The Shiny Squirrel: The Little Interview with Lena Wolff

Lena Wolff's work is quite remarkable and I am also in love with her studio space.

Tell us about your art background?

Well, I was lucky enough to go to an arts high school in the mountains outside of LA. My time there was amazing. I used to paint all day every weekend in this studio surrounded by pine trees, or spend hours in the darkroom all week. I also have parents who appreciate art. My dad is a writer and a musician. My mom and I spent a bunch of time in museums all over the place when I was little. She’s not an artist, but the way she showed me to looks at things, she might as well be.

I went to Mills College where I fell in and out of the art department, although both Hung Lui & Anna Murch were tremendous artists & teachers there. I loved Hung Liu’s drawing class but for the most part, making beautiful, highly crafted or emotional work was really out of fashion then. Then I lived in San Francisco in the 90’s when work based on craft or folk art really started to blossom. If it wasn’t for that resurgence, I’d never had made it out of my studio and into the world as an artist, because I’d just be seen as an idiosyncrasy (which isn’t bad at all except it’s really hard to make a living & sustain your practice in that case).

Eventually I got an MFA at SF State.

Currently Reading/Watching anything?

I have a two year old daughter so I haven’s spent as much time reading or watching things as much as I use to. (I love watching her more than anything & we read a lot of great kids books together). I do have a book list to get to someday–The Dangerous World of Butterflies just got added after an interview I heard last week on the radio. Public radio is really my big love nowdays, because I can multi-task and listen to music & hear stories all day long while I work.

If you could collaborate with one person who would it be?

I love to collaborate with my good friend and fellow artist Carolyn Ryder Cooley. We’ve made a few murals together and she’s the only person in the world who I play music with. Actually, I just started a transcontinental paper quilt collaboration between about 12 artists that I’m really excited about, Ryder is a part of that so we’ll work together this summer.

Whose work would you love to own?

Claire Rojas, Chris Ofili & a quilt from Gees Bend.

What was the last great place you visited?

Lake Anza in Tilden Park, about 8 miles from my house in Berkeley

If you could have one superhero what would it be?

Oh, that’s a good question. A superhero who would remove the human defect that makes us forget we’re interconnected with all living things & who would make us remember that the most magnificent aspects of this earth & being alive are really elemental and very old, so that we’d stop ruining everything. Something like that.

Does your environment affect your work?

Yes and no. I have a pretty specific way of working and at this point my practice feels fueled by something constant. But I am affected by the greater state of the world and the mess it’s in.

Name of a few of your favorite contemporary artists?

The ones above, plus Wiliam Kentridge, Laura Owens, Peter Doig, Jockum Nordstrom, Kiki Smith, Whitfield Lovell, Louise Bourgeois & my friends, like Ryder, Signe Olson, Tammy Rae Carland, Nikki McClure, Xylor Jane, Julianna Bright, Marina Eckler, Rebecca Barten & my partner Miriam Klein Stahl.

What inspires your pieces?

A desire to work by hand & a love for the malleability of paper. I’m influenced by folk art, especially early American folk art, anthropomorphic fables, the natural world, textiles….and a fascination with color and composition and how these basic elements can become emotional. Other simple things like the parallel between night and day, the visible and the invisible are important counterparts to what I make. I’m moved by everything living, the phenomena that makes it all happen and I like to make work that celebrates this.

What is the last great thing you read that has affected your life?

The World Without Us. But I have to admit, I didn’t get to finish it. I’m about halfway done. I learned so much from this book about how human activity and our built environment affects the world & will affect the future. I really recommend it. The very fist chapter tells how New York City would begin to collapse almost immediately if humans disappeared from the face of the earth tomorrow. That kind of thing was actually uplifting to read, about how nature will take over again after we’re gone.

Describe your personal style?

I’ve always felt a bit old-fashioned, that I was born in the wrong era. But lately I have an appreciation for the simplicity of modernism, which I used to hate.

What would your last meal be?

You mean, before dying? I’d rather tell you my ideal meal: some kind of blackened fish, like Tilapia, steamed brown rice and maybe a salad with strawberries or apples and goat cheese. Also, something really unusually amazing is to eat ice cream with a small bit of olive oil and sea salt.

What are the last five things you listened to on your I pod?

I don’t have an ipod but I’m listening to something beautiful on the radio right this minute. I pretty much listen to public radio all day. On the stereo, lately I’ve been listening to Joni Mitchel’s Blue, The Harder They Come soundtrack and Pete Seeger for my daughter.

What was the last thing you discovered about yourself?

That I’m not a painter.