Interview with Karen Halt
I met the artist, Karen Halt at SOFA Chicago when she came by the Studio Art Quilt Associates table. We initially discussed how she constructed her works and her desires to create a different feeling in her works by varying the materials used and the methods for display. Subsequently, I learned that Karen may just be the least technically-savvy person I know. In doing my research I never found a Web site for Karen. This was not a mistake, she eschews the Web, e-mail and, until very recently, computers. A new embroidery-equipped sewing machine has enticed her to join the digital age.
Karen Halt, Bathing in the Waters of the Ark
[/caption]I2: Where were you born?
Halt: I was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1946 and I lived there until I was 30 years old. So, I was born and raised on the west side of Cleveland.
I2: Do you miss it?
Halt: It was gut-wrenching to move away from the only place I had ever known. We moved to Wisconsin for my husband work and the first two years were terrible. But, at this point, no, I don’t miss it. This [Wisconsin] is home…it’s grown to be just as rooted in my heart and my soul.
I2: What was it like to grow up in Cleveland, what did you miss at first?
Halt: Having a whole life in place. Not just family, friends, church and social connections. Just having roots clipped like that; I guess I’m a nester. I’m not an adventurous person when it comes to exploring geography. It was difficult building a whole new life.
I2: Why are you an artist?
Halt: It sounds like such a simple question. I don’t know what it is to live outside that [artistic] mindset of ideas. (Giggling) I think I’m mostly, and firstly, an idea person – somebody whose mind, as early as I can remember, is filled with ideas that you want to materialize in one way or another. I think the ability [for me] to express these ideas just happens to be primarily through paint or textiles.
I2: Did your family support you in your choice to become a professional artist?
Halt: When you talk about becoming a professional artist that hints at becoming an adult, someone who would have to sustain themselves economically. My mother really feels very bad about all my “growing up” years. Just constantly saying, “But, I didn’t understand her. I didn’t know why she was upstairs in her bedroom all those hours working on projects.” She never discouraged it. I think the biggest influence for me in progressing me along during my school years was that I had the most incredible teachers. I would consistently get art teachers that would not make you do the class projects but somehow picked up on your enthusiasm and your ideas and let you go ahead [and do your own thing] and grade you on those. Getting teacher, after teacher, after teacher like that- I think the odds are just way out there that, that would ever happen. But that is what happened to me. I don’t do real well with structure and completing deadlines and assignments like that. My whole motivation is for the next idea that has started pushing its way to the forefront of my mind.
I2: With all this support, did you continue your schooling in art or design?
Halt: (Laughing) No, not at all. I couldn’t imagine what I would do as far as pursuing a career. I think I probably didn’t feel confident in any one area or focused enough in any one area. Back in the 60’s, when I graduated from high school, I think most young women still thought of what was pretty much safe and reliable: secretarial work- well, that definitely would not suite me, teaching or nursing. I went into nursing and then really wanted to drop out after the first year. My mother convinced me that, considering my love for psychology and why people do what they do, I should wait a year and finish my psych internship. So I did, and it was a good thing because that really was the only area of nursing that interested me. And so I ended up with a degree in nursing and worked – for only a year- in a state psychiatric hospital in Cleveland.
I also got married the same year I graduated from college and was pregnant shortly after I got married. That ended my psychiatric career. What do you do when the baby naps? I’m not into daytime TV, not a TV watcher, not a joiner of groups. It was the first time when I wasn’t going to school, college or working that I actually had time and decided what I was going to do. I started back into various art projects and started doing flea markets with hand-painted trunks. People kept saying, “This is great but what are you doing here?” This was kind of the beginning of when art fairs were growing. I only did the flea markets for about a year and then I started doing art shows. I progressed from painting on barn wood and slate and trunks to framed pieces. I responded to people’s response to my work. They are the ones who said “We see more here, try this.” It’s like, you know, you follow the path as it unfolded but you never had more than a foot or two unfold in front of you. It has worked for me.
I2: What was really the jump that took you from painting on trunks or distressed wood to the kind of art work you have been doing for the past few years?
Halt: There are a couple of things, really. When I moved from the distressed wood and the trunks and that kind of thing, into a more traditional framed painting kind of format, I was doing legitimate wildlife work. That was the path I found.
Karen Halt, 3 Sisters
[/caption]I was still on that path when we moved from Cleveland to Wisconsin. I connected with a gallery here that zeroed in on wildlife art. There was a man who discovered me in that gallery who had an executive clientele with collections of wildlife art. I mean, I came here, to Wisconsin, with a studio full of wildlife paintings. He emptied out the studio and came with the money- which was amazing to me. But then, when he had sold everything I had, I found myself in a position of now having to paint for his market. I found the [commission] checks were piling up on my dresser. I had no idea that I did not care that much about money. I thought money was a motivator, it seemed like it was. I thought I enjoyed money way more than I actually did.
Once I had to start painting for his “prescription,” so to speak, for his clients, I was dying. I was dying. I hated going into the studio. I thought, “I can not paint one more mallard, flying north…flying south…sitting on a rock. I can’t do it. And it doesn’t matter how much anybody is going to pay me.” That was terrifying, I thought, “What does this mean?” I was just dying inside. I thought, “Maybe I needed to go back to nursing. What am I going to do?”
A friend picked up on my dilemma and asked me if I would mind doing a few paintings for some poetry she had written. That’s kind of when I set all the animals free. They left the fields. They left the trees. They entered your front door, your windows, sat on your bed, sat on your couch, drank from your dishes. I was still able to do the animals and the birds that I just loved so much and was so taken by their beauty and their textures. I was able to reformulate the whole approach. [Until then] I truly thought I might not ever paint again. And so [I] had to dye… the truth of that saying about dying before, you know, you can really be born again. Artistically, that did happen for me.
I had already played with textiles. I had sewn for dolls and myself and my kids. I have always done that. When we moved here to Wisconsin, I had a wonderful next-door neighbor-very creative and artistic- and we joined forces. Within five years of moving here we opened up a wearable art business. We were doing one-of-a-kind clothing. We did it for two years. I was the one who was having problems with it because it really took me away from my paintings. It was difficult to run a business like that and continue with the painting, so I let go of that.
This sculptural form of the textiles came out of wanting to find a way that I could build my own little models that would eventually be lit and photographed and then used in my paintings. They kind of took on a life of their own and became marketable entities. And, once again – I am just realized as I am talking to you here – that the same thing has happened over the last four years. I’ve felt that they [the sculptural textiles] have been successful enough to take me away from the paintings again. I am at a point this year trying to rethink how I approach the textiles and looking more toward something closer to an art quilt approach. If not exactly an art quilt- but an approach that allows me to use easier processes, I guess.
I2: Are you saying you are looking for something that will allow you to incorporate painting as a larger factor in the textile art work?
Halt: No, because they currently have paintings and drawings on them. I’m trying to sort out the waxing part of it. It has some limitations. Say you want to be with a gallery in New Mexico. These have to be carefully packed and shipped. There are just some physical things that are difficult to deal with.
I2: Just the fact that you are shipping it on a warm day could affect its integrity.
Halt: Exactly. Yes. They’ve succeeded at SOFA in November very well but there are several factors that have allowed that to be. One of them is the fact that SOFA is in November [in Chicago]. I’m looking for [a process] that doesn’t have some of these limitations on it. I’m not saying that I will stop doing the waxed pieces, but I think the ideas, the themes, some of the things that I want to say with those pieces, are things that can be translated into pieces that can be rolled up and shipped.
I2: About how many works of art do you produce in a year?
Halt: I’ll use the last 4 years as an example since they included both textiles and paintings. I average 6-7 textile pieces and 4 or 5 paintings in a year. When I’m doing only paintings they average 3-4 weeks each.
I2: On a day to day basis, what motivates or inspires you when things get a little staid in your studio?
Halt: I definitely go through highs and lows. There are days when you know you need to go in there and then there are days when you really want to go in there. That’s more of a personality demon kind of thing that you’re battling, more than an artistic thing.
I2: So, how do you deal with that?
Halt: I stay open – I stay open ended. I do spiritual work with myself. I meditate. I know that today is today, and tomorrow things can be completely different. I have learned your best weapon is something like that. People think very stereotypically about artists. They think we go in the studio every day and, wow, isn’t that great. They think of working in the studio as a pleasant pastime that they might do in their off hours. But when you consider it your life, and the direction of your life, all the things that come into play in a regular job are there. All your personality flaws come into play just as much.
I2: Does your art reflect your life philosophy?
Halt: Yes, it really does, I believe that what you see is not all that there is. I don’t know if I can express it very well… bridging that gap between what is natural and what is civilized. Are we going to make room in our lives for each other? Those decisions, those heavy decisions, are made on the human end. If you can portray that bird or that animal in a way that gets somebody to see it anew, you might just make a little bit of an inroad. You are not going to love what you really don’t know. And so, for us to come out of our glass enclosures and really reconnect- that’s the only chance that all of the natural world is going to have, including us. If we are going to survive together we need to come out of our glass. It’s like I wrote for an article in Fiberarts: we need “their feathers and fur to soften the hard edges of our dwelling places and our fact-filled lives.”
I2: What are your aesthetic ideals?
Halt: My ideal would be to blow you away with the beauty of the work long enough for you to suspend your idea of reality. Because, I don’t paint reality. To produce a beautiful painting, as best I can, and then to, perhaps by the way I have set the painting up, get you to see reality in a different way.
I2: Do you think you have a good bead on the fiber art market today?
Halt: No. [Laughing] I really don’t. I kind of work in isolation. I don’t belong to a group or anything like that. I only have a very narrow feedback on the response to my own work.
I2: Is Portals the only gallery representing your work?
Halt: Yes. In fact, it takes me all year to get up enough work for that one SOFA show. I would like to expand. I’m not sure how I would do it, physically. I do have an assistant who helps me when it comes time to do the waxing. I’m only one person. Some media just lend themselves to multiples very well. I’m not there.
I2: Could you talk about your latest series of paintings and what you are trying to achieve with them?
Halt: Actually, I don’t work in a series, if you look at my work over the last 5 years you might see a common thread. I would love to work in a series but, my temperament, emotionally I am not suited to it. The ideas for series are there and I only do one work. Maybe two years later, I go back and do a piece that elaborates on the original idea.
I2: Do you treat creating your art like a job, walking into the studio each day at a particular time?
Halt: Yes, yes.
I2: Do you have to do other jobs to earn enough money to live?
Halt: Very fortunately, I have a husband who feeds, clothes and houses me. And that is not derogatory in any way. I am eternally grateful. He is my partner and also my best patron, if just for the fact that he has never asked me to justify the time I spend in the studio. I would not have the freedom…I would still be doing work…I don’t know how to say this. I am not putting anybody’s past down, but I would still be in the studio doing work that was commercially successful if it weren’t for his open-endedness. He’s given me the ability to find those new directions without worrying about money.
I2: Is there any major change in your life you always wish for but feel you can’t attain?
Halt: Yeah, I guess that if I could wish for one thing, it would be that the work, the thoughts and the actual manifestation of the work, would flow more smoothly.
I2: In previous discussions we have talked about how you are really just entering into the digital world, having just gotten your first computer to use with your computerized embroidery machine. You don’t have e-mail, no Web presence of your own, you don’t go on the Internet. Considering you work in isolation, what do you feel are the challenges you are facing because of your level of technical adoption?
Halt: I have to admit the fact that Portals Web site is very well done and is definitely an asset. I have benefited by the fact that they have my work on their Web site.
This benefit, the fact that they do it for me, has allowed me to remain without much of the technical experience. I do intend, eventually, to get the Internet here at the house. I want to do more with printing directly on the fabric: I’m on the path. Yes, it is limiting if I need to go on the Internet, either my husband does it at work or I have friends who will do that for me. It’s just a matter of time before we get the Internet here at the house. Up to this point it’s been just a small inconvenience. I hate having to make time in my thoughts, in my day, in my processes, for what seems like such a huge learning curve for me. I guess I’m not very machine or technically oriented and so it is a bigger challenge for me.
I2: I feel that same way when I get a new software program or upgrade an existing program. “Oh no, it’s going to take me years to get up to speed on this.”
Halt: [Laughing] It makes me feel good to hear that! I’ve never had time being devoured the way it can being in front of a computer. And I’m not even on-line.
I2: How do you feel about spending your life as an artist? Do you ever wish you were a filmmaker or a pop star?
Halt: I’m right where I should be.
You can see more of Karen Halt’s work at Portals Ltd, www.portalsgallery.com
