BTS | A Few Questions with Glory Day Loflin

Photography: Katie Fenske

Q: Can you describe the evolution of your artistic practice?

 

A: As Iโ€™ve experienced it, art is a byproduct of oneโ€™s life experience. As far back as I can remember I have been writing poems, collecting melodies, and making images and objects as both a response and a way of processing my lived experiences. Art has been my thinking process, my documentation of life, my way of reaching out and building community, and my way of meandering through life. 

 

 

Q: How has your work changed over time and led to the current body of work youโ€™re making?  

 

A: Within life I live by the idea that I am always learning. I am student of life and art and because of that, the artwork is always growing with me. When I take a deep research dive, my work reflects it, and when I learn a new way of thinking, I try it out in the many materials I have learned to use over time. My work includes endless experiments and cross-pollination even though I maintain conceptual series I work within. To the chagrin of people who believe artists should pick a lane and stay in it, the way I think does not allow me to solely work in one medium or on one conceptual thread at a time. I find that the friction between my sculptural and more planer interests lends itself to making my best work.

 

The current body of work I am getting to show with Bella Wattles holds a special place for me. The work rose directly from our conversation described in our show statement; we wanted to think about how objects and the way they are arranged in a home reflect the person or persons in that home. In making this work, I found that I am using more direct lines from my life in the work by referencing my fiance's cat, my friendโ€™s antique French furniture, or my dream about a giant pink dog. Literal self-portraiture through drawing and sculpture has always been in my practice but these pieces portray my inner thoughts more obliquely through life references and my sense of humor.

Q: The work included in โ€œPattern Playโ€ considers domestic spaces and the utilitarian objects that we live with and interact with daily. Why is domesticity important to your work and how does the reference to these spaces impact your composition and color choice in painting?

 

A: Within the last several years my research into my grandmothersโ€™ lives has become the groundwork of my current practice and reframed my previous work. My grandmother Prudence taught me to sew and made quilts, her kids clothes, and crocheted rugs. My grandmother Harriet worked as a head OBGYN nurse and painted flowers at night in her closet. My grandmothersโ€™ making practices and service within their community are my heritage and are art practices I intend to follow in.

 

The utilitarian nature of vessels has always felt representational of the female experience to me. The domestic space I also consider to be a traditionally female space given early language and meaning of โ€œwomenโ€™s workโ€. Work does not mean the same thing it did for my grandmothers. When I work by making work relating to still life or domestic space now, I feel I am involved in either self-portraiture or considering the history of how women are seen in the design of their home. This makes me think of recent developments in womenโ€™s history (we only got pants or โ€œbloomersโ€ in 1850!) including the opportunity to study painting. There is this feeling within my painting practice that I must paint because I actually get to paint. 

 

The language of design then plays a big part in how I organize my painting compositions and the way I consider color. Iโ€™m interested in the relationship between textural use of paint and how one might consider swatches of fabric. I think of Prudenceโ€™s designs as related to the grid because she was creating an object of utility out of fabric (a quilt) and how that way of working is in opposition to the reality of Harrietโ€™s practice of applying pigment to canvas (painting). 

 

Recently Iโ€™ve been especially interested in old advertisements of women whose dresses matched their drapes or their appliances. I think the hilarity of those early advertisements in their suggestions that a womanโ€™s body could so bluntly be compared to a refrigerator is amazing. There is a humor to be discovered through shifting cultural perception over time and I feel that this is something my paintings are trying to get at. Some of the flat-footedness of my jokes in paintings like โ€œDOGGONITโ€ are funny because theyโ€™re one-liners but also because not funny because theyโ€™re painted so seriously and precisely.

Photography: Katie Fenske

Photography: Katie Fenske

Q: You describe your painting practice as โ€œcraft-adjacentโ€.  Can you tell us a little more about what that means and how you find a connection to craft in your paintings?

 

A: My best paintings seem to arise out of my consistent ceramic, woodworking, and textile practices. Another way of thinking about this is because my uncle had me working in his wood shop in middle school, my grandmother taught me to sew at a young age, and my youth as a tomboy lent itself to absurd amounts of time playing in creek beds with veins of wild clay, when I paint, I think of textural color as my material. I guess at this moment I could be pigeon-holed into being a โ€œprocess based makerโ€ but thatโ€™s why I continue to choose to make paintings. Within painting there is an expectation to produce a dialogue because of the historical understanding of painting as a window. We should think of all artwork this way, be it pots or chairs or baskets; objects are also a window into another humanโ€™s thoughts, traditions, and life.

 

Q: Your titles seem to suggest that your work is very personal, although the subject matter is universally approachable.  Can you tell us how you come up with titles?

 

A: Honestly at this moment, titling my work is probably giving me the most grief in my artistic process and I blame the lack of song-writing in my day to day life. Itโ€™s more or less like the problem of showing versus telling. In the paintings I am showing you how flatness and abstraction can lend itself to a fast image read and how simplistic composition can heighten appreciation for the textural surface of a painting. Only in person, with eyes on the actual painting, can a viewer have the opportunity to recognize the hilarity of an oversimplified designโ€™s friction with dozens of meticulously hand-stenciled layers of paint. The topiaries take a jab at this line of thinking. The two small trees are dressed with fruits rather than actually being orange or lemon trees. Add in the humorous scale and over-simplified composition, and the painting is more of a textile design than a painting ought to be. All I can hope for at the moment is that the title gets the ball rolling so to speak, especially in a digital age where so few people get to actually see and experience the paintings.โ€

Q: What advice would you give to emerging artists or students working to establish a consistent studio practice? What helps drive you to keep making even during artist block. 

A: In a previous time, I would have answered this question with the big ticket items that kept me in the art game, namely: Work in series, get or create a designated studio space, be the first on in the studio and the last to leave, find your peers, and create the opportunities you want to have (Donโ€™t wait for them to find you!). These are all things that helped me get to where I am now. 

 

At this point in my practice, with the number of times I have been derailed by well-meaning, well-intentioned people, I would say: Donโ€™t let anyone keep you from pursuing your vision even if you have to make it physically smaller or in another medium, be willing to receive wisdom about your work from people outside of the art field, find the intersection of what you love to do and what might help you pay your bills , donโ€™t let other peopleโ€™s small vision for you become your small vision for yourself, keep your loved ones and healthy support really close, roll with the punches- take note- and punch back.


Explore Glory's Paintings from Pattern Play

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Works listed above are featured in our January 2025 exhibition, Pattern Play. For additional works by Glory Day Loflin, please click through HERE

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