October 4, 2005 After I left the SOMA Artists Studios (see October 3, 2005 post) I kept walking down Bryant Street, to look for another big art building - this one at 340 Bryant. It's the four-story tan fortress crouching under the Bay Bridge on-ramp (but not for long; the ramp is supposed to be torn down any day now for long-overdue earthquake retrofitting.) There are a lot of artists in this building, but I just came to interview one of them: Tina Lauren Vietmeier. Tina and I have bumped into each other at various art events for many years, and we have some friends in common, but we've never really had a serious art talk, and I had never seen her studio.

She shares an enormous space (most of the second floor) with three other people. Tina's work area is in the southeast corner, with lots of windows, somewhat shaded by the overhead freeway. Her space is mostly filled with tables (lots of tables), one desk and one easel. Hot wax equipment covers some of the tables, and piles of papers and doo-dads were on other surfaces. There's also a big boardroom/diningroom table & chairs arrangement in an adjoining area. That's where we sat down to tape the interview. We were sitting next to a wall of big wood panels primed with a lavender ground.

AC: Are these lavender-colored panels your new work?

Tina: Yes, these are in progress. For the last six months, I've made a transition in developing my surfaces with a traditional rabbit-skin glue size. I was resisting it for a really long time, but I finally realized that I had been struggling with the way I used to develop the surface, with encaustic medium. But I found that I was using up a lot of wax in the under painting, which I didn't really want to do. I wanted to get more light on the surface. I just started these.... they're a wash of rabbitskin glue with pigment.

AC: So, that hint of brown that I see coming through the lavender, that's the canvas, or wood surface?

Tina: Yes, that's the wood. I like a surface of quarter-inch luan. It's really porous, but it's also not real heavy. And I use a cradled back, because it's easier to work with a raised surface. I'm liking the warm tones of the wood (showing through the ground.) These are for my show at the Steel Gallery, which will be opening in February 2006.

AC: The subject matter... is it all going to be these "inverted cup" (chocolate truffle) shapes? Or don't you know yet?

Tina: I don't really know yet. I've done some pieces recently (like the one over there, of the bottle and pill) that focus more on the vast horizon... but I also had some truffle pieces in the last show, so it means there's some kind of development... I'm not really sure what's happening. These three are actually going to be a triptych. I like the idea of them being broken up and what happens, spatially, when they're broken up, so I've been playing with the pieces on that wall... putting them together and taking them apart and seeing how it feels.

AC: I've noticed that, from your earliest work to these current pieces, you tend to focus on rounded, solid forms. Not bubbles, not symbolic forms, we're talking about weighted FORM. Is that intentional?

Tina: Yes. I didn't know that at first, when I started working with the toilet roll shapes in my studio in Chico in 1997. One day I sat down at my desk and there was a toilet roll sitting on the window sill, and it just struck me... the light was, it was just this beautiful moment. So I did a sketch of it in pastel, and from then on, I kept working with that cylindrical form. It kept speaking to me. I kept feeling this connection. I also see the humor there, but there's something deeper, a weightedness, a sense of presence, or groundedness and fullness. When I find things that I'm inspired by it always ends up being a bottle form, or a pudding, or... there are similarities in these things. They're not floaty-light. They're all weighted and full, dense. I've just started to get a fuller grasp of this. It's something that I wasn't completely conscious of, until the last three years. Because the toilet rolls were a heavy focus for three or four years. After the toilet rolls, I started to do soap forms, and eggs. I was doing the egg paintings in 1999 to 2000.

AC: What medium were you using then?

Tina: I was primarily an oil painter, but I went from oils and pastels to monoprints because after I had my daughter, I was going to art school and I was really in a bind because I couldn't paint at home any more. I had to find a medium that would work. I tried acrylic and watercolor, but I was really struggling. I took a printmaking class at Fogbelt Studio, and I fell in love with the printmaking process. I could go to Fogbelt and work and have some focused time. So I started working with imagery in monoprints: there was the series of toilet rolls, the eggs, and then I started working with the bras. Again it's that fullness - the bra image is that circular, body shaped, roundness... and also the mundane aspects of the bra. And then the bottles started coming. The first bottles I did were large monoprints.

AC: Is this your installation here? (There were rows of bottles lined up by size and shape, on the deep window ledge on the other side of the table where we were sitting.)

Tina: Yes, I collect bottles that are inspirational, or that I find interesting. Really, the whole idea behind this is really, I needed somewhere to put them. One day I was tired of them being on the ground, and not being able to look over and study them, so I started playing at putting them in rows... I have this natural tendency to organize things by likeness. Someone told me that it reminded them of an archeological dig where you put things together by likeness, when you're not sure what a thing is. My studio-mates keep adding to it, and sometimes ask if they can borrow one.

AC: Did you mostly work at home before getting this studio space?

Tina: I've had studio spaces off and on. When I lived in Chico, I was first working at home, then I moved into a space that was about 500 sq.ft. for a short time before we moved to San Francisco. When my husband and I got here, we were stunned by the high rents, so I was working out of my apartment. Then I got pregnant, and I was in art school, so I kept working at school until I had my daughter. I was at Fogbelt, doing printing, when I started experimenting with encaustics on the prints. That was five or six years ago. I was bringing the prints home, and I was putting wax on them in the kitchen. At night, I'd convert the whole kitchen into a studio, and paint at night, and then clean it all up, so that it was functional in the morning. I was working with the prints and with small paintings and what I found was, the wax is so messy and unruly that I just thought, "This is not safe, I've really got to figure out another situation." David Steinhardt and Marie Ferreboeuf are only two blocks away, and we spent a lot of time with them... initially he said, "Why don't come over and paint in the greenhouse on weekends, when I'm not painting?" That worked for awhile, and then we started talking more, and they said, "Why don't you just move into the garage?" They were just amazing, they were so supportive... he built tabletops for me, and put lights in... (she started getting teary-eyed.) I was there for three years. The first show I had at Steele - I did all of those paintings in the little room at the back of their garage. Eventually I felt like I was growing out of the space, so I started asking people, if they knew of any situations that might work and Dana DeKalb said she was looking for a space and would consider sharing. She heard about this space.

AC: I had no idea this was an artist's building. I thought it was a CalTrans maintenance building or something.

Tina: This building is really interesting. It was empty after the dot-com crash. There had been big dot-com businesses packed in here, with really high rents.

AC: In THIS place? It's so industrial! (Then I looked around again and noticed the abundance of electronic & network wiring.)

Tina: This space, and the one upstairs, which is huge - it's 4,000 sq.ft. up there, and two other spaces that were 3,000 sq.ft. were all empty. We weren't sure if they'd be open to artists moving in, but figured why not try? It turned out that they were really receptive. Shortly after we moved in, a bunch of other artists moved in. The third and fourth floors are all artists, photographers and graphic designers. Then the clothing designers moved in this year.

AC: Isn't that interesting... during the dot-com boom, a lot of artists were evicted and driven out of town, but now these empty buildings are filling up again, and it's artists that are filling the spaces (which have been nicely renovated by/for the dot-com folks.)

Tina: And the building was negotiating with us! When we first walked in here, I immediately turned to Dana and said, "No way. This is completely out of my league. I can't even think about renting a space like this." But she said, "You know, we're reliable, we'll sign a contract, and if we let them know what we can afford, I'll bet they'll work with us." And that's what happened. Things have changed. People have changed. The climate has changed. Maybe the greed has been capped off. I hope that continues, especially with Hunters Point (closing soon) and those artists needing spaces. Maybe things aren't just about money now... you know, we're in this for the long haul. Most artists are.

AC: Yeah, we're not going away when times are tough.

Tina: It's just crazy for artists to be paying $1000 or $1200 a month in rent. It's just not realistic. So we feel very fortunate to have gotten in here, and we hope it lasts.

AC: Well, how has your work been affected by your changes in working spaces? Or has it?

Tina: Yes. I've been thinking about this a lot, and I've come to the conclusion that changing working spaces has changed the environment of my paintings. I noticed that the paintings I was doing in my kitchen and at Fogbelt and David & Marie's (which are similar in size and light - small and little natural light) is where I made paintings where the imagery, the object, was almost pushing at sides. Since I've come here, there's been this real "landscape" feel. Things have gotten more expansive, and there's more of a preoccupation with the space, and with more and more light. which is actually similar to the work I was doing in Chico. I've found that the palette I'm using now is much like the palette I was using in Chico. Chico has these broad, expansive skies, beautiful sunsets, and you're near the buttes. The studio was I painting in had high ceilings and a lot of light. I do think you're affected by your space and there's something that happens, that you're not in control of.

AC: How about your change in mediums - how has that affected your work, beyond the obvious?

Tina: I think it's changed my work a lot. With encaustic, I found a medium that... I had been painting in oils through most of my 20s, I learned that in school, and it's what I loved and was really passionate about. Then I felt kind of disjointed when I was a new mom, and even though I enjoyed the printmaking, I didn't feel like that was quite "it." The texture wasn't there. I think that's why I started putting the wax on. The wax is so fascinating. It has so many things to offer, so many possibilities. It seems to marry everything I was looking for. I was looking for something where I could work with found objects and materials, and papers and create luminous surfaces, and yet it has texture... it's like oil in that way. but it's different because it dries right away and you have to scrape, and dig, and take away, and add... So, there's plenty there to keep me occupied for a really long time. For instance, this piece (a hopscotch design, titled "What We All Know But Don't", which was laying on the floor behind us) is envelopes sewn together. I was working on this piece, thinking I was going to have to work with plaster, or acrylic or something. I thought the wax would be too fragile or too brittle. Well, I did a layer, a wash on it, and I realized, you know what? I just need to use the wax. I built up layers and realized it's alright. that's what I'm looking for. I'm still trying to figure out how to finish it off.

AC: So, this is your sewing machine, here? (It was on the table in front of us. Along with the irons and electric fry pans, it made for a real domestic feel to the space.)

Tina: Yes, actually it's my mother's sewing machine. It's thirty or forty years old.

AC: Why do you make art?

Tina: I know that I will always make art. I feel like it's a gut-level, necessary, essential part of who I am. It's like breathing - it makes me feel alive. And it somehow makes things, make a little more sense. There's also the desire to keep finding the beauty in things, while plunging into the darkness. It just feels so good to make stuff. I love to share my work, and get feedback. When someone responds to my work and then it goes off into the world, it's an amazing thing.

AC: Is it important to you that the people who see your work understand your intent?

Tina: I don't feel like people have to understand my intent. I feel like the process of what I'm doing in the studio is one part... but once it's a completed work of art, up there to be viewed, that's another part. That's about the viewer. The viewer and I might see similar things, but they bring their own experiences and find their own connections to the work. I love that. I don't want to sit and explain the work, because it defeats the whole purpose of the work itself.

AC: Is selling your work an important part of being an artist?

Tina: It's such an strange thing, the concept of buying art. It's handmade, it's not a mass-produced product, and yet it becomes a product for people to buy. But it's not about that. It's about experience and enrichment and growth and giving. So, selling art is such an unusual thing to be a part of. Still, the process of being a working artist, and selling your work... for me, it works. I do get excited when something sells. It's a good thing for me. I'm a mother and a homemaker and a wife and a painter and that combination works for me. My spouse is a schoolteacher, so I have to pull my own weight. Paying the studio rent, and getting my supplies... It's very gratifying to be able to sustain being able to paint. In some ways, it keeps you going, too. It makes it all real, somehow.

See more of Tina's work at her web site: www.tinalaurenvietmeier.com