Claudia Slogar Rick
Hopping the Fence Podcast Transcript - #10, Claudia Rick
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RC: Hello, I’m Rebecca Casalino, and this is Hopping the Fence, a podcast dedicated to talk to artists on the fringes on the Canadian art scene. Claudia Slogar Rick is an interdisciplinary artist based in Toronto. They graduated from the University of Guelph in 2017, majoring in Studio Art. Their practice involves drawing, sculpture, performance and the internet using the aesthetics of necessity and efficiency. Rick’s work is unapologetically low-brow, accessible, and community-based.
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Our conversation is recorded in Tkaranto, on the traditional territories of the Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Anishinaabe, and Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nations.
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RC: Hey Claudia!
CR: Hi!
RC: How’s it goin’?
CR: It’s goin’ alright. It’s snowing outside in Toronto, Ontario and it’s the first real snow I think of the year.
RC: Do you want to talk a bit about what your practice looks like, or a bit about yourself just give listeners a sense?
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CR: My practice is... I'm really inspired by the internet.
RC: Mhm.
CR: I spend a lot of time on Instagram. And I think I'm drawn to it as a platform because it is so effective at visually communicating between people. Or people are able to express themselves visually and then communicate with other people. And I also like that it doesn't impose in your life as much as committing to reading a whole book or something. Like an instantaneous connection, you know? Or like, you can communicate briefly. You can communicate a lot.
RC: The word "efficiently" I think has been the word that I've been using to describe your practice lately that we maybe settled on to describe kind of like this David Shrigley-esque approach to drawing where it is a quick communication of something people really feel deeply or that is ironic or really relevant.
CR: Yeah. I think if I boiled it down to a couple words, "efficiently" would be up there, "relatability" would be up there. "accessible."
RC: Do you want to talk more about the accessibility of it? 'Cause I find that's what people are curious about when I start talking about your work, like that's what they latch onto.
CR: I am interested in accessibility 'cause I grew up pretty poor and I want to... and I never felt like I could make art. My mom is an artist and we always made art out of whatever we could. We always had paint and we always would cut out cardboard and create our own things, you know? And art and being able to make stuff is magic and I think, you know, the places in... My interest always seem to be colliding and overlapping 'cause I love cooking and I think cooking is such an important facet of my art practice as well as just...you know, I like cooking and I like eating and sharing food and having dinner parties.
RC: I think that exchange is key in your work. See you post something and it's also the reactions that you get from it. What was the painting... your dick gets hard for plein air painting?
CR: Yeah.
RC: That gets reaction out of other artists on the internet obviously, right?
CR: I like making paintings saying and idea that I've been thinking but I'm sure other people have been thinking. I feel like the more I've shared, the more I understand that if I'm honest in sharing and being vulnerable and sharing an idea of mine, odds are someone out there who's also felt that or thought that or it resonates with them. And I think that just brings us a little closer together, and I think that that's so wonderful. When I read Keith Haring's diary, I feel connected to him because he was, you know, sharing, writing in a diary, he was writing his personal thoughts and I feel like if he was alive today, he would really like Instagram. He would kill it. He'd be like the king of Instagram. 'Cause I think he was about communicating and visually communicating and the power that artists have and capitalizing on people's attention has been... I'm also re-watching Mad Men and there have been generations of people who have used this power for evil because they had access to this power, but now that the playing field is levelled, we all have access to creating content and sharing content so easily. And I think we're just moving towards a situation where the best idea wins. I don't know why I think that, I guess I'm like an optimist. There's definitely toxic forces out there on the internet, it's not all pure happy, but I think with the more fake news there is, people are just going to have to become smarter and stronger and better at critical thinking and start questioning things that we haven't questioned for a long time. When I was re-listening to the episode with Emily Reimer, you guys were talking about medieval times.
RC: Mhm.
CR: And I thought that... I don't know anything about history, like very little. Actually, I've been watching this YouTube series called Crash Course, and it's basically like grade school level history classes. But I had never cared about history before. But now, from learning more about history, it's so obvious that we've been looping and cycling the same ideas and the same systems of oppression forever. And I think the more that everybody is learning about it, the more accessible that information is, the smarter everybody's gonna get. And I think that even just making podcasts like this, you're adding to that, but also you're a part of that.
RC: Yeah I think artists are busy creating these structures 'cause there haven't been any in forever, right?
CR: Yeah. I think in the podcast you talked with Jonah about how queer artists always are making their own space to show queer art because those spaces don't already exist and carving out that space for that art to exist is... it's just happening on a different level now.
RC: Everything so much more accessible. Bless the internet for happening. It's being able to connect people from so far apart because we're able to connect from city to city to city. And you have these moments of connection and validation of yourself and your voice, right?
CR: The internet it's so incredible. I feel like I'm always learning more about it. But one thing that I have been listening to lately is another podcast called Dissect, and they dissect hip hop and rap albums.
RC: Sick.
CR: Song by song and just break it down and make that accessible, that information. And giving people a greater appreciation for music. But the season they're doing now is about Childish Gambino's album Because the Internet, which already an incredible album, but they start this season of the podcast just talking about the internet. And throughout history, from the beginning of time, people have always been trying to connect with each other and communicate. And, you know, our lives are so short, and before the printing press and before things like that, carving letters into stones, that gives a permanence and gives you access to the generations before and after you. And then the way ideas disseminated after the printing press was invented and Industrial Age, that was all nothing compared to what the internet is.
RC: Yeah.
CR: And now we're just reeling still about what this evening means, having everybody be connected. And I just think that it's so exciting, but it makes me think about the medieval times because I feel like we're in the medieval times of the post-internet age.
RC: For sure.
CR: Because we're all like, "We don't even know what's going on yet!" Obviously, people are thinking about the impacts that happening currently, but it's not going to be until later that we can look back and really see what was going on.
RC: I think about that all the time. Especially with art, I tried to put words to the art that's being made around me or a trend that I see, and I'm like, "Okay. I can totally answer this question in 10 years."
CR: Totally. It's really exciting. I think about the hive mind of YouTube and how people are more divided than ever. But if you can take the time to explain something to someone and connect with them... Like the situation where people are sharing knowledge and figuring stuff out and being responsive and having a conversation with the internet, with audience members, you know? I feel like these conversations that you have feel like conversate I could also be a part of or I am a part of them because I'm able to listen to them. I post on the internet just because when I was in school I liked showing people my art and have them talk to me about it and posting on the internet's very similar to that. You don't get as much feedback as I used to in school but... I just want to share what I'm working on because I think it's pretty good and I don't think it's so precious that going to have to hold on to it, hold it secret until I show it in a gallery. I make it and I want to show you it right away, and there's no time to doubt myself. I value that connection with other artists on the internet and I just want to share. I feel like being a permasharer is what I imagine most artists are.
RC: Yeah. For sure. But your work has existed in a gallery a whole bunch of times. Your paintings were in like, Susan Hobbs and shit. I feel like the stuff that you're making fits so well in these gallery spaces and are speaking to artists and the people that consume art.
CR: Yeah, I think there's certain aspects of the work I do that really shine when you see them in real life. So I think showing them and spaces where people can see them in real life or IRL it's still important to me but if it was the only reason I was making art then I would stop making art because I can't force myself to justify all the our time making so that it has to exist in this elite space. Because I don't think that it all needs to be in that space. I think it... sometimes you just need to see it, read it, and then look away and if you didn't have to go all the way to a gallery to do that then that's... And then it will also be able to reach more people because it doesn't just have to be in a gallery.
RC: I guess one of the things I wanted to talk to you about was this inside-outside thing, because both of us kind of have deviant practices that exist on the Internet or through street art and all those things. But also like want to be in gallery spaces and in conversation with other artists and, you know... obviously talking and writing about each other's work is only going to make us grow. So I'm not going full anti-institution here, [laughs] but I was wondering if you wanted to talk a bit about your thoughts and feelings as to how you fit into the art world or your practice or the things that you've observed like being a person in Toronto making for a few years and then your experiences in Guelph as well.
CR: I think making art in school was the ideal situation because of all the support and feedback and access to space and facilities. It was everything. Leaving that leaving the community that we built together was a huge shock. And I heard from many people that the years after they leave undergrad are the most unproductive years. And it feels the worst probably because you're coming from this situation where you're creating so much and it's like your whole life, but then real life... I had to get, you know, a job and work 40 hours a week and I can't afford a studio in Toronto and I'm in a tiny apartment. Where do you even find the time to make that kind of work anymore? I couldn't. I didn't have a studio so I had to pivot and start making art that was physically smaller or drawings, digital drawings on my iPad which don't take up any space at all because you don't even need paper. You don't even need to go buy paper or pencils or whatever, you're just making. And then the turnaround so quick and the colour selection is incredible. Big fan of digital drawing. No wrong answers. You can make the ugliest painting and you don't even have to feel bad about it because it's not wasting a canvas or whatever.
RC: True.
CR: My practice now... I have a little bit of room now and I'm able to be painting and it's pretty crazy in there, lots of stuff. It's like a storage room. But when I'm not making, when I'm not expressing myself through a creative outlet, then it's just like deep depression. So I don't know how to not keep making.
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RC: This week’s podcast recommendation is episode 27 of Broccoli Magazine’s podcast, Broccoli Talk, called Cannabis Equity in Canada, with Akwasi Owusu-Bempah. The episode description begins, “In North America, Canada is leading the way with federal cannabis legalization. Progressive laws are just the first step though. Crating an equitable system for Black and Indigenous communities harmed by cannabis prohibition will require deeper work. Listen to episode 27 of Broccoli Talk to find out more.
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RC: When I was naming this podcast I kept thinking about, like I'm in grad school, I feel like I'm in this ivory tower. It kind of bugs mean in this specific way because I both recognized and don't recognize boundaries around the art world. I was just wondering how you feel being someone that makes so outside like on the internet, graffiti and all those things. And also want to function within the gallery system and being a part of that conversation with other artists in that...not elite community but maybe like tight-knit circle of Canadian North American artists?
CR: When I think about making art for an audience, I'm not as concerned with that. I feel like if I'm posting online, the people who are going to like my work are going to find it and they can see it for what it is and they're going to appreciate it. And the people who see my work in a gallery and appreciate it in a gallery are the same people it's just a different avenue of getting that person's eyes on what I'm doing. I don't see it has so much as a different thing, just a different route to the same place.
RC: Yeah, yeah. Like people engaging with your art.
CR: But I don't value a gallery visitors eyes over someone who sees my work on the internet. I think that would be short-sighted.
RC: Yeah.
CR: I think actually COVID really, especially at the beginning where everything just changed to online exhibitions and online music and online connections, we're forced to value those connections as equally valid as an in-person interaction and I think like the things that we do lose from hanging out with our close friends and being in close proximity are obviously affected, but my interaction with a stranger is not really affected. In fact, it might even be a little safer cannot see them in real life sometimes.
RC: For sure.
CR: And I think that's so great, you know? That people are adapting to different ways of communicating like through videos... Lecture videos or like for school, for a class or whatever. We know what it means to be effective at communicating and it seems like it's a long time coming that these things are utilized. Like, why can't all University lectures be produced as Contrapoints' videos on YouTube, you know?
RC: Mhm.
CR: I want my content to be that dense all the time! I want to be able to watch it, you know, 10 times and still be learning something on the 10th time I'm watching it. There's so much going on in those videos. And that's what I want, you know? I think that in TV and film, weave been doing that, you know, especially in animated shows where you're not even bound by the limits of a live-action cast or whatever. Bojack Horseman, I think they described it once, the creators described it as just trying to pack as many jokes in as possible, like visual or ponds or, you know, whatever. And I just feel inspired by that because why not... We have control of every aspect. In art school they teach you that. Every action you make is important and you should be making those choices for good reasons. And it just makes sense that we're trying to be as effective and efficient in our communication as possible, like using emojis to express a feeling. More like feelings being communicated between people true memes. We didn't have a language to do that other than a visual language. Just that people are communicating their feelings to people that they don't know and being connected and seeing something and being like, "Oh, that's relatable." "Oh, that's putting into words how I'm feeling." That's so powerful. You're connecting people on an emotional level and I don't even think people are wise to it as much as they could be. I think abstract expressionism or whatever, painting, you're communicating a feeling but we can do that through so many different things now.
RC: Yeah. We have so many tools at our disposal and the accessibility of meme making, the way that has changed... Do you remember when you used to have to save reaction GIFs and your computer and phone? And now there's a keyboard for it.
CR: Totally.
RC: That changed my life, [laughs].
CR: Our vocabulary is just so huge now.
RC: Mhm.
CR: We can also, instead of just saying something, we can also reply a GIF and then it's even more loaded as a reply or whatever.
RC: Yeah.
CR: There's just a richness that we can access now.
RC: Oh yeah. Going back to what you were saying about online stuff and the ability to communicate now and thinking about schools and classes... I can't remember if we did this right at the beginning of the quarantine or a few months in, but Cloudy's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was just such a great way of you making with your friends. Do you want to outline that project? Because I think it summarizes everything that you said, [laughs].
CR: Well I've been making art in quarantine, and I feel like a lot of the times I'm kind of drawing from props that I received when I was in university. And I'm thinking about just being in university and having someone to ask you to think a certain way or challenging you to solve the problem creatively. And it's so easy to be that teacher, you know? You're prompting people to be creative. The Cloudy Art School of Witchcraft and Wizardry it's kind of like a... I want to put prompts out there. And as a teacher, I'm not a real teacher so it doesn't really matter if you don't do your homework assignment on time. But if anything, I just want you to think about the prompt and even just think about doing it. If anything turns in someone else's brain or something else clicks or someone's inspired by it and then they move on into their own direction with that, then what I've done is just pushed a little bit for someone to get their on their own. I want to inspire people to feel like they have the agency to make their own work because they do. It doesn't have to be the best drawing. It doesn't have to be the most beautiful thing or whatever. For me, I know that making is very important and helpful and a kind of therapy. And it doesn't have to be high stakes. I really love blind contour drawings. So an exercise that I was taught, probably by my mom but I remember we did it in school. I used to do it in high school with my friends where I would just get people who are not artists to draw, to look and to do this drawing exercise that if you never take an art class you'll probably never do it.
RC: Mhm.
CR: But it's such a good exercise because it totally it's a different way of thinking about something.
RC: Yeah.
CR: And so one of the Cloudy Art School assignments was doing a Zoom call and then trying the squares of the different people that, you know, the group chat, and doing a blind contour drawing of each person in each frame.
RC: [Laughs].
CR: And it's just like... It's such a loaded thing because there's so much going on in that. We're in COVID, we're doing video calls like we've never done them before and we're just desperately trying to connect each other. But then also making together and sharing with each other. I just think that we have to just make do. The world is different and it's never going to go back to normal. We have to adapt and artists are the best at that. So the creative solutions are going to come from them. And who I think of as an artist is like... it could be anybody, you know? Creative problem solving. So many people do that all the time. Like I don't need to go to school and get a degree to be calling myself an artist. That is so stupid.
RC: Yeah. I think maybe that's why it feels so weird about being in my masters, 'cause I'm like, I'm not actually invested in the idea of having a piece of paper to legitimize yourself. And I think that anybody can curate or write or make art or do whatever the fuck they want to do without any schooling. And obviously going and having four or two years to talk about something is great, but you can do that in your community with your friends.
CR: Yeah, I mean I think school's definitely like a great ecosystem to foster those kinds of ideas, but not for everybody, you know? Having school debt and thinking about that debt while you're in school I'm sure it's a huge hindrance to creativity, you know?
RC: Yeah. Fuck.
CR: I mean, Toronto particularly but all over the world, unless you have financial privilege, so much as not accessible if you didn't go to school.
RC: Oh yeah.
CR: And that's a huge privilege on its own.
RC: Yeah I think maybe school is a privilege but learning shouldn't be. Like, you shouldn't have to go to school to learn about the world around you or learn how you want to contribute to it, you know? I think that's a silly barrier that's in place right now.
CR: Totally. You shouldn't have to go to university to learn critical thinking.
RC: [Laughs].
CR: I mean, everybody is trying to manipulate you through the media and if you're consuming that content without questioning it, you're just a target for being lied to, you know? And I always think about...kinda going back to medieval ideas, things that we used to think were true are very much not true, you know? So why are we so sure that we got it right this time?
RC: Yeah, yeah. I get that. I think at OCAD they've rejected, most people have rejected the idea of being an authority. So whenever I'm writing, I never write as an authority. But reading...oh my god, I don't know. Like Foucault or Marx, like any of the men who wrote a while ago. They are so fucking sure of themselves. I'm like, "Who writes like this?" Like they're the one authority and they know everything and there's no way you can prove them wrong.
CR: Yeah. I feel like I can definitely empathize almost with that where I'm like sure and thanks I believe in.
RC: Yeah.
CR: But I also am conscious of questioning that and why I believe that. And I need good reasons to believe the things I believe.
RC: Mhm. And things change.
CR: Yeah. If you can't learn and grow and change your ideas, then you're just stuck. When you're growing up, I think there's this misconception that adults know what's true and what's right. And like, as a kid, I'm sure there are a lot of things that an adult does know is true and right like safety things and whatever. But the idea that someone grows up and stopped learning or knows enough is such a flawed way of living your life.
RC: Yeah.
CR: Like if you're not open to having conversations nations that challenge you, you're closing yourself off too so much. Oh, I wanted to say something regarding something we were talking about earlier which is that if someone looks at my art and thinks, "Oh, my kid could do that." Or, "Oh, I could do that." I just want that person to feel like they can do that and they should do that if they want to. I want you to think, "Oh, if that person's doing it and they're successful at it, then I too can do that." I guess also I should say what successful means to me is just... Like its successful if it's reaching someone and resonating with them.
RC: Mmm.
CR: And that's a connection that I have is an artist with someone else as a viewer. And I don't think that's unique to art. Texting is like that. You're talking to someone, you're having a conversation, you're communicating. My art is just a visual manifestation of that.
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RC: Thanks for listening to Hopping the Fence, a podcast dedicated to the fringes of the Canadian art scene. If you would like to support this podcast and help me avoid burnout, please visit our Patreon to subscribe. Check out the show notes for more details. If you can’t donate, no worries. Thanks for taking the time to listen. If you have an artist that you would like to hear interviewed, would like to fact check / correct a past episode, or would just like to chat, feel free to send me a message on Instagram @hoppingthefence, or by email at rebeccaecasalino@gmail.com. Original artwork for Hopping the Fence by Alex Gregory, original music by Jessica Price Eisner. Thank you so much, bye!
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