Weird Deer

The following is the second part of a conversation between artist Melissa Scherrer and curator Katie Geha. Buddhism, contact lenses, and trees all figure prominently. Part 1 appeared last week.

Katie: I think there’s this interesting tension between the natural, the artificial, and the supernatural in your photos—whether it’s a nude or a picture of a stream or trash on the ground. And I think the artificial in many ways might come from the miming practice—the sense that many of your photos feel set-up and not, say, like loose street photography, like Nan Goldin or Ryan McGinley. Do you spend a lot of time setting a photo up?

Melissa: Maybe like 5 minutes tops. I like to keep it in the moment as much as possible. I’m not very patient with set-ups and lighting and all that.

Katie: When you’re out and about do you know you’ll be photographing or do you just have your camera handy?

Melissa: Lately I keep it handy whenever I leave New York. It is very difficult, has been very difficult for me to take pictures in the city…but the minute I leave it all comes back. I always bring my camera with me when I leave the city.

Katie: Since your move to New York you seem, to me at least, to be branching out into a lot of different media—drawing, painting, and music. Were you always working this way in this media? Or did moving to NYC prompt you to explore?

Melissa: I have always been working in different media. But the one thing New York has prompted me to do is be more musical. The music scene is very positive, it is easy to get a gig or a show…the art world here is just the opposite. It feels impossible to get a show. I guess you could call it quality control…depending on if you trust the ones controlling the quality.

Katie: So the other work being shown in NYC affects your practice?

Melissa: Yep. It can be stifling to have so much other well-crafted art around. It makes you feel like “Why should I make art? There already is so much, and it is so good, and people work so much harder than me.”

Katie: But you don’t feel that way about music too?

Melissa: I do, but it feels okay to not be a genius, and you can improv.

Katie: Okay, so how is writing music feel different than taking a photo or making a drawing? Is there an element of improv that doesn’t exist in the latter?

Melissa: If you get a show, you can make it all up on the spot. With a drawing, you really got to have the goods upfront. I had this ex-boyfriend who was an excellent artist, but could only make drawings or whatever on the spot. If he had to prepare for something he would choke.

Katie: So there’s more preparation in your photos and drawings?

Melissa: Well, I don’t know, there is just a heightened element of chance with music performance.

Katie: Your photographs always seem incredibly tightly composed, whereas your paintings and drawings are much looser. Do you have a similar approach to both mediums or are you feeling/thinking different things when working with each?

Melissa: I am so all over the place. Right now I am making these really tightly detailed graphite drawings of trees.

Katie: Right.

Melissa: I just like making things. If I don’t make something—whether it is music, a drawing, or a photo for like a week, I literally have a mental break down

Katie: And then you make something?

Melissa: I had one two nights ago, so I drew all the next day.

Katie: Wow. That sounds exhausting and painful.

Melissa: But you are like that, no? You need a cause?

Katie: Sure, definitely. I have to be researching and thinking or else I just . . .turn into a blob who watches “America’s Next Top Model” which, you know, depresses the hell out of me.

Melissa: It’s part of being in a capitalist society (maybe this sounds cheesy) but you always feel like you have to be making something, to feel good about yourself. Being productive.

Katie: Yes, productivity! So does making art make you feel good?

Melissa: It makes me feel better.

Katie: Or does it create more anxiety?

Melissa: Funny question because it’s like the more art you make the more art people want to see you make, and then if you don’t make art, you feel like you’ve let people down.

Katie: Do you want to tell me about the tree project? Why trees?

Melissa: Lately I have been very interested in Buddhism, which is all about clearing the mind, emptying out, and I am trying to figure out how that works with an art practice. Making a really detailed drawing is extremely meditative—like an Agnes Martin line painting

Katie: That makes sense.

Melissa: You can’t speed it up. You just sit there and draw line after line, detail after detail.

Katie: And zone out?

Melissa: It’s teaching me to practice patience.

Katie: So art as therapy or religious heightening?

Melissa: Totally zone out, but have this thing that keeps bringing you back to the present moment.

Katie: So it’s also performative?

Melissa: Maybe spiritual heightening…I wouldn’t say religious. But sometimes it makes me feel like that (spiritual) and sometimes it drives me crazy. Maybe it is performative, but more for myself than others. Maybe I am becoming an old lady artist.

Katie: What does that mean? Someone who sits in her room and makes art for herself? With lots of cats?

Melissa: Tree drawings and watercolors for enjoyment. I do have a cat.

Katie: There’s something nostalgic about your drawings, I can’t put my finger on it.

Melissa: But no, there is a conceptual element to these drawings.

Katie: Okay, what’s the concept?

Melissa: Well they are like old documents of neighborhoods, from the 1800′s.

Katie: Ah, of course—so you’re working in a particular style from the 1800’s?

Melissa: Not 100% intentionally. But I do want them to serve as documents.
But more than just a photo documentation, something with some love attached.

Katie: Love because you’re spiritually invested in the process of drawing a tree that is in Greenpoint, Brooklyn? How special for that tree!

Melissa: Yes that, and that these trees are growing in one of the most polluted neighborhoods in the country.

Katie: I was wondering about that. You’re always drawing plants or trees, why is that? Are you an environmentalist?

Melissa: I did work at a plant store once. But no, I am not an active environmentalist. I am an environmentalenthusiast.

Katie: I see!

Melissa: he he.

Katie: Okay, I have one more question. It’s kind of dorky

Melissa: Go for it

Katie: Lately I have been wearing my glasses all the time since my contacts haven’t felt comfortable. The frames of my glasses frame the world in a way that my contacts do not. Are you always looking and seeing a picture?

Melissa: It depends if I am in the “zone” or not. The zone of looking; which is a great head space to be in because it really keeps you in the present. Do you feel more in the present when you wear your glasses?

Katie: Yes, I do in fact.

Melissa: Now that’s interesting.