Finding Your Voice: An Interview with Artist Kara Rooney

The balance between the personal and the universal is what gives art its power

Kara Rooney is an international artist who works in sculpture, painting, installation art, and dance and performance. Her work is in collections and galleries and she’s had many, many solo and group exhibitions. She’s been teaching for over 15 years at the School of Visual Arts, New York, and at the Rhode Island School of Design. I first interviewed Kara in 2022 for my book Learning to See, and she was so articulate that I wanted to have her back on this podcast.

Kara Rooney: Trabajo de Sombra, with Néstor Quiñones, Mexico City, MX, 2019

Kara emphasizes that creativity isn’t about the idea you start with; it’s about the process of working, iteration, and feedback:

It’s not as though you have an idea, you go home, you execute it overnight, and you come in the next day with that assignment completed. It’s really about the process and about talking through that process with other students and the instructor.

There’s often a disconnect between what the artist thinks they’ve created and how the viewer perceives that work. What do you do? Should you be stubborn and stick with your vision and insist that the viewer is wrong? Or should you reconsider what you’ve done and revise it? Kara often has this discussion with her students:

I think a lot of times we get very caught up in our heads and we think that whatever we think our message is, that should be really obvious to the viewer. But bringing the audience into your head is harder than you would expect.

Sometimes the student insists that their interpretation is the right one, and that we’re just not getting it. That’s when I really need to step in and say, personally, I don’t think that if you were to put this out into the world, that this is the message that’s going to be conveyed. You need to decide if you’re okay with that as the artist.

Think about your insistence on your intention. Is it the machismo kind of bravado of the 1950s? Is it a sort of masculine confidence that says, this is what I’ve made and the viewer has to accept it? Or do you really want to communicate and want to touch people? Do you want to be in conversation with the audience?

For Kara, art is about learning to see.

Train your mind to see things differently. Seeing things differently, that’s the whole point of what it means to be an artist. If we all saw the world the same way, then there would be nothing to say. There would be nothing to put out there.

When you’re an artist, you are an active looker. And what I mean by that is we’re constantly bombarded with images, with stimulation. We’re saturated by it, right? Especially now with social media and smartphones and screens in our face all of the time, and the brain can’t process all of that visual information. Active looking is really taking the time to stop and to look and to think about how an image either relates to the world around you, relates to your own practice, relates to art history, relates to politics, or whatever.

And, finally, don’t bring your phone into the studio!

I always turn off my phone when I’m in the studio. Sometimes I don’t bring my computer. I always sit down for 20 minutes in silence before I begin working.

Keith Sawyer and Kara Rooney Interview Transcript

This podcast episode was published September 30, 2025, on The Science of Creativity. This interview was auto-transcribed. Although I’ve read through it and made several corrections, there may still be some errors in the transcription.

Teaser

Kara (00:00):

Creativity is simply being able to engage with multiple perspectives. Creativity is about being able to conjure a question and then to realize that question in some type of physical form.

Intro

Keith (00:22):

Kara Rooney is an international artist who works in sculpture, painting, installation, art, dance and performance. Her work is in collections and galleries, and she’s had many solo and group exhibitions. She’s been teaching for over 15 years at the School of Visual Arts in New York and at the Rhode Island School of Design. I first interviewed Kara in 2022 for my book, Learning to See. She was so articulate that I wanted to have her back on this podcast. If you enjoy this episode, I hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast, leave a comment and like the show so that other people like you can find the show. Now, here’s our interview.

Interview, first half

Kara, thank you so much for joining me today.

Kara (01:11):

It’s my pleasure. Thank you for the invitation.

Keith (01:13):

I wanted to start by asking you something that we talked about back in 2022 when we had a conversation at Zoom. You said being an artist is one of the hardest things that you can choose to be. Tell us about that. What do you mean that being an artist is hard?

Kara (01:33):

Well, you know, as opposed to other professions where there’s some kind of template or parameter for you to follow with being an artist, there’s really no, no rule book. There’s no, there’s no map for you. And I think that one of the hardest things, one of the most difficult things, especially for young artists, is really determining what their path is going to look like. It can be a hybrid, um, you know, studio practice and part-time work. It can be full-time, work with a studio, practice after hours. It can be full-time in the studio. There’s so many different factors that play into this, what a role as a, in a creative life, uh, looks like. And I think that that ambiguity, that uncertainty and that real lack of direction is something that I struggled with as a young artist. And I think a lot of young artists, you know, come across at some point in their career, the most important thing is the discipline. It’s just getting up every day and making it happen for yourself. There’s nobody else there to tell you what to do. There’s nobody else there to tell you to go into your studio, what to make, what to think about, what kind of questions to ask. And so you really need to determine that for yourself. And consistency, discipline. And I think going to the studio every day is really the only guiding light in terms of what being an artist looks like.

Keith (03:09):

I know you’re a professor and you teach undergraduates at the School of Visual Arts in New York and at Rhode Island School of Design. And I wondered what you’re saying about art being hard. You are very established, professional, and I want to talk about your work as well. Does it get easier? Does it get easier to be an artist as you move through your career?

Kara (03:32):

Uh, that’s such a tough question. I don’t think it gets easier. I just think that as you determine the path that you’re on, it becomes clearer. You know, you’re, you’re able to establish a rhythm, you know, where your hours are going to be allocated more or less. I mean, obviously jobs come and go. Opportunities come and go. You might have a huge show that you’re working on for six months or a year, and then you might have a year where you’re not exhibiting at all. And so, yes, it becomes more consistent, I guess you could say, as you lean into your career more and more. But I don’t know that it ever necessarily gets easier. If anything, I think that the stakes become higher. You know, the more visibility that you have, the more public facing opportunities that you have, there’s a lot of pressure that’s put on you, especially if you have gallery representation, you know, to continue to sell, to bring in visitors, to bring in audiences, to always up your game in terms of what it is that you’ve done before. And so in that sense, I do think it gets more complex. It definitely gets more complicated, um, as you go further into your career. But that’s also the exciting part, is that you’re constantly having to level up your game and, and continue to challenge yourself in terms of what it is that you wanna say, what it is that you wanna bring to the world.

Keith (04:56):

That’s something I remember us talking about that I found really fascinating. When you say something you wanna say, and you talked a lot about helping students find their voice, helping them find what they want to say, they’re still struggling. What do you mean by that? What do you mean by a voice and how can you help someone find it?

Kara (05:17):

I mean, voice is, is your personal message. You know, the, the reason that you make art. I don’t think that that’s very clear for a lot of young artists. I think that there’s so many things that we’re observing in this world. We’re constantly bombarded with images, with image saturation, with stimulation of information. And so it can be difficult to find our way in all of that. But, you know, honing in on what it is that you in particular are interested in, that’s not something that happens easily. I I think that there, one of the perks of art school is that the exercises that you’re exposed to in the, in the creative environment are really geared towards helping you find that voice. So for example, if you are passionate about the environment, how do you think about those questions in a way that is not just general or that’s universal, but that’s also very personal and specific to you?

Kara (06:21):

You know, it’s finding that balance between the universal and the personal. That’s really something that I focus on in a lot of my, and a lot of my courses that I teach. And it takes time. You know, this is not something that happens overnight. This is really part of a lifelong career of what it means to be an artist. Sometimes it can take you 10, 15, 20 years to find your voice, and sometimes that voice changes multiple times throughout a career and work that you’re making five years from now looks nothing like the work that you made five years ago. So I think there’s also a need to be flexible and to understand that this idea of voice or, you know, maybe what someone might else might put as center is constantly shifting and every day it’s up to you to really try to zero in on that, to pinpoint it, and then to amplify that message.

Keith (07:14):

You said something that really jumped out to me. You said that you give students assignments that help them find their voice. And I think a lot of people don’t realize that in art school you actually do give assignments. So could you give an example, <laugh>, how could an assignment help someone in that process? What kind of assignment? Well,

Kara (07:34):

I, I like to give multi-pronged assignments, which means that there are a series of steps that a student has to go through and a series of check-in points where we’re going to be discussing the decisions that they’ve made, whether that’s in a group critique or it’s in an individual critique setting where, you know, the student is really compelled to articulate and to talk about what it is they’re thinking as they’re making. And so, for example, an assignment that I used to give at RISD in my spatial dynamics class had the students using the photo library. Then it had them making small iterations of sculptures in clay, then it had them doing mold making, um, and then working these into a larger network. And so through this series of steps, which takes about three weeks in terms of the assignment, they have time to really unpack their ideas. It’s not as though you have an idea, you go home, you execute it overnight, and you come in the next day with that assignment completed. It’s really about the process and about talking through that process. I think that allows anyone, not not just artists, but allows anyone to really refine their thoughts and to understand their ideas more fully.

Keith (08:51):

So the students have to all follow this process that they’re giving, that you’re giving them, and they have to bring in these intermediate steps along the way? Is that what you’re saying?

Kara (09:01):

Yeah. And at each one of those steps, there is a critique, there’s a discussion, you know, a classroom discussion, or there might be a discussion between myself and the artist in terms of what it was they were thinking, how that presents itself in terms of the material choices that they’ve selected, and then how well that message is communicated through the form that they’ve made. You know, a lot of times what we want to express and the object that we make are not necessarily in line with one another. And so the group critique is a really interesting and productive environment for us to unpack that for them to hear from not only myself, but from their peers, what seems to be working, you know, if the messaging is clear, if it’s obscured, if they need to go back to the drawing board, start over again. Um, so this process of refining the form in relationship to the content is really the, the driving force behind these critical discussions.

Keith (10:03):

Oh, you said something again, that’s fascinating. That really jumped out at me. You said a student might have generated something that’s not what they think they’ve generated. Is is, did I get that right?

Kara (10:14):

Yeah, definitely. I think a lot of times we get very caught up in our heads and we think that what we are, you know, what we’re contemplating what our message is, is really obvious to the viewer. But bringing the audience into your head is harder than you would expect. It’s harder than you would anticipate. And so, you know, the group critique is an opportunity for the other students to really give their feedback in terms of, well, this is what I see. I don’t know that that’s what you intended, but this is what I see. And it’s an interesting opportunity for the artist for, you know, to really kind of check against the larger consensus whether what it is that they want to communicate is effective or not. And many times it isn’t. Many times we do have to go back. We have to revise, we have to refine, we have to go through multiple drafts. So the research and design period is probably the most time consuming and the most taxing of all of the artistic production because once you really know what you’re going to make, it’s just a matter of fabricating. But getting to that point is really difficult.

Keith (11:26):

So they’ve, uh, they’ve gotten this assignment and then they generate something, you know, out of class, and then they bring it in and they’re describing what they’ve done, and all the other people in the class are looking at the work and they’re not seeing what the student is describing. Is that right?

Kara (11:44):

Yeah, which can be, you can imagine, can be very frustrating for the student. You know, sometimes there’s a bit of defensiveness, sometimes there’s a bit of resistance in terms of what it is that they’re hearing because they see it as a failure. But in reality, what it is, is just an opportunity to go back and do that thing again, not better, but from a different perspective. You know, approaching it from a different angle. And I think that’s really where the creative muscle gets flexed, is that, you know, it, there’s not just one way to go about doing something. There’s so many different ways to approach an idea. And when you have to do these multi-pronged projects, you really begin to understand also by seeing the other students’ work in the classroom. You know, everybody’s been given the same prompt, but no one’s work looks the same. And so you really begin to understand, oh, this is a matter of perspective, not what’s right or wrong. There’s no black or white answer here. And the more comfortable they get with that, the more they begin to play and the more they begin to experiment and the more interesting the projects become.

Keith (12:53):

You mentioned failure. So the student has generated something and it’s not what they think they’ve generated, at least according to the response they get, and they perceive that as failure. So how do you help them get beyond that? How do you help them deal with that?

Kara (13:07):

I think it’s a matter of talking them through it. You know, that’s really the role that I play in the group critique forum. Some professors like to just kind of give the student feedback in front of the rest of the class. And that’s the way the critique is structured. I do it very differently in my critiques. I don’t speak until the end. So I give all of the students an opportunity to give that particular artist feedback. And then I might jump in, uh, at the end of that discussion with what it is that I’m seeing, what it is that I’m observing, you know, any kind of suggestions that might have been brought up in the conversation that seem like they would be a good direction for the student to follow in terms of, you know, going back and refining the project more. And I think that that also gives them a sense of autonomy.

Kara (14:03):

It’s different to hear critical feedback from your peers than it is from your professor. I think that definitely lessens the, the failure principle, you know, because at this point, most of them are friendly, even if, you know, if they’re not friends, they’re friendly with one another, they respect one another, uh, sometimes those discussions can get heated. You know, I’m not gonna lie, <laugh>, there’s definitely been a couple of instances where that’s happened, but I think that’s also good, you know, I mean, art is intended to ask difficult questions to bring up friction or tension, you know, for, it’s a way for us to look at the status quo and to question what it is that we see. And sometimes that can be really challenging. So I don’t shy away from conflict in terms of what the critique discussions bring up, but I always want to be critically supportive in terms of what is being said. So if I need to reframe something in the conversation, I’ll do that. I’m kind of like the moderator in the situation, if you could imagine. Right, right. That that’s what I see my role as.

Keith (15:13):

And I’d like to go back to this notion of finding your own voice. So the student is generated something. Couldn’t the student just say, Hey, this is my own voice, this is what I wanted to say. So sorry you guys, but you just didn’t get it.

Kara (15:27):

Sometimes that happens <laugh>, and that’s, you know, that’s when I really need to step in and say, well, you know, personally, I don’t think that if you were to put this out into the world, that this is the message that’s going to be conveyed. You need to decide if you’re okay with that as the artist, if you are okay with that. That is a particular stance in art history. I mean, it’s not to say that that’s not valid, it’s just not really going to help you grow in terms of your creativity in the classroom setting, which is what we’re here to do. So, you know, I think it’s a matter of where are you in your career? What kind of stance do you have? What sort of relationship do you have to art history? Who are you holding hands with in art history, right? Like, who are your mentors and, and your guides?

Kara (16:17):

Is it the machismo kind of bravado of the 1950s? And that sort of like masculine confidence that just says, this is what I make and accept it. Or are you coming at things from a very different perspective and you really want to communicate and you want to touch people and you want to be in conversation with the audience? I think those are very personal decisions that the, that the student has to make for themselves. Sometimes it’s premature for them to do that. I mean, obviously we all progress differently, especially once we’re outside of art school and in our professional careers. But that’s something that I really try to foster in the classrooms that yes, that is a particular stance and that’s valid, but what if we were to try out something else? Would that take you in a different direction? And, you know, would that direction actually benefit the message that you’re trying to convey as opposed to retracting from it?

Keith (17:16):

So you want them to make an intentional decision or make a decision with an awareness, not just to say to themselves, Hey, this is the only way, this is the way I do it. But you’re guiding them to understand there are other ways to do it, and if you wanna do it this way, that’s fine, but be aware of why you’re doing it that way.

Kara (17:36):

Yeah, and you know, I do talk a lot about, I show a lot of artists work in the classroom. I at least 30 artists per studio session we’re looking at. And so because I’m exposing them to many contemporary artists and their practices and videos of them talking about their work and how they approach their ideas, this is something that’s kind of embedded in the structure of the, of the course from the get go. So it usually doesn’t end up in this confrontation like setting, although it has happened a couple of times. But I think that the subliminal messaging of, you know, the way that I teach and my approach to teaching is that you need to be in conversation with your audience. You know this, I did talk about this in the book, this question of why should I care about what it is that you’re doing? That there is this sweet spot of striking the balance between the personal story and, you know, a larger universal story that the audience member can access, and that they can bring an element of their imagination to the interpretation of the work. It’s not just a one-way conversation, it’s not just a didactic kind of top-down form of messaging, but that this is really a dialogue between you and the viewer.

Keith (19:04):

Well, I’m glad you referred to the book because I quoted you so many times in my book, this 2022 interview that we did. And I remember you gave an example of a student who said, I want to do something about the environment. And your response I thought was really interesting. You said, I don’t want it to look like another science fair project. <laugh>.

Kara (19:24):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Yeah. I, I mean, I think that one of the hardest things in art school is that you’re up against a lot of generic ideas, right? The, the ideas start so broad that there’s no message there, there’s nothing that the student is saying. And that’s where the personal voice becomes really important. It’s like, okay, you wanna make work about the environment, but what aspect of the environment interests you? What is unique to you? Where are you from? What does the environment look like? That one student in particular, I remember very well, he was from Puerto Rico, and so that environment looks very different than the environment at risd. And so I really encouraged him to make work that was specific to that geography and that he got really excited about, you know, because he could tap into childhood memory, he could tap into aspects of smell and of sounds that were unique to him that was going to bring a different perspective to the viewer from, you know, the United States who might not have experienced that kind of setting prior to. And so I think that, you know, really encouraging students to be vulnerable and to bring in their personal stories so long as the personal story isn’t just naval gazing. I think that that that is something that, you know, we really have to be cautious of, that there has to be a way that, you know, whatever the project is, extends to this universal idea of communicating. That’s really where the best work happens.

Interlude

Keith (21:10):

You’re listening to The Science of Creativity, a podcast about art, design, and invention. If you’re enjoying the episode, I hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast and rate the show and leave a comment because it helps people like you find the show. You can find the science of creativity on all podcast platforms.

Second half of interview

Keith

That story sounds like a great example of helping a student find their voice, right?

Kara (21:36):

Yeah. And that student went on to do some incredible things and grew incredibly over the course of the year that we worked together. I mean, I think that when you first come into art school, it can be very overwhelming. You know, all of a sudden you’re amongst all of the best of their classes, you know, where you might’ve been the star in high school. Now all of a sudden you’re in a college setting where everybody is pretty much at your level and you really have to up your game. You have a different kind of way of relating to people. All of a sudden you’re around. People have the same interests as you, and it can be challenging at first, but once you really find your stride and your confidence, which a lot of it just comes through logging hours in the studio, to be honest. It’s like just being there eight hours a day, 10 hours a day, staying there afterwards. You know, the more comfortable you get in the studio, the more creative and the more experimental you become. And it’s just like learning an instrument. It’s like the more time you spend there, the better you’re going to be, the clearer your ideas are going to be expressed.

Keith (22:43):

Well, you did say being an artist is hard and eight or 10 hours a day sounds pretty hard to me. How long are your studio classes? Are they, I think eight hours.

Kara (22:54):

The ones at RISD are eight hours long. RISD has eight hour studio classes in the first year, and then I believe they’re six hours in the second, third and fourth year at School of Visual Arts. They’re six hours long. So yeah. And the idea behind that is what I just expressed, that the more hours you log, the more proficient you’re going to become, both as a technician and as a storyteller.

Keith (23:19):

So in this long period of time, six hours or eight hours, the students are actually doing work, right? They’re doing their work. They’re not listening to you lecture all that time.

Kara (23:29):

No, but I will do probably an hour or an hour and a half of lecture for each of those classes.

Keith (23:35):

Right. It does seem like, uh, a huge amount of work for the students. And I remember something you told me about working hard and about how much effort it is. You said if the work doesn’t look like it’s changed or evolved over the course of the semester, you didn’t work hard enough and you didn’t step out of your comfort zone that you want the work that the students doing to change and evolve. What do you mean by that? How would a, a work change in a good and constructive way?

Kara (24:07):

Well, a good example of that is what we were just talking about before where the student says, well, this is my work, and you just don’t get it. And they leave it at that, right? So everybody comes into the classroom setting with a certain set of skills, um, a certain proficiency with different materials. And if they’re only choosing to work with materials that they’re comfortable with for the entire semester, for example, or if, you know, they’re really dead set on the same idea that they began the semester with, and it doesn’t change, or it doesn’t experiment with different perspectives in any way. If I don’t see that they’ve incorporated any of the feedback from the critique sessions that we’ve had, then that’s when the work feels pretty stuck. I, it’s very rare that anyone is stubborn enough to stay in that beginning position. I don’t think that any of the students are there to stay who they were.

Kara (25:10):

Right? I think everybody is there to grow. And so there is really a desire to expand and to test out different things, to experiment with different materials, but also that’s embedded within the assignments. You know, within the assignments they might have to work with metal, they might have to work with wood, they might have to be in the wood shop, they have to do mold making. So, you know, the assignments are really there also to force them outside of their comfort zones. They might not end up liking those materials, or those materials might not end up being their preferred choice in terms of what they go to when they’re making their own work. But at least they have experience and exposure to them. And through that exposure that inevitably changes even the way that they work with materials that they know very well.

Keith (25:56):

That sounds like a pretty strong constraint. So at the beginning of the semester, you could say, make a sculpture out of anything you want, but it sounds like you’re requiring them. Everybody has to use wood, for example.

Kara (26:10):

Yeah. We go through a series of expansions and contractions. I call them, you know, the first day of class I say to students, you’re going to love me at certain points in this semester and you’re gonna hate me at certain points in this semester. And, you know, we really begin with a very broad kind of fun opening project where they get to use lots of different things and where they, you know, just get to kind of throw things at the wall and see what sticks. And then we kind of double down on the really technical aspects of making, of sculptural making. So, you know, that means measuring and being in the wood shop and doing, uh, safety training and going through how to use all of the tools. Same thing goes for mold making. And then we’ll take those, that skillset and we’ll do a much more conceptual project later on in the semester once they’ve built those skills up. So it’s a lot of expansion and contraction that happens throughout the semester. And I think that keeps it really dynamic. It might be a little bit boring or it might be frustrating it certain times, but you know, that’s also part of just learning the trade. That’s part of what learning technique is about.

Keith (27:27):

It sounds like something that would be really hard to do on your own, like staying at home and painting and you say, okay, I’m gonna expand <laugh> for the next two weeks, and then I’m gonna contract two weeks after that. So you’re providing a kind of guiding structure that it, that really does help these students find their own voice and maybe their own way of practice, right? Their own practice.

Kara (27:51):

Yeah. I mean, that’s definitely what I see my role as a professor as being. Um, I think that you can get there through years of just being in the studio. Working with parameters is always something that I find really helpful. You know, freedom without any kind of parameter is just chaos, they say, right? <laugh>. And so learning how to work within the parameters, how to use them to your advantage in terms of your creative expression or your creative ideas is one of the real benefits of going through an institution as opposed to just, you know, going into the studio by yourself day after day after day, you’ll get there, but it will take much longer because you have to invent the rules yourself.

Keith (28:43):

Right. As opposed to having someone guide you. It’s one of the most common things I heard professors in art school tell me is the importance of constraints. So you might think you just tell the students to do whatever they want and generate a sculpture and then come bring it back in in two weeks, but you provide a lot of structure and a lot of parameters to their work process.

Kara (29:02):

Yeah, and not always. I think that once you get to a certain point, you can give an assignment like that, you know, something that’s just very open and that’s really going to give them the freedom to pick and choose from the tools that you’ve armed them with throughout the semester. But I don’t think that you’re going to get very good results if you do that in the very beginning. I just don’t think that they really know where to go. Sometimes it can be interesting to give that kind of assignment from the get go just to see what the lay of the land looks like, right? Like where each student is, how they’re thinking, which materials they’re comfortable with. But then, you know, you would really have to work with each of those students individually to kind of break them out of their shell and get them doing something differently.

Kara (29:50):

So it’s just a matter of how you structure, uh, your time in the classroom. And you know, again, because there’s no rule book in terms of how to teach art, all of us do it differently. And the way that I do it is just, it’s based on my experience and my practice and what I use when I’m in the studio, as, you know, as a driving force, whether that’s a constraint, a parameter, whether it’s a conceptual idea, if I’m doing something that’s research based or, you know, it really depends. Maybe it’s a site specific installation. And so the parameters are the building itself, you know, the exhibition space itself, it varies. And there’s really no right or wrong way to approach that in the classroom. Obviously you have better teachers than others, but I think anybody who’s teaching from their personal practice and not just from something that they’ve heard or something that they’re parroting back is gonna bring something unique to the classroom setting.

Keith (30:49):

It sounds like the challenge of ambiguity, I mean, ambiguity is frightening, and learning how to negotiate that maybe the constraints or parameters can help you be more comfortable, or you’re able to negotiate that ambiguity.

Kara (31:05):

Definitely. I mean, even if that parameter is, you know, this particular project is going to be made solely with paper, it’s like, well, sky’s the limit, but at least you don’t have to think about bringing in color and texture and fabric and, you know, there’s a certain amount of scale that you can work with. So I think the parameters are very helpful. In my own work, I always use a parameter of some sort that might be material, it might be conceptual, but I find it really helpful. And so that’s something that I try to share with the students that I work with.

Keith (31:40):

What do you do when you get stuck?

Kara (31:42):

When I get stuck, I go back to my research always. This is why, even though I’m not teaching art history well at, at school of VI Visual Arts, I do teach one art history class. But I think knowing your contemporary art history is incredibly helpful. You know, looking at other artists’ work, if I’m feeling really stuck, I’ll go to a museum show, I’ll go to a gallery, I’ll go for a walk, like I’ll just walk around Mexico City, uh, where I live, it’s incredibly inspiring. Sometimes you just find things on the street, you know, graffiti or something that’s been wheat pasted onto the wall that jogs something in you. And I think that it’s really important to spend time outside of the studio and looking at other people’s work. It’s, it’s equally as important as the time that you spend in your studio. So when I’m saying that I, you know, typically log in eight hour studio day, maybe only half of that day is in my physical space, and the other half might be spent, you know, going to an opening or seeing gallery exhibitions. But for me, that is incredibly important in terms of, again, stimulating your creativity, looking at things differently, seeing the way that somebody else worked with color or with texture or laid down paint. Even if that’s not your medium, there’s always a way that you can translate what it is that you’re looking at to your own work.

Keith (33:17):

You mentioned leaving the studio and walking down the street and noticing, for example, some graffiti. A lot of people, you know, walk on the street all the time and, and they don’t notice stuff. So I, my sense is that artists like you, you have this ability to notice things in your environment. It’s a kind of awareness. How can you foster that ability to see?

Kara (33:40):

I talk a lot, uh, in my classroom about active and passive looking, and I think that this is really key to what it means to be an artist. When you’re an artist, you are an active looker. And what I mean by that is that, you know, we’re, we’re constantly bombarded with images, with stimulation. We’re saturated by it, right? I mean, especially now with social media and smartphones and screens in our face all of the time, and the brain can’t process all of that visual information. It’s, it’s almost impossible. We wouldn’t be able to cross the street if we didn’t learn to tune certain things out. And so there is this necessity for passive looking in terms of just navigating the world, but active looking is really taking the time to stop and to look and to think about how an image either relates to the world around you, relates to your own practice, relates to art history, relates to politics, or relates to the text that it’s associated with.

Kara (34:44):

And active looking takes time. And it’s something that we really practice in the classroom with a lot of the images that I show, with the artists that I’m exposing the students to. And you know, again, like anything else, it’s a muscle that gets honed over time. So when you’re used to really looking for things or noticing and spending time with things, even in your natural environment, they start to jump out of you. You know, you notice things more. I think that when you’re walking down the street after years and years of doing this, it’s impossible not to notice the graffiti. For me, it’s literally impossible. It’s, it’s almost distracting, you know, I, I have to put blinders on, or I have to put on my sunglasses if I just, you know, have to get to a meeting on time. ‘cause I’ll get, I’ll get sidetracked by a million different things, especially living where I do. It’s just such a stimulating environment. And so active looking has been, it’s a cornerstone of how I’ve kind of carved my way as an artist in the world. And it’s, it’s something I really talk about a lot with my students, and we’re always coming back to that concept. You know, I might be redundant, but I think that it’s really important to instill that, particularly in a society that prioritizes passive looking so much.

Keith (36:08):

Is there some sort of exercise? I mean, I could imagine you would tell your students on your way home from studio tonight, I want you to, I don’t know, look around and find a triangle <laugh> or something.

Kara (36:20):

Yeah, I mean, simple things like that. It’s like, come into the classroom tomorrow with five images that you took between now and eight o’clock in the morning that were interesting to you, and let’s talk about them. Why? Right. Or one form that you haven’t seen before. And I think just, you know, easy little kind of micro assignments like these, they begin to train the mind, right. To see things differently. That idea of seeing things differently, that’s the whole point of what it means to be an artist. That’s the point of what it means to make, you know, because if we all saw the world the same way, then there would be nothing to say. There would be nothing to, to really put out there.

Keith (37:03):

So you are teaching them how to see in a new and different way.

Kara (37:07):

I’m trying to, absolutely.

Keith (37:09):

Well, it’s interesting. We’ve gotten this far in the conversation, and I haven’t used the word creativity <laugh>, and you haven’t either. And I wonder, do you think anything we’re talking about, is it creativity? Are you teaching students how to be creative? How does creativity fit into all of this?

Kara (37:25):

Yeah, I mean, I think that maybe, I haven’t used the word creativity, but I’ve talked a lot about creative expression, and I think that creativity is simply being able to engage with multiple perspectives. You know, creativity is about being able to conjure a question and then to realize that question in some type of physical form. Creativity is a strange word. I mean, when you really drill down into the etymology of it, it’s like, what does it mean, you know, to make something from nothing, but nothing is developed that way. Everything comes from something. And so in a sense, creativity is like this label that we put on everything that’s artistic, but I don’t necessarily know that it helps us understand that process more clearly.

Keith (38:19):

Right. I think I agree with that. Like the conversation we were having, the term didn’t come up, but it didn’t matter because you were talking about seeing and thinking and making mm-hmm <affirmative>. And that’s really at the core, right?

Kara (38:32):

Yeah. It’s like the word unique. <laugh>, I always say to, to my students, you’re not allowed to use the word unique. It doesn’t tell me anything. Right? Does unique mean singular? Does it mean different? Does it mean, you know, tell me more about that. It creativity is this really similar kind of word where just kind of as a blanket label, it doesn’t tell me anything. Are you a creative, what kind of a creative are you, you know, do you enjoy working with brushes? Do you enjoy working with metal? I don’t know. It’s just, it’s so broad that it doesn’t really give me a sense of a visual sense of what it is that we want to talk about. And so maybe for that reason, I avoid using the word itself, <laugh>. I’m, I’m not even conscious of it, but apparently it’s coming out in the conversation, so that’s interesting.

Keith (39:23):

Well, I didn’t ask about it on purpose <laugh>, because, uh, I have learned when I talked to artists a lot, or uncomfortable with the word creativity, and I think you put it very well to say that it’s not useful. It doesn’t help. I mean, you’ve been talking about helping students find their voice and helping them develop a practice and helping them understand that what they’ve generated on the canvases and what they say they’ve generated, but standing there and saying, that’s creative, that’s not gonna help accomplish any of those goals.

Kara (39:56):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Yeah. And I, you know, I think that in a way it’s become a catchall, especially for a lot of parents who have children who seem to have a proclivity for the arts. Oh, they’re so creative, or, you know, it, it just, it seems a little pedantic to me as well. And so I would prefer to just talk about, you know, directly talk about what it is that we’re trying to do. You know, are we, are we making art? Are we making objects? Are we engaging with performance? Are we using the body? Are we questioning, you know, an aspect of society or a rule that’s been handed down to us? I mean, in a way, I think just to be human means that you are creative. We are constantly generating things. We’re constantly generating ideas. We’re constantly generating or casting off aspects of ourself, you know, that might manifest in terms of technology or film or, I don’t know, even spreadsheets, <laugh>, right? Somebody had to invent a spreadsheet, somebody had to generate that. Um, I actually think that’s a really interesting form of creativity is to envision a world where everything can fit into these little cells and algorithms, <laugh>. Um, and so, you know, because I just, I, I can’t wrap my head around it. And so, yeah, I, I think that again, it, it just has become a catchall for everything that we do as human beings, which is great, but it doesn’t really help us in terms of a conversation about what being creative means.

Keith (41:36):

Could you say a little bit about your own work right now? What are you working on?

Kara (41:41):

I’m working on a series of performances right now with a group of artists in Mexico City with a curator from Italy. Her name is Anna Ducey. And the content behind these performances, they’re, they’re called the act of weight. And we’re all women, uh, who are participating in this project. And our role is to really interpret this concept of weight from various different perspectives. You know, many of them personal, some of them societal. And so these performances are going to be taking place in a number of really important institutions in Mexico City. In September, we’ll be in the Biblioteca SLOs, which is an incredible library in the heart of the city that just has, you know, really wonderful architecture and, uh, history to it. It’s one of the largest libraries in South America. And so thinking about the act of weight, you know, what does weight mean in regards to information, in regards to written history?

Kara (42:48):

You know, in a setting like a library is very different than, for example, in October we’re going to be doing a different series of performances in a space called the Zeo Ex, which is a converted, it wasn’t a convent right near the Zulo, which is now sinking into the ground. And so the entire space is at an angle. Um, so it’s really interesting to work inside. It’s an incredible venue for installation performance and video work as well as sound. And so we’re going to be doing a number of interventions there that deal with the body and with spatial spatial dynamics, spatial aspects and, uh, sonic aspects in the space, and the kind of history that’s really embedded in the stones. So that’s what I’m working on right this moment. I have a show, a museum exhibition that’s up in Salala, which is about two hours outside of Mexico City, which was created through a wonderful residency program that really prioritizes working with stone, with fired stone.

Kara (43:58):

And so I worked with Mosaic for the first time in that residency. And that piece is on display right now in the museum that will be coming down in a few weeks. So there’s a lot of projects coming up. I also run a street gallery in Mexico City called Clear Sky, CDMX, which is in collaboration with Clear Sky in New York City. And we have a vitri that’s on the outside wall of my studio building where I invite Mexican artists to show for eight weeks at a time solo exhibitions. And we just got a wonderful grant from the Homex Foundation, from the Homex Museum to do a retrospective exhibition of that project, which has been going on for about four years now. And that show will open in the beginning of September as well.

Keith (44:50):

Thank you. I’m just really impressed with so many different projects underway. You’re very productive!

Kara (44:57):

It’s a busy time, that’s for sure.

Keith (44:59):

We’re coming to the end of our time, and I always like to end by asking, do you have some advice for our listeners or maybe an exercise, something they can do in the next week that might enhance their creativity?

Kara (45:11):

I would suggest a two part experiment. I’m not gonna call it an assignment, an experiment. First is wherever you make your art, wherever you, you know, make whatever it is that you do to leave your phone at home. So zero distractions, no phone. Go into that space with no phone, no computer, and to sit in silence for 20 minutes before you begin to do anything. This is a practice that I do regularly. Not every time that I go into the studio, but regularly when I need to clear my mind, when I need to really tap into center, when I feel like I’m very distracted by what’s going on outside, you know, just life in general. So I always turn off my phone when I’m in the studio. Sometimes I don’t bring my computer, but I always sit down for 20 minutes in silence before I begin working.

Kara (46:11):

And I think to do that for the next week, every day you’ll find that your approach to making is very, very different. The other part of what I would suggest is that you make five, three minute drawings every day for the next week. So no more than three minutes, but five of them every day in whatever medium of your choice. I find that this really helps me to loosen up and to just get into a sense of flow without being attached, the outcome, without being attached to the image, any size, any scale, but just to get, you know, your hand and your, and your mind working in tandem with one another.

Keith (46:53):

Thank you so much. That’s great advice, and thanks for joining me today.

Kara (46:57):

Thank you so much, Keith. It was great to be here.

Outro

Keith (47:11):

I thought that Kara and I were really in sync with this interview because no matter what question I asked, it turned out to be exactly something that she had often thought about and talked about with her students. I think her students are just really lucky to have an established professional artist like her, sharing her ways of seeing and her ways of working. Kara helped me understand the value of teaching young artists how to develop their own voice and their own artistic practice. Thank you for listening to the Science of Creativity. If you liked this episode, I hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast and please write the show, because that helps others like you hear about the show. Please write in the comments if you have requests or ideas for future episodes. I’ll see you next time on the Science of Creativity for insights and inspiration about art, design and invention.