Interview
Sharon Shapiro
Jeremy Davis: What college did you graduate from and how was your college experience, art wise?
Sharon Shapiro: I graduated from the Atlanta College of Art, which is now part of SCAD, but I went to VCU for 3 years, and to SFAI for one year and took a bunch of time off in between. Art wise, my best teachers were at VCU and I had one teacher at ACA that helped me a lot technically, which was rare
Jeremy Davis: Agreed, I learned so much from other students while in school and just personal investigation of artist out in the world that I admired, like you.
Sharon Shapiro: Exactly…aw that is nice, just caught that last part.
Jeremy Davis: Well, it's true. Seeing your work in New American Paintings was a big part of my development in school and post.
Jeremy Davis: I know you taught for a few years and you have a child in school, what are some of your thoughts on Art Education in grade school levels and beyond?
Sharon Shapiro: I think that that art in grade school is focused too much on crafty projects and not enough on conceptual stuff that most kids are very capable of doing and enjoy doing. They also do too many still lifes and never head studies, another thing they are very capable of at a young age, like Picasso.
Jeremy Davis: Definitely.
Sharon Shapiro: Kids can think outside of the box more than most adults, so I don't know why they have to rein that in so early.... most of the students that I taught in college already had a lot of preconceived notions of what making art is and so much time is spent trying to get back to the child like state of wonder.
Jeremy Davis: I was having a conversation last night with a friend that works at an alternative school here in Portland. The school doesn't have a curriculum so she's free to do a lot more with the kids. I thought that was really cool because the flip side is so mundane. I've seen some of the cut out projects my niece has brought home. My niece once painted a landscape and she made the sky purple and said the teacher reprimanded her for not making it blue. I thought that was a cool example of children "thinking outside the box".
Sharon Shapiro: I teach kids actually once a week in my studio. I have three 9-year-old students that I've been teaching for a year and they are amazing. They are completely off the wall... I learn from them.
Jeremy Davis: How is the art scene in Charlottesville?
Sharon Shapiro: Charlottesville's art scene, is well, it's getting better. There are a lot of artists, and a few good ones. A lot of writers, a lot of musicians too, which is great. It's a pretty supportive community in terms of interest, and showing, etc. As you know, 2nd Street Gallery is awesome ... not so many commercial galleries here, like 3 or 4.
Jeremy Davis: Yeah, I felt a lot of culture there. Reminded me of Asheville in a sense but a little more progressive.
Jeremy Davis: Capitalism and Art are two different sides of the playing field but they mingle so much, do you feel that is a detractor from creativity?
Sharon Shapiro: It sure can be... I know quite a few friends who are artists who have either kept their work the same if it is selling, fearing that if they change it at all then it won't sell... or be validated. I also know people who have completely changed their work to fit in with whatever the current trend is in the art world that is driven by the dollar. I never can keep up with what the trend is, so I just do what I do, and hope that it will be part of something that matters
Jeremy Davis: I get a lot of internal pressure when I'm creating and sometimes think about how people are going to receive my work and in turn maybe want to own or commission a piece when I started doing this for myself and still do but materials cost money and rent has to get paid. It's a push pull, doing work for myself wins typically but the pressure is always there.
Sharon Shapiro: It is always there. I know. I'm working on a commission right now and it's always different, even when I tell myself over and over that it shouldn't be; it just is. There is no way around it really. But I have to keep doing them and finding some joy in them, which I do, once I get into painting -- but it's hard some times. I always feel behind on the ideas I want to carry out on canvas; like i'm never doing enough. Part of that is because I'm hard on myself and part of it is the reality of being a single mom.
Jeremy Davis: You just had a show at Brenau University in Georgia. How did it go?
Sharon Shapiro It went well, really. I was really nervous about giving a talk, because I fear that talking about your work too much often changes it in a way that you (the artist) don't intend. Words are so tricky, but once I wrote a few pages, the thoughts came together and I was able to speak openly about my work.. It was well attended, and people asked good questions and seemed to really like the work.
Jeremy Davis: So the work in "Half of What You See" was predominantly children from what I noticed. I have my ideas on what we are looking at there, but do you want to expound on the series a little? At first it seems like quite the departure from the work in "It's Not The Heat...". I see parallels in the work aside from technique.
Sharon Shapiro: Well, I kept going back to these images of children that I have around my studio-- of my daughter, her friends, her half siblings, and photos that I just found over the years. I just had the desire to paint them. they all seemed so rich with content already and then in painting them, of course the images change and more content gets put onto them. I love the idea of duality, double lives, double images, mirror, reflections, self image, halves, etc. It really started with me taking this photo of Ryan and her half sister at Ocean City MD last summer on the boardwalk in front of a funhouse mirror.
Jeremy Davis: Yeah, at first I saw the duos as siblings which they very well may be, but then the more I looked I thought, these could be the same kids at different levels of maturity.
Sharon Shapiro: Interesting, both of your thoughts. I just thought, wow, that would make a great painting, but then I got overwhelmed thinking it would be way to hard for me to paint.
Jeremy Davis: It turned out well.
Sharon Shapiro: thanks, it was a tough one... a lot from inside, and less from the photo, which was great. The roller coaster in the back isn't in the photo, etc, I also loved the different ages and the different expressions and feeling of the two...
Jeremy Davis: The rollercoaster is a great addition. It describes kids at that age well. The self-assuredness of the older kid and playful nature of the younger is a great dichotomy.
Sharon Shapiro: It's that fine line between self assurance and distorted self image . . . that is what I like so much-- it is so much what women in particular deal with growing up and beyond.
Jeremy Davis: I've noticed that "sexuality" has popped up a number of times in descriptions of your work. Do you think it is accurately attributed to your work?
Sharon Shapiro: hmm. Sexuality, yea, I think so. I mean maybe sensuality is even a more apt word for my work in many cases. I know that a painting like Trigger, for example, is loaded with some sexual content... the closeness of the kids, the bathing suits, the implied wetness of their suits, the sex kitten posture of the girl, the gun where the boy's penis is...but it's that kind of sexuality that is around us all the time that we filter constantly.
Jeremy Davis: Popular culture feeds us and we filter.
Sharon Shapiro: Yes.
Jeremy Davis: Bjorn was curious as to what you thought the positives to using Acrylics are?
Sharon Shapiro: I started using acrylics when I was pregnant with Ryan. I didn't think it would be good to be in a small space breathing in all that turpentine. A teacher I had at ACA always encouraged me to try acrylics, but I resisted. I made the switch, thinking it would be temporary, but it stuck. I learned to manipulate them and get the effects I need for my work. I might go back to oil one day, but its a bit harder on the environment, which is a concern for me.
Jeremy Davis: You had a string of paintings with women on the phone? I think one or two were featured in the most recent show. What's behind that?
Sharon Shapiro: I have always been fascinated and freaked out simultaneously by the phone. I talked on it a LOT when I was a teenager, basically lived on it, and I think it just is an icon of my youth and those first feelings of closeness to someone (w/o being physically close) and yearning, desire, so much goes into those conversations at that age.
Jeremy Davis: I had a long distance relationship that was pretty much all telephone conversations. That longing resonates with me. It's such a convenient thing but also turns into a negative at times.
Sharon Shapiro: Yea, it does. I realized that I have received some of the best, and definitely some of the worst, news of my life over the phone. It's weird. It's this thing that we talk into and someone's voice is in your ear. Also, I love the old phones with the cord ... like an umbilical cord or something
Jeremy Davis: Yeah. Your connection to that person.
Jeremy Davis: When I was in College a teacher told me that looking at other artist when you are developing your style is important, but don't do it for too long. After a while you develop your own style and those influences become less influential. Do you agree with that statement and what were some of yours in school, if any?
Sharon Shapiro: I do and don't agree. I think you have to keep looking forever at other artist's work... it's important to feed your self that way, I think.
Jeremy Davis: Yeah I think you can pigeon hole yourself if you don't constantly look at what’s out there...Its funny because this guy, the teacher (Rod MacKillop) had been working on the same series for close to 20 years.
Sharon Shapiro: In school my influences were painters like Eric Fischl, who I fall in and out of love with, and Susan Rothenburg (weird for me but love her mark making), Eakins, Sargent, Hopper, and Kokoschka were all big as well.
Jeremy Davis: Yeah. Fischl is one of my favorites, David Salle was/is big for me.
Sharon Shapiro: Now I love Jenny Saville, and Nicky Hoberman, and there are just so many good painters out there that I may admire something about their work, but not necessarily the whole thing, ya know what I mean?
Jeremy Davis: Yeah, John Currin, Lisa Yuskavage and Nicky Hoberman have been big in my post college development...and of course you.
Jeremy Davis: Your paintings are very nice to look at, but there is definitely more there than just a pretty painting. On the other hand an artist like Francis Bacon almost intentionally devours the idea of beauty in his art? The colors you use are bright, the subjects attractive, is this a conscious decision?
Sharon Shapiro: I suppose, but that is a good question. I have thought of painting unattractive, conventionally unattractive that is, people or fat people or old people, don't know why I haven't... maybe because I've always struggled to some degree with how much appearances matter... and also it's hard to paint an ugly child, there aren't many... or maybe I glamorize people. Deep thoughts here.
Jeremy Davis: I suppose your painting touch so closely on ideas of beauty and appearance, conventionally attractive people make the most sense.
Sharon Shapiro: I guess I've always felt that appearances lie to some degree, so there is something not all there in the work (half of what you see).
Jeremy Davis: Debra Wolf describes you as a feminist? Is that self described or just put on you because you mainly paint women?
Sharon Shapiro: Not self-described at all, but I guess I agree to an extent... in that I believe in all things feminine... you know I’ve never even looked that word up to see what it really means.
Jeremy Davis: Yeah, I struggle with that term "Feminist". Seems that if you are for "people" and want everyone to succeed and be equal then you would just be a humanist. Labels are so weird.
Sharon Shapiro: They really are.
Jeremy Davis: The definition of Feminist is “the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men."
Sharon Shapiro: Well, yes, I agree w/ that.
Jeremy Davis: I do as well but it seems to be an outdated term.
Sharon Shapiro: Yeah, definitely and besides, I'm going to start painting men soon, so what will they call me then? Haha
Jeremy Davis: Thanks for taking the time to do this Sharon.
Sharon Shapiro: My pleasure.