Conversations with Katie Bockoven

Without further a due, Katie Bockoven:

NB: So tell me, when did you first decide, okay, "I am going to go to art school"?

KB:When i took my first high school art class.... I had won the art award at my middle school graduation so I was excited to show off my skills in my high school art program. Both of my older sisters are very artistic and my cousin is a painter, so I guess it is in my genes. I knew I wanted to come to Rutgers because my grandfather, dad, and two sisters all went here. When my high school art teacher told me about Mason Gross I felt like it would be a really good fit for me.. and it is also funny because one of my friends is the grand-daughter, or great grand-daughter, of the actual man, Mason Gross. I felt like everything was pushing me to come here.

NB:Describe your ideal studio space to create work in. What is you space like now that you make your paintings and drawings in?

KB:I don't have a set studio to work in so I usually paint anywhere I can find space to set up. I would love to have a huge open space where I can store and stack and work on paintings but right now I'm sticking to kitchens, basements, and porches.

NB:What kind of works are you creating right now? Is there a difference between your new work and your older pieces?

KB:Right now I have been painting a lot of black and white female nudes. I have only ever created one black and white painting in my past, so it is something that is new to me but I think I would like to continue it. There is something about the absence of color that intrigues me. My interest is painting portraits, but found little time to work that in at Mason Gross. Basically, i know I can paint portraits, so I have been focusing my energy on things I am more unfamiliar with.

NB:Two series of yours specifically captured my attention; the first was ink pattern drawings of Audrey, Cindy and Marilyn. What made you want to depict those specific women?

KB:I really just chose women for the series because I think they are more interesting and beautiful than drawing men. I never like making artwork of men. And the reason I chose those 3 specific women was the fact that I was going to be making drawings that were based solely on patterns, and in case they got too confusing for the viewer I wanted to use a face that was very recognizable so no matter how confused they got they would know who they were looking at.

NB:The detail within them is striking. Audrey's hair is genius, Marilyn's blouse is wow, and Cindy's eye is so intricate. How long does it take you to finish a piece like this and what is the process to making them?

KB:I created the three drawings over a period of 3 1/2 weeks working about 8 hours a week on them. I tried for the most part not to repeat patterns- to create one pattern for once section and move on from there. It ended up strengthening my drawing skills because the whole time I was staring at swirls and checks and circles so I needed to train my mind to filter them into different values. My understanding of shadow and light were really strengthened.

NB:The second body of work that I was drawn to was the Angel Series, which I am assuming, and please correct me if I am wrong are photographs of your mother. The photographs are so affectionate and as with your ink drawings pay special attention to details. Somehow through these images I as the viewer really feel the bond that existed between your mother and you. Here you presented her to us in the most loving and tender way, the photographs are beautiful. How difficult was it to share these photographs, be it that they were the last images of her?

KB:Last year I was given an assignment in Photo 1 to pick a meaningful story in my life and show it through photographs. My mom, who has since passed on, always loved every drawing, painting, photograph, or scribble I ever came home with. I had known that I wanted to make her something special, but was not sure what. She was the most important person in my life, so I wanted my "meaningful story" to be my mother's story of battling non-smoking lung cancer. She was diagnosed in February of 2008, fought hard for 10 months, was clear of the cancer for a month or so, and when it rapidly came back around February of this last year (Feb 2009) she tried to stay as positive as she could. She ultimately lost her battle with cancer on March 9, 2009. It was the hardest thing I had to go to. I was so happy I had taken those photographs of her a month before she died. I didn't title the series until after she passed. The "Angel" in Angel Series refers to both my mother as my angel, and as the angel necklace she wears in the photographs. When she was first diagnosed my sister found these angel coins at her house that she has gotten from someone a long time ago. There happened to be 5 of them, and there are 5 of us in my family including my mother. We always kept the angels in our pockets for good luck and on mother's day of 2008 my sisters and I snuck my mom's out of her purse and had it turned into a necklace. She wore it every single day as her good luck charm. The day after she died my 2 sisters, my dad, and I all had ours turned into necklaces too, and we have worn them every day since.

NB: Your strength, honesty, and vulnerability is admirable, let me just say. So within your portfolio you have a couple of copies of paintings from some of the "masters" of painting. How closely are you following their techniques and quest for realism? How do you feel their styles influence the way you create art now, if they do at all?

KB:I really only created them because I had to. I do enjoy studying the old masters, but I don't like recreating their work. I would rather create my own work in their style, or take bits and pieces from their work and incorporate it into mine. I feel like its kind of cheating just to copy their paintings.

NB:What are you considering to create for thesis in terms of medium (scale of paintings, genre of painting, etc) and message (a study or conceptual pieces) behind the medium?

KB:I want to create paintings inspired by my mom. I was thinking of doing paintings of my family members in different settings, from my mom's perspective. I think it would be interesting to have a viewer look at a painting from my mom's eyes now that she has passed on and watches the rest of us continue our lives. I would like to work larger since I have never done a huge painting. That's all I have decided so far.

NB:Where do you see yourself upon graduating art school?

KB:I really have no idea yet. I thought I wanted to go to grad school, but now I'm not so sure.

My Day with Chelsea

Here's what I thought.

ROBERT MILLER GALLERY
This gallery was my favorite, it featured a multitude of mediums created by one man, Bathelemy Toguo, a Cameroon artist. Video, installation, photographs, and ink drawings filled up the large empty gallery. In the back an installation meant to portray an African hospital addressed the AIDS epidemic in his country. Each bed was made up with sheets reflecting Africa's elaborate patterns; on top of each of the sheets were a pile of loose clothes, perhaps representing all the lives lost, and a misquito net (resembling a condom, thanks to my buddy for helping me see that). Along with his photographs Toguo displayed brief stories about the subject in his photographs. I found a few of them comical, like the Malcolm X wooden workers hat, and the solid wood suitcases he tried to bring on the plane. Two thumbs up.

LEHMANN MAUPIN
I didn't like the images in this gallery at all. They were trite and kind of sleazy. At first, I thought the two women in the images were the photographers. I thought they were making a statement about some museum's prejudice against anything not of the highest standard, perfected, and refined, cultured, and or tamed.Although I didn't like the images, I liked the message I thought they were trying to convey so it was workable. After I found out it wasn't the two women who made the work, but was a man who shot them for a spread to be featured in a magazine it all seemed cheap. The photos were also printed entirely to big for the quality of the images to be preserved. Two thumbs down.

MITCHELL-INNES&NASH
The columns in the gallery were beautiful and seemed to be a piece of art themselves. Enoc Perez painted one image that was huge. It had to be over 10 feet long in both ways. His depictions of unusually shaped modern architectural forms and use of rich colors really did it for me. The gallery described his work as an "impossible utopia" which I agree with it. I wanted to actually live in the buildings he painted, but sadly that would never happen. His technique was also something I had never seen before and appreciated. Underneath the paintings, vertical lines that were reminiscent of lines created by printers were visible in most of the paintings. Two thumbs up for creativity.

-N.b

Welcome....

Now that I have gotten those tasks out of the way, this blog is a virtual diary of my ideas, beliefs, frustrations, and opinions about the world around me. It is a space for self-expression and also a record of the unraveling of my final thesis project which will address the politics of race, hair, and what's it like to back a Black woman in America--past to present.

-N.b

Alex Bag

I found the video funny. I see girls and boys behaving like the characters Alex Bag personified. Art students sometimes have this pretentious demeanor to them--some say its necessary, who else is going to stand up for the art they spend four years creating?

Men and Politics

The works of Emory Douglas, Rigo 23, and David Goldblatt are rich in messages of political change and social awareness. Each artist takes on a personal battle with injustices they've witnessed and eventually found themselves compelled to address. Douglas's lithographic prints and publications scream at the top of their "lungs" chants of self-dependence for African-Americans- whose place in American society at the time was substandard to Whites. Goldblatt's large scale color prints and black and white photos although not as "loud" spoke in volumes. His portraits are thoughtful depictions of the unspoken tales of Afrikaan and African--together. Rigo 23 took to installations to develop his opinions and ideas into something tangible. Recreated symbols of incarceration, or jail cells, littered the stair well of the museum, briefly jarring the viewer out of their own worlds and into the small spaces and perhaps mindset of those once imprisoned over political reasons. Each man took their views and executed them in a potent, witty, and unique way.

-N.b

Bucket of Blood Response

Don't take your art to seriously. That was just one moral in the film Bucket of Blood, a movie about a social outcast working in a swanky lounge who killed people and turned their dead bodies into sculptures. Money is the root of all evil. People will do the damnedest things to keep or gain money, like protect the identity of a serial killer names Walter. Just because you talk a lot, doesn't mean your saying something. Metaphors are nice, but talking in a language where even the most intelligent "commoner" can't interpret doesn't make one a lyrical genius. I enjoyed the movie and learned a number of life long lessons.

-N.b