Interviews with Patricia Smith & Leah Gauthier

25 September - Leah Gauthier
Installation artist

Leah Gauthier was born 1963 in Chicago, Illinois. She received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1996, and is an MFA Candidate at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and Tufts. She is a conceptual artist using natural materials, live plants, and food as ephemeral sculptural material and performance to explore ideas of sustainability, microfarming, self-sufficiency, and community building through shared pleasures of good food and conversation. Leah teaches new media at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and has been a visiting lecturer at Tufts University, and Chester College of New England. Her work has been exhibited at Tufts University Art Center, The Revolving Museum, 808 Gallery Boston University, The Portland Museum of Art, The Burren College of Art (Ireland), School of the Museum of Fine Art Boston, Bowdoin College, Centro Pablo de la Torriente Brau (Cuba), and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, among others.

COMPASS ROSE interviews Leah Gauthier

Compass Rose: Would you say that your art is created and then its space is found, or do you create new work for each individual installation?

Leah Gauthier: My work happens when elements converge. I sometimes harbor an idea for years, and the piece materializes at the point at which all of the puzzle pieces come together (materials, place, theoretical foundation). (more)


COMPASS ROSE interviews Patricia Smith

Compass Rose: When did you discover poetry?

Patricia Smith: It was a two level thing. I grew up listening to Motown music—they always tell stories and they always rhyme—and I used to write the lyrics out in notebooks and read them as poems. Also, my father moved to Chicago from Arkansas and was very much a southern man, very much a storyteller. He would recreate his day and it was very entertaining. Pretty early on I came to think of my world in terms of the stories you could tell. That was kind of the beginning of it though I didn’t have a name for it; I just naturally thought that way. (more)