![\"Phoenix](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/DSC_0330.jpg\")
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Kate: Tell me more about the residency program here [at Gallery Aferro]. Why were you interested in this space and how did you get involved?<\/p>\n
Phoenix: The residency is here at Gallery Aferro and what I found with building my art career as an emerging artist is really finding those connections and links. It was just kind of happenstance. The way that I wound up getting to know about this residency program was that I was interviewing for a professional development course called Emerge, which is at Aljira, a contemporary art center here in Newark, so I was doing my interview and it was a super intense interview process\u2014there were five of us and a panel of three people and we all did a group interview\u2014and one of the women was talking about Matthew Shepard, and my work is about hate crimes, and we just had a really lovely conversation. I wrote a really nice thank you letter to her and she said \u201cThank you for writing me. Let\u2019s stay in touch. Please apply for my residency program.\u201d I applied and they asked me to stay and they had a cancellation in the Fall 2013 bunch so she asked me to stay on. So I\u2019ll be here, having my studio in Newark, until February 2014.<\/p>\n
K: You\u2019re based in Brooklyn though.<\/p>\n
P: (laughs) Yeah I\u2019m based in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
K: What are the similarities and differences between working in Brooklyn and the Brooklyn arts scene and Newark?<\/p>\n
P: Well Newark feels like a really accessible arts community. People are very excited to get to know each other and network and you know, [at] the openings here everyone is talking to everyone else and everyone knows everyone. I don\u2019t want to say that it\u2019s small town-y because Newark isn\u2019t a small town, but it\u2019s more accessible. It\u2019s been really nice to build my r\u00e9sum\u00e9 as an emerging artist and being able to use this as a support system to stand on. But other people that have done this program live in Brooklyn too so there\u2019s also a kind of community in Brooklyn of folks to reach out to.<\/p>\n
K: Can you talk a little about your process? Do you begin with a clear vision of what you want\u2026<\/p>\n
P: No (laughs)<\/p>\n
K: Or does it unfold as you go along?<\/p>\n
P: So most of my work is research-based to begin with. I\u2019ll take an old project for example: In 2009, I was working, as my day job, at a non-profit that was an affordable housing advocacy organization so I have a lot of non-profit background. So it was 2009 and all this horrible stuff was going on with the housing bust, right? And I was working on affordable housing as my day job so I worked with a non-profit to get a list of all the homes that had been foreclosed within the last 6-month period and went to many of the homes\u2014the ones that had been vacated\u2014and broke into the houses, photographed what people had left behind, and then locked up after myself. So I didn\u2019t know what that was going to look like or what that was going to be starting out, but I knew getting a data set to build off of was what I wanted to do. So with my most recent work, After Kempf<\/i>, that was built out of me creating my own database of hate crimes that had happened. It was a very loose data set, because hate crimes are so difficult to research and find information about. You can get statistics from the FBI about where the crimes happened, but even that, the states don\u2019t have to report in [the crime] so the data sets are pretty messed up. So I went online and decided to do as much internet research as I could, and going to the library and actually pulling out the microfilm and reading articles that hadn\u2019t been digitized. And so from that loose data set I studied about 50 hate crime cases and I didn\u2019t know what to do with it. So I looked at my spreadsheet, which is morbid, right? Like, \u201cVictim\u201d \u201cPerpetrator\u201d \u201cMurder Weapon,\u201d you know, all the details. So I was looking and it was like, all these weapons are household objects. They\u2019re just random things. Just like a crime of passion where you pick up whatever is lying around and that\u2019s what\u2019s used as a murder weapon. All these objects were really pointing to the intimacy in the act of violence. You can\u2019t be far away from someone if you\u2019re using a bat, but it\u2019s also about the urgency. But I had no idea what I was going to do. No idea. AND I had never done ceramics before\u2026<\/p>\n
K: Right. I wanted to ask you about that because you studied photography\u2026<\/p>\n P: Yeah, both my MFA and BFA are in Photography.<\/p>\n K: So what made you decide to use a different medium?<\/p>\n P: These objects just really needed to be present. I didn\u2019t want to just photograph a hammer because that\u2019s a specific hammer.<\/p>\n K: You wanted it to be tangible.<\/p>\n P: Yeah. And I wanted it to be a quintessential hammer. A hammer that you have, that I have, so that when you conjure up an image of a hammer it\u2019s an image of that hammer, for an example. So I used to do woodworking as a hobby, making bowls and things like that. I like using my hands and as a photographer, an early photographer, I loved the dark room and that\u2019s a really hands-on process and I really missed that. So I went back and was using the woodshop in the same way I used a black-and-white analog dark room. I just wanted to get my hands in it. So I tried different materials and different things and decided that these things really have to be ceramic which I had never done before. I started teaching myself two-part molds. I went on Youtube. The process that I had settled on was that all the objects are hollow, so they\u2019re slipcast, which is how you would make a figurine. So you have a two-part mold, you pour the slip in and whatever is touching the dry plaster of the mold hardens, and you let it sit for an hour and then pour it out so that\u2019s how it\u2019s hollow. So they\u2019re super fragile. \u00a0So I have the objects, what do I do about glazing? I tried all sorts of stuff. And they\u2019re all about queer hate crimes, right? So I didn\u2019t want to make them all pink (laughs) or rainbow (laughs) or like black, so after going around and around not knowing the color and messing with different skin tones I think they\u2019re best just left raw. So they\u2019re unglazed. They\u2019re fired, so there\u2019s that white, tangible\u2026you can see the scratches from where I\u2019ve sanded them and they look like bones, especially the bats. So they\u2019re quiet and they act as a memorial. And I\u2019ve added some elements of concrete, which can act as a tombstone or a coffin or something.\u00a0 The bisque white is the departure. And sometimes I\u2019ll add to it. There\u2019s a piece with a chair with a plunger on top.<\/p>\n K: When did you start working on this project?<\/p>\n P: I started working on this project in 2010.<\/p>\n K: And this is an on-going thing?<\/p>\n P: Yup.<\/p>\n K: How do you see it ending? Will it ever end?<\/p>\n P: Well that\u2019s one thing that\u2019s been so great about having this really wonderful studio space right now. The gallery itself has a ton of summer interns so I\u2019ve been able to use one of their interns for this project so she\u2019s helping me make tons and tons of bats, which is ironic because I\u2019m from Louisville, Kentucky so I\u2019m making like hundreds of Louisville slugger bats (laughs). But I dunno [how it will end].<\/p>\n K: Why did you decide to focus on the bats?<\/p>\n P: Well I just had to pick something so I thought it would be cool to do a ton of multiples, because they do look so much like bones.<\/p>\n K: Yeah, definitely.<\/p>\n P: So I see them being a multitude\u2014a ton of them hanging, filling up the room\u2014but simultaneously working on a bunch of different projects. Right now I have a proposal out in the very beginning stages of doing some work around all the hate crimes that just happened in May.<\/p>\n K: Yeah, that was actually going to be one of my talking points.<\/p>\n P: Oh good. Yeah, I have a proposal coming up and a couple different grants. I want to do some sort of memorial site to mark the 1-year anniversary for each one of those hate crimes. There were nine in a three-week period. And of course Mark Carson was the one murdered. But I\u2019m still working on all the details. The proposal I did was for the Sculpture Center and I\u2019ll apply to the Puffin Foundation, which focuses on politically motivated art, and a couple other foundations.<\/p>\n K: Would you consider yourself a political artist?<\/p>\n P: Well I guess so. I mean (hesitates) yeah, I think that I need to be. I mean, for me the aesthetics really do come first, which is maybe why I spent like a year trying to figure out if these things were going to be ceramic or wax or paper or whatever (laughs). For me the aesthetics really are important. A lot of the work I deal with is super politically charged, which is just how it is so I guess in some ways that makes me a political artist. I used to be a queer rights lobbyist in Kentucky for a couple years. Like a paid lobbyist for the gay rights group there and worked on various political and social rights campaigns. Like going door-to-door and telling people why gay marriage should be okay\u2026in Kentucky (laughs). Going door-to-door and talking to people about Fairness ordinances\u2014like why people shouldn\u2019t be fired for being gay\u2014so for me that\u2019s political work. That\u2019s calculated and measured, you\u2019re on a team, and you\u2019re changing hearts and minds. All that kind of stuff is very political. So what I\u2019m doing here is political in nature but trying to talk about something that only art can talk about and you don\u2019t necessarily know what the result is. But I think by working it out through materials you get much different and much more interesting results. So yes, it\u2019s certainly political in nature, so I guess you can call me a political artist. But I\u2019m not championing it, like \u201cOh look at this person who was murdered. This is terrible. This is horrible.\u201d Certainly yes, that\u2019s there but I\u2019m trying to get to the underpinnings of the society that produces these perpetrators and victims over and over. It\u2019s a cycle that I\u2019m trying to talk about.<\/p>\n K: So what is it that you want your work to accomplish?<\/p>\n P: Yeah, I don\u2019t know. I guess once it\u2019s made it\u2019s kind of out of my hands. Certainly to raise awareness, but that\u2019s kind of silly, because if you wanted to raise awareness you could just make a webpage about hate crimes, start a nonprofit, or get a billboard or something. Working it out through materials does something else though. Art does something that nothing else can do. I think that\u2019s true of visual arts, or dance, or writing. I think if my project ends up happening next year\u2014doing the memorial sites for the nine hate crimes\u2014that will have an online component. I\u2019d love to develop an app where people can say where they\u2019ve experienced hate crimes, like a mapping thing. So there\u2019s a lot of different stuff that can raise awareness to accompany the work, but the work, I think, is the starting point and the other things can support it.<\/p>\n K: This work is similar to your installation Tell A Sad Story<\/i> and also your photographs of foreclosed homes. What draws you to these tragic events? Tragedy seems to be a running thread\u2026<\/p>\n P: Yeah, everything is kind of dark (laughs). I don\u2019t know. I guess I feel like they\u2019re all things that I\u2019ve had access to and that have personally affected me. I mean, the reason I\u2019m talking about hate crimes is because in high school I had an acquaintance who was murdered and it became a huge [debate]: is it a hate crime? Is it not? There were all these questions. The incident itself was very graphic and of course it affected me. And then later in college, I had a friend that was stabbed in the face with a broken beer bottle and has a scar on his face and I\u2019ve experienced types of violence before. Personally nothing that dramatic, but I\u2019ve certainly had people throw rocks at me and people say things under their breath. I\u2019d get weird looks. It must be because of my political background and my confidence that I do feel very comfortable in my own skin and that I do feel able to talk about these themes that are hard to talk about, but I try to do it in a way that\u2019s respectful not just to the victims\u2014certain instances people have passed away\u2014but also to the perpetrators because in my research I\u2019ve found that the people that are the perpetrators have very similar characteristics. They\u2019re all normal, white dudes in their 20s that have kind of snapped.\u00a0 So in this system where the perpetrators are all kind of similar and the victims, by the nature of the crime are the stand in for the group\u2014like it could be any queer person who was at the wrong place at the right time\u2014so in a system where both people are interchangeable\u2014and it can be any object that\u2019s laying around, so that\u2019s interchangeable\u2014it has to be pointing to a larger system failure and breakdown with society, which is what I\u2019m trying to get at through material, through making visual art.<\/p>\n K: What influences you?<\/p>\n P: Like what artists?<\/p>\n K: Anything. It doesn\u2019t just have to be artists.<\/p>\n P: I don\u2019t know. I guess research and data. I geek out over that stuff. There\u2019s a ton of artists obviously: Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Doris Salcedo, Jannis Kounellis. There are a ton of people that I\u2019m looking at. And I think pop culture too, especially since I\u2019ve got all these every-day, household objects, but I do sort of look at that work more often that I had expected to. I guess I\u2019d have to say that my biggest influence is culture.\u00a0 Being inspired by doing something about these hate crimes that had just happened a few months ago. Yeah, I\u2019d say current events.<\/p>\n K: So we\u2019re obviously listening to music now [Phoenix had put on Pandora as soon as I got to her studio], so what music do you listen to when you\u2019re working?<\/p>\n P: (laughs) Oh my god, okay so I\u2019m in so much trouble with my wife right now because the wireless doesn\u2019t reach up here [in her studio] so my Pandora is always streaming and using up the data on our phones so I keep using our data plan to stream Pandora and she gets the push notifications and she\u2019ll text me in the middle of working and be like \u201cum, can you please switch it to your iTunes and not Pandora?\u201d Busted.\u00a0 I kinda like country music.<\/p>\n K: I\u2019m glad someone said that, because I feel like people always say \u201cI like everything BUT country.\u201d<\/p>\n P: Yeah, I love listening to country. So yeah, I listen to Mumford and Sons a lot. I listen to Neko Case, she\u2019s\u2026<\/p>\n K: Oh. My. God. I am obsessed with Neko Case [note: I got overly excited about this].<\/p>\n P: She\u2019s my favorite.<\/p>\n K: I\u2019m seeing her in September.<\/p>\n P: REALLY?! Where is she playing? Here?<\/p>\n K: Yeah, in New York City. At Radio City.<\/p>\n P: Shut up. You think tickets are still available?<\/p>\n K: They might be.<\/p>\n P: I want to go.<\/p>\n K: Yeah, I\u2019m like 10th<\/sup> row, center.<\/p>\n P: That\u2019s awesome. Did you see Patty Griffin in Brooklyn?<\/p>\n K: No, I didn\u2019t! But Neko Case. The best. I\u2019ve seen her perform\u2026I don\u2019t even know how many times. She\u2019s just my favorite.<\/p>\n P: Oh cool. Yeah I really love her. So yeah, I listen to that. I made a Neko Case Pandora station. But Macklemore right now. I feel like he\u2019s my best friend. He just hasn\u2019t met me yet (laughs). We\u2019re going to be friends (laughs). I just went camping this weekend in West Virginia for a bachelorette party for one of my old friends and we listened to like pop country music all weekend and it reminded me how much I love that too. Like, I don\u2019t know. Just some like Garth Brooks (laughs), Shania Twain\u2026<\/p>\n K: Oh yes. Shania Twain. What about Faith Hill?<\/p>\n P: (laughs) Yeah! Right! I mean, the stories are so good. So I\u2019m here making work about queer hate crimes, listening to country music, to Garth Brooks (laughs). But yeah, I\u2019m really into Macklemore. I\u2019m trying to get everyone to know about him because his politics are so fantastic and he\u2019s sober and he has this really positive message. He\u2019s cool with queer rights stuff.<\/p>\n K: What\u2019s the last exhibition you saw?<\/p>\n P: Oh god. DUN DUN DUN. Hmmm. What did I see? I don\u2019t get out very much\u2026<\/p>\n K: Yeah, do you go to a lot of galleries or museums?<\/p>\n P: I mean, I\u2019d say that I really did the damn thing for Bushwick Open Studios, so I feel like I got my fix there. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve seen one since that. I work very, very part-time at a gallery in Chelsea so sometimes I can see stuff down there. But Bushwick Open Studios was amazing which is how I found your card at Mazelle\u2019s. So I picked it up and I saw \u201cqueer arts magazine\u201d so I was like \u201cokay, hello.\u201d Since I was at Bushwick Open Studios I was gathering all my cards and I went online and looked at the website and saw that you guys did something with Katie Cercone, which I did the Emerge Program with at Aljira, and I called her and was like \u201cDude, what\u2019s the deal?\u201d and she was like \u201cDude, talk to Winter.\u201d Done. So yeah, it was really cool. Bushwick Open Studios was really amazing. I live in that neighborhood and it was so amazing to see all this stuff, like stuff I see all the time. Like, I didn\u2019t realize that huge warehouse was full of studios, so I\u2019ve been able to make some connections through that and it\u2019s been really great.<\/p>\n K: My last question is what you\u2019re working on now.<\/p>\n P: Well I think I\u2019m going have a solo show, I\u2019ll let you guys know, here in Newark for the Newark Open Studios which is in November or something. So I think I\u2019m going to do something with the various sites of violence itself. I think I\u2019m going to start to do actual mold making of sidewalks where these crimes happen. Kind of like Rachel Whiteread but\u2026sadder (laughs). But I also have a ton of imagery from the photographs from the articles that I\u2019ve researched so I think I\u2019m going start pulling out some of those old photographs that have been in my archive and doing a little bit of collage, which I\u2019m playing with a little bit in the studio. So yeah, that\u2019s it. OH. And making A THOUSAND bats (laughs).<\/p>\n K: (laughs) Yeah how many bats are you going to make?<\/p>\n P: I don\u2019t know. At least 100. I have about a dozen now. So I\u2019m trying to get my intern to help me.<\/p>\n K: How long does it take to make one bat?<\/p>\n P: Well it takes a long time to sand it to get it nice and smooth since I don\u2019t finish them, like I don\u2019t glaze them or whatever. So they need to be smooth to look like skin and work the bumps and folds so they start to look like folds of flesh. That\u2019s really important. So that part takes a while since I have to take the seams out of the two-part mold. So I don\u2019t know, to make one is like an hour or something and then to sand it is another couple hours. But then you break at least a third of the ones you make. I break them all the time. They\u2019re super fragile because they\u2019re hollow so you sand, sand, sand and then [makes a shattering sound]. Sometimes I use glue. Other times I just cut my losses. What else can I tell you? I guess a big part of me that gets me really amped up and excited is professional development for artists. It seems to me that there\u2019s this conveyor belt of BFA and MFA programs and everyone is on this conveyor belt and then you just kind of fall of it (laughs) in a big dumpster or something with everyone else crawling on top of each other to get to the top. So I\u2019ve been working with former professors and mentors to try to figure out how to make resources for artists so that\u2019s some stuff [I\u2019m working on]. For me, I not only see myself spending time in the studio as part of my art practice but I also see myself improving my websites, meeting lots of people, and trying to do social media stuff. I see all of that as part of my art practice because it is supporting my work but also because it\u2019s about something that I want people to know about. A lot of people forget that or don\u2019t know that hate crimes happen.<\/p>\n K: Yeah, I think that with those nine hate crimes in New York City, which is considered this bastion of \u201cprogress\u201d and \u201cfreedom,\u201d I mean Mark Carson was murdered right near Stonewall. So I think that made people realize that oh okay, no matter where you are or what the queer community gains in terms of political rights people still have to \u201ccatch up\u201d and I think that made people realize that this still happens. If it happens in New York City\u2026<\/p>\n P: \u2026it can happen everywhere. Well the bat, the hate crime from which it originates from, I mean, a lot of hate crimes involve bats, and yes a few happen with guns too but most of them really are household, random objects. There were two brothers that were walking in Bushwick in 2010 and I can\u2019t remember what ethnicity they were but it was culturally appropriate for them to walk down the street holding hands and they were going to the store to get some milk and someone perceived them to be gay and they were murdered for being gay even though they weren\u2019t. Well, one brother was murdered and the other survived so for me, making these bats over and over it definitely becomes a methodical process but that\u2019s the crime that I specifically think about when I\u2019m making the bats.<\/p>\n (pause)<\/p>\n K: Well. On that note (laughs)<\/p>\n P: Ha, yeah, it\u2019s a little depressing (laughs). I just feel bad at cocktail parties because people are like \u201cOh you\u2019re an artist?\u201d \u201cOh yeah, I make work about queer hate crimes.\u201d And they\u2019re like \u201cOh. Okay…\u201d Well I really appreciate you guys coming out here. I know it\u2019s a hike.<\/p>\n K: It was no problem. Thank you.<\/p>\n \u201cArt Does Something That Nothing Else Can\u201d An Interview with Phoenix Lindsey-Hall by Kate Cossolotto Portraits by Lauren Renner Phoenix Lindsey-Hall is a Brooklyn-based photographer and sculptor who earned her MFA in Photography from Parsons The New School of Design in 2012 and a BFA in Photography from the Savannah College of Art and\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[45,61,106,113,39,76,81,79,44,52,38,112,111],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-1149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","tag-art","tag-brooklyn","tag-feminism","tag-feminist","tag-gay","tag-lesbian","tag-lgbtq","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-photography","tag-queer","tag-sculptor","tag-sculpture"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/DSC_0042.jpg?fit=1162%2C778","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6QBV8-ix","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1149"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8017,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149\/revisions\/8017"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1149"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=1149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>For more information please visit phoenixlindseyhall.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"