ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: LAURA JOSEPHINE SNYDER
/Studio IX:
Laura, good to see you.
Laura Josephine Snyder:
You as well.
Studio IX;
So tell us a bit about yourself.
Laura:
My name is Laura Snyder, Laura Josephine Snyder, for art purposes. I am a woman from Charlottesville, Virginia. And I am an artist. And I'm pretty much solely focusing on that for the first time since graduate school.
Studio IX:
And when did that start? When did you commit to this path?
Laura:
Well, I lost my job because of COVID and was happily receiving unemployment for a time. And I have done some side gigs and seasonal work, but I haven't gone back to a formal restaurant job, which is what I've done for as long as I can remember to support my art making.
Studio IX:
How's it working out? Does it feel like you're starting to get some traction? Is it supporting you?
Laura:
Maybe not technically, but I happily was able to save a little money up in the past few years, and I feel good about giving myself the time to really lean into my art practice at the moment and see where that takes me. And I'm open to having to find part time work again at some point. I do appreciate the freedom having a part time job gives me in my practice to do research and to experiment with what I am called to do at any given moment. It gives me the stability that I need to work through ideas without having to focus too strongly on an outcome. But at this moment, I have a lot of ideas that I have been engaged with over the years, and it feels good to have the time and space to really explore those and to be producing work.
Studio IX:
Where are you from originally?
Laura:
I'm from Charlottesville.
Studio IX:
And you have Mexican ancestry?, is that right?
Laura:
I don’t, although it is a place that I have deep ties to, chosen ties. The first time I went to Mexico was in 2005, through my art school, for a study of art history and ceramics. I have gone back ever since, and I did my masters in Mexico City in 2009 to 2011 at the UNAM in the historic center of Mexico City in printmaking.
Studio IX:
What drew you there?
Laura:
I think at the time when I first went to Mexico, it was so much of what I felt I was missing in terms of a certain warmth of feeling and a... It's hard to put a finger on it, but I would say that the way that interpersonal relationships are, is something that I'm very drawn to. And being there definitely influenced who I am as a person. It has been many years now, but at the time, all of the normal things like the food and the music and the language definitely contributed to me wanting to go back. And the art- from the contemporary art scene in Mexico City, the modernist architecture and design of people like Barragán, to the incredible wealth of tradition and craft of places like Oaxaca. There's one place on the coast of Oaxaca where I first arrived in 2007 that's really the only place I've ever been where I immediately fell in love with the place itself. Some of my closest friendships were formed there. And that's been a strong pull ever since.
Studio IX:
Yeah. I felt a similar thing in being there. It was refreshing — so much more alive and open and welcoming than the states. The colors, the landscape, the warmth of the people. And to think that it it is so often framed in such a negative light.
Laura:
I don't know why we have all of those notions here, but I think that it has a lot to do with capitalism and the mindset that goes along with that. And I think that there's so much fear in the way that this country relates to anything ‘other’, to anyone unfamiliar or foreign.
Studio IX:
What's a day in the life look like for you?
Laura:
Since COVID, it’s been a lot of me preparing food for myself. it's amazing, as a human how much you have to cook and clean. (laughter) I usually wake up somewhere around seven. Most days, I do my morning practice, which is a combination of meditation and movement, and that's something that really centers me and allows me to focus for the rest of my day, which looks a little different, depending on the season. In the winter tends to be more research oriented, being inside, reading on the computer, coming to the studio, putting work-time in. I live in walking distance from my studio so I'm able to walk everywhere I need to go most days and not have to drive. I like to walk the same routes and notice new things every day and for me, this is also a kind of meditation. I live with four other people, so despite the pandemic, I do have this community of people and in the evenings we often spend time together. In some ways, this sort of slow rhythm has been really great.
Studio IX:
What's your process look like? I know that to be a significant part of the work itself.
Laura:
So, for this exhibition, I have been delving into making natural pigments. I have been acquiring some earth pigments as well as indigo. I have a little bit of purplish earth that I collected in Oaxaca, the last time I was there. I have yellow ochre from around the house where I'm living, which was the jumping off point for this work, discovering that I have all of that in the ground around my house. I've been doing some grinding of pigments to make the watercolors that I'm using. I have been drawing geometric forms and painting them. I do a lot of looking and discarding of forms that don't quite sing the note that I'm looking for. And yeah, experimenting.
Studio IX:
What informs the imagery itself?
Laura:
I think that I work in fast intuitive leaps, and then I go back to try to understand what brought me from one point to the other. I do research and then I go back to the work and continue.
That’s happening right now with the work for this exhibition. I've been drawn to these colors- the deep red and the yellow ochre- for the past couple of years and have made other work with these same colors using conventional watercolors. Only recently have I started making watercolors out of earth pigments, prompted by discovering yellow ochre in the ground around my house. I made the red watercolor from a concentrated pigment made from the mineral hematite.
In terms of imagery, the red is related to blood, grounding, sensuality, sexuality, and the earth. I think the forms also speak to these ideas. At the same time there is, for me, a kind of tantric process going on in this work because I consider the elemental geometric forms to be masculine, hard edged, and the combination of the geometric forms with the red earth pigment, which is feminine, invites a transformation. There is also transformation happening in painting with dirt as is the case with the yellow ochre pieces. If you think about it, painting is something we elevate and by making it with dirt, which is a substance that we often shun or seek to erase, I’m disrupting that system of value-making. I have been using the yellow ochre in a different way from the red, it is a slower process to create those pieces and they grow into their forms over time. I recently read that when yellow ochre is heated it actually becomes red hematite. As I look more into the significance of working with earth pigments, many potential layers of meaning surface, related to place and history, especially red clay here in Virginia. That is where the work is taking me at present.
Studio IX:
What are your interests outside of the studio?
Laura:
Well, I'm very much of a homebody, so I like to spend time at home. I started gardening last year and I have really enjoyed that. I think that gardening relates to the making of earth pigments in the sense that I am situating myself in a place by growing the food that I'm eating or grinding the stones around my house to make paint. I've been lucky enough to spend time in the woods and learn a little bit this past year about foraging for wild edible food and mushrooms. I've even made some tinctures out of mushrooms. And all of that has been really interesting for me in terms of understanding place and the cycles of nature in a different way, in a sort of visceral way.
Studio IX:
What's your favorite color?
Laura:
I don't know. It changes. It changes all the time.
I'm interested in the potential of each color and their emotional resonance- that's of course a pretty well-known thing and is used by designers and people working in advertisement. I think that's something that I feel really deeply.
Studio IX:
What's next for you?
Laura:
I'm not really sure. I have some interest in making my way back to Mexico this year. But those plans are all tentative and travel is still not possible the way it used to be, at least not for me. And I think that's an okay thing. But, yes, I would like to make my way back to Mexico, to Oaxaca at some point this year. And until then, I will be working in my studio and probably on some other part-time projects.
Studio IX:
Thanks so much, Laura.
Laura:
Thank you.