Deborah Justice is one of PCA’s newest members and we’re happy to welcome her to the Charlottesville area arts community! Read the interview below to find out more about her life and work, as well as artistic philosophies and techniques. Samples of her work can be found on the artist’s website or by contacting her directly at justicegalactica@earthlink.net.
What first interested you about becoming an artist?
I was aware of an inner observer at a very young age, four or five. My childhood environment was a tornado of aggression and the curious, dangerous adventure of having addict parents… I think that plenty of creative minds are cultivated under circumstances where you have to think for yourself and quite fast, as a matter of survival…. not just in the body but protecting the sweet spirit of youth….. I remember conversations with myself and whatever caterpillars were nearby, conversations about light and love and beauty. I spent a lot of time in the tiny patches of woodland that were still left on the outskirts of apartment complexes in Cleveland, Ohio. Hidden in the hollow of a tree, I could hear the streaming of my future, like light filled nectar coursing up through unfurled blossoms to someday meet the bee. This terrific drive to will the future into being, a child’s idea of a bright and beautiful future, I think that’s the birthplace of my artist self.
I’d comb the incinerator rooms of every apartment house I could walk to and gather the glass bottles. We could get five cents each for them in those days. I made art and made wages from the minute I could open the front door. I subcontracted a paper route with my friend Ricky because girls weren’t allowed to be paperboys then. When I was 14 my art teacher, Mr. Graff, said, “You know, you could make a living as an artist.” I figured that was way better than working at Willi Dee’s Bar-B-Que Shack (my gig at the time) so that’s how it became a career as well as a calling. To this day, even after decades of continued education and experience, I attribute much of my success to my high school art teachers. This the late 70′s. Our high school had an art department, five dedicated art instructors and all the supplies we needed. I had big plans. Art seemed to be the best way to illustrate the journey.
What inspires your creativity?
The short answer is: absolutely everything. I could be one of those folks who is overly inspired, so much that several years ago I started an idea box to store extras just in case I run out one day.
I spent several years incapacitated from a car accident in the nineties. I temporarily lost the use of my hands. I lost vision and the ability to read or write. I spent, all told, about two years in bed, six years in physical therapy and a decade of severe pain. There are times when I just cry into the sunlight with such a gratitude and then lose grace in the next breath. The act of painting or sculpting, for me, is the physical search for that state of awareness; the bliss, not just for me, but as my gift to the culture at large. For more than thirty years, miraculously, I have been able to paint or sculpt as my primary focus because people respond to my work. All the deep sea diving in the studio somehow acquires a quality by the time it hits the gallery wall that enhances people’s view on life. That is an inspiration.
Describe the mediums and processes you use as well as the philosophies that influence your work.
I paint very, very thick, often pouring the paint onto board or canvas. Sometimes I have to dig into the surface, carve out, rub in more pigment, use incongruent materials to find the dynamic that conveys the power and mystery of the Universe. Then I connect this field of energy as elegantly as I can to the human experience, a reference to our own existence, a search for our place, my place in the grand scheme.
Tools for the first stage, creating the galactic realm, are often wire brushes, sanders, scrapers… excavating layers of paint to reveal new domains. If a figure, human or otherwise, chooses to appear, I’ll use a brush, ever so sparingly, light washes, loose gestures. It seems to satisfy my muse when open space presents as voluptuous, solid and unfolding, while structure and form have an atmospheric character, just a suggestion of corporeal existence.
I set the conditions in my studio to create several paintings in batches… they take weeks to dry, a process that adds to the image through varying shrinkage rates and external conditions. This stage parallels the process of kiln fired ceramics, allowing the elements to contribute greatly to the result, not with heat, but with the everyday conditions I live in… hot in the summer, when paint flows freely, and cracking with winter’s freeze.
Success for me is when the thrust of the act of painting is apparent in the finished piece… evidencing dynamic action rather than rendering an illustration of action; not a story about the truth, but a fossil record of the truth; the truth of where we live… this crazy, spinning, expanding mix of gases and firmament, explosions of light and fire-eating density; our home, The Universe.
What challenges do you face as an artist?
My best guess is that my challenges are the same as anyone’s; how to be effective, powerful, productive, compassionate, generous. Also, how to not die from all the chemicals that end up under my fingernails and in my lungs during the chaos of galaxy formation.
How do you compare the Charlottesville area arts community to other places you’ve lived?
My studio is the loft of a huge barn on a small horse farm in Afton, Virginia. I’ve been here for almost three years… just getting a feel for the place. Waking up in paradise and not having to check out by noon is taking some getting used to. Farm work has taught me to never ever complain that it’s hard to be an artist.
My first favorite thing about Charlottesville was the street level music. Over time I’ve come to really appreciate the collaboration between business and the arts. It’s like people are operating out of whole bodies, hearts and heads, thinking about the environment and fiscal responsibility and cultural well being, not just in our town but for the world… not just for today, but creating the future. I love knowing that I live in a population that is savoring life and cultivating abundance. We make and grow great stuff here and we love sharing it with the world. It doesn’t get better than that.
In November, you had a show at Stone Soup Books in Waynesboro and will soon have work on display at the Hermitage Museum & Gardens in Norfolk. Any other upcoming shows or projects?
The curator for the exhibit “Spiritual Visions” at The Hermitage Museum in Norfolk is Debrorah McLeod, the director of Chroma Projects here in Charlottesville. I’m so pleased to be associated with Deborah’s vision of spirituality in the 21st Century. The exhibit opens to the public on December 17th.
I illustrated a book that was recently published, “Six Thousand Years Up the Garden Path” written by a great Charlottesville landscape designer, Ian Robertson. I’m now working on coloring those illustrations for sale as fine prints.
I’ve been working for two years now on a series of wood sculpture, starting with milling the trees that were cut when we put in the second equipment shed on the farm. Up until now, every surface I’ve painted on has been manufactured. I lay my head against these wood planks, feeling like I know their stories. I walk through their homeland everyday. I feel the rain that grew them. What these trees are saying to me, I hope will convey in the gallery setting.
The more I explore vast realms, the more I need solid anchoring. I’m also collaborating with The Funk Brothers on a series of gallery furniture, pedestals, podiums, and benches.
My overarching impetus is expansion. A few years ago, my work was projected onto a sixty foot wide screen at The Castro Theater in San Fransisco for a production of the Vagina Monologues. I’d love to collaborate more in this way, projections integrated into performances.
I think 2011 will be a year of gathering together decades of images for multimedia and published material. I’ve pretty much fallen into the kettle I’ve been stirring. Life itself has become a body of art.
