Robin Dash

 

Interview with Robin Dash at WSRC, Brandeis University, December 10, 2002

Abby: How are you doing today? You look busy and tired! Robin: Being an artist is a very emotional thing. It’s very deep. It’s not easy being an artist. I don’t know if I can take this [interview] today. But fuck it, I really want to do it. Abby: Can you tell me more about what it means for you to be an artist. Why is it so deep and emotional? Why is it so hard? Robin: It’s about being who you are. It’s not about making the work. Making the art is easy in comparison to being an artist in the society and the world. The longer I live the more I realize how OTHER I am. I live a very different kind of life than regular people are leading. Abby: What about it makes it so different? What makes the otherness? Robin: I can’t generalize for other artists, but for me it takes big chunks of time in the studio. I can’t be tied down by routine. I thrive on day to day life. That taps my creativity. I have a variety of jobs. I can’t have 9 to 5 jobs. I can relate to a broad spectrum of people. (at this point someone turned on the lights in the WSRC kitchen too brightly and Robin asked the woman to turn down the lights because they were hurting her eyes and then she said to me…) R: That just shows you what a supersensitive organism I am all the time. To do the work I do I have to preserve that sensitivity, but it doesn’t mesh well with getting by in the world. I wish I wasn’t so sensitive. But at the same time, I need to be like that to be able to do my work. A: Can you tell me about the art class you teach here at the WSRC with the group of women scholars? R: I am intellectual but counter academia. I enjoy working with college age people. They are playful. I am not really teaching; I set up learning situations. It is akin to what an artist does! The way I teach is about being an artist. I am self-conscious about the process. It’s what I care about. I learned a lot about what creativity means to me. A: What does it mean to you? R: Freedom. If people feel free then they can be creative. Uptight people get writer’s block. They are keeping themselves from being creative. Creativity is profoundly psychological. People keep themselves from being creative, they are afraid of their own drive. They are afraid to embrace their own drive. You can’t compare yourself to other people all the time. The women here compare themselves to each other too much. That stifles their creativity. I have never been much of a comparing person. I’ve always been other. I never thought about my body. I never compared myself to blondes. That’s how you can be an artist. You have to let go of even thinking about yourself. When I am really being creative in that space, I am not even thinking about how old I am, if I have kids, or where I come from. I am a primitive organism. I am mediating energies. I’ve got my Bob Dylan and my Bach and I’m off. Bob Dylan is a key to my creativity. You have to make a space for yourself. What is your creative space? What are the criteria? Make it and get in there! Acceptance is so important. You are the way you are. I could wish I drew a different way. But you can only make what you can make. There are so many things that changed from the time I was 20 to now when I am 48. But there are also constancies from 6 to 48. Something change and some things fall away. And it’s fun to be in this struggle, this angst. It brings up all these feelings. It is the greatest pleasure to know that I am going to do this creative stuff. Even if it is about sorrow. It is akin to psychoanalysis. You have to know all the feelings. It is a release to be creative and to be alive! So creativity equals being alive! It is a decision to be alive - as much as possible. I don’t want to be dead. I don’t want to make dead art. What’s the point? When I am teaching I think about how I can capture their creative forces? Maybe people need to talk about the sorrow they feel, maybe it will help them feel more alive. The worst thing to feel is dead. The worst thing is to be dead. That’s what I am fighting. I am compulsively alive and I want to help people to be alive. A: What or who were some of your influences? Are Bob Dylan and Bach influences? R: They aren’t influences. They are instigators. They are reminders to be funny, fierce and true to myself. Other people come and go but those guys stay certain. Like Jazz. Keith Jarret is another one of those. Anything in any sphere in the world. Bob Dylan is so uncompromising and authentic. He has this magical effect. He stirs up all these emotions, feelings and memories. He fuels my presence in my studio. He supports me to be who I am. Everybody has to do that – go with those particular things that do that for them, that reinforces them. Colors do that. There is such a quality of life in colors. New York City does that, it reminds me of who I am in the truest way. Also, chance encounters with people on the subway. A: Is there a certain place where you are most creative? R: My studio. It is in a mixed-use area. There are artists, businesses, truck drivers… it is a cool neighborhood. It’s a very urban setting. I like making art in the city. I also make art at the kitchen table at home. Those are the 2 places it gets made. Except in the arena of teaching or set designs. But it originates at the kitchen table or studio. I do a tremendous amount of day dreaming. All day, all night,every day, every night – about art! People drive by I don’t even notice them. I’m thinking about the paintings I’m going to do later. There is just as much going on in my head as what I am making. What I’m making isn’t the whole thing for me. It’s about being surprised a lot by life. These connections come together for me. There are things that catch me off guard. And the unknown is a huge thing. It is an incredible part of my work. Reconciling, embracing and coming to grips with the unknown. I am connected to unfathomable things about being alive. Creativity as a way of mediating the unknown. How do I know what’s going to come out of me? I don’t know until I see it. (As I am typing this I am reminded of Martha Graham (a famous modern dancer and choreographer)… she once said, "There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action. And because there is only one of you in all of time this expression in unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open…" So, Robin is saying – I won’t know what will come out of me until I make it. I have to keep that channel open to see what will come out!) For example, my father’s death… I didn’t get this… how can I use the unknown? It’s not knowable until it comes out! That’s why it is psychoanalytical. How do you make the unknown known to you? It is profound. Most people don’t want to go there. It’s heavy stuff. I am naturally an abstract artist. I’m not dealing with something narrative. But the narrative is visible through symbols. It comes out anyway. A: You teach abstract art and you are an abstract artist. Do you think what you like to do has an influence on what you teach? R: [Abstract art] resonates for me so much. So few people understand it or have learned about it. I used to be shocked that no one else knew about it. I thought everyone would because it was so important to me! I am teaching abstraction. I am teaching how to think abstractly about life. You could even compose music – anything about abstraction! A: What is abstraction? R: The essence. The abstract essence to everything. Even the most realistic thing is abstract. There is no difference. Abstraction is not counter to realistic. There is an abstract element to everything that is real. There are not polar opposites at all. Abstract is real. A: Would you like to choose a work to talk about? R: I have a lot of bodies of work. There is this state that I allow myself to go into to create or compose. It doesn’t matter which body of work. It is interesting – how I allow myself to engage in those problems. It is a combination of problems and engagements. I enter into a deeply intensive space like in myself to create. It starts in color states and texture states. I’m playing with the medium. I’m a painter. Paint is my total thing. Liquid is my medium. I discover stuff. The great unknown. I have a show in a couple of months. In the paintings there is so much color, being alive, chunks of energy and color interacting with each other, within and between paintings. I am thinking about doing an installation of 60 paintings. Make it a whole something opposed to just one painting and then the next. But that is a transition for me. I have never done that sort of thing. It scares me. Will it diminish or smoosh together? It took me 9 months to do all these paintings. It is the opposite of writer’s block. It is a GUSH, a profusion! It doesn’t mean that any are good. I need to do a process to get to something. I kept putting them into a storage space. I thought better ones were coming. But there are TONS of paintings. It’s like this compulsive pouring out of stuff. There are 1 million paintings inside of me that I am releasing. It is a shift for me. (This reminds me of Martha Graham again because Martha said that there are so many artistic things inside you and you have to let them out otherwise they will not exist. Robin is describing herself in the same way. She’s got all these paintings waiting to come out.) (At this point one scholar who was in the kitchen with us told Robin about a discussion group about Jewish women artists or something like that and that got Robin going about Judaism…) R: I have no background in Judaism. It makes me uncomfortable. I am Jewish. But I was raised by socialist activists. I feel like poser when I say I am Jewish. A: Tell me more about that Robin. R: I’ve been at Brandeis all these years. And I am close to all these Orthodox students; we stay in touch after they graduate. I can’t believe that they are into me! They want to collaborate with me! There must be something in me that is corresponding with them in this deep mystical way. Either that or it’s something universal because of the deeply creative and off beat person that I am. This summer I taught on the lower east side with one of my old Orthodox students. We worked in a settlement house for poor people. He wears a yamulke all the time. He’s an artist. He’s one of the coolest people I know. He taught me a lot. You know, I connect to Buddhism a lot. I’m not Buddhist, but I love the people who are Buddhist. Their process, their rituals, their chanting. Buddhism - at least in New York - feels more heterogeneous culturally [than Judaism]. There is more of a variety of people participating. I have a social activist background. I need diverse populations. It feeds my creativity. I have a deep connection with Hispanics and Blacks. And they have one to me too. It’s a tremendous generalization, but it’s true! To be a true artist in this society is to be a visionary. The whole society always has to catch up. You constantly have to wait for them to catch up! You have to be patient and deal with the frustration and rage. You keep on painting. You stay in arenas with like people, that doesn’t mean they call themselves artists, but they are like spirits. You have your own special existence as an artist. So don’t beat up on yourself. You need people to be understanding. A: (I told Robin about my friends Martha and Curt who are my "like spirits" and who I visit often when I am at school. They are dancers and choreographers who run a dance studio in Lunenberg, MA. I told Robin that they are like my second parents and Martha is like my second mom. Then Robin said…) R: We are born into families. But we need to find the right mother. It is a creative thing to do. Instead of warring with the one you have. It brings an enormous amount of relief. A: Can you tell me more about Freud’s influence on you? R: It’s an artistic, creative thing. The concept of getting conscious and working with the unconscious. I want to be as amazing as I can ever be. I want to have the most amazing feelings and experiences. I want to really live fully. I want to use my full potential. Psychoanalysis helps me to do that. It feels true to me. Sex and drive are a huge part of art and psychoanalysis. When people discover their sexual selves it releases this conviction to be creative. For me that’s part of it. Knowing my deep sexual self. How could I ever ignore that? It is the greatest thing on earth! Art is sex. Maybe that’s why people are so scared of it. It is so basic, it’s preverbal, deep complicated. You lose yourself, total abandon. You can’t find yourself until you lose yourself. That’s why Bob Dylan is so great. A: Can you tell me more about your teaching process?R: I am intuitive, impulsive, deeply thoughtful, deeply…I never think – I have something you’ve GOT to learn. It is – here’s something I think you might be interested in doing. I do not shove something down someone’s throat. I am the luckiest broad because I am getting to learn too! A: When did you realize that you were an artist? R: I’ve been this way since I was born, I knew since day 1 even if I didn’t have a name for it. Art is the essence of everything in life. Love, hate, disappointment, sorrow – art as a way of finding it out, coming to grips with the fact that we are all going to die. (pause) You know, giving birth is the most amazing thing… to have a child, I am having a child all the time, it’s not over once you give birth. You keep on giving birth every day. I’m had. My children have me. Lots of women artists never have children; they never feel the conflict. Kids are reinforcement. Students teach me so much about life. Notes on the interview:Robin was very easy to interview. She understands her creative process very well and was able to articulate it to me. Some of the key themes that Robin touched upon were the otherness she feels as an artist. Her hyper-sensitivity and how that both helps her make art but also hinders her functioning in the regular world. She likes working with college age students. She doesn’t like the idea of "scholars" because she feels like it is too rigid. Everyone is both a teacher and a student. Her teaching style allows that fluidity because she really lets her students be free in the classroom. She never criticizes. She always finds positive things in everyone’s artwork. She encourages each artist in her class to have his/her own personal style and way of working. There is no right way to make art in Robin’s eyes. She makes a strong connection between art and psychoanalysis because art is a huge release for her. It is a way for her to "mediate the unknown" and to make the unconscious conscious and the unknown known. When she is making art she is a "primitive organism" and is not even thinking about herself at all. To be creative you can’t compare yourself to other people and you have to accept who you are as a person and an artist. A huge thing for Robin is feeling alive and helping others to feel alive (which she definitely does). She uses Bob Dylan to give her the push to start creating. She plays around with the paints (she loves paint), colors and textures excite her. She fears death and so tries to make the most of every moment of life she has. The space she makes art in is very important, her two main places are her studio and her kitchen at home. She daydreams all the time and she is just totally thinking about her art. Her social activist background is a huge influence on her and her art work. She craves diversity. She also equates art with sex. Basically for Robin creativity is about passion, release, making the stuff that is buried down deep come out on the canvas. She is making the unknown known. She is letting go and not judging herself.