Marjorie Barrick Museum Podcast

Unknown Speaker 0:00
This is a KUNV studio original program.

Unknown Speaker 0:03
The following is special programming aired in collaboration with the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art on the campus of UNLV and does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Katie 0:26
Hi, Krystal.

Krystal
Hi, how are you?

Katie
I'm good. How are you?

Krystal
I'm doing great.

Katie
Excellent. Well, thank you everyone for tuning in and listening. My name is Katie. I am here with the wonderful artist Krystal Ramirez. She is one of the artists featured in a current exhibition at the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art. That show is called Contemporary Ex-votos: Devotion Beyond Medium. And we're in the chat today. So thank you so much for joining me.

Krystal 0:53
Thank you for having me.

Katie
Absolutely. Can we start with a little bit of background information from you? So where you're from the kind of art you create? And just for fun, your favorite way to beat the Vegas, famous Vegas, summer heat?

Krystal 1:07
Yes, I am from...originally I was born in El Paso, Texas. But I was raised here in Las Vegas. I've lived here, like practically my whole life. A little bit about my work. I would say that I dabble in sculpture, photography, although not, not a lot of photography as much as I'd like to lately, but historically, I've done a sculpture,, photography and some fiber arts. And do you want to hear a little bit about the type of work that I do? Or?

Katie 1:43
Yeah, and just yeah, I mean, the type of work maybe that you're doing more recently?

Krystal 1:49
Yeah, recently, I'm really focusing on large scale installations. I really like experiential type of work that really transforms the space and transforms your experience of how you're experiencing a space. So yeah, I'm really focusing on that, I like work to be accessible, to have lots of points of entry. So that's super important to me. And that's, you know, what I'm focusing on right now.

Katie 2:16
And your favorite way to beat the Vegas heat.

Krystal 2:19
Yes, um, I was thinking about this on the walk here, because it was, so it's so hot today. I typically will stay home when I can. Because my AC is great. We just got a new AC unit. And that's the best thing you can do in Las Vegas. But I like to spend time this summer, especially in my studio. It's my first time having a studio ever, since I got one right after grad school. And the AC works great in there too. And it's a great way to feel like I'm being productive with my art practice and then also cool off.

Katie 2:58
Yes, that's a good combination. I like to jump in the pool of my apartment if I can. If I can't, the AC is definitely the next best bet. And a good fan. So speaking of kind of your, your work and your practice what inspired you to become an artist?

Krystal 3:16
Every time I get this question, I try to think of something super, like interesting to say because but I feel like it's kind of anticlimax come I think I actually had no really idea or that I would go into the arts, you know, in high school. And even when I first started university, I was really focused on business marketing, just like really accounting, I loved accounting, I just, it makes sense now with the type of work that I make, because I make a lot of multiples, and I'm very rigid in the way that I work and, but at the time, I just wasn't really even thinking about artwork. I loved being creative, but I didn't think it was a way of life. And I, you know, part of the university requirements here at UNLV are that you have to take an art class. And so I took a beginning photo, summer course. So the summer courses here, about five weeks long, five hours a day or something like that, and just being immersed in art, in photography for five hours a day, for five weeks, really transformed my way of seeing the world. I had a great professor, and they've just really encouraged experimentation. And I felt like after I took that class, I just there was no going back. I needed to, I just knew that I needed to make art for the rest of my life. Yes.

Katie 4:52
I love those kinds of answers. Who are some of your favorite artists?

Krystal 4:57
Some of my favorite artists. Um, I really lately I've been just loving some of my peer's work. I love Kyla Hanson. She, I went to undergrad with her and she is just so fabulous. Her work is beautiful. Her work is, she's just incredibly talented. She's just a great craftsman. And I think she's just just everything but she's so inspiring and her work ethic too, and from grad school, I just really fell in love with my cohort's work, but especially like Tina Kashiwagi, and Liz Malin Milani. And so, I don't know, there's so many we see so much work. I, you know, every time we go to a gallery and museums, and there's just so much work I'm inspired by, but I think the work I'm the most excited about right now, and the most inspired by, are people that I've gotten to work with recently. I've gotten to work with one on one. And, you know, I think sometimes when you work with, when you don't get to work with artists, you put them on a pedestal. And of course, they should be there, they're inspiring you, they're, you know, you hope to see their work one day or maybe even to meet them. But there's so many amazing artists that you get to talk to every single day. And I feel like those are the ones that inspire me the most.

Katie 6:28
Yeah, that's really cool. Kyla's work is also in the Barrick at the moment. She has a piece in the In Relation show about motherhood. So definitely extra reasons to come check out the work. Speaking of that, to shift a little bit to what work is in the space now, can you tell us a little bit about the piece that you have in Ex-votos?

Krystal 6:50
Yeah, so the piece is, has a Spanish title, it translates to "What have I done to deserve this;" in Spanish is "¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!" It's a large installation. It's a chapel like structure, it's neon green, it's comprised of breezeblock bricks that I've made by hand. And it's inspired by, so the entire show is about devotion and devotion beyond medium, inspired by ex-votos, which are these small devotional paintings from the eighth to 18th-century Mexico. And with mine, I really wanted to, when I think of devotion, I think of growing up Catholic, I think of you know, confessionals going to, you know, confession once a week, or whenever how often you know, people go. But they always, it was always very conflicting, because you would go there, and you would try to find reasons why you were, quote unquote, sinning, or you know, what, instead of focusing on positive things in your life, you know, so this question, What have I done to deserve this, I really feel like when you're inside this chapel, it's circular. It's like a C shape. So you walk inside of it. And the same phrases in neon, when you walk inside of it, you're really just overwhelmed by this light. And my hope is that not only can the question be something as in, what have I done to deserve this good thing that's happened to me in my life, or, but it could also, you know, go in the other way. So what have I done to deserve this misfortune? And so I think that both are important when thinking about devotion, and what we choose to devote ourselves to, and, you know, there's whether... Yeah, yeah.

Katie 9:02
So for someone coming into the Barrick, maybe for the first time and seeing this work, do you have any kind of particular hope that they'll kind of glean from it a specific feeling or a thought? Or do you kind of just let works kind of do what they do?

Krystal 9:19
Well, this kind of goes back to what I said with your first question, with having work that has many points of entry. That's something that's super important to me. I think that a work, my work specifically, I like it to be aesthetically pleasing in a way that if somebody approaches the work and doesn't have conceptual art background, if they don't have knowledge of, or experiences in, the museum space, that they will enjoy the work. You know, a lot of my work is also influenced by Las Vegas and Las Vegas is this, you know, entertainment capital, there's just so many things in Las Vegas if you're just looking on the surface that are, you know, this huge spectacle, you know, you have the Bellagio fountains, you have the pyramid, you have and, and these are all surface level, you know things that we get to enjoy or that tourists get to enjoy. And so I think that sometimes an experience can be just that, is something that somebody gets to enjoy and feel comfortable in and feel, as you know, and welcome in a space such as a museum, because not everybody always feels welcome. You know, I always think of my family members who maybe aren't so familiar with museum spaces, I want them to feel welcome in a space, then you know, if you enjoy the piece in that way, or you can also learn more about it, you can learn about the history behind the material, you can learn about, you know, what inspired my color choices, you know, the narrative behind it, you know, be intention, you can read about it. You can also do you don't even have to read it, I try to have signifiers within the piece that you can then interpret, interpret in any way that you like, I think that sometimes once we put an artwork out there, I I am one of those people that thinks we kind of lose control over how people experience the work. So I think that there's definitely lots of ways that that piece can be interpreted and you know, I'm fine with, I'm fine with most of them. Yeah.

Katie 11:35
Most of them.

Krystal
Most of them. Yes.

Katie
What are some of your biggest influences, non art related? Or maybe not like directly art related?

Krystal 11:46
Yes. I've been reading a lot lately. Only because finally being out of grad school. And yes, I have time to read fiction. I'm sort of obsessed with the author, Ottessa Moshfegh. She's a fiction writer. And her work just really blows me away. I love reading her work. And one of my pieces was actually named after one of her books. It's called Homesick for Another World. And it's a book of short stories, and they all sort of inspire my pieces. She has this way of writing about like, unlikable characters, or the world that we live in, or, you know, just everyday experiences that seem very raw and very real. I think that she's not trying to sugarcoat, you know, or maybe sugarcoat's the wrong descriptor, she's not trying to always write super likable characters, and sometimes their habits or the way they live their lives seem very real to me, and just more of a reality of everyday experiences. And I feel like that's what I try to do with my work. I, I, I want it to be likable. But I also want it to be deeper than that, you know, I want there to be these narratives hidden within the piece. So sometimes, even though I do want the work to be, you know, visually pleasing, I try to choose other things within the work that work against that, maybe a thought process where it's like, okay, this is aesthetically pleasing. But then let me push the boundaries of perhaps like, what it can look like visually, or maybe what feels comfortable for people to experience.

Katie 13:43
Do you feel like, I know, a lot of a lot of the times artists can struggle with the writing portion of what you know, the artist statement, project descriptions, if you're applying for residency or grad school, or you know, just what specific galleries or museums may ask you to write. Do you like the writing process?

Krystal 14:06
I do not.

Katie 14:09
What do you not like about it?

Krystal 14:10
Oh, it's just so hard writing so hard for me. I did get better at it in grad school, because I had to write so much. But I'm not just naturally gifted in writing, even though I love reading, I think, you know, I reread my thesis recently, and it was a lot better than I remember. So I suppose I am just fine at writing like I'm not as bad as I think it is, you know, in my head when I'm writing it. But it's definitely like pulling teeth. It's just a hard process for me. But one of the best pieces of advice that was given to me while in grad school was every time you make a piece, write a page about it. And so ultimately, when you're done with your thesis, if you have 10 pieces, let's say that you want to include in your thesis, you already have 10 pages.

Katie 14:59
I'm going to steal that idea.

Krystal
Yes!

Katie
I'm going into my thesis.

Krystal 15:02
It's such a great idea because it can be overwhelming to write about your work. And then you know, you could use the first half of your thesis to write about, maybe your inspiration, sort of theories behind your work. Just ideas, and then you just go into talking about the pieces, you know, and so and that, to me was so helpful. It made the thesis writing process go by so fast, faster than I anticipated anyway. And so, yes, I do not enjoy the writing part. But I've learned to, not exactly by choice, but I've learned to just accept it

Katie 15:45
Accept it as part of the process. Yes. Well, kind of along those same lines, in terms of managing kind of the business side and creative sides of your practice, how do you try to go about sort of juggling those both those worlds?

Krystal 15:59
I think I really needed to change my mindset around it, because there's no -- It's same as the writing there, you have no choice your art is your business. And I think that for certainly before grad school, you know, you it was a lot harder for me, you think of thinking about the business side is such a drag because it just sucks the fun out of it, you know, and, and then once you get into even before grad school and or once you get into grad school, it, it definitely feels more like a job, like you're producing work, you're having to write about it, you're having to, you know, check your expenses, you're having to do your taxes, it definitely starts to shift your, the way you think about your work as certainly something that's business focused. But I think for me, now, that doesn't bother me, or doesn't really challenge me as much as the writing component. I think the business, it's just changed, shifting your mindset. And just accepting that making your work is that making work is a type of entrepreneurship. And I think it's such a great way to make a living, it's certainly hard. It's, I am I always joke that I'm in too deep. I've already spent so much money, I've already invested half my life in making work or you know, maybe just about half of my life. So there's no, you know, I'm not going to start over with a different career path. I'm just like, I'm already here. So let's make it work. So, you know, I get to make work. And hopefully, it pans out. You know, I'm teaching right now. And I'm getting to make my work. And so, so what if I have to think of it as a business? This is just what I tell myself. Yeah, so like to kind of shift my mindset around.

Katie 18:03
Yeah, and I think thinking about kind of the, the obstacles that come with balancing, you know, work, like the work life balance, everybody has to literally balance themselves to but also when you're an artist, you're often many other things too. And you're doing that because you want the artistic, the artistry and the making to kind of be at the, at the forefront. So kind of with that, you know, those those different obstacles and kind of organizational things, what's maybe been the biggest challenge in a piece and maybe in particular to with the work that's in the Barrick, right now, what was sort of like the biggest challenge to overcome?

Krystal 18:46
Oh, my God, that piece was nothing but challenges. It really truly was I'd never made anything like it. Before grad school, I made primarily 2D work, photography, fiber-based types of works, mixed media. And when I got into grad school, I said, Okay, I want to learn something new. I want to challenge myself. So I'm going to make sculpture, I'm going to make 3D objects. And I had the opportunity to be part of the show that I initially just thought was going to show in New Mexico, that was the plan. And I said, Okay, let's do this. I'm going to propose this giant piece. I have a studio in grad school, but because I'd never made anything like it, it's, for me anyway, it was working backwards with the piece, you know, having the idea and not knowing any sort of way how to make it happen. Figuring out how I was going to make the blocks with what material and then it was just, it was so expensive, because it was just me messing up with one kind of material and then trying another and then trying to figure out a way to make it modular so it could travel and putting it together and taking it apart. And, you know, there's choices I would have done, things I would have done differently, I would have made different choices when making the piece. So I would say that entire piece was very challenging, even now that it's traveling, I had no idea it was going to travel. So I didn't really plan for it to travel, I was just going to go back and pick it up and bring it back to Las Vegas. And so I've had to continue to learn and figure out ways for the piece to travel safely and how to install in different environments that like, for example, I didn't account for the weather. Pieces--the materials change based on if it's dry, or humid or hot, you know, and it's affected the piece. But that's I would have never thought to think of that when I was first making the pieces out of the gypsum cement. I didn't really think about that when I thought of the type of glue I was using, you know, and so it's just every, every time I install or deinstall that piece, I learned something new.

Katie 21:16
So interesting. Yeah, the environment and the atmosphere, the travel, the travel environment is one thing and then kind of where it's going and where it lands and then having to do you do you often assemble, disassemble, kind of do all the installation yourself, like travel to wherever it's going and install it there? Or do you have other people install?

Krystal 21:41
Well for this piece, I've had to be there at every place to install it. I will say that the director of the museum was not super happy about that. Because technically, as an artist, you should have a piece, or museums and institutions would like you to have a piece that is ready to go, has full instructions, and then it travels and the preparators install it, you know, and because this piece is so precarious, because it's so fragile, because I had no idea how it was going to be installed until I took it to New Mexico. I installed it, had no idea how I was going to deinstall it until the show was done. And then had no idea how I was going to get it to travel. And so then when it got to Chicago, I didn't have a way to write the instructions, because it was just so fragile. Like I just felt like I had to be there. And so I've had to convince, you know, every location that it's traveled to, I've had to convince them that I have to be there for it. But ideally, I think in the future, I'd love to make a piece where, you know, you think of all these things ahead of time. I've learned that now, from the many mistakes I've made with this piece. And I've learned that it you know, it is wonderful to be there to install it. I know that there are teams that travel with pieces to install it. But yeah, it'd be really nice to just be able to send something somewhere and have the preparators install it and not stress about it.

Katie 23:22
Yeah. Would you say that kind of the experience of that specific travel and need to move from place to place that kind of gave you that breakthrough moment? Or do you kind of have more breakthrough moments in the studio when you're making?

Krystal 23:39
Both, both I-- This piece is one of the, one at the the show at the Barrick is one of my favorite pieces that I've ever made. Because it's just been such a learning experience. I've learned so much from it. I mean it really if I made other work in grad school, but this is the piece that became just its own experience. I mean, it was grad school, this piece, and I'm so grateful for that. But for the piece before all this happened, you know, traveling, the packing, there was the making of the piece and I just had so many breakthroughs with working with materials that I had never worked with before. And typically the way that I work is experimenting a lot. I mean, I love to, let's say I'm going to make a block. For example, the block that I made for this piece, the breeze block, I want to see it in 15 different types of materials. I want to then experiment with, you know, each material three different ways. And then I just keep going until even if I like the way the first one comes out, I'm the type of person who won't be happy until I see the other 15 versions of it. Because then I know for sure I'm like okay, I tried making this block 15 different way and then I know for sure this is the way that this one speaks to me the most this material, this, you know, what's happening with the material, what the aesthetics of it. And so that's really one of my favorite parts of being in the studio, more than making the piece itself because once I choose something I work with, I work modularly and I work very large, so then it becomes just doing that thing like 500 more times. So I feel like I try to just have as much as much fun as possible while I'm experimenting, you know? Yeah.

Katie 25:34
Well, what are some personal kind of goals you have coming up? Maybe in the next year or so

Krystal 25:41
I would love to just keep working in my studio. I never had a studio, as I mentioned earlier, and it's so special. And I feel so lucky to be able to have it. And so I'm trying, my biggest goal is to produce a body of work, like a solo show to have it ready to go. And that's the plan for the next year. I am already working on it. I don't have anything planned. I don't have a solo show coming up or anything. But for sure, that's, that's the goal. And it feels good. And yeah, you know, it feels good to have that goal. Because if I've never done that before, even when I, you know, I was so focused on experimenting in my studio in grad school, that I didn't really think, Oh, I'm gonna produce a body of work. In grad school, you're just having fun. You're just working through ideas. And then now that I'm done with that, I'm still working through ideas. But now there's like the goal of like, okay, I need to make decisions because by this time next year, I want to have an entire body of work completed, ready to go for studio visits, or if I get invited to show somewhere. That's so exciting. Yes. So that is exciting for me too.

Katie 26:54
Well, Krystal, where can people see more of your work?

Krystal 26:57
People can see more of my work on my website, krystalramirez.com. K R Y S T A L R A M I R E Z. And you can also find me on Instagram, if you're on there. I don't know if people still use Instagram ...

Katie
I do.

Krystal
... but I'm on there. And I been trying to oh, that's another goal is I want to post more on Instagram because I don't do a lot of hard posts. So I do a lot of stories.

Katie
Yeah.

Krystal
So yeah, so I'm trying to do some hard posts, just commit to them use it as a blog of sorts, use it as a, you know, just another journal entry. And so...

Katie
Just low stakes. No pressure.

Krystal
Yeah. So because then you can see me, you know, with all my experiments, you can kind of follow the process of me working on my future solo show. I'm gonna manifest it.

Unknown Speaker 27:55
Yes. I love that. Well, thank you Krystal so much. And again, everyone can come see Krystal's beautiful work. It's a really amazing, amazing show, an amazing piece. The Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art right here at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and we'll see you next time.

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