An Interview with Christine Stoddard by Sally Jane Brown

       




Christine Stoddard Interview with Sally Jane Brown • Feb. 21, 2024

In this exclusive interview, Christine Stoddard invites us into her latest exhibition, "A Forest of Ancestral Dreams" (forthcoming with Baldwin Public Library in Baldwin, New York), where paintings and sculptures converge to weave tales of heritage, identity, and imagination. With a background as rich and diverse as her artwork, Christine shares insights into her artistic process, inspirations, and the profound connections between place, culture, and creativity.

Your exhibit includes a range of media - mixed, painting, jewelry - tell me about your artistic process and why different media lends itself to your intent.

The exhibition, “A Forest of Ancestral Dreams,” itself includes paintings and small sculptures. The paintings are acrylic or watercolor-based and incorporate other media: glass, paper pulp, pen, pencil, beads. There is one canvas depicting a large cactus, which has an oil paint base. I did not paint the textural base, which largely cannot see because I have covered it in acrylic, but you can see its topography. That is the only “oil painting” in the show, though it's hardly a true oil painting. The show also has a narrow glass display case with paper-based and glass sculptures: a puppet, a shadow box, an altered book, and a glass bowl. 

I was raised to reuse and recycle and appreciate literacy, history, and craftsmanship. My mother is from El Salvador, which has a strong handicraft tradition, especially paper goods and ceramics. Her sensibilities are influenced by mestizo culture, the blending of Indigenous Mayan heritage and Spanish colonialism. My father is American, a New York hippie of Northern English and Scottish descent. Both witnessed El Salvador's civil war firsthand and are pacifists and nature lovers. They are very tactile people, which explains my adoration of texture and materials. My siblings and I all took to drawing at an early age and made crafts with our mother at home. She often read storybooks to us and carefully pointed out the illustrations. She was never one to rush to the next page. Under her tutelage, the library was a weekly destination; there were even periods when she took us there everyday. Our father, a director of photography for news and documentaries, taught us about close looking, composition, and the magic of lighting. He was fascinated by politics and comparative religion, the latter of which has truly inspired me throughout my life. As a family, we took advantage of Washington, D.C.'s many free museums, plays, concerts, and festivals. I create in varied media in large part because I have been exposed to many media, but also because I feel free and motivated to do so. I am claiming my right to do so as a woman artist.

QBG was also kind enough to invite me to sell work in the gift shop. I have my poetry/fiction book Desert Fox by the Sea, the Quail Bell Magazine anthology Lunar Phoenix, Blu-Rays of my feature film Sirena's Gallery (Summer Hill Entertainment), jewelry, tiny paintings, and sculptures small enough to fit on a home tabletop or bookshelf. 

Selling in a cultural institution gift shop is a dream I've had since I was a kid! So check that off the bucket list. I've had publishers arrange for my books to be sold in museum gift shops before, mainly my non-fiction titles Hispanic & Latino Heritage in Virginia and Images of America: Richmond Cemeteries. And that was super-cool. But this feels like a leveling up in terms of  accomplishment. It is the first time I've had a gift shop represent my work across media for long-term, not just a one-day event. I really had the chance to curate what I wanted to make available to the public at affordable prices. Making my work accessible is important to me, though it is tough to do being an artist in New York City. With the cost of living being so high here, we have many costs to recoup. Fortunately, I have cultivated relationships that allow me to reduce some of my costs, in some cases getting resources for free. Two places that have been incredibly supportive in my journey as a working artist are Materials for the Arts in Long Island City and UrbanGlass in Fort Greene.

Your statement relays some different place-related inspirations - your mother's Salvadorian ancestry + your father's Scottish - coupled with your upbringing in Virginia and current home of NY. How do these places, backgrounds, environments, impact your work and come through in the visuals?

I don't think it's possible to separate yourself from the earth. It's also not possible to separate yourself from history. From a young age, I was made aware that I was the daughter of transplants. Though I have lived experience in Virginia, I have no roots there. I was the first in my family born and raised there. It was my home without being my ancestral home. There is a loneliness and a thrill that comes with that. A blank slate presents opportunity, yet the feeling of rootlessness can be quite unsettling. I have many memories of my mother getting made fun of for being an immigrant. Even my father was  left out for not relating to the UVA/Virginia Tech rivalry or any number of things that excluded him from being a “Washingtonian” or “Virginian.” New York City attracted me as an arts and entertainment capital and a city full of immigrants. Of course, it is no utopia. Everywhere I have lived, I have tried to do as my parents raised me to do: look closely, notice the plants and animals, marvel at moments in nature. As important as it is to observe nuances, there is more that binds us than does not.

I'm fascinated by borders, collisions, and overlaps. I've been fortunate to travel a lot in my life and plan to do much more. The more places you've lived and traveled and the more cultures inform your life, the more connections you make between peoples and histories. Like, I cannot help but see connections between the American Civil War and El Salvador's Civil War. Or the connections between the Scotland-England border and the U.S.-Mexico border.

I think it's wonderful to be layered, to have many places and things shape you. It is also complex and not without its challenges. Something can be two things at once. Much of life is a contradiction and a conundrum. That does not make it any less beautiful.

You have a mystical, maybe, surreal, approach to your work - with depictions of ghosts and skulls to animals, women and maybe religious figures or goddesses? I get some real Remedias Varo and Leonora Carrington vibes. Tell me about what stories you're telling, and is your work inspired by other artists before/around you such as these?

First of all, I'm flattered by those comparisons. Because they are still images, paintings do not always have the beginning, middle, and end that we associate with narrative storytelling. But other elements of storytelling, such as character, conflict, and tension can be apparent, or at least discernible, in a still image. I like that paintings often invite you to ask what is the beginning of this story? The middle? The end? And where does this image fit into the story? Is it exposition? Rising action? A conclusion?

I take inspiration from Catholic symbolism, Mayan motifs, Southern Gothic, British folklore and fairytales, Latin American Magical Realism, and cycles in biology and ecology. Again, I see more connections than I do hard-line boundaries. 

In 8th grade, I took a geography class that set the tone for the rest of my life. School was always a refuge for me, but I remember that year being hard in particular. My teacher, Ms. Holland, sparked my curiosity about the world and made me appreciate my place in it, which brought me a lot of joy. I loved making maps and dioramas for her class, listening to music from other cultures, and trying food from seemingly everywhere. Land shapes us in so many ways and we as humans shape it, too. This is a story for my art but also for all of humanity. 

In an early MFA project, I made a video about how, at that time at least, much of my mother's country of origin, El Salvador, was not viewable on Google Maps. During that period, I was thinking a lot about what makes something knowable vs. unknowable, real vs. unreal. I still do. I gravitate toward artists with the same concern and who also have rich aesthetic styles. I tend to prefer maximalism and vibrancy and don't usually go for pure abstraction. The list is always growing and changing, but some of my favorite painters include Frida Kahlo, Tamara de Lempicka, and Faith Ringgold.  

I know you are also a performer, writer, even comedian sometimes. How does this all come into play with your visual work?

I want my visual art to invite the view into stories and worlds, and also invite them to play. Aiming for a playful quality in my work is something I do across media. I believe in using humor, levity, and charm to bring about smiles, laughter, and dreaming. Art doesn't always have to be super-serious, just as life should have room for fun, comedy, and imagination. While I cultivate a strong work ethic, I also cultivate a strong play ethic. 

Right now I am studying Oral History as a Master's student at Columbia University. It's a program about documenting and translating memory and personal narratives. Largely, oral history as a field is audio-driven, with a tradition of recorded interviews that may or may not be transcribed and published as text. The recorded interviews often go into an archive at a museum or library that isn't necessarily accessible to the general public. In more recent years, the field has become more visual. You will find more video interviews and overlap with documentary film. You will find drawing and painting more commonplace in the field, too. To me, this is a boon. I'm not a purist. 

I have found many performers also make visual art. For many, it's a question of what they are trying to “brand” or “market” when it comes to one medium taking priority. I prefer to put it all out there, at least when I'm half-satisfied with it. I'm a multi-hyphenate and I'm not going to let a marketing consultant shame me into hiding that reality. 

What has this show at the Queens Botanical Center meant to you - what has been the response to the work, is it what you hoped?

This is my first major solo exhibition in New York City. It is also my first true painting show. I have had two other significant solo exhibitions during my time here: my culminating show as the premiere artist-in-residence at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House (December 2018/January 2019) and MFA show at The City College of New York (April-June 2019). 

I had built up a lot of momentum for my art during my MFA and then the pandemic hit. In 2020/2021, I made my arthouse feature film Sirena's Gallery through the 1708 Gallery Space Residency in Richmond, VA. The film included my paintings and tapped into my visual art in that way. The film itself was rather experimental, too, so it definitely had an art-making, almost video art approach to it. In the few months after my MFA graduation, I had some residencies and group shows that brought my work to new audiences, including a group show at the Queens Botanical Garden. This was with AnkhLave Arts Alliance and was curated by Dario Mohr. That show gave me the confidence to pitch to QBG as a solo artist in 2022. My outdoor installation that was a part of the group show was especially popular and got specific mention in reviews. I was especially touched by one detailed review published by New York Latin Culture Magazine.

Despite doing some painting during my MFA, I didn't show straight paintings in either of the 2018/2019 solo shows. Both were more photo and sculpture-based, with some drawing and painting integrated into the work. There were three experiences in 2019 that encouraged me to give painting a more serious go. They all took place around the same time, after I had already prepared the work for my MFA show. One was an artist residency at public schools through Lehman College Art Gallery. I was mural-making and teaching watercolor workshops to middle school students in the Bronx and Brooklyn. Suddenly I was watching YouTube tutorials and looking at art instruction books in ways I hadn't done since I was a kid. The other was a ceramic independent study with Sylvia Netzer, who was on my MFA thesis committee. She recognized that I was doing a lot of drawing in clay and finding unusual ways to color work after taking it out of the kiln, not just doing traditional glazing. She was very surprised to learn that I didn't really see myself as a “drawer” or “painter.” She pushed me to do more drawing and painting, and I'm so happy I did. Pretty much right after I graduated from my MFA, I was hired to teach art workshops to adults with disabilities and that led to making murals in group homes. All of this painting felt like a second childhood and it made me very happy. 

By 2022, I decided I had body of cohesive painting work. I started submitting exhibition proposals and by late spring/early summer 2023, I found out the Queens Botanical Garden wanted me to have a show that opened at the end of the year. The show is scheduled to run through March 18, 2024, which means a nice long run of four months. It was and is a huge honor. 

The opening was well attended, mostly full of strangers, which was exactly what I wanted. I love being supported by friends, family, and long-time acquaintances and colleagues, but reaching new audiences expands the work's influence. The garden asked me to visit their after-school teen program, which teaches students about food justice in New York City. The students looked at my exhibition, discussed it with me, and made mixed media watercolors with me afterwards. Most of the work had botanical themes to it, which makes sense given the context. There has been some local press about the exhibition, most notably a feature story in the Queens Chronicle. 

One of my favorite responses to the exhibition actually occurred in person. An elderly Chinese couple pointed at the work and gave me very enthusiastic smiles and nods. Another favorite happened with an Arab mother and adult son. The son, who spoke English, came to me and said that he and his mother liked my art very much. He then pointed at his mother's favorite painting and asked me to tell him about it, so I did. He went to his mother, who stood a few feet apart from us, and interpreted what I said. She smiled at me after he finished explaining. In both of these instances, I knew that my art had transcended oral and written language, which was tremendously gratifying. 

What are you working on now / what's next?

I am working on my films Belladonna Magic and Her Garden, my TV talk show Badass Lady-Folk, and my live/digital performances of Art Bitch, Queen Jaguar, and other characters, as well as standup comedy. I'm also co-hosting the new comedy TV show Don't Mind If I Don't with Aaron Gold.

Belladonna Magic is a compilation of video poems, one for each poem in my book Belladonna Magic: Spells in the Form of Poetry and Photography (Shanti Arts, 2019). The first public showing of these films will take place at FiveMyles Gallery in Brooklyn in February 2024. I will be editing the videos into one feature-length work by the end of this year.

Her Garden is a feature-length experimental film I've been working on with collaborators Jacob M. Baron and Meagan J. Meehan. The story is about one woman's journey in understanding her mentally ill aunt; there are mermaids involved and a lot of sensuous imagery, especially of the urban post-apocalypse meets ocean vibes. It's been stuck in post-production limbo for a bit, but I'm not too concerned; I always have enough to keep myself occupied. I'm excited for this work to reach its audience sooner rather than later.

Badass Lady-Folk is a talk show featuring conversations with incredible women and non-binary folks. Don't Mind If I Don't where fans and experts try to convince my grumpy boyfriend Aaron Gold to like the things he hates; I play the role of co-host and supportive, level-headed girlfriend. You can watch both shows on YouTube.



*All artwork curtesy of the artist © Christine Stoddard 

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Christine Stoddard is a multi-hyphenated artist and storyteller named one of Brooklyn Magazine’s Top 50 Most Fascinating People. She is known for her off-beat humor and poetic but playful experimental works spanning across media. Some notable examples include the critically-acclaimed stage play "Mi Abuela, Queen of Nightmares," the arthouse feature film Sirena’s Gallery (streaming on Amazon Prime, Tubi, etc.), the books Desert Fox by the Sea and Belladonna Magic, the performance acts Art Bitch and Queen Jaguar, and the culture publication Quail Bell Magazine. In December 2023, Stoddard took over the Brooklyn Downtown Star and Greenpoint Star as editor with her usual insatiable creativity. She loves penning her column "Believe the Hype" and "Forget Fairytales" comics for local readers. She hosts the feminist talk show "Badass Lady-Folk" and co-hosts the new comedy TV show "Don't Mind If I Don't" with Aaron Gold. You can find her work in Bustle, Cosmopolitan, Ms. Magazine, The Huffington Post, the Portland Review, Yes! Magazine, Native Peoples Magazine, Digital America, and elsewhere. Her work has appeared in productions, programs, and exhibitions by The Tank, the Queens Botanical Garden, the Gene Frankel Theatre, the Elisabet Ney Museum, the Players Theatre, the New York Transit Museum, the People's Improv Theater, the Poe Museum, and beyond. Currently, she is a book writer in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and a Master's candidate at Columbia University. She is a graduate of The City College of New York and Virginia Commonwealth University. Find out more at WorldOfChristinestoddard.com

Sally Brown is an artist, curator and writer currently based in Morgantown. Her artwork including drawing, painting and performance, explores womanhood, motherhood and the body.  She has exhibited her work in spaces nationally and in the UK. She has won two awards for illustration for Intimates and Fools and Leaves of Absence, both with poetry by Laura Madeline Wiseman. She has participated in artist residencies in Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Buenos Aires. Her writing has been published in Hyperallergic, Women's Art Journal and Artslant, among others. She has curated group shows in Omaha, Nashville, Pittsburgh and Morgantown. She holds a Bachelor of Arts-Studio Art, a Master of Public Administration and Master of Arts- Art History and Feminist Theory. She is a former member of the College Art Association National Committee on Women in the Arts, edited the online journal Les Femmes Folles, and currently serves as Exhibits Coordinator for West Virginia University Libraries and associate art editor for Thimble Literary Magazine.

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