Ruby Suzanna is one of the artists whose exhibitions had to be postponed due to Covid-19. Originally scheduled for exhibition this month, Ruby will now present new work in January 2021. In the meantime, we are sharing this wonderful Q&A with Ruby where you can learn more about the artist and her projects. Thanks to Ruby for taking the time to do this interview and for sharing so much insight into her artistic work and process. We are looking forward to Ruby’s midwinter exhibition!
PEARL, Church of Love in Spenard, Anchorage, AK, 2017, by Ruby Suzanna
Can you tell us a little about your background?
I grew up in Bird Creek Alaska just south of Anchorage. I have always felt at home here. My mother worked for the state highway department as a heavy equipment operator and my father was a carpenter throughout my childhood. My father is also a fine artist and musician, he is a celebrated pointillist and has his art in collections around the world. My mother is a gardener - always tending to our wild 3-acre lot every year producing a huge vegetable garden, and flowers in every corner of the property and around every building. My mother is also a mountain runner, a feminist, and art collector. I lived briefly in Florida for a year and a half and I also lived in Los Angeles for 2 years – but Alaska is my home and it called me back. I would say my second home is Los Angeles and I get there usually 2-3 times a year.
For those that don’t know about your art, can you give us an introduction?
My art is always changing it feels like but usually comes with a specific aesthetic that I think is recognizable as my own. At University I studied printmaking, painting, theater and dance - there wasn’t really an opportunity at that time in the art department to create the type of digital installation work I’ve been doing a lot of lately. However UAA was an incredible place to study and get my art degree - the arts professors like Kat Tomka and Garry Kaulitz encouraged me - sometimes begrudgingly - to pursue performative work and installation work as part of my class work. They offered a flexibility with me to sort of write my own degree, and investigate the type of work I was interested in and produce it as part of class work. For instance Kat Tomka encouraged me to write an undergraduate research and scholarship grant, and gave me an incomplete for her ‘Experimental Drawing’ class and allowed me to create my first large evening length performance art piece that used dance, costume design, set design, and projections the following year. This was in 2005 and there wasn’t really a word for ‘projection mapping’ yet - but that was one of the visions for that show. That was the beginning of my work as it has manifested today. I always was involved in theater and dance at UAA getting my minor in Dance. I really used the entire facility of the arts building at UAA to spring board myself into multidisciplinary work. I created 2 New Dances performances which were more very strange performance art pieces then dance pieces - I was encouraged by Brian Jeffery and the entire Dance Department to create as part of their community even when not a lot of ‘Dancing’ took place in my work. Both New Dances performances had Projections as an element. Almost all of my work includes projected light and video in some way and now as I’ve progressed my work has become almost completely projection based.
My work is a mixture of immersive installation where the audience is invited into spaces to interact with them and performances where the audience is invited to observe spaces and performances passively. Some of my favorite works are The Velvet Room where a small space was covered completely in black velvet including table, chair, performer and various objects and the audience was invited into the room to have a visual and tactile experience, and PEARL a performance that took place at the Church Of Love in Spenard where 7 performers interacted inside of a large forced perspective box that was covered 360 degrees in projections as scenic and lighting elements.
What inspires you to make art?
It’s always different. Usually I start with an image, a scene or some sort or technical thing I want to do and I proceed from there. Usually while I’m trying to figure out how to build a particular thing that is usually not super well thought out yet I am able to fill in the holes as I go. It can feel really unsettling to work this way. It’s like clawing in the dark at something. I collaborate a lot with very talented performers, musicians, and designers and I depend on them a lot to help me find those jumping off places. Sometimes I feel like all I do is gather up all the pieces, and means, and then I attempt to put them together. I set deadlines, and try to come up with equipment and funding and space etc. I try to bring together people I am inspired by - they - more then anything else bring the work out and into fruition.
You've had a few installations at the IGCA in the past, including Bed Chamber in 2014 and Dirty Panties in 2010. Can you tell us about these installations?
Bed Chamber, International Gallery of Contemporary Art, Anchorage, AK, 2014, by Ruby Suzanna
Both of these installations took place in the back gallery guest room. ‘Dirty Panties’ was an installation I created right out college - a comment on innocence, puberty and growing up. It was also a comment on feminine cleanliness, purity, shame and the idea that naturally occurring and biologically normal female occurrences like vaginal discharge and vaginal bleeding etc. was something many women and girls keep hidden and are slightly ashamed of – exp. throwing your soiled underwear away in a public bathroom, hiding your panties in the bottom of the hamper, and the old saying of ‘never go out wearing dirty underwear in case something happens and the doctors and nurses may see them if you’re hurt’ - as if that’s something to worry about in those instances. The show became a metaphor for the shame we carry with us and keep hidden - our basic humanity conflicting with our outward portrayals. The exhibition featured a curtain of dirty underwear, and dirty underwear scattered all over the floor overflowing from hampers and wash bins with their soiled crotches on full display. I gathered old underwear from my female community and altered them with blood, food coloring, yogurt, and cottage cheese to mimic typical discharge. The back wall of the gallery featured a black and white film of my niece who was about 7 or 8 at the time in a white, frilly dress swinging on the swings and also playing in the sand box with a pair of adult underwear grinding handfuls of sand and mud into the crotch of the panties. Not very many people actually entered the gallery - as to get in you had to walk through the curtain of panties - but you could still watch the film through the negative spaces in the curtain.
‘Bedchamber’ was an installation I created while I was suffering from pretty deep depression and addiction issues. There was a time in my life where I felt like I was in bed so much I was creating a divot or impression in it. And that’s how that installation came into being. At the time I hadn’t heard of or seen Tracey Emins piece ‘My Bed’ that was created in 1998. If I had I may have not created my piece at all. The back guest room gallery is almost shaped like a hallway - long and skinny - with this piece I put the bed on the far back wall and arranged the wall hangings etc. on an angle so it felt like you were falling into the bed. I cut a hole in the bed in the shape of my body so it looked as though someone had laid in the same spot for years. I used very minimal projections to make the bed and parts of the room slightly glow. I carpeted the room and hung wallpaper. The room was scattered with trash, laundry, cigarettes, prescription bottles etc. Bedchamber was a way for me to communicate with myself about how I was living my life and a sort of plea with myself to get out of it. It took many years after that exhibition to find recovery.
Experiment 0.01, Out North Gallery, Anchorage, AK, 2019, by Ruby Suzanna
Can you tell us about some of your recent installation projects?
I have been interested in using inflatables in combination with projections and light for quite a few years - but I hadn’t ever taken the time or opportunity to explore it. I think inflation and inflatable sculpture is a very cheap and impactful way to take up large spaces and make them interactive and interesting. One of the challenges is you need a large space to actually build them! You need a lot of floor or studio space, so I usually need flexibility to be in whatever venue I’m creating the work inside of in order to build the work. This is true for most of my recent work. The more time I can occupy the space and create the work in its final environment the more transformative, immersive, experimental and detailed I can be. These are all aspects of creating I value and strive for. But I have found that is usually pretty unrealistic for most spaces as you need to accommodate for other artists, events and space uses.
My most recent work can best described as ‘light bubbles’ I’ve been creating giant inflatables (bubbles) and inviting small audience groups to enter into them for a short period of time. During that time I will project 360 animations on to the outside of the translucent bubble so the audience is completely enveloped in light and imagery. I’ve also been collaborating with local musicians like NRRTH and Sophia Street - they provide beautiful and unique soundscapes and songs for me to respond to and edit my 360 projections to. I’ve been calling these pieces ‘Experiments’ so that I don’t attach a lot of preciousness or importance on them while I’m making them. They truly are experiments for me - and I’ve been trying to allow myself to fail while making them so that I can hopefully find what’s possible. I truly don’t know what’s going to happen or how these pieces are going to turn out usually until the day they are finished, which is usually the day that the audience is invited to view and experience them.
Are you able to share anything about the process involved in the conception, planning and execution of your performance/installation works?
I think I’ve already gone into this quite a bit in my previous answers but I can say that when I’m making new work it’s very temporal and ephemeral. It goes up and gets ripped down never to be recreated again. When MTS Gallery was still around they had these OPEN/CLOSE events and for those events there was usually a performative element at them. These were ‘One Time Only’ events and I really cut my teeth creating performance work for them. Bruce Farnsworth and the invitations and support I got from him to create at these events really shaped how I create work to this day.
When I’m making a new work I really ‘move in’ to whatever space I’m creating for. I usually eat lots of sushi and cookies and drink lots coffee and kombucha and pretty much spend 12-14 hours in the space every day until the work is done – which could be anywhere from a week to a month. Performers come by and we have rehearsals, designers come by and we discuss problems and solutions, and friends and colleagues come by and help me do things I can’t do by myself and the rest of the time I spend alone in the space usually staring at nothing. Because the piece usually only happens one time, and it usually lasts only fleetingly I really try to capture those moments in their very best light and there is always more to do. I never want to be at the closing and rip down of a show and feel like if I had just stayed one or two more hours and ironed the curtains or tested the mechanism etc. the show and experience for the audience could’ve been better. Nothing is ever perfect and you can never get every detail done but I always like I try as hard as I can for each show to feel like a complete and detailed experience for the audience. I want them to feel immersed in the work as completely as possible. When I’m working in this way I also try to make sure I’m getting plenty of sleep and rest. I don’t do ‘all-nighters’ or anything like that. My brain and creativity rested, watered and fed is more effective then any amount of hours spent exhausted and hungry. So the process for me has to stay balanced. I find solutions come easier that way.
The plans for my work seem to almost always have been forming in great detail sort of behind the scenes of my mind. While I’m making them I rarely feel like I have a road map but looking back I usually see the landmarks I had along the way - images I had been collecting, skills I had been researching and nurturing, objects I have been collecting etc. On almost EVERY SINGLE project, installation, performance and show I have created I have been certain at one point or multiple points that it wouldn’t come together, that I had no idea what I was doing, that I didn’t have enough time and I always considered cancelling them multiple times before opening. Bruce Farnsworth when he ran MTS Gallery talked me off the ledge multiple times. Every project has had a moment or days of pure dread where I look down the barrel and it all feels completely impossible. In fact I even thought about cancelling this exhibition I had scheduled for May feeling secret relief when Covid came along and cancelled it for me. It’s part of the process for me. I almost never know what I’m doing or how I’m going to pull it off, I never feel like I have the time, skills or resources to get the show up and done. I have learned over time to allow that fear to help drive me forward on a project - to allow for it to help me and motivate me to get to work, to ask for help, to research and experiment and make a plan. I don’t know if recommend pure fear and anxiety as a motivator for other artists and creators but it does seem to be the way I go about it.
Experiment 0.02, Anchorage Museum, Anchorage, AK, 2019, by Ruby Suzanna
How do you like collaborating with musicians or other performers?
I couldn’t make the work I make without other artists and collaborators. I am completely dependent on the talents of others to bring my work to life. I always need help, I always need inspiration and I always need collaborators. That doesn’t mean I’m very good at it, or that it comes naturally or that there isn’t conflict and tension and miscommunication. That is always there. I’m not always graceful, or open, or easy to get along with - but I’m working on it. I hope I am at least getting better at it. Collaborating with local musicians is very new for me, I’ve always in the past used music that’s already been recorded or created from more mainstream artists. Musicians are fascinating and inspiring to work with and it comes with all kinds of different challenges then say collaborating with an actor, dancer, or designer. I have found that collaborating with musicians is incredibly inspiring and unique - the artistic language is very different. And music is central to the work I create - it’s the mood and it’s really the foundation and building blocks from which it all springs.
I love collaborating with dancers and performers. I am so inspired by them. I also am very intimidated by the process even after all of these years... I’ve studied Dance and Acting and have performed a bit myself but usually the artists I work with have far surpassed me in their skill level. They are professionals, and they are also looking to me to guide them. It feels like when I am leading a rehearsal with a group of performers that I’m on stage and it’s opening night and have forgotten all of my lines! It’s terrifying! I only have these vague ideas of what I want and how we can go about getting it out and on the stage. It’s something I really want to get better at. The performers I work with though have always been very willing and eager and understanding - and we are usually able to figure it out and get into a groove of creation. I try to bring my most honest and kind self to each rehearsal - and I try to bring all of my attention to the task at hand. I’m hoping to continue to collaborate with choreographers, dancers and performers in the coming years and to support them in their craft by creating elaborate settings and worlds for them to be immersed in and guide their audiences into.
Spanning painting, printmaking, performance art, production and costume design, you cover a range of media in your practice. How do these different ways of working influence one another?
Printmaking is where my journey began but I haven’t pulled a print in years. Prints draw you in - there is almost a mystery and alchemy about the images you create when pulling prints. It’s also counter-intuitive, everything comes out backwards and in its opposite. It’s labor intensive, time consuming, precise and repetitive. All of these qualities in printmaking have created a base from which I work - it’s kind of prepped me for the frustration, tediousness and surprise of all the other mediums I work in. Working in production, set, costume and projection design has really been something that has come out of necessity from creating my own work. Unfortunately I can never pay the craftsman, artisans, designers and performers what they deserve and sometimes I can’t pay them anything at all. I have been very lucky and I am eternally grateful to all of the people who have donated their time and energy to creating work together and with me. I have never made a profit off of any show I have ever done – or paid myself, and all grant money, ticket sales and payment I have ever received has gone into the materials and fees directly associated with the work. But because of this I’ve had to do my own costumes, my own scenic designs, etc. and I will say that doing the work yourself does help you when you’re creating your production plans, your budgets and your schedules because you are armed with more knowledge about what it takes. Having that knowledge also tends to head off conflict in the collaboration process because you have an understanding of what you are asking of people, and how realistic those asks are. It also helps to manage your own expectations and what is reasonable which gives you a clearer vision of what kind of work to expect from your collaborators and co-creators and you can adjust the overall vision and show accordingly.
Can you tell us anything about what you have planned for your exhibition at IGCA, which was originally scheduled for this month but, due to Covid-19, has been rescheduled to January 2021?
I wish I could! I know that I will be working again with inflation, projections, soundscape and installation. I would also like to if possible throw in some performative elements. I’m currently 8.5 months pregnant and so I think this upcoming show in January will be very interesting and I will have to adjust my process of creation quite a bit as I’ll have a little one to look after while I try to create and install. This is a new journey for me and I’m excited but also nervous how this will effect my process - I’m sure the terror and certainty of not being able to finish will be even more pronounced then before!
How do you spend your time when not working on art?
I work in television production and that can be all consuming at times. I’ve been on the production team creating the show Life Below Zero for the past 6 years. I also just purchased a home in Hiland Valley and my partner and I have been trying to get settled and moved in - the home needs major work and renovations and although I can’t say I’ve helped a ton, it is still a lot of work. I’m also as I mentioned working on creating a baby and I think that will also become an additional full time job once we get to meet them out here in the world with us. I am currently 2.5 years sober from drugs and alcohol - I mention it here because it has had a huge impact on my life and my creative energy and pursuits. It hasn’t fixed everything, and it wasn’t a magic solution to all my problems or creative struggles and roadblocks but it has given me clarity, and perspective. I still waste time and money but a lot less and on different things - and I will say that showing up for myself, showing up for others and staying true to my commitments is easier.
How can we find you on social media and the web?
I am terrible at maintaining an online website and presence. I need to work on it. Perhaps during this quarantine I will create my website.
I do post some of my work on Instagram @rubysuzannaprojects - feel free to follow me there and check out past projects as well.
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See videos of Ruby’s recent work by accessing the links below:
PEARL, The Church of Love Spenard, 2017
Experiment 0.01, Out North Gallery, 2019
Experiment 0.02 Featuring NRRTH, Anchorage Museum, 2019
Apoptosis PCD (Performance as part of New Dances), University of Alaska Anchorage Main Stage, 2013