Casey Arguelles Gregory, assistant curator with The Lumiere Group and moderator for the conversation, introduces herself as having run “The Eye.” Later I dig online and find the website isn’t up but the instagram is: @theeyeseattle “Discovering the Pacific Northwest through its Visual Art” the bio reads.

Anyways, the first question she asked the artists I didn’t specifically jot down — abbreviated, she asked how they consider their audiences in their work.

Barbara says she doesn’t think about the audience — not in the same way she thinks about herself as a storyteller. She asks, “how do I seduce them to give me their attention?” She doesn’t know if she is looking for a particular human, but knows what she responds to, and how she might share a cord with the hypothesized viewer. 

Her answer is quite elegant and contemplated, Holly responds “ditto” and audience laughs in agreement. Martz does go on to say she is making impulsively and from her own world — something extremely relatable. She expresses she hopes to connect with even one person — also extremely relatable. Making work about mental health fifteen years ago, her focus was making from some deep part of herself. I respect this about both of the artists, this is something I don’t consciously think of in my current practice of assembling reclaimed materials together—I feel like I still am searching to understand something in the material and don’t contextualize it to my world beyond the aesthetics I am attracted to.

Martz’s focus on herself made a difference — she found she could connect to people more making work about her own child, who was struggling with “debilitating depression.” She mentions at the time in which she was making this work, mental health wasn’t talked about like that, then.

Barbara shares she has had plenty of experiences of “lurking” at her own shows and listening to people “make up stuff.” She has a charm that also makes the whole room laugh alongside her as she says this. Artists works frequently become generalized so people have a way into the work. That really shows it success, if success is measured by a large volume of people investing interpretation into an artist’s work. 

The conversation evolves into discussing how work specifically is accessed in the public.

Holly is a public art novice — feels her work is not palatable for the public because of its political ness. Did have to change her work a bit for her first venture coming up for the port of Seattle. I related to her heavily when she talked about her work not being sturdy enough for the installation and is now pursuing a bronze cast sculpture for the first time. I said, me next!! — durability. 

Barbara points to a shift in public art in the 80s to not just think of sculpture.  Barbara has thought of her work being bigger even if she was trained two dimensionally. Also relatable. She is a person that makes things and sometimes she does public pieces of it is in line with what her work does 

There are two kinds of writers — who have the story and who find the story 

Sometimes it takes a year and a half to have a break through 

Holly has a 23 foot tall project she couldn’t see until it was in the space — studio is not the size to adequately visualize it: and that’s a nice surprise to have. Research being surprising many time too — like naturally floating material 

“ People are looking for ways to shape their thoughts in what is going on “ Barbara. She is committed to brings people from all parts of this human spectrum to ask what something is together. “How do we pace ourselves to be present” Barbara. 

Everything is political — it is decided on the stage.

Art impacting the moment of the viewer is the question— Holly says one impact is enough. 

Barbara points out that we think a lot about ourselves for being such small players. She taught young people — if you encounter a human, you are encountering the whole world they experienced up until the moment of meeting.