Teresita Fernández and Matthew Zapruder

00:04 My name is Teresita Fernandez. I'm 45 years old today September 29th 2013 and we are in San Francisco, California and I am here with my colleague.

00:18 My name is Matthew Zapruder. And I'm also 45 years old and it is still September 29th, 2013 and we're at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. And yes, I'm here with my associate Teresita Fernandez who's a visual artist whose work I respect immensely. And this is a funny thing because we've worked a little bit together, but we've never actually spoken in any kind of serious way. We've met once before they got a reading of mine and but we did do a little work together.

00:53 In for the New York Times Travel magazine, and I wanted to ask you about that. First is a way of getting into your work. You're amazing work, which is more three-dimensional for the most part as I can tell for the most prized. I tried to say that but this particular piece that we I don't have collaborated on is the right word that we were involved in together was a poem that I had written for the New York Times travel for the New York Times magazine travel supplement and you produced of work of visual art in response to it. Is that right? Yes, I think at that point T magazine was trying to revamp some of the things that offer didn't in the magazine and one of the things that they wanted to do was a section called a picture in a poem and the way it was explained to me. Is it sometimes the the poem would come first in the artist would respond visually and sometimes the visual component will come first and the poet would respond in this case, Iris Iris.

01:53 I was asked to respond to your poem and I guess so in that sense. I guess I collaborated with you but you didn't really clever it was me and my first response was I don't really make illustrations for phones to me and to my work to never somehow engaging in any kind of cleverness. And in that kind of situation. There's a sort of Temptation to do something clever because you need to connect it. Somehow I missed connections are sometimes very artificial. So I wanted to avoid all of that, but maybe you can talk a little bit about the poem and then I can tell you why I responded to it that I just want to say it's I was surprised because I didn't know that there was going to be and of course finding piece of visual art to the palm of his a really Pleasant an amazing surprise.

02:53 Not at all so great because it's led me to your work and then to get to know you a little bit. So I was very honored by that and surprised by that fact of that piece of work and usually when I've worked with visual artist, it's been the other way around usually I respond to a piece of visual art. I think it's just a little easier somehow because it takes so much seems like to me at least I take so much work to make a piece of piece of art like that that it's that it seems to somehow more natural that the words we would respond to it. But but so I just I just was very pleased by that and been loved your work. But yeah, the palm of one interesting thing about the Palm is that it was called home for a coin.

03:39 And it was Don the Palm is produced as a result of something that my friend and fell apart CA Conrad cause somatic exercises like from body Soma and they are kind of procedure based on creating processes. And we he and I invented one together into parts and in the first part which he came up with you take a piece of fruits and you put it next to some speakers, you know, that that's something and play through and then you cover it with a blanket pellets of the fruit is kind of nests old in with the with the speakers with the sound and then you play either Palm or piece of music at a very high volume.

04:24 I'm in this case. It was a poem by Anne Waldman and then you take a piece of fruit out and you eat it. And while you're eating at you right for a while and then there are other procedures has resulted that so that's how I began. And then the second part of the procedure was I decided that if you should try to look for in the procedure, you would find a piece of metal in your house and you would you would put on your pillow and sleep on it at night in the morning would hold it and apologize to it for taking it out of the earth and then write continued to write so and then that would produce a lot of writing it with any car venue carry the riding around with you and and keep organic you break out until the poem emerges. So that's how it so the Palm had this kind of procedural beginning which is not uncommon for me. But this one was for the somatic exercises called fruit and metal. You can actually it's on the internet you can say it. But anyway, so that's a little bit a long way of saying that that's how the poem that generated and son a weird kind of way. It circles around. I think 2 years.

05:24 Elemental you have a very Elemental relationship to things in your in your in your other works up in an in an odd way. I feel like as I started to see understand a little more by your work at all. There's a connection between this piece and not and you're in your life as an artist and seems to me anyway, simply responded to the poem and that's the reason why I

05:53 I agreed to do it is because there was a kind of Kindred Spirits somehow and and and I was drawn to the poem but at the moment I'm kind of shocked at some of the things that you're saying which I knew absolutely nothing about specifically this sort of very deep-seated interest. I have in mining in an Alchemy and in sort of the the relationship between with Subterranean and the cosmos or what's Expose and not not expose what's blind them what's visible and I didn't know anything about this when I didn't know that that's how the your palm came about. But when I read poem for a coin the thing that struck me was actually a very tactile something that deals with the connection between the visual and the tactile and the line that really resonated with me. Was that idea that you could

06:53 Put your hands in your pocket and that you could touch something and that that tactile connection would transport you to a world of other associations that might have to do with where that coin came from or just like all of these other worlds and experiences contained just in the tactile connection between your hand and the coin on the many ways. It's exactly what I try to do with my artwork where a work of art is really a catalyst that is meant to not be a narrative explain anything but to Simply Be a kind of visual tactile q that creates other experiences and I wasn't going to draw coin. So what I did was I made what I thought was the sort of figurative equivalent of that which is a people and a lot of times that are figurative references in my work, even though there's never a figure represented and the people had to do with Justice.

07:53 Size of your eye and why you look through the peephole and it was also the size of a coin so I thought it was a really sort of nice way to Segway back into that that thing that small that opens up into something big. So when you look through the peephole people you you have this very in the case of the the drawing that I made you have this whole sort of landscape that's contained in this little people that's drawn the size of a coin and so the very large the very vast sort of landscape contained in this very intimate small thing and that was really my connection to how the landscape and the viewers reader the figure can connect to that same sensibility of touching a coin and being transported into another sense of place.

08:47 That's

08:49 Amazing. I mean you can see you can feel that when you look that when you look at your peace, you can see them what you're describing is exactly what you see but I love the idea that you kind of thought through that lived. There was a there was a size dimension to a decline in the eye of the people are all the same that you're a course. I didn't think of that to set it now, but that's completely true and with the kind of art that I'm trying to make there is no miniature in nature Things become the size of your mind's eye like they become they become the right size in your mind's eye by is precisely what happens when you read poetry know they're there their they're very specific in size, but they're sort of size list. It's so expensive.

09:37 There's a there's a sensibility that it's extremely specific and yet completely elusive.

09:45 Yeah, what you were saying about the coin I think is something that I feel is true about language, which is that I mean when I first started right Palms, seriously, I think the thing that I became almost obsessed with was how each word was the speech individual word was his kind of historical portal, you know, when it's it arrived to us through these countless decisions that we would never know what they were about what I mean does mean what does it mean the experiences and everything? So everywhere that we use is this is historical on that way and deeply connected to the Ancients until I guess I felt like the coin had that same quality to it. It was an m and end the saying the same time so so so that we don't we just use all the time. We don't think about but how am I how long has it been here? How many people have held it especially foreign language is the coin in the Palomino that God knows how long that's been around where it's been and what what it's seen, you know, but I do

10:42 Yeah, I just I just I should say also that for anyone is listening to us that you can see the the piece online. If you were to Google us I suppose it's on the New York Times website somewhere. I think a picture of Antebellum. It's just your your your pieces so beautiful. And so perfect for the for the

11:06 For the Palm and I was very Amazed by that because it's I think it is hard to go in that direction difficult. You should try it because the thing is is that I don't I actually feel very liberating mean in relation to a piece of artwork visual. I keep saying visual art. Maybe that's a two limiting a term for what you do better in a plastic cards or whatever. I don't know what the right where it is by the work that these works of art that have the physical manifestation i i find I don't maybe this isn't good. But the artist of generally felt okay about this I sort of will just take anything even if it's a glentoran Association River and then go from there and say it's a say it's a collaboration more because it comes out of our work for me. I spend a lot of time with it need to be to be in the presence of your work. I mean I walk I just asked her what you want to talk about your piece sets.

12:05 I'm upstairs because it's just going to say something real quick about what you just said about words is so true to me for I mean literally it's something that I do as well. One of the first things that I do when I research something that I'm working on and I'm very interested in mythology. But one of the first things I do is I look at the etymology of a word and its really part of the process for me conceptually to piece together. So when I ask myself the first thing I want to make something the first thing I ask is where am I and I always like to explain that question not just we're physically II but if I dug a hole, you know a thousand feet down. Where would I be and where am I socially where am I historic Lee where am I at a mileage etymological Glee? For example of always been fascinated by the etymological connection between Specter Spectrum in spectator. And so when I think of the ACT

13:05 Looking I think the act of looking at colors and space is a little bit like seeing a ghost and the best works of art Han to somehow, you know, and so here it is these words to explain this beautiful in their words that aren't so I'm really interested in that. I would love to experiment with that idea of cuz it's I think of words in exactly the same way and I think of visual cues as touchstones that said do the same exact thing. So when you're working on a piece, how does that how does that process were few project be like, what do you mean if your commission to do something or just you know, your piece is going to be in a certain place or so. So, how does that connect to to a word or two language?

13:53 Develop ideas in my mind associations of might lead you to act in a in a in a in an expected way. Let's say they have it both arbitrary and completely undetachable relationship to what they described exactly the paradoxes of the beginning right there, you know, like in the Gospel of John, you know, the beginning, you know was the word in the word was with God and that's like this. I don't say fancy but this kind of ideal situation where the word and the thing and God were all together and then boom I got exploded in that we're dealing with the exciting consequences of that. Yeah. I'm a big I'm going to make use of the Oxford English Dictionary. That's that's it. That's a secret weapon for me is how I do you know if I specify

14:48 If I'm intrigued by word attracted to a word and I go to the LED, I mean they're good list. So if you know what I mean. From know this but it said that the earliest use of it all the most the you know, exciting uses of it and especially for a for a Common Pleas where those pages and pages and pages of information and is always it always leads to something and then to something in there just something in and buy the after Four Leaves it might not even be that word anymore, but it's but I do if I feel like it gives a kind of spiritual connection everything. I think I think the connection can still be felt in the end and I think what I feel I completely identify with that process and I think what it does is it grounds you and which is what mythology does so exquisitely is that it grounds you in something that's in fact not contemporary. It's as old as time itself and it it reminds us that what we're doing isn't special or new but that in fact, it's a it's a it's a continuation.

15:48 Can of patterns that have reinforced certain things in the human Spirit over and over and over again and that the moment your cynical about it you stop seeing it but when you kind of delve into the the when you kind of Honor that that that historical power that that something has and you you take it out of a contemporary read you you start to understand that you're in fact part of a much longer history and there's something very I always feel that there's a breakthrough in that happens. There's something very humbling about it and that Detachment allows you to sort of get to a much deeper manifestation of of that elusive thing that you're trying to get at II that moment you're talking about when it shifts out of your particularity and it is some kind of

16:45 Stream of time. It's it's a strange thing to try to talk about and words because it it it it doesn't mean the I mean at least not for me and I I don't know about for you but doesn't mean that I Leave myself or my personal completely behind. It's just there's a shift and suddenly you are part of something and bigger and it is in it doesn't feel as just

17:08 Limited, I guess somehow and I love that feeling that's probably the best buy the feeling. I'm in search up and I think that language is lends itself to that very much because Rob for the reasons, you know, we've been talking about

17:22 So yeah, and I did I'm I'm interested to the piece that you have upstairs did that was there a similar process that that went into the formation of a piece of overtime out or something else or I mean, yeah. Yeah, I bet it's an image of fire. So it's sort of I was fascinated by the image of fire for a long time and I resisted using it or making a piece out of it because there was no way to use it that wasn't the Shay and so

17:53 I shifted and sort of it was it was very hard to develop how to make that piece cuz you know one thing is an idea. The other thing is making real materials do something in real space and really in a materials have a kind of want this to them. They want to be what they are. They don't want to transcend themselves. It's it's a difficult exercise to to do that. But I realize that what I was interested in was not trying to represent fire Illustrated anyway, but 2 to look at the two place. If you were in a context where the behavior of fire was active in Dynamic and it does connect to what we're saying in the sunset, my viewer is really like a reader and that it's not a passive experience. So again, when you walk around that piece, you're you're you're both a kind of spectator and a performer you walk around and the patterns that it starts established Arts, you know the sort of shift and there's all this sort of perceptual buzzing happened in front of your eyes because you're

18:53 Sing around the peace and all these little their kind of optical effect happening with all of these thousands of little strings, but it's not unlike what a reader read. I actually think of my vehicle as a reader in the sense that you can read superficially or you can read in a way that you're invested and what you're reading which really means providing a whole lot of it means using what you're reading as a kind of suggestion and filling in all the blanks of the emotional response. So that's exactly what I'm doing visually as well with that piece and I think with all of my work where the viewers expect if he was not in the passive role were actually not looking at something and if you are just passing by and looking at something it's sort of like reading a blurb in a magazine with a different kind of reading or seeing that has nothing to do with transcending.

19:48 What's in front of you? I saw it yesterday. I gave a reading and and one of the readers at the very end was the very famous poet Gary Snyder. We might know he's a famous beat poet hero of Kerouac Dharma bums. And now he's an old old mountain man now but someone said that they had heard him described poetry as high quality information that I think like I was just thinking about that when you were saying describing and I I just this is the only piece of yours that I've actually been in the same room as and them and it's very powerful, you know, and then because what happens is you you stand in front of it and it's and there's something happens and then you start walking around and you realize that it's shifting As you move and that is a very destabilizing feeling a lot of ways. I mean, I need to spend more time with the piece but it's it's kind of

20:39 Strange to be to think that you're the movement also is in relation to the peace and then it starts to its its shape. I don't know what the right words but the way it looks I guess changes as you move your head. Are you move your body and that is super cool but a tiny bit scary a message. He was a little scary because you know, I'm not used to have that happen in relation to a piece of art in the museum, you know, and then and I thought I loved it. I was in a 10, so I don't know. I'm just kind of bouncing off what you had said about his back to that piece of fruit, it goes back to and this is something I mean when I was little I used to be afraid of mannequins and certain objects and it was because I couldn't tell if they were adamant ore in that Andaman and that that you're describing that happens with fire is so connected to that piece of fruit or that piece of metal that you're putting under your pillow and it has to do with something with an anthropomorphizing.

21:39 Of the world and in my case, I do it with nature and with landscape. I always thought I was too but there's that sense that it's not just this privilege perspective that you're looking at it but that it's looking back at you, you know and that and that the world is anthropomorphize in that way regardless of its an extension of you or not and you have to deal with and that that there's that moment of Confrontation of you having to deal with it. That's that's very powerful. The one thing that I try to explain to people who emailed this lady by talk to his said they don't like poetry or they understand it and and I try to communicate to them that the poem is not designed to be information giving experience where they get a moral out of the end or some kind of, you know piece of very important information to take away with him that the thing itself is the

22:39 Variance of moving through it on which is not to say that things aren't being sad or that there aren't ideas or feeling of course there are but but but that, you know, it's like someone's I say it's a little bit like if you were to have coffee with a new friend, you know, the mark of the success of that experience would be if that our felt meaningful and interesting and dynamic and your view of the person changed or time. Not only did I not can I only take one thing out of it in that? That's the that's the mark of whether it was good new new friendship or not. You're not and it's very very interesting suggesting that we were standing in front of my peace. He said it's scary because I I find that I read a lot of poetry and that I find that poetry when it when it hits me is terrifying it's terrifying because there's just it's raw and it's it's like a mirror of

23:38 You know, you're looking at yourself basically and I think that

23:42 You know works of art do that. They touch some other part of you that isn't on the surface and it's it's not it's not meant to be described. I sort of think that that secret it's not meant to be described as it's something is internalized. I felt like I noticed I always look at this when I see a piece of work in a museum and especially when I'm with the artist, I noticed people went straight to your peace. They did not go that are not look that a didactic material which I think it's great. You know, they didn't you know that happens. Sometimes you just unfortunate logistical fact that the didactic materials right next to the paintings of people's eyes can't get help to go to that first, but I just thought it was interesting that people just kind of walked into the room and they stood in front of the peace and they didn't look for some other piece of information. I watch that happened, maybe maybe 10 people do that while I was there and so that's good.

24:42 To me tonight I come I mean I think of myself as a conceptual artist and I went to school where everybody was sort of very hung up on this idea of something being conceptual and I very quickly realized that the quickest way to get to the conceptual is through the sensorial because if you can put someone in the in the place of actually feeling something and sensing something the conceptual part of it just happens automatically. It's what did they become instantly invested in that without having to process or rationalize why they're feeling something why they're sensing something. So interesting that you call yourself a conceptual artist, I wouldn't have that's not that I'm talking to you now I can I can

25:29 See how much more how that's so much a part of what you do, but I bet I would not have that's on how I would have described you worked other people invisible. I mean, it's almost like I do all of this could've digging digging digging and something gets put together in a very rigorous way and then the very conceptual of for lack of a better word. There's there's actually I work at it I chip away at something in order to get to a point where I don't need half of it and I've expect it's all chemical almost almost like an alchemical distillation that comes from just having a lot of reading a lot of those etymologies like today so much information that if it comes second second nature and you arriving is something sort of deeper, but the end piece is not meant to be is meant to shed its its process and Jim Fisher effect.

26:27 Yeah, that's that's the that last thing you said is high. The reason why I wouldn't have associated with what I in my relatively limited knowledge think of is conceptual artist in the visual round. But yeah, that's but now you Schneider talking about I think I mean it's funny cuz conceptual poetry is you know isn't is a relatively new thing that people been doing a lot of and I was like, it's kind of funny cuz the material of poetry is already conceptual so it seems somehow redundant conceptual budgie seems like a redundancy like right I mean so but I mean like it when you explain it, I think I now I see what you're saying and and not since it is because you're right. I mean when I when I come in but to see the amazing thing is is that

27:14 This is I'm going to just try this out is that when I when I saw when I came into the gallery and I stood in front of your peace. I think I had the feelings that I have when I'm when I've experienced a really good conceptual piece of art, but also was something else, you know didn't feel as

27:32 I don't know. I felt like I was allowed to also have some humanistic Beauty feeling. I feel like my understanding of a lot of potential viruses that they reject that aspect of it, but that may be but maybe again maybe I don't know if I mean, I'm not a student. I agree that it's redundant as well. Maybe a better way of phrasing it is that the process is the process to getting to that visual thing that you see is not visual process to get into it is completely intellectual and emotional and studied somehow huge impact when you see the piece that that that. All that thinking that's gone into it, you know, it is in your not sketching a figure and and and just trying to make it beautiful for mysterious reasons that you refuse to consider your

28:32 Tell her that's not how you work obviously. So in that sense. Yeah, I mean and you know, it's it's it's but that was that was a powerful experience to go up there. And now I have to tell him that I don't want to go back up again, but I'm but yeah, I'd love to do some work together. That would be great fun somewhere where your work has been a good amount of time within the best thing would be to go visit Ford after they have you ever read on I guess where I'm supposed to be finishing up. But have you ever read a real cuz letters on Cezanne very important person for me me to but I love his letters on Suzanne. So it's so funny that when he so the first thing you did after I got married his go to

29:17 Can I go to Paris by himself and spend a month just going to this the show over and over and over again? And I thought you know sometime it would be nice to just do that with an artist do that with our work and maybe being out just BB with the pieces of you with the peace over and over and over again, see what would happen over the course of time that could be especially with your work that could be because they're a real deep in ink can happen over time. So who knows say thank you. I think would be amazing to do a collaboration of some sort.