Y1 E7 - Ephemera Fae: Spirit & Space-making

Meeting Ephemera, 2021. All images and videos are courtesy of the artist.

Hello, I’m Ephemera Fae. 

I am an interdisciplinary social practice artist. I enjoy space-making practices. Creating murals, and events, transforming places where people exist to help facilitate engagement with each other, and other conceptual goals defined by a community's needs. I also have a solitary practice that involves mixed media painting and illustration as well as digital design, video, and poetry. 

Ephemera Fae

I am a Detroit-based artist in love with that reality. I was born and raised in metro Detroit. It took leaving Michigan for about 10 years and returning to see Michigan and Detroit and connect to these different spaces authentically. 

It’s hard to determine what my favorite subject is. I used to identify as a portrait artist and in some ways, I tackle every project the way a portrait artist delves into creating a portrait. Connecting, translating, rendering, etc. However, portraits are not my favorite in the strictest sense anymore. I prefer to engage with the community and create from those engagements. I use surveys frequently to aid that process. So far that has not yielded much portraiture due to circumstance. 

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What do you love about making art?

I love the surprise of it all. Thinking I was making something one way like a smooth rendered portrait or that a survey would reveal a certain thing, or a sound piece was going to become a short cacophony only to end up a highly textured piece that was much more engaging than I originally anticipated.

Which mediums do you like working with the most? What are some of the more unusual ones you've used?

I love making murals. I love transforming space. I love working in groups. Because of circumstances I mostly use surveys, digital tools, markers, and water-based inks and paints. Partly this is because of limited studio space and working toward large projects. I have put together more proposals and applications than actual finished pieces since graduating 2 years ago. 

My main personal project is a spiritual space-making project. An oracle deck that is still in a color technique experiment phase so I am sort of using everything my space will let me right now. 

What do you love about that?

I am being forced to operate conceptually without manifestation a lot of the time. I am also forced to deal with all the elements of my artistic practice I once avoided and I’m getting rather good at that. I’m no longer intimidated by writing proposals. I now have base documents to build functional branding and starters to jump from for most requirements for applications. I’ve also been hammering out details like project charters and my own quote processes which are extremely boring but crucial for long-term success, especially for large projects.  

I love incorporating much of how I physically worked before going to graduate school. I lived in my sketchbook and had a rich mixed-media practice that incorporated drawing, painting, and collage. I was always doing it. By necessity, that's coming back to me now through this project, and I truly appreciate it. I tried to repair my sketch practice multiple times after my head injury but it was so overwhelming to keep up with the demands of grad school that I never rebuilt that skill. Now I am having to stretch some of those elements out and it is freeing in many ways.  

How do you evaluate your work?

I ask myself many questions. What is it giving to others? Who is a stakeholder and what might they see? Have I technically done what I can to serve the work? I ask the materials, as the piece is developing, what they are adding, doing, and needing. Each piece is constant communication which is why I often end up in a different place than I originally envisioned. I can't predict how every variable will communicate during the process, and I certainly can't control everything. While in the piece I am evaluating for authentically adhering to the process. When I am nearing completion, I am evaluating for effectively communicating the purpose(s) and looking for accidental missteps or errors that could cause harm. 

Where is your studio, and what is your primary work area?

My studio is in my home, which does not leave much space for large works. My primary work area is moving with me right now. I keep my small project in a transportable bag, I have a large sketchbook and my iPad ready on the go so I can take my temporal portions of my studio nearly anywhere. 

What clues or questions do you use to select an idea to invest time and resources?

2021 Mural Montage

Does it matter to me enough to keep me invested when it gets hard? Because it will get hard and no one going to make me do anything I better love the idea enough, be compelled enough, and be enthralled enough to grind through the parts I want to walk away from. I also have to consider if it will emotionally affect me too much. I have cataplexy and essentially go into sleep paralysis while I’m awake when I get emotionally overwhelmed or certain types of emotions come up inside me. I have to work with this awareness all the time. For instance, I am for a free Palestine and feel called to make work about being a queer person longing to fight for liberation and against colonial imperialism. However, when I start, I get overwhelmed and cataplexy kicks in and I haven’t found a way around that particular hump yet. So it’s a balance.  

I like to have a culture of completion with my work. Meaning I like to finish what I start. However, experiments teach me things and I am ok walking away from something when I’ve recognized that a particular project is taking more than it’s giving. It is not a viable project for that reason. Even calls for art can be like that. We will start working on something, but our process is involved and multilayered. If the hosts of the call for art have not provided certain types of information or the timeline is too crunched we might have to chalk it up to learning experiments because the project was ultimately not viable. 

"Art making is a matter of experiencing the work while also creating and
that can make a strange echo chamber."

About your work: what do you hope people notice the most?

Themselves and the people around them. I want them to feel something different about themselves or feel connected to others in a way that's new enough to get them to pause for a moment and have an experience they are present for. We’re frequently only partially tuned into our experiences and communities. It would be most excellent if the things I’ve been a part of making brought people into themselves, their spaces, and their communities. 

Details of Street Installation (Detroit, MI)

What is your favorite guilty pleasure?

It changes, but right now, I'm binge-streaming Star Trek the Next Generation on Prime. I can draw and sketch while watching, and something is very comforting about it. I used to watch the show as a kid, but it's very different in some ways as an adult. Honestly, sometimes it's like therapy, but more fun.

How do you define success as creative? How do you hold yourself accountable?

Success as a creative has to be defined personally. The teacher in me is specifying that my answer is for me, and about me. If what I have made is honest, authentic, and connective, and I did not turn away from the hard answers in the making, then it is a success. I have a lot of success sitting around my house. There's a big success outside of the Wayne State School of Medicine that was almost, by this definition, not. We hit some problems by not having connected to certain communities. There were many reasons for that but what was most important was this lack of connection had caused harm. People tend not to realize how powerful art is but it can break through barriers or raise them up with one look. Our hands-on leadership team had to take a hard stance with the project administrators to address this harm and come with humility to the impacted communities. Which happened in a different way again after it was installed with another community! Murals are wild. We sat in the community again and addressed these new sets of concerns and repaired the harm through changes to the mural after installation. Only then was it a success to me even though the administration had celebrated it as a success for months at that point.  

From "The Real Detroit, 2022" mural (Detroit, MI)
Article about mural + Documentary

When do you discuss things with your inner critic?

When it won't shut the fuck up. Just joking that's when I walk away from the piece because I have something else eating at me. When my critic can stay in their lane and be reasonable. If my inner voice is using value-based words then it's just imposter syndrome, confidence issues, or trauma taking the wheel, not my highly skilled inside artist who wants the best for each piece I make. I learned when I was very young if I’m not extremely careful about recognizing when my trauma is guiding that inner voice, I might just put an amazing work up in flames and regret it later.

What advice do you have about throwing away work?

Hmmmm. That's tough. It’s a balance that I take really seriously. If it’s a piece I am definitely not in conversation with anymore and I feel really does not have a crucial place to be in the world it's easy to part with. Like all things, it's a cost-benefit analysis but the benefit goes beyond what I think for myself usually. Of course, my lack of space trumps the best-laid plans some days. 

What advice can you share for artists who want to sell their work {online}?

Be diligent and consistent. Come up with the framework for how you’ll describe your work and use it as a template, so you have to make fewer decisions with each piece. Also, use the ALT Image descriptions. Accessibility is important. If you're selling work online consider it a business and keep your clients with disabilities in mind just like any physical business would need to. 

What would you tell other artists when they get frustrated with a project?

I don’t tell them much, but I ask them things like: Do you need to take a break? Would you like some water or to go for a walk? Would you like to tell me about your problem? I'd love to hear about it. Most artists work through their own art problem well by vocalizing it to another artist or someone they can collaborate with but the times they’ve genuinely needed direct input are few. Usually just questions for clarification of my own understanding illuminate things for the artist. Art making is a matter of experiencing the work while also creating and that can make a strange echo chamber. Having someone help you step outside of that for a little bit is crucial. 

ATA Collaborative Clothing Closet Event, 2023

Who are your creative influences, and whose work are you admiring now?

Lorna Simpson, Chitra Ganesh, Tyree Guyton, and John Feodorov are some of the creatives who've influenced me. Recently I admire Sydney James' work as well as the amazing digital pieces and murals coming out of the resistance to the genocides being conducted by imperial powers particularly the Israeli genociding the Palestinian people. So many murals and digital works that I see pop up on Instagram showing the power of art to bring people together across great distances and disparate cultures. It’s truly beautiful.

How can people follow you and your work?

That's trickier than it should be. @ephemerafae on Instagram, Tiktok, and Patreon. My posting schedule has been inconsistent on social media since I started my Patreon. I am finding that balance. Having my focus be folks who give me money has created a temporary social media vacuum. 

What would you like people to know that I haven't asked?

--What kind of projects am I looking forward to making in the future?

More social practice murals. My application for the City Walls Abatement Residency is strong this year. I’m hoping to use it to find a home for the Interactive Hands mural that is still in storage at Wayne State. The residency will allow me to hold surveys with community members and work this process from start to finish multiple times. It will be strange to do it without my cohort member Cara Young. She'll be involved for finding a home for Interactive Hands but not the other murals. The residency can result in up to 5 murals throughout the city. 

Thank you for spending some time with us, Ephemera. The work is powerful; this has been fun. Please come back whenever you have something to share with the CHC audience!

 

Y1 E3: Robert Larocco: Maker, Teacher, Coach

 

Astrid
All images are courtesy of the artist.

Robert Larocco 

I am a 2D artist using many mediums, such as painting, digital illustrations, chalk pastels, and colored pencils, and even developing methods to help others create art. I am from the Detroit, MI, area and have lived in many different parts of the US over the last few years. I’m an academic advisor at the Stamps School of Art & Design (University of Michigan).

Rob Larocco

What do you love about making art?

What I love about making art has changed a lot over the years.  When I was in college, I loved what I was learning about various mediums and their associated media and processes.  I'm a curious person, so learning in general has always been a passion of mine, and being able to learn about and through something I love—creating art—was especially fulfilling.  As a high school art teacher, my love of making art shifted to the ways that I could teach others, especially young people, about how to both create and appreciate art for themselves.  Currently, as an adult who has finally returned to art education after several years working outside of that realm, my love for making art has changed once again.  Now, when I have the time, and I'm in the right mindset for creating art, I find that I enjoy the feeling of nostalgia that I get from returning to a practice that was such a huge part of my life for so long but that over the years I drifted away from.

How do you evaluate your work?

Honestly, I'm happy with any piece that I've actually finished!  I tend to get sidetracked and step away from projects for long periods of time.  When life settles down, oftentimes during the winter months, I return to projects that I've started.  So I guess my answer is, I'm happy with a piece or even a project that I've actually finished, regardless (mostly) of the quality. 

Where is your studio, and what is your primary work area?

I've lived in apartments since I was 18, so I've rarely had the square footage or room for an actual studio space.  I've made my kitchen table, a cleared space in a living room, and, on rare occasions, a spare bedroom my "studio."  My studio is really wherever I can find space to create. :).

What clues or questions do you use to select an idea to invest time and resources?

Much of the work that I've done over the past 4-5 years has been at the request of others, or it's been part of a functional DIY upgrade to something in my home/apartment, like repainting old picture frames.  When it comes to my own work, I tend to utilize subjects that our close and important to me, like pictures of my husband or our dog, Astrid.  Ideation has always been hard for me without having sort of a purpose or prompt to guide me.  It's one of the reasons I enjoyed teaching art, which is because although it's difficult for me to develop concepts or themes for my work, I do enjoy helping others find ways of unlocking or accessing their own creativity by exploring topics, themes, or subjects that are important to them or that they are especially curious about exploring through art.

About your work: what do you hope people notice the most?

Honestly, I'm not sure.  When I create something for someone else, such as the album artwork I did for a musician friend, I hope of course hope that they like it and also that they appreciate the time and thought that went into the creation of the piece(s).  I suppose I hope that people can see my own work, whether a specific piece of art or an upgrade to a functional home accessory, like a picture frame, and appreciate the time that went into it and also appreciate that maybe it's something they would like to try themselves.  

"...if someone truly wants to learn to create art, then they can" 

What is your favorite guilty pleasure?

I really have so many! haha. When it comes to art, I think my favorite guilty pleasure is comic books/comic book art, which I don't actually feel guilty about.  From a very young age I've had a fascination and appreciation for comic book artists.  I love the human form as a subject, and I'm especially attracted to the escapism that the stories in comic books and the science fiction and fantasy genre provide.  I used to love drawing superheroes and was inspired by artists like Alex Ross, Salvador Larocca, and Rob Liefeld.  

How do you define success as a creative? How do you hold yourself accountable?

For me, success as a creative is finding ways to express my creativity in as many aspects of my personal and professional life as possible.  It's usually so hard for me to make time to create "art", mainly I think because I let life and my own procrastination get in the way.  Also, I'm pretty happy with my life and my work, and I think a big reason for that is because I've had to find ways to channel my creativity into areas that are not necessarily related to creating art.  When I left teaching, I found creative outlets in my work in higher education through the development of digital newsletters and flyers, which really brought in elements of design that I hadn't really utilized as a teacher because I primarily focused on fine art mediums, such as drawing, painting, ceramics and the like.  Long story short, even though I'm not actively creating artwork on a regular basis, I do still feel that I am a creative person and I've found success.  

What advice do you have about throwing away work? 

Oh boy, well I've kept two big portfolios of my work from college and from teaching, so...  I can be very sentimental when it comes to things that connect me to my past, like pieces of my own that I created in college and even demos from my years teaching.  It's really hard for me to give those things up because it would mean discarding an important part of myself that I just want to hold onto.  I also feel like I have a terrible memory, and forgetting important things from my past is a little scary to me.  For those who live to create though, I can see the value or the cathartic aspect of throwing away work they aren't happy with or that is representative of someone they feel they no longer are. For me, I like to hold on to certain things, but ultimately, I think we all have to do what makes us happy.

How can people follow you and your work?

Honestly, the best way is to ask me about it.  I have social media accounts, but because I'm not a very active creator of art, I don't post often.  I do go through little spurts of artistic creativity, so if one of those comes along and some artwork is born from that, then I'll share it with others.  

What would you like people to know that I haven't asked?

Zentangle

This isn't really about me, directly, but it's more of a philosophy of mine.  I really believe that anyone can create art and create "good" art at that.  I think a lot of people who don't think of themselves as creative or artistic give up on themselves before they even try.  I've had students who thought they couldn't create "good" art because they viewed themselves as very math, science, or engineering-focused, but once I was able to help them to consider the ways that art can and does intersect with other disciplines, and help them to understand that everyone can learn to be more observant, they often find that they can turn their "technical" minds and skills toward art and create some amazing work.  In short, if someone truly wants to learn to create art, then they can. 

Thank you for spending some time with me, Rob. This has been such a pleasure! Please come back whenever you have something to share with the ChC audience.