One of my favorite parts of coming out with a new issue of Segullah is interviewing our featured artist for the blog. In the past, I’ve gotten a glimpse into the lives of some amazing strangers whose work I’d admired before I got to know the women who created them. This time around, things are a little bit different.
Our featured artist for the Spring/Summer 2009 issue of Segullah, which should be arriving in your mailboxes shortly, is Leslie Graff. Since she co-edits the Segullah blog 
and is a regular poster and commenter around these parts, most of our readers already know Leslie. I’ve known Leslie since we were assigned the same dorm room in BYU’s Deseret Towers in the fall of 1993, and we’ve been best friends ever since. So the challenge of interviewing Les is both really fun and a little bit weird, because I already know what she’s going to say; we’ve been talking about art ever since she filled up our entire student apartment (and her minivan) with art supplies and we started skipping the Humanities class we took together for trips to the BYU Museum of Art, where we’d walk through the galleries, eat Caesar Salad, and sing the praises of self-education.
SM: I know that you look at yourself not just as an artist, but as a woman artist. Can you explain how you feel that your womanhood is central to your art?
LG: My art is very relational, systemic, and organic which I consider representative of me as a woman. My pieces are personal, and often inspired by everday exchanges. I chose to pursue my art more intently after experiencing years of loss in my life. For me it was a deliberate, conscious choice to bring creation, and growth out of a difficult, life-altering experience. Many of the valuable experiences in my life as a woman are not quantifiable in clear, concrete, measurable ways. Rather, I trade mostly in the commodities of emotion and connection, I like to explore that visually. I use repeated shapes and symbols to represent the accumulation of small things that give meaning to our lives and composite into a greater whole.
SM: Talk a little bit about the how motherhood affects your art and art affects your mothering.
I find my mothering and art have a very reciprocal and symbiotic relationship. I feel joy from creating art which refreshes me as a mother. In turn my mothering inspires my art. My greatest creative burst, actually came after the birth of my third child. Mothering is preeminent for me; I generally only paint at night when my boys are asleep, because the focus that is required for a piece can be somewhat consuming and distracting. I can’t balance it well with being fully present in my interactions with my little boys. Having a studio in my home, art is a very natural, touchable, everyday thing for my three sons. They are constantly creating alongside me. They don’t have the same respect for my work though, they have been known to commandeer my large paintings for matchbox car ramps and forts. I appreciate how the creative process models for my boys risk-taking, attempts, failures, starting over, exploration, and perseverance.
SM: As an LDS artist, what are your views on LDS art in general, and in your place within the body of LDS artists.
There are many LDS artists, with amazing talent. I am excited by the greater variety of work emerging from LDS artists . Visual art has always seemed less prominent than say music in LDS culture. Traditionally the art has been fairly literal and focused in realism and relatively limited in terms of subject matter. I hope it continues to expand to develop into an even richer, more encompassing body of work. One that makes use of a wide range of styles, artistic traditions, and subjects, and that explores not only people, places, or events but also that communicates the feelings, beliefs, and impressions of faith. So much of faith involves things that are not concrete or tangible which is why I tend to employ alot of symbolism in my work. Art is a tool to help us become more fluent in understanding symbols and finding meaning on a variety of levels. I love how abstraction invites personalization and creates unique meaning for each viewer. Many of my pieces I consider religious, although they are not overtly so, for me the framework of my belief is essential to understanding the purpose or context of the symbols. Like my aspen paintings, which explore the journey of mortality and the play autonomy and agency, or my reaching tree series which are representations of the power and generative influence of women.
SM: Tell us about the studio nights you host in your home.
LG: Sometimes I boast that my little New England ward has over the years had what I’d guess to be the largest percentage of LDS women painting on canvas anywhere in the world. I have introduced many women to painting I love studio nights because I am very passionate about empowering women, helping them discover their own creativity.
Most people stop doing formal “art” when they leave junior high or high school. Studio night is a great opportunity to continue to expand understanding of art and aesthetics. I want to dispel the limiting belief that art has to be beautiful or look just like something to be good art, to help others understand that value and meaning in art can come when it evokes emotion from the viewer or fills a need in the creator. My professional background is in therapeutic play, so I seestudio night is kind of like my version of a quilting bee, filling needs for competency and generativity in women but also serving as a therapeutic forum that allows for a lot of sharing, teaching, and support in all aspects of our lives. We very much retain our context as women and mothers, there has frequently been a baby on the floor or being nursed amid the painting.
I try to help people see themselves as artists. It is amazing how this influences their children as well. I have often heard the children of moms I have held studio with remark, “My mom is an artist, she is the best painter.” My encouragement is always to not be afraid of the risk. There are so many great mediums you can work in and so many styles to explore, most people can find something they can feel successful doing in visual arts. So if you’re near my studio, you might just wind up with a brush in your hand.
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