 |
|
Chew on that for awhile! (Spike Mamford Photography) |
At the UW graduate art student show at the COCA gallery space this spring, the works of Kathy Budd were one of the few islands of meaning in a sea of prettiness. "For me it's important to go beyond giving the audience an emotive response. I try not to deal with just esthetics," notes Budd.
Budd's work is all the more intriguing because it often deals with a topic that most artists in the US seem to have forgot: labor.
Budd's best piece at the show is entitled Payday. She explains the title: "I've worked labor jobs on and off my whole life. It's a way to survive and feed yourself. Your payday is an important day, the only day that really matters with that kind of job." Budd's piece can unleash a chain of concepts and emotions in the viewer: When I first saw the piece, I laughed at the simple humor of shovel blades dipped in chocolate. My perception soon changed to that of irony, then grimness, then a respect for the thoughtfulness of the work.
Budd's explanation of her piece was similar to my own feelings as I looked at it. The five shovel forms are the five weekdays, hanging by hooks, suspended in anticipation of the end of the week, which is payday. Instead of dirt on the shovel blades, there is chocolate. After all, doesn't work turn dirt into chocolate, a bittersweet reward for your sweat? There is also a hint of the regimentation of the workplace, of keeping workers in line, and hooked on the status quo.
|
|
Chew on that for awhile! (Spike Mamford Photography) |
Another piece by Budd at the show, Positions of Plenty, similarly turns everyday objects and notions into re-energized symbols. It sports white collar shirts and blue collar shirts in the form of a horn of plenty, and provokes ideas of class differences in our society.
When asked if she ever encounters resistance to representing her ideas in art, Budd states, "Some people definitely have problems with socio-political art. They like to have their art and politics completely separated. Others like to see things out in the open." Budd also sees an economic basis to the current trend in art which elevates beauty above meaning. "Historically, it's often the case that art is driven by market value. There is an audience that buys art, and corporations that buy art. The artist is making a choice between selling and not selling." With public funding for the arts drying up recently, the current fashion of "pure" beauty is therefore safe and unthreatening to most wealthy buyers.
Although Budd's work seems to have a message, it is hard to pinpoint. Hers is not stridently political work. Still, the effect she attains is perhaps more powerful than any propaganda, because it pulls the viewer to think rather than simply accept. "Propaganda means giving suggestions about changing things. I'm not informed enough to do that. I'm not a politician, I'm an artist. My work is like planting seeds and making people think."
Kathy Budd will be taking a teaching job in California after this summer, but some of her pieces may still be seen (confirm before going) at the Anderson/Glover Gallery in Kirkland or the new Lead Gallery in downtown Seattle near SAM. Please contact the Free Press [WAfreepress@gmail.com] if you have a special interest in contacting Budd about her pieces.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |