals” video staring balloons. Why balloons/why personals? (*side note: I am having an obsession with YouTube comments :)

I have this really juvenile impulse to anthropormorphize things. I really love blobs and balloons are a really lazy way to make attractive colourful form. Personals are so contrived and weird, but also reveal a vulnerability about a person. You tube comments are weird too–people say the worst things to get attention. It reminds me of a time when I went to confession and made up all sorts of stuff to get a rise out of the priest. Bored people do things like that. Plus it's easy to shoot your mouth off when you're anonymous–just like pervs yelling from car windows.

What are your ambitions now that you are finished grad school? What is your fantasy career?

Right now I'm going to NYC because it's close to New Haven and I've always wanted to live there. I'd really like to create a TV show. Something really weird, with awesome costumes and hilarious characters. I like directing because you get a hand in everything, which keeps things interesting.

*.* WoW *.*

Thank you Kate for a great interview!

Make sure you visit Kate's website to see more of her work , including freaking amazing interactive web sites she put up after our interview...check your mood and the weather

* all images and videos belong to Kate O'Connor

N is for Nan

Here is another video project from last Fall's Introductory Video class at NSCAD. The initial idea was to do a remake video of past work from a chosen video artist. Wendy Geller had been a BFA student at NSCAD and while there in 1982 made a great video called 48 Hour Beauty Blitz, where she locked herself inside for the weekend to follow a ridiculous beauty regime laid out in the pages of Glamour magazine. The routine of:eat blended food-workout-do your hair/nails/face is interjected with a feminist soliloquy of the congruence of identity and appearance.

I had initially planned to lock myself inside and do some silly beauty routine or as Gwenyth Paltrow calls it "nourishing the inner aspect", but then our class watched The 5 Obstructions and we too were given obstructions pertaining to the making of our video. My obstructions were : 1. no women can be seen 2. have to shoot from the inside out 3. there has to be a lot of eating.

So this is the result. I wanted to make it look like the VHS format Wendy had used and I recorded the audio from her 45 minute video then chose clips (some choppy) to overlap with the diegetic sounds recorded on North St. It's the story of the guy who gets locked out when Wendy locks herself in Alex was/is the best!

W is for Website

Stewart Innes is a great artist, video master of the re-edit, DJ dance party extraordinaire, and to top it all off he's just about the nicest guy in town! I've really been digging he's website The Wisdom of Many , and feel culturally and 80's trivially wiser after each visit.

N is for Nan

Here are two videos I made during the Fall 2009 Introductory Video Class at NSCAD with David Clark.

The first is called 'I could', the assignment was self expression in seven words and we could only do in camera editing.

The second I call 'Yin Yang Dance' where we were supplied with a music sample and given access to the lights at the Film Department.

I think they are funny because I am in them!