Conversation with Pauline Galiana

Please enjoy my conversation with Pauline Galiana. 

Pauline engages simultaneously with a wide range of artistic practices, including collages, paintings, drawings, ephemeral installations, small-scale sculptures, performances, and videos. Her work incorporates both noble and mundane materials; regardless of the medium or method, the source materials are typically deconstructed, reconstructed, and hybridized. 

Pauline wastes nothing. Her processes are obsessive and meditative, involving meticulous planning and patient execution. When applied to materials of varying forms, resilience, and textures, the otherwise ordinary actions of drawing, looping, sticking, or sewing become transformative. By expressing instinctive states of mind through formal compositions, often involving rigorous grids, she extracts meaning from unexpected encounters and entropy. Bridging the gap between fine art and everyday utilitarian objects and materials, Pauline invites viewers to reconsider the boundaries of sustainability and reflect on conventional art forms.

https://www.paulinegaliana.com/ 

https://www.instagram.com/paulinegaliana/

Pauline’s videos: https://vimeo.com/user41579259

This podcast was created by Natalya Khorover. It was produced and recorded by Natalya, as well as researched and edited by her. SALVAGE is a product of ECOLOOP.ART.

If you enjoy this show, please rate and review us wherever you’re listening—and be sure to come back for another conversation with a repurposed media artist.

Music theme by RC Guida

Visit Natalya’s website at www.artbynatalya.com

Visit Natalya’s community at www.repurposercollective.com

Visit Natalya’s workshops at https://www.ecoloop.art/

Transcript

Welcome to Salvage, a podcast for conversations with artists about the repurposed materials they use in their art practice.

Please enjoy my conversation with Pauline Galiana. Pauline engages simultaneously with a wide range of artistic practices, including collages, paintings, drawings, ephemeral installations, small scale sculptures, performances and videos. Her work incorporates both noble and mundane materials. Regardless of the medium or method, the source materials are typically deconstructed, reconstruct, altered, and hybridized. Pauline wastes nothing.

Well, thank you so much, Pauline, for agreeing to chat with me. I can't wait to ask you all the questions. Thank you for inviting me to this podcast. Of course, of course. So I'm assuming you're in your home studio. That's right. Yeah. And you also have a studio outside the home? Yes. I do have a very small space uptown.

Manhattan. It's kind of, a storage room. Projections from into studio. It's in the in the commercial floor of, apartment building, which used to be, a theater. Oh, cool hotel with, two amp theaters at the bottom. So the the floor I am at is the, was the cafeteria. Oh, wow.

So they divided it into individual boxes, consoles for storage and some people use it as offices or studios. Oh my goodness. No mean the no windows. Oh that's awful. Sorry. I love windows. Yeah. Me too. So the daylight is, It's a challenge there. So I do different tasks over there than, than at home. Right, right. Are there are the artists in the building as well?

They are artists in the building, but, not that many. And they have, like, private, homes and, they work in their apartment or things like that. It's not a community of artists. Oh, okay, I see. Gotcha. Interesting. It's always fascinating to me where people have their studios. I had a studio only in my home for about 20 years.

So only until about two and a half years ago, I was in my home, which was fabulous in a way. It's nice to to be able to work at home. And when you know something to do, it's right here. And but it's also it's hard to make the work a priority. I know we call that there's always something else to do or you know, the, the bills and clean up the kitchen or whatever.

Exactly. Yes. Yeah. So but, so let me start by asking, whether you were an artist as a kid. I think I was definitely. I didn't know I was, but that was my, Yeah, that was my way of being that that was my way of seeing the world was. I would, always collect things and transform them and draw, and and I had, you know, at school.

I was better at drawing than everybody else. So I was not very good at sport at the time. I was part of, you know, teams or stuff. So they would give me the artistic side of the, you know, you know, strategize and fine ideas. So some. Yeah, I wasn't I think I was an artist to start with. That's awesome.

Where did you grow up? Different places. I grew up, I was born in Algeria and North Africa and, during the War of independence. So my father moved the family to, Switzerland because yet, a job, they he was still in the army because that was a very long, service at the time. So he sent us, my mother and my brothers to, the surroundings of, of Geneva because I was going to work at the same, which is the, nuclear center, Europe and Nuclear Center.

Oh, isn't there large accelerator? I don't know how to pronounce that name in English. Sorry. Yeah. I don't know, but. Okay. So then from there, we moved different places, either in Switzerland itself or in France. And I was always between borders. But I went to school in France. Every day we crossed the border. Oh, wow. Across from Switzerland into France.

Yes. That's so fascinating. Yeah. It was. It was a thing. It became, you know, when the kids do whatever they leave through during their life, the the play that. So my best friend would play customs. We had a scooters and we had only one scooter that we would share and it would take turn about was going to go through and B and the other one would be the, the police officer.

The customs officer. It was awesome. It was really awesome. That's, That's so cool. So was it like a reciprocal system between Switzerland and France for schooling? Or you could just. Oh, no, I know. I wish I went to, I lived in at that time, I lived in Switzerland and I went to school in France. I wish, I went to school in Switzerland.

And why did you call it advanced? In terms of the program. Oh, I see. Interesting program at the time. So I don't know about now, but it was, it was there where I found some of my, basic ideas about recycling. Really? And, about the environment, about being, a citizenship, not as, you know, nationality and duties, but be part of the environment and be responsible for your own mess, basically.

And that they are they are very strict with that. They still, Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's fascinating. And did you go on to, like, college or university and do a, an, an art degree? Yeah. So then I moved to, to the suburbs, Paris, and I went to an art school, in Paris. And I chose, I chose to become, a designer.

Graphic designer. Because I really wanted to have a job first. So I, I applied to some of the fine arts schools and I didn't really put a lot of energy into it. I just, I knew I went to school, which was like a fast track. You were very good with reputation. I'm sorry. It's called the SARS AG.

And, it it be to me, and I, I did that, and I was very happy, and I found work, and I worked in the cultural world. I didn't work really for products, but I think I did mostly institutional work, like logo types, magazines, books, books for museums, exhibition design. All this time. Oh. That's fascinating.

Wow. Yep. And were you making your art a lot right along side of that, or were you strictly focused on graphic design at that point? No, I, I didn't really make yes, I did, and I didn't, it was very intense. The training was very intense. There's no free time. And I, I started to work.

I did some things, but again, like, as a kid, I was not aware that was art. For example, I started to collect, because I think art is first it starts for visual artist. It starts in the eye. What you observe what you see and so I started to collect not because I went out to collect, but the food stickers, they were everywhere.

And it's everybody finds them enjoying, right? It's like you've to peel it off and it doesn't come off easily. Things like that. And I'm like, this is weird that every banana has to have one sticker, even if it's like on one, you know, bunch. And, and, so I started to collect them, and the way I would just put them directly on the tiles of in my kitchen.

Oh, okay. And so to do compositions like that and I really like them. And the day I had to move out, I had to scrape everything off, which was incredibly annoying. So I decided to keep doing that. But then on the, on food rap to put the plastic food wrap to, I would put that on my refrigerator, tape it, and then I would put my stickers on the food wrap taped on it for dinner.

And I started to do little visual poems like that because I could do things every day that way. There was not taking myself seriously. And really, no, I think it sounds like a game. It was a game. And then, some friends and family stopped to, collect stickers for me. My daughter would do we would do sticker, exchange.

It was, no, it was fun. It was fun. And that was the beginning of your kitchen Art series, I suppose. Then that's it. Yeah. Then I extended it to different materials, to, mail order plexiglass, glass. In different sizes. So I experimented with that. Yeah, yeah. I love the paint. You have these painterly compositions.

And then you zero in on them and you see that those are fruit stickers. I was that was I, I didn't when I was just I sort of I guess I did a couple of passes through your website and the first pass was just kind of like glancing at everything. And I remember pausing, posing, pausing. I can't speak, pausing at that, speaking French, I don't know, I wish I could, but no, I wasn't posing, pausing.

I don't know. But I remember looking at them and I on the, second glance realized what they were. And a friend of mine and I, a couple of, a couple of years ago, maybe it was it was probably more than a couple of years ago. I remember we were both collecting them. She was collecting them, and she wasn't sure what kind of project she was going to do with them.

And then I was like, oh, I can collect them for you. You know, we have a lot of fruit in the house. So I was sticking them on to these little, fabric squares that I happened at excess fabric. I was just sticking them on randomly. Sometimes I would put on a pattern, sometimes it was random. I have to ask her if she ever did anything with those stickers.

But you just need to see, What? I mean, for those who said painterly, yes. It's like the palette is right here. You have a red sticker, blue sticker or whatever. But what is more striking to me was the the message on the sticker and some, very interesting words and names. So I decided to for every composition I was doing, I would pick a sticker with a name and create a, visual story around that name.

That's why I call them, visual poems. I've made a big one in the shape of a heart, and it's, I mean, it's big. It's at least 30 by 30in. It's pretty big. And it was, so it's in the shape of the heart because the main sticker was more cherry, my dear. So. And and everything in there is related to love or family or something like that.

And I made up story between two characters. Because and they got married and they had, they didn't have children right away, but the other farm and they grew tomatoes and they had, frogs everywhere in the farm. And, you know, you see that in the in the stickers. Oh, I love that. Yeah. See, that's it's funny that you notice the words of the stickers.

I just noticed the color and the barcodes. Yes. The numbers. That's that's what I noticed most in those stickers. So that's how we're all so different. And notice different. They might stop to look at them differently now. Oh I think I will. Yes I think I may have to start collecting them again. Yeah. Especially I think there was the banana she did this series with, somewhere called Brain Fuel.

They would put the qualities of what's in the banana, and, and that was interesting. Yeah. And then they stopped that. So that's funny. So. Okay, I have to ask a technical question from the start. How do you attach those stickers? Because some of them, they're still sticky when you peel off, but others or not. So how do you attach them to your substrate?

First of all, that's why I use the plastic. Because that's the best. It really attaches quickly, when it and, But it's not very flat, so it's wrinkled. The runner and I really like that. Not everybody does, but I really like that. So I let them I stick them very spontaneously, like that. I can remove them.

Sometimes I remove what I do, I go behind them because I want. I just not want them flat like that. I want to create a texture so I don't glue them too hard. When I'm finished, I decide, okay, this is it. I go back and and let it sit for a while, and somehow over time, some will peel off.

That's when I go back and I take a little piece of paper and a cardboard whatever, and I put some glue on the tape and I go underneath, and, glue and I place and I keep doing that. And sometimes I miss a couple things happened that the farmer told me, hey, one fell off. Oh, no.

Shape up. Stick it whatever you want. You know, but, it's the it's the material. It's not precious. Yeah, yeah, it's the it's the, it's the spontaneity of the composition, and it's a testimony of what we see everyday. Yeah. I mean, it's it's right in our face all the time, right? Yeah. No, it's it's funny, it, it's in our faces and it's most, it's well it's like plastic pollution.

Yeah. Sorry to bring it right to the, to the core of the whole thing. But you know, you walk around and it's everywhere. And most people just don't notice it because it's just so ubiquitous. Just the that's how the stickers are exactly. And like people do. Because I'm, I'm for living. I'm also a space organizer. So I deal with a lot of containers, plastic containers and stuff like that.

And I see people, I have those and they leave the stickers on it, the price tag on it, and I'm like, it's officially so, you know, that's disturbing. And, I removed them, for them. Don't sell. Yeah. Don't stop there. No, no, it's funny because that's very interesting. It is interesting. I had a former career as a wardrobe supervisor, so I am still now forever walking around.

And if I know the person, I tag their tags. I can't speak their tags in on the back of the shirt I used to when I worked, I was removing them all, you know? Yeah. Because it's it's so visually disturbing to see it's sticking around and sometimes I'm so tempted and sticking it on a stranger I. Right, right.

You know, I, I have that same problem sometimes and I have to like okay, I cannot change the world. But you're right. It's like it's so visual. That's funny. So the text on the stickers, I guess that leads me to a really easy follow up. You're you have a whole series of where you alter books with text. How does that how did that come about?

Well, that's the The Faulkner, series books. I did, collage that was for the New York Public Library. There was, show in the windows and the ask two of the artists to do something related to the library. So I picked, I picked an author, which for a foreigner, like Faulkner for me, was very interested.

Very interesting. Sorry. I was interested in because I couldn't understand a word. You know, I didn't speak English when I came in this country, so I was learning, with everything, I could understand the newspaper. There's a way of the headline to this, and it's not grammatically correct, usually because it's a way of talking. So I was into looking into these different types of talking in English, where it's so flexible and people understand.

But me. So I started to read it, in France and so and then I read them in English and I said, okay, that's the New York Public Library I need to do to find an author where, the language for me is a little obscure, and there's a lot of repetition. So I use the stickers the way the library, manages the libraries in general.

Their collections is with stickers. Every book has also a sticker. A barcode was put on the spine of the book. Yeah, on the spine and the way. No, it's the scanner and all that. So I thought that every line tells something about a book and I thought about the letters and I started to cut up these. This, barcodes, into pieces to hide some text in the book.

Because let's say you repeats the same word, most of the time, the name of the character again and again and again in the same sentence, which is more like, listening to a voice. It's like the voice inside of the head of the main character, or the narrator. So I wanted to obliterate the person. Okay.

In the book. So this little bars were cut off, and also the letters of, some pages, and to go with that, I did I shredded the magazine of the library, and I created, a collage with those things where the content was again, disrupted. That's fascinating. So, speaking of shredding, you shred your own paintings.

Is that right? It happens. Yes. The paintings on paper. Yeah. My things. Gosh. Okay. Yeah, yeah, that's on paper. And, because I, because they are not, satisfying, but there's still something in it, which is, which is good. And the shredder was a way to definitely not just destroy the piece, but keep it and be not go back to work on it.

Sometimes it's very hard, you know, it's hard to start a piece. It's hard to stop working on a piece. And they become overworked. And I've said no, enough, to fix enough. And the only way to to stop it was to put in a shredder and and keep the remnants. Okay. Because there's some colors, some some composition within a smaller piece, which are gorgeous.

So I have to ask about your shredder, though. I saw a video on your website where you're putting a piece through the shredder, and my shredder makes these tiny, tiny little pieces. Your shredder makes these beautiful strips. They are. They are a because I have a chipped shredder, it doesn't really hide anything. The it's a larger one, and it doesn't really destroy all the documents.

Like it should be. Yeah. But I'm interested in that, because even when, it's like looking at clouds, we cannot stop seeing shapes. Look, can you? In the basket of the shredder. Yes. Still words coming up. And I really like chintz stickers. I see all these stickers. There's one word it's going to pop up, story out of it.

And, I had, started by before shredding my paintings. I shredded all my, administrative documents. Even if I was not making, a a living, a serious living. I had all these paperwork for taxes here, and we've not much on it, so I it. Okay, after three years, I can shred them. If I had a business, would be seven years.

Yeah, well, I shredded them and I thought the result was fascinating because I could still see numbers or my name coming up was okay. So I could basically put it back together and see if I could find all the pieces. But no, that's insane. And not very, you know, creative. So I started to roll the pieces and, and reroll the pieces in the loops and condense the surface of a letter with, gluing them back next to each other in the order of more or less of one page shredded.

And then which that beautiful tapestry like, texture of lines, a greens. And we know these things. If I shred like, security envelopes, my junk mail. We know the patterns. Yes. And we don't look at it. We know the Verizon red. We know the the was that, connect blue. And we know so and then they become some something else.

But it's right here. It's the junk around us. Yeah. Not just beautify it, but it makes sense that here are my taxes. Everybody can. You know, we we talk about privacy and, and we don't have any. No, never. No, we don't ever. So why not just show them and we want to really try to read through,

What what what what is it I'm hiding? Yeah, yeah. So I was, looking through your artist statement, and one sentence just stood out to me like, it went. Like it went like beam, beam, beam down at me. And it's only three words. I waste nothing.

You know, you're a person after my own heart. Clearly. Yes. Yeah. So how does the a war, a sentence like that become a part of your artist statement? Because, my, it's almost an old story. Because when, when we work, we are visual artists. We welcome the project. It works. It doesn't work, but we use different things.

So, I started with, like the the fruit stickers, I wish nothing, I don't waste my time. I'm still, you know, sitting my kid and being in the kitchen, and we talk and we play and I put the stickers on different pieces of paper because it's not just random. There's a real, project is making one specific collage, so I, I don't waste time.

I don't waste material because it's whatever is going to go in a trash can anyway. So that's something right there. I then for I, for what I was doing on painting, very abstract. And I was working on layering colors a lot, so I needed it to, to dry, between layers. But I needed to keep this same mix of color to be able to go back later and have the same mix.

So I would take notes, but I would keep the paint also on the lawn, in a little bundle wrapped in plastic. Food plastic. The same thing to keep it fresh so I could just see it next. So I was waste not wasting the leftover of my old paint. Not just because to save money about the old bit, but to be able to fund exactly the same color when it's still wet.

Not dry. So I could go back and and work on that. And then, some I never really reopened. I kept them in, like, they were like candy, you know, candy in the plastic wrap. And I started to use it, as an object of, of my own collection. And I did it in some works.

Oh. That's fascinating. That's where it's like it was nothing but to go back to this old painting, I would have the leftover paint in plastic, and I would have also tried to not use, corrosive. I did call it to clean up. Turpentine. Yes. I didn't want to use that. It's strong and and all that.

So I used a citrus, citrus mixed. And I would clean my brushes first by, drying them on on food, and napkins. Paper napkins, which I got when you, wherever you go, get a coffee. They give you ten, ten napkins or whatever. This was more and more and more. And so I would keep them as my have a bunch, in my studio.

Yeah. I, I'll show you because it's, you know. In less than a month, I have. Yeah. And it's great for blotting your brushes. Yeah, exactly. So, and then they, they, I mean, I mean, to me, they become something else. So I was working on the piece, and I didn't know, I was not happy with it, and I wanted to.

I cleaned the brushes and I kept the, the pieces of paper because I thought they were. I was looking for something more spontaneous. And when you clean, you brush, you don't think about composing anything. Right? So that what I was interested in, so to keep them and to look at, look at them and say, this is the painting I wanted to do, but, obviously I didn't do it.

So I recycled those, papers, those, rags, paper rags. And I cut them up, and I created a very large, collage with them and stitched. And I started to cut them in different shapes to create patchwork, because being also new to this country, I realized how much the patchwork, tradition is, everyday activity for a lot of people.

Yeah, the quilting, quilting, the quilting things is strong, are strong here. Yeah, that whole thing. And I started to be a little more like quilting patchwork. Actually, technically, the patchwork is putting things together and the quilting is putting the batting and the. Yeah, yeah, yeah, which I saw on your website, the there you had those napkins and the grid and it was stitched onto a sheer fabric.

Was that. Yeah. And did you stitch it by hand. Organza which is used to stitch it by hand or by machine. By hand. Now it's so it's it was very ethereal, very beautiful. Yeah. That's the idea. Is that the, the it's like the waist. It's unconsidered. So I wanted to give it a body back and to a form of body.

But in its nature, paper is super light, especially, paper, napkins and I, you peel off the layers so you different, you have transparencies and it's, it's nice, but it it's fragile and not so the idea of stitching paper or stitching plastic by hand, is a nonsense. Yet we don't do it. Oh, so many of us do it.

Yeah, but depending on the type of plastic or type of paper, you know, it is, it is. You get an unexpected results. And when I do it by hand, I want it to. I want it to be the piece to be seen from both sides. So the hand stitching is important. Yeah. Because I didn't want it to be too present on the back.

That's interesting. So if you don't mind, we can segue into your plastic. Serious. I love that you called it. It's fantastic. I think I know why but can you tell me first of all I called it, fantastic series. And within that, there's one piece I specially called. It's fantastic. I wrote a little poem about, very simple poem about how it's.

I want to be a sense of humor about plastic because the situation is so desperate. Yeah, and we know all of us know it about it. There's not much we can really do. Even recycling is is is a learn. Yeah. It's not really happening. So, plastic is fantastic. That said, because it's really fantastic material, I think,

Oops, my screen disappeared. Sorry. I think it's an amazing invention by, by humans are the technology of it is is amazing. It's plastic. Why it is called plastic? Because it comes from the the Latin name of plasticity, which is change is form. Yes. It and different processes. So it's easy and and that's fantastic I there's nothing almost nothing.

Yeah. Right. We use but we don't use it properly. That's the problem. It's not the material itself which is a problem. Yes. How will we do in, in the medical field with that plastic? Exactly. Yeah. We could we could not do it. Yeah. As well. So I'm not against plastic. I think it's incredibly beautiful. We found colors.

Transparency. It's. You can change it in all sorts of shapes. Yeah. It's fantastic. Yeah. It is. How did you get started with working with plastic? Like, how how did you make that discovery of materials, so to speak? That that goes back to childhood. Really? I would collect, small plastic objects, and I would say, okay, in the 60s, and plastic was there already, but, not as much as now.

So some objects in plastic, like the, the, like, two space tube. Right. Used to have a little ring before you put. So to protect the top, the cap to go all the way through and make it, you know, that you have to do to open the tube. Now, they don't bother to do that anymore. They put a another, safety thing.

But those little rings were like, for me, finding, a crystal pearl or, shiny, the shell. You know, they were amazing. So I collected it, and I would do collage with it, or make them the smaller ones. I would use them for, breasts for my Barbie dolls. And for with the Barbie dolls.

I didn't really play with them. I really made things for them. So I fitted everything, in in objects for them. No. Lampshade. Cup, whatever. Then they needed. It was more interesting to create their environment. Oh. That's interesting. So not the clothing even, but the environment. No. Yeah, it was more the environment. Yeah.

So, so sorry to interrupt. Also, I was fascinated by styrofoam. Oh. Because I didn't know exactly why at the time, but now I know it's like a negative space. It's around shape, and I used it. I remember one summer I was especially bored, and I used one of these, styrofoam piece. I don't know what was in there to start with.

And I used it as, I made an ask. It also, bugs. So if I would, I would found an injured, snail with, a cracked, shell. Snail put in a little letters in the corner of that styrofoam box, and I put a Band-Aid on the on the cracked shell, and I, like any animal.

And, of course, I didn't know where they all escaped. Everything was set up in that styrofoam, container, you know, sweet infants and stuff. So it was. I made an amazing thing. If I was a child, I would make a spaceship out of it. You know, it's not, We it's what you can project in a in a piece of trash.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's. Yeah, it's it's amazing how a piece of trash can be transformed. Yeah.

So back to your fantastic serious, if you don't mind. I'm actually going to pull it up here because I wanted to peek at it. And I will include the links to all of this, in the, in the show notes.

But so I love that you used plastic shopping bags and put embroidery hoops on them. And, and then you, embroidered within the hoop, and then you stitched it all together and it was became this highly graphic yet really delicate floaty piece. How did how did tattoo pieces like that come about? Oh, that one took a long time to, to be finalized and it went through different stages.

I wanted to show the fact that plastic it doesn't disappear. And and I wanted to talk about, flying plastic in the trees, getting caught in the trees in nature and stuff like that. So I wanted it to to hang and to float and to make, easy. But. But why? You know, what's, Okay, using plastic is one thing, but, it's you can make beautiful things with it, or you can try to make a, a message out of it.

Do not think about it. So the stitching on it as you know, should do it. You do work and you stitch, but you do a machine stitch. I do both hand and machine stitching, but yes. Yeah, but if you don't have a backing, sometimes super hard to do. So I said, that's what I want because, it's so tedious to, to, I did the, cross stitch on plastic and for to do cross stitch embroidery, you need, a special fabric.

Yes. Like, you know. Right. So impossible to do that. So I created my alphabet, like, if it was cross stitched. Oh. And that's, as, template. Oh. And I went through and I recreate the, this corset, which was super long, and I had written that poem and I said, I need to say, you know, like the the bags with thank you.

This smiley face and all of that said it all, say something. Oh, the bags say the name of a brand and they all say no, be careful or safety, blah blah blah. Don't put it over the child. A child's, head. I know things like that back. Well, now they say use me again. Or things like that.

I'm like, no, I want to say something more. So I stitched that poem on each piece, and to stitch that I needed. Whoops. And I thought I was at the end part of the that was encoding the piece, and they were actually independently floating. And, I realized, oh, if I want that to happen, I need to stitch both side of two to see this.

And that was impossible. So I mounted on a very clear mesh, plastic mesh to make it, a permanent, so it's floating, but it's not floating and that. Yeah, it's. But it took me a long time to find how I would actually do it to make sense, of sketches and stuff and even choosing the, the text.

And I know a lot of people have been stitching them on plastic. But it's not exactly what I wanted to do. I really want to talk about the labor, the intense, traditional, technique, that, some people do, but they would do. Nobody does lace anymore. Nobody does. If we do end embroidery, it's already pre-made pre, printed.

Right. So you fill in, it's like a coloring book. I'm saying. No, no, I want to go back to, to the technique itself or doing the cross stitching. And a lot of people ask me if I'm a, textile artist, and I say, no, but I just need to learn the technique for what I want to say.

Yeah. That's it. Yeah, yeah. That's fascinating. But you like a long after you did the plastic bags. Or maybe this was before, I don't know, the, the, the order you did things in, but you also have these beautiful hangings with that you did with plastic mesh. Right. That all comes together. Yeah. Because it's, I mean, I do I work on many different pieces at the same time.

Okay. Because, it's tedious. It's boring sometimes. Most of the time to do, you know, to treat the material, to be able to do the piece. And these pieces are, like, ten feet by ten feet, so they're that large? I didn't even realize that. Wow. It takes time. So I, I have different works out and I switch, so more or less done at the same time.

But the idea of the floating plastic in nature and the trees, and.

I have to go back a little bit. Okay. First of all, the plastic pieces I made were just to be featured in videos I made. Oh, because I was I was going to ask you about your plastic quilt and a performance piece and video with that. Is that where everything started? Somehow I thought, first of all, I was told many years ago that my plastic collages with the stickers would never be,

I was rejected by, quite a famous, on dealer would, you know does collage only is he told me we cannot do that because it's not archival. And I'm like okay. It's not archival. And I think thinking okay it's not archival but it's going to live much longer than us. Yes. But it's not archival. So okay.

So I the idea of doing things in plastic, whereas not only do you have any value in terms of art pieces, it's an artifact. So they became more like, the characters of my videos. So I did that very large, quilt. It's it's a quilt. And it's all stitch on different plastic bags.

Open that and put together. And then I cut pieces of different colors and I picked, a, a quilting pattern. Right? Yeah. No, they look like quilting blocks all stitched together. Yeah. And the, this is, I follow, like, try to follow a grid. And then I said, okay, I need that piece to be that big. And then I put it in in different scenarios.

And once the video was done, I, I kept the piece and I didn't look at it for a while. And then I realized much later on that it was, it was a nice piece. There was something. So I went back to it and I did more hemming work to give it value. Okay. To make it really like, the stitching becomes part of the object.

That's when I think really not just the idea, but we need sometimes to push. We need to find the right technique for, to express the right idea. Right. Material. And that was only that extra and work. On that piece which was good. And I would do it with machine stitching for other pieces. So it really depends on the object itself, the piece itself.

And so the plastic mesh, it was almost that really something which really hurts me, all this, fruit and produce, mesh. Because if you cut them, they bleed microplastic right away all over the place. And to be able to get rid of it, people just wash it in water. Yeah. And it was in the water. So, yeah, it it's impossible to deal with it really.

So I just transformed them in very large pieces to make it like I'm working on. I need volunteers to help me stitch those stitch. So much time. I need to make enough to create an environment where, it will be installation. Where we are within, nets, like full wow nets like that. And they are all different.

Texture of mesh. They offer different, techniques for, mounting them together and things like that. And it's a whole, it's very specific for each of them, depending on the material itself. So is that an installation you're working on now? Yes. Oh that's fascinating. Do you have, a, location already for it? And where it's.

Do you know where it's going? No. Oh, any ideas are welcome. Yeah. No, it's, and it's very hard to also to, to, to show it because I don't have a big white wall, I don't have a big studio, so I cannot even install it the way I want to install it to show what it would be, because I want to work at the transparency of the past.

The mesh, it's see, see through. Right. Are you stitching it by machine or by hand? Some is by machine, depending on the type of nets. This. And that's where they are weaved and those are crazy. So machines if possible and the others are it's not like they're stamped. Right. I think that's a. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

So that be machine stitch. And but then you have different tensions. Yes. And is not it. It is technically challenging. But some good things can come out of it, right? Oh. That's fascinating. I'm working on one. I want the stitching to be almost invisible because I want, we want to have the material come through when, like,

I want the beauty of it. Yeah, yeah. And at the same time, I feel trapped. I don't want to hide the material. Yeah. Now, I love that. Well, So. Okay. So to take back so to that plastic quilt and the video that you made with it.

Were you trained in performance art or how did the whole performance thing come about? No. No training. No training. But it's it's storytelling. Oh, and it was also low budget. So the character I'm going around and I don't especially show my face, it's just somebody is going around with that thing and different scenarios and I film with my iPhone on a little pedestal and, it's been filmed, the same day, basically.

And then it took a long time to do the editing and put it back together. And as a coherent story, and the other video I made after that, which was like, noticing the, the sound of that big piece, first piece I made in the wind because I was outside and I we love that. Yeah. It's really I made a big sound, very specific.

So I made a, a video out of it, very short video out of it, and then so on like that. And then the ideas about the, the plastic cups, on the beach, this is siren. So I did this. I also, again, I, I film, myself. I, I don't appear in the video. I have very low budget setting and see what happens, but I always have a story behind, and you have to see, I don't I don't want to talk too much about it because they reveal.

I would reveal the surprise and I add something to add text. Yeah. Again, I did my, the poem I wrote, which is not a glorious poem, but it's like,

I want it to some. I don't know how to say that. I wanted the words beyond as in plastic is bad. No, plastic is is beautiful. I think is beautiful. It's ingenious. It's but it's everywhere. And just like, we all know that. But it's good to remind us that it's not just everywhere, but that it is beautiful and we should think about it as precious.

And that's if it was if we thought about it as precious, it wouldn't be flapping in the trees and tossed into the trash exactly. On the intestine of some animals and ourselves. Yeah. So, yeah, that's the, thing. And so those stories, first of all, because first of all, I don't want to show the, the pieces themselves.

Some of them I could not salvage, because I put some in the waters in the space and stuff like that. So that was impossible to solve. And there was nothing to salvage, really, just to recycle the plastic. So I don't have these pieces and they are not interesting by themselves, but the what they do, in the movie is what I'm interested in.

Yeah. No. They're fascinating. Do you do all the editing yourself? I not the first two ones. And then I learned the same thing, like stitching. I learned the technique from. Yeah. And then I forget right away, and I just want to know the idea of a movie later on. So how did I do that? I don't remember, and so, yeah, you figure it out again.

Yeah. Yeah. It's it takes time. Yeah. Yeah. No. It's fascinating. All right, I know we're coming towards the end of our time together, but I have to ask you about dressing up Eleanor Roosevelt. Oh. Okay. So she was our first lady. And, she is the one who created a public library. So, if I recall.

Well, and it's not that there are a lot of cultures of women. All the public sculptures are mostly men. Now, things are changing a little bit, but there's a lot of controversies. So she is not very far from where I live. And I would go there with my daughter and playground and so on. And I would ask me, who is that woman?

Very tall woman. Sculpture is gorgeous. It's really nice sculpture. And I've been, doing I was I'm working. I'm still working on this. No. I'm serious. I can see it's really finished. Yeah. So I make this giant necklaces. They are at least 16ft long, not open. Just, you know, just hang it. Circle. It's, with different things, and they tell a story, and I go out, especially very early in the morning, and I put them on sculptures, and I take photos where I do this little videos to, like, you know, how much homage, homage to certain people.

And, and the necklace becomes alive. The piece becomes alive because somebody is wearing it, you know, it's a it's a goddess. It's a necklace for a necklace for a goddess. I love that to be big. And, Eleanor Roosevelt, is she? I dressed her up with a necklace made with the, the tags of the Metropolitan Museum.

Yes, I do that, but they don't have that anymore. So you can't go on that necklace. So they don't have that anymore. And again, when they add the tags, people would collect them. Oh, put them somewhere or do things with them, because it was a very interesting object. Yeah. I have a whole bunch of myself.

Yeah. They are irresistible. Yeah. So I did a lot of collage with them. I would use like the stickers, the it's the color of the year, the day or that they mean something. But once you are, out of the museum, they don't mean anything because today you don't know what color it's going to be. Now you have a sticker and with a date on it, it's totally different.

So they were like, a palette. And one day I said, no, I need to do a very large, necklace to for Eleanor. She was going to be my goddess of the day, and she wears it. And that I made a larger one. I found a larger tag from another museum, and I painted the, like the arm of the Metropolitan.

Okay. Was. And she the the, you know, you know, the men of London. Yes. The whereas on the cross and everything in this square and there's all the, the circle, it's a man. Is that Vitruvian man or something like that. Is that what it's called? I don't know the name. Don't ask me Spanish. So I use that and I made, instead of just the met.

I put any. So it's called me as a goddess. So a goddess, I would be that. I would be goddess of art. I would be the goddess of the Metropolitan Museum. But since I'm not a goddess, I just a culture to do that. And I literally climbed on the sculpture very early in the morning, to put the necklace on her.

And I was feeling when I did that and I was, took pictures, but I was more interested into the sculpture, wearing the necklace. And people, if people notice anything or not. Oh. So how long did the necklace stay? Just a couple of hours. Not too long. Because it's totally illegal, right? You don't want to get into trouble.

That's right. Even if I don't damage anything, it's illegal. So it would not stay long. And usually the sculptures all have, applique or information about it, and it's so many. When I, I did that on, sculpture of the dog Balto in Central Park West. And we had toward the west side of the park, and people start to look, what is it only the kids and the parents know about who is.

But yeah. So that you forget and, so people start to look and the sculpture is alive again. The person who was in made, in honor to the person is alive again. And, and it's that's what I like about it. That's the beauty of it. Yeah. Wow. That's so fascinating, Well, so out of all of those materials that you work with, do you have a favorite?

Nope. Nope. Oh, excuse me. Not plastic. Because it's very hard material to work with. Not very hard, but, but it's fun, but it's hard, and I, I've been also, using heat, and it's, it's dangerous. I mean, I'm good on that. So it's not, so. No, but I, I'd like to go back to drawing and painting a little bit.

But I have to finish, some series and, and these days, I'm a lot into, embroidery, and stitching and, so once I have enough pieces, in one series. So that makes sense. Go back to, I can go back to something else. Gotcha, gotcha. So I had a curiosity. How do you think an artist can make the most impact?

That question again and again,

Impact on what? So let's say impact on on our society, on our issues with climate change. Climate change. Honestly, as an artist, you have to do both two things. You have to be an activist at home. You have to be careful about what you consume, and you art might make others think, oh, she uses that maybe for us them to collect for me, then it doesn't go to the landfill or things like that.

They think about it differently. But if I have the chance to be in, in a, in a show, an art show where there are enough people to go, then I might make an impact. But most of us, the artists who work on this material, we use the word awareness. But unfortunately we are beyond awareness. Everybody's aware of us.

The the disaster of the environment. And it's it's a political, choice. Yeah. So I can keep doing that. Those works knowing that I want to. That's why I want to work on the beauty, on a beautiful aspect of the material. Because I also want to leave, a good memory of it. I if I go to on the beach, I always carry extra plastic bag because I clean up the beach.

Yeah, just to collect. So that's where, I use my artist. Personal energy, to not be the queen. Look like the crazy person who pick up the trash, you know, but you have to go through that. Yeah. That's. I've seen as an artist, we can. I mean, how many of us do work with plastic of of repurposed material?

So, so so many. Yeah, because it's right there and it's free. All. Exactly. So you can use it as the it's, it's an it's, as I said, it's not archival, but it survives us. It's going to outlast us all. As a matter of fact, yes. Hundreds of years. Yeah. Yeah. So the I don't know, it really is an artist.

Yeah. The. To use not just the beautiful aspect but something ingenious about it. How do you assemble it, you know, to make it different because it's just plastic or just, paper, you know, the art of collage, paper, collage is also how you do it, what you say, with what to salvage. It's a memory. It's a lasting.

It's a testimony of certain graphics of the time, things like that. So I don't think that as artists, we have a real, impact. To change the world. But being artists, we can just, maybe more daring to talk about it and, encourage people to think twice or engage with, people, kids in schools that at the beginning of my fantastic series was that I wanted to do workshops in schools.

I wanted to show the videos to kids because I think that starts, at a very early age. Absolutely. Yeah. And, having and that's why I make these situations, in the videos where it's kind of funny, fun of myself or it's a little dramatic, but there's something awkward. Yeah, because we should just laugh about it, laugh about ourselves, and and because we laugh, it should not be.

I don't want to point at anybody. This is your fault, right? I want you to. I want people to look twice at their whatever they consume. So. Oh, could I keep that or should I? By that the less wrapping, more wrapping. Oh, this is really beautiful. Maybe I should keep it and give it to Pauline. You know, so when you buy something, I want people to acknowledge there's a wrapping

Yes. The think about by vegetable and some come all wrapped in plastic. Why? You know, precut vegetable. We know if it's because they lost all their vitamins because it's open to the air. Yeah, so. But it's precut, so we don't have to. So we don't have to work so hard in the kitchen. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. No, but I would like to ask you that question.

I really want to know your opinion because you work with those materials too. Yeah. Yeah. I think I have to agree with you in that. If if we are to make an impact, the impact is making someone think about what they're purchasing or at least notice what they're doing, what they're purchasing, what they're what they're buying, what it's wrapped in or what they're throwing away.

I think if we can make people notice those things, then there's a possibility of someone changing their habits because that's what they are, their habits we're so used to. Yeah, it's a convenience. So that's why I like to put a lot of hard work in the pieces in oppositions to in opposition to convenience. Yeah, yeah, that's my only recipe and I'm not sure it works, but as you know, it's, very hard to sell.

Works made out of plastic because a lot of people say, oh, it's just plastic, you know, I can do that myself. And I was also working to, for galleries at, art fairs and stuff like that, and my work was on the wall, but I didn't know. I didn't tell people it was my work. And I could hear the comments about why, you know, plastic or whatever.

And I'm people would say, oh, I can do that. And it's, yeah, you should do that. You should do it yourself. Because why not? You don't have to buy the materials. They're right there. Right they are. So they would look at me like, okay, it's not just the material. Yeah. That's where nowadays come. And if somebody really understand the piece, they'll buy it.

But first of all, plastic is not very popular in terms of, of it for the market unless you have a bikini and, and you know, you can sell anything. Yeah, yeah. Fascinating. Well, well, thank you so much for this conversation, Pauline. Thank you. Natalia. It's really fun. We should keep talking about it. Offline.

Yes. Well, we'll definitely talk about it offline. Okay. Thank you.

That was such a lovely conversation. Thank you for being here for it. Please rate and review and leave a comment and share this podcast with anyone that you think might find it interesting. I really appreciate it all. Thank you.

This podcast was created, produced and edited by me, Natalya Khorover. Theme music by RC Guida. To find out more about me, go to art by natalya.com to find out about my community. Go to Repurposercollective.com and to learn with me. Check out all my offerings at EcoLoop, Dot Art. Thank you for listening.