“I am an artist in Nashville … Essentially, what I’m doing with these assemblage pieces is creating larger versions of the smaller paper collages I’ve made before, focusing on familial themes and domestic settings.”
Homeplace Magazine: Introduce yourself! Who are you, and what do you make?
I am an artist in Nashville. While music was my first introduction into the arts, I currently focus on visual art. I mix different mediums such as acrylic, bookbinding, collage, and textile. I started out in painting and then began adding other materials to paintings to give more texture. After that, I began making collage using mostly paper. I currently do bookbinding, which naturally finds its way into my paintings and collages, and I’m working with textile to create large assemblage pieces. Essentially what I’m doing with these assemblage pieces is creating larger versions of the smaller paper collages I’ve made before, focusing on familial themes and domestic settings.
Where are you from, and how has your hometown shaped the way you create?
I am from Las Cruces, New Mexico. I was born there and lived there until I was 22, when I moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and I’ve been here ever since. My upbringing in Las Cruces shaped the way I create for different reasons and in different ways. For one thing, I am mixed race with a black mother and white father. I grew up with the black side of my family, and so my experiences with them and the representation of them is usually what finds its way into my work.
Additionally, I come from a lineage of artists, particularly the women, although all of my siblings, male and female, are artistic. But my great-grandmother was an artist who quilted, painted, and made ceramic art. My mother is an artist who writes and makes handmade teddy bears. I spent a lot of time with both of them and was exposed to art early on in that way. I was also naturally drawn to art as I got older, being in band, choir, dance, and theater in middle school and high school. New Mexico itself has the most beautiful landscapes, buildings, and colors associated with it, and those things informed how I would choose to approach my work once I started working in the visual arts.
HPM: If someone wanted to understand your work, where should they start?
I would say they could start with thinking about family structures and how things are passed down on a micro and macro level. On a micro level, think about your own family and learn about your ancestors in a way to try to connect how their influence passed through generations and has shaped why you are how you are and who you are.
And then on a macro level, think about the societal structures that are in place that have affected those in your family, particularly women, at different time periods when they had fewer rights than we do now. All of those things shape us, and we operate by default until we become aware of the bigger picture. Those are the things I think about when making my work, especially more recently as I am working through my own childhood trauma and finding my way in the world and society.
HPM: What are you obsessed with right now?
I am absolutely obsessed with fabric and making all kinds of different things with fabric or on fabric. For a long time, painting was my first love when it came to visual art, but there’s something about fabric that now gets all of my attention. It’s almost like I’m trying to learn to paint with fabric. I am also obsessed with bookbinding and making journals and sketchbooks.
It’s interesting because with the assemblage pieces and even with painting, I feel like I can be more free and not so literal or structured with the way I’m placing everything. But with bookbinding, if you want the books/journals/sketchbooks to look good, you have to follow measurements and other rules in order to make the journal or book look clean and to have it be functional. So to have these two opposing ways of creating has been really fun for my brain and a good way to not get bored or overwhelmed with either. It’s also fun because I can still add my artistic flair to the journals as well.
HPM: Where do your best ideas usually come from?
My best ideas come from reading and from thinking about my own upbringing. I feel like some of the subjects that really gave me some great ideas were always things like philosophy, women’s studies, art history, any literature class, and any art class.
Also, journaling helps me flesh out ideas organically and without meaning to. There have been many times when I’ve been journaling and free writing, and I’ll write something that’s sort of like an aha moment, and sometimes that finds its way into my work.
I also write poetry, and there have been many times when I’ve created an art piece based on a poem that I wrote, and vice versa, where I wrote a poem based on an art piece that I did.
HPM: What’s a creative hill you’ll die on?
That sometimes “sketching” in a sketchbook is really just writing your ideas.
I am a very intuitive artist, and I usually start working on something with an idea in my head or sometimes not. I had a professor who really drove home the point of the importance of sketching out ideas beforehand, even knowing that it could change in the process of creating. But as someone who has never been the kind to just sit and sketch a whole lot, I still find it hard to do that.
I have tried to get better at it, and I do find that it makes a difference. However, something that I started doing unintentionally is that I intend to write short notes in my sketchbook, and then I end up writing a few paragraphs for any given piece along with a very simple or small sketch. I feel like the writing is important as well and helps to shape what I’m going to create.
HPM: What does your camera/sketchbook/notes app look like right now?
My camera has progress shots from my current work. My sketchbook has notes and simple sketches of a series of pieces I plan to work on. My notes app mostly consists of my grocery list and other lists of things that I have to do.
HPM: What do you wish people asked you about your work?
People often ask me what the inspiration is, and then people will often tell me what they see in the work, which I absolutely love.
But I wish that more people would ask me about the process of the work. Some people do, but not usually. With the work that I’m doing now, specifically the assemblage pieces, there is so much labor that goes into it because I don’t have a sewing machine and I’m hand-stitching a lot. And I’m truly just figuring it out as I go and just trying things out. I’m using a lot of materials that I’ve never used before and working bigger than I ever have.
I think that it’s important to understand the process of how the artist has done their work. I myself love watching videos of artists talking about their work while either creating it or while discussing their process.
HPM: Recommend one film, album, book, exhibition, or artist everyone should experience.
The late Louise Bourgeois! I am obsessed with her work and her story right now, and she is a big inspiration for what I’m trying to do with my own work. She worked in sculpture, so regular large sculptures as well as soft sculpture. Her soft sculpture is what really stands out to me and speaks to me.
She did a lot of work with the body and with bodies in relationship to each other, such as a mother and child or a couple. She also had a very complicated relationship with her father and had a very severe fear of abandonment, which showed up in her work, and she talked about that a lot. I can relate to her in that way as well. The more that I read about her and learn about her work and her life, the more intrigued I am and the more inspired I get.
HPM: What else should we know about you?
Because my life is so art-filled, I often seek out non-art-related activities to balance things out. I love reading, doing puzzles, playing basketball, and playing video games.
View more of Ashley’s work at https://www.ashleymintzart.com/about.html.