Today we’d like to introduce you to Leah Piepgras.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I grew up in San Antonio, Texas as the oldest of four children. My dad is a photographer and my mother is an artist and baker. We always had lots of supplies, tools and studio space to make things, and that is what I did with my free time. Making things was always valued. I always knew I would be an artist—it never occurred to me to be anything else. Frequently, I would go with my dad to take bridal portraits at the McNay Art Museum, which was right around the corner from my house. They had an extensive collection of art; Modigliani, Gauguin, Picasso, Mitchell, Calder, Smith, Hopper, O’Keefe, and on and on. I would wander the museum and grounds and visited particular work like old friends.
For my undergraduate degree, I went to the Kansas City Art Institute where I studied sculpture, followed by the graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University where I focused again on sculpture, performance, and installation. After graduate school, my husband and I had our daughter and moved to Boston. It was a major identity shift as I had no artist colleagues here and I was a brand-new mother. During her naps, I taught myself to paint and fell in love with the immediacy of the creative rush that can happen with paint.
After a time, our family has grown to include a son and now I am thankfully part of a network of amazing thinkers and makers that live in the area.
Please tell us about your art.
I am not interested in one particular medium but in the best way to convey an idea. I love learning about new processes and materials and try to make the best use of the intrinsic properties of different materials.
The ideas that I make work about come from two ends of human experience: personal experiences and big existential questions. These two facets lock together to make a complete creative loop for me: physical (sometimes mundane) tasks give me the headspace to think about big ideas and then the task calls me back to my body to complete what needs to be done to get on with life. My physical being requires this tether while my mind requires the freedom to think. I think these are universal needs. The big ideas that I think about end up being spiritual in nature but pull from paradox, physics, geology, and anatomy.
My personal experiences typically turn into portraits, allegorical or narrative paintings. The bigger questions I think about end up being primarily sculptural or installation based, and experiential for the audience. The content of my work is important to me and I love it when people can look and also physically interact with the work.
I am inspired by paradoxes because they are a way of looking at two sides of ideas at once. For example, the writer, teacher, and activist Parker Palmer describe breathing as a paradox we all contend with every second of every day. It is the basis of not being an either/or kind of person. There is not only the breathing in but also the breathing out- an endless loop of opposites that can show us a better way to understand the entropic world we are living in while reveling in its beauty and wonder. In life, and especially in making art, I try to make room for grey areas: misunderstanding as a way of understanding, not knowing as a way to leave room for a piece of deeper knowledge. Art is a language which has the advantage of having no syntax. The viewer is able to take in many layers of meaning and information simultaneously. Even if the visual information unfolds before the viewer, all emotion, sensation, and experience is concurrently absorbed and available. There is the possibility of understanding through the physical experience of looking.
As an artist, how do you define success and what quality or characteristic do you feel is essential to success as an artist?
The greatest part of being an artist is that you get to have a deep and long conversation with yourself that becomes a portal for those types of conversations with other people.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
It is easiest to view my work online. I have a few other things brewing but it’s too early to share! In the past, I had a long collaboration with Grin Gallery in Providence but they have closed their physical space and have started new adventures with http://the-rib.net/.
Instagram: leah_piepgras
www.leahpiepgras.com
Contact Info:
- Website: www.leahpiepgras.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leah_piepgras/?hl=en
Image Credit:
Lindsey Stapleton
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