Kris in her studio at Stove Works. Photo by William Johnson. www.wmjohnsonphotography.com
Saria: How would you describe your style?
Kris: It's weird because I used to feel like I was all over the place and now I start to see how work all has a similar thread, looking back. I'm interested in the multi-faceted layers of womanhood and the different ways I've been a different woman at different points in my life and what that looks like. And the roles that are traditionally played or traditionally challenged by women and I'm also really interested in the materiality and ways of portraying that and I'm really interested in the role of memory and how it is very malleable. Memory is always affected by experience and time and it can be influenced by other people. I'm interested in the way we are constantly constructing and deconstructing memory and I like making work that evokes how something might feel to me like a memory but might feel different to someone else. I do work that’s very personal but I also make it something that is tangible to others. That's why the materiality is important like the use of rust or salt, it's always changing. Some people can literally see its history and its time.
Saria: Have you always been collecting?
Kris: I've always been a very selective order. I've really been interested in how objects carry memory. I have a hard time getting rid of something if when I pick it up I have a memory attached to it. Everyone does that. Objects carry this weight of memory and I find that really interesting and I started doing that when I was really little. I had drawers of rocks from places that I went to and little objects and things like that. I kept a calendar in my room where every day I wrote down one or two things that I thought were important. I've always been really interested in the way our brains remember and forget.
Saria: How does your role as a mother inform your art?
Kris: It informed it more than I might realize and it was weird to see certain things trend. I was really fascinated with the physical aspects of being a mother that kind of blew my mind in ways I didn't expect that it would. For instance, I do a lot of work with breasts. I didn't really realize that breasts were functional first until they had to be functional and it was sort of like; these things are amazing! They look good in shirts and they support life. I knew all along about breastfeeding but breasts were so sexual for so long for whatever reason and I was very body-conscious. All of a sudden it was like; why did nobody emphasize that these are tools? It's not like I couldn't come to this realization without being a mother but for me, that was a huge lightswitch of just how powerful the female body can be.
Prayer to St.Anthony: Lost Objects Found, Lost objects, cast resin, 2013
Saria: How did you get interested in working with found objects?
Kris: I think it started with the collecting and when I was going to school and spending a lot of time in museums and seeing an artist that incorporated that into their work and realizing how much that could play a role in what I'm trying to do and instead of doing a literal image I could do a literal material. A time I really did that was a show at the Chicago Jane Addams Hull-House Museum and this idea of really using milk, and really using sugar and physically using the thing I had an emotional attachment to make that work so much richer to me and so much more meaningful.
Saria: What do you think people gain by cherishing objects?
Kris: That’s a good question because there’s that whole Marie Kondo thing where it's like getting rid of everything except for the things that really mean something to you and well for me that looks like a house full of stuff. Our spaces and our objects become self-portraits of ourselves and especially for creative people, you walk into their house looking at a self-portrait. The way that they arrange what they have. I hate disposable society, this sort of capitalist notion of buy and replace and so that kind of object mongering is really gross to me but when it comes to objects with meaning when we have an object that reminds us of other things that are really precious. People who love books have every book. If you have an object that means something to you I don't see any problem with it but if you're just stuff for the sake of stuff, that’s gross.
Saria: What's the idea behind your constructed memories series?
Kris: I started to really look, again, at this idea of how our homes can almost be a self-portrait and I started to think about how I didn't always want my artwork to be about me. It always is, and there’s no way it can’t be but there were certain artworks I looked at that were very much about a certain experience. I thought of how I can construct something that feels like a memory to me even though it doesn't actually have anything to do with me. I had been collecting found photos and objects for a long time and the reason I had these things is because for some reason they felt like I could've had a memory about it. Even if it wasn't my family or people I knew there was something about it that felt nostalgic and so I started to have all these things that were nostalgic and play with that and create these things that represented how a memory feels to me. All of them have this same energy to me so I was interested in evoking the feeling of nostalgia in other people that wasn't directly my story.
Constructed Memory, Installation, 2018
Saria: You've worked with a range of different materials, do you think different ideas, installation vs a 2d work create different narratives. What are you more drawn to?
Kris: Even when I'm working 2-dimensionally my work has a lot of tactile elements, so when I'm doing collage, I’m collaging found objects. Even if I'm taking a photograph I'm doing layers and layers of acrylic and that have a plastic, fleshy look and feel to them. The material a lot of times before I make work I do a lot of writing and journaling and I'll find that there are certain words that sort of stand out to me or words that can be translated into a material and then I challenge myself to use that material in the actual product. I find that's a way of bringing it to life, to me it feels like I'm bringing that emotion into a physical realm.
Saria: Can you talk about your work with Excavating History?
Kris: I met this awesome woman, Rebecca Keller in college. She was my professor and then we became good friends and colleagues. She started talking to me about work she did call Excavating History where she would go to historic sites and make art in response to either the building or the space and that’s how I did the Jane Addams Hull-House installation. After that, I was really interested in working in the old steel industry because my family had come from eastern Europe and had all worked in the steel industry on some level. I was really interested in getting to know that part of my history and I was told about a small town called Braddock, Pennsylvania which is just outside of Pittsburgh and it was Andrew Carnegie's first steel mill, first bank, and his first library so it was like his town. It had a booming steel industry and all these immigrants would come from different parts of Europe and when they would come they would establish: a church, a school, and housing for their workers. Then the steel industry fell and they went from having like 30,000 people to less than 3,000. The steel mill is still there and Braddock was trying to find a way to revitalize and support the people that were still there. I ended up making a phone call to the Mayor and he really felt like art was an integral part of revitalizing the community. I ended up spending two years on and off making art and inviting other artists to come out to make art in the space and do an exhibition that involved installing art at the bank, library, church, and school. Some things were left behind to be and see what happens to them. The gallery that used to be a school and space for artists are still there.
What Remains, Mixed MediaObjects gathered during meditative walks during the pandemic, 2020
Saria: Some of your work uses themes from religion. How did that come to factor into your work?
Kris: For much of my life I walked away from Catholicism and Religion. I grew up Catholic and it's really strange how I'm constantly thinking of how beautiful and how important the church was to the Renaissance. I'm always wanting to collect information from other people and the first thing that I remember not liking is the idea that one group is better than others because that seems in direct conflict with the very first thing you learned which is God loves you, and everybody. Every religion kind of does that in some way. Because if I believe in this I don't want to, in any way, give the impression that I'm better than anybody else but I couldn't deny the fact that I loved the imagery that I grew up with. So many of my early memories of things that really struck me as beautiful were really based on that catholic teaching and faith. All of those scriptures and even some of my current work are related to a bible story and it was because there was something about the poetic language that I like to play with visually. Like with St.Anthony, I grew up where if you lost anything you pray to St.Anthony. And then as you get older it can be seen as a strange thing to do. So what I did was I made a cast of St.Anthony and I filled it with objects from people who were no longer in my life. So each one of those is a story that I found interesting and then I tried to show a visualization for how it made me feel.
Saria: A lot of your older works are drawings and are different from what you create now. How did you progress to where you are currently?
Kris: I didn't really do any formal art learning until I went to college so the first thing I really struggled with was drawing and I really wanted to be better at it because a lot of times it seemed in order to be a good artist you have to be able to draw, which you don't. It’s interesting, I keep those images on my website because that was my first kind of artwork I made about the body and I was interested, of course, in the female form. I did a lot of drawing that was layering and overlapping of these bodies and at the time I was sort of compulsively making it and now I have such a better understanding and they are still so important to me and I like having them on there because it's like the roots of that thing that I've grown.
Reflecting Forward: Forged Memories, Coal dust, steel filings and sugar on mirror Period photographs (1894-1926, Slovakian and Sicilian immigrants/Artist’s Family) 2016
Saria: You work a lot with students and help them see art in a new way. In what ways has that been rewarding to you and the students?
Kris: I don't know how it's been rewarding to the students. I can only really speak for my gratitude and the way that I've tried to be better and the ways that I've tried to realize when I haven't done as good of a job as I could have and how I try to be better every time. I started off in elementary school and I've worked with so many ages and so many different groups and I think all of them have helped me be more understanding of people. Overall I'm just really grateful that I've had the opportunity to get to know people on so many different levels. I feel like that helps me overall to just be a little more humble and a little bit more myself and a little less afraid about where I am in my journey because I know we are all on a path somewhere.
Saria: What has Stove Works done well during your time as an artist in residence?
Kris: Because now I've seen three different groups of residents come through, I'm impressed with the different areas people are coming from, the different types of work they're making, the different stage they're at in their production whether they are in the early stages of figuring things out or are a little more established I've really enjoyed that kind of dynamic of so many different things coming together despite the pandemic it's just great to get an idea of the potential of what Chattanooga can be and what Stoveworks can be as a place where an artist will want to come to make work and not just one type of artist but a wide variety.
Saria: What are you doing after you leave Stove Works?
Kris: I really hope I can stay in touch and support Stove Works as much as possible because I think it is essential to moving forward with being a dynamic art community in Chattanooga because it's really easy for things to become repetitive. The city kind of has this tendency to kind of just default to certain artists because they've already figured out that they're good at certain things. Stove Works has an opportunity to be a space and always offer new things. So I really want to support that and be able to contribute to future work.
About Kris:
Kris Bespalec is a multimedia artist who incorporates found objects, mementos, and ideas dealing with memory in her work. She also incorporates ideas of womanhood and her personal experiences as a mother. She currently lives in Chattanooga and is a resident here at Stove Works till the end of April. Kris works teaching various ages and has done a lot of work with communities such as teaching art classes to inmates at Walker State Faith and Character Based Prison in Georgia, among many other projects. Looking at her work invites us to experience these memorable feelings and recognizable objects that can be interpreted by our own memories and feelings. She shares herself with us through her art while leaving more than enough space for us to bring our own story into the experience.
https://cbdavisart.com/
ABOUT ME, THE INTERVIEWER:
My name is Saria Smith, and I am a BFA student currently working as a Curatorial Assistant at Stove Works Gallery. I am an artist and find joy in expressing myself through various ways involving, working with found objects, collage, and music. I decided to start these artist interviews as a way for the public to connect more with the residents who flow through Stove Works perhaps unseen, especially during this pandemic.