Interview date: April 2005
Interviewed by Ka-Man Tse
LMCC: How has this studio spce and this specific
area of Manhattan influenced your work?
Traci: Working here feels like coming to work everyday,
which in Williamsburg, you’re getting your coffee and bagel and
going to your studio where it’s just a bunch of other artists and
designers working and it’s great, it’s an artist community. But
here [at LMCC in the Equitable Building], every type of person is coming
to work. So when I’m here for eight hours, it’s really
energizing. I think I prefer to work in an environment that isn’t
just a standard artist community or an artsy neighborhood. Cause… I
like knowing the security guards. I like that they’re really intrigued
that you’re the artist coming to work. They’ll say, “Oh
you guys are all so friendly and talk to us and all this stuff!” and
it’s like what are you talking about? I see you every day. I
know you Francois, I know you, Gregory! Everybody’s really
nice and I love flashing my badge. I’ve got a badge! I’m
coming to work! This is serious. This isn’t play
time. So
for me it’s interesting to think about my own issues with being
an artist and having a work ethic and needing to feel like I’m
working hard and I’m working towards something. And then
being in this environment where the context is, work.
Everyone’s going to work. Nobody hangs out down here! Nobody’s
coming in to eat dinner and just sit on the sidewalk or a courtyard,
or just do a little poetry reading. People come down here to work
and that’s it, and it never stops, and I’m actually going
to really miss that.
LMCC: The studio space…working amongst other
artists
Traci: It sort of encourages messiness or just openness. Just
look around, the walls don’t go to the ceiling. The floor
is trashed. There’s three years of charcoal on the floor. It’s
seems a point to make a mess. I like thinking about how this
used to be a mailroom. People actually worked in here sorting
mail for some big financial giant. Now there’s people building
forts and making monsters and cutting paper and soundproofing boxes
and drawing bears. It’s great! It’s great! I
don’t know how many people from the building come to the Open
Studios, but I’m hoping a lot of them do, because I think it
would be interesting to see that people, a couple of floors above you,
have been working day and night making this really distinctive and
divergent thing. We’re sharing this one space, but everyone’s
working in such different directions.
LMCC:What is your process? How do you work?
Traci: [In terms of my studio practice,] I just do
whatever I want, whenever I want to. Not in my personal life exactly,
but in my studio. Ideas just happen and lead to another idea. I
was telling you about those amputee drawings, [what happened was] I was
listening to Air America during the summer before the election and at
the same time getting all these JCrew catalogs in the mail that I didn’t
want. I was angry about the obviousness of the war, angry about
the way people should be thinking about the direction the country was
moving in, and how nobody wanted to talk about the war. Leafing
through these catalogs with overly happy, rich, mostly white people in
leisure clothes… the level of leisure was just so offensive to
me, this garden party. So I just started chopping their limbs
off.
LMCC: Yes, these Seersucker suits and pre-faded
polo shirts…
Traci: And hip looking older couples not wearing
shoes holding hands, people playing tennis. Great Gatsby sort of attire. So
I made Zombie Tennis, with people playing with bones instead. I
just found that level of leisure considering what is going on in the
rest of the world, pretty fantastically absurd and offensive. So
I just started chopping their limbs. It was this curious image
that I had to play out for a while. And so I made six or seven
of those drawings and moved on. I look at advertising a
lot. Here’s another amputee garden party. I love
the imagery of advertising and playing with it and taking ads and just
changing an element. It is really standard practice, and it’s
not inventive but it’s good for brainstorming and getting your
wheels turning and letting those ideas play out.
One idea just sort of leads into another. Then other ideas that
having nothing to do with each other except for the fact that I thought
of them, and that doesn’t really bother me at all. I like
having a studio practice that is so open that, if I’m getting really
obsessed with Yankee baseball and I start thinking about crowds and thinking
about stadiums, people holding up little cards that spell out anything
from “Watch ABC News.” I playing with those ideas and start
inserting my own stuff. I’m getting into baseball and
I’m listening to it on the radio all of the time, and my mind will
turn to ideas like this, BLAH BLAH BLAH, like seeing those rows of flags
up on the UN and seeing just rows of gray meaningless things that don’t
have to do with country or commitment, they are just neutral and apathetic,
thus the “BLAH BLAH BLAHS.”
I don’t really fret about how the ideas connect because I have
the confidence that they all connect, with the fact that it’s things
I’m interested in, things I’m intrigued by and things I want
to pursue. So drawings lead to performances and performance
turn into drawings. Experiments turn into performances, which turn
into videos or back into drawings and paintings, and everything eventually
feeds on itself. Ideas are on hold for two years and then pop
back up in some other weird context or circumstance.
LMCC: What are some goal/plans, what are you trying
to achieve?
Traci: I just want to stay excited about what I’m
doing, to never feel like I’m forcing myself to finish something
that I’m not that interested in but I feel that is important. If
I stay joyful and curious and at ease with my studio practice, how
that fits in and how I interact with other people, my teaching practice
and the books that I read and the newspaper I read everyday, my relationship
with my family and friends. If it’s just a natural progression
of the other facets of my life, then the studio [my studio practice]
is going to be fine. Interesting things are going to happen. Just
keep on your feet. That’s mostly where the work comes from
and ends up. I really don’t know what I will be working
on in a year, and I like that.
[I don’t even know ] necessarily what will get finished. The
thing that I’m really excited about today could lead to something
completely different in three days. I hope it stays that way.
LMCC:How would you describe your style?
Traci: Free-form, no genre. I’m
definitely obsessed with the absurd, and hidden absurdities in everyday
life. Things that I think that are really obvious that
people do with a sort of casualness that is intriguing. [My style]
It’s definitely tongue in cheek, a lot of the time. My
video work that is self-referential or that I’m in, it’s
pretty self-deprecating. I’m just obsessed with the absurd
things people do and everybody does and I do, and looking at those
things playfully, but seriously at the same time. And having
that sort of balance between being able to talk about really tragic
or really serious things, tuned into that sense of absurdity so there’s
also the humor in it.
LMCC:How long do you work on something? When
do you know you’re done, or it’s complete?
Traci: When something’s finished, it sort
of played itself out. A lot of these projects have either a goal
or logical steps that have to happen. As long as those steps
are reached, then they’re done. With drawings, I normally
just do them in one sitting. I have an idea of what I want to
get across or how I want it to look and then I draw until I like it
and then I stop. But sometimes projects go on and on. There’s
been a project that I’ve been working on for two years. I’m
trying to reproduce my yearbook photos, my public school photos. From
kindergarten to my senior year in high school. Which I’ve
put on hold for now because it’s too labor intensive. I’m
painting the backdrops and making them large scale paintings, big canvases,
6 x 6 feet. These will be the backdrops and I’ll be sitting out
here in front. I’m remaking all the clothing as accurately
as possible. I’ll have the same hairstyles too, and try
to match the facial expression. I want to see how close I can
get. But it’s turning into this massive project that I’ve
been picking apart for two years.
I want them to be really interesting paintings. It’s really
hard for them to be both, and I’m not the most skilled painter
in the world, even though I teach painting. [laughs] It’s
easier said than done. This is an example is something where I
just don’t know if it’s ever going to be finished. This
is the project is doomed to fail. I’m not going to be able
to reproduce this exactly. My face has changed. Once all
the elements are done, I’m going to take all the photos and I’m
going keep all the elements and re-photograph every ten every 10 years
until I die. So there’ll be this record of me trying to re-enact
when I’m five at 30, at 40, at 50, at 60, and 70. So there’s
this absurd record of this ridiculous task. Just thinking about
aging and memory and blah blah blah. Really, I just want to see
if I can do it, and how close I’ll get.
If I just show you these photos you can see that I can kind of look
the same. Actually they’re right here…they’re
funny. This is 7th grade, with the bad perm, the bad grown-out
perm. I found a red sweater that is almost the exact same match
of this, and then the backdrop would be painted, and I would try to
match that look of a 7th grader who has not…
LMCC: Who has bright, bright eyes. That’s
the thing that adults can never mimic, that children just have: forward–looking
eyes.
Traci: Yes. There is one in here that
is so ridiculously ugly . If I could pull it off it would be
a coup de grace. This one. If I can pull that off….
LMCC: You look really stunned.
Traci: Yes. The photographer must’ve made
a joke and I went “huh?” No way would I have ever
made that kind of face on purpose. Now this one here is when
I’m ready for the picture.
LMCC: And you already look a lot older.
Traci: Yes, like you said, it’s hard for an
adult to do that. That’s part of the idea, knowing that
it’s doomed to fail. I can’t reproduce that feeling
of being seven and just getting out of recess and getting your picture
taken, and wearing your new shirt. But I want to try to. So
that will be that distance. That’s an example of something that
I don’t know if it will ever get finished, or if I will have
the space to do them. It was just this silly idea that has grown
into something that has all these complicated parts that is really
labor intensive. It’s going to take a lot of work to finish
and I like to do it all myself. So it’s started off simple
and silly enough, and then it’s progressed into this massive
thing.
LMCC: Tell us about your most recent piece. What
are your influences?
Traci: I guess a lot of the projects start
that way. I
started with this one picture of Don Zimmer and now it’s turned
into twenty, and recorded audio, the idea that just feeds on itself. I’m
totally into baseball and football. I just love sports but I
also understand how silly of an obsession it is. I love the idea
of crowds that are so passionate and into these little games. And
these personalities in these games being larger than life. And
thinking about the personalities within sports on the level of historical
figure, and just playing with that idea. I get a lot of inspiration
from sports, and everything that surrounds sports, sports writing,
radio commentators, and advertising. And I actually like older
Buster Keaton movies. If I could emulate one artist it would
be Buster Keaton. He’s such a blank slate. He puts
himself into these impossible situations that there’s no way
he can get out. The interesting part is watching how he
avoids disaster. But the whole time he’s completely non-plussed. So
you could completely project yourself into his dilemma.
In my videos I use myself exclusively. So rather than self-absorption
I would like it to be that kind of blank slate. It’s a universal
premise that anybody can project themselves, it’s not that Traci
is such a narcissist. If I could emulate anybody it would be Buster
Keaton or Willie Nelson. Because there’s a guy who has made
like 8 million records, the hardest working man in show business. And
makes it look so easy. He’s made so much work and so much
good work and taken his genre of music and pushed it so far. He
was one of the original western rebels, grown a beard and having braids
stuff that was unheard of in this country. He’s just a pothead
who hangs out and makes music with his friends. But he’s
an intensely dedicated artist. There’s a progression in his
work that is really admirable. You have to respect that, but at
the same time, he’s just doing what he does. I would love
to have that level of natural progression of ideas in my own studio practice. So
yeah, if I could emulate any two artists it would be Buster Keaton and
Willie Nelson. I do also listen to a lot of Willie Nelson.
LMCC: And Elvis, right?
Traci: Yeah, but I’ve got no beef with of Willie
Nelson. There’s no criticism for that man. He’s
an intensely complicated individual but there’s no critique of
him. Whereas with Elvis it’s a little more complicated. This
man becomes a caricature of himself in a way becomes this cartoon character. Here’s
this man who… you can argue how talented he was or how innovative
he was in music but somehow the entire world got behind him, and his
group of people, his Memphis Mafia got behind him and encouraged everything
he ever wanted to do. So here’s this Michael
Jackson scenario where your eccentricity, whether it is healthy or
unhealthy, is totally encouraged. He to me is this a metaphor
for a certain aspect of American experience and the contradictions
and the hypocrisies in that. He’s Elevated to the level
of saint but he’s really just poor white trash. Co-opting
black music and all that stuff. You can argue about whether he’s
evil or the greatest thing in the world. I like it on that level,
the hypocrisy level. And also I sincerely like his music. Just
as a phenomenon it’s pretty intense. I’ve never used
Elvis in a piece ever. It’s pretty loaded.
LMCC: What kind of music do you listen to?
Traci: I’m always listening to music in my studio. I
listen to a lot of Elivs, Willie Nelson, the Kinks, the Clash. I’ll
listen to anything. I love Nina Simone. It depends on my
mood. Fugazi. Dudley Perkins, Stones Throw Records. ….
Mr. Blue Sky, that’s the song I’ve been listening to over
and over again.
LMCC: Oddest job?
Traci: Once, I had to dress up as a loaf of bread. I
worked at this grocery store that was this local little campus grocery
store in a residential neighborhood. Wonderbread had loaned this
outfit to advertise this big sale on bread. And so we had this
outfit for three days and then it would go another grocery store. So
I was the one to do it, because I was the only one who could fit into
it. So I was had to be this loaf of Wonderbread, and if I had
been into video at that time I would’ve videotaped that. [laughs]
LMCC: How do you personally get rid of the hiccups?
Traci: You’ve gotta have somebody say hippopotamus.
LMCC: Ok.
Traci: No that’s when you’re about to
sneeze and you have somebody say hippopotamus.
LMCC: Traci, you almost totally misinformed the
general public. [laughs] They’re going to be logging on to this
website…
Traci: No, actually. A spoonful of sugar. It’s
the only way and that was my granddad’s. He had another
trick to get rid of the hiccups. It’s where you have to
put your fingers in your ears and then drink a glass of water upside
down like this, but that takes two people because someone has to hold
the glass. It never really made sense to me, I think it was just
to distract you to the point where you forgot about the hiccups. But
the spoonful of sugar always works.
