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Go behind the scenes in an art museum. Join the crew from the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art as we chat with artists, curators, and everyone else who helps us bring our galleries to life. New episodes will be posted in selected months after the program has aired on KUNV 91.5.
The Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art is located on the campus of one of the most racially diverse universities in the United States, we strive to create a nourishing environment for those who continue to be neglected by contemporary art museums, including BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ groups. As the only art museum in the city of Las Vegas, we commit ourselves to leveling barriers that limit access to the arts, especially for first-time visitors. To facilitate access for low-income guests we provide free entry to all our exhibitions, workshops, lectures, and community activities. Our collection of artworks offers an opportunity for researchers and scholars to develop a more extensive knowledge of contemporary art in Southern Nevada. The Barrick Museum is part of the College of Fine Arts at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV).
Unknown Speaker 0:00
You're listening to locally produced programming created in KUNV studios on public radio K u n v 91.5.
Kevin Krall 0:11
The following is special programming aired in collaboration with the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art on the campus of UNLV. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Katie B Funk 0:34
Hello, everyone. My name is Katie B Funk.
Bailey Anderson 0:38
And my name is Bailey Anderson.
Katie B Funk 0:40
And we're here to talk to you today about the emotions of the MFA. Before we dive into what exactly that is and what that means, we're going to start with a little introduction of who we are. So again, I'm Katie B Funk. I am a current UNLV student. I'm a graduate student in the MFA program. I'm a second year. The kind of art I like to make varies pretty broadly. I've been working a lot with cardboard, glitter, wood, metal, paint, I just got a projector that changed my life. So I like to do a lot of different mediums. And then thematically, I work a lot with kind of straddling grief and like heavier things, and then humor, and lighter things and sort of how you can hold both those spaces at once. Also, if you've seen anything like SpongeBob related, it was probably me. And fun fact, I'm from South Bend, Indiana, and I moved to Columbus, Ohio in 2016. I lived there for six years and I moved to here in the lovely Las Vegas in 2022.
Bailey Anderson 1:55
Sweet. Hi, everybody. My name is Bailey. I'm also doing the MFA program, graduate student, my second year out of three. I do a lot of work with cast metal, fabrics; I'm also a painter. I also am really into cartoons and spaghetti westerns. So there's a lot of really fun crossover there. I have a lot of fun with making, you know, Wile E Coyote contraptions real I work a lot in cast metal, things like that. So, yeah.
Katie B Funk 2:24
Cool. I love the word spaghetti western right? I instantly think of spaghetti even though I know it has a different definition. So again, yes, the thing that linking the two of us we are both traversing the halfway point of the MFA program here at UNLV, which is a total of three years. So officially at the end of this semester, we are halfway through. For those of you that may be unfamiliar, an MFA, or Master of Fine Art is the terminal degree for artists. Globally, however, there are many PhD programs offered in art. But the MFA is regarded often as kind of the final stop in an artist's education in the United States. One of the best things about the program here in Las Vegas is the connections and opportunities that we have here on campus alone. So each student is given a private studio space, where we can create and reflect, rest, read what have you. We have plenty of galleries to both visit and curate exhibitions within. We have a massive library that's very easy to get lost in, especially in the Art section. And of course, the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art. So, located in the heart of UNLV's campus, the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art is currently exhibiting The Emotional Show. It's one of three current exhibitions on display. And these will be on display until March 16 of 2024. The Emotional Show, which we're going to focus more on today, and kind of what we're talking about, explores some of the techniques artists have used to grapple with the demanding and amorphous territory of human emotions. 42 artists represent emotions as a complex array of phenomena, paying, paying homage to the sensations that drive our actions and give shape to our lives. Kind of regarding this show, if you haven't had the chance to see it in person, you can kind of imagine entering the space and immediately being confronted with a massive and pointy yellow piece that we're going to talk about, that's an inflatable. So let's get down to it. We're going to talk about a couple different pieces to kind of give you a teaser of what you can expect at the Emotional Show. Bailey would you like to start with our first one?
Bailey Anderson 4:47
Yeah, sure. So the first piece we're going to chat about today is Get Home Safe by Keith Macgruder. "Get Home Safe is about my childhood growing up in Washington DC in the 80s and 90s. Before we left the house, my grandparents would always say Get home safe to remind us to watch out for ourselves and whoever we were with. As a child, I spent a lot of my time with my grandparents house. My mom and dad were at work. My grandmother was a quilt maker, so I was hanging out with her and I would talk to her while she would make these quilts, she would always tell me about the pattern she was working on and the significance of it and how it related to our family and the Underground Railroad. Sometimes I would ask if I could use some of the leftover fabric and make a fort. Like the old ones and her war stories, I was told. At that point in my life, there was no place safer than my fort, playing with green army men in my grandparents house. It made me feel like I was in my own world."
Katie B Funk 5:37
Yes, and this piece is one of my personal favorites. I think the key thing to look for when you witness this piece in person, everything that you see is made entirely with paper. So the fort that's described, there's kind of two chairs holding up a quilt, all the little toys and food, every single thing you see is made of paper, which I think makes it all the more impressive for kind of what they what the artist was talking about. And sort of that fragile nature of the materials they chose to work with. Mentioned earlier, the pointy yellow inflatable is aptly titled Yellow Inflatable. This is by Tamar Ettun, who uses performance in sculpture to reflect on the contrasts of life and death, trauma and healing movement and stillness, the inflatable artwork on view and The Emotional Show was created for the second phase of a multi year project she devised in collaboration with her New York performance collective, The Moving Company, each stage of the project was dedicated to a different emotion signifying color. In this context, yellow represents desire and emotion with the power to drive action and keep away death. Bailey, how would you describe this piece to our listeners?
Bailey Anderson 6:55
Oh, geez, this thing is massive. I remember you spoke about the artist and her experience in the Air Force and this kind of relation to parachutes. And this thing looks like a massive like funhouse. And I know, you and I also talked about the relationship between these two sort of like fort-esque shapes, because initially, it was designed to where you're supposed to enter the structure and you know, kind of play in this, if you remember those sheets that you kind of, like in PE class where you like, flung it up in the air, and then you like pulled underneath you to sit on top of it. And it was, it reads very much like that. And so I think the two pieces next to each other in the space are super fun to look at in relationship with each other. But yeah, the thing is absolutely massive.
Katie B Funk 7:39
Yes, and I really appreciated and enjoyed the curatorial choice to put it in the space, the way it is, that the viewer coming in is immediately if going in, you know, the commonly used front door, we do have another entrance to the exhibition, but nine times out of 10 like the way people come in, they're going to be immediately confronted with it and sort of positioned in a certain way to kind of start to experience the show right away, which I think is really effective. Moving along right away to the next piece. It is called Fuq U by Heidi Rider with an eloquent Q instead of the CK. Heidi Rider says, "I use the clown to explore shame without taking on the suffering that inevitably comes with it. Clowns transform despair into delight. When we watch a clown experience pain, yet retain its optimism and resilience. We in fact, we empathetically follow them into the black hole, through hell and back out again, into cathartic laughter. In 2020, she uses the figure of a clown to respond to an unusually painful year," which I'm sure we all can figure out why he was unusually painful. And this piece is actually a video that you watch, kind of on loop. Heidi's sort of right central in the screen, the screen is oriented vertically, rather than like the typical kind of horizontal television screen. So it kind of immediately like, adjusts your body in a way where you're kind of feeling like you're looking at a person directly as if you were in real life. And balloons surround her and are kind of attached to her and the wind is blowing and it's kind of picking up all that sort of audio audio noise of kind of like what you don't want in a video, but it works really well for this because it's already kind of immediately uncomfortable. And she's basically like, grimacing and like trying to retain her smile throughout the entire loop of the video. So just again, that like, through hell and back out again into the cathartic laughter. Totally love that, with my interest in kind of holding two emotions at once. And next up, we have one of Bailey's favorites.
Bailey Anderson 10:04
Yeah, yeah, definitely one of my favorite pieces. It's also part of the collection, as I remember you talking about? Yeah, it's part of the Barrick collection. So, Weakness, by Brian Zimmerman to found wooden dining chair, it stands low on a white platform, the middle section of the back chair, or sorry, the chair's back, left leg narrows until it's thin and pencil-like and this thing looks like if you sit on it, you would splat like a bug. It would just fold right underneath you and it's so precariously created. And yeah, if that doesn't represent some sort of, sorry, some sort of MFA experience, I don't know what was. Yeah.
Katie B Funk 10:45
It was definitely, I think we call it a vibe like just immediately looking at it and are like, yeah, that's, that's what that's what it feels like. I had the honor of screwing the really thin pencil-like piece to the chair and just even that process was nerve-wracking because I thought, I'm gonna break this but it it does have a surprising amount of strength to it still because it is made out of wood. But just that play of, like, fragile strength, strength/fragility, really makes this piece super successful. So definitely want to look for another one that we love--that also has a juicy F bomb in it, so, heads up. Miguel Rodriguez, Just About Had It. Miguel describes: I use humor and color to filter difficult ideas like death, addiction, anxiety and depression in order to subvert some superficial tropes or easy answers. These artworks are autobiographical, but are ultimately intended to provide the viewer with an opportunity to peer into the depths of their own inner workings to see themselves reflected back. To see myself reflected back indeed, because Just About Had It is a very funny, large cookie jar. It is a functional cookie jar of Grimace, the purple monster slash milkshake slash Grimace from McDonald's kind of has a lot of history, which I learned through working with this piece over the summer. Where you can you can remove kind of his head, and there were cookies inside at the opening. And in addition to it being this, you know jolly purple thing, he's also holding himself. So he's kind of holding like a toy figurine of Grimace himself. So it's just a super funny kind of, you know, moment through the, through the show where you immediately kind of recognize this character that many people know. But his hand's kind of up in that just about had it kind of way. So you kind of wonder like, what's he had it with? What have I had it with? So it's a really nice point to kind of land in a humorous way in the show.
Bailey Anderson 13:07
Yeah. Oh, to be baby Grimace, being coddled by a large Grimace.
Katie B Funk 13:13
Like, and like the idea of, you know, could you hold yourself and kind of give yourself that like, self care and self love that you need sometimes and watching out for yourself and kind of defending, like, I almost think it's like defending like a childhood, or like a childlike idea.
Bailey Anderson 13:30
It does kind of look like you know, like when a child walks around with their like, favorite stuffed animal, it almost kind of has that sort of like body language to it.
Katie B Funk 13:37
Yes, absolutely. So for one more we'd like to describe to you, before we shift into part two of this recording. There is probably, I hate picking favorites, but I think this is my favorite, a portrait, a choir, a swell (2019 - present) by Jason Lazarus. Jason is an artist based currently right now in Florida. They are coming back, I will have to look on the website to see what day he is going to do an artist's talk here at UNLV in the next few weeks, so look out for that. But to describe this work, it is a series of sound screens. So if you're not familiar with sound screen, it's kind of a device that emits white noise. Or if you're kind of more familiar with like brown noise, pink noise, green noise, just that kind of filtrated sound one plays to sort of block out all the other noise around you. So in the description, it's stating: The sound screens in a portrait, a choir, a swell are noise-canceling devices used often by mental health workers to mask the conversations happening inside their offices. Jason says: In my early 40s, I started to see a therapist and she had one of those sound screen devices outside the office door. The function of these objects has so much symbolic value, that they were the edge of something very delicate and sensitive, and what's going on inside, we will never really be able to know, or more importantly, represent. If things are hard to represent themselves, what might we learn by taking something on the edge of that thing? How do we bear witness to the anxiety or trauma, or reparative work that is being done, that needs to be done that some people miss out on because they're unable to access those services. So as someone who's had a white noise machine since 2016, that I sleep with, I immediately recognized what this work was, and was really excited at the fact that like, I personally recognized it, but knew there would be many people that would see it and be like, What is this? You know, what are these things. And I also love that the, the inflatable has such a presence both in like, size and color, but also sound because it's being blown up by an industrial fan. So you kind of are immediately invited in with this kind of swelling sound of that piece. And then this, Jason's piece is kind of in the opposite corner, from Tamar's piece, and it has its own sound that you kind of hear before you see it. So I really, really love that idea. And also kind of representing something we can't necessarily see personally because of obvious privacy reasons. So how else can we kind of represent those things that are inaccessible. And then, you know, acc-, thinking about the idea of access and access to health care, especially in our country, where not everybody has that. So it's kind of one of those really poignant pieces, I think, in the show.
Bailey Anderson 16:52
Yeah, and I definitely love that idea of, you know, what that symbolizes to people that are familiar with therapy also. And just that idea of like, imagine going into a therapist's office, and like, there's all these different, like, I guess, separated, like sections, where all these therapy, like discussions are taking place. And so it really looked to me as this sort of collective nod towards the, like, working to rebuild, working to improve the community, but also that like, you know, comfort in being alone together. Also, it's that really weird tension between like, you know, being alone, but being vulnerable, but also taking, essentially pride in that, like, it's good to, like, heal, it's good to work on mental health, it's good to do all these things. So yeah, it's a great piece.
Katie B Funk 17:39
And great to have it here on campus too. With like, student, I like that students can see it and kind of question, you know, what is this? what's it for, and then, you know, maybe they learn more about the counseling services that we offer, I take advantage of that, that could be like just a really cool moment for art, to be able to kind of introduce someone to something that can then help them, I think is a super cool and like, powerful thing that makes art so great, and why, why we want to get a masters in it. On that note, let's talk about the emotions of the MFA program. So again, terminal degree for artists, right. I will confess this, I'm obtaining my second MFA at UNLV because I just didn't get enough the first time around. And really wanted to be back in this environment. And I've had this like weird obsession with Vegas for a long time. Which is kind of sending me through a new kind of loophole of like, Alright, now you've lived here for a year how has like the outlook changed? I still love it. It's just different to vacation here than to like live here.
Bailey Anderson 18:53
So funny. Yeah, I've been born and raised here. Yeah.
Katie B Funk 18:58
We came together naturally, very easily. But yeah, so emotions, I think of experiencing an MFA program are obviously super wide. I've kind of just listed out joy, despondence, confusion, frustration, amusement, poignancy, jealousy, confidence, doubt, inspiration, inadequacy, surprise, and sleepiness, just to name a few. So I thought we could take some time to kind of talk about a couple of these things and what we've experienced. So Bailey, would you please give me the honor of telling me at a time you experienced doubt.
Bailey Anderson 19:41
Oh, gosh, every day? Yeah. I think one of the biggest things about an MFA is just putting yourself in a situation to be essentially viewed or evaluated for your research and so um, doubt is very integral to making good art in my opinion, like, I think that it takes a lot of risk to make successful work. And a lot of that, like comes with a lot of doubt as well. So I mean, that's, you know, quite impossible to really make risks unless, like, you're not sure if that's what the right choice is, but um, I guess like my one experience that like, was the most doubtful thing for me for sure is I had a breakthrough piece, I came in as a painter, I've been trained as a painter classically for like 10 years. And so I got here and just painting wasn't cutting it for me because of this, like, doubt in this unresolved, and all these things that were happening with my first semester of work. And so I actually, like found through the program and through this community that like sculpture has been just completely earth shattering for me. So yeah, I made a new piece in cast tin, and it was something so complicated and difficult. It's such a hard material to work with. And it was so nerve wracking because I had no idea what the piece was going to look like until it was finished on the wall. And I had an idea and I was like, oh my god, is this gonna work? Is it gonna be good? Is it gonna fly off the wall and explode? Like, I don't know what's gonna happen to it. So yeah, and then after that it ultimately made on the wall didn't explode. But um yeah, I got on the wall and was like, You know what this makes sense. Finally, some results and like, all this ambiguity that I've been feeling so yeah.
Katie B Funk 21:26
That's a good feeling. Yeah. Oh, my God, when you get to that moment of like, is this gonna work? And then it just like, oh, choir, like angels open? Yeah, I would say like, fricking daily. And it's not in like a, sometimes it's in like a negative place, like, down or I'm grumpy or I have the sads or, you know, it can be more unproductive. But I think like, doubt, as an emotion is, it's definitely like all these emotions or combinations of other emotions. I think doubt can spring from a lot of, like, fear and apprehension, and then like, Okay, well, where's the fear coming from is that, you know, something I've experienced or something I've yet to experience and like, what's really giving me that moment of like, question and doubt. So I try to combat it with humor. I try to come at it in different ways. And I try to just kind of remind myself that, you know, if you're not doubting at least a little bit, then you're probably not challenging yourself enough. So like, kind of take it with a grain of salt as like, this might be a good, good thing to experience. So yeah, I would say that.
Bailey Anderson 22:42
Well, how about -- up next we've got amusement. Do you want to start that one off?
Katie B Funk 22:49
For amusement, I think I would say one of the times I really made, I really made Wendy Kveck laugh. She's one of our props, graduate coordinator. She's awesome. And I actually like made her laugh out loud, like really hard and like tears in her eyes. And we were doing a studio visit. I think this was like in the spring of this year, and I had basically taken something that I'd found off the street like really close to our studios. By the way, our studios are off of Maryland Parkway, we're actually across from campus, and we're betwixt the 711 and the Chipotle in what was a former Carl's Jr, establishment. So all my like cheeseburger energy came to like true love life, when I really when I learned that we were going to be in that kind of space. So yeah, we were having the studio visit. And I think it just cracked her up that I took something that did not belong to me. And I turned it into this like, somewhat altar, because I'm very fascinated by altars and like reliefs and things like kind of coming off the wall, but not quite in the round. And it weighs like 1000 pounds. And it's still sitting in my studio untouched to this day.
Bailey Anderson 24:05
My favorite part of the altar was the painted rock that you found or --
Katie B Funk 24:11
That I turned into a chicken? I found this perfect rock shaped like a chicken breast and I painted it and unlike Bailey's magnificent way to paint, like, skills for life for years, I do not know how to paint and I just put it on. Like, I always describe it as like when you paint walls in your house, like I just put the collar on and like we're like, OK, I don't know how to do values. So I just painted this thing with like stripes. And it's a little chicken breast. Oh good times. Yeah, I think we have time for one more. Do you want to pick?
Bailey Anderson 24:47
Oh boy. Um, I guess I'll talk about poignancy for my own experience. There's a lot of really important things that happen with faculty on campus. And they're some of the greatest role models, especially when you're picking an MFA program. I really like the faculty you have to choose from, that's why I'm here. But I had a chat with a faculty member recently that talked a lot about community involvement. And we chatted about like, what it means to leave space for your community. Also, there's a lot of power in saying no in terms of uplifting your community, and encouraging the next generation of artists. So working as an independent artist and researcher plus an educator, like, where's that tension in terms of like showing your work in the community? And this educator talked a lot about like, you know, know your boundary of like, when it's time to uplift others, rather than just like making sure that like you are the coolest guy around or something? I don't know. But yeah, it was really refreshing to see that an educator approach the community with great care and allowing different things to exist simultaneously. So in terms of like, you know, showing up to event. Are you an artist and educator or a person, like if you're going to go to an opening, like, what kind of hat are you going to put on today? You know, yeah, things like that. Oh, yeah.
Katie B Funk 26:11
Think about that for a while. I think that's a wonderful place to end. I will let you all know, we'll go through our where you can find us spiel. I am on Instagram. Just Katie B Funk, all lowercase. I do have a website, Katie B Funk.com. And we are going to have some shows coming up. We have open studios on December 8 from five to 8 p.m. That is going to be in that wonderful Carl's Jr., GRS. And then, Bailey, where are you at?
Bailey Anderson 26:43
All right, I'm on Instagram. You can find me at ba n dy 2.1. So Bandy 2.1 and my website is Bandy art.com or art bandy.com. I don't really know, I got to refresh it. But yeah, we got a couple of shows coming up. You can catch some of us in Temporary Relief at Art Walk, on November 3, that'll be in the Grant Hall Gallery, which is GRA 123. And we also got an upcoming off campus show called Stone Soup. It's a really sort of experimental format. So if you guys are interested in outdoors experiences, keep an eye on some social media, you might see some artists posting about the event. The coordinates for the show are going to drop next week, Tuesday or Thursday. We haven't really quite figured that out yet. But um, south of Las Vegas on November 11. It's a camping event. There's lots of outdoor sculpture, outdoor paintings, all kinds of super cool stuff. So hope to catch you guys there.
Kevin Krall 27:39
Thank you. You've been listening to special programming aired in collaboration with the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art on the campus of UNLV. The content of this program did not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more. The University of Nevada Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai