Art Interview With Me

I am currently a featured artist on the Arts and Ideas myspace page.

check out a few examples of my work here.

and a link to the blog interview (YAY!) is here.


ETA: I am posting the whole interview below, as well.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Shana R. Goetsch interview Featured artist Shana R. Goetsch Was there a defining moment you knew you had to create art? One moment? No. But I have had many moments where I thought that I would pursue at the very least, something creative. Ultimately the choice for school was made between a writing degree and a fine art degree. I chose art over writing because I knew that it was something that I could not live without. I knew that my life would be worse if I did not have art as a constant. I also feel that communication was a huge part of either choice I would have made. I had a voice and I wanted it heard. I had an experience and I wanted it shared. Pretty basic, 'communication'. Yet I saw it as a major form of empowerment for me, in either case. It was something that was so vital to who I was and who I wanted to be, and so I felt there was no other viable option for me. Do you listen to music when you create? If so, what? Habitually. Parts of songs often end up as background text or a key phrase in the piece I'm working on at the time. In general though, I have an enormous love affair with words, so what I listen to while I work influences me quite heavily. But I do choose accordingly, and I have had some favorites: Neko Case, Aimee Mann, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Iron and Wine, lately Damien Rice... After people see your work, what would you love for them to walk away with? I would just like the viewer to have had an experience, and I would like to have communicated to them something about mine. I suppose that I ultimately want people to FEEL. We have all heard of "writers block". Do you feel as an artist, you sometimes get "artist block". If so, what do you do to alleviate it, if anything? Oh yes, I am going through a period of it right now. It's not necessarily a 'block' in the traditional sense though. In my work, I mainly deal with very intense subject matter, things that are psychologically dark, sometimes disturbing to me, and ultimately very emotionally draining. So I really need a way to relax and gather myself more than anything. In those times, I generally paint 'circles', and I have for years. I find it to be an extremely meditative and thoughtless/thoughtful process for me. I get a break. As to why I paint the circles...there is a very core and fundamental feeling I get from a circle, like it's the shape that makes the most sense to me in the universe. So in answer to your question, in order to paint again, I paint...again. And if that isn't a cyclical thought, I don't know what is. What is the most frustrating thing about being an artist? Not communicating my ideas as succinctly and thoroughly as I'd like. To be fair though, that is a frustration that can be applied to many aspects of my life. What is the best thing about being an artist? I think that any time you express yourself, it's the best feeling in the world. It's real, tangible, evidence of what is inside you, and you've just made it visible and accessible to every one else...it's liberating. Being able to share myself and spill my insides, is absolutely the best part of being an artist. It's fundamentally why I do what I do.