I’m super excited to be sharing an interview with Erin Landry. Look for the moment where her focus shifted from outcome to process, and what came of that! She sent me several photos of her work, and once again, I couldn’t pick, so the extras are down at the bottom…
You’re the first visual artist I’ve had on the blog. What are your favorite media?
I’ve jumped around so much with different art mediums over the years: painting, collage, photography, jewelry, and now printmaking. It’s definitely always been an innate thing in me to create, but I get bored easily. Not that there’s a right way and a wrong way to be creative but it’s hard not to be a little disappointed/frustrated – that maybe I could have really mastered something if I’d stuck with it, you know?
Where did you get the inspiration for your most recent project?
Perhaps it’s not very original or interesting but I started doing these gel prints a few months ago now due to a youtube video I randomly stumbled upon. The creator (YeatsMakes) has obviously been in the art community for a while – he just has such an instinctual sense of composition and color. BUT, and this is what made me binge all of his videos and immediately go out and buy a gel plate: his work isn’t meticulously planned out before he starts. Sure, he has a basic idea or concept and sometimes there’s a little pre-work involved but he just kind of lets the medium take him where it wants to go. There are lots of times where a technique just doesn’t work or he isn’t happy with placement and you get to watch him improvise and revise in real time. I don’t think you see that kind of “behind the curtain” process much anymore? Tutorial videos now are edited with such precision – the process is cleaned up to the point of sterility – the artist simply doesn’t make a mistake (well, you never see it happen). And there’s still a lot of gatekeeping in the art world.
Plus there’s just something so warm and friendly about him (very pre-influencer era – maybe it’s just the mutual Gen X, lo-fi vibes). It feels like watching a beloved professor demonstrating a new technique before unleashing the class.
Also, as far as getting into a “new” medium was concerned, it immediately had the huge bonus of being cost-efficient since I already owned a lot of paint. All I needed to buy was a gel plate and those run around $20-30. Also, although I haven’t done printmaking since college – it definitely wasn’t a “start at square one” jump.
Did you start out with a vision of what you wanted your end results to look like?
I did have a very abstract sort of vision. I have a few boxes of these vintage women’s magazines from the 50’s and 60’s that I’ve amassed from various estate sales over the years. I’m very attached to them. I wanted to play around with a critical analysis of feminine idealism through advertising – the construct of the myopic nuclear middle class/suburban americana consumerism, during that time period but also its resurgence today, repackaged sort of covertly/sinisterly by the whole “tradwife”/mormonism influencer fascist branding that’s been steadily asserting itself into my algorithm. (Why? just because I liked a few baking videos? disturbing). Working with layers of these superimposed images is a little “on the nose” but like I said, “abstract vision”.
When I practiced and failed with glossy, current media (fresher ink) I knew I couldn’t/wouldn’t destroy my vintage media via trial and error.
Oh no, that sounds discouraging.
I almost gave up on it completely when my first attempts to “pull” magazine spreads for a collage completely failed right out of the gate. Nothing worked. I ruined countless images. In fact, I think I did put it away for some time – life happens, you know, and I don’t have a dedicated art space in our current place (other than a corner of our living room). It was time to clean up and attend to other things. I picked it up again when, after some googling, I got a sort of breakthrough idea to stop using the magazine photos as single use (because if it doesn’t work, that’s it, it’s covered in a layer of paint and there’s no second chances) and start photocopying them. The technical side of printmaking and troubleshooting quickly became the focus and the solution was twofold: I could make as many prints as I wanted to experiment with and upping the contrast on black and white started immediately producing the results I wanted. That’s always such a high, isn’t it? When you can visualize something in your head and then you actually create it on the page? I was immediately in love with the process again.
I started looking for fair use illustrations (I have future projects planned where I actually sit down and start drawing my own) because removing any grey scale gives an even cleaner effect. The paint just adheres better to anything that’s fully saturated black. After that it was playing with colors and layers. It’s very much me just playing with the medium again. I still get a lot of “hit or miss” prints but I have a clearer understanding of how everything fits together and honestly, it’s been the most fun I’ve had with physical art again in a long time.
I’m still working with found media but now it’s more about structure and color through line drawings and type. There’s a new sense of play and energy that just sort of organically sprung from that. It became less heavy, less burdened. Maybe I very literally “lost the plot” but maybe I very much needed my art to veer away from the constant stream of consumerist messaging for a healthier change of pace (my day job is a commercial photographer for a retail clothing/skate company). [I needed] a joyful escape rather than to continue wrestling with the intrinsic moral intricacies. For right now I’m very content testing the limits of the medium itself and getting paint all over my clothes and under my fingernails again.
Have you had a chance to share the results very widely?
I sold a bunch at a work-related art fair (extremely small scale). It was a really good gauge to see if I was “on the right track” as far as my vision was concerned and gave me a boost that I needed to continue.
Oh, neat – tell me more about that…
It’s something my employer does once a year just before christmas and the only time we’re allowed to bypass the whole “no soliciting on company property” rule. It’s really amazing – they actually book out all the conference rooms for several hours on a Friday afternoon and anywhere between 15-25 people participate while everyone else can walk around and shop for a few last-minute things. It’s a fantastic way to get to know people from different departments and how varied their talents are – everything from art and jewelry to knitted and baked goods to entire clothing lines. Some have very professional packaging and setups – like you can tell this is a whole side business for them. This was the first year I participated (i’ve wanted to for years but just couldn’t get my shit together in time) and was entirely blown away by the engagement I received. It was all incredibly self-affirming. I would definitely do it again.
Do you have any thoughts about where you’ll go next with this? It’s already evolving. I went and picked up some lino mats and tools for linocut prints (someone needs to ban me from art supply stores for a while). I adore the messy ‘one of a kind’ and the limitless, immediate results of gel prints but there’s also something to be said about the slower, meditative process and the precision of carving something more delicate, more permanent. Using them both together in a uniquely cohesive way is an idea I’ll very likely explore next. I’ll keep you posted. 🙂
Erin Landry is a photographer originally from the Midwest who now resides happily on the misty coast of the Pacific Northwest. She’s a professional photographer by trade, but has deep roots in collage art, wedding photography, portraiture, and architectural imagery. You can see some of her photography here.
