The Art Machine

PM Megazine met with Chicago artist, Nancy Rosen on a very cold day in December to learn about her background, artistic process and what keeps her inspired. We got to take a look around her studio too! Compared to the weather that day, her studio felt warm—not only because the heat cranked on and never stopped (leaving us in tank tops and t-shirts) but because Nancy’s art covers the walls, trinkets are perched on most of the open surface space and plants sit knowingly by the window. We sat, with Nancy’s abstract and sometimes whimsical depictions of the human form looming all around us and drank La Croix while we asked her everything we were curious about!

PM Megazine: What’s your artistic background?

Nancy Rosen: Well, I started making art when I was five. I wanted to play with my friend Gilly, who is still my friend, and it just so happened that every Friday I would say to her, “So you wanna play today?” And she would go, “No I can’t.” And I’d say, “Why?” “Cause I’m going to art class.” That happened 3 or 4 times, so I’m like okay well then I’m gonna go to art class. So, I started going to art class. And I haven’t stopped. And I’ve been making stuff literally since then and I’m 61, so.

PM: How has your practice changed over time?

NR: I think anybody’s practice changes over time if you keep practicing. So, if you show up, which is my thing, to show up— something’s going to happen. I’ve been doing that for all these years. And it morphs. I’ve always painted but I’ve always made stuff. Like I strung beads and I made leather goods and I did macramé. When I was in college—I went to Kansas City Art Institute—my freshman year, I thought I had discovered paper making. So I went to Madison and did a semester at Madison doing paper making. But all of those activities were always more a meditative kind of activity. Because I can’t paint all day long. Well, I can now but I couldn’t before. Because it’s just too frenetic for me. It’s just too much. And so now that I’ve incorporated a lot of patterning and I’ve figured it out so that the way I build my painting I can paint all day. It’s actually not painting. It’s drawing. I don’t really paint, I draw. It’s true. I don’t like painting. I don’t! I was teaching a class one day, a painting class, and I don’t know, a student said something to me and I was like, “Ya know, I don’t like painting. I’ve never really liked painting. I love to draw.” So anything that you see in here is all drawn and I use oil bars so they serve as paint. You can put them on and then you can spread them out. You can layer it. You can take it off. And the only time I use paint is when I’m filling in a pattern.

PM: What work do you most enjoy doing?

NR: This [as she gestures to everything around her] – People. Years ago, when I started painting again… I did art school, I had a business called Nancy Cohen Painted Fabrics and then when it was time for me to start painting again I was like, all I want to do are figures. That’s it. I’m not going to try and do a landscape or an abstract painting. I have always wanted to do people. I am going to do people. And it was like at that moment, it was like when my cork popped. And I’ve been doing it ever since. There’s no end. Like, there’s no end. Like [gestures to everything around her] where am I going to put this stuff? ‘Cause it just keeps piling up. I told my husband one day – I have managed to overwhelm myself. Which was kind of hard to do.

PM: Where do you get inspiration for who you will draw?

NR: I always draw from models, from life. I either hire them or I go to the Art Center and draw. And so I’m drawing models – this typical class is that there are ten one-minute poses and three minutes and then five minutes. I build on those. So, all of this is built from there. Then I have other paintings that I will hire a model and they will come and sit on that table and I’ll make a painting.

PM: Why do you do what you do? What is your inspiration?

NR: You are my inspiration. That doesn’t mean you are going to make it to the end of the painting. You might end up being in the background or something but I’m inspired by just regular life, you know? You can lock me at the airport for 3 days and I’m fine, you know? And that’s kind of how it is everywhere I go. I don’t need to like be reading or anything. And I feel like it starts to show from my perspective because this is what I see out there. Like I’m looking at you three right now and the painting is done.

PM: What are do you most identify with? Your work or others?

NR: I’m a real worker bee. I don’t spend time looking at other art. I don’t do that much besides this so I mean I have my people that I kind of like I love Balthus and a guy named Euan Uglow and Frank Auerbach. I love them but I don’t spend any time looking at art.

PM: What is your artistic process?

NR: To show up. Just everyday, show up. If you show up something’s going to happen. And the way that I work is that everything that is on the walls, I’m working on in one way or another. You leave and you’re thinking about something and it’s talking to you and so the next morning you walk in and that’s where you go. It’s like kind of having an orchestra. There’s always something to do.

PM: How do you know when a piece is finished?

NR: When there is nothing left to do. Literally. When I look at this and I think, there’s nothing else to do. And then I live with that. I won’t go back and fix it afterwards. Because I want to keep moving on. This is a moment in time. And then I’m going to move on to the next thing. I think as an artist, for me, the hardest thing to do is to know when to stop. I’ve done this a million times. I think it’s done and then I’m like, the model’s still here. I have another few minutes and then I go past that point and then it’s like alright well you screwed that up. You either rip up the piece of paper, which I will never do, unless I am turning it into a chair. Or you go beyond again. And you reach to the next point until you finish it.

When I would teach that’s what I would tell them. Just because you have three hours doesn’t mean you need to use it all. And it’s just knowing when you’re done. It’s hard. There was this woman, this elderly woman, she’s 90, she’s a mentor of mine. That I met in the class and she would yell across the room to me. And she’d go, “Nancy! Stop!” And I’d be like, “Okay! Done.” And I’d listen to her because I trusted her.

PM: Professionally, what’s your goal?

NR: My goal is to be doing exactly what I’m doing.