INTERVIEW | Ehren Salazar

Ehren Salazar

The man.
The machine.
All those little lines. All that time. All that effort. All Ehren.

1.
L: How do you feel as a multidisciplinary artist wandering about on the occasionally dusty roads of Vancity?
E: How do I feel about being an artist in Vancouver?
L: Yeah, and a multidisciplinary artist in particular?
E: I guess for me it keeps… At least life is never boring, but at times I feel like my attention is spread too thin, that I’d like to focus on one thing and I wish that’d be something I was better at doing. I think there are a lot of artists in Vancouver that wrestle with that… But for my work, for instance, that is kind of a training ground for getting things done quicker and working in a style that isn’t as natural for me (tombstones). It involves very vector-line designs, and working off other people’s ideas and what they want from me. But being a multidisciplinary artist…hmmm.  What can I say? I don’t focus enough on dancing. (Smiling) My dance practice is super rusty, but I will throw spin arounders in my day…quick spins. That sort of thing.
L: What kind of dancing do you do? Ballet?
E: No, no I’m joking.
L: I know, ha ha.
E: I like dancing, but…
L: You don’t do it…
E: Yeah…
L: State your “real” disciplines.
E: I draw. I try to draw everyday. And living in this new place has made it possible, in that I can have a mostly clear head. Having a designated area for my art, not just working out of my bedroom or out of cafes. Sometimes you have a designated drawing space, but you can’t focus because it’s at home, so you end up working better at The Grind or other coffee shops. Somehow in a public space you can focus better. But yeah I do: drawing, painting, animation, as well as tombstone and monument design. There is also running a gallery, and trying to play more music, as many music shows as I can… Trying to be a better guitarist. What else do I do? I don’t know if that answers your question.
L:  I don’t know what the answer is either…
E: Who knows?  No one knows the answer to that question.
L: Hmmm, that is probably true, but… would you like to remain a multidisciplinary artist?
E: I would, yeah, if I could. And make a living doing all those things. Music has always been more of a hobby, and I don’t ever anticipate any money coming in from music. But to have a full time job. Right now it’s with Pacific Spirit Stone Designs. It’s a small company. It’s just myself and my boss, and we’ve recently added a third person. There’s no shortage of work, which is good.
L: People keep dying on you?
E: Well, yeah, but we also…Ha ha, it’s the pun. But there are also other things, like parks… We recently did something for Port Moody’s City Hall park, so there’s landscaping, like building retaining walls. We do designs for water fountains made of stone and stone benches, so it’s not all tomb stones, although the bulk of it is.

2.
E: For the past two years, what’s been a training ground for me, in a discipline I was never anticipating, has been in directing and manging an art space. It’s definitely been learnt by making mistakes. It hasn’t been a smooth ride, but we’re still kickin’. I’m hoping we can get all the money, in order to get the re-zoning for Little Mountain.
L: Is that what you need, a zoning licence?
E: Yeah, we’re trying to get a zoning change to move from being a retail space that operates illegally, into becoming a legitimate theatre space for theatre and art, with a pinch of music, but we’re not going to… We did about as many music shows as we could. I think Vancouver has a stronger music scene than it even had three years ago, so it’s not a burden for us to carry anymore.
L: People manage?
E: It’s been a blessing in disguise actually. Not having to deal with booking music shows, and making sure people end on time, and how people behave outside. That was just very draining. So it’s been a nice hiatus for Little Mountain.

3.
L: Is it true that being a catalyst for other artists’ development works against making your own art happen? How so? Where is the compromise?
E: Yeah, it is a fine line. When you get home, the last thing you wanna do is draw or do art. You’re spent because… Is it true? Hmm. It is really inspiring. The artists that have shown at Little Mountain, we kind of give them full range, so I don’t really curate the shows. It’s almost a first come first serve basis, so if someone is organized enough to have an idea for a show, and have the work… Our screening process is not too intense, we let the work speak for itself. But it is inspiring to see the artists’ work. A lot of artists might have some work ready, but they don’t know how it’s gonna be presented until the day of the show, so that can be frustrating. Artists and musicians are sometimes stereotyped as being unorganized.
L: Do you find that’s true?
E: It’s not…
L: Untrue?
E: It’s not untrue, but it’s also… Little Mountain is a pretty flexible place, so we’re used to things being last second. We’re trying to change that and we’re hoping to have our arts calendar for next year once we find out if we get re-zoned. We find out in January 2011 about whether we can proceed as a theatre or if we have to consider shutting down, or finding a way to make it as a gallery. I’d like to have our arts calendar figured out for the first time for the whole year, by February. I feel that Little Mountain has a lot of support from artists, but we can do a better job at representing the artists that have shown there, so I’m excited about that. I’m excited to get better at managing in a lot of ways. But it is a 50/50 thing with the artists and the space… It’s always different and I do enjoy working with artists. And for them, often, it’s someone’s first or second art show, so they’re excited. There’s no shortage of artists in Vancouver, and that’s why I’d like to see the place continue. There are only a handful of places that would be maybe as open minded about showcasing someone’s art. You don’t have to be necessarily a graduate of Emily Carr (ECUAD) to show.
L: Or be making money right away…
E: Right. With some of our best art shows… there’s been zero in the way of sales, so that doesn’t always reflect a successful show.

4.
L: How is curating different than creating?
E: I think curating… Well, I didn’t graduate from art school, I dropped out in third year, so there’s lots of…
L: Why is that?
E: At the time school was too expensive and  I was just unhappy at Emily Carr. I wasn’t even producing that much work, and as soon as I dropped out, I found that I worked better. I even started teaching art class to a couple of high school kids, and learned more through that, than I did in two years at Emily Carr. Just by doing. I wouldn’t mind going to school at some point for animation. I think a lot of people go to art school thinking it will make them an artist, but you really have to put the time in. That can be done outside school. You can be an artist and not have to depend, not have to pay crazy tuition and what not. So much of art school is paying for studio space and having access to a group of people that will critique your work. If you have those things already, if you have friends that are artists, you can just feed off each other that way. The difference between curating and creating? I think curating, in my book, has always been just helping someone make sure that when they’re hanging their art that the art is level, or that it looks good.

L: What about the finer details?
E: Maybe deciding that less is more and not showing all your work. Helping guide the artist on how to better present the work. Even labelling. That’s often the thing that’s overlooked the most. How are you gonna present your work to the public when they walk in? Often labels aren’t there, or even an artist statement or bio, and that’s the first thing people look for once they’ve looked at your artwork. They want to know a little more. I don’t know why that’s such a common last consideration by so many artists. There are three of us who run Little Mountain, so if we see someone’s work we like, we might send them an email.  We don’t get as many submissions as one might expect, so it’s always refreshing if someone sends you something like 8 pieces of work and a very clear idea for an art show or a group show. That would be the ideal way, if people were sending us ideas for shows. Sometimes we’ll get an email where it’s just like “here’s my work, I want to do a show.” And you’re like “OK, I don’t really know how this is really gonna fit in, but…”
L: Does this maybe tie in with art school mentality or the space itself?
E: Little Mountain, even before us, already had a history of being an artist run space when it was The Butcher Shop, so a lot of people remember it from when 20 art inclined people ran it.
L: What is an art inclined person?
E: They weren’t all visual artists. (Laughs) Some were just promoters, some were musicians, some were writers. But there was a strong demographic of people that had gone to Emily Carr. There’s definitely an Emily Carr angle.
L: I hadn’t realized that.
E: I also went to Langara, and there were also artists that went there that were part of the Butcher Shop. That is also a pretty underrated arts program in the city.
L: Is it good?
E: It’s excellent. It’s a two year program. It’s the same staff from the past couple of decades. The faculty is pretty tight that way. Small classes. Smaller classes than Emily Carr. ECUAD’s tuition has gone up as well, as they’ve increased the amount of students. So classes are bigger, but they’re raking in the dough.
L: What kind of skills do you think formal education gives you versus the ones you learn on your own, as a self taught artist?
E: I think that when you’re self taught, it’s harder to stretch out of your comfort zone. That’s what I enjoyed out of Langara and parts of Emily Carr. The fact that you’re given assignments. I think that if you’re just a self-guided artist it’s going to be be harder to force yourself to work in a medium you might not enjoy or feel comfortable in, but I think you have to kind of struggle with some things. Some drawings that I’ve hated working on the most, are the ones that take the longest or I’ve given up on a few times, but you revisit them later. You end up with so much to be taught on the technical side of things in any discipline. In design, and painting, and sculpture and animation. You can spin your wheels in trying to reinvent the wheel, so I think that’s what the institutes are there for, to at least teach you the fundamentals. At the time, when I was at Emily Carr, it was the Emily Carr Institute, but now it’s the Emily Carr University. So maybe that’s affected the way they teach, but I get the sense that since you pay tuition now you’re an artist. Back then it lacked the technical training that you’d want out of a school. It was more about doing your work, and then just talking about it. Not so much how you did the work, but what you ended up with, so I don’t know…people are just stuck in their old habits, and maybe not getting as much out of it as they should. Not that I’m a rigid disciplinarian, but the most I got out of school are the people that I met. I’m still friends with quite a few of the people from my classes and I really learned a lot just from seeing their work and the animation program.
L: Was there a decent community of artists at the time?
E: It felt very segregated. There was a real lack of a student body. It just didn’t have the campus vibe that you’d want at a college or university or institute. It felt like we were just on Granville Island in these nice studios, but, for instance, people in the painting department weren’t taking any animation classes and there was no cross over between design and painting, or drawing and video… Maybe that’s changed, because my last year there was the first year that they offered animation to people that weren’t in the program. David Suzuki was lecturing about this once, scalding UBC for their arts department and the sciences. Arts and sciences should be arm in arm.
L: Pros and cons.
E: Pros and cons…

The Princess of Bazu

5.
L: Let’s go back to curating for one more second…does it ever get lonely? And how do you deal with that aspect of the job? Not necessarily curating alone, but running an art space, or generally being responsible for other people’s work…
E: Sometimes it does feel like your head is in the sand. I have to make a conscious effort to go to other art openings. Sometimes you wonder why even bother really? I mean, artists – in a lot of ways – are good at doing it themselves and it’s not just galleries that can show your art. Vancouver is pretty good with coffee culture, so you can get your art up in cafes. I could see how it’s easy to become jaded trying to sustain an art space in Vancouver.

6.
L: Tell me about the time you spent in New York…
E: Well, I’m lucky enough to be a dual citizen, so when I went there, it was just… I was younger, and I was just wanting to get out of town, see a new scene. I think I was running away from a lot of things, but it’s definitely the most I’ve walked and drawn within a month of my life. I was only there for little over a month, but had a job and an apartment lined up. When push came to shove, from New York, I applied to Emily Carr and to NSCAD… New York is a big busy place, and I felt like I wasn’t really ready to be there, but just spent every day going to art galleries and museums and walking. Just trying to get lost everyday, which is pretty easy to do. Went to life drawing a few times and there’s just an amazing energy there. So it fits all the cliches. And I have a bunch of good friends from school who live there, so I’m happy to hear about New York. I’d like for my art to take me there one day, but it was definitely not the time. I came back to Vancouver, and realized how awesome it is here. Vancouver will always be home. I did learn that wherever you go, you can’t really run away from your problems. I learnt that much about New York. If anything, it probably makes your problems a bit worse in the long run.
L: ‘Cause you’re running?
E: Yeah, you’re running, and your stance isn’t as strong as it should be. To move to New York, unless you’ve got loads of money, you’ve gotta have it pretty planned out.
L: Why did you decide come back? And what did you find has been keeping you here?
E: Well, I went to New York to get out of the city, because of a really bad breakup, and in retrospect I wish I just cut off all ties with that person at the time, but I was a young fool. Maybe I’m…It hardened me. Moving to New York…a lot of it was just to get away from heartbreak. The longer I was there, the more I realized that it was the wrong reason to leave Vancouver. That New York will always be there. It’s still in the back of my head to go there, but Vancouver will always be home. I don’t think I’ll live anywhere else. I can’t see that happening any time soon.

Right: New York Nightime

7.
L: What kind of projects are you working on RIGHT now?
E: Currently I’m working on some artwork for really good friends of mine from childhood, who have started a company called Inner City Farms, and they are just entering their second year. They’re turning people’s yards into farms….So I’m doing some work for them. On a day to day basis, I’m doing revisions on tombstones and that sort of thing. I’m trying to get Animatron 2011 together. I guess I’ve got too many ideas on the go, but let’s put it this way…The main project: I’ve submitted an application to the city of Vancouver and I’m waiting to hear back from them this week. It’s for the 150th anniversary or Vancouver’s 150th birthday. It’s a mural grant program. My plan is to do a mural on 5th and Hemlock. The Courier did an article on it that details it. At the entrance to Granville Island there used to be a baseball stadium called “Athletic Park” and my plan is to honour that stadium by doing a mural on the chicane of the Hemlock on-ramp. It’s perfect for it. It would be a dream come true if I was able to do it and be paid. I had also become really good friends with this baseball historian, who passed away last year. His name was Bud Currie. He grew up next to the stadium and he told me all about it. I showed him a drawing I was working on, of Bob Brown. I’m doing a revision on it right now, for the mural. Even if I don’t get the mural, I will still draw it up and paint it on panels, so that it could one day be installed, or maybe just to symbolically follow through on an idea, regardless if the city says yes. I wouldn’t install it, but they’ll have to say no a few times to me. If they say no, I’ll still keep lobbying to get a mural there, because it’s a big part of Vancouver history. Otherwise, it’s just working for the tombstone company, I’m trying to get commissioned work doing album art and building a body of work to do an exhibit.
L: Would you do it at Little Mountain?
E: A show? It’s never been my desire to showcase my work at Little Mountain, but it does maybe seem silly not to. There’s only excuses in the way, but I should do a solo art show at Little Mountain. I would like to do that. I currently do not have the body of work that would fit to do just a solo show, but I feel like I’m at a place where I’m producing more than ever, and I’m able to work quickly and clearly.
L: That’s great!!
E: The Douglas Udell Gallery has shown my work a few times.
L: What has that experience been like?
E: It’s a very fancy gallery that has locations in Calgary and Edmonton as well. Douglas Udell is a very art savvy man. He is also an art collector. So it’s been interesting to see how a larger scale, more established gallery does things. To see things from both sides, of running a gallery and dealing with artists, and being an artist represented by a bigger gallery that also represents many more artists, you see that no one’s gonna do it for you. You have to do the work yourself, so I’m often faced with seeing how artists haven’t really prepared themselves for the show, but then I look at myself and see that I don’t have enough work in order for me to get a solo show at the Douglas Udell Gallery. I’ve been in a few group shows, but you just have to work and produce. It’s not going to be handed to you. That’s probably pretty universal for lots of occupations, regardless of what you do.
L: It seems easy to forget, doesn’t it?
E: It is easy to forget, and that’s the part I fear the most actually. I find that with the shows I’ve been in, or anytime I’ve sold work, or been commissioned. I can become too…You don’t wanna rest on your laurels, you don’t wanna ease up.
L: Get too comfortable?
E: Yeah, I don’t want to ever…I just have to remind myself to keep moving, as soon as you’re happy with your work. But maybe I’ll never be happy with my work. Maybe that’s what keeps artists working.
L: I don’t think so.
E: Ha ha ha.
L: You’ll eventually be happy, you just have to get there. I see people being happy, so apparently it’s there.

8.
L: A question about process. How do you choose a particular art form at any given time, where does it get confusing and how do you clear it up by the time the final “product” is out into the world? How do you choose between animation or drawing or a song?
E: I like working with friends, it’s a main part of my approach too. I feel like I’m lucky to have creative friends who are writers and musicians. We can feed off each other’s ideas. I’m into that.  I like that.
L: Does that maybe determine how you’ll approach a particular project?
E: It does in a lot of ways…But, what determines what I decide on and follow through?
L: Yeah…
E: Well, I definitely have lots of empty pages and notes in my sketchbooks. I enjoy the process of thumbnailing things down, or doing revisions on drawings. From that, sometimes you get a new idea or find a way to refine the idea to a point. Wanting to do an animation with one good friend, and then there’s another friend, Jules, who’s a writer for Hobo Magazine, and she has a lot of poems and vignettes. I printed out each poem, and each one is on a separate page. When I have time in the morning, or time to kill, I’ll just do some sketches about that…
L: About each poem?
E: Yeah about each of the poems, and I’ll work until I’ve done at least a couple of thumbnails for each, so that next time we chat she can look through those. Album art for musicians is something I’m into doing as well and would love to do more, because you get to listen to the music. Kenton Loewen was really fun to work with. His music career is really taking off with Dan Mangan, but it’s a really great opportunity for his solo project, The Crackling, which I did the art for…I just love that pairing between the music and the album, and that the vessel it’s delivered in is still relevant. People still react to that. That’s a whole other side, so you’re trying to find something that visually complements or strengthens the music. I like that challenge.

Album Art: The Crackling – KEEP FULL AMBITIOUS

9.
L: Collaborating and sustaining grassroots mentality, in an artistic context, can be very difficult. What is the key element for you to keep doing this and keep collaborating with these people, even after their career path and set of demands changes?
E: Well, I think the “mistake” of collaborations, or working with friends, is that it can add a lot of drama, or stress, when it’s related to money. Which, unfortunately, is sometimes involved. I think I generally work alone more often than not, but there is a romanticism behind collaborating.
L: Is there a particular way to take something to the end? How you avoid falling into the trap of the 20/80 rule? Where somebody does all the work…
E: Right, like in elementary school where someone does all the writing. I’d always offer to do the maps or draw the cover page for any project. Collaborating is pretty common for me, if I really think about it. Going back to your question about curating at Little Mountain, it’s been more than just about visual art. It’s often just dealing with bands and theatre groups. That’s what it has been in the past, it’s not necessarily visual art artists. People have their strengths and weaknesses and that’s where collaboration is important. I do enjoy a good team atmosphere, having grown up playing baseball and soccer. Those are very team oriented sports and you need to support each other. Artists need to support one another. It doesn’t mean that you work on projects together, even if you just talk about ideas. It doesn’t mean going into business necessarily.

10.
L: This one is for the young peoples, the grasshoppers, so you gotta answer good…
E: What’s that?
L: What keeps you motivated to keep going, and keep doing stuff?
E: First off, I love doing it. So when things are stressful or I’ve lost track or sight of what I’m doing, it’s important to find a way to enjoy what you’re doing. I feel fortunate that I get to wrestle with that. That I get to do what I love doing. So even when times are bad, I guess I’m pretty stubborn that I’ve kept at it. It requires being stubborn. And I’m just excited about improving. Maybe people find themselves too predictable or that they have themselves figured out, but even just looking at my work from two years ago, it’s already – in my opinion – and I am my own worst critic… I can look at my work and see what I would do differently if I was to do that drawing again, so that’s where it can be a vicious cycle. But It also motivates me to do more work, because I feel like I am always behind in following through in my ideas. Whatever you do, it’s good to find a way to focus on it, and work on it at least once a day. I don’t draw every day, but I try to draw every day. If you’re a writer it may mean reading… As an artist, I feel that something I need to do more of is read. I don’t read enough. You just have to commit to it, really.
L: It it self-propelling, once you commit?
E: Yeah, and it can be pretty bleak and discouraging when you’re an artist or a musician trying to live at it, and sometimes you have to make a sacrifice, and get a day job to make ends meet. I’ve had to do that a few times, and I’m lucky with a day job now, that is in the realm of drawing and design. When I come home, and I have work to do for my job, it’s all in the same vein as what I’m trying to do on my own, with my own practice. And Little Mountain has often been an energy vampire, but it generally just takes a gearshift, or a change of perspective, to look at the opportunity that’s there and to embrace it, as opposed to hate on it. Little Mountain does take a lot of time. It’s been a love/hate relationship for sure. Putting lots of time in and times when I just neglect the space and try to do as little as possible.

11.
L: For my last question, I saved a corny one… Why do you think it’s so easy for people to forget to love? How is it generally so much easier to focus on the negatives of a situation than to even consider love as an option?
E: Well, it’s a fine line between love and pain, or anger even. They’re all such strong emotions, but it is a hard world out there, for sure, and it’s easy to get lost in creativity sometimes, and your head is in the sand a bit about matters outside yourself, to be aware of your standing. And in Vancouver alone, you just walk down Hastings street and see how much despair there is, or even poverty, in this very rich city. The difference between West Vancouver and East Vancouver, and how easy it is to forget that there is extreme suffering in the city, and you can get wrapped up in your day to day stuff… You have to make the choice I think. Of letting love and compassion reign. It is almost easier to be a hater sometimes. Or be defeated in that way. To give up. That is a tough question…why do we forget about love? Without it life can be pretty miserable. Not everybody has shining examples of that in their day to day life. It can be pretty depressing riding the city bus. No one’s looking at each other, talking to each other, everybody looks tired.
L: That’s why I’m curious. Why is that? Because we live in a city so full of really cool things…
E: Such a privileged city… I try hard to weed out gossip, and I try to catch myself if ever I’m doing that. But I think, not that artists have a greater capacity for compassion or understanding, and not everything has to be roses and lollipops, but it’s important to have an outlet for things if you are jaded or angry. It’s good to have an outlet for those things and not keep it all bottled up, and not many people do have an outlet that they’re aware of. I think with art, and theatre, and music, a lot of people are able to pour themselves into that…that’s their way of coping.
L: Is that why we should maybe keep making it? So that it provides to people that don’t make it an additional outlet? Is that a valid thing still? There is so much being made that it’s hard to find depth…
E: It is…
L: Although, “back in the day” there was probably a lot of it as well, we are just not aware of it because there was no TV.
E: Yeah, I don’t know if art will save us in any way. But, if someone looks at something and they like it, just that one little moment where they stop and think of something else for a bit, I think that’s an important thing. To stop and smell the roses, look at the paintings, look at the drawings…

For more of Ehren, check www.monsterdinosaur.blogspot.com, www.myspace.com/monsterdinosaur and www.littlemountaingallery.com.

|skewed|

Interview and Photography by Lexa Naicu

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