RESIDENT SPOTLIGHT 2013: KAREN OSTROM

 

Karen Ostrom is a participant in EFA's 2013 Residency for Arts Workers as Artists. In addition to her art practice, Karen is the Assistant Registrar of Collections at the International Center for Photography

We have already told you about the residents' professional lives here, so we decided to get a little more personal. To learn a little more about them in and outside of the studio we have asked our residents to respond to questions. Here are Karen's answers...

PS: What are you working on now? 

KO: I’m making collages as a kind of sketching exercise. I’m also making short videos that reflect as a personal documentary of some of my travels, both locally and internationally. These are not unlike the collages in that they are loosely placed together. So in that way they also act as a kind of exercise or a way of broadening my work and thinking outside the control and slowness of the animation projects. 

PS: What is your experience so far? 

KO: I’ve been noticing the benefits of mixing up my regular routine and how it can have a positive effect on my working habits and attitude towards what I am working on. I likely wouldn’t be working on collages or making these videos even though I want to, I just keep putting it on the backburner. So it’s allowing me be able focus my attention there and not feel like I should be working on something larger. It’s helping me pay attention to some of the important smaller projects that help inform the larger ones.   

PS: Tips on staying focused? 

KO: Lots of quality sleep and exercise; I swim. Daily meditation practice is essential. 

PS: Preferred mode of transportation? 

KO: Airplane. 

PS: What are your creative inspirations? 

KO: Anything that suspends me from the awareness of my surroundings. Travel, dreams, unusual or surreal narratives, anything that implies a linear line but in itself may not be linear.

PS: If you could collaborate with anyone, who would it be? 

KO: Richard Serra – I think he would absolutely hate my work and it would be interesting to see how he would handle the situation. I think I could learn a lot if he were cooperative. 

PS: If you could have personally witnessed any event in history, what would you want to have seen? 

KO: Time in Pompeii long enough to get a sense of the city before it was buried in lava and to set up narratives like the famous Dog of Pompeii to be speculated upon centuries later. And then to witness the eruption of Mount Vesuvius (from a distance of course).

PS: What was your first thought when you woke up this morning? 

KO: I don’t know what day it is. (but no panic)

Check out Karen's website for more about her and her work

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