Self-portrait, Rose Adams

3 Questions: Artist & Curator in Conversation

1. Describe your working process? 

The source of inspiration for this work is the lithograph  I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art, by John Baldessari. Originally created for an installation at the  Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, where Baldessari instructed students to repeatedly write the sentence on the gallery walls.  After the project,  Garry Neil Kennedy decided to make a lithograph of the text on the wall. Baldessari wrote on a paper napkin the text and sent it off to NSCAD where the print was made in 1971. The print is blurry because of how many times the original text was enlarged. My work refers to this work, in that I have substituted the word “covid” for “boring.”  My work is also blurry, text is cut off at the bottom, and it the same size as the original print.  

2. What was your source of inspiration for your work in the exhibition? How did the act of art making help in reflecting and respond to the pandemic? 

Since mid-March 2020, I, like everyone else, has had to “pivot” and adjust.  I had to learn how to teach on-line, which has been  all encompassing.  I have marked over 1000 pieces of artwork online, of which more than 100 have dealt with the theme of covid or more widely, the virus. Many of these have been extremely touching but I am tired of it all. Yes, I have covid fatigue.  I am attempting a bit of levity in my work by appropriating Baldessari’s work. I am hoping that during these times of stress, this ironic piece will evoke a bit of laughter and a smile to those who see it. 

3. How do you think visual art helps us understand the complex world around us? 

Do I have a book or a year to answer this?  I guess not.  So, I will speak from my own experience of artmaking and how it helps me understand the world.  Often, when I am doing research for artworks and relying on my intuition to move forward and create a piece of work, it is only after making the piece that I understand its meaning and how it relates to the world.  I have always loved the quote from T.S. Eliot, “I had the experience but missed the meaning.”  The making of artwork (in all of its stages) and subsequent reflection allows me to make what was in my subconscious,  conscious.  It helps me find my true meaning of a subject and I hope that this will communicate to others. I am not an art therapist, but I do know that the act of making art has helped me understand issues on an intellectual level and has been a therapeutic exercise through the engagement with thought, emotion, form and materials in the artmaking process and products.