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Keeping Skor: Creativity, Curiosity, and the Things We Keep. A podcast about why people collect the things they love. Each episode begins with a collection - but the conversation quickly expands into something deeper: memory, imagination, and the choices we make about what matters. Through thoughtful conversations with collectors of all kinds, Keeping Skor explores the stories, passions, and meaning behind the objects people choose to keep.
Stephen Skorski: Hello?
Angelina Rodgers: Hi.
Stephen Skorski: Are you good?
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, I'm good. I do want to say that a train will probably pass by.
Angelina Rodgers: Maybe a few times.
Stephen Skorski: No worries. Hey, I'm recording, is that okay to record for the podcast?
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Cool.
Stephen Skorski: So, what is going on? Where are you that you're near a train that might come by and make… interrupt us?
Angelina Rodgers: I'm in my friend's studio at Cohab, Cohab Space in High Point, because…
Angelina Rodgers: My space is in the showroom, so there's kind of a lot of movement, and music, and, like, interruption.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Angelina Rodgers: And his is kind of tucked in the back.
Angelina Rodgers: And, there's… a little less going on, except for the train. So…
Stephen Skorski: Alright, yeah, no, trains are fine. We like, we like trains.
Stephen Skorski: How was your event? Was the, kind of, open studios last, weekend?
Angelina Rodgers: Yes, it was last Saturday.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, how was it?
Angelina Rodgers: It went well, I mean… those… Those events are always, like…
Angelina Rodgers: Very inspiring, full of inspiring conversations, and… Just very social.
Angelina Rodgers: Mmph.
Angelina Rodgers: But… It was the second one that Cohab has ever done.
Angelina Rodgers: And, you know, they're hoping to keep it going.
Angelina Rodgers: So…
Angelina Rodgers: yeah, I'm excited to be a part of it, and in the future, I'll probably be taking a bit of a more active role in keeping things going and, like, bartending or something like that.
Stephen Skorski: Right.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Cool, yeah, bartending's fun. Well, you know, it's interesting because, you know, I'm super excited for lots of reasons. One, just to get to know you,
Stephen Skorski: You know, a little more than our, maybe, hour or so conversation, you know, cumulative conversation, from the only time we ever met.
Stephen Skorski: And one of those ways was actually just to ask about your studio space. I'm really fascinated by people's studios, and what's in them, and what they look like, and how they have them set up, and so I've not seen yours.
Stephen Skorski: So yeah, tell me about your studio. If I walked into your studio, and you were working, what do you think I would… what do you think I'd learn about you?
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, okay,
Angelina Rodgers: So, my studio is a mess, but it's, like, a really great generative mess. I love the trash that comes out of process, and, like, I was just cleaning up because I was rearranging today. I'm trying to shake things up, for my next…
Angelina Rodgers: Series of paintings.
Angelina Rodgers: And… Like, little tape scraps, little paper scraps, like…
Angelina Rodgers: charcoal dust? I don't know. It's bad. Like, I can't be expected to keep a studio space clean, ever. And so,
Angelina Rodgers: I am definitely being careful with the walls and, you know, the integrity of the floor and this historic building. Like, I don't, like, splatter.
Stephen Skorski: Is that your disclaimer for… get that out publicly?
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: But I… I have a lot of fun just, like, ripping shit up, and, like, sticking it up on the wall, and then taking it down the next week, or whatever.
Angelina Rodgers: I just, this morning, hung up… like, large…
Angelina Rodgers: pieces of paper on my biggest wall.
Angelina Rodgers: I got this almost recurring critique that I have so many different languages in my paintings, and…
Angelina Rodgers: I sort of need to get to know them a little better, and I agree. I agree. You know,
Angelina Rodgers: The way you frame critique is very important.
Stephen Skorski: And this has been framed to me in many ways. Some of them, like.
Angelina Rodgers: Oh, wow, yeah, cool.
Angelina Rodgers: like, that's actually, like, an interesting idea and, like, an action that I want to take, but then sometimes I'm, like.
Angelina Rodgers: Resistant to the way critique is framed, and
Angelina Rodgers: When… when there's not enough,
Angelina Rodgers: Of a sense of trying to understand my practice.
Angelina Rodgers: Sometimes critique just feels like it comes out of nowhere, but
Angelina Rodgers: I think it definitely means something that I've received this critique.
Angelina Rodgers: a couple times in the past few weeks.
Angelina Rodgers: And so I'm curious about it. I'm curious why people are drawn to…
Angelina Rodgers: this kind of idea in my work of, like, me using a surface to explore everything. Like, every intuition, every type of image, every type of mark-making, and I don't see that as a bad thing. I don't see, like, my current process as…
Angelina Rodgers: having anything wrong with it, I think it could just definitely be refined, and I could…
Angelina Rodgers: work to understand my different languages, like… like I said. And so these large pieces of paper are there for…
Angelina Rodgers: A sort of unfiltered experimentation, like…
Angelina Rodgers: I honestly, I want to block off my studio. I've been… I've been having too many studio visits, and yeah, it just feels too public sometimes, because this,
Angelina Rodgers: This space is kind of inherently a showroom.
Angelina Rodgers: The studios are situated like…
Angelina Rodgers: Kind of galleries, like, working galleries.
Stephen Skorski: Yo.
Angelina Rodgers: Strange and, very different from my…
Angelina Rodgers: Experience in school, where every studio was just an explosion, and it didn't matter.
Stephen Skorski: Well, maybe you have to become less friendly. You have to actively repulse people so they'll leave you alone.
Stephen Skorski: So you can work. Because you're pretty friendly. Am I right? Is that a fair assessment? You're a pretty friendly person?
Angelina Rodgers: I think… I think so. I think it depends. I mean, you know, there's… Being in this space.
Angelina Rodgers: As an artist, and then as…
Angelina Rodgers: A person who's advocating for your own art, trying to sell your work.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: That's a… that's a skill that I'm… Figuring out, and especially with
Angelina Rodgers: The biannual markets that happen, the design markets here.
Angelina Rodgers: like, Cohab is…
Angelina Rodgers: definitely one of the landmarks for people. I mean, in the past few years, I think things have been picking up, and…
Angelina Rodgers: It's… it's just becoming a… A destination for multiple things, like art, music, design, community…
Angelina Rodgers: And… yeah, there's… there's so much to see. I don't know. I don't know what people necessarily gravitate towards, because I have an experienced market here, but…
Angelina Rodgers: As an artist, I,
Angelina Rodgers: I can't make any assumptions about how it'll be. It's coming up, so I'll know soon.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: But, yeah, like, being a salesperson is, another part of my development here,
Angelina Rodgers: But… that doesn't mean that I can't also retreat and experiment.
Stephen Skorski: No, of course, and I was kidding. I don't think you should actually become less friendly. No, yeah, that's interesting. Well, go back a bit, because you said a bunch of things that actually were pretty interesting.
Stephen Skorski: So, you're talking about different languages in your paintings, and this is something that people have critiqued, you know, commented on. I'm assuming that it was given sort of in a…
Stephen Skorski: Framed as, this is something you should…
Stephen Skorski: I don't want to say fix, but is that the way it was framed, or just something you should explore? I'm very curious about that, because the way you talk about it, to me, does not seem…
Stephen Skorski: like a negative, but having, you know, sat through many critiques and, you know, been involved on both sides of that equation, I could imagine that someone would be offering that, like, hey, you know, this is… this is a little too much…
Stephen Skorski: kind of all over the place, let's tighten it up. Is that the critique that you're getting, or the critique is, no, just help me understand why you're doing it this way?
Angelina Rodgers: I think the latter.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, I think, for me, making art is just the process of getting to know myself, and getting to know why certain things move through me onto a canvas, or…
Angelina Rodgers: Into a… Writing into a collection of writing.
Angelina Rodgers: There are many recurring symbols and recurring color palettes, and… Recurring…
Angelina Rodgers: like, bodies of expressive marks.
Angelina Rodgers: And I want to know why, and I think other people also want to know why, and I think part of that
Angelina Rodgers: Part of my not knowing shows up in the work.
Angelina Rodgers: And I don't think that's a bad thing. I love not knowing. Like, I love…
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: Being so early in my practice and letting the work tell me what it needs, letting the materials tell me what they need.
Angelina Rodgers: Like…
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, that idea has popped up for me a lot. Like, it tells you, you don't tell it.
Angelina Rodgers: And… yeah, so, I mean…
Angelina Rodgers: When you get a critique, and it's… it, like, hits home, or, like, it hits you in that vulnerable spot.
Angelina Rodgers: Like, that, you know, could be negative, but give it a week, give it a little bit of rumination and,
Angelina Rodgers: Like, self-love and desire to
Angelina Rodgers: further your practice, like, I don't know. It's… it's very meaningful, and I haven't…
Angelina Rodgers: You know, started the creative…
Angelina Rodgers: implementation of these ideas, but I have made the space for myself, and I'm… I'm really excited to do that.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm, yeah, yeah, critique… I mean, again, it's just… it's interesting that way, right? Critique is,
Stephen Skorski: it's… it's equally… well, it's actually… I shouldn't say equally, it's actually all about how it's received, right? I mean, you know, because you know, you don't know, you don't know the motivations of the…
Stephen Skorski: The person who's doing the critiquing, and so it could be very well-intentioned, and delivered poorly, or it could be…
Stephen Skorski: you know, there'd be terrible intention behind it, but delivered beautifully, you know what I mean? So, you know, kind of the… what you're hearing is one thing, but how you're receiving it is actually the really important part. So it's interesting the way that you're saying, you know, you're receiving it, and I like that. I like that you're saying it's more about…
Stephen Skorski: you know, investigating further why you're doing it this way, as opposed to saying, oh, I have to change the way that I'm doing it.
Stephen Skorski: That seems like a much, much healthier
Stephen Skorski: and more interesting approach, I think. Not, you know, having… I guess I've seen a few of your paintings, but,
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, I thought they had a pretty, well, the quality of unknowing, what you talked about, and you said you loved.
Stephen Skorski: I think they had that. So tell me, tell me about this feeling of unknowing. And you could talk about it in relation to your painting, but maybe it's more interesting if you talk about it in terms of just being a person.
Stephen Skorski: You know, what is that feeling… I mean, do you embrace it? Do you chase it? You know, how does this feeling of unknowing show up in your life?
Angelina Rodgers: I think chase is a great way to describe it. I loved…
Angelina Rodgers: traveling, but not in, like, a, I need to spend money and go sleep somewhere else. Like, I just love…
Angelina Rodgers: exploring… things that I don't see every day. Like, newness, I think, Goes hand-in-hand with unknowing.
Angelina Rodgers: Like, the world is so wide, there's so much to see, but there's also, like, so much happening, like, just outside of your, like.
Angelina Rodgers: daily commute. Like, even if it means, like, hanging upside down, which is,
Angelina Rodgers: an exercise that I kind of talk about a lot and love,
Angelina Rodgers: It just helps you see things in a new way.
Angelina Rodgers: like, I kind of seek out that feeling.
Angelina Rodgers: I notice when I haven't felt it in a while.
Angelina Rodgers: And unknowing. Unknowing.
Angelina Rodgers: I think a lot of it has to do with… Youth, and was growing up.
Angelina Rodgers: And… Being such a young person, I, I just love… like…
Angelina Rodgers: I don't know, like, hearing something for the first time? Or, like, hearing something framed in a certain way that…
Angelina Rodgers: I never have before. And…
Angelina Rodgers: sometimes those things come from within. Like…
Angelina Rodgers: through… through doing actions. Mostly creative actions for me.
Angelina Rodgers: But, yeah, I don't know. I just… I love reading, I love when… Like, writing is…
Angelina Rodgers: so good that I have to look up the words, because I really want to know what it means. Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: I love… Seeking out weird new experiences, and…
Angelina Rodgers: Just letting the wind take me.
Angelina Rodgers: I think…
Angelina Rodgers: It's not all love, though, because I do need clarity in some areas of my life, like… like spirituality and…
Angelina Rodgers: like… Physicality? Like, routine?
Angelina Rodgers: Career.
Stephen Skorski: There are things that I would love to know.
Angelina Rodgers: But I don't.
Angelina Rodgers: But, you know, it's a daily practice, a daily unraveling of… these…
Angelina Rodgers: Large and small and practical truths.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Stephen Skorski: I love that.
Stephen Skorski: Okay. See, this is tough, because you're… you… you're saying so much… so many things that I want to ask you about. So, it's hard for me to pick one, but you said…
Stephen Skorski: Okay, you said that… In some areas, the unknowing…
Stephen Skorski: is maybe not desirable, and you talked about physicality, spirituality, then you got a little practical and kind of like, you know, you know, essentially, like, how am I gonna make money? You know, that sort of thing. But then you said something about, like, a daily practice.
Stephen Skorski: So, do you have a daily practice? And I don't mean that you have to address those, you know, those specific things, but yeah, do you have a daily practice? Is there some routine, you know?
Stephen Skorski: In this, unknowing, kind of messy studio world that you exist in, is there a routine or practice that you follow every day?
Angelina Rodgers: Not really.
Angelina Rodgers: I don't come to the studio every day.
Angelina Rodgers: I come here to do a variety of things, like…
Angelina Rodgers: on average, every day, every weekday. But I need space from the studio, like, I notice… a, like.
Angelina Rodgers: very easily, very naturally, when something needs to breathe. And… I don't… I don't…
Angelina Rodgers: I don't know, I find rest to be very productive, and…
Angelina Rodgers: like I was talking about, seeking out those new…
Angelina Rodgers: different experiences. It all informs the work, and it all informs the…
Angelina Rodgers: Being of a human, and that's what the work is about.
Angelina Rodgers: So… there's the train.
Stephen Skorski: Hen.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, I mean, honestly, I can't even hear it.
Angelina Rodgers: You can't hear it?
Stephen Skorski: No, I think,
Stephen Skorski: I think these, these microphones do a great job of kind of, you know, tuning out all the far-field sounds. Oh, that's… that's good, that's good. It's so loud, I have to cover my ears. Oh my god, really?
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, it's okay. But… yeah, I'm not a…
Stephen Skorski: Sorry, how close to the train track are you?
Angelina Rodgers: like… Maybe, like, 50 feet.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, wow. It's so close.
Angelina Rodgers: I can see it through the window.
Stephen Skorski: That's close.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: So, no, I'm not a person of routine. I think my only routines are, like, the, like, ultra-practical things. Like, I love cooking…
Angelina Rodgers: I enjoy rearranging things in my room, in the house, but…
Angelina Rodgers: You know, it's just, like, to stay healthy.
Stephen Skorski: But in terms of, like.
Angelina Rodgers: A meditation practice? Or… You know, other things adjacent to that. Exercise.
Angelina Rodgers: I am much more random about those things, and it's not that I want to be, but I just am, so…
Stephen Skorski: Right. Right. Yeah, well, that's okay.
Stephen Skorski: So, we ultimately are going to talk about your images that you collect, but this is great. I want to stay on this for a while, because I suspect the images are only interesting… they're only interesting through the lens of you, you know what I mean? Like…
Stephen Skorski: Obviously, images are out there, anyone could put them together.
Stephen Skorski: But it's the person behind the curation that's of interest. So I love, I love getting to know you in this way before we, you know, actually talk about that.
Stephen Skorski: So here's another, maybe, way to look at it, because I think it's really interesting. You brought up the idea of youth, right? So your early 20s, you have a very different perspective, I suspect, than…
Stephen Skorski: you know, well, everyone has a very different perspective, regardless of, you know, their age, or, you know, it's just experience. Like, life experience is just different for all of us. So I think that's… that's an interesting,
Stephen Skorski: Point of reference, just the idea of youth.
Stephen Skorski: So, when you talk about yourself.
Stephen Skorski: Or you talk about your work,
Stephen Skorski: Are there some parts that you are really confident, like, yeah, this is… this is me?
Stephen Skorski: And are there other parts that you're like, no, I'm not quite sure about that? Like, is that a kind of typical state of mind for someone who seems to be fairly introspective?
Stephen Skorski: Or does that not kind of come up?
Stephen Skorski: In your… in your way of thinking.
Angelina Rodgers: I think, like, the images or the things that I choose to save and hold onto.
Angelina Rodgers: Have to strike me in some kind of self… reflection way.
Angelina Rodgers: like… There's a quote from Joan Mitchell.
Angelina Rodgers: One of my top 3 favorite painters.
Angelina Rodgers: She, she says that she keeps painting until she sees herself reflected through the surface.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Angelina Rodgers: and then… Once that moment happens, she can stop. Like, the painting's done.
Angelina Rodgers: And… when I'm… when I'm collecting inspiration, I… it's…
Angelina Rodgers: I don't know, sometimes I find the process of it funny, like, choosing where it goes.
Angelina Rodgers: like, sometimes I will…
Angelina Rodgers: like, one of my favorite websites to find images on is Tumblr, and so sometimes I will re-blog it, and I'm like, okay, this is a part of my blog. And it's a very private blog, like, I'm not, like, doing this for anyone else.
Angelina Rodgers: But then sometimes I'm like, mmm, it doesn't fit…
Angelina Rodgers: it doesn't fit into the hierarchy of, like, blog, so I'm just gonna like it.
Angelina Rodgers: But then sometimes I love it so much, I'm like, I need to screenshot this and, like, or, you know, save it, and put it onto another platform, or, like, have it in my camera roll.
Angelina Rodgers: Or print it out and stick it on my studio wall.
Angelina Rodgers: So, there's definitely an image hierarchy.
Angelina Rodgers: And… sometimes it kind of happens to me. Like…
Angelina Rodgers: I will happen upon an image so many times that I'm like, okay, this must be important. I must do something with this.
Angelina Rodgers: And… Yeah, I have a couple examples of that, if you're… if you want to know.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, no, I do, I do.
Stephen Skorski: I, I, I, before, before you tell, tell, tell me about those things,
Stephen Skorski: What about… tell me a little bit more about…
Stephen Skorski: you mentioned spirituality, and then you just sort of just, you know, you mentioned, like, yeah, there's times when I feel like, you know, I've seen an image over and over, and it's like I'm almost, like, being compelled or told to do something with it. I'm paraphrasing there.
Stephen Skorski: what do you think about that? What's your… you know, and again, you know, you don't… you can get as…
Stephen Skorski: personal as you want, or not at all, right? I don't mean to pry into, you know, into an area that you don't want to talk about. But whenever somebody brings up
Stephen Skorski: You know, kind of this idea of, let's just even say, energies outside of themselves.
Stephen Skorski: and how that influences what they do, or how they see things, I get really, really interested. So I'm curious, what, you know, how does this play a role? And again, in art, in life, just in your existence?
Angelina Rodgers: Okay.
Angelina Rodgers: I… I don't have a definition for… the way…
Angelina Rodgers: I think about, or practice, or kind of am a subject of spirituality.
Angelina Rodgers: A few years ago, I was, like.
Angelina Rodgers: really struggling with trying to convey how I was… sort of…
Angelina Rodgers: Awakening into a desire for, like, a more concrete spiritual practice through my paintings.
Stephen Skorski: I was, like, really, really struggling with it.
Angelina Rodgers: And, like, none of my peers were understanding…
Angelina Rodgers: And it was, like, this thing that I was like, how is everyone not struggling with this?
Angelina Rodgers: But… I don't know, maybe I've sort of compartmentalized since then?
Angelina Rodgers: now that, like, life has a lot more factors to it. Like, in school, it was just like, oh, I can just go be in my studio and think about this all day. But I'm just thinking about so many other things.
Angelina Rodgers: But… I do find it to be… A very sacred thing.
Angelina Rodgers: To share with… Yourself?
Angelina Rodgers: And, you know, other people, of course.
Angelina Rodgers: like… I had a few friends in college who.
Angelina Rodgers: practiced Buddhism, and would go to…
Angelina Rodgers: retreats, like, during Spring Break, and it was… we were very adjacent to Brown, RISD, and
Angelina Rodgers: Brown is kind of known for, like.
Angelina Rodgers: the… the drum circles and the contact improv, which I love.
Angelina Rodgers: And sometimes, There would be these, like, impromptu, ecstatic dance…
Angelina Rodgers: events. Like, we would meet at the park
Angelina Rodgers: At, like, midnight or whatever, and we would just sync our headphones and dance together.
Angelina Rodgers: And that kind of communal experience of, like.
Angelina Rodgers: an active, spiritual thing was awesome. I haven't done that kind of thing in a long time.
Angelina Rodgers: But…
Angelina Rodgers: that, I feel like, kind of got at it in a way that I didn't have to talk about.
Angelina Rodgers: It was just exhilarating, and real, and…
Angelina Rodgers: You know, like, if we had kept at it for a few more hours, maybe there could have been some kind of…
Angelina Rodgers: transcendent breakthrough. .
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: But… I don't know, I think, like, lately, it's just been showing up in… the trees… And the clouds?
Stephen Skorski: What do you mean by that?
Angelina Rodgers: Like, to me, being in nature is very spiritual.
Angelina Rodgers: I feel like it's… it's the perfect balance of every… Positive and negative thing.
Angelina Rodgers: like… I… I've sort of said this before, and
Angelina Rodgers: I do still believe it to be true, that I think nature is…
Angelina Rodgers: The… the middle ground between consumption and expression.
Angelina Rodgers: like… You can be in nature, and…
Angelina Rodgers: be consumed by it. And you can, like, revel at all the leaves.
Angelina Rodgers: And you can also be in it As a part of it.
Angelina Rodgers: like… There really is no boundary between you and the ground, other than You know, just chemicals.
Stephen Skorski: And.
Angelina Rodgers: I don't know, that kind of merging, I feel like.
Angelina Rodgers: can facilitate expression.
Angelina Rodgers: Sometimes I'll see something in nature, and I'm like.
Angelina Rodgers: there's no way that I would want to recreate this in any medium. Like, it's so perfect already.
Angelina Rodgers: So, just being there and experiencing life with it… is…
Angelina Rodgers: Like, the perfect form of expression to me.
Angelina Rodgers: And, yeah, it's not… Like, monetizable, or tangible, or even really shareable.
Angelina Rodgers: That's… I think… maybe how I would define my current spiritual practice?
Stephen Skorski: Huh.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Stephen Skorski: That's an… you know…
Stephen Skorski: When you talk about… and like you said, life has sort of shifted from when you were in art school.
Stephen Skorski: And maybe then you had a little bit more time to think about something like this.
Stephen Skorski: But I think it's so important that people…
Stephen Skorski: it doesn't… you know, whatever answer you come up with, people come up with, right? So… but the idea that it's considered, I think, is really important.
Stephen Skorski: To the fact, you know, when you say things like, well, you know.
Stephen Skorski: Am I the only one thinking about this?
Stephen Skorski: I don't know, I think that's an interesting… it's an interesting feeling, because I think many of us have felt that way.
Stephen Skorski: So the fact that you would sort of be, you know, very open and sort of honest about that, I think, is really great, because people do listen to these things.
Stephen Skorski: And I suspect that somebody will say, yeah, I have… I absolutely have felt that way, you know? And that can be sort of, you know, it can be a very… a lonely feeling.
Stephen Skorski: Right? When you think about it in that term, you're, like, looking around, you're like, wait, why is nobody else concerned, you know, about this thing, when it feels so important to you? So I appreciate you saying that. Okay, so that's good. So we'll just kind of leave that hang for a while. There's no… it sounds like nature…
Stephen Skorski: Plays a big role in… I don't know, the foundation of,
Stephen Skorski: The spiritual part of your existence, but there's…
Stephen Skorski: you know, you're not in one kind of philosophical belief system or anything like that. You're just exploring, and part of the way you explore is through your artwork, is that fair?
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, and so… When you are out in nature.
Stephen Skorski: Or you're collecting these images as you see them and they pop up.
Stephen Skorski: Are you collecting these as…
Stephen Skorski: sort of raw material for thinking? You know, are these things that… is that maybe the lens at which these things are…
Stephen Skorski: being taken in by you, you know, like, looking for visual vocabulary, inspiration, I think you maybe even alluded to maybe some subconscious…
Stephen Skorski: you know, references, possibly. Is that… is that… is that what you think is happening?
Stephen Skorski: Or is it more or less deep than that?
Angelina Rodgers: I think… Subconscious? Yes.
Angelina Rodgers: like, I don't go into nature, like, thinking, what can I take from this?
Angelina Rodgers: But I do go into other…
Angelina Rodgers: Sort of realms or platforms with that thought.
Angelina Rodgers: I think…
Angelina Rodgers: Like, recently, you know, my recent culmination of… Ways that I get inspiration.
Angelina Rodgers: I'm wanting to take less photos.
Angelina Rodgers: like, when I go to a museum, I'm… Trying to resist that urge.
Angelina Rodgers: Because it just kind of, like, perverts the thing. Yeah. And when you see something in person, it's always more meaningful.
Angelina Rodgers: Like…
Angelina Rodgers: like, for example, I went to the NCMA last weekend, and I saw, like, a white marble tablet with,
Angelina Rodgers: like, ancient Greek inscribed into it.
Angelina Rodgers: And you can see pictures of those all day, and it's like, okay, yeah, this is an important artifact, but when you see that, like.
Angelina Rodgers: alabaster white stone, and it's, like, glittering slightly.
Angelina Rodgers: And, like, you can see that someone's hand carved it.
Angelina Rodgers: It's… so beautiful. Like, I almost started crying looking at this thing.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Angelina Rodgers: And, like, the thought of taking my phone out to take a photo, or even trying to, like, do a little drawing in my sketchbook of it, just no. Like, no way.
Stephen Skorski: Like… Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: Like, it's that just beautiful human feeling that…
Angelina Rodgers: You want to feel, and as an artist, you want to make other people feel.
Angelina Rodgers: And… I guess the same thing kind of applies to nature. I mean, nature is an artist.
Angelina Rodgers: And…
Angelina Rodgers: I think capturing it with intention, you know, beautiful film photography, I love. And I do, sometimes. But…
Angelina Rodgers: It's just become too easy to hoard things, to hoard… Like, flattened information of the…
Angelina Rodgers: Of the three-dimensional, real thing.
Angelina Rodgers: A thing is a weird word. I don't know what else.
Stephen Skorski: To say. Right.
Angelina Rodgers: But, yeah. That's true.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, that's such a great way to put it.
Stephen Skorski: It's too easy to hoard… this two-dimensional information.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, I mean, that's great. That's such a great way to frame it. What you're talking about, I struggle with so much.
Stephen Skorski: Because…
Stephen Skorski: I want… you know, you're in the moment, and I don't struggle with that, like, I'm good with that, like, and probably better than most.
Stephen Skorski: You know, really kind of being there and… and… and…
Stephen Skorski: I don't know, doing… just trying to be a sponge.
Stephen Skorski: like an emotional sponge, you know? Because I know, I know I'm not going to remember it in the way that I'm looking at it, or hearing it, or, you know, experiencing it at that moment, right? But it's like, I have to feel like…
Stephen Skorski: there's some… somewhere inside of me, this information's being collected and kind of reconfigured, and I want to get as much of it as I can. So I completely understand that.
Stephen Skorski: you know, what you're talking about. And I'll say, it's one of the reasons why I like
Stephen Skorski: Actually having documented conversations like this.
Stephen Skorski: Because I can be in the moment.
Stephen Skorski: as fully as I can be, and there's this very, sort of, I don't know, just this thing in the background that's doing a certain type of documentation.
Stephen Skorski: that I think is going to be much more valuable than a picture.
Stephen Skorski: Or even a video, quite frankly.
Stephen Skorski: would have… would be for me in the future. Like, you know, its value is sort of greater,
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, I don't know, but I think that the fact that so many people
Stephen Skorski: do this hoarding that you're talking about is… is… it's sad, really.
Stephen Skorski: You know, when you're in an event, or you're at an event, or whatever, and you see people…
Stephen Skorski: Living their lives through this little, you know, kind of screen in front of their face.
Stephen Skorski: I mean, do you see it that way? Am I… is this… is this the old guy in me? Kind of thinking, like, oh, people shouldn't do that, or…
Stephen Skorski: You know, as someone who is You know, again, you know.
Stephen Skorski: in a different phase. Do you see it that way, or not?
Angelina Rodgers: I think it depends. I think it matters what you do with the images you capture.
Angelina Rodgers: And…
Angelina Rodgers: I don't know, I'm not… I'm not one to judge someone wanting to record a concert. You know, that concert could mean something.
Angelina Rodgers: Completely different to everyone in the audience, and the way they capture it.
Angelina Rodgers: Is meaningful for them.
Angelina Rodgers: So… Like, that's…
Angelina Rodgers: that's less of, I think, what I'm trying to get at. I think we live in this…
Angelina Rodgers: weird, absurd surveillance digital age, and everything is being captured, and so… Someone… Taking pictures of beautiful sunset.
Angelina Rodgers: Pales in comparison to the way we're constantly being surveilled.
Angelina Rodgers: Through our own phones, but also just in the world.
Angelina Rodgers: And, so… Yeah, I think… I'm sort of…
Angelina Rodgers: Going down this avenue of image collection now, because my collection…
Angelina Rodgers: The theme of this… this conversation is images.
Angelina Rodgers: And… So… What does it mean to capture an image of something in the real world?
Angelina Rodgers: Or to capture an image of something that's already in the digital plane.
Angelina Rodgers: Plain.
Angelina Rodgers: Like, they're very different to me.
Angelina Rodgers: Because I'm… as, like, a Gen Z person who grew up with an iPhone, I'm very interested in… the…
Angelina Rodgers: The ways that our phones, and social media specifically, have influenced Culture and ontology.
Angelina Rodgers: like… there's one image that I have, and it's like a… an iceberg with… like…
Angelina Rodgers: Like, 6 different sections.
Angelina Rodgers: And… at the top.
Angelina Rodgers: is, like, you know, the kind of brain rot that everyone has experienced. Like, doomscrolling, FOMO, meme dumps.
Angelina Rodgers: Is this AI? question mark.
Angelina Rodgers: And then the further down you go, there's, like, close friend story.
Angelina Rodgers: Building your algorithm brick by brick.
Angelina Rodgers: Psyops… like… Tiktok… Audio stems… And then there's, like, dark web…
Angelina Rodgers: scroll fatigue, which I actually have experienced.
Angelina Rodgers: Just, like, psychosis… ChatGPT effect.
Angelina Rodgers: And… a word on here that I included in…
Angelina Rodgers: The making of one of my collage poems is nomophobia.
Angelina Rodgers: Which is kind of like a…
Angelina Rodgers: I don't know the right word, like, homonym play on words of, like, no more phone phobia? Like, nomophobia.
Stephen Skorski: Mmm.
Angelina Rodgers: So, like, the fear of, like, not having your phone,
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, it's kind of, like, dystopian, but I…
Angelina Rodgers: I imagine during the apocalypse, when, like, none of our technology's working anymore, like, what do we do then?
Stephen Skorski: What do we do, then?
Stephen Skorski: What do you think?
Angelina Rodgers: I… think we heal.
Angelina Rodgers: But, you know, the more time goes on, the further baked in technology is into the way that
Angelina Rodgers: we… Understand each other, and communicate, and…
Angelina Rodgers: Makes sense of why we do what we do.
Angelina Rodgers: like… A lot of times, photoshoots… are done for Instagram.
Angelina Rodgers: marketing, photo shoots, or even just, like, fun with your friends. Like, you know, when I was 16, that was, like, a thing. Like, we're gonna meet up and do an Instagram shoot.
Angelina Rodgers: like, and that's kind of a creative outlet, like, it's not a bad thing. It's like, sure, it's… it's,
Angelina Rodgers: kind of… Intertwined with the validation thing.
Angelina Rodgers: And, the dopamine hits.
Angelina Rodgers: At the same time, it's like… it's this… Kind of innocent, fun, Friendly community activity.
Angelina Rodgers: yeah. Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: And is it that? You know what I mean? Like…
Stephen Skorski: That's… that's… that actually… I mean, right, the way you just described that, you know, 16-year-old you going out with your friends, taking photos, that actually sounds pretty… pretty fun. Pretty fantastic.
Stephen Skorski: Is it?
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: It is.
Angelina Rodgers: Very wholesome, and
Angelina Rodgers: I mean, sometimes it's, like, begrudging, you know, don't get the right angle, you gotta redo it 10 times, and the sun is setting, and it's, like, there's, like, pressure. But I've definitely grown out of needing that, and presenting myself in such a way where I need the perfect Instagram photo.
Angelina Rodgers: like… I honestly think it's kind of a phenomenon how artists present their
Angelina Rodgers: their physical body and appearance, like, peppered between paintings on their Instagram feed.
Angelina Rodgers: Like, many of my peers, their feeds are,
Angelina Rodgers: All paintings, or sculptures or projects.
Angelina Rodgers: And then there's, like, one selfie, one full body, one, like, shoot they did with a friend that they just happened to be in.
Angelina Rodgers: And my feet is like that, too, but I notice it.
Stephen Skorski: I notice it, and…
Angelina Rodgers: I'm like, are we all trying to fit into the same mold, or is this natural? Like, none of it is natural, nothing about it.
Angelina Rodgers: But, like… As a successful artist, or as an artist aspiring to success.
Angelina Rodgers: Like, you have to be,
Angelina Rodgers: Visually connected to your work in some way?
Angelina Rodgers: I mean, some people aren't. I don't want to say you have to do anything, but…
Angelina Rodgers: I don't know, I think in this stage of…
Angelina Rodgers: our early careers, my peers and I, That's… That's just the,
Angelina Rodgers: The simultaneously easiest and most cool way to present your physical self.
Angelina Rodgers: Like, juxtaposed with your work.
Angelina Rodgers: Like, there has to be, like, this level of mystery.
Angelina Rodgers: Braiki, at least.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, that's great. Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Alright, let me, let me maybe ask a point of clarification.
Stephen Skorski: So, before, when I was mentioning, like, You know, this thing about…
Stephen Skorski: people experiencing different events through their phones and things like that.
Stephen Skorski: And then you mentioned, like, well, you know, technology's getting more and more baked into the way in which we communicate.
Stephen Skorski: But then you… when… but also, then when I said, like, what do we do in the apocalypse, and you're like, we heal, right? Like, I don't know, there just seems… there's, like, a tension… and I'm talking more about my… probably myself at this point, right? About… there's a tension…
Stephen Skorski: that exists because of technology. And one of the big points of tension for me is…
Stephen Skorski: That once you… once people grow up with technology so intertwined with their existence.
Stephen Skorski: They accept it, and they will never know what it's like to not Have that as…
Stephen Skorski: you know, a foundational aspect of their existence, unless…
Stephen Skorski: somebody gives them the opportunity or points out that maybe this is not the only way, you know, it needs to be. And the example I would give is with sound.
Stephen Skorski: in the environment. Most people don't understand what it means to be in a…
Stephen Skorski: Environment where you are intimately connected with nature.
Stephen Skorski: From an acoustic or sonic level.
Stephen Skorski: Because it is so hard to be anywhere, certainly in this country, where trains, or planes, or cars, or people, and, you know, are not sort of,
Stephen Skorski: taking over your acoustic world, right? But we just accept that.
Stephen Skorski: So I can imagine that somebody from 150 years ago would be like, hey.
Stephen Skorski: you don't understand what you're missing. You don't understand the connection to nature that
Stephen Skorski: You know, is not in your life right now.
Stephen Skorski: And if you did experience it, your life would be better, right? So this is kind of the parallel that I'm making.
Stephen Skorski: So, am I… am I… is that… does that tension not need to exist within me?
Stephen Skorski: Or… do you think it's fair that…
Stephen Skorski: You know, people do push back.
Stephen Skorski: on the technology in that way, because really, they're not saying, like, oh, things were so much better when I was younger. What they're saying is, I want you to be as sort of happy and fulfilled
Stephen Skorski: as I was at your age.
Stephen Skorski: And I see this thing as a roadblock. Like, how does that all sit with you?
Angelina Rodgers: I think that's a very real feeling, and I even feel it. I mean, I didn't have a phone until I was 10,
Angelina Rodgers: So, you know, I was…
Angelina Rodgers: sentient at that point. I did have a childhood without, you know, smart technology. You know, we had…
Angelina Rodgers: those, like, Y2K CD players and VHS tapes and the very early… Little flip cameras.
Angelina Rodgers: And I loved that. It all felt so novel, and now it feels so… Special and nostalgic, and…
Angelina Rodgers: Gen Z, I think, as a whole, loves the… the Y2K-ness of digital camera quality.
Stephen Skorski: Hmh.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: But… Yes, I mourn, I mourn for that time.
Angelina Rodgers: Even… Even just being, like, a couple… Decades out of it.
Angelina Rodgers: So I… I can totally sympathize with older generations seeing…
Angelina Rodgers: Us… buried in our phones and being, like…
Angelina Rodgers: There's more… there's… there's a better way.
Stephen Skorski: Personal.
Angelina Rodgers: There's such a variety of entertainment that is much slower and more challenging.
Angelina Rodgers: I mean, I even struggle with long-form media sometimes, and I know many of my
Angelina Rodgers: Many of my friends and peers do as well.
Angelina Rodgers: But… it's not impossible. I do love challenging media. I love, like, Long, pretentious films.
Angelina Rodgers: Like, not even because…
Angelina Rodgers: it's a performance of liking these things. Like, I just… I get that little bit of magic, In them.
Stephen Skorski: That I got with the tablet in the museum.
Angelina Rodgers: It's like feeling… feeling understood in… sorry, trained.
Stephen Skorski: No, again, it's fine, it's like, I don't…
Stephen Skorski: Unless, you know, your microphone's picking it up, but mine's not, so…
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: I just needed… I just need to pause and let it pass.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah. No, you're… again, it's… it's fine, yeah. Whatever you need.
Angelina Rodgers: Okay. Yeah, okay. But, okay, your question was kind of…
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, no, you answered it. I mean, in some ways, it was almost like a question that was probably… I'm looking for more comfort, you know, in the way that, you know, I'm kind of seeing the world, and so I appreciate your…
Stephen Skorski: You're really… I mean, you're very, very thoughtful. I mean, I… I gotta say, this is such a great conversation, because…
Stephen Skorski: I don't know, your thoughtfulness comes through, I mean, really clearly,
Stephen Skorski: And, you know, I mean, I kind of… I guess I picked up on that certainly when we met, you know, for that brief, you know, period of time, and…
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, it's really fantastic. So, no, I appreciate the, the…
Stephen Skorski: the way in which you're… you're approaching, you know, some of my, deviations off the path.
Stephen Skorski: So let me deviate a little bit more off the path. So, in between kind of the conversation that we're really having, I like to have these little breaks that are just kind of like these little quick hitters where you just respond to this thing. They're… they're fun, they're light, they don't mean anything.
Stephen Skorski: Other than getting to know you, so it's just kind of like yes or no, either-or kind of questions.
Stephen Skorski: Little intermissions in the conversation, so…
Stephen Skorski: Before we get into, the actual, like, hey, tell me about this digital collection, and maybe some more of the specifics.
Stephen Skorski: Let's do one of these, is that okay?
Stephen Skorski: Okay. Okay, cool. Alright. Coffee or tea?
Angelina Rodgers: T.
Stephen Skorski: Alright… City or countryside?
Angelina Rodgers: Oh… City.
Stephen Skorski: Books or movies?
Angelina Rodgers: books.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm, that took a while.
Angelina Rodgers: I love both, but I'm gonna…
Stephen Skorski: Morning person or night owl?
Angelina Rodgers: Night, 100%.
Stephen Skorski: Nice.
Stephen Skorski: Music while working, or silence?
Angelina Rodgers: Both.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Stephen Skorski: messy studio or organized studio, we have already covered that. Although, messy is your preference, am I right in saying that?
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, alright. Planning or improvising?
Angelina Rodgers: improvising.
Stephen Skorski: Listening or talking?
Angelina Rodgers: Listening.
Stephen Skorski: Stability or adventure.
Angelina Rodgers: Both.
Stephen Skorski: And the last one, solitude, or…
Angelina Rodgers: social energy Both. I can't have one or the other. I need both.
Angelina Rodgers: Okay.
Stephen Skorski: So you're, so that's interesting, yeah, this duality of… Experience is important to you.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, balance. I'm a Libra, so…
Stephen Skorski: Is it your Libra?
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: We were sun. So, yeah, balance is just…
Angelina Rodgers: inherent in… You know, my… my way of being.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, good. Yeah, no, that's helpful. It's helpful to…
Stephen Skorski: Okay, so these images that you collect, what…
Stephen Skorski: what does this collection look like? You know, and I guess at this point, I'm kind of thinking about almost, like, the technical aspects of this thing. Like, where do you find them? How do you save them? How do you organize them? Like, just, you know, help me understand the general…
Stephen Skorski: keeping of this non-physical collection.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: So, okay. Tumblr, I mentioned. I love Tumblr.
Angelina Rodgers: I hate the ads, but I love it. Like, it's better than Pinterest because there's more, like, weird shit. Like, I feel like Pinterest is very nice.
Angelina Rodgers: And I mean, there are some beautiful images there, but I've never really connected with it as a platform.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, so, on there, there's, like, the following feed, people who you follow.
Angelina Rodgers: That's fine, but it tends to show me, like, the same four people.
Angelina Rodgers: Which is same for Instagram, but yeah, I don't love that. So they also have a For You feed.
Angelina Rodgers: Which will give you, like.
Angelina Rodgers: Things that are similar to the people you follow and the things you interact with.
Angelina Rodgers: And…
Angelina Rodgers: like, I don't like everything on there, by any means. I will spend a lot of time just, like, skipping over things, which is true for every social media platform.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: Which is, like, such a waste of time, but, you know, it's part of…
Angelina Rodgers: Finding things that you do like,
Angelina Rodgers: In any… in any medium, at the library.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Angelina Rodgers: on the… like, I don't know, at the movie theater, like, you… I don't know.
Stephen Skorski: So, do you think, and I don't mean to cut you off, but you just said something that was really interesting to me.
Stephen Skorski: Do you think that that is part of the digital hunt? Like…
Stephen Skorski: Have you… you've been to… do you go to antique shops at all? Like, especially kind of those bigger ones where there's lots of different booths with lots of different stuff, or flea markets? Are these places… Yeah. Okay.
Stephen Skorski: So, as you were saying that, I was thinking about my experience in those places. And the truth is, you walk into those places, and you see thousands and thousands of objects.
Stephen Skorski: But out of 10,000 objects you see, there might only be 3 that you're really interested in.
Stephen Skorski: And that's part of the fun.
Stephen Skorski: Of going to flea markets.
Stephen Skorski: and, you know, antique shops. Do you think that's the same… is this the equivalent of, like, scrolling past 30 things that you didn't like to get to one that you did? Or are they not equivalent at all?
Angelina Rodgers: Totally equivalent.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Angelina Rodgers: I'd say that's the same thing, just on a different plane.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, I love the treasure hunt. I mean, I also kinda hate it, but…
Angelina Rodgers: It just depends on, like, the level of intention, like…
Angelina Rodgers: like, scrolling on Instagram is a very different thing than scrolling on Tumblr for me, but they sometimes bring out the same fruits of inspiration.
Angelina Rodgers: Going to an antique shop, is…
Angelina Rodgers: Very different from going to a museum.
Angelina Rodgers: But, at the same time, Same fruit.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Huh.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: That's interesting, because now that we're thinking of… now that we're talking about this, maybe… maybe…
Stephen Skorski: a potential difference.
Stephen Skorski: is that when I'm looking through somebody's
Stephen Skorski: You know, kind of stand at a flea market.
Stephen Skorski: I can very quickly scan And the… you know…
Stephen Skorski: Mickey and Minnie salt and pepper shakers?
Stephen Skorski: they're not actively trying to get my attention. You know what I mean? Like, there's nothing about them that can,
Stephen Skorski: harm me in any way. They're very, very passive, where I'm not sure the same can be said about scrolling through Instagram.
Angelina Rodgers: Mmm… Yeah, that's very true. Yeah, everything on Instagram is trying to get your attention.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: But…
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, I don't know, I think it… like, even just seeing the first, like, millisecond of an ad before you scroll past it takes a little bit of a toll on your attention span.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: like, your dopamine levels, I mean, it's so much information.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: And, like, building a healthy relationship with it.
Angelina Rodgers: is important and difficult.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah. Because…
Angelina Rodgers: It's designed to draw you in. And transcending that is a skill that is so admirable for people like me.
Angelina Rodgers: I don't know, I really admire when someone is, like, disconnected enough.
Angelina Rodgers: But… I… I… since I see it as this treasure trove,
Angelina Rodgers: like, maybe I give myself permission to engage with it more than I should.
Angelina Rodgers: But it's always there, there's always more. And so, when I do need to take a few days, like, away, away, like, I don't feel like I'm…
Angelina Rodgers: Truly missing out on anything.
Angelina Rodgers: I mean, maybe I'll have, like, an urge to navigate to that app on my home screen. Not even maybe, I do.
Angelina Rodgers: like… Yeah, it's healthy to take time away and, like, give your attention a break.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Well, yeah, and so, you know, that's interesting.
Stephen Skorski: we could probably talk for, like, you know, God, about 3 weeks about, you know, the complexities of that relationship, right?
Stephen Skorski: But, but going back to…
Stephen Skorski: you collecting these images, and tell us, because I'm not sure that everyone's gonna know the difference
Stephen Skorski: between scrolling on Instagram and sort of looking at Tumblr. Can you just briefly describe that for, you know, for someone who doesn't know kind of what the difference is in what you're seeing and how you're interacting?
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: So I think, I mean, it's a very similar function. It's like a feed that you scroll through.
Angelina Rodgers: But it's not, like,
Angelina Rodgers: It's not, like, time-based.
Angelina Rodgers: like… I don't know, as time has gone on, Instagram has…
Angelina Rodgers: Pushed out more random, timed content, like…
Angelina Rodgers: you'll see your friends post from 5 days ago, and that's like, okay, it's a little late, you know, if you're wanting to celebrate something that they're sharing, whatever. But, Tumblr is much more, like, random, time-wise, and…
Angelina Rodgers: I also use the search a lot, like…
Angelina Rodgers: if I see a film that I love, or I hear some quote, or some idiom, or something, like, I'll just look it up in the… in the hashtags, and, like, see what people are tagging this thing as. Like, I just watched As Above, So Below, the…
Angelina Rodgers: the Found Footage horror film with one of my friends.
Angelina Rodgers: And…
Angelina Rodgers: I was like, I'm gonna look this up on Tumblr, because As Above, So Below can relate to so many things. Like, sure, it's this movie title, but it's like a…
Angelina Rodgers: It's one of the, like, ancient… Ways that people describe, like, the…
Angelina Rodgers: planes of heaven, earth, and hell. And so, I know lots of people are thinking about this.
Angelina Rodgers: in many creative, different ways. So, sometimes I'll see GIFs of the movie, but sometimes I'll see
Angelina Rodgers: Snippets of essays, or, like, people's art, or memes.
Angelina Rodgers: And I just… I love… I love all of it. I take…
Angelina Rodgers: selectively, but I just… I love all of it.
Angelina Rodgers: I mean, sometimes I hate… sometimes I hate things, sometimes I'm like, that's so annoying. Like, why? But that's a part of the experience, like…
Angelina Rodgers: I signed up for that. I signed up for the Rage Bait.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, so, so Tumblr, then, you would say, is…
Stephen Skorski: It's… it's a little… it's kind of a combination of… Instagram, Facebook, Reddit.
Stephen Skorski: Right, I mean, am I right in kind of saying that? That there's sort of different ways in which people kind of push out their information? I mean, it's still on the screen, but it might be more text, it might be more image, it might be more video.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: It's also a mix of, like, Substack and Pinterest.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm, okay.
Angelina Rodgers: and… Arena is another comparable thing, like, R-A-ER.NA is, an internet organization…
Angelina Rodgers: kind of bloggy… blog-ish platform, which is popular with graphic designers, and…
Stephen Skorski: How do you spell that again?
Angelina Rodgers: ARE dot N A.
Angelina Rodgers: arena. It's very… it's very cool, and I use that as an image source as well.
Angelina Rodgers: But,
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, some people use Tumblr for, like, class blogs, like art history, I find on here, a lot.
Angelina Rodgers: Like, deep dives into pieces, paintings, Lithographs, whatever.
Angelina Rodgers: and I… I appreciate the… the… The documentation lens, that… Tumblr, sort of…
Angelina Rodgers: garners. Like, I feel like the captions usually give you…
Angelina Rodgers: a good amount of information, like a little historical blurb, and if there's a painting, you'll always get
Angelina Rodgers: title, artist, medium, date, which is missing from some other platforms. Like, people will just, like, take a screenshot and not care who made it.
Stephen Skorski: Right.
Angelina Rodgers: It seems like people here are… they care more about provenance and, like…
Angelina Rodgers: Contributing to each other's inspiration blogs.
Stephen Skorski: Okay. Yeah, I mean, this is actually really helpful, because now, you know, for someone who doesn't know the difference, they might not completely know at this point, but at least…
Stephen Skorski: there's some places they can… they can go look. Like, I think you've kind of…
Stephen Skorski: help to stimulate a little bit of interest in all of these different platforms, and not from a, you know, like, oh, commercial kind of way, but, you know, if you wanted to…
Stephen Skorski: you know, kind of get into digital collecting the way that you're talking about it, these are the places to start. And that's fantastic. So back to what is… okay, so you're on whatever platform you're on.
Stephen Skorski: you're scrolling, so you know there's some, you know, treasure hunt, but also a bit of, like, wading through things that you might want to see, might not want to see. But when… let's say you find something.
Stephen Skorski: then what do you do? How do you save it? How do you organize these things? And what are we talking? Like, roughly, you know… and if you don't have a number, that's completely fine. But is there, you know, some number of images that you kind of have?
Stephen Skorski: In your, archive? That you, you know, kind of know about, or is that not… that just doesn't… you don't really think about that?
Angelina Rodgers: So on Tumblr, I reblog and like.
Stephen Skorski: Okay. On Instagram, I screenshot and, I guess.
Angelina Rodgers: repost?
Stephen Skorski: But, you know, there's usually more time in between the…
Angelina Rodgers: the collecting and the sharing on Instagram.
Angelina Rodgers: And on Instagram, I use… I've been using my Finsta, which I've… the fake Instagram, which I've had for…
Angelina Rodgers: Since I was 12, so 9 years.
Angelina Rodgers: And I have, like.
Stephen Skorski: Wait, what I… okay, help me out. What is this?
Angelina Rodgers: Finsta is like a… a secondary account that you have for… Funny…
Angelina Rodgers: like, behind-the-scenes type. It's a weird way to describe it, but, yeah, I have 2,100 posts on there, and…
Angelina Rodgers: It started as, like, a little selfies with my friends.
Angelina Rodgers: like, funny stuff we're doing on the weekends type thing. And… It grew into…
Angelina Rodgers: like, weekly, kind of, life documentation, like, oh, I'm feeling sad this week, I'm gonna do a carousel of, like.
Angelina Rodgers: rocks. Pictures I took at the beach.
Angelina Rodgers: But… I'll also do… like, pictures of book pages I'm reading, outtakes of photoshoots I did, like…
Angelina Rodgers: Pictures of my mom's dog that I take on FaceTime.
Angelina Rodgers: and lately, I've been doing, like, screenshot?
Angelina Rodgers: maybe poetry? Like, I see, like, the carousel feature as this kind of… Chronological storytelling tool.
Angelina Rodgers: Which, I'm sure lots of people would agree on this, like, it matters what you put first, and what you put last, you know?
Angelina Rodgers: Meme pages specifically, like, They'll do, like, themed carousels, like…
Angelina Rodgers: About a show, like, Heated Rivalry or something, or, like, neoliberal hell will…
Angelina Rodgers: do a… like, a hate comment carousel or something? Like, a very, leftist com… Political… figure,
Angelina Rodgers: And, yeah, so I screenshot memes that, like, I… totally… Love, or relate to.
Angelina Rodgers: Like, my latest…
Angelina Rodgers: the cover is talking about. Cave paintings never had anything to do with an art market, and they're some of the most important human art ever created.
Angelina Rodgers: I had screenshotted the… The comments section of a hyperallergic post.
Angelina Rodgers: talking about… A curatorial program closing at the… The School of Arts and…
Angelina Rodgers: New York, like, SVA, I think.
Angelina Rodgers: Some graphic design inspiration from…
Angelina Rodgers: like, Instagram graphic designers being like, here's the Photoshop preset,
Angelina Rodgers: a picture I took at the opening, where we met, actually, of one of the pieces.
Angelina Rodgers: Some interesting gallery installations.
Angelina Rodgers: A tweet saying, going no contact with yourself.
Angelina Rodgers: Which I find so funny.
Angelina Rodgers: Cause, like, everyone talks about going no contact with your ex, or whatever.
Stephen Skorski: Right.
Angelina Rodgers: and sometimes there are just, like, cheesy…
Angelina Rodgers: Cheesy, sweet quotes that people will post,
Angelina Rodgers: that I know are cheesy, but I just love. Like…
Angelina Rodgers: you are here, it is beautiful, type shit. Like…
Angelina Rodgers: Just those, like, kind of millennial quotes, like…
Angelina Rodgers: I can't think of another example, but like…
Angelina Rodgers: Just loving things, kind of unabashedly, or, like, loving people, loving yourself.
Angelina Rodgers: It's… it can be annoying, in… in certain contexts.
Angelina Rodgers: But… I don't… I think we just need more of that, and…
Angelina Rodgers: Need to be less afraid of cringing.
Angelina Rodgers: About things that are pure, and just… Sweet.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, yeah. I mean, the whole… I mean, again, talk about something we could talk about a bunch of.
Stephen Skorski: The whole cringe thing,
Stephen Skorski: I'm not steeped in it, you know what I mean? Like, I don't… but… very intentionally so. I just am so…
Stephen Skorski: I couldn't be more suspicious of a person.
Stephen Skorski: If they start to say things are cringe.
Stephen Skorski: You know, like, I just feel like… I don't know.
Stephen Skorski: That almost falls into the category for me of, like.
Stephen Skorski: Instead of just commenting on the world, go do something.
Stephen Skorski: You know, I don't know. I mean, I think people are so afraid of…
Stephen Skorski: They're just afraid of being judged.
Stephen Skorski: You know? And when people contribute to that system.
Stephen Skorski: I just find that really sad. Anyway, I don't know.
Stephen Skorski: Sorry, that was my little…
Angelina Rodgers: Okay.
Stephen Skorski: Does that make sense?
Angelina Rodgers: It makes sense.
Stephen Skorski: You don't.
Angelina Rodgers: I don't know if I totally agree.
Stephen Skorski: Really?
Angelina Rodgers: I think criticism is important, and it's something I… I, I love.
Angelina Rodgers: I, because I'm a Libra.
Angelina Rodgers: I am slightly averse to having, like, super strong opinions.
Stephen Skorski: Which…
Angelina Rodgers: I don't think is a good thing. I want to have stronger opinions, and I do, I do. I just don't really speak on them as much as I wish I could. Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: like… In college, I worked… The student publication, and…
Angelina Rodgers: Sometimes writers would submit, like, really, emotionally, politically, socially strong pieces of commentary.
Angelina Rodgers: And, I just really admired that. Like, writing an op-ed at this age just feels like…
Angelina Rodgers: Such a challenge, you know, to… To speak on something.
Angelina Rodgers: Assuredly enough that it's respected, or…
Angelina Rodgers: you know, recognized, even. Someone might disagree, and that's… that's a worthy interaction.
Angelina Rodgers: But it's… it's a skill that I'm trying to hone, and in small ways, like disagreeing with the comment section on a hyperallergic post.
Angelina Rodgers: like… It's… it's important, I think, to have strong opinions, and… To understand why.
Angelina Rodgers: You're against something, or critical of it.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah. Oh, a hundred…
Stephen Skorski: 100% agree with that. I guess when I hear the term cringe, it feels…
Stephen Skorski: So, it feels like there isn't much depth behind that opinion. So, 100%.
Stephen Skorski: I think people should have… You know, deep thoughts about Everything that's meaningful to them.
Stephen Skorski: And they absolutely should have opinions
Stephen Skorski: And you should have conversations that are, you know, so I don't mean that everyone's in agreement. I guess I'm advocating for that. I just feel like when that word cringe, when it's used, it's used so quickly.
Stephen Skorski: And almost, like, as an umbrella term, to just… dismiss.
Stephen Skorski: Maybe something that somebody has given, sort of, like, you know, months or years, or even their life, sort of, thinking about.
Stephen Skorski: I guess that's the way I was, sort of, considering it, but maybe that's…
Stephen Skorski: Not the way other people think about that word.
Angelina Rodgers: I think… Cringe is something that stops a lot of people from…
Angelina Rodgers: Doing what they want to do.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: I… hmm.
Angelina Rodgers: I don't know, it's complicated, like, I'm not above cringing. I cringe.
Angelina Rodgers: all the time, and I think it's cringe, and I will say it's cringe.
Stephen Skorski: Right.
Angelina Rodgers: So, but… I hear where you're coming from.
Angelina Rodgers: Like, dismissing someone who's putting themselves out there as cringe when you yourself wouldn't do not necessarily what they're doing, but something to that same level.
Angelina Rodgers: is… it's… it's an unfortunate thing, I mean…
Angelina Rodgers: You're… you're stopping yourself before you even give yourself a chance.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: And you're doing the same thing to other people, which isn't… Cool.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: But…
Angelina Rodgers: Sometimes you know a person so well, and they're doing something cringe, and you're like, oh my god, like, there they go again.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, okay, that's fair. Yeah, yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah. I, I, I definitely.
Stephen Skorski: I can certainly see that point of view.
Stephen Skorski: But, okay, so this is interesting. So, are you saying that your collection is mostly online in these platforms, on these platforms, or is it a combination of that plus, you know, things you were actually, like, putting onto a hard drive of some sort?
Angelina Rodgers: Hmm… I've thought about this, I'm like, there's no way Tumblr's forever. Like, I'm gonna lose this archive one day.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: And there's no way hard drives are forever either.
Angelina Rodgers: like… I, sometimes when I'm…
Angelina Rodgers: on, like, the Explore page or something, I see something I really like, and then I click the wrong thing, and I refresh, and it disappears. I'm like, no! But… at the same time, I'm like, I know it will pop up in some other way at some other time, in some other way that makes more…
Angelina Rodgers: Sense to me then, or… is more valuable to me then. Like…
Angelina Rodgers: I'm not afraid of losing these images. I'm…
Angelina Rodgers: I'm not attached. Like, I do remember… Some specifics?
Angelina Rodgers: But I think… because I remember them, that's enough. Like, I,
Angelina Rodgers: I don't know, sometimes I do go into rabbit holes where I'm, like, looking for something in my camera roll, and I can't find it, and it's, like, actually upsetting.
Angelina Rodgers: But… If it were to go all the way, maybe it would just be overall less upsetting.
Angelina Rodgers: I… maybe I need to get better about documenting things.
Angelina Rodgers: But… for these archives, I… I kind of love the haphazard nature of them.
Angelina Rodgers: It's like, the way these things were found was haphazard, the way they are… like…
Angelina Rodgers: bound together is haphazard, and the way I choose from them is also haphazard.
Angelina Rodgers: So, it's, it's just a special, personal, intuitive thing.
Angelina Rodgers: And… I don't feel like… The archives as they are need to be shared or understood by other people.
Angelina Rodgers: like, that's awesome if they are. If someone stumbles upon my blog and likes it or, connects with it, that's cool. But that's not really my intention.
Angelina Rodgers: I think they are just kind of selfish in that way.
Angelina Rodgers: that when I do want to make something out of them, it takes a different form.
Angelina Rodgers: like, I see the archives as…
Angelina Rodgers: A piece, as a large, cumulative piece, not as… individual pieces?
Angelina Rodgers: I don't know. I can't be too prescriptive about it, because I feel like I would just change my mind about that statement. Like, you know.
Angelina Rodgers: Soon.
Stephen Skorski: No, well, and you don't have to make a choice. I mean, that… okay, so… but this is helpful, because this is not what… it's not what I originally thought. So you… first of all, I love that you're using the word archive.
Stephen Skorski: I think the idea that…
Stephen Skorski: At least currently, you're thinking about it as…
Stephen Skorski: You know, the, the archive is the,
Stephen Skorski: the archive is the thing, you know.
Stephen Skorski: and all these pieces… you know, that's… the archive is the focus, as opposed to the individual components.
Stephen Skorski: So these things are then saved… they're saved, they are digital, they're saved in the kind of global digital world, primarily. They're not held on your personal…
Stephen Skorski: hard drive, in the sense that if tomorrow Tumblr, Instagram, whatever platforms you're using, they were just like, sorry, we just erased all of our data, you would have almost nothing left. Is that correct?
Angelina Rodgers: I would have lost my collections of things. Okay. Like, I have a lot in my camera roll.
Angelina Rodgers: But… the way that I make associations is through… making posts.
Angelina Rodgers: Like, on Instagram.
Angelina Rodgers: But, yeah, if Tumblr deleted everything, I… I would be a little sad.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, and of course. Well, I mean…
Stephen Skorski: Of course! I mean, I don't think something…
Stephen Skorski: I mean, I don't know, it would be hard for me to classify something as a collection.
Stephen Skorski: If that feeling didn't exist.
Stephen Skorski: Right, I mean, it would be something, but I don't know that I would classify it as a collection,
Stephen Skorski: But, okay, let me ask you this. When… when did you realize that this thing that you were doing, which a lot of people are doing, but I don't think they think about it the way you do, when did you realize that it had become a collection?
Stephen Skorski: Or an archive. And that you weren't just saving things that you liked.
Angelina Rodgers: I think once I… Got to art school, and… like… Having an archive is…
Angelina Rodgers: Was established as being a part of your practice?
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Angelina Rodgers: I was like, oh, I'm already doing this. Like, a teacher once gave us an assignment to…
Angelina Rodgers: print out 10 images from our archive. And, like, I… I think I remember some people struggling with it, like, they were like, I don't have 10 images.
Angelina Rodgers: And maybe they were thinking more, like, oh, I need to have 10 images of paintings that I like, painters.
Angelina Rodgers: But for me, it's like.
Angelina Rodgers: screenshots of The Sims, or, like, like, just random beautiful photography of young leaves on a tree.
Angelina Rodgers: Those… Are… just as a part of an archive, as… Paintings.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah. Do you, do you ever delete images?
Angelina Rodgers: That's a good question. I don't.
Angelina Rodgers: But… That's interesting.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, anyway, it's okay. So that… but that's helpful. Well, then let me ask you maybe the flip side to that. What makes…
Stephen Skorski: What makes something worth saving?
Stephen Skorski: And I know that's… it's so broad, what you're collecting, but if you could try to distill it down to a few…
Stephen Skorski: you know, characteristics. What do you think makes an image worth saving for you?
Angelina Rodgers: I think if it's, like…
Angelina Rodgers: Speaking to something that has happened to me in the past.
Angelina Rodgers: Something I'm thinking about in the future, or no, in the present.
Angelina Rodgers: Or something that, I'm aspiring towards.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, past, present, future.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Stephen Skorski: Are there certain type of images that you…
Stephen Skorski: tend to save more than other… you know what I mean? Like, given that as the framework, when you look back on your archive, do you, you know, do you notice that, oh my gosh, you know, 90% of these are nature-based?
Stephen Skorski: Or, you know, the majorities of these things are memes, or, you know, is there some kind of pattern in what you're saving?
Angelina Rodgers: I think it's very influenced by the seasons.
Angelina Rodgers: And just seasons of life.
Angelina Rodgers: like, same thing with my work. Like, in fall and winter, everything's darker, and I'm thinking more about, like, horror, and the occult, and…
Angelina Rodgers: Just, like, dark nighttime.
Angelina Rodgers: And then in spring, I'm like… Water, green, flowers… glass.
Angelina Rodgers: like, growth?
Angelina Rodgers: And it's not… it's not always one or the other, you know, sometimes something happy will slip into those winter months.
Stephen Skorski: Right.
Angelina Rodgers: But, yeah, I don't… I don't… I don't think I notice
Angelina Rodgers: More of one thing showing up in the archive, just because it's all…
Angelina Rodgers: like, kind of equally important to me. Like, of course, the posts that I make myself, like, I do make posts on Tumblr, you know, when there's, like, a work of art that I love, that I can't really find online anywhere, other than the artist's website.
Angelina Rodgers: I will… make a post and, like, document it the way that I… Appreciate how other people do.
Angelina Rodgers: Like… I recently made a post about Christina Bothwell's cast glass sculptures, the figural ones in specific.
Angelina Rodgers: And they're, like, foggy and uncanny.
Angelina Rodgers: And they're very daintily painted.
Angelina Rodgers: And… they're so, like… Just wonderful.
Angelina Rodgers: And they're… they're honestly, like, a good mix of…
Angelina Rodgers: spring and winter vibes to me. There's, like, darkness, but there's also whimsy.
Angelina Rodgers: and so I would say that probably falls higher on the hierarchy of images than… Like…
Angelina Rodgers: some… collage by another artist that I kind of just liked the way the text Reads…
Angelina Rodgers: But not necessarily the entire image.
Angelina Rodgers: Start to finish as a whole.
Angelina Rodgers: But it's there, and I liked it, and so that means something, and maybe I'll come back to it later, and it will gain even more significance.
Angelina Rodgers: the hierarchy is always shifting, it's like a… it's more of a spectrum than a hierarchy.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah. Well, I think that talks to your…
Stephen Skorski: The unknown, you know, the unknowing feeling?
Stephen Skorski: You know, that, that… yeah, I love that. I mean… The unknowing implies that… You know, there's… there's…
Stephen Skorski: It's interesting, like, un… what am I trying to… what am I trying to say here?
Stephen Skorski: You know, unknowing is not an absence of everything.
Stephen Skorski: It's… no, there's a bunch of things.
Stephen Skorski: And you're just not sure what to make of it.
Stephen Skorski: And so that, you know, lifelong sort of quest to kind of pick things off one at a time
Stephen Skorski: But then realize that how you understood something, you know, now, is not exactly how you're going to understand it 10 years in the future. Yeah, that's pretty interesting that you have that.
Stephen Skorski: that's in your mind as you're collecting these images. You know, that what you feel today. Am I right in saying that? That, you know, that it's sort of acknowledged that, you know, what you feel or are attracted to today is probably different than what it's going to be in the future, but there's value in both of those things?
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, absolutely.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Stephen Skorski: You said something, and this might be just a very, very quick question, or maybe it's silly, but you mentioned the occult.
Stephen Skorski: What's your relationship with the occult?
Angelina Rodgers: I'm just very curious about it, like… Like, witchcraft and… the moon, and… the woods at night.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: like, working with the elements. I'm just very curious about… Hmm… two things. The…
Angelina Rodgers: The image that is painted when someone says the veil is thinner?
Angelina Rodgers: like… around late October, early November, there's all of those holidays, like, I feel like…
Angelina Rodgers: So many different cultures have, like…
Angelina Rodgers: Manifestations of the veil thinning, and how they acknowledge that and celebrate that.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: and then the other thing is… What defines witchcraft?
Angelina Rodgers: Stop.
Stephen Skorski: Good luck with that.
Angelina Rodgers: I mean, like, there are so many levels to it. Like, there's…
Angelina Rodgers: focusing on something so hard that you make it happen. Like, manifestation, or… I mean, like, witches fly, and I know people can't fly, but I feel like if you tried hard enough, you could.
Stephen Skorski: You're an optimist, is that right?
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, totally.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Angelina Rodgers: I believe in magic.
Angelina Rodgers: And, the other side… or the other end of the spectrum of witchcraft is just, like.
Angelina Rodgers: your daily ritual. Like, is… Witchcraft, just having free will and doing things.
Angelina Rodgers: like… Is brushing your teeth casting a spell?
Angelina Rodgers: And I'm just very curious about that. I'm like, how much do I practice witchcraft?
Angelina Rodgers: Probably every single day.
Angelina Rodgers: But I just, I think the only difference between having free will and practicing witchcraft is defining it.
Angelina Rodgers: as a craft.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm, say that again?
Angelina Rodgers: I didn't…
Stephen Skorski: Say that again?
Angelina Rodgers: I think the only difference between
Angelina Rodgers: Having free will and practicing witchcraft is defining the practice.
Stephen Skorski: Huh. Setting the intention.
Angelina Rodgers: And, there are so many… like, cultural…
Angelina Rodgers: social opportunities to set intentions, like yoga class, or New Year's resolutions.
Angelina Rodgers: And… I don't know.
Angelina Rodgers: Many people define it many different ways, but…
Angelina Rodgers: I'm curious about, witchcraft.
Angelina Rodgers: And why people were burned for it.
Angelina Rodgers: Or for… for the idea of it.
Angelina Rodgers: Like…
Stephen Skorski: I mean, my under… I mean, my…
Stephen Skorski: Limited understanding is that if you were to get
Stephen Skorski: 10 witches together and asked them what is witchcraft, you would get 10 different answers, right?
Stephen Skorski: So that's why I said, like, good, good luck with, you know, getting that, that answer, but the way that you just framed it, I think, is so, so interesting.
Stephen Skorski: The one downside to being on the phone is that you can't see the other person's face. And if you could see my face, you would see that I'm really excited right now.
Stephen Skorski: Like, you know, he definitely, you know, touched on something. Tell me…
Stephen Skorski: about what you think is on the other side of the veil, and you… absolutely, I don't mean to say, like, tell me what you think of witchcraft, or you think… I'm just… you know, I mean, the other side of the veil can mean so many different things for different people, right? I mean, it can be…
Stephen Skorski: Purely, you know, psychological.
Stephen Skorski: almost like in, you know, kind of like a physical sense, like, well, this is what's happening in your brain, you know? Or it could be something very, sort of, you know,
Stephen Skorski: spiritual, right, and sort of everything in between. So, when you talk about… the veil is one thing, but what do you think is on the other side of the veil?
Angelina Rodgers: It's a hard question.
Stephen Skorski: I know, but it's so interesting.
Angelina Rodgers: It is.
Stephen Skorski: And I say so interesting, because as you're thinking about it, I'll just say, like, for me.
Stephen Skorski: That is so foundational to the way in which somebody would live their life.
Stephen Skorski: You know, if somebody said, well, no, there's nothing.
Stephen Skorski: The veil is, you know, the veil is stupid, because there's nothing behind the veil, it's a brick wall.
Stephen Skorski: You know, you're deluding yourself, there's nothing there, right? I mean, that person's gonna have a totally different approach to life.
Stephen Skorski: Then someone's like, no, no.
Stephen Skorski: Beyond the Vale is, you know, the… Spirits of my ancestors, and… Those ancestors retain
Stephen Skorski: the personalities in which they had in this realm. Or, someone could say, well, no, no, the other side of the veil is just pure energy, and it's made up of, you know, all these people who have come and gone, but it doesn't retain… you know what I'm saying? Like, it's such a fun… I mean, it's a weird way to kind of…
Stephen Skorski: Get at somebody's fundamental… Worldview?
Stephen Skorski: But I think it's really valid.
Stephen Skorski: So, yeah, I know it's a hard… so, if you're like, look, I don't know that… I can't answer that right now, that's totally fine. Like, I'm just curious if you've thought about it.
Angelina Rodgers: I have thought about it a lot, and I've thought about… Different factors that influence The thickness, thinness…
Angelina Rodgers: Presence of the Veil.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Angelina Rodgers: like… Mmm… you know, certain times of year, or certain times of day.
Angelina Rodgers: Certain weather conditions, certain… Just levels of activity. Like, if I've had… Caffeine, or drugs, you know.
Angelina Rodgers: there's… More susceptibility to fear.
Angelina Rodgers: And… You know, when… or when I'm scared.
Angelina Rodgers: I feel like I'm much more attuned to it.
Stephen Skorski: Huh.
Angelina Rodgers: I think fear is an underexplored emotion these days.
Angelina Rodgers: Huh, okay.
Angelina Rodgers: like… I mean…
Angelina Rodgers: I don't want to sound absolutely tone-deaf when I say that, because there's so much happening in the world right now where people can't think themselves out of their reality. Like, fear is just inherent, and…
Angelina Rodgers: Inescapable. Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Yep.
Angelina Rodgers: And so I want… I want to be sensitive about that, and I want to acknowledge that because of my sort of baseline lack of fear or, danger, unless, you know.
Angelina Rodgers: I am in a dangerous situation, but…
Angelina Rodgers: The safety of my life is…
Angelina Rodgers: such a privilege, and I'm so, so aware of that.
Angelina Rodgers: But because of that.
Angelina Rodgers: it feels like there's something kind of missing from the way that I'm experiencing being an animal.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm. And…
Angelina Rodgers: And when I explore those underexplored states of being, I think that… that…
Angelina Rodgers: Is an opportunity to see past the veil.
Angelina Rodgers: It's like, I'm so scared right now, like, there's something else in this room with me, but…
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, like, the hair's standing up on the back of my neck, but this is an opportunity for me to listen.
Angelina Rodgers: And be like, I'm not… I'm not in real danger. This is actually an opportunity.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: And so I don't know what's beyond the veil, I think it's a… It's a case-by-case thing.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Angelina Rodgers: day by day.
Angelina Rodgers: and the older I get, I feel like the less of these experiences I have.
Angelina Rodgers: like, when I was…
Stephen Skorski: Hmm. It's young.
Angelina Rodgers: My childhood house was, very energetically potent.
Angelina Rodgers: And I experienced a lot of fear there.
Angelina Rodgers: But I've lived in lots of different houses and apartments, and… sometimes…
Angelina Rodgers: The… the dark energy is very tangible. Sometimes there isn't any.
Angelina Rodgers: And that's always nice.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, man, yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: But sometimes I weirdly miss it.
Angelina Rodgers: So… yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, God. Well, this is gonna have to be part two of our conversation, because there's so much here that we could talk about.
Stephen Skorski: I'm like, I wanna go down that road so badly, but I'm gonna… I'm gonna… I'm gonna bring it back. I mean, the thing that I love to… that I'll take away right now…
Stephen Skorski: is that you believe there is something beyond the veil, and the veil is real. I mean, those two things alone help me to understand
Stephen Skorski: you, a little bit better.
Stephen Skorski: I do want to talk about memes specifically.
Stephen Skorski: But before we do that, let's take another one of these, like, little quick intermissions, okay?
Angelina Rodgers: Okay.
Stephen Skorski: Alright. Picasso or Basquiat?
Angelina Rodgers: Neither.
Stephen Skorski: Really?
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Neither. Wow. Okay. Put… you insert the name.
Angelina Rodgers: Wait, what do you mean?
Stephen Skorski: Well, if it's not… if you don't like either one of those painters, give me a painter that you love.
Angelina Rodgers: Mmm…
Angelina Rodgers: Philip Gustin.
Stephen Skorski: I love how confident you were with the… neither. I mean, you were saying before you wanted to be more confident. That was like… or more, have more conviction in your… in your opinions. That was about as strong as… that was quick and, like, ugh.
Stephen Skorski: Well, cringe. It was cringe.
Angelina Rodgers: That answer is influenced by so much.
Angelina Rodgers: cultural commentary and criticism, it's not only my answer. I just, am maybe so conditioned.
Angelina Rodgers: But, you know, when I… I actually don't want to get into that.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, okay.
Angelina Rodgers: Next one.
Stephen Skorski: Fair, fair, fair. Oil or acrylic?
Angelina Rodgers: Oil.
Stephen Skorski: Sketchbook or digital tablet.
Angelina Rodgers: Sketchbook.
Stephen Skorski: Museum or street art.
Angelina Rodgers: museum.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Stephen Skorski: Minimalist.
Stephen Skorski: Maximalist.
Angelina Rodgers: I guess maximalist.
Angelina Rodgers: I guess.
Stephen Skorski: Painting from imagination? Or painting from reference?
Angelina Rodgers: Imagination.
Stephen Skorski: Working alone, or collaboratively?
Angelina Rodgers: I love both, but I prefer alone.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Stephen Skorski: Fast sketches, or slow, detailed work?
Angelina Rodgers: Fast.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Stephen Skorski: Love it.
Stephen Skorski: That's interesting. Okay, memes. This is something that you collect. This is a part of your… you… if there's… there… is it fair to say there is a subset of your collection that…
Stephen Skorski: We could say is… like, there's a significant enough of these that we could say it's a subset of your collection, is that correct?
Angelina Rodgers: Yes.
Stephen Skorski: Okay. So, do you see memes as some… Type of cultural language.
Angelina Rodgers: 100%.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Stephen Skorski: Do you generally collect them because they're funny?
Stephen Skorski: Or because they… Say something kind of deeper about… Us.
Angelina Rodgers: Both, but usually funny.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, do they feel disposable to you?
Stephen Skorski: You know, are they… you know what I mean? Like, are they… are they… is there a timeless quality to them, or are they… they have a short life?
Angelina Rodgers: short.
Angelina Rodgers: But, you know, sometimes they're recurring, and they're, like, transmutated into something… That keeps them funny.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Stephen Skorski: So then just tell me, because I suspect you've thought about this, where does the meme fit into our current world?
Stephen Skorski: What's its role? Does it have a role?
Angelina Rodgers: I think there are so many definitions of meme. I think there are just so many, like, manifestations of it, too. Like…
Angelina Rodgers: they can get so creative and, like, genuinely artistic. Like, people, like, draw memes.
Angelina Rodgers: And there's also just screenshots of tweets and Tumblr posts.
Angelina Rodgers: Text posts, they would say, back in the, like, 2010s.
Stephen Skorski: Way back.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, or, like, Reddit screenshots, or whatever.
Angelina Rodgers: Like, there's, like, Way different levels of effort that go into memes.
Angelina Rodgers: the… I don't… there's just no one definition, but I think in culture.
Angelina Rodgers: They… they're, like, inside jokes. And…
Angelina Rodgers: The number of people involved is also a huge spectrum.
Angelina Rodgers: it matters… demographic. Like, who you are, where you come from, who you go.
Angelina Rodgers: And also what the algorithm spits out at you.
Angelina Rodgers: So… I think they define a lot of subcultures.
Angelina Rodgers: And… They're very political.
Angelina Rodgers: You know, thinking about… Like, straight-up political beliefs, but also… Like… gender, sexuality, race, class…
Angelina Rodgers: All of it.
Angelina Rodgers: It all matters, and… there's… Such a fine line between… Cultural commentary, and… like…
Angelina Rodgers: Appropriation? Or disrespect?
Angelina Rodgers: And…
Angelina Rodgers: like, that can come up a lot. I mean, when someone's trying to be funny, and they're, like, using AAVE, and it just, like, seems a little…
Angelina Rodgers: just tone-deaf, you know? Depending on who you are.
Angelina Rodgers: it can be touchy.
Angelina Rodgers: And… I think…
Angelina Rodgers: at… collectively, we are all so influenced by each other's opinions and comments, comment sections in particular. Like.
Angelina Rodgers: One person can change the public's opinion of something so quickly.
Angelina Rodgers: And, you know, memes can do that, but reactions to memes can do that even more.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Angelina Rodgers: like, there are essays, books about this stuff. I am no expert, but I engage in this culture a lot, and I…
Angelina Rodgers: Have my own experience, and…
Angelina Rodgers: I don't know, sometimes I find the critique a little sad, I'm like…
Angelina Rodgers: I was into… I was thinking one thing, and then I opened the comments, and everyone else is thinking the other thing. So, maybe subconsciously, I start thinking what they're thinking.
Angelina Rodgers: But I try to work against that urge sometimes as well.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, I mean, so…
Stephen Skorski: I mean, I have two questions, I'm not sure which one to ask first. Let me do maybe the simple one.
Stephen Skorski: Are memes a type of folk art?
Angelina Rodgers: I don't know.
Stephen Skorski: Am I giving them too much credit?
Angelina Rodgers: Well, how would you define folk art?
Stephen Skorski: I like it. Interview the interviewee. The table's returned, or whatever.
Stephen Skorski: Folk art. This is not an academic definition, this is from the gut, you know?
Stephen Skorski: Gum… meaningful expression.
Stephen Skorski: Where the barrier to creation
Stephen Skorski: is almost zero.
Angelina Rodgers: Mmm.
Stephen Skorski: You know, where there's no… there's not… there's no influence.
Stephen Skorski: it should look like this, it should be that, it should be made out of this material, someone's gonna critique… you know, like, nope, I got something to say, I got something that I want to put out into the world.
Stephen Skorski: I just want to get this thing out of me.
Stephen Skorski: you know, typically, I mean, it's… you know, there's not a lot of formal training. You know, it just…
Stephen Skorski: It's a, it's, yeah, it's just a… a tangible… expression… of a meaningful…
Stephen Skorski: you know, I don't know, act or thought, that is just not concerned with any artistic quality.
Stephen Skorski: No, that's not true. Any established.
Stephen Skorski: artistic criteria. So, something like that.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah. Okay.
Angelina Rodgers: Right.
Angelina Rodgers: Well, yes, definitely. I mean, I think the barrier to entry for making memes is very small. All you need is a…
Angelina Rodgers: device.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Angelina Rodgers: Which… Most… not most, but, I don't know.
Angelina Rodgers: People who engage with memes, are usually viewing them on the things in which they're made, so…
Angelina Rodgers: There's, like, that cyclical nature of it.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, and I think… because Full Guard is kind of… Defined as being non-academic.
Angelina Rodgers: I think you don't have to be an intellectual to make memes, like, you just have to be in the world and notice things, and care enough to comment about them.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, I think that's all it is.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Stephen Skorski: It's so funny, I had two questions there.
Stephen Skorski: I completely forgot what the other one was.
Stephen Skorski: do memes, and then… and then we'll switch, but I… I just didn't… I just didn't know how this…
Stephen Skorski: I didn't know what role they played in your collection,
Stephen Skorski: And I did just remember the question,
Stephen Skorski: the algorithm. It's been brought up a couple of times, and it's a real thing, right? I mean, this is not some… you know, it's sometimes, I guess, maybe funny to think about.
Stephen Skorski: But it is truly, you know, so controlling, or influential, let's say that.
Stephen Skorski: What do you think about that? I mean, what do you think about it in terms of how it's influenced your collection?
Stephen Skorski: And…
Stephen Skorski: If your collection, if I understand it correctly, I mean, it's certainly a reflection of you in some regard.
Stephen Skorski: And it's certainly something that…
Stephen Skorski: feels like it teaches you things, you know, there's a… there's not a passive relationship that you have with these images. So knowing that there is this algorithm out there that is feeding you things.
Stephen Skorski: What do you think about that?
Angelina Rodgers: I… I feel like algorithms and AI are…
Angelina Rodgers: Just really getting to know us really well, and… there's no…
Angelina Rodgers: I can't… I… I can't speak in absolutes about it, because…
Angelina Rodgers: The boundaries are being crossed left and right.
Angelina Rodgers: And AI is getting to know us better than other people, our friends, lovers, families.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Angelina Rodgers: And… it's… it's weird. It's weird, like, my Instagram feed knows me really well.
Angelina Rodgers: and the images that I collect
Angelina Rodgers: the media I consume outside of social media?
Angelina Rodgers: is… All intertwined, betwixt with these algorithms.
Angelina Rodgers: like… like…
Angelina Rodgers: even book and movie recommendations. I mean, I love going to libraries and bookstores and finding things, you know, outside of algorithms, but
Angelina Rodgers: the way that I stumble upon anything Like, what isn't an algorithm?
Angelina Rodgers: Like, I just think that the way things happen in the present… The way moments unfold…
Angelina Rodgers: mirrors the way an algorithm is. You know, everything is influenced by each other. Everything happens for a reason.
Angelina Rodgers: like… I… Graduated college and moved to High Point.
Angelina Rodgers: I… Clicked on a post about… like…
Angelina Rodgers: this… this designer, this fashion designer, and now I get ads for them all the time.
Angelina Rodgers: Like, it's all just a chain reaction.
Angelina Rodgers: and so… Yeah, I'm aware of that. I don't totally resent it. I think, like.
Angelina Rodgers: I… I don't know what my archive would be without it, and I'm not… I'm not upset about that. This is… these are the tools we have. This is… these are the tools I use. And so…
Angelina Rodgers: like I said about scrolling past ads, sure, I don't love it, it's annoying, and I know it's bad for me, but, you know, I've signed up for this.
Angelina Rodgers: I, as an artist, engaging with digital tools, I… I've signed up
Angelina Rodgers: For the algorithm to influence all of my work.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, I don't… I don't… It's a complicated thing, but I don't think… It's… it's bad.
Angelina Rodgers: I don't know. I think I would know if it was bad. Maybe I wouldn't. Maybe I'm, like, fully in the Matrix.
Stephen Skorski: Maybe. I don't know.
Stephen Skorski: It'd be so interesting to talk to you in 20 years and hear your impression at that point.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, hopefully it's different.
Angelina Rodgers: like, I just hope that I'm always changing and, you know… Thinking differently about things, but… Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, alright.
Angelina Rodgers: It's reality.
Stephen Skorski: Alright, let's do one more quick hitter, and then we'll wrap up… we'll wrap up with a few, a few other… I mean, there's… again, for me, this could go on for, like, 4 hours, so I want to be respectful of your time. So let's do one of these quick, quick hitters here. Black and white photography or color?
Angelina Rodgers: I don't know. I can't choose.
Stephen Skorski: Really?
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Stephen Skorski: Abstract art or realism?
Angelina Rodgers: abstract.
Stephen Skorski: Dark humor, Or wholesome.
Angelina Rodgers: Wholesome.
Stephen Skorski: Really? Well, that's interesting. I wouldn't have thought that.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Old movies or modern films?
Angelina Rodgers: Mmm… modern? Define modern.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm… I didn't give it that much of a thought.
Angelina Rodgers: I just feel like modern is a loaded word. Like, 1950s?
Stephen Skorski: Right.
Stephen Skorski: No, no, no, no, no, no, I was not thinking modern in the sense of, like, the modern art movement.
Angelina Rodgers: I just feel like I… I view everything through the art movements.
Stephen Skorski: Alright, well, so we'll just scratch that one.
Angelina Rodgers: Well, no, I mean, like, like,
Angelina Rodgers: I, yeah, give me, like, a rough time frame, like, just, films made after your…
Stephen Skorski: your birth. Let's just use your general year of birth, before your birth or after your birth.
Angelina Rodgers: Okay.
Angelina Rodgers: Probably after.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Stephen Skorski: Symmetry or asymmetry?
Angelina Rodgers: That's hard.
Angelina Rodgers: Asymmetry.
Stephen Skorski: Alright. And images that comfort you?
Stephen Skorski: Or images that challenge you.
Angelina Rodgers: Ugh.
Stephen Skorski: Tough one.
Angelina Rodgers: comfort.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, good.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, I love it.
Stephen Skorski: You know, one of the fun things about doing this is, I always re-listen to these conversations at least once, and often, like, 3 or 4 times.
Stephen Skorski: Because I really like them. You know, the first pass-through is just like, hey, you know, is there something in there that, you know, the audio didn't work? You know, there's kind of, like, the technical thing. But I really find myself getting caught up in them, and these little intermissions are one of those things that… it does that, right? Because I can start to make…
Stephen Skorski: I can't… I can't necessarily do it
Stephen Skorski: in the moment in the conversation, at least bring me to the degree that I want to.
Stephen Skorski: But I think it's really fun to start to see patterns in the answers, you know? And again, in the sense of, like, getting to know a person, you know? So that's interesting, like, as you're… I like these things because I… in my mind, I'm thinking what you are going to answer, and then when you answer something differently, I go, oh, okay, I'm surprised about that.
Stephen Skorski: So that's cool. Alright, so, a couple of things. Do you, do you collect physical objects? Or have you ever collected physical objects?
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: I love little animal miniatures.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, cool!
Angelina Rodgers: And… yeah, just, like, any small animal.
Angelina Rodgers: Any material. Usually plastic.
Angelina Rodgers: like, Littlest Pet Shops, those little, figures they have at Hobby Lobby or Michael's.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: No, I kind of hate Hobby Lobby, but Michael's.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Angelina Rodgers: And…
Angelina Rodgers: Seashells. I grew up in Florida, and so I've always loved spiral shells. I know they have a name, I just don't know it.
Angelina Rodgers: But, any shell that is twisty and, you know, not broken, love.
Angelina Rodgers: I… I have collections of, you know, clothing items, but I don't say I collect, because…
Angelina Rodgers: I haven't gone shopping in a long time, which…
Angelina Rodgers: Which I, am actually very happy about, because… One.
Angelina Rodgers: I am trying to be frugal with buying non-essentials right now, but also…
Angelina Rodgers: It's teaching me how to shop my closet, as they say.
Angelina Rodgers: And, just how to love the things that I already have, or, like, reimagine them. Like, I love using safety pins and, like, just pinning my clothes in weird ways.
Angelina Rodgers: I'm building a collection of zines and artist books.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, cool.
Angelina Rodgers: Which, is so fun and cool.
Angelina Rodgers: And happens a lot through, like, trades and… In school classes.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah. Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, so we got… so we do have physical objects. So, does, I mean, you've kind of touched upon this, but just… just quickly, so I… so I definitely understand it, does the digital collection feel permanent?
Stephen Skorski: Or does it feel temporary?
Angelina Rodgers: it feels… It feels very, like, transient.
Angelina Rodgers: like… Kind of like life.
Angelina Rodgers: I don't know. I think,
Angelina Rodgers: It's all data, and it all lives forever somewhere, just like how all matter Is forever somewhere?
Angelina Rodgers: But, I'm not attached to it. Like, I really… I'm very connected with it, and
Angelina Rodgers: Just, like, caught up in it right now.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Angelina Rodgers: But, yeah, not… not super attached.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Stephen Skorski: So, if you lost it.
Stephen Skorski: Would you feel like you lost something real, or do you feel like it would just…
Stephen Skorski: You know, you wouldn't be thrilled.
Stephen Skorski: But, in a short amount of time, you'd get over that pretty quickly.
Angelina Rodgers: yeah, like, I would just keep going, like, I know what to do, I know… I know how I do this. And so,
Angelina Rodgers: Like, losing all my past references.
Angelina Rodgers: would be sad, of course, we've established that, but, it's…
Angelina Rodgers: that would just be, like, a checkpoint, honestly. It would be like, oh, before the crash of the cloud and after, you know, like.
Angelina Rodgers: If these digital tools weren't available to me anymore.
Angelina Rodgers: I would just seek them out in, you know, the more analog Sort of more cumbersome ways.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Angelina Rodgers: books, Libraries.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, that's so funny, more cumbersome.
Stephen Skorski: It sounds so negative.
Angelina Rodgers: like…
Angelina Rodgers: I mean, scrolling is just easy, and it's available, and there's so much to see, and curate, and laugh at.
Angelina Rodgers: like… Yeah, you just have to try harder and use more time.
Angelina Rodgers: With the more analog.
Angelina Rodgers: ways of collecting things, which I can appreciate. You know, we need to struggle a little bit more in these ways.
Angelina Rodgers: But, yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, last couple here.
Stephen Skorski: We talked about your painting.
Stephen Skorski: And I'm… so how do these collected images influence your paintings?
Angelina Rodgers: sometimes they are references, which I don't…
Angelina Rodgers: use often unless they're printed out. I just hate referencing a screen.
Angelina Rodgers: like, the having to tap on it. Sure, there are settings for that, but I'm not… I'm not, like, tingering in the settings for this.
Angelina Rodgers: Because I don't really like it as it is already.
Angelina Rodgers: like, screens are just not color… accurate. I usually have night mode on my phone and my computer, and a red tint.
Stephen Skorski: Because the blue light hurts my head.
Angelina Rodgers: But… yeah, so when I print something out, and it acts as a reference, that just feels better, and
Angelina Rodgers: I just love the quality of, like, inkjet… inkjet prints. They're very…
Angelina Rodgers: kind of janky sometimes, and, like, you can see the CMYK colors, and, like.
Angelina Rodgers: The little lines where the printer was, like, spitting it out.
Angelina Rodgers: High-quality prints are so imperative and, like, an art form.
Angelina Rodgers: But when I'm just needing to get something out in… out of this 2D digital realm into a tangible thing, I love a shitty inkjen print.
Angelina Rodgers: Sometimes they're a part of collages, sometimes they're, image transferred onto, like, a wood board. I love using
Angelina Rodgers: Acrylic mediums and doing image transfers.
Angelina Rodgers: and a lot of them just live on the wall in relation with each other, and… they,
Angelina Rodgers: Get stacked up in my shelf, and… You know, they…
Angelina Rodgers: Sort of lose their vitality, but then they gain it back, you know, as they shift and are reorganized.
Angelina Rodgers: yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Stephen Skorski: You know… as we're kind of coming to the end here, I actually have two more questions.
Stephen Skorski: Because, as you were talking, I realized that I don't think I fully…
Stephen Skorski: Even though we've been talking for, like, 2 hours.
Angelina Rodgers: I don't know that I really fully understand.
Stephen Skorski: your… Relationship with the digital versus the tangible.
Stephen Skorski: Meaning… you know, I definitely hear…
Stephen Skorski: There's a… that you… you get a lot of value out of the digital world.
Stephen Skorski: And the way in which you engage with it.
Stephen Skorski: But then… You're a painter.
Stephen Skorski: You know, you're working in very, very physical ways.
Stephen Skorski: And producing things that live, you know, in this, you know, kind of three-dimensional world that we exist in.
Stephen Skorski: And so, can you just clarify for me… What is your…
Stephen Skorski: I don't even know really how to ask it, but, like, what is the… what is the relationship that you have with these two different worlds?
Angelina Rodgers: Hmm.
Angelina Rodgers: I think… Because I'm primarily an abstract painter, when I'm… making something.
Angelina Rodgers: To be tangible and in the world.
Angelina Rodgers: I am… abstracting it.
Angelina Rodgers: Through that process.
Angelina Rodgers: Like… I feel like, I think, in…
Angelina Rodgers: Words, and phrases, and sentences, whatever.
Angelina Rodgers: And that feels,
Angelina Rodgers: more… objective?
Angelina Rodgers: And then… as these… Thoughts are funneled through
Angelina Rodgers: The action of making a canvas, preparing the canvas, Making the first mark.
Angelina Rodgers: And then all the in-between marks, and then the last mark.
Angelina Rodgers: It's like the, I don't know. There's so many oscillations between Like, abstraction and… Objectiveness.
Angelina Rodgers: It's hard to describe.
Angelina Rodgers: Because… I feel like some painters see it as this… Perfect, streamlined thing.
Angelina Rodgers: Like, I have an abstract thought, and I want to make it real.
Angelina Rodgers: I am, like… like, I don't even know. I don't… I'm not answering this well. My…
Stephen Skorski: No, you are. Hearing the struggle in the answer tells a lot.
Angelina Rodgers: Like, everything is just so caught up in each other. The digital, the tangible, the ephemeral, the transient…
Angelina Rodgers: like… Yeah, I can't really draw continuous or consistent lines between them.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Angelina Rodgers: Painting is just something I've always done, and humans have always done.
Angelina Rodgers: It's like… You put the goop on the brush, and you put it on the wall, and…
Angelina Rodgers: Like, you see yourself in it. Or you see something in it that's important to you.
Angelina Rodgers: and the digital is less natural, less ancient.
Angelina Rodgers: But, it's just as much a part of my life and practice as It is…
Angelina Rodgers: Making these canvases, and… having them…
Angelina Rodgers: I was holding one of my canvases today, moving it from the wall to the floor, because I'm making room for these big drawings that I'm gonna do, and I was just holding it, and I'm like.
Angelina Rodgers: I love it! I love you.
Angelina Rodgers: It's just… wood, fabric, Plastic, acrylic, whatever, gesso, and oil and pigment.
Angelina Rodgers: But it is so… Sacred and important to me.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Angelina Rodgers: And it's just, like… One of those… Really awesome sensory feelings.
Angelina Rodgers: Holding a canvas and, like, feeling, like, strong, and, like, your whole wingspan is embracing this thing.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Angelina Rodgers: Like, the way fabric wraps around the frame, and I wrap around the canvas, it's all very, like…
Angelina Rodgers: We are one.
Stephen Skorski: That's all… I mean, that's great, that's great. You know, I would hope that all artists felt that way about their work. You know, that's really… that's wonderful that you get that feeling and that connection.
Stephen Skorski: Do you think that… the painting…
Stephen Skorski: And your art… your physical art practice is a reaction.
Stephen Skorski: To the digital world? And I don't mean that in a negative way, but I mean, do you think there's something…
Stephen Skorski: kind of within you that just sort of knows, like, I need to balance, you talked about balance before, you know, that feels like, well, I need to balance my world. If I'm gonna exist over here in this digital realm, I have to make things over here in the physical world.
Stephen Skorski: To find a sense of balance.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Angelina Rodgers: I, yeah, I think everything…
Angelina Rodgers: must remain in balance. Like, if I've used my brain too much in one day, I know I need to go use my body in some way.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Angelina Rodgers: I've been… consuming too much, I need to go…
Angelina Rodgers: produce. I need to go paint. I need to go write.
Angelina Rodgers: So, yeah, these urges… These urges are very present, and…
Angelina Rodgers: sometimes very loud, but sometimes I need to… Get quiet and listen.
Stephen Skorski: And actually act on them. Because I'm like, oh, it's late, it's rainy, I'm tired, I don't want to go to the studio. But then I go to the studio, and something amazing happens, and it was not worth it.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, balance is not easy to achieve, but I mean, if you're, you know, if you're actively seeking it.
Stephen Skorski: I think that intentionality is, you know, 90% of the battle. So yeah, last,
Stephen Skorski: Last question, if someone… if someone opened up this image archive that you have created 30 years from now.
Stephen Skorski: What do you think?
Stephen Skorski: They would be able to tell about this moment in your life.
Angelina Rodgers: Hmm.
Angelina Rodgers: I think… They would think… that I… think a lot.
Angelina Rodgers: Like, there's this term… And it's like…
Angelina Rodgers: Would you rather have a gay son or a thought daughter?
Angelina Rodgers: like, T-H-O-T daughter?
Angelina Rodgers: Do you know what… you know what that means?
Stephen Skorski: I do, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Angelina Rodgers: Okay, and so, like, all the thaw daughters of the world are like, you know, this is…
Angelina Rodgers: a little derogatory, whatever. And so, it's changed to Thought Daughter, like T-H-O-U-G-H-T.
Angelina Rodgers: And I'm like, I feel like people would, like…
Angelina Rodgers: Some of my memes, some of the, accounts that I… that I…
Angelina Rodgers: take memes from, I'd say, are, like, bona fide thought daughters. Like, just, like.
Angelina Rodgers: Feminine people, not necessarily girls, but just, like, feminine people who are sensitive and think a lot, and notice things, and, like, love indulging in sensory activities, and…
Angelina Rodgers: Like, just think too much about their relationships and their life.
Angelina Rodgers: And, it's like a… it's like a subset of, like, this…
Angelina Rodgers: like, femme mean culture, and I think I would definitely fit into there.
Angelina Rodgers: You know, even with all of my art, References and inspiration, like, It's all just very, like… thoughtful.
Angelina Rodgers: And you know, sometimes the thinking can get unbalanced, like we were talking about. Like, I overthink things every day.
Angelina Rodgers: And I think that's very evidenced in my archive.
Stephen Skorski: Alright. Well, not… there's not… your thoughtfulness,
Stephen Skorski: is very much appreciated. I would, I would say that.
Stephen Skorski: Where can people see your work?
Stephen Skorski: And if there is no place, you're like, nope, my work is personal.
Stephen Skorski: That's totally fine, but is there some… is there a place that you would, you know, kind of direct people if they wanted to put some images to the words that we've had today?
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, of course. My archives are personal, but my work can be found at www.angelinaRogers.com, Rogers is spelled R-O-D-G-E-R-S.
Angelina Rodgers: And my Instagram is the same, AngelinaRogers, no spaces or punctuations.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, and you can get a sort of glimpse into how these… how these archives influence the things that I make.
Stephen Skorski: Angelina Rogers, that's where they can find you.
Angelina Rodgers: Yes, that is me. That is my name and my brand.
Stephen Skorski: I love it. Well, Angelina Rogers, this has been awesome. I have thoroughly enjoyed this conversation.
Stephen Skorski: if there was one word that I would…
Stephen Skorski: I've said it many times today, but it's thoughtful. Really,
Stephen Skorski: it's interesting that you would describe, you know, 30 years from now, how people would look at your archive, because I just think that comes through in this conversation.
Stephen Skorski: it's, I don't know, it's really… It's a pleasure… To talk to someone… Who is clearly… Considering things…
Stephen Skorski: At a… at a fairly deep level.
Stephen Skorski: And then has the ability to… Express what those thoughts are.
Stephen Skorski: In a way, that is not so, concrete.
Stephen Skorski: And I think that goes back to your comment about wanting to have
Stephen Skorski: you know, express stronger convictions. I get that, but I actually love the fact that You seem to…
Stephen Skorski: Exists in a world where… Maybe multiple things can be…
Stephen Skorski: I don't want to say true, that's probably not the right word, but they can exist.
Stephen Skorski: Together. I appreciate that.
Angelina Rodgers: Yeah, absolutely. Very, very good synthesis.
Stephen Skorski: Awesome. Alright, well, again, I've loved it, I've enjoyed it. I hope that, the rest of your day is fantastic.
Stephen Skorski: And,
Stephen Skorski: I'm sure we will see each other at some point in the near future down there in North Carolina.
Angelina Rodgers: Yes, yeah, we'll definitely stay connected, and thank you for this opportunity.
Stephen Skorski: Of course. Alright, Angelina, have a great day. We'll talk to you later.
Angelina Rodgers: You too. Okay.
Stephen Skorski: Thanks. Bye.