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INTERVIEWS
AT HOME WITH ARTISTS
ELLEN GARVENS & GLENN RUDOLPH
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In the Studio with Ellen Garvens
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Can you tell us a little about how you came to your career as an artist and eventually, a Professor at the UW?
I didn’t know pursuing art was an option until I went to college at the University of Wisconsin. I took my first drawing class and pivoted hard towards it. I backpacked through Europe and traveled in West Africa in my 20’s in pursuit of understanding what art was and what it could be. My first teaching job, at Oberlin College, was to teach drawing and photography. My experience with both, unusual at the time, was a good ticket to get that first teaching job.
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What do these days look like for you? What has changed for you in light of the self-isolation over the last several months?
I haven’t felt so isolated during this time (as an introvert) but did feel stress. It was difficult to adjust to the on-line teaching because it was so rushed. But over time it taught me new ways to connect to students in spite of the physical distance. I have been lucky in that way to have a job that continues to keep me connected.
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Are you able to spend time in the studio? What are you working on at the moment?
I am in the studio piling up furniture and playing with things moving, tipping, and precariously balancing. It is a reflection of the need for change and an effort to imagine a new kind of balance desperately needed politically and socially.
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The photographs Blue (2004) and Index (2003) are part of a series titled Ambivalence. While you were working on this series how did you negotiate the relation between the documentary aspects and the formal aspects of your project?
I started this series after a visit to the prosthetics lab at the UW. I was helped by Danny Abrahamson and other teachers and prosthetists to understand the process. The evidence of the making, a merging of the skills and collaboration between the prosthetist and the patient resonated. The devices I photographed represent a fusion of history and future, healing in physical and psychological ways, and much more. Started when the Iraq War began, I was aware of the ongoing necessity for prosthetics because of our past wars in SE Asia, which led me to include an international dimension to the work.
Your question is appropriate. How is the relationship between the formal and documentary negotiated? It was an intense experience while making the work. The series is called "Ambivalence" because I was (and am) constantly questioning my role. I created an on-line book to include the voices of the patients, prosthetists and researchers who have experienced, supported or studied trauma and the process of healing. “Making Devices” is where information and context become a more integral part of the work. I am encouraged when hearing prosthetists and patients say that they have never seen the devices pictured in this way before, that the images change the way they see them.
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Ellen Garvens, Index, 2003, Emulsion mounted inkjet on acrylic, 35.5" × 29.5" × 2"
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Can you describe your favorite work of art in your home?
My mind goes immediately to a plaster cast reproduction of an Egyptian relief carving of a ram I bought at the Met years ago. My son Cole took a ceramics class in college and did his version of it. I love that he was influenced by this object hanging on our living room wall, and I love the movement and interpretation he added to it.
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In the Studio with Glenn Rudolph
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You studied painting at the University of Washington. Has the study of painting influenced the ways in which you compose your photographs? When you began making photographs, were there particular photographers whom you regarded as important predecessors for the kind of work you wanted to make?
I guess I have been influenced by the entire history of art. I was lucky to have a few art history professors that made us ask what it all meant. I grew up watching Groucho Marx on TV.
Studying painting was a way to learn visual communication. I originally studied writing but drifted over to taking art classes. Photography happened by accident when a friend crashed on my couch when I was just beginning to study art. He had a camera and a developing tank. The year was 1965. (He was documenting the Pike Place Market when it was a genuine relic from the past. I still have his prints stored in my studio.) He introduced me to HCB, Atget and Weston.
The WPA photographers have been very important. Garry Winogrand is huge. Fellini's La Dolce Vita opened my eyes. The many great films I have seen have shown me the way, even though they are fiction. I owe a huge debt to the many great cinematographers. The painters list is endless. Turner, Ryder, Blake, Diebenkorn, Burchfield, Vermeer, Rembrandt and Constable come to mind at the moment. And all my artist friends' work is a constant source of stimulation.
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Some of these shots are political postcards we use for educational outreach in the 13th Legislative District. Some are digitally altered. Disturbed a few local conservative Dems for encouraging vandalism - you can guess which ones. Before they hung a poster in the window at Democratic Headquarters in Ellensburg I put disclaimer on the picture.
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What do these days look like for you? What has changed for you in light of the self-isolation over the last several months?
The COVID crisis has not changed my life all that much. I live in Roslyn, WA. The rural life is a safe haven. Me and my wife, Cathy Cook, who is an artist and Roslyn city council person, spend time in the woods looking for mushrooms, exploring abandoned gold mines and just plain wander around. I always carry a camera when we go drifting.
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Having witnessed throughout your career, a major evolution in the various techniques of making photographs (ie. - the move from analog to digital, and the endless stream of smartphone images generated each second) what is your preferred medium today? From your perspective, what impact has broad digitization had on photography as an art form?
I still use film 99 percent of the time. My battery charger for a digital camera I bought 12 years ago is lost. I would always forget to charge it anyway. The light tends to be contrasty on this side of the Cascades - it is a tough job for digital capture. Digital printing works for me most of the time. Scanned film is a good marriage.
The photographs I take are my personal snapshots. Every now and then a good one happens. Maybe it is time for me to get a smart phone.
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Can you describe (and share an image if possible) your favorite work of art in your home?
My favorite shot hanging in my house is Cath and Alice:
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