As what follows is an overly long interview, I’m going to start with a slightly short intro. Susan O’Malley is an artist based in the Bay Area and uses the materials and interactions of everyday life to create works invested with hope, optimism and humour. She was formerly a Curator at San Jose's ICA. As you can see, I could speak to her for days.
Me: One of the reason’s I started Joe’s Daughter was because I was interested in the possibilities of applying curatorial thinking outside the conventional art world. Curating, for me, is a way of giving permission to look at the visual and written language of a subject, to be sensitive to, and sample from, the discussions that are around us, to work in a spirit of collaboration and creativity, and to problem-solve, create narratives and bring together people, information and things.
I always had an affinity with Harrell Fletcher’s approach to his own art practice. His comment that just calling himself an artist means he can make a territory of his own definition: ‘I make the structure and organize the project, but local participants fill in the content.’ I’m curious about whether you can operate in a similar way as a curator.
So I want to start this discussion with the idea of a shared brain! You and I are both curators who are in transition. You recently left the ICA, San Jose, where you worked in exhibitions, to become a professional artist. I recently left the Wattis Institute to work in a different context. And for me, this brings up the idea of how you square the curatorial side with your artistic side?
Photo: Daniel Garcia
Susan O’Malley: I’ve always been drawn to the contradictions and tension of holding together multiple identities: being part this and part that, shifting from one status to another, feeling caught in-between and never really at home in either.
I went to school in the late 90’s when programs in Identity Studies were just starting in major universities. I spent many hours wrestling with my identity as a Mexican Irish former Catholic woman who grew up in white suburbia. I resolved that I am all these things at once and also the gray area in between – which for me can be a place of great potential and energy.
But back to my curator-self and artist-self. These are two roles I play and have played and I imagine I draw from both of them in different ways in the endeavors I pursue. It hasn’t been until recently that I decided to really nurture and commit to my artist self. It needed my attention and I couldn’t ignore it anymore. For me, being an artist is about becoming and exploring the gray space. I imagine some curators are able to explore this territory in their curatorial work, but for me it makes more sense to call myself an artist in this pursuit.
Susan O'Malley, Inspirational Signs, 2012. Digital prints installed on billboard. ArtMoves Festival, Poland. Image Courtesy of Artist and Romer Young Gallery, SF
We’re both moving into the territory of happiness, psychology, self-care, whatever we want to call it. I’m interested in this idea of how the art world does, or doesn’t, create a space for investigating the subjects of happiness, personal wellbeing, positive psychology, all subjects that could be seen as lesser to traditional art concerns and yet which seem to occupy a significant aspect of public and personal discussions. How do you approach this?
Artists have been making work about happiness, empathy, love, suffering etc. for a very long time – so I think the issue you bring up is more about the art world’s skepticism of the language and aesthetics surrounding self-help and happiness.
And it makes sense to be cautious of this territory – it’s a business that has been associated with quackery, frauds, and disingenuous people preying on the suffering of others. Here in Northern California we have remnants from the 60’s hippy culture that can be cringe-worthy. But I also think the anxiety is not just about that. I do think there is insecurity in investigating these concerns in Ivory Tower circles. Maybe it’s post-modern detachment. It’s easier to not care than care; and more fun to be critical than find solutions. There is pleasure and power in being above it all.
Exploring ideas about happiness, mindfulness, self-love feels right to me. I know I have to follow this road right now. I can’t concern myself too much about its status in the art world until it becomes necessary to push back at it.
Susan O'Malley, A Healing Walk (This Beautiful Moment), 2013. One of nine wood signs installed along nature trail, Montalvo Arts Center. This project was supported by Lucas Artist Program at the Montalvo Arts Center. Image Courtesy of Artist and Romer Young Gallery, SF
Which begs the question, how is it possible to occupy the space of happiness without inviting in the 'naffness' of it; to take seriously a subject that has connotations of fluff and can be associated with something essentially feminine.
It is possible to occupy the space of happiness seriously and relate it universally because it’s a timeless human pursuit. We do this by being honest and stupid and funny and loving and human.
Something else that we share is the personal narrative that threads through our work, and for both of us this can take the form of our mothers. Though Joe’s Daughter takes in many different things, at its core is a relationship between a mother and a daughter. In your own work, I am interested in pieces such as My Healing Garden is Green and One Minute Smile, in which you invite your mum into your artistic practice. How did you mum respond to being part of your art works – the public and performative aspect of this?
To be honest, I don’t know how she feels about the public aspect of this project. I don’t have the kind of relationship with my mom where we unpack the meaning of things or go into the details of our feelings – it’s far more intuitive and unspoken. And she is my mom, and I know her deepest wish is the happiness of her children.
I was very sad when we started this project, and so was my mom. We were living together at the time we started the project, which was the day after she was diagnosed. When I asked her if she wanted to make art with me for a show, she didn’t hesitate. In her “yes,” I understood she trusted me. She knew what she was doing was going to be part of a public art exhibition. We knew that she wasn’t going to be able to write and communicate much longer and there wasn’t much time. I feel that she was thinking about my Inspirational Signs in her notes – the texts were as much for me as they were for others.
Susan O'Malley, One Minute Smile, 2013. Excerpts from text-based performance. Image Courtesy of Artist and Romer Young Gallery, SF
My husband had a writing teacher at CCA, Cooley Windsor, who used to say, ‘Show some skin.’ He kept stressing that his writing needed more of him in it. And yet, sometimes I feel that there can be a tendency to over share, to show not some skin but every crevice and crack. And I wondered where you sit on that scale. I don’t see you work as necessary biographical, although it can be linked to events in your life, but I do see aspects of it as very raw, emotionally and personally.
I love the idea of ‘show some skin.’ This is how I interpret it: locate what feels uncertain, scary, dark and use that as fuel to create. The work I make begins out of my own confusion and questions. Sometimes working with others enlightens this pursuit, and hopefully relates it more universally.
OK, so lets talk about specific shows and pieces, and particularly your current show at the Montalvo Arts Center. What for you is the space, or process, that is happiness? How did you approach this commission?
Here’s my confession: I actually have a hard time with the word happiness. Just the shape of the word feels contained, specific, plastic to me. I feel more invested in the messy process of life; a range of emotions which includes moments of joy along with sadness. This, to me, is my happiness.
Both of the projects I created for the Happiness Is… exhibition are invitations to be present in an in-between space - to walk up a hill in A Healing Walk or rest on the floor in the gallery for A Space (for you).
Susan O'Malley, A Space (for you), 2013. This project was supported by Lucas Artist Program at the Montalvo Arts Center. Image Courtesy of Artist and Romer Young Gallery, SF
In that show you created spaces for pausing, the healing walk that you mentioned, and listening to dreams; you give a place for happiness in everyday life and create pieces in which art connects us. I’m interested in how you work with the ordinary world and communities, which could be defined as the social practice aspect of your work.
I do see my work in the realm of social practice. The work often begins with an interaction with others – I have given pep talks, asked for advice from strangers and organized healing walks in nature. Sometimes, like in the Pep Talk Squad, the conversation between myself and another person is the work. Other times, I rely on the back-and-forth with others to develop material for the creation of a new work, like in the Community Advice project.
Those print pieces, Community Advice, take on a language of self-help, of aphorisms and mantras. How were these pieces generated and received? How do you position them within the public space?
For Community Advice I interviewed a few shy of 100 people and asked: What advice would you give your 8-year-old self? What advice would you give your 80-year-old self? I designed ten different letterpress posters based on these conversations. Sometimes the poster text is verbatim from an interview; other times they are an amalgam of many. These works have had a life of their own and have been posted in public spaces from Palo Alto (where the project was commissioned) to Connecticut.
I’m currently working on several text works that will be displayed in public for a project called Moment by Moment (this is with the folks at The Thing Quarterly). I’m thinking of the works as visual mantras for the urban dweller, off-kilter, open-ended public service announcements. I see them as invitations to pause and introspect. The words convey my wish for how things could be if we paid closer attention. It’s as if I’m saying, “it has to begin somewhere, why not here?”
Susan O'Malley, Community Advice, 2012. Letterpress posters. Image Courtesy of Artist and Romer Young Gallery, SF
You have just opened a show in Dallas titled You arrive my life begins. Could you outline a little of what that show is about for you.
The show is about gratitude and love, a shout-out to anyone willing to pay attention and to be present on the other end of the work.
And finally, we ask everyone that we talk to for their well list: the films, books, people, websites, blogs, etc., that they look at, find useful and have resonated with them in some way. What are yours?
Books: Advice columns by Cary Tennis (Since You Asked) and Sheryl Strayed (Tiny Beautiful Things); John Kabat Zinn’s Full Catastrophe Living and others; Mating by Norman Rush
People: Linda Montano. All the teachers in my life – especially Jon Rubin and Larry Sultan at CCA. I always got so much out of every meeting with them.
Films: Happy Go Lucky and most of Mike Leigh’s work; Errol Morris documentaries; Miranda July’s films – The Future was weird and lovely, but You, Me and Everyone We Know is my fave
phew! thanks!
WOW, thank you!
Finally, finally, just one more thing, I'd suggest also having a look at Susan's blog, particularly this on giving care and this on actions for happiness and healing.