Lisa Hoke NA + Elana Herzog NA

Season 2 of Exquisite Corpse kicks off with a conversation between two installation artists – Lisa Hoke and Elana Herzog – whose friendship and practices inspired them to speak in this format. They share thoughts on sustaining their practices, reactions from other artists as they made shifts in their work, and how a non-traditional medium like installation allows for, even necessitates, travel and community involvement. The conversation also touches on many other topics including the artists’ use of color, the significance of materials, and how the National Academy’s collection is growing and diversifying just like the membership itself.

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Transcript

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 0:11

Hi, I'm Adrian Elise Tarver, the Director of Programs and the host of the National Academy podcast - Exquisite Corpse. This podcast is a series of conversations between artists and architects, who've been elected by their peers, to the National Academy of Design for their extraordinary contributions to art and culture in America. These are the National Academicians and they are at the core of the oldest artist run organization in the United States. This is Exquisite Corpse. Welcome to season two of Exquisite Corpse - Contemporary Conversations. I hope you enjoyed our special episode a few weeks ago with National Academician, Elizabeth King and sound artist, Stephen Vitiello. If you haven't checked it out yet, I hope you do. It's a little different than I'm usually bringing you. And it was fun to mix things up. This season, we're bringing you more conversations. Some people knew each other beforehand. And some get to know each other on the podcast. Just like in season one, these conversations give the Academicians space to talk about the things that are important to them and to reflect on what it means to be a part of this collective of artists and architects. Last season, we introduced our historical acknowledgement. We recognize it's important to be self-reflective and acknowledge the institution's omissions. But I'm only one of many working here to move the national academy forward. Since this is a shared sentiment and mission, this season, you'll hear the historical acknowledgement from more voices.

Anjelic Ownens: 1:38

Hi, my name is Anjelic Owens and I'm the Programs Assistant at the National Academy of Design. The National Academy of Design was initiated by artists and architects to fill a void in the American artistic landscape of the 19th century. But we recognize our history has excluded many communities and cultures whose lineages and practices must be included in this country's art, historical, Canon. Indigenous peoples, people of color, queer and non-binary individuals and people with disabilities. We are committed to a process of dismantling the ongoing legacies of settler colonialism and white supremacy. We're excited to move forward and have conversations that reflect the important questions and issues of today. We are the national academy of design and you are listening to Exquisite Corpse podcast.

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 2:34

One of the most unique and special things about the National Academy of Design is our collection. We have nearly 8,000 objects. Almost exclusively donated by our member artists and architects over the past 196 years. Back in the 19th century, the main things added to this collection were paintings, sculptures prints, and architectural drawings. There even used to be a requirement that all new inductees submit a portrait of themselves. Either a self portrait or one painted by another artist. Although we no longer have that stipulation, some of those portraits are among the most significant works in the collection. As the conversation about acceptable mediums and contemporary art expanded, so did the range of mediums in our collection. We have architectural models, photography, time-based media, and as you'll hear in this conversation, installation work. For stewards of a collection, installation work is a bit more complicated. There may be multiple parts. The form may change based on the location. And the materials may not always be the most archival. But newer mediums like installation work are such an important part of the conversation that has been necessary for an institution like the National Academy of Design to adapt. We've had to learn new technologies and develop systems for accepting new mediums into our care. Like our membership, our collection is growing and diversifying, reflecting the money, directions and conversations in contemporary art. There's something inherently awkward about talking on a podcast. Even if the person you're talking to as a good friend you've known for years. There's a microphone in your face. You're wearing headphones. And for the first few minutes before that conversation gets going, you're testing to make sure that everything works and the sound is good. It's not a natural scenario. And with almost everyone we've talked to you on the podcast so far, it's taken them a few minutes to warm up. What I love about this conversation between Lisa and Alana is, not only how familiar and comfortable they are with one another, but there's a moment when the official podcast questions are done that they really settle in. We kept recording and I think some great moments came after that point. We all laughed a little more and it felt like we were sitting in someone's living room sharing a glass of wine. So after my usual final question, you get a bit of a bonus on this episode.

Lisa Hoke: 5:00

Hi, this is Lisa Hoke and I'm in New York City. And you may hear motorcycles and cars go by.

Elana Herzog: 5:08

Hi, um, I'm Elana Herzog. I'm also here in New York City. And, uh, happy to be here.

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 5:16

Great. Well, thank you so much for joining us on Exquisite Corpse. So, Lisa, my question is for you, why did you select Elana Herzog?

Lisa Hoke: 5:25

Well, I think we're both in an unusual situation in our membership at the Academy as installation artists. And one of the things that we have done very currently is, we have added, um, installations as our diploma works to the collection. And because of that, I thought that it would be really great to talk to Allana about the difference between what we do and why we do it and the difficulties and the pleasures of doing it. Installations, other than a few of the members of the Academy, like Jessica Stockholder and Judy Pfaff, I don't think many of actual installations are in our collection. So I, I think of this as a really pivotal moment as we expand and look at the academy and look at it's representation, who it represents and the diversity, not only of the membership, but the diversity of our collection.

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 6:32

Elana I am curious to know your thoughts on being selected by Lisa and what your thoughts were when she asked you to do this?

Elana Herzog: 6:40

Well, I was delighted to be asked by Lisa. Aside from the fact that we both think of ourselves as making installations. We've followed each other's work quite closely, I'd say, for many years. And so there's a nice, um, ongoing dialogue there. And, uh, she made me aware of the fact that the category of installation is not something that prevails, I guess, at the Academy. I would also add perhaps Donna, Dennis, uh, as somebody who does that kind of work. Um, and it's a great opportunity to both sort of try to clarify for myself and elaborate on what I think installation is. And perhaps to introduce some of the other Academicians, who are not as familiar with it, or as comfortable with it, to what some of the issues are that apply to it, or come up in the course of making these.

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 7:40

Why do you think some people might be uncomfortable with installation?

Elana Herzog: 7:43

Not to presume anything. I guess I would say because it's a pretty slippery category already in and of itself. It's really, uh, not conclusively defined as any one thing. And never really has been. And I think it's sort of vulnerable to being claimed by people doing very different things. And it also kind of begs the question of definitions in the arts. I guess the academy has a long history of being fairly specific in its inclusion of painters and sculptors and architects. And is only recently broadening to include other aspects of the visual arts. So, I think installation, as a name, is inherently problematic. And I find that interesting. It's one of the things I find interesting about it.

Lisa Hoke: 8:40

And I think Elana and I had spoken at some point about the different terms of site-specific work, installation work, immersive work. And I think that's where Alana, in your reference to it being a rather slippery situation, how we define ourselves and the need or necessity to define what a piece is, is often, we're left to define it for ourselves and to someone else. And I find that that creates, in some ways, a very positive situation that I have always felt gave us a lot of leeway for invention. And promoting our own interpretation of what we're doing. Because the category has been vague. I think it's a more popular category than it was when we first started doing what I would call site-specific work 30 years ago. I used to joke that my work really only existed once I attached it to the wall. That before that, in a box, it wasn't anything but parts. And I don't think that's changed that much over the last 35 years. But it did give me, to start off that way, the ability to define what I was doing without much reference to, even to other artists. That it was a great opportunity in the late eighties, to create things that are expanded the boundary of what we come out of art school doing.

Elana Herzog: 10:22

I would agree with that.

Lisa Hoke: 10:23

So I don't know, Elana, when you look back.

Elana Herzog: 10:26

Yeah, I mean, for me, especially at that time, it was a less treaded territory and it was a way of pushing back at what felt like the rather rigid definitions of other disciplines. And the kind of rules and the kind of ideologies that accompanied them. And, you know, having been in college in the seventies, in a school where high modernism was really very prevalent, um, you know, there were a lot of rules. And there was a very narrowed, even though they weren't explicitly said as roles, and a lot of them were, were learned in a very unconscious way, about, um, what modernism was. And what formalism was. And what the goals of art were. And the importance of abstraction. And of a kind of an emptying out of, uh, subject matter and content from art, as a goal. And, for me, as a young woman graduating from college, that seemed extremely punitive and limited. And so, I needed to find a way to speak, uh, that wasn't as oriented towards perfection and, uh, rigidity as that. And so, a lot of the choices I've made at that time were really more about what I wasn't doing than what I was doing. It was like, I didn't want to do this because it fell into that category. I didn't want to do the other thing, cause it fell into this category. There were so many things that I was avoiding and um, this other area allowed me to, in some ways, throw all of that up in the air and say, well, there is no such thing as absolute perfection in composition. Because what I was doing, uh, was not rigidly composed. It varied, it changed. It was sort of malleable. And it didn't have a privileged point of view from which a person looked at it the way a painting would. And it wasn't an autonomous object, the way a sculpture is considered to be. So, it kind of in a way, pushed back against ideas that those were things that had to be by creating situations that were so dependent on their surroundings. So infused with the real world, with references to the real world that, uh, they weren't aspiring to a kind of purity, abstract purity, and that, you know, gave way to a whole big other world of possibilities.

Lisa Hoke: 13:08

You know, it's interesting when we look back, because I think this is a great opportunity to look back a little bit because we've come together along this trajectory for so long. When I first got to New York after graduate school and was ferociously making things and living in a raw loft and trying to figure out how to navigate New York City alone in 1980, just the sheer force of trying to be a person mostly having been in the south and suddenly living in New York City. And just continuing the, what I was thinking in graduate school, there was a period after a few years that I was carrying on something that was no longer applicable. That it wasn't related to my life as I now knew it. And my life had changed radically. And how was that, how has that life going to be reflected in my work? And I realized that, in fact, the only way I would find the answer to that question was to throw out absolutely everything and start over. So I limited myself. I got rid of all the color. I limited myself to just very minimal, uh, wire, cast iron. I was casting vegetables. Cast iron and wire and working with suspension and gravity. And it seems hard to realize now how important that was to go strip something down to its essence so then I could build it back up. And I kind of feel as though the last 35 years have been just that. Always reassessing and rebuilding and moving again. Um, because every time I make something, whether it's building or, wherever I am it informs and makes me change for the next project. I look at it as an incredible opportunity and luxury that we got to, Elana, work with materials that we found exciting and scary and ridiculous and anything we wanted to work with and push that forward in our own way. And sort of call it our own. So, I like what you said about perfection in that, throwing that out, and throwing out a lot of other expectations, seems to have given us the opportunity to, when I look back, what I'm always amazed at is how tolerant and interested other people were in the things that we threw out and where we were.

Elana Herzog: 15:52

Yeah, I do think we've been lucky and that we've, we've lived in a community and built a community that participates in a conversation that we are interested in. And therefore, you know, are open to what we're doing and saying. What did you mean, Lisa, when you said that when you came to New York, you were throwing away a lot of things? Like, what are some of the things that you think you threw away?

Lisa Hoke: 16:20

Ooh, that's a tough question. One of the things I took out of my work is color. Because I don't feel like I understood color and what I expected from color. Which is surprising because it's the main feature of my work now. I think at the time I feel as though I did not, I needed to invent my own systems and rules. And I felt a drift in that there was too much information coming in from living in New York. Looking at art excitedly, having just arrived here. And the notion that not everything that I found fascinating could be included in what I was making. That I had to somehow isolate what I wanted to start with. And I think in, in all of my work, it's coming up with systems and structures that serve me at the time. So, it was actually the reduction that gave me the opportunity to build slowly. You know, the...that whole idea of going as small and as personal as I could to expand to a bigger place.

Elana Herzog: 17:33

That's so interesting. Um, part, partly what you said about color, which, you know, I think we should definitely get back to because it is so much what your work is all about. Regardless of anything else that it is also about. You know, just in the last couple of days, my opportunity to sort of review your images and to look on your website. I'm, that's what I was stunned by in a way, is that your work is about color more than anything else. And, and in probably ways that I don't even know yet. And then the other thing I thought of has to do with limitations and structures and how, when you're not a painter or a stone Carver, or a welder or whatever a person might have been in the before times, we need to impose limitations on ourselves and to divine the structures that we're working under. I mean, we live in a time where, um, there's such, uh, an eclecticism. And there's access to so many different kinds of ideas. And I was thinking to myself that in, in a way, sites themselves and, as well as all kinds of other categories of limitation, create structures in which I thrive. I think I thrive in a, when I have more limitations than when I have fewer limitations. And sometimes those limitations are, you know, connected to funding. Or they're connected to time. Or they're connected to skills that I do or don't have. Or don't have access to. Uh, as well as to architecture and the specifics of a given site. And that those are such a gift to me in terms of giving me something to push against, giving me something, to be challenged by, you know, it brings to mind those kinds of expressions, uh, like, um, you know, necessity being the mother of invention or, uh, form following function, you know? Those are such, uh, useful categories. Uh, and so in some ways, those are, I would say, when we talk about, when we try to understand what it means to work in relation to a specific site, that's one thing that that kind of work offers me. Is a language that's already in place. And then limitations.

Lisa Hoke: 20:04

That's really fascinating. And it was something that I also have always been intrigued with your, um, your travels and your residencies. Specifically, the residencies that you've done, I wanted to ask you how they inform your projects? Either later or during? Because you, you do more interesting residencies than anybody I know.

Elana Herzog: 20:32

Well, thank you. I have really wanted to travel. And I've traveled to make exhibitions in the U S and outside of the U S as I think you have quite a bit too. And, you know, that involves a whole set of experiences of staying in a new place temporarily. Being completely outside of the routine of daily life or family or any other commitments. Um, throwing yourself right a hundred percent into the work, you know? So, those, that's, that's a kind of project based experiences. But I have also been inspired to travel as a part of research. What I would loosely call research. Not necessarily scholarly research. But research into places, people, and in my situation, uh, textiles. Because over a period of years, my interest in textile has changed. It's become more explicitly a focus of my work and it's become a kind of a, a window into a much bigger world of, you know, global dynamics, I would say. To use the term loosely. Whether it's political. Whether it's economic. Whether it's social. And, you know, I've come to see myself as interested in what I would call material culture for its own sake. Not simply as props or as formal elements or as a kind of intimate domestic elements. But as really capable of carrying a lot of embedded meaning and significance. And I think that first happened to me in, I was thinking back in 2008, when I was invited to do a project in South Carolina to do with, uh, efforts to revive the niche textile industry down there after it, most production had been outsourced to Asia from the U.S. And that was the first time I really started taking out books about labor history and textile history to read about what had happened in this country and then how it connected to what was happening globally. And a lot of great books have been written in the interim, even since that started. But you know, of course like the outsourcing of the textile industry to Asia, followed the outsourcing of the textile industry from the north of the U.S. to the south of the U.S. All in response to unionization and, you know, and that had a much deeper history, of course, that we can look at in relation to slavery and colonialism. And it just goes on and on. It goes back and back and back and out and out and out. And it's this incredible opportunity to expand the window of my view of the world. And whether metaphorically or in specifically to do with this one thing. So, uh, that got me to want to go to residencies more. And to seek out residencies than other countries. And, um, so I was able to go to Russia and to Norway several times. And to the Republic of Georgia. And that did seem to be derailed a bit by the pandemic, I have to say. But I'm hoping that I can go back to that. Although certainly some of the, like the consequences of global travel are playing out environmentally in a way that, you know, I think we should all be reconsidering, the love of travel. However, um, interestingly that you asked me that question. In fact, most of the work that I've done on these residencies, other than collecting materials and doing really explicit research by visiting museums and other, uh, important sites. The effect it's had on my work is actually to make my work lighter and more portable. Because it's hard to go to a residency if what you're doing is building walls and making things that can't be moved. So, that is another ethos that I'm interested in pursuing. Because being lighter on my feet is probably good for everybody. Me, the planet, everything. When I was in Norway, I did make a piece with a tree trunk that I left behind. And I'm not sure what happened to it. I should find out. But I suggested that they just put it in the woods and let it decompose. So, you know, I'm very interested in ephemerality, in general. That's my thing. One of them. How about you? Are you, how do you feel like your traveling has impacted your work?

Lisa Hoke: 25:24

Well, I love the subject of portability. And over the years, I'd say, you know, in this last decade, especially, when I moved into working with, um, and I've always worked pretty much from the beginning when I did start to introduce color again. Indigenous color. Color that is found color that exists in our commercial world. I think the shocking thing about the last decade of work or so, is when I moved to work with commercial packaging. Which I did as a way to have an absolutely free material. When I was trying to build with in no budget, I suddenly realized that, at my disposal, in my recycling bin was this revenue of color that was printed and beautiful, and everybody was throwing it away. So when I started cutting that up and making installations out of that, there were a number of installations that were rather humorous at the end. Um, I did a big project at Rice University, a gallery that Kim Davenport ran. This great program where it was only installations. Um, they just published a book recently looking at her 22 years of inviting artists just to do installations called, I think it's called Doing Something Well. Doing One Thing Well. Which I thought was just tremendous and so unusual in our culture. When she retired, of course, it's, it's over because it really existed with Kim. The piece that was shipped down there was, took up a tractor trailer and it was all paper that was just curled in a, um, a curl that was glued to the windows. And I think that was the last time something really traveled in a big container for me. Then it was right during the Enron time. So all these companies that opened up that were shredding everything because nobody wanted any documents anymore. So we hired a shredder to come over and the piece was gone in about 10 minutes when, when it came down. And I think at that point, that was 2008. I started to adopt the idea that I could go anywhere with a pair of scissors. That there is trash everywhere. And literally the last project I did before COVID stopped everything was, I was, I lived in Italy for two months in Torino building a piece for Lavazza. It was the first permanent commission I'd ever had. Where I literally arrived with the pair of scissors. And, um, built a 55 foot piece out of their packaging that they had. When I did a piece in Sarasota, there was a high school that they were going to gut and turn it into, uh, the Sarasota Museum of Art. So they asked me to come down there and build a piece. And at that time I was doing something else and I said, I'd love to come, but I don't have time to collect a lot of recycling and packaging. And they said, don't worry. So they had these, um, weekend things where, uh, they put an ad in the paper and asked people to bring the recycling. And they dumped all their recycling on the lawn in front of this high school. And when I got there, there were teams of, teams of volunteers in the community that were cutting it up and helping me. And I have to say that, community became, at that moment, like, one of the more poignant things that I realized about building on site. Was that, it really was a way that institutions brought people in. They brought people into to help. To look. To be part of things. The programming. This was the hardest part for me. Because one performance anxiety had, I'd sort of had to just pretend I didn't have it. Because I was suddenly in a position of doing all the things I was the most afraid to do. Which is to build a piece of art while 20 people are staring at you. It's still terrifying. And I don't know how sometimes we end up doing the things that terrify us the most. But the reward was pretty great in every one of the situations. Wherever I went, and wherever I built a piece, I came away knowing more about people in Texas and people in Oklahoma and people in Missouri and Tennessee. And their communities. And the good parts about them and the bad parts about them. But I felt like that was probably one of the most important things about building site-specific work and installations, was that, there was an interconnectedness that was really important about community. And that the institutions, these small museums that supported all of my work for the last 15 years. And supported it financially. They supported it politically. And they supported it without even knowing what I was going to do when I came. And so there was this trust that was extremely moving to me. And still is. I still tend to describe what I'm about to do with my hands. Which is no help at all when you're describing, uh, a piece of art. So I'm always amazed at the trust in the art world at the institutions that support artists.

Elana Herzog: 31:02

Well, clearly you've inspired that trust. You know, you've inspired that trust over a period of time because you have a track record. And I think that's really an important thing and...

Lisa Hoke: 31:12

And, and every institution I worked with also provided me with place to stay, not only, I mean, Lavazza, yes, that was extraordinary. How, probably that's going to be at the top of my list. And even though I work alone in my studio, when I'm working on installations, and maybe this has happened with you, Elana, that we have to adapt to working with people. I go from a very private one-on-one in my studio. I don't have assistants. To working with a lot of people. I kind of feel like it's the best of both worlds. How about you?

Elana Herzog: 31:51

Yeah. I mean, I, I have, I have some overlap with that, uh, in a variety of ways. I mean, one is, I, I should mention, like I have a background in construction. So, in the eighties I was a contractor. And so that was my life. I was working with people. And I love to work, for whatever reason. I mean, I love the physical world. You can see that in my work. But I, I like to work and I like to get to know people by working next to them. You know, that's a way that I like to socialize. I've always kind of lived in two worlds because my parents were in academia. And it meant a great deal to me to become a mechanic, essentially. And to live in the physical world. And on a very small scale, to have a business, although that's never been something I'm comfortable with. Uh, but you know, there was a thrill in it in the eighties when I was an electrician. So, you know, my work echoes construction. There's construction materials in it. And being on the job, the job site, is a familiar place. So for me, like a museum is a job site. Or where I execute is a job site. And what's been interesting has been, how I do get to connect with community. Because often it's not necessarily the community that I would expect to. For instance, like, one of my very first public pieces was on Staten Island at Snug Harbor in 1991. And I was making something that was responding to a Parkland, a part of the Parkland there at Snug Harbor. And, you know, it was a very intuitive piece. It was absurd in many ways. There were plants and trees that I had planted coming up through holes in tables that I had also planted in this area. It was kind of like a picnic ground almost. And very absurd and dreamlike. And under a couple of giant trees that were there. And, um, so people would walk by from the community. It was nowhere near the art venue up above. And they would puzzle it out with me, you know? And they'd show interest. And I felt like I was able to kind of win over friends in a way. Win over people who might be otherwise very unreceptive to something as unconventional as, in terms of art making, as that. It wasn't a statue. It wasn't a painting. And, um, you know, it was very, very satisfying to me to do that. And there were some issues with vandalism around the park. And my piece never got vandalized for the entire run of the show. And I, you know, a little part of me felt like I had, you know, somehow I had like some angels in the neighborhood who were looking out for it. And, um, when I've worked in museums, I did a project up at Cornell in 2005, where I was in the Johnson Museum, which is a collecting museum. It has, um, you know, medieval art. It has modern art. It has Asian art. It has every kind of art in its collection. And here I was installing these very ephemeral kind of degraded, uh, carpets that were embedded into the walls of the gallery. And then scattering other things throughout the permanent collections. So, I was an anomaly in that setting. I had my bags inspected every day when I came in and out. I had a guard watching me most of the time. I was, In some ways, a hazard to the whole institution. Because those kinds of institutions are set up to protect things of value for the owners. And it was incredibly revealing to me, you know, to realize that I was setting up or juxtaposing my work, which appears to be unconservable, uncollectable. You know, which kind of pushes back against the very idea of conventional value or monetization of an object in this setting. Right next to the medieval of art. And so there, the people who I got to be close with over a period of time were those security guys. And the other staff members who are just there. They're working. And you know, if you're nice and you're around, you start talking to people. And you get to know them. And that becomes a real part of the experience that's so important. You know, and that's above and, you know, those, that's in addition to all the other kinds of things. Like working with students. Or other things where you'd expect that to be a part of it.

Lisa Hoke: 36:42

Oh, that's really interesting. The whole idea, I think you were talking about the work ethic and, and how important being on the job is. And then, when you're on the job, you have a relationship with other people that are on a job as well. Their job is just different. And I think I, I go away from the museums knowing where everybody's making coffee. And where the bathrooms are. And I feel as though I have this temporary home in a museum, which is very privileged. I know that. But it's the loveliest thing to look back on, is how, how engaged everybody in an institution is also, when somebody odd, appears. I think it's a relief to when we show up, and we're doing something that is causing a little bit of uncertainty. And, I will have to say, I wanted to give one plug to the National Academy. They have something called the Abbey Mural Prize. And it's a really important prize. And it's now divided, I think over a number of artists. But I was lucky enough to be nominated to apply for that in 2008. And that had a huge effect on my job learning. Because I was lucky enough to get it. And at that time, it came with the museum show at the New Britain Museum. And there was this enormous stairwell at the new Britain museum that was endowed by Sol LeWitt's estate. So the, the thing that was so dramatic about this prize was that I would build a piece in the museum that would last five to six years. I think it was supposed to be two years. But it ended up staying there for six years. But I could not use any staff for anything. So, I had to, for the first time in my life, figure out how to do workman's comp. Hire a crew. Get scaffolding. The scaffolding, I finally did get, had just come off the Statue of Liberty and still had salt stains on it. I hold that as one of the most pivotal moments because I was ultimately responsible for everything. And that had never happened. I'd always gone to institutions and the institutions had their support team that they would offer to me. Or I would go, there was always a support team to help. And this was the first time I was told I had to get the insurance for myself for everybody. I had no idea how to do that. So, when I learned how to do it, it made everything possible for me to imagine 15 years later. Nothing was ever as scary as that. And the scaffolding was three stories.

Elana Herzog: 39:34

But having said that...

Lisa Hoke: 39:35

Yeah?

Elana Herzog: 39:36

They provided a budget for that. They didn't expect it of you and not provide the budget to pay for it.

Lisa Hoke: 39:42

And that's the prize. Yeah.

Elana Herzog: 39:44

Very important. Yeah.

Lisa Hoke: 39:46

That's the beauty of, uh, the Mural Prize, is it just gives you the cash to do it. It's really a fantastic thing. Like I could do what I never thought I could do with that pay.

Elana Herzog: 39:57

And now, you don't have to be nominated to apply right? Now, anybody can apply.

Lisa Hoke: 40:03

Exactly.

Elana Herzog: 40:04

So it's good to be plugging it.

Lisa Hoke: 40:05

Yeah. It's a, it's a wonderful thing. So, Elana, I know somehow we're speeding along here. As far as, I guess I wanted to just ask you, you probably get this as much as I do, where I've been asked a number of times, how we get these projects. And I wanted to ask you if you have anything to offer about, like, how you've gone about doing these projects and how they come to you or whether you create them or any of the above.

Elana Herzog: 40:40

It's such a good question because it's not as, the answer is not as straightforward as one might think. I mean, I haven't really applied for very many specific projects. And I'm trying to remember whether I applied for the one at Snug Harbor. It took place so long ago. The one I do remember applying for in an open call was, uh, the In Practice Projects at the Sculpture Center. But the reason I think I got that one, was that my application was very clear. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Which is very rare for me. I, part of the reason I knew what I wanted to do was because I had already done a lot of it in my studio. I, I had done something without a site. I had started making a piece without a home. And when I saw the site at the Sculpture Center, it clicked for me. Like, oh, I can make this work here. I had images. I had a remarkably, um, clear idea. And it was, actually in 2005, it was before digital application. So I, I made a really nice presentation. I kind of made a pop-up book that was the installation. I don't think you could get away with that now. So, you know, digital renderings are probably a good. But I don't usually have very well formed, complete plans for pieces before I make them. Partly because it's hard for me to get excited about it if it's not real. And, unless I'm excited about it, the ideas don't flow. And, uh, that's a sorry situation, I have to say. However, I feel like I'm just lucky. And a lot of what I do might be things that another person might not want to do, you know? In a situation and other person might not want to be in. And we came up during a kind of renegade time when real estate wasn't worth that much. When there were a lot of sort of renegade exhibitions and opportunities for artists without any money being attached to them. And, you know, I had the privilege of being able to do those without being compensated properly for them.

Lisa Hoke: 43:09

That's a very good point.

Elana Herzog: 43:11

I think that's a sad part of, you know, what happens. And learning to ask for money has been one of the hardest things in my life. You know, I, I still don't do it enough, you know? And, um, it starting to see more and more important. But it definitely means that, you know, if you have the, the luxury of being able to afford to do something that you're not being properly paid for, you know, you're more likely to get that opportunity.

Lisa Hoke: 43:42

It's such a conundrum because the secret behind that is, is even though we may get paid to travel and do something, I would probably do it for nothing. So, I don't want anybody to know that. But we did it for nothing for so long that it's true. It's very hard to ask to be paid for something you love doing. And that you have, uh...

Elana Herzog: 44:09

And it could be that that's a woman's problem.

Lisa Hoke: 44:11

It could very well be that.

Elana Herzog: 44:13

You know, that, uh, it's partly that we're, you know, we're glad to have opportunities. And, for me, when you were talking earlier about learning how to deal with workman's comp and all of those things, another thing it makes me realize is that I've always felt like I needed to prove that I could do things and therefore had trouble asking for help. Whether it was technical or monetary. So there's always been a part of me where my pride is caught up in being able to demonstrate my ability. And that's another thing I'm, I think, needs to be gotten over. Like, it's more important at this point to ask and expect some help then to, you know, prove. I don't have that prove anymore.

Lisa Hoke: 45:05

That's a very good point.

Elana Herzog: 45:06

Although I still do like doing things.

Lisa Hoke: 45:08

Yes. I remember for years, when I was working with, uh, doing the thousands and thousands of cups that I was screwing into each wall, I would volunteer that I would skim coat afterwards. Because I was so afraid that nobody would let me build what I wanted to make unless I promised to fix the wall afterwards. And, there was one time that someone suggested, well, you know, why don't you just see about whether they'll take on the, the, uh, skim coating. And so I put that into a contract. And I also, I do highly recommend contracts. And I do them all the time. And I started to add that the wall would need to be skim coated. And I tried to leave off the end of the sentence of buy me and just leave it open. And then once somebody accepted that the sentence would be filled by the museum, then I started to think more of asking for what I really needed. This is what I expect. This is when I want to do it. This is how long I think it will take. And every time I did another contract, I felt stronger because I had one to base it on. And I think that's, that's the hardest thing to get started when you're younger and doing these, is that you can't say, well, this is what I did last time. Trust me. I say that now. And always hope that it works. That, uh, people will trust me. Um, but it's very hard, at first, to ask, I think, as women artists, uh, it's been tricky territory. I think that in the years that we've been making work, Elana, we've seen, well, we, we were very determined with a group of women artists not to be stopped by being so poorly represented in the art world. So in the nineties, that was pivotal part of our determination was not to be stymied from doing what we wanted to do. And whether it meant that we had to do it in a raw space, Snug Harbor, wherever we had to do it, we were going to do it. And it's still an issue, whether it's the diversity with all artists, it is the hardest thing to feel marginalized. So, I don't know whether we can say there's been progress. I think the Academy to their credit is trying to change a lot of their programming and what's happening. It's very exciting. I don't know if the art world itself feels that exciting. And I think you made a reference to monetizing artwork. And I think right now we're living in an art world where no matter what ethnic background, whoever you are, there's a monetizing that might be more oppressive than anything else.

Elana Herzog: 48:05

Yeah, I'm seeing a lot of that too. I mean, there's opportunity. But there's also, people are being boxed in, in new ways, I think. Boxed into these kind of mandatory scripts about what they do or mandatory formats that they work in and rationales for why they do what they do. Uh, that's probably, you know, its own cage. But...

Lisa Hoke: 48:31

Yes, that's true.

Elana Herzog: 48:33

You know, that's going to give this next generations something to push back on.

Lisa Hoke: 48:36

That's true.

Elana Herzog: 48:38

Let's just say, you know, I mean, every generation has to push back on something, you know? I've, I've sort of pushed back on the very, you know, the sort of monetization of my work, for better or worse already. You know, that was a form of challenging hierarchy or challenging definitions of success. I mean, that's, I think been a really important part of my life, has been trying to hold on to my own definition of success rather than constantly feeling like somebody else was going to be telling me what that was.

Lisa Hoke: 49:17

Yes, that's true. And I know that in this last decade or so, the notion of commercialization has played quite a role with my work in that, because of the very materials I use with this commercial packaging, has made me very conscious of the marketing strategies, the consumer purchasing of materials, and this, you know, I've always kind of talked about the ugly horror of the beauty of the materials that I collect. Because, recently I was asked, well, where do you get all your materials and it's like, I get them every day and in my trash, you know? It's what we are buying. And, I think the pandemic is an interesting thing. Our horror, when we had an empty shelf and there was no toilet paper, if there was paper towels. I think we just all about fainted when we had like, not this major choice of items. And it brought home this perfusion of luxuries that we have lived with in this country and our choices. But it also, again, we have become sort of, uh, we stay addicted to buying and throwing away. And that breaks my heart. And a lot of what I reap for my color is based on this terrible notion of waste and discharge. And so, it's a conundrum to work with this material.

Elana Herzog: 50:56

Well, it's also seems like, um, it has to do with, uh, scaling, as well. Like, the fact that there is such an abundance. Like, something about your pieces speaks to volume. Just the incredible volume of these almost unused pieces of packaging. I mean, they're used. But they look brand new at all times. They never really get worn. And they have this intense color in them. And, um, and there's so much of them.

Lisa Hoke: 51:31

I did have somebody write a criticism about, how could you call this recycled work, which I didn't do somebody else did. Um, it all looks new. It's like, yes, that's the point. Everybody throws it away before it's, it's even been used. You know, you unpack something and you go through six containers before you get to this tiny item. I've often said, there's more money spent on the outside of a box than there is on what's on the inside of the box.

Elana Herzog: 51:58

Yeah.

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 51:59

So, I wanted to come to this conversation. You guys have hit a few points, um, kind of cyclically, where it seems like things occur and your lives and your practices. Um, and one of the things that I'm really interested in are the sort of limitations in being boxed in, you know? Talking about boxes, being boxed in and how it seems like pretty early on, both of you spoke about breaking out of that box. So, I'm really curious in both instances, where and how you've decided to give yourself permission. Cause it seems like a continual process in order to keep pushing through in the monetization conversation and the medium conversation and all of these different sort of things you come against.

Elana Herzog: 52:37

Can I say something here? I feel like that will help bring us back to the conversation about color and your work, perhaps, Lisa. And for myself, you know, I said earlier that a lot of the decisions I made in the earliest years of my work, meaning like, the eighties and nineties. Mainly the nineties, I guess, we're driven by a kind of negation. I won't do this because it makes me think of that. I won't do this because it looks like that. I won't do the other thing. And one of the things I was avoiding so assiduously was, something I associated with beauty. So I really pushed back on the idea of something being beautiful. Because I felt like, at least if it wasn't beautiful, I knew I wasn't falling into an easy answer or something. And so, I really toyed with revulsion in a way, in my choices of materials. I used a lot of elastic. And I used a lot of really tawdry color that made things look like either underwear or soiled clothing or intestines, body parts. You know, a kind of a, an abjectness that was really important to me. Uh, and there was humor throughout it. And there was beauty in it. And there was pathos in it, as I saw it. But it wasn't a kind of easy beauty. It wasn't pretty. And I also became very interested in using things that I thought were really tacky, or really decorative in a way that, for instance, my parents would not have approved. And so pushing back against these hierarchies and standards of beauty in a conventional way. And pushing back against categories that were associated with painting or sculpture in the traditional way. And then, at a certain point, when I started making my big staple chenille bedspreads, which were rectangles, found chenille bedspreads that I embedded into wall panels and then shredded to the point where really all that you had left was this kind of evaporating image that consisted of shredded fabric and metal staples, and little holes in the walls. And sometimes gouges. That process, which was so bizarre in some ways. So much about excavation and elimination and subtraction and had some violence to it, connected me with painting in a way that I had never felt connected with it. Because I was using a rectangle, a found rectangle. I was making something that was pretty much the size and scale of an abstract expressionist painting. Sometimes there would be references to the grid in them, quite often. I was appropriating all of the imagery from that. And dealing with issues that I associated with painting, like figure and ground. While at the same time, sort of challenging the very existence of that object. And making it continuous with the space that it was embedded in so that it didn't have any really well-defined boundaries. That, for me, opened up a whole new world where beauty could be embraced in a much more explicit way. Because somehow I had done what I had to do to give myself permission. To approach things from an explicitly aesthetic, the point of view.

Lisa Hoke: 56:21

And I remember when you, all the way through that experience, Elana, one of the things that is, that I remember so well, are meeting with other people and talking about your journey in each of that bot, those bodies of work and the ugly beauty issue, was we discussed it at great length with groups of other artists. And, I remember thinking that, you had been able to crack that nut in a way that I was too nervous to crack. I mean, I remember some pieces of yours that even the sheets that you were using were like horrible sheets. Like, and some of the forms were really hard and yet they all had this delicacy and this beauty. I was surprised, I wish you had a photo of the installation you did at the Aldriach Museum. Because that was also a really interesting, pivotal moment where some of the abjectness was present. But it was moving towards embracing, a kind of underlying beauty that was just present in your structures.

Elana Herzog: 57:39

Thank you. Yeah. And the reason I didn't, um, share the Aldrich work was because, although I loved making it and I love the components in it, I always felt that its site specificity was in question. You know, it was a surround. But its relationship to site wasn't as central to its existence as, you know, a lot of my other work. And that's part of why I didn't put it up. So much of my work, and I think I could say that about a lot of your work too, is very, and somewhat the earlier work, like, some of the thread waxing work that you've put into the images pieces, that are suspended. I was looking at one where you're combining those mufflers with, um, strapping and kind of made, made a weaving almost out of them where they're going out in all different directions and kind of juxtaposing this raw rusty muffler with banding. Even when they are not, what I would call, site-specific installations, so much of my work is very vulnerable to, and sensitive to, and responsive to, the way it's installed. Whether it involves things that hang from the ceiling or connect to the wall or some combination of that. Even my pieces that I would think of as discrete pieces, often talk about their own precariousness. And the fact that they don't have structural integrity. They could not stand by themselves. They rely on this, sometimes very ambiguous or precarious combination of forces that support them. And that's very important to me.

Lisa Hoke: 59:36

I think we share that in that, the wall and the ceiling play a pivotal role. Even when something is standing for me, I usually attach it in some way. The thread waxing space was one of those magical spaces in the early nineties. The raw, I think it was 5,000 square foot space that Tim Nye had. And, the opportunity to build these really wacko pieces. I did one piece with, uh, car windshields I called lucky charms that were hanging from a big chain with, with pipes. And it was such a great experience to just build and not think about whether there was any, um, anybody involved that was going to, uh, question it or negate it or want to know if it's going to hold up tomorrow. When I moved from the metal sculptures, it was almost as if, and I, and I have to say, I, over the course of these years, I had five galleries and each one of them, their support of what I did, which gave them very little financial return, had a lot to do with giving me courage and strength. And after I did the metal work and the, the, uh, tension gravity, uh, work and started to introduce in the first piece, I introduced an element where shower curtains holding up 50 pounds of steel wire. That was the beginning of looking around my world at, Elana you've talked about the ugly beauty, but what I was fascinated with is, well, could a button that's in my sewing box, could that turn into a piece? Could that drinking straws and the zippers and every single thing in my house. The cans in, um, in the trash... all of a sudden my world narrowed to this really tiny, it's my domestic world. And we've never really come up with a better word. And we were hindered by the word domestic for a long time. But, it was, looking out the window and realizing, oh, that curtain could be here or the shower curtain or rubber bands. And we all know what happens to rubber bands in short period of time. Uh, wine glass is glued to the wall. I'm...what I loved was this feeling, and I don't know if I have it now, but that feeling of building anything you wanted to make and feeling no responsibility for it's a permanence. Like the lack of responsibility. Only thing I felt I needed to be responsible for, which is why I moved away from working with 250 pound cast iron, is the safety of people. If I wasn't worried about that, then the collapse of something, eh that was okay. And that happened. Things collapsed.

Elana Herzog: 1:02:38

And it was a transient sort of experience. And it was an experience that, we all have. But it didn't have to last forever. It wasn't anybody's investment, you know. It wasn't going into a portfolio of investments. But you've also just referenced repetition, you know, as an aspect of both of our work. I mean, in talking about the buttons and how accumulation and repetition are reflections of labor. They're reflections of, sort of modest, modest units of material that can be used to develop a monumental form or image. And, that kind of coming together through modest means to produce something monumental. It doesn't have to be through casting bronze, um, you know, or welding steel or heavy duty engineering. It can be done in the most modest way and...

Lisa Hoke: 1:03:40

Absolutely.

Elana Herzog: 1:03:41

...have a cumulative impact. Which I think has been, you know, really, uh, an amazing thing to be able to figure out, you know, requires ingenuity.

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 1:03:52

I'm curious about when you two first met or, and or became familiar with each other's work?

Elana Herzog: 1:03:58

Well, my version of it, this is what I remember. In 1991, we, um, both... in 1991, after I had done this is my story. I had made my peace at Snug Harbor. Which was the first piece that I'd ever really put into a public space. I met another artist, Lisa Hine, through that piece. And she's the only person who has ever cold called me out of nowhere to say that she liked my work. You know, so it was something I will never forget. It was an extremely generous act. And then, within a few months, she invited me to participate in a Women's Group. That's what we called it. The Women's Group, or something like that. And it was a group of artists who came together and met in one another studios or shows and talked. And, that's where I met you, Lisa, as far as I remember.

Lisa Hoke: 1:04:58

Yup, I think that's right. I think that's right.

Elana Herzog: 1:05:01

Within a few months of that.

Lisa Hoke: 1:05:02

Yeah, and we met a tremendous group of people. Sometimes we'd have 40 to 60 women and we go to each other's studios. Sometimes we'd go to shows.

Elana Herzog: 1:05:15

No masks.

Lisa Hoke: 1:05:16

And talk about...no masks, that's right. And we'd talk about work. And I do remember a big effort to network each other. And the support of recommending each other and helping each other and talking about how we can move forward as artists. Uh, it was really, it was right at the time that a WAC was, was underway. But WAC was a different group and ours was kind of a spinoff, a little more personal studio oriented. And we knew a lot of the same people.

Elana Herzog: 1:05:52

And continue to know a lot of them too.

Lisa Hoke: 1:05:54

Yeah.

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 1:05:55

So one of the questions, I also always ask one of the, sort of closer to the end conversations I like to understand how everybody feels, how you all feel about being a National Academician. And I think especially how we started the conversation, talking about the representation of installation work in the collection and being artists who create work that is not traditionally, has not traditionally been a part of what the National Academy, you know, started to collect or show or as a... or support in the organization. So, it's an open-ended question and just what your feelings are as being part of this collective of artists and architects?

Lisa Hoke: 1:06:34

Maybe I'll start by saying, I love being part of it. I wish everybody who's part of it would participate. I think that that's the dream of the Academy, is that we, I mean, it's really an extraordinary group of artists and architects. And I am hoping we expand our vision. I think, since I've been a member since 2018, not that long, I came in at the time, I guess, uh, they were just on the verge of selling the building. I think that it is a new organization. And I think it renews itself and has historically. So, I think that that is nothing that people should be afraid of. And, I think that it's very important that it be inclusive of all generations. But I think that it is an organization that has to renew itself all the time. Because that's part of how we grow intelligently. That's how we grow democratically. And I think for it to be a democratic institution is the most important thing.

Elana Herzog: 1:07:46

Wow. And I joined a year after you. So I joined. Pretty much right before the pandemic. And I feel like I've not yet, you know, experienced it any other way really. But I'm happy to be part of it. And I'm getting to know it. And I'm on a committee. And I'm participating, actually, in an exhibition that was initiated as part of the Academy. For which I'm incredibly grateful. So, you know, I'm excited to think that it can develop and grow and welcome, uh, new types of artists. I'm thrilled that it will be a place that I know will take care of the work that I've donated. You know, that's a, that's a great, um, a gift in a way for somebody like me. So, hoping for the best. And also that you're doing things like this.

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 1:08:47

Well, thank you for participating in something like this. It's so great to have here, your voices and perspectives as a part of the Academy and on the podcast.

Lisa Hoke: 1:08:54

Thank you both.

Elana Herzog: 1:08:55

Thank you.

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 1:08:56

So yeah, it wasn't too painful. Was it?

Elana Herzog: 1:08:59

Does doesn't mean it's over?

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 1:09:00

I will say, I feel like you guys were, I was like, so hesitant to stop. I was like, look at the timing, like, oh they're really getting into it. I want to just keep going. So I, if you noticed, it was like way past an hour that I was like, I'm just going to let them keep talking. They're going, it's going so well.

Lisa Hoke: 1:09:13

Oh my gosh. I had no idea.

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 1:09:16

I mean, we didn't even get to some things.

Lisa Hoke: 1:09:18

We didn't get to... I have this long list of things that we're supposed to talk about.

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 1:09:24

Of curiosity, what are the things you wanted to get to? Cause I'm super curious.

Lisa Hoke: 1:09:28

I want to mention two books I love that are important. But no, we did cover a lot.

Elana Herzog: 1:09:34

Yeah. I think we, I think the important things were covered.

Lisa Hoke: 1:09:38

It was hard to imagine how it was going to flow. But once it started to flow, it's the reason I wanted to talk to Elana, because I feel as though, we often have not enough time to, to talk about things and reflect on things. And it was kind of a great opportunity to look back on 30 years.

Elana Herzog: 1:09:58

Yeah. So much of the time we end up spending together as purely social. So, you know...

Lisa Hoke: 1:10:03

Right.

Elana Herzog: 1:10:03

It doesn't really scratch the surface. But I do know that Lisa is a great studio visit. Like she's a excellent critic. And we never really did get to talk about color. I thought you were supposed to talk about how you got from not using color to embracing in color. But it doesn't really matter.

Lisa Hoke: 1:10:21

Yeah.

Elana Herzog: 1:10:21

I think everything that happened was great.

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 1:10:24

I'm curious about two things. I'm curious about those two books. Cause you can say it quickly and it won't take a lot of time.

Lisa Hoke: 1:10:28

Okay. They, they are Visionary Women and it's amazing cause it's Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Jane Goodall and Alice Waters. And it's a book by Andrea Barnet. It's about that interconnectedness of human beings and nature and the built world. By four women that really, um, changed the world. Which I think is, is so huge that I thought, wow, is that too big a subject until I read it and thought amazing, amazing. She did an amazing job. And the other book is, I don't have it here, the Secret Lives of Color. You guys may have seen that. Came out in 2017, kassia St. Clair. And every page is the page of the color, which is just so rich. And then the history of that color in the world. And what it might mean like, um, where it came from and how it was used historically. Gorgeous.

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 1:11:29

Have you read Chromophobia?

Lisa Hoke: 1:11:31

Many years ago.

Elana Herzog: 1:11:33

I thought you were going to say Chromophobia.

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 1:11:35

Well, when we're talking to the color conversation, we've been talking, so, we're, we're going to start a book club at the National Academy. It's like a public program, and an invite authors. So that's why I was very curious about your book lists. I was like, what can we add to the book club? But Chromophobia is probably going to be on, uh, the book club list. And so, when we were talking about color, I had, I just finished reading it and I was like, oh, I wonder...

Lisa Hoke: 1:11:57

That's a huge subject and at the time that book came out, it was so profound that museums, gray and white, with, were like the colors of choice. That monochrome. And what it took to work with even found colors, reds, and yellows, it was very controversial. Color was really a tough thing to, and I think... introducing color was really scary at the time.

Elana Herzog: 1:12:24

I wish it was on Audible.

Lisa Hoke: 1:12:26

Yeah. Yeah. I mean something that's hard to talk about... but when I was doing the metal work I was doing and that, I had a lot of support in the art world. And when I introduced, and it was in a Whitney show, I introduced the shower curtain, it was unbelievable. It was like the male art world just... this thing came down.

Elana Herzog: 1:12:50

I remember that.

Lisa Hoke: 1:12:51

I had just done something that was, why did I do that, they wanted to know? Why did I introduce a shower curtain into this perfectly beautiful metal thing?

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 1:13:01

That's so interesting to, to hear? Oh well, it's interesting, I mean, your whole conversation was interesting. But it's interesting to hear, especially. I also love materials. And so to hear two people who are, like, material invested...

Lisa Hoke: 1:13:13

Yes.

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 1:13:13

...and how that's like, uh, I, the permission question was, I will admit a very selfish question because I struggle with...

Lisa Hoke: 1:13:19

I know.

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 1:13:19

...giving myself permission all the time. Of like, I had a very traditional undergraduate painting experience and breaking out of like, you're allowed to use things other than oil paint, was like a mental block.

Lisa Hoke: 1:13:30

It's hard. It's really hard.

Elana Herzog: 1:13:31

Just that alone, right?

Lisa Hoke: 1:13:32

Yeah. One of the things I didn't get to was I had on my list to talk about the narrative in materials. How the materials carry the narrative, especially the way Elana and I've worked with them in that, I know Michelle Grabner had said that about the branding narrative. And I thought that, forgot to talk about that.

Elana Herzog: 1:13:52

I was just going to say that the permission giving part is so, I mean, I think that everything I say about, you know, finding my voice as an artist, you could talk about it in terms of my psyche too. Like, finding myself as a human being, you know, involve so much like peeling of the onion and expanding the frame to become aware of all of that unconscious bias and unconscious, like, the voices over your shoulder that are telling you what you can and can't do. Whether they come from your parents or your teachers, or, you know, societal forces. I mean, it's all one, you know? So, for me, that's, I mean, I, I don't know quite how to put that. I wish I had said that. But my emotional life and all of these processes that we're talking about are really very closely tied together. So...

Lisa Hoke: 1:14:48

It's...you do have to take a risk when you change. And even when you change bodies of work from year to year to year. You know you're going to lose people and you know you're going to gain people. And you have to really know it's for you first. Because it's always going to come with some kind of price. Positive or negative.

Elana Herzog: 1:15:10

And that's a function of time and longevity too. So, you know, what we're doing now is we're talking about, you know, decades of practice and these things that, until you've lived to a certain amount of time, you, you don't have that thing of, like, oh, my old work or my mid work for my blah, blah, blah. Well, my old work was better than my new work. You know, all of those things that, you know...

Lisa Hoke: 1:15:35

It's true. And, but one of the things I have to say that Elana and I share is, we get to look back on 30 years of doing what we wanted to do in making things that gave us a really good art life, I think. A really satisfying art life.

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 1:15:53

What to you makes a good or satisfying art life? Like what, how has that defined to you?

Lisa Hoke: 1:15:58

I felt like I got to travel. I got to meet people. I got to be part of communities I didn't know. I didn't just show in museum shows and have my work shipped out. I had to personally go places that, that I didn't want to necessarily like, oh, tomorrow I have to pack up and go travel somewhere and leave everybody behind. But the very things, and I think I did say this, that were the hardest and the most confusing, turned out to be the memories I have that are so strong. That what got satisfied was a sense of the risk of failure. There was always the risk of failure. And because we carried that with us, and it was a known entity, and we, I could live with failure, and had to sometimes, that was okay because it was a very rich life.

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 1:16:51

That's beautiful. I also agree with your definition.

Elana Herzog: 1:16:57

You know, that's part of the conversation about, well, you can't do everything in one piece. You know, there's always something you've got to leave for the next piece. This kind of acceptance. This acceptance of the fact that this is one day in your life and the next day will be the next day. And the next piece will be the next piece. And you can't, no piece is going to be the perfect piece. And there's always tomorrow. So it's like a working life. And, you know, because perhaps neither of us have had, you know, the kind of financial success or stardom on that artists want, we are also not going to come down from that. You know, we're always, we don't have to worry about, we don't have that much to lose. So we're always, you know, enjoying what comes next.

Lisa Hoke: 1:17:46

We're in it for the long game.

Elana Herzog: 1:17:49

We're playing the long game.

Lisa Hoke: 1:17:50

Long game's working for us.

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 1:17:52

I mean, this conversation, I could talk to you guys all day. But I will respect, I'll respect your time.

Lisa Hoke: 1:17:57

I know.

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 1:17:58

And this is, it was so fantastic.

Lisa Hoke: 1:18:00

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Elana Herzog: 1:18:02

Thank you. It was fun.

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 1:18:04

It was so lovely to talk to you guys.

Elana Herzog: 1:18:05

It was a great experience.

Lisa Hoke: 1:18:07

Thank you both so much.

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 1:18:16

You're listening to these Exquisite Corpse podcast. I loved learning more about these artists and getting more context for their work. For me, the conversation about materials felt particularly relevant. As someone who was invested in material exploration myself, I continually look to artists who have defied categorization and stepped outside of what was expected of them. During our chat, when I asked how they give themselves permission, it came out of my personal experience. I've always had a lot of different materials in my studio. Fabric wood, foam wire. Basically anything and everything from the craft and hardware store. But I only felt like I could create with certain things and still call them art. Undoing that idea freed me up to a world of possibilities. And I love hearing how other people have navigated similar journies. Next time on the podcast, we're joined by two more Academicians. An abstract painter who selected her podcast partner because of his long career in legacy. He's 97 years old, inducted in 1971 and was a practicing artist for decades before that. His stories were a real history lesson and eliminate the fact that the members of the National Academy are really a part of the larger art historical cannon.

Richard Mayhew: 1:19:28

One of my best friends was Toni Morrison. In the early years, she was the um, a editor for magazines and books before she became famous. And that's when I knew her. And I went to California, I lost that close contact I had with Toni Morrison. She's very sensitive and in terms of the unique sensibility of exchange of ideas. But I had that great respect for her in the beginning, the little conversations we used to have. So I'm very impressed by a lot of women in my life that made a difference. My grandmother, Toni Morrison, actually EG Montgomery...

Adrienne Elise Tarver: 1:20:10

So glad to have you here. Hope you come back for the next episode. Thank you for listening to Exquisite Corpse from the National Academy of Design. We are a 5 0 1 C3 nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting art and architecture and we rely on your support to make programs like this possible. To learn more and to donate visit National Academy.org. This conversation was recorded on February 17th, 2022. With the help of Anjelic Owen's, Programs Assistant at the National Academy. Exquisite Corpse is produced mixed and edited by Mike Clemow and Wade Strange at SeeThru Sound.