Lauren Amalia Redding
www.laurenredding.com
lauren.amalia.redding@gmail.com
Spotlight: Lauren Redding – Silverpoint Master
– What is the best thing that I love about my work?
It is meticulous. I don’t just mean in terms of execution, but also in the thought put into it, its inception, its meaning, and its presentation.
– What is the trait that I most deplore in myself?
I’m very good at worrying. Most of the time, there’s no point, and it causes anxiety over nothing.
– What is my greatest fear?
To never have tried.
– What is the trait that I most deplore in myself?
That I love my family. It’s very relevant to my art, as it comprises its fulcrum.
– Which living persons in my profession do i most admire?
Steven Assael, Vincent Desiderio, and Lisa Bartolozzi. Three tremendous artists whose talent is so innate that they don’t have to live putting on a show, trying to prove to the world that they’re artists—the fact that they breathe is proof enough. Also, they are exceedingly generous with their time and knowledge. In short, they are geniuses without ego.
– What is my greatest extravagance?
Hand-preparing all my drawing surfaces! The materials don’t cost much, but the time it takes does.
– What is the thing that I dislike the most in my work?
Their photographs can never do them justice. They have to be photographed in low light to avoid glare, and so are replicated anticlimactically.
– When and where was I the happiest, in my work?
In my sweatpants and messy hair, with tons of coffee at hand and my husband (the sculptor, Brett F. Harvey) working nearby.
– If I could, what would I change about myself?
I wish I could work faster! I draw very slowly.
– What is my greatest achievement in work?
That my curiosity, inspiration, and desire to keep working never wanes. My hands, eyes and brain are always busy.
What artists influenced your life and how?
My abuela. She was the first person to teach me that there is a nobility and necessity in aesthetics. She’s not an artist, but she’s creative and visual and unabashed in her self-expression. She taught me to revel in the tangible and designed.
– What is the material that you like to work most and why?
I primarily work in an ancient drawing medium called silverpoint, where one draws with a stylus with silver wire in it, upon a specifically prepared surface. It’s reflective and it tarnishes and as there’s no erasure, one has to be very deliberate in their drawing. However, I gravitate towards other anachronistic media: I love gilding, egg tempera, and pen and ink, as well.
– What is the place where you like to create ?
Wherever Brett is at. But he gets plaster and clay all over everything, so perhaps a particularly tidy corner of that place.
– What books and writers have influenced your life and your art?
The American poet e.e. cummings introduced me to creative growth and possibility through his use of language, which I see as analogous to all things, but it was reading Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë when I was twelve that taught me about the concept of free will and integrity to one’s self.
– What music do you like to listen to when you paint or create?
I don’t listen to much music, but do listen to podcasts to keep up-to-date on the news. But my favorite thing to listen to—and maybe this ties into the above question?—is the Harry Potter audiobooks read by Jim Dale! So familiar that I can zone out when needed, very entertaining to make time go by quickly during tedious tasks, but full of poignantly reimagined archetypes recalling Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey.
– What role plays art in my life and work?
My art, my life, and my work are all one and the same. That being the case, I don’t have much to complain about!
– Do you feel that you have had someone or something that inspired you to be the artist you are today? Who and how?
Brett. We met in graduate school and went through the transition of going from students to practicing artists together. When I haven’t had faith in myself, he’s had faith in me. And none of it is patronizing or insincere, because he goes through the same struggles. The cliché is true: we really are a team, though we each produce vastly different work.
– Whom would I like to work with in the future?
I’ve been lucky to work recently with a few curators of noted Instagram art accounts and I’d love to do more. I love this because it unites artists instantaneously, no matter the distance.
– What do the words “Passion Never Retires” mean to me?
It’s so profoundly true. I think artists free up the older they get—look at Titian’s Flaying of Marsyas, it’s a guttural tour-de-force painted at the end of his life. As a particularly young artist, I think accumulated life experience dictates so much. I can’t wait to see what I’m making when I’m eighty.
– If you want to add something else you want to tell us and we do not ask you, go ahead!
Over the last year, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying writing about art for a few different publications, as well. I just love lines, whether written or drawn.
– How can I contact you ?
Email: lauren.amalia.redding@gmail.com
Website: www.laurenredding.com
Instagram: @lauren.amalia
Medium (for writing): @lauren.amalia.redding
– Photos: Courtesy of Lauren Redding & Brett Harvey
Artworks Available at MS Art Gallery
www.msartgallery.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy22-pAzg8E&t=3s
