Resa Blatman

RB: The installation is good. I think if I were doing a big wall installation, I would have given it more time to experiment and see what came up but my priority was the paintings. So, the process for that is always just to work. My process is, I actually just sit here and look at images online of the things that I want to paint. Because I work through my imagination, I don’t sketch, but my way of sketching is taking images into Photoshop and making composition and then painting from that, but then I change it completely. So, I just spent a lot of time looking at photos and images and my brain starts to come up with an idea. And I spend a lot of time in my studio. Then what was the other part of the question besides the process? It was how it came to be a show, right? 

For me it’s a lot of prep in the image research and then the work and then the installation and then there’s all the stuff in between “This sucks, I can’t hang this. Oh my God I have to cancel the show.” I really thought that when I was struggling with the painting, I better call Jonathan and cancel the show. So there’s self-doubt that creeps in, and I think this is true for most artists especially for a solo show. Group shows are different ‘cause you know you can bounce off the other artists and the spotlight is not only on you. And retrospective shows are also very easy because you just pick work that you already have made, but making new work for shows can be very daunting.

LS: You mentioned all these little inspirations like seeing the wall in the gallery and also online images and I was wondering if, when you begin a piece, do you have an idea of what you want it to represent or what you want it to look like in the beginning?

RB: Did I show you the big red painting in the beginning? Did you see how it was a lot of sky? The clouds I did first and then I started putting in the moss and it just felt like too many shapes. I was going to show that you know in the talk but at the last minute [Jonathan’s] like, no let’s just keep it casual. I think students tend to like to see what the process you know like this is what it started out as, and here’s what it ended up being. So, I had made this big photoshop montage of that similar painting and I was copying from it. 

The thing is, I make these beautiful Photoshop things and then they’re done. And I think Well I’ll just copy that, and the problem is that the idea is executed in Photoshop. Then when I try to paint it, the inspiration to work on it is not there. But I seem to have to force myself to go through the process, and then once I have it all down, I can then go in and really start painting. So painting is a lot of taking away and adding, taking away and adding until I find the story in the painting.

LS: Is there an intention that you hope your audience to see when you display your work or do you hope they gain their own ideas of what it means for them, or maybe both?

RB: Yes, it’s both, because I can’t control what they feel and see and then, you were at the talk, and you heard that some people felt one way about one thing and others felt another way. So, there’s just no accounting for how people are going to feel about the work, but the goal is subtly, I hope that people will change their behavior around the climate and nature and the environment. I don’t have any illusions that my art is going to change the world, but if one person gets inspired and is moved by the work to do something different, maybe volunteer, or fly on a plane less, or recycle, or just use fewer resources, then that’s a good thing. 

I also hope that people feel a sense of compassion when they see my paintings. I want them to feel something. Maybe walk away and feel something. It may not last but if they take that feeling with them that’s good if it’s a good feeling. Usually people have good feelings, I think, when they see my work. Someone saw my moss paintings at Open Studios last May and she’s a new friend, and she told another friend in my studio that my paintings seem sad and I had never heard that before, and it made me think that there may have been a sadness when I was making some of them because there is a kind of mourning for the Earth and what’s happening. 

But I also see them as sort of triumphing, you know, the little mosses are surviving and triumphing over this very ominous sky and the changing temperature. So it’s both. You know there is a sadness, but life is the same for all humans. One day we can feel sadness but also feel grateful we can feel sorrow, and also joy all at the same time.

LS: That’s beautiful. You talk a lot about all these different ideas that go to work. Do you have any tips for aspiring artists or advice you would give them?

RB: In what aspect do you think?

LS: Making the work, I think.

RB: My advice would be “Have a backup plan.” [With] Making the work, I think you have to see a lot of art and look at a lot of art, and there’s so much to see. When I was a student, I was always going to the museums and galleries and so forth. I don’t go that much anymore, and I get sort of, not lectured, but shamed in a way by my friends, that I don’t go to more museums and such. But I feel like I’ve seen enough art, and I see a lot online, but I feel like I’ve seen enough art to know at this stage of my life what I want to make and what inspires me. And to be honest, I’d much rather be out in nature hiking, riding my bike, than going to a museum. That’s how I feel now. I loved being in nature always, but I would like “Oh yeah, I’ve got to go to this museum,” “Got to see this show,” and I just don’t care that much anymore. 

For instance, today. It’s a beautiful day. My husband and I are going to go for a nice long bike ride to enjoy the real colors of the real leaves and the real trees and it’s wonderful to see the paintings because as a painter, I’m like “Wow how did they make that? How did they do that?” You know, some beautiful historic paintings are so amazing, and I admired that, and it stays with me, but being in nature is a far greater pleasure at this point in my life. I’ve read all kinds of studies about how immersing yourself in nature is good for your health. So even seeing photos, seeing images of nature is good for you, but it’s not as good as being there, so that’s my priority. So, you asked about aspiring artists. I would say look at a lot of work. As much as possible.

LS: Did you ever face a big challenge in your career as an artist, and if you did, how did you overcome that?

RB: Well yes, I faced a lot of big challenges throughout my career. I believe the most haunting was 2022. I really was depressed and wanted to give up my career, and I was going to just throw in the towel. Then, I apply for things all the time, like apply for public art projects, grants, and residencies, and stuff because it’s just so it’s part of my work process. I get up, do my applications, do my computer work, emails, and such. Anyway, I was really ready to give up, and then I got that cemetery residency at Mount Auburn Cemetery, which in a way saved my life. And the irony of a cemetery saving my life is really kind of funny. 

Now looking back, I feel like the signs from, however you want to think of it—spiritually from the universe—were telling me it’s not time yet for you to give up. I was given another chance because, like I said, making art is wonderful to do, but if you’re doing it as your soul career motivator there has to be more than just making the art. I feel people have to want it, otherwise why am I making all this stuff? Because I don’t want to keep it all, but if other people don’t want it, then I should do something else with my life that serves other people or animals…So, that’s where I was. I was thinking What am I going to do? And I started volunteering at a farm. I started hospice volunteering. I did all these things to figure out what else I could do with my life and here I am back making art again so, go figure, I don’t know. I’m still doing hospice volunteering, but also, I want to spend more time hiking and biking and doing things in nature.

LS: So, the last big question I have is related to your exhibition statement. You refer to “spirituality, the purpose in intangible things, our interconnectedness, the world we inhabit, and love” as some of the ideas that are at the heart of your exhibition Little Green. Now that the show’s installed, are there any other takeaways you would like the audience to get from the exhibition that you didn’t initially consider?

RB: It’s hard to convey the spirituality part. I’m afraid of turning people off, ‘cause it’s not religion-based, but it’s really based in this belief that we’re connected to each other and the universe and that there’s a grander meaning out there than what we see here on Earth. But I’m not so good at talking about it. I mean, I’m not schooled in the spiritual practice that I understand how to talk about it very well. So I’m afraid that I sound like a kook if I start saying “Well the universe provided me with this answer and the spirits guided me in this direction.” But I really do think that there are other forces at work aside from our determination to do something. 

There’s something else going on out there that you’re unaware of most of the time. So, that’s something that I hope transcends in the work without overstating it too much. I mean, I had the sound piece, and it’s only a portion. It really doesn’t go into what Eckhart Tolle teaches deeply, but it touches on it vaguely. I don’t know without becoming a spiritual teacher, how else I could really get the message out there. But I try to through the way I title the pieces and how I talk about some of the pieces.

LS: That’s really fascinating. I think your pieces do a great job of signifying that in my opinion.

RB: What do you get from it, Liza? What did you get from the show overall?

LS: I feel like looking into all those paintings there is a sort of vastness that communicated what you were just saying about being external forces that we don’t really see, but we can feel. And I felt them through your paintings because, like I said, the vastness in them, it exemplified that there’s this other force that’s affecting everything else.

RB: Have you talked to any other students about the work? Has anyone said anything to you about it?

LS: I’ve talked to some people for sure I’m trying to think of I can’t remember who I’ve talked to. I think it was with my dad. We mentioned he was color blind, so when he was looking at the paintings, he was seeing the shapes more than the colors and seeing how “the shape looks sort of like this,” and “I wonder what this shape is. Is it supposed to look like something or is it just a shape that’s like making you feel something?”

RB: That’s interesting. I wish I had more time to talk to him. When he showed me on the phone what he sees, it kind of made me sad because everything is so great black and white. I mean, there’s a little bit of color there, but not very much.

LS: No. I can’t imagine living without all those colors. I tell him all the time but he’s like “I don’t really know what it looks like so there’s nothing to miss out on.” He sees things from a whole other point of view that people sometimes don’t even consider.

RB: I mean there must be a reason for color blindness that gives him a strength that we don’t have—an insight that we don’t have. You know maybe in early human times, when there were color blind people, they were used to do certain hunting or whatever, you know ‘cause they could see shapes that other people couldn’t see, or they could detect. Their other senses may have been a little stronger, maybe hearing senses or whatever. So yeah, maybe he has a sense and a strength that we lack. But yes, as people who appreciate color, it’s so sad.

Artist’s Website