An Interview with Darby Bowen

5/4/21

by Soap Asbury

 Tell me about your senior project.

My project is a series starting with Something Borrowed, which is a wedding dress made from approximately 8 balls of ivory yarn that my mother told me I was free to do what I wanted with. It was unraveled yarn from a pillowcase and an aphgan set that was a wedding present from my great-grandmother to my parents. I thought it was appropriate to turn the yarn into a wedding dress to allow the material to come full circle in a way.

Something Old is a collage made from photos taken on old disposable cameras. Some were taken by me at summer camp and some from this semester, with a few baby photos added from family albums cut up into one inch squares and rearranged randomly. I decided to make a collage out of both new and old photos side by side, because even though these three sets of photos are from very different versions of myself, they are all part of me.

Next, Something Blue is my prom dress from 2015 - navy blue, very simple design, and too short for someone of my current height, now ripped up and splattered with bright pink house paint. I was pressured into going to the dance that year because apparently saying yes and being uncomfortable was better than saying no and hurting his feelings, which is a very harmful narrative. 

Lastly, Something New is made of 4 brass rings soldered together with a key in between each ring, and is based on how people will sometimes take their keys out of their pocket and hold them between their fingers as a self-defense weapon, and how self-defense weapons have become commercialized. Convenient keychain alarms, stun guns disguised as smartphones and small enough to fit in our pockets, when it really shouldn't be our responsibility. We should be teaching people not to attack others in the first place instead of just telling everyone “boys will be boys.” I don't think it's okay that self-defense weapons have become such a necessity they've become accessories, carried around without a second thought, the same way we carry around hand sanitizer or an iPhone charger.

Tell me a little more about the ideas behind these pieces.

In a lot of books and movies there's the plot of, "if this significant moment in your life was different, what would your life be like now?" And then it shows the main character navigating their new life with the significant moment changed. And then in every single one, or at least that I've seen, the main character doesn't like how their life is different and they preferred their old life.

I've always believed “we are a product of our experiences, both the good and the bad. And even though some of those experiences were bad they made me who I am, and I like who I am.” But do I actually believe that? Do all those books and movies just end that way to make us feel better about ourselves and our situations?

Who would you be? If your family wasn’t your family, or if you never met that person. If you never went through that tragic moment in your life, or if those people had been there when you needed them. If you were born in a different time or in a different body. If anything different happened, would you still be you? And if not, would you be happier existing as that other person? These are all things that I thought about while creating this body of work, and I still don’t have an answer.

How did you settle on this idea?

A lot of this started over the summer. I was living with my grandmother, but I had found an apartment and I was looking through all of my stuff, trying to get rid of some. I found this dress. I almost had a panic attack when I saw it. I started having these flashbacks. And, I thought, “You know what I should do? I should exploit these emotions for art.”

 What else inspires your work? Is it your fellow artists? Is it nature?

Yeah, I don’t know. I just kind of do what makes me happy, because I’ve found that there isn’t a lot. When I was young, I had a big issue with self-loathing. I hated myself so much, but the twisted child I was, I thought there was a fine amount that I could hate myself. So, I did things and dressed in certain ways and acted in certain ways to make people hate me because I thought I deserved it. I wasn’t mean to anybody. I was just so annoying. And I just didn’t talk to people, I didn’t make an effort to get close to people. I just didn’t. I wanted friends, but I didn’t think I deserved them. It was a very twisted kind of mentality. So when I think about my childhood and stuff, that wasn’t the happiest of times.

A year or two ago, I interviewed someone for an assignment who used to go to school here, Catherine Graffam. I had asked her what her inspiration was, and she said, “old white men and spite”. She does a lot of oil paintings on wooden pallets and a lot of figure work. I just love her style so much. It’s mostly self-portraits that are very chunky and very textured. It’s something I can’t even describe. They are just so great and beautiful.

I’m looking at my list, and some other artists that have inspired me are Monica Camilao, Jeanne Anthony, and Natalia Goncharova. When I was studying abroad, we went to a museum exhibition of Natalia’s work and I loved it so much! I remember one painting in particular. It was a purple figure, short brown hair, and the background was bright yellows and oranges and some bright greens. I thought that was so interesting because she did the figure in cold tones, but the background was in warm tones, and usually that’s reversed. You want the person to feel alive. I also just loved how bold her style was. The linework was very, the only way I can describe it is chunky, and I don’t know why. I just really love bold and chunky lines and styles. 

I’ve noticed that a lot of the artists I have listed are women. I didn’t do that all on purpose. It was mostly because I use to love more male artists, but then I found out that most were problematic, homophobic, and sexist, and I just couldn’t. I used to love their work but then realized, “oh, you would have hated me.” And then I read something about Natalia, and it was saying that one of her nude pieces was not well received, even though her male counterparts were really successful.

As for the others, I follow Monica on Instagram. Her work has a lot of big structures, really colorful and chunky designs. The things she builds, they show a lot of the rough edges. I love the big boldness to it. I haven’t seen her newer work, it’s been a while since I was last on Instagram, but it feels like her whole life is her art. Like it’s not something she does, but what she is. You see it in her everyday life: the clothes she wears, the way she dresses, everything is her life and she’s just so happy. 

Catherine, the way she paints - like she blends, but not completely. It’s like she paints very chunky. Very chunky brushstrokes. I mean, she may not describe it that way, but that’s just the way my brain can process it. I think chunky might actually be my favorite word in the English language. I love texture so much. It’s very satisfying. 

And then Jeanne, I just love her because she has so many unconventional methods. She painted black ink with her hair. There was one time where she slept in a museum connected to a device that recorded her brain waves while she was sleeping, and made a blanket based on that. She also made this long rope of objects that were given to her by her friends and family and it’s still growing. 

Also, not so much an “artist” artist, but I found that lately, when I’m working on stuff, I tend to exclusively listen to the rock band Mother Mother. Different types of music feel different, and I just love the way that Mother Mother feels.

Tell me a bit about your studio space.

Oh, it’s chaotic. 

A lot of people will come in and ask me, because they see something on its side, “how is that going to be incorporated in your senior show?” And I tell them that it’s just a painting assignment, and that it’s on its side because I painted the edges, and they need to dry. It’s kind of funny, because people think that my senior show is going to be wild because I have so much stuff, but not all of this is for the senior show. It’s just where I store my work. A lot of this is just for fun, and I also find it a lot easier to work on stuff when I have other things going. If I find I’m staring at a painting too long, I can go and do something else. You paint for too long and either you’re not changing anything, or you’re just putting on more and more paint. It’s like when you look at the mirror too long and your brain gets bored, so it starts to warp your face until you think that you look ugly. You can’t look at something for too long, it’s unhealthy. 

 Let’s talk about before you came to school. Did you always know what you wanted to come to school for? Or did it change as things went along? 

I knew that I wanted a career in art, but one that I can support myself with. That’s just the bare minimum goal, so I still don’t know specifically what I want to do. There is no job title that I’ve been striving for my whole life. I want to have the creative license to have my ideas and bring those ideas to life. How am I going to do that? I have no idea! I used to talk about, and my parents love bringing this up, doing exhibition work, putting on big shows.

That work, though, it’s not like an hourly wage kind of thing. It’s not a dependable source of income. That requires having another job, and my whole family agrees that I would be miserable working in an office. I’ve been trying to find an internship or something, so that I can have a career in art. I don’t think anything else would really make me happy, and you spend most of your life working, so if you’re not happy, then you’re kind of wasting your time. If you’re miserable doing work, then you’re going to be miserable with your life.

How do you feel that our artistic community has impacted you?

It’s interesting, because you kind of have to be okay with the fact that there is always going to be someone that makes you feel like an idiot. Like, you could have a certain medium or a certain kind of art that you are really familiar with and there is always going to be someone out there who is going to make you feel like you know nothing. You just have to be kind of okay with that, and it is okay because occasionally you’ll feel inferior, but then you’ll have an idea that will make you feel like a god. Like you’re the best person in this field. Like these genius “aha!” moments and it’s just the best feeling. 

You just have to be prepared for some bruises to your ego. It’s healthy. It keeps you humble. Constructive criticism is good. But it’s also important to tell them what they are doing right as much as they are doing wrong. I feel like a lot of people forget that, and, like I’ve said, constructive criticism is good, it’s healthy. But it’s also important to say what is being done correctly, because if you just keep telling people what is wrong, it makes them think that everything they are doing is wrong and that they have to change everything. You don’t have to change everything. A “compliment sandwich.” Constructive criticism, but also what they are doing right, so they don’t feel like a complete failure. We are all here to learn more, but we are also people. We didn’t come in here with nothing. All of us have some art background that led us here. Coming here and telling someone that they are doing everything wrong is just soul crushing. 

Now that you’re a senior, on the verge of leaving the school, what advice would you give to those just coming in?

Whatever you think is going to happen is not going to happen. I came into this school as a freshman. I was a year into a relationship. I thought I was set. I thought that I was bisexual. I thought a lot of things about myself. Everything is going to change so much, not just by senior year. In a year, in a couple months, in a week, it’s going to be completely different. Be prepared for unexpected change and hey, life is going to throw some curveballs at you, so be ready to catch them. I feel like that's a very sporty thing to say, and I don’t make many sports references, but it’s accurate. Life is going to give you lemons, life shucks lemons at you. You need to knock that lemon out of the park.