JL: Did you
fabricate the sheetrock walls inside the
landlord's space, or were they a part of the
structure of the building? If so,
do you think that creativity and destruction are
both sides of the same coin and has your landlord
expressed his/her views about you dismantling the
walls for artistic and political purposes?
LS: The sheet rock
that I dismantled was part of the structure of the
building. The studio had been ours for years and in
that time many people reconfigured the space. My
landlord would have been happier had I taken more
walls as he was planning to demolish and remodel the
studios and rent them as residential lofts. I didn't
talk to my landlord about politics or art at the
time.
JL: Do you
think it is an accurate or fair assessment for one
to perceive your "Ramshackle" piece as a blurring of
the distinctions between "traditional" or "post
modern" abstract painting and conceptual
installation sculpture?
LS: My intention
when making the piece was to blur the distinctions
between the private space where a creative process
occurs, a space that one feels is one's own and a
public space. I wanted to dismantle the walls of my
studio, where I was being evicted after seventeen
years, and take them with me. I thought
the gesture had meaning both personally and
politically. Artists are often the first to move
into transitional or industrial areas, bring new
commerce and then get priced out. I was desperate
to let go of this studio and relocate. So I did
just that, I brought my walls with images painted on
them of an urban landscape of sorts and leaned my
sheetrock against a sheet rock wall that had been
built in the gallery space. Then I continued
painting, wondering as I painted on the gallery's
walls, pipes, into the windows, window shades and on
the doors if by painting an illusion on the
architecture if the physicalness of the walls would
in fact disappear when all surfaces became part of
my painting. Would the room disappear as my physical
physicalness of the walls would in fact disappear
when all surfaces became part of my painting. Would
the room disappear as my physical studio did?
What interests me about painting is that a painted
space is not real.
