Full Transcript for Arts Research + Creative Practice: Clare Croft and Anne Mondro on U-M’s ARIA Program

a uh new mother and this all the emotions that came with having this diagnosis and and wanting to care for my child, but really having to care for myself. 00:05:10.240 --> 00:05:11.759 Yeah, you're talking about being pulled in two directions. 00:05:12.079 --> 00:05:20.879 Yes, yeah, and there was, as you can imagine, moments of joy and um moments of intense fear in that journey. 00:05:20.879 --> 00:05:34.560 And tethered is um through the making of Tethered, I was um really able to dive deep into um processing those emotions and experiences. 00:05:34.560 --> 00:05:45.439 Um and the work itself is crocheted wire sculptures that are made of silver and um gold-plated wire. 00:05:45.439 --> 00:05:55.279 And the forms are reminiscent of those found within our bodies, lungs, and hearts, and even looking at some bone structures and lymph nodes. 00:05:55.279 --> 00:06:06.959 And I'm pairing these forms together in different configurations and really wanting to create these objects of wonder out of this experience I've been through. 00:06:07.759 --> 00:06:14.000 Yeah, well, I've I've seen s similar works, but also the pictures online from Tethered, and they they ri they're really intimate. 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:14.959 I mean, and complex. 00:06:14.959 --> 00:06:22.399 Like they draw you in trying to see both the detail of this wire that's been woven together in this sort of remarkable way. 00:06:22.399 --> 00:06:27.439 You know, you're not used to seeing wire look like it's string, basically, right? 00:06:27.439 --> 00:06:28.319 Or yarn. 00:06:28.319 --> 00:06:30.560 Um can you talk a little bit about the process? 00:06:30.560 --> 00:06:34.000 Like how do you get wire to behave this way? 00:06:34.399 --> 00:06:38.079 Um I have been crocheting with wire for many years. 00:06:38.079 --> 00:06:45.920 I was um when I was an undergrad student, um I picked up a book on textile techniques. 00:06:45.920 --> 00:06:48.879 And my mom actually taught me crochet in yarn. 00:06:48.879 --> 00:06:49.439 Oh wow. 00:06:49.600 --> 00:06:56.000 Well so many, so many students these days I see are using, you know, are knitting and doing other things with crochets. 00:06:56.480 --> 00:06:56.959 Yes, yeah. 00:06:56.959 --> 00:07:00.079 So um so I started to put those two together. 00:07:00.079 --> 00:07:12.959 And um and I just realized that, oh, I can generate form um that is both light and airy, but also dense at the same time. 00:07:12.959 --> 00:07:22.079 And um And for me, I I crochet in the round, so I never make anything flat and then then bend it up. 00:07:22.079 --> 00:07:27.439 So I don't know, it's just it's become a very natural process for me. 00:07:27.439 --> 00:07:37.120 I I study um images, I study anatomical models, and then I just start going with it. 00:07:37.120 --> 00:07:59.839 And it it just it's just um I'm able to um perfect that stitch just out of practice and patience and and understand form um just because I've been working with it so long and I feel

uh that the material is able to do what I want it to do at this point. 00:07:59.839 --> 00:08:11.360 I want it to be complex and I want it to um provoke the sense of awe through the materiality of the work in addition to the form. 00:08:11.839 --> 00:08:22.399 And I would the ones of that I've seen in person are like, you know, a foot eighteen inches around-ish, maybe the size of a basketball, uh more or less. 00:08:22.399 --> 00:08:23.839 How long does it take to make one? 00:08:24.160 --> 00:08:26.319 Yeah, um it varies. 00:08:26.319 --> 00:08:38.960 Um it varies on the time of year if I'm um teaching and have my my full workload, the work goes slower and it'll take um like three or four months to make a piece. 00:08:38.960 --> 00:08:39.600 Oh wow. 00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:41.759 Yeah, it's it's slow moving. 00:08:41.759 --> 00:08:52.240 A lot of times I will start a piece and then stop it and let it rest for a while, and then I'll I'll start another piece and then I come back to the work. 00:08:52.240 --> 00:09:03.919 And then and then through working on that next piece and problem solving that next piece, I generate the idea for that first piece and I go back to it and complete it. 00:09:03.919 --> 00:09:05.519 So so I do tend to work. 00:09:05.519 --> 00:09:06.879 They do. 00:09:06.879 --> 00:09:08.399 They always speak to each other. 00:09:08.399 --> 00:09:08.720 Yeah. 00:09:09.120 --> 00:09:09.440 Interesting. 00:09:09.440 --> 00:09:30.159 Well, you know, the Arts Initiative just launched um in collaboration with some of our partners across campus, Wolverine Wellness, University Health and Counseling, a program we're calling Arts RX, which is all about, you know, sort of mental health and the way in which arts practice can sort of help us just process the world and process our relationship to it, um, connect with other people. 00:09:30.159 --> 00:09:34.240 And it seems like your work is, you know, speaks to a similar space. 00:09:34.240 --> 00:09:46.799 I mean, both for you personally, but the idea of tethered of of like joining things together, of the fact that that we are dependent upon one another and interdependent, that there is that care, but we also need to receive care. 00:09:46.799 --> 00:09:56.240 You know, that these these themes of like just how vital art is to our community at a time when notions of community are increasingly fractured, right? 00:09:56.240 --> 00:10:04.399 The the algorithms of Google are putting us in our little boxes and telling us the things that we expect to see that we're we're used to seeing. 00:10:04.399 --> 00:10:09.120 They're not giving us contrasting views, they're not necessarily connecting us with everyone. 00:10:09.120 --> 00:10:14.639 Um so is does that resonate with you and in the messages you're hoping people take away from these works? 00:10:15.039 --> 00:10:15.919 Oh, definitely. 00:10:15.919 --> 00:10:26.320 I think for me the um the making process in and of itself has been one that has been

um appealing for me. 00:10:26.320 --> 00:10:35.279 So for for the individual art um you know, art that can um improve your well-being and health. 00:10:35.279 --> 00:10:50.639 Um it's also for me has been a way to um not only find moments of uh peace or contentment, but also to come to terms and make meaning from my experience and my story. 00:10:50.639 --> 00:11:06.559 And um I think that uh uh ability to make meaning in various ways is is then in then sharing that with others, you're sharing stories, you're building connections through the story. 00:11:06.559 --> 00:11:20.639 Um one thing with my work, I've been able to um present it at a few events, and um some of the feedback I received is that um it's very vulnerable. 00:11:20.639 --> 00:11:37.039 And I I didn't intentionally go out to make this vulnerable series, but I realized like, oh yeah, this is about vulnerability, and that's something that really resonates in with people and with the community, and art can do that. 00:11:37.120 --> 00:11:38.639 Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, that's really interesting. 00:11:38.639 --> 00:11:44.399 I mean, first of all, the the work is beautiful and the this the sort of motivation behind it is really beautiful. 00:11:44.399 --> 00:11:45.279 But I can sort of see that. 00:11:45.279 --> 00:11:52.480 I mean, I think the pieces I've seen have usually been in a box of some sort, you know, which in a way brings out the fragility of the work, right? 00:11:52.480 --> 00:11:55.279 I mean, this this work could be could be crushed, right? 00:11:55.279 --> 00:11:58.000 And it wouldn't it wouldn't just go back the way it was, right? 00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:00.480 I mean it's very in some ways it's very sturdy. 00:12:00.480 --> 00:12:04.240 I mean, you know, it it'll last a long time, I presume, being made out of wire. 00:12:04.240 --> 00:12:07.919 It doesn't degrade in the same way that that yarn would or otherwise. 00:12:08.080 --> 00:12:09.600 It has that duality, too. 00:12:10.080 --> 00:12:10.399 Yeah, yeah. 00:12:10.399 --> 00:12:13.200 But it but it's also it needs to be cared for as well, right? 00:12:13.200 --> 00:12:18.080 So that's that's fascinating how the work sort of its own life tends to carry those themes forward. 00:12:18.080 --> 00:12:23.519 Trevor Burrus Claire, you know, it may surprise some of our listeners to think about arts as research. 00:12:23.519 --> 00:12:31.120 I mean, we're at a research one institution, the University of Michigan, we're a research-driven institution, we're creating new knowledge, trying to make the world a better place. 00:12:31.120 --> 00:12:33.200 Um, but is art research? 00:12:33.200 --> 00:12:38.080 I mean, I I never I say that provocatively because I know your answer is yes, emphatically. 00:12:38.080 --> 00:12:48.639 But can you talk a little bit about why what art research is, what creative practice is, um, why that term is important, and what what this means within the context of a place like the University of Michigan? 00:12:49.039 --> 00:12:55.679 Yeah, I think there's a bunch of layers to that question, and some of them bump up against each other in kind of interesting ways. 00:12:55.679 --> 00:13:07.360 I think one is we often associate research with the ideas and things that happen in schools, and we haven't done a good enough job of integrating art into education. 00:13:07.360 --> 00:13:11.200 So I think that's partially why sometimes people are like, art is research. 00:13:11.200 --> 00:13:13.360 I don't understand how that happens. 00:13:13.360 --> 00:13:13.679 Yeah. 00:13:13.679 --> 00:13:21.279 So just thinking about the arts happening in educational settings, I think is is part of the challenge that sometimes bumps. 00:13:21.600 --> 00:13:22.879 Yeah, and that's a big theme for us, right? 00:13:22.879 --> 00:13:26.960 That that art and creativity and innovation are necessary for for problem solving in any field. 00:13:27.279 --> 00:13:27.440 Yeah. 00:13:27.440 --> 00:13:33.200 And that the how we think about research always involves creativity and systematicity. 00:13:33.200 --> 00:13:36.480 Um, things you want to repeat and get really good at. 00:13:36.480 --> 00:14:01.519 I'm guessing, you know, that you have really perfected techniques for doing this weaving that, and they're techniques that you probably learned from others, as you talked about with your mom, but also have developed your own, which I think is a great uh way to think about how research is in the arts is both drawing on, being creative, and learning how to be systematic to repeat something to get you to a particular end. 00:14:01.519 --> 00:14:19.200 The other way I love thinking about arts as research is artists engage with the world and ask questions about it, and then they move through those questions and address them in a variety of ways through their art practice, through their creative practice. 00:14:19.200 --> 00:14:45.039 I also think about arts as research in terms of when you take on a question, and you know, if you're taking if you're a scientist working in the scientific method, which we all learn about in seventh grade, when we probably should also be learning about artistic methods that might let us explore the world, um that you take up a question in the arts and the question actually transforms. 00:14:45.039 --> 00:14:53.360 We really start to come up with there's a maybe an idea or two that come together and make a new idea. 00:14:53.360 --> 00:15:08.320 And that's part of where I think Anne's work is such a great example of that, in the sense that when I look at your sculptures, you can both recognize some of the, I'll say, I guess, inspirations for it, you know. 00:15:08.320 --> 00:15:15.200 Like I'm thinking about one sculpture of yours where I look at it and I'm like, oh, that's a heart, you know, like I know I recognize the thing. 00:15:15.200 --> 00:15:24.720 But at the same time, it's representing something, the world, it's also moving beyond the

thing it's represented, which, you know, maybe some people would call abstraction. 00:15:24.720 --> 00:15:29.679 I might call making new knowledge, you know, that, and I think it's really important. 00:15:29.679 --> 00:15:43.759 And the longer I've been in this job and gotten to learn about my colleagues' work, funded through ARIA, really understanding that arts, research, and creative practice are where transformational knowledge happens. 00:15:43.759 --> 00:15:51.679 Something new is produced, and it feels increasingly important to me that we think about how we develop new ideas. 00:15:51.679 --> 00:15:56.480 For instance, in Ann's work, new ideas about how we think about caregiving. 00:15:56.480 --> 00:16:06.639 You know, the fact that you're really understanding caregiving as this complex web that becomes materialized through the sculpture feels feels like a real gift. 00:16:06.639 --> 00:16:17.840 When sometimes we think about sort of the caregiver role and one specific person for whom they're given care, and it can really sort of focus on that one dyad. 00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:31.600 But understanding caregiving is really complex, and I think anyone who's moved through childcare, elder care, the hospital system knows the complexity of all those wires pulling you in different directions. 00:16:31.600 --> 00:16:44.480 And to have that web really represented in this both fragile and strong formation just makes me even rethink things in my own life where I've had experiences of caregiving. 00:16:44.480 --> 00:16:58.399 So yeah, I think the transformational piece and the fact that we can actually engage with the idea outside ourselves are just two of the many ways that arts research and creative practice is a way to make new knowledge. 00:16:58.960 --> 00:17:00.799 Well, that's that's really great description. 00:17:00.799 --> 00:17:05.599 Um can you talk about some of the other work that'll be featured at the showcase on the 23rd? 00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:07.279 Sure, I'm happy to. 00:17:07.279 --> 00:17:09.359 Um, it's a real range. 00:17:09.359 --> 00:17:13.759 So Anne will be there talking about her sculptural work. 00:17:13.759 --> 00:17:47.599 Benedict Boucheron, who is faculty in the Department of African American and Africanist Studies, will be sharing a work that she's doing in collaboration with an artist based in Detroit, Brendan Drake, who they are thinking about how to manipulate photography and create collages that started with uh photography from sort of American nostalgia, mundane photographs that are part of a collection that's based in Paris called the Anonymous Archive. 00:17:47.599 --> 00:18:05.039 And they are using those initial photographs from now 50 plus years ago and reformulating them, taking objects that were featured in those photographs and placing them in context that helped might help us think about uh Afrofuturism and black futures in the US. 00:18:05.039 --> 00:18:15.039 So, sort of moving from a kind of nostalgic

image of Americana into uh different ways of understanding blackness in the US. 00:18:15.039 --> 00:18:28.079 And it's a really interesting collaboration between a theorist who's thinking about visual ways of expressing uh national identity in this case uh with uh a young artist based in Detroit. 00:18:28.319 --> 00:18:30.160 Well also titled The Heirloom Project. 00:18:30.400 --> 00:18:32.559 The Heirloom Project, yes, thanks, Mark. 00:18:32.559 --> 00:18:52.960 And um then Tian Ying and her work with Wes McGee, so with the intersection of architecture and engineering, and they'll be showcasing um this incredibly beautiful sculpture that is made from a sort of form of ceramic brick that they've developed. 00:18:52.960 --> 00:19:04.240 And the interesting thing is the sculpture is uh will eventually be in a public park in Henderson, Nevada, and will be both a sculpture and actually a water management system. 00:19:04.240 --> 00:19:16.960 And I'm happy to say that if you come to the showcase, we will have the prototype of the sculpture there in the in the union with us, and you can actually see how water moves through it. 00:19:16.960 --> 00:19:19.200 And it and this was an example of one. 00:19:19.200 --> 00:19:21.920 I was actually able to see it for the first time yesterday. 00:19:21.920 --> 00:19:30.160 You know, I read the application, I know this is an interesting and important project, but actually encountering the object itself. 00:19:30.160 --> 00:19:37.920 It didn't completely change the way I thought about the project, but when you're like, oh, this is even cooler than I knew. 00:19:37.920 --> 00:19:58.000 And then our final presentation will be from Lynn Shankl, who's an assistant professor in the musical theater department, who is developing a new musical, and we'll get to hear uh some songs and acting from the performance, which just had its Broadway workshop in May. 00:19:58.079 --> 00:20:01.440 And so Perpetual Sunshine and the Ghost Girls. 00:20:01.680 --> 00:20:01.920 Exactly. 00:20:02.240 --> 00:20:13.680 Project about the Radium girls, the women who put radioactive material on watches and then actually ended up getting injured by that and really created sort of workplace protections in the United States. 00:20:13.680 --> 00:20:14.799 So it's a very cool project. 00:20:14.799 --> 00:20:17.759 We have another creative coherence episode on that project. 00:20:17.759 --> 00:20:20.559 So I everybody should check that one out, too. 00:20:20.559 --> 00:20:32.559 Um I'm really excited about the hydroscopic envelope as well, because that so the idea is that the sculpture sort of it rains and it sort of absorbs the water, prevents flooding in a sense, right? 00:20:32.559 --> 00:20:36.319 Slows it down because it releases the the water then over time afterwards. 00:20:36.319 --> 00:20:37.359 Is that how it works? 00:20:37.839 --> 00:20:39.200 That is my understanding. 00:20:39.200 --> 00:20:45.680 I am not an expert on how water works in

the desert, but um that is part of it. 00:20:45.680 --> 00:20:57.440 And so, and part of why it's in Henderson is thinking about that particular landscape, which I think is also interesting to think about how art has different meanings depending on where you see it. 00:20:57.440 --> 00:21:20.640 And how, yes, it will serve this public function in researching how water is being absorbed in the desert or also not absorbed in the desert, um, but also encountering the sculptural work in a public park, in collaboration with the city as to so meeting local needs and the particular place that they're engaged in. 00:21:21.039 --> 00:21:22.319 Yeah, and this seems so important. 00:21:22.319 --> 00:21:32.559 I mean, when we think about like Ann Arbor and the need for water management here, I mean, one of the things that climate change has done to Ann Arbor, if you talk to our city planners, is that we get a lot more rain than we used to. 00:21:32.640 --> 00:21:34.880 Like, yes, my basement will uh Exactly. 00:21:35.119 --> 00:21:38.079 So we have flooding in places that we didn't have flooding before. 00:21:38.079 --> 00:21:43.519 And so literally just slowing down the water allows the drains to take care of it, right? 00:21:43.519 --> 00:21:46.000 So it sounds like we need to adapt this here too. 00:21:46.319 --> 00:21:55.920 Um, I will just add on, though, I think it's interesting as you say that that to note that all of these projects have to do with big concerns in our work. 00:21:56.240 --> 00:21:56.720 Right, exactly. 00:21:57.039 --> 00:22:02.400 Medical caregiving is a massive, massive social question in the US and elsewhere. 00:22:02.400 --> 00:22:14.880 How we deal with changes in rain and ecology, how we think about, frankly, safety in the in the workplace is actually what the new musical is about. 00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:23.119 And also how we can imagine uh a multiracial coalitional world, which is part of what the Hairloom Project is thinking about. 00:22:23.119 --> 00:22:30.640 So also just really understanding that art is in the world and attached to it and trying to take on some of the biggest questions of our moment. 00:22:31.039 --> 00:22:34.319 And that's why we need research and research in the arts as well. 00:22:34.319 --> 00:22:38.319 So and for you, what is it meant to have the support of the ARIA grant? 00:22:38.319 --> 00:22:41.519 I mean, I know it's it's quite a process to win one, so congratulations. 00:22:41.519 --> 00:22:48.000 But um, you know, so I assume there's a practical part of just getting the funding, but then there's also the process and the support you get as a result. 00:22:48.079 --> 00:22:57.599 Aaron Powell Yeah, it was um um first off, it was just having the time and space to dive deep into the into this project. 00:22:57.599 --> 00:23:14.880 Um and and to really as as an important part of just applying for it was having to really sit and think about what I want to say and what is this work really about, and how do I want to visualize it? 00:23:14.880 --> 00:23:27.599 So the application in of in and of itself was um an opportunity to really define where I want to go with my work, and then having, of course, um the time to create it. 00:23:27.599 --> 00:23:35.119 And and for me, because my work does take so so long to make, um I need that space. 00:23:35.119 --> 00:23:48.799 I need to to sit, to reflect um and make in a way that isn't always um afforded to me um in with everything else going on in life. 00:23:48.799 --> 00:23:55.440 And um moving forward, I I mean Claire has been super and it's been so great. 00:23:55.440 --> 00:23:58.799 I love you you use the word to celebrate us. 00:23:58.799 --> 00:24:11.920 And boy, did that give me a boost of confidence, confidence in myself and in just um remembering the value of arts here at Michigan, but how we are contributing to society. 00:24:11.920 --> 00:24:14.799 It was it was a little boost for me, so thank you. 00:24:14.799 --> 00:24:28.319 And um into now that I've made this work, um, I'm applying to other initiatives um to um and really thinking about this next series. 00:24:28.319 --> 00:24:35.359 And and now that I created this work, I I have a direction for that next series, and I'm excited about it. 00:24:35.359 --> 00:24:43.039 And I'm excited about making and being part of um stamps in in Michigan that values the arts. 00:24:43.119 --> 00:24:45.200 Aaron Powell Yeah, well that's what certainly what we're hoping. 00:24:45.200 --> 00:24:58.079 So the the funding for ARIA comes jointly from the Arts Initiative and from the Office for the Vice President of Research, and we each put in half basically to give away um a half million dollars a year to arts research and to really support that in our faculty. 00:24:58.079 --> 00:25:07.039 And it's so important, especially as you know, there are so many changes in arts funding from outside the university at the state level, um, you know, at the national level. 00:25:07.039 --> 00:25:32.000 So we we are hoping basically by supporting this work that we emphasize really the value of arts research, that we we give you a little bit of a launch, a boost up into that national and international notoriety that that your work certainly deserves, and then hopefully attract people to support that beyond the walls of the university and not only engage and see it to to host exhibits of your work, but then to provide funding from national things. 00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:35.680 So I know that's very much part of the design Claire has come up with. 00:25:35.680 --> 00:25:39.279 Um I wanted to ask you, Claire, to talk a little bit about your work. 00:25:39.279 --> 00:25:47.359 Um, another component of the program is Creativity Lab and sort of um reaching out to other parts of the university to do arts integrative research. 00:25:47.359 --> 00:25:51.680 Um if you can uh give us a little sense of what that's about, that'd be great. 00:25:52.240 --> 00:25:52.480 Sure.

00:25:52.480 --> 00:26:05.680 So if ARIA is there to support folks who have got an idea that has been baking for a bit and is really ready for acceleration, as the the ARIA name offers. 00:26:05.680 --> 00:26:16.799 Creativity Lab is thinking about the other end of the creative process, the moment when you you're trying to take a nascent idea into a new project. 00:26:16.799 --> 00:26:30.240 And for the last two years, we've been working more with people in the arts who are in that stage who really wanted to take a week out of their summer to focus on how to develop a project. 00:26:30.240 --> 00:26:37.200 And we're shifting creativity lab a little bit this year to think about how do we build teams towards new projects. 00:26:37.200 --> 00:26:59.759 And so this year's Creativity Lab will focus on bringing together the excellent researchers in our arts faculty and the excellent researchers in our medical school to think about what might happen, what might be a novel process that leads to a novel outcome when arts and medicine faculty really work together to imagine a process. 00:26:59.759 --> 00:27:08.720 And so I'm really excited to see what could happen when someone like Ann is working alongside, I don't know, a vascular surgeon. 00:27:08.720 --> 00:27:16.079 And how what what's the kind of sculpture artwork that might be produced at that nexus of collaboration? 00:27:16.319 --> 00:27:16.640 Mm-hmm. 00:27:16.640 --> 00:27:18.640 Well, thank you both for the work you're doing. 00:27:18.640 --> 00:27:22.640 Claire, you just you've done a brilliant job, I think, in putting our ARIA program together. 00:27:22.640 --> 00:27:24.480 And I appreciate the advocacy. 00:27:24.480 --> 00:27:28.319 A lot of it's about building those individual relationships that you do so well. 00:27:28.319 --> 00:27:30.240 And Anne, just your work is gorgeous. 00:27:30.240 --> 00:27:31.039 And thank you. 00:27:31.039 --> 00:27:35.599 Thank you so much for sharing it with us through that ARIA program and and at the showcase. 00:27:35.599 --> 00:27:36.400 I'm really excited. 00:27:36.400 --> 00:27:38.400 So we'll see you in a couple weeks. 00:27:38.799 --> 00:27:39.119 Thank you. 00:27:39.119 --> 00:27:40.400 Thanks, Mark. 00:27:47.839 --> 00:27:51.359 Creative Currents is a project of the University of Michigan's Arts Initiative. 00:27:51.359 --> 00:27:57.920 Please subscribe to hear more great conversations with artists, scholars, and arts leaders from across the campus and across the globe. 00:27:57.920 --> 00:28:03.759 Send your comments and suggestions via email to creativecurrents at umish.edu. 00:28:03.759 --> 00:28:09.359 This episode of Creative Currents was produced by Jessica Dinks and edited by Slypup Productions. 00:28:09.359 --> 00:28:16.960 Our original theme music is composed and performed by Ansel Neely, an alumnus of the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater, and Dance. 00:28:16.960 --> 00:28:23.039 To learn more about the University of Michigan's Arts Initiative, please visit our website at arts.umish.edu. 00:28:23.039 --> 00:28:28.880 Thanks for listening and for being part of the Michigan Arts community that makes our campus so fabulous. 00:28:28.880 --> 00:28:34.160 So until next time, stay curious, stay inspired, and keep your creative currents flowing.