Portland Art Gallery Artist Brenda Cirioni

Brenda, thanks for joining us today. Thanks for having me, I love this piece that you brought with you, which is heavy, so I'm not going to lift it up, but we will show it after this has been edited in, and I love the story around it because what it tells me is that art is not a static thing, and you have a shirt that says, there are artists among us, and I feel like part of what the role of an artist is, is to kind of explore that ongoing flexibility and the ability to continue to be additive. So all the things. Yes, that's how I work. It was in the show in February to start. Yeah, it was, and I was doing this series where I'm adding a lot of things to it, and for me it's just a joyful, I was so joyful because my grandbaby was about to be born, and so whatever's going on for me emotionally inside comes out. There's no stopping it, there's no trying to stop it. So the title of that piece was Joy to Behold, and it was in the show, and it came back eventually, and it's been up on my wall in my studio, and I've been working along doing new stuff, changing things, but I'd always be seeing that, and finally I'm thinking, I know that could be a better piece, and so why not? And so I added, I've been getting into dried flowers. I don't care if they're not perfect. That was a peonies, certainly not a perfect looking peonies. And I had been resonating these flowers and they're just around. So I started looking at what I can add to that, and so I added some dried flowers, and then I had been to the Whitney Biennial for the first time in my life, which is shocking, but it was pretty great. And there was a woman there who, her work just blew me away. It was like the reason I went, even though I didn't know, and all of her work was done on gel medium, some kind of a medium that was clear, and then she would sometimes add things into it. She would paint on that, and they would, so they'd be double sided and you could just walk around and just like, so I didn't know how she did it, but I just started experimenting. And so I had these sheets of this clear, and you can see that there's paint in there. There's some of my chunks that I like to use chunks of paint. And also I had some clear pieces of resin, which are totally like when you pour resin, it just goes all over and creates these shapes and there's really no controlling it. So I picked out some pieces of resin that had maybe a flower in it, and I attached it. I felt like this piece needed to be more vertical than it was. It just wasn't working for me, and I couldn't add on another panel for various reasons, which I won't go into. But I thought this is a good place to see how this works, this clear business coming off and just being there, not supported by anything, but it's secure. It's not going to fall off. So that's what I did. And even two nights ago, I added something else there. So yeah, that's how I work really. I think that's such a fun story because again, you're pulling elements from various places. You're pulling knowledge from being at the Whitney Biennial and seeing what this artist did, but then there's something about your own piece that keeps capturing your attention and the sense that I could do something more with this, but what is that going to be? I'm not really sure. And I think this speaks to something that I'm not sure I fully understood before spending a lot of time talking with people who are artists, and that is that the plan isn't necessarily fully formed before you go into the creating of the piece. That's certainly true for me. I don't know. And that's okay. So one of the questions that you asked in the survey that I was to fill out was, where do you get your inspiration from? And it's like, I'm not necessarily inspired, I'm not always inspired, but I love to work. And if I just start, that's all I have to do is start and I have to keep going. But then things come, it starts to, this sounds kind of corny that the painting starts talking to me. But yeah, that's how it works for me, where I just keep looking. I mean, I do a lot of looking and seeing what it needs for me. I am the only one that I can make happy, right? In any way. And so some people might come and see a piece and they're like, oh, that's great. No, it's done. It's fine. It's good. But if I don't think that, if I think, well, thank you, but I think this can go further, I think this can be better. I think it can be stronger, then I'm going to do that because I want to make the best thing that I can make. It's interesting to me that you've been an artist pretty much, well, probably since you were born, maybe since you were born. I mean, you exhibited at the Wickford Art Festival when you were eight years old. It's pretty amazing. I know. I think back to that, I seem bigger, older than eight in my mind. But yeah, that was pretty cool. But yeah, it was all I ever wanted to do. I wanted my father who was going to build me a studio, and I was going to be an artist, pure and simple. And that has never left. So I feel really grateful for that. Not everybody knows what they want Or people know what they want, but maybe would not even think, oh, my father can build me a studio. Well, my father built our house, so I thought easy peasy. It doesn't have to be too big, but sure. Yeah. But I do think that the idea of being an artist is not always straightforward, as we've already identified. You may not know what you're even going to make or what you're going to focus on, but then also the path itself is not always straightforward. Talk to me about that. Well, just that I wasn't always doing art. I had some things that kind of derailed me for a while. And then when I did get back into it, I got into clay and got a wheel, and I like to use my hands. I like to make things. And that's why I had just been a painter for a long time. And then I started this whole collage business by accident, and now I'm more, these are turning into sculptural pieces. And I love that building, and I've said this before, it's putting a puzzle together without the picture that comes on the puzzle package. Well, you have all these pieces and what are you going to do and how are you going to build it, and what is it going to be? And I see things that someone else might look at it and not see that at all. But to me, these are always about, well, obviously there's now flowers in them, so it's kind of hard to say. They're not about out gardening or nature and growth and the whole cycle, because they're in there, a lot of 'em are passed. It's not like I'm looking for the perfect flower in its prime. I kind of like them when they're dried up and not perfect. Well, that ability to recognize beauty from various sources and not necessarily the traditional source of the fully blooming flower that's at its peak right now. I think that's also another way that perhaps artists are unique. Yes, true. Yeah. I think we see beauty in everything we can. If you can. Are there ways that, as an artist, you've ever felt kind of thwarted from being able to see the beauty? Are there kind of the paths that you've taken that have kind of blurred your vision somehow? I don't think so. No. No. I think I've always seen, I've always, where I grew up though, it wasn't a neighborhood. It was a dead end street. At the end of it, it was a dirt road and the end of it went down. And then if you kept walking a little ways, there was a swamp. If you kept going, there was a meadow. And I was always just looking for cool things, like treasures of whatever sort. And I'm always looking for things that I think are cool. Beautiful, old. No, I don't think that ever left. I just wasn't able to make art for whatever reason. So you saw things. you just couldn't use your hands to bring things to life. I didn't. I had a painting business, and I would also do murals. I did faux finishes. That was the main thing was the faux finishes. And so, I mean, that's very hard work. And I did not have time. I didn't even have a studio at that point. But in my mind, it was always there. And I knew I would, I knew I would. And I did. A studio building opened up in the town that I lived in, and I put my name on the waiting list. It used to be a school, and then it became an art building with 80 artists. So I put my name on the list and I got in, and still I had that business, but every chance I got, I was in there. Do you think it's important for artists to be around other artists? I do. I really do. And right now, my studio is in another really old warehouse, and there's woodworkers in there, but I, it's not the same, even though they are artists, it's not the same. And I have one friend who is also in the building, and that's great. But yeah, I miss, it's that creative energy. But what I do enjoy is, so I'm not so easily distracted. When I was in the building with all those artists, I'd walk down the hall and go visit Gwen and go do this. And I hear the saws going, and that's like a comfort. I'm not the only one here. There are people working at what they love to do and do well, but that building in my mind was going to be for other artists as well. And it just hasn't materialized yet. So we'll see. But there are other ways. I mean, I have a lot of friends that are artists, so we have crits invite a few over, and they bring their work and go to each other's studios and that kind of thing. But I do think it's really important. So bringing up something that I've been talking a lot lately with my husband, Kevin Thomas, the owner of Portland Great guy. I like him too. He also edits Radio Maine, so we have to be nice to him. So he'll do a nice job with him, which he always does with Radio Maine. But we've talked a lot about the ability to give and receive feedback, which in the art world is pretty important. And I don't know that every field has done that as well, because when we talk to our sons who have gone to art school, they've actually kind been trained in that. It's a skill set. So when you talk about getting artists together and being able to have these types of conversations, that prompts in my mind a question. What do you think are the things that make feedback valuable for artists? It might be easier to tell you what I don't think works. I don't think it's really helpful for someone to say, this doesn't work for me, because unless you can give a concrete reason, it doesn't work for me because it doesn't feel integrated into the rest of the piece or something like that, that's useful information. Or sometimes if the marks are all the same, then you might say, I think you need to add some other types of marks or some larger areas where maybe it's just like you need a resting spot, that kind of thing. That's helpful. But you have to be careful because we are very sensitive. This is our, that's my baby. I'll give you an example. This didn't happen to me, but one of my friends had somebody come over and she wanted help. She hasn't been painting long, and she wanted some positive constructive criticism on how she can be a better painter. And the person just said, it looks like wallpaper. That wasn't helpful. That's a great example of something that's not helpful. I think it's a great story because I would say that more people are sensitive than not. But if you're an artist, you make something and then you put it out there for people to look at and to comment on. And it is your creation. And I mean, I can be a sensitive individual, but if I'm not putting anything out there, I'm not risking anybody necessarily judging me, then that's very different than you having this particular piece in the February show and having people walk around and be like, oh, that's Brenda Cirioni's piece. And that feels different to me somehow. So is that part of becoming an artist is continuing to have the confidence to do the work and put it out there for the world to see and work through whatever the response is? Yes. You have to have, I mean, I don't want to say a hard shell because I don't think I have a hard shell, but you have to be confident enough in your work to put it out. Otherwise, if you're not, and if you have to always have good feedback, then it just becomes more difficult. And people don't go to their studio. So I did the fifth year from the museum school, that's an independent year, and at the end, it's judged and you get a traveling fellowship, and I forget how many they give out, and people have been crushed when they don't get it. So I did it. Everything is up. A lot of the artists and other people are coming up to me and congratulating me. Nothing's been announced, but they're congratulating me so sure that I'm going to win something. I did not win anything, and I was back in the studio the next day because you cannot wallow. I cannot wallow. If I wallow in self pity, I may never step back in. So one of my teachers said that in his studio, he wrote a sign, just start. It's like, you don't know what to do, just start. So I have really, that's probably the most important thing I learned in art school. Just start. Yeah, it's not an easy profession, and it's not stressless, but it's a great way to live as far as I'm concerned. I'll take it. So what is it about being an artist that makes it such a great way to live? I guess just I get to express, I'm not really a talker. And maybe if I was, I'd be a writer, but painting is how I express myself. It's like, if you want to know me, look at my work, and you'll have a pretty good idea of, it's probably not true, but I think it's true. I guess it's up to other people to either agree or disagree with that. So the ability to be known in a way through your art? I guess so. And just the need to create, the need to make things. I mean, during COVID, I picked up knitting. I loved it. It was great. I haven't knitted since because it's really time consuming, and I'd rather be painting just like with the garden. I got my garden back during COVID, but I'd rather be painting. So I don't know. I have just always wanted to do it. So you're originally from Rhode Island and you have this Maine connection? I do. I moved to Massachusetts because my sister had come up, met someone and lived in Massachusetts, and so I followed her here, and I did go to school in Boston. So then she went and moved to Maine. So Maine is great. I love Maine, but I can't leave Massachusetts. I have too many connections, and now I have my grandbaby. So no way in heck I'm leaving. Do you encourage, well, your grandbaby's not quite old enough yet. She's seven months old, but she's already painted. Okay. I was actually, I didn't want to assume but\! Nothing to do with me. This is her mother, and they're framed in their house. I love that so much. The paint was put into a Ziploc bag, just different colors, and she gave it to Sloan, and you see Sloan just like they're always doing that kind of thing. And then she takes it out and it's a great painting, great abstract painting without any of, she didn't get paint on her fingers or in her mouth or anything. That's fascinating. I would not have thought to do that with my kids. Well, she's a preschool teacher, so she's got all kinds of tricks up her sleeve. Yeah. So she's got a familiarity and expertise related to little children, which I admire because when my kids were that age, I was like, just can you keep the sweet potato off the wall? Very utilitarian view of parenting probably. Sorry. Sorry, kids. You turned out okay. Anyway. I do think that thinking about this idea of fostering creativity in children, starting really young, because we are all really creative beings. We're born creative. We are creative beings. And yet, if you think to yourself, well, I could never be an artist per se, then that really shuts down that creativity unfortunately. Her side of the family, her mother was in entertainment, has a great voice and dancer, and so she's signed up for music classes, which will start in this month, I think. This is a well-rounded baby. Yes. She's standing. Hello. She's standing independent. She's not even pulling herself up. She's just standing up. Her legs are spread about this far apart to keep her upstanding. But yeah, no, she's awesome. I'm not prejudice. No, I wouldn't say that at all. No, no. So this piece is one of your continuum series. When you think about beginning a series, what does that look like for you? What makes Brenda Cirioni say, "I'd like to start doing this and I'm going to do", what number is this? 13? Yeah, I'd like to do 13 of these, maybe more. Well, like I said, I don't plan. So it starts with a piece and maybe I do another piece and I am like, okay, I'll admit it. Titles are hard for me. Words are not my thing. But these just seemed, they seemed to come out. I mean, they were coming out of other work. It was just becoming more and more sculptural. And once I had done maybe two, I thought, this is a series for sure. And I needed a name, and so I just thought about it and continuum, because they're going to come out. They're coming out in different ways. I have some at the gallery right now that are coming off the bottom, others off the sides. I just finished one that has a lot of that clear gel. It has lace, it has silver paint, which it's hard to even know what it is, but it's paint and it's coming out and weaving back in and coming way down. So Continuum just felt like the right name for this series, which I don't know where it's going to go. Who knows? Maybe one piece is just going to be clear, see through, hung from the ceiling that you can walk around. I don't know. That would be exciting for me. I'd love to know how this artist does it. She lives in Brooklyn, so I could maybe go to, I mean, I do go to Brooklyn, pay her little visit. That'll be interesting to see where this goes. You've been inspired by art museums and retrospectives. You talked about the Whitney, obviously Van Gogh, Anzo Kiefer, Joan Mitchell, I hope I'm pronouncing this correctly. Fire Baez. What is it about these particular, I mean, Van Gogh, I think more people will recognize that name, but what is it about those particular creators that inspires you? Obviously, I like layers and texture. And so Mark Bradford, I saw a show of his at the ICA years and years ago, and they were huge. I would love to be able to work really large, but it was not at all similar to Bibi's work, but Bibi, yeah, don't mind me. But it was pieces that are torn off of billboards, and it was just massive and really just blew me away. Had never seen anything quite like that before. And then this last show that I saw at the ICA by this woman who I, her work was a mixture of abstraction and really fine detail and lots of color that just was, it just jumps right off the piece, really vibrant and alive. And also a lot of history in her work, historical, going back to colonialism, and they were just exquisite. So I'm not going to paint like her, but I really, I just love strong work. And hers, I went twice. I could have gone three times because it was just, there's so much to see in each piece. And that's the other thing, although I love Rothko, right? Big Rothko fan. I enjoy work that is going to give me information over time, and that I'll never get tired of looking at it, that I'll always see something else. It's interesting to hear you say that because I also really like Rothko, but I also am intrigued by work that you come in on a different day, the light hits it a certain way and it speaks to you differently. So this, it seems like it's two ends of the spectrum in a way, but both equally, There's such a wide range of work that I like, and that's the same with other art forms, art, music, and food. I like all kinds of food. Well, this must be why you and I get along because diversity of interests. Not kind of wanting to be pigeonholed into one specific thing. Right, exactly. I mean, the world is very, the world has a lot of things to offer. It's nice to be able to enjoy a broad variety of things. Not everybody feels that way. Some people would rather be like, I'm going to do one thing, do it very, very well, and do it until I die. I honor that. It's never been me, but it's nice to be able to talk them. There is a place for all of us. Absolutely. That's why I'm saying it's great to be able to say, oh, this is Yeah. I have no idea what I'm going to be doing in a year. I know I'm going to be doing art, but I don't know what it's going to look like. Sometimes when you're having shows, the places want to know, okay, we're going to give you a show, but you need to tell us what we're going to be showing. It's like, well, that would be challenging. Well, we do know that people who would like to see your work can go to the Portland Art Gallery, or they can visit the Portland Art Gallery website, and if they want to meet you, you're at most of the openings. I know. It's pretty great. It is pretty great. So I hope after hearing our conversation today, people will understand, as I have for a long time, what a fascinating individual you are. Well, thank you, Lisa, And want to meet you. Thank you. I appreciate you having me on and talking. It's been a pleasure. Today we've been speaking with Brenda Cirioni, who is a Portland Art Gallery artist. So I do encourage you to come to one of our openings and talk with Brenda. Her art is wonderful, and she is also wonderful. So I think the confluence of wonderfulness will certainly convince you that it'd be a fine thing to have a Brenda Cirioni piece on your wall today. Brenda, thanks for coming in. Thank you, Lisa.