Transcript for Episode 141 – Artistic Director at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, Gretchen Schermerhorn (Hyattsville, MD, USA)

Recorded on January 18, 2021
Published on January 26, 2021

Recording here: https://wisefoolpod.com/artistic-director-at-pyramid-atlantic-art-center-gretchen-schermerhorn-hyattsville-md-usa/

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Matthew Dols 0:12
When I started this podcast, almost two years ago, now, I, I literally had like a list of things that are like a questionnaire almost that I live with, it would ask people over and over. And it just basically became boring. And also, I realized that if I go in wanting something that may not be the expertise or knowledge that you possess, so that’s a bad way to go about it. So I learned over the time is basically i’m most of my time is going to be sort of like actively listening to whatever you’re saying, to try and pick up on whatever expertise and ideas you have seem to have no knowledge of, in order to go into that avenue. Yeah,

Gretchen Schermerhorn 0:53
it’s so interesting that that you bring that up, because I struggle with that a lot like I forego with this idea of as instructors, as experts, we need to have a whole we need to have the answers, we need to know when a unanticipated questions asked, we need to have it ready. And the answer reading and what I’ve been trying to do, and probably the last five years is back off of that. And think what, what can happen, if you figure it out together, I think a lot of great things can happen, the student has a part of it, and they have a you know, there’s autonomy in that. And there’s kind of like breakthroughs in that. I think you also as an instructor and a lifelong learner, let’s be honest, have some vulnerability with really worthwhile. And so. But I have to be honest, I really struggle with that, especially because I think I always had this kind of, you know, vision of what it looked like to be a professor and to have, you know, be talking to a group of students who are so hungry for information and that you can deliver that. But I’m happy to see that that kind of paradigm is changing more. But I actually I’m what I’m trying to say is I appreciate that you don’t have a lot of built in question, because then it becomes this more of a dance of you’re listening, you’re like you said you’re actively listening, and then you’re responding to something, make a major set. And I think that’s where all the good stuff comes in, rather than I listened to a lot of podcasts. And some of them some of my favorites. Are that this kind of meandering road versus the same question that the, you know, host asked every single time. Yay, good. It’s gonna be what it is. Marvelous?

Matthew Dols 2:41
Well, you just brought up teaching, and I’m what you just said about the how the how it used to be and mean like, I remember being a student, because I had always, like, I had a car accident when I was 18 years old. And somehow, for some reason, it sort of ended up saying, like, I need to be a teacher. I don’t know how I got there. But anyways, but I decided to be a teacher at a very young age, I think. And so like, I remember always thinking, like, I look forward to being the that wealth of knowledge and that the person that people admire and look up to, and they listen to and respect and, and I’ve realized that after trying that in modern education and academia that it doesn’t really work like the the students these days, and people in general, it doesn’t matter their age, they don’t really want to be lectured to. They, they don’t want that I don’t think they’re learning that way anymore. You know, like, I think I’m 47 I’m 4747. You know, my parents generation, they were accustomed to being lectured to that was normal. Like, in my era, it was reasonably normal. But there was a beginning of a discussion. And I feel like a lot of the learning these days is going on in a more interactive way, in engaging way instead of sort of somebody in an ivory tower, sort of just imparting their knowledge on to students kind of thing.

Gretchen Schermerhorn 4:03
Exactly. And I think experiential too, you know, people are learning so much, especially with this pandemic, and we’ve sort of been forced into that online learning platform. We have to think of other sensory experiences that people can exchange and share. But yeah, yeah.

Matthew Dols 4:23
All right. Let’s go back. I forgot to ask you. Could you please pronounce your name correctly for me? Yeah.

Gretchen Schermerhorn 4:28
So my first name is Gretchen. And my last name if you’re being really good in Dutch, you would say screamer horn. But most of my family pronounces it schermer horn. All right, so

Matthew Dols 4:39
obviously, you’re Dutch or at least your heritage, just Dutch. Yeah, I just recently had a family member pass away. So we started down that family history stuff and found out I’m mostly German and partly Finnish. Had no idea.

Gretchen Schermerhorn 4:56
So the more I’ve learned really, I start thinking, although I didn’t really go Opening with any customs or anything like that it has been interesting looking up information like there’s a there’s a stop in New York called point screamer horn. And turns out the Dutch were really heavily settled, you know, parts of New York, especially Brooklyn and they were all farmers and stuff. So that’s made me think about what, what things what customs, what dress or various things like that. Is there anything that you thought, well, I should research this or I should look into both?

Matthew Dols 5:33
Well, I know that there’s a an antique store in Amsterdam with the name doles as part of its title. I don’t know why. And oddly enough, here in Prague, there’s a mailbox company like they produce mailboxes called doles. Like that’s their name. Like, Oh, that’s interesting. I had no idea we had Czech relations. But Toby. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. family lineage. It’s fascinating. Like, yeah, yeah. All right. Speaking of family lineage, how did you come to being creative? So childhood parents, like So what was your you know, where your parents creative? Did you have some great teachers? Like, how did you even come to the sort of Creative Industries?

Gretchen Schermerhorn 6:17
Yeah, I was thinking about this in the shower a little while ago, where I have most of my great thoughts as we all do. It’s like you need to be for me, at least I need to be doing something else, you know, cooking, showering, something that doesn’t take a whole lot of my bandwidth. So that can be doing something but then also, my mind opens up. But anyway, I was thinking about that question. And I was thinking about where I grew up, and my parents and their, their influence. So let me let me start off with where I grew up. So I grew up in a tiny, tiny town less than 2000 people at the time in Texas, Argyle, Texas, which was North Texas area, not far from Oklahoma, or Louisiana. And what was unique about it, and I, I didn’t know that at the time that it was unique. I just kind of thought that it was like everybody, but now that I live, you know, right outside of DC, I see that not everybody has the experience of digging their hands in the dirt daily making forts and trails living near a creek. And, you know, my mom teaching us my sister and I how to make pinch pots out of what we thought was clay, what she told us was clay, mud, dirt is five, close enough to clay, our only neighbors were there was a boy a couple years older than me. And I really, really wanted to do everything he wanted to do. And so we again, I got real scrappy at an early age because he was. So that was huge, just really being tactful, hands on, gritty, scrappy, playful. But again, I didn’t know that that was kind of unique to a lot of people, especially you know, as I get older, so that was that was crucial. That was important. That was really formative that was part of for many years. And then also my parents, were both really creative. And although my mom has an art degree, for her profession, she worked as a hospital administrator. And I think a lot of people you and I were talking about careers and and like our generation, I think that while that while it’s changing now, it was much more acceptable to sort of have have a career and have that same career for you know, until you retire. And I think my mom especially saw the sort of importance and stability and having a career so my mom, you know, at the same time was always again, she was the one teaching us about pinch pots and to keep us quiet in church, she would she would draw for us and we would just be mesmerized, you know, the whole time. So we would be quiet and, and my dad, although not an artist, he was a computer programmer. He was very into tinkering all the time. I remember one time he built like this geodesic dome in our backyard that was kind of like a tool shed. And you know, didn’t know at the time you know, there’s some Buckminster Fuller, fuller going on, you know, but just having that like, can do it ness and building things and he was always you know, I mentioned digging your hands in the dirt. He was always growing things and like he taught me at a young age, how to make a compost, tincture, real kind of hippie dippie and I mean that like in not a condescending way just again in a relationship to the to the natural He, in my family, especially on my dad’s side, we were always singing and dancing. And nobody was particularly good at it. But that wasn’t the goal. That wasn’t important. It was expression and playfulness, and comfort, like just being comfortable with yourself, putting yourself out there and singing. And now anybody who knows me knows that I’ll just bust out in a little ditty or a chante or something, and it can be annoying and sort of tick ish. But I think that that’s because of my dad. So yeah, creativity was was all around us all the time. And I think, you know, when I don’t remember saying this, but my, my mom told me that I said, I wanted to be an artist when I was five years old. And we’ll also back back that there were folks that in our family who really were bonafide artists, you know, who made a living at it, or who did it full time. So it wasn’t like, just because I didn’t see it. For my parents. I didn’t know what that looked like, there were there were other people in the family, you know, we had paintings and we had my parents still have paintings in their house from grandparents. And so I did have a role model of kind of what that looked like. And I just loved putting things together again, building things, scrapping things together, I rearranged my room all the time. I didn’t know that that was creativity. I thought it was just moving that around. But you know, I think that is a form of creativity, kind of looking at your your space as an interior installation and moving things around. But I’m really thankful that I grew up where I did, although I will say I tried to get out of it as fast as possible. Because you don’t know what you have until you don’t have it. And what I saw growing up was small town mentality. Everybody knows everybody. Pretty red. I mean, obviously, that’s changing a little bit in Texas, but it’s still pretty, pretty red, pretty conservative. So you know, I wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. But looking back, it was pretty darn great. Growing up that way. That’s kind of my childhood in a nutshell.

Matthew Dols 12:13
Everybody has this sense of they hate where they grew up for a while, and then later on, they start looking back at a certain age and you’re like, Oh, no, wait, it actually was lot really nice. Like you’re saying, like, everybody knew everybody and all that. I grew up outside of Washington, DC in Arlington. And everybody knew everybody there too. You know, I know it’s changed in certain parts of the district, but in where we were like, because my father was also the local minister. So everybody knew our business. Yeah. Yeah,

Gretchen Schermerhorn 12:49
I also bet that puts you under a particular I have expectations to a certain you know, magnifying glass of behaviors, probably

Matthew Dols 13:01
very much so. Yeah, I don’t I rarely talk about that. But yeah, yeah, being a preacher’s kid. A PK is the Yeah, the, you know, my, my family was meant as the the guiding light of morals and ethics in a community because my father was the local leader of people’s morals and ethics. And so there was a certain expectation and it was a little bit even more difficult. My brother was the bad one in the family. He was more of the black sheep than I was, even though I was the one getting arrested and doing drugs and all kinds of crazy stuff. So I was the good one. doing that. I guess it’s all relative. Right. Very, very relative. Yes. Yeah. What? What kind of minister what kind of what? Really? What? Episcopal? Okay. Okay. Yeah. Pretty liberal. Yeah. Grants. Yeah. Yeah, I used to work at the 930 Club back. Way back in the day, it was good times. Yeah. But yeah, once I found out I was being investigated by the Drug Enforcement Agency, I thought it was time for me to stop that job. Oh, oh, yeah. Well, we need to I do need to interview you. Yeah. I still want to ask the DEA to like, give me that file. I really want to see it. You know, like freedom of information act like I would love to see what they have on me. Yeah. Yeah. You have any idea? Well, what it was was, I was working at the 930 Club and this guy, cousin Mike, who was not my cousin, we I don’t know why we called him cousin Mike. Cousin, Mike’s cousin. I know. Frank happened to be the DEA agent who was investigating me and a number of other people that worked at the 930 Club at the time, and he warned cousin Mike to stay away from us. And of course, cousin Mike then came and told us Hey, my cousin Frank is investigating you. So yeah. figured it was time to quit. Okay, all right. Yeah. Someday I’ll ask through a Freedom of Information Act to get a copy of that file because that will be thoroughly entertained, I’m sure. So, totally random topic. But anyways, so you wanted to get out of Texas as quickly as possible. And you ended up going to Arizona state, which is a phenomenal School for the Arts. I know it primarily from printmaking and photography, actually a really, really strong photographer because I believe Jim stone is there, right? Jim highjack now Jim stone because he’s the guy that Jim stones, the guy that literally wrote the book called, like, basics of photography. Okay. Okay. Yeah, it’s okay. You were in printmaking. You didn’t need to know him. It’s fine. That’s

Gretchen Schermerhorn 15:45
right. That’s right. Although, I will say that one of the things I really appreciated about the program was there was so much crossover, even then I got my MFA in 2004. And even then, there was a lot of crossover in you know, okay. You’re a printmaker, but you want to work in the sculpture department. Yeah. So while I didn’t take any photography classes in graduate school, I did take several in undergrad. And it really helped inform the ideas and printmaking, especially when it came to thinking about light and emulsion and photo based processes. So like, for example, cyanotype, or, or collotype, or vandyke, printing, for example. So that was really beneficial. And actually now in my practice, I feel myself gravitating back towards things like pinhole photography, lumen printing, and, and I, I’m trying to, you know, sometimes you probably do this too, it’s like you find yourself moving towards something, but you’re not exactly sure what it is. And then you find yourself trying to formulate whether it’s an artist statement or some type of why. And I think the reason why for me is that you lose your ability to control what’s going to happen to a certain extent, yes, with understanding chemistry, practice and doing it over and over again, you gain that, you know, you you understand why something’s doing something. But there’s still this level of unpredictability that excites me that challenge that game is always exciting. And you know, it’s not like pressing the undo button. It’s not like pressing the Back button. And I kind of like that it almost to me reminds me a little bit about what what we’re talking about in that that dance and that improv improvisation. That’s happening that can happen. So, yeah, I was glad and undergrad to take some photo classes.

Matthew Dols 17:52
So yeah, I started off as a photography major, and I got my BA and my BFA in photography. And then I got to the San Francisco Art Institute. And I got there and they were all they were concerned with was, what camera equipment are you using? What paper you printing on what light equipment you’re using? And I was just like, I don’t give a shit about any of that crap. Like I care about what did the image mean? What are you trying to say? Why are you producing this? And I switched, it became an interdisciplinary or what they call new genre. And, and I’ll tell you that education is, but I’ll caveat this for the listener in particular, like, having a foundation of like the stet, like a BFA in photography, or whatever, choosing a discipline, and then going into interdisciplinary practices was fabulous. Those critiques and conversations in those multimedia classes were, you know, just amazing, because we were talking about what makes good art. Not Not what makes a good print or not what makes good photograph or not, but just meet what me what how did they express their idea effectively? Yeah, I hope best education.

Gretchen Schermerhorn 19:04
Yeah, I also think, you know, you hear this sometimes in in discourse, or in classes about knowing the rules, and then, you know, turning it on its head. And I think being able to understand the why is or the why something’s happening rather than, you know, you you probably hear this, but sometimes I hear students say, Oh, I meant it to be like that, or, you know, seasoned artists, and it’s like, didja Did you really know so being able to understand and control those things so that you can say what you want to say, right? Make Why is art Why is it good? And I believe it’s firmly about communication and about making the media Say what you want to say. So if you don’t know that and you don’t have that foundation, so that’s that’s almost what I heard you say, or I think that’s what I heard you say it’s like having that strong foundation to be able to control those variables and understand what’s happening. It’s a moot point, if you can’t get someone from across the room to come over and look at your piece because it’s poorly crafted, or you know, it’s shoddy or it’s got all sorts of problems. You know, they’re not gonna, it’s like, who cares about the concept if it’s poorly executed?

Matthew Dols 20:18
It’s interesting you say that, because, again, I’m American, and I was trained in America, but I’m now in Europe, the nature of sort of the aesthetics, this is a visual beauty of a piece of art is very different in Europe than it is in America. From my from what I’ve been noticing. In America, generally, I was taught like, and maybe maybe I wasn’t taught this, maybe I just believe it. And that’s what I thought I heard. But I thought my assumption was like, You tried to make something beautiful in order to entice people in to want to then understand more about why about whatever the topic you’re talking about, but you but that that desire to make something beautiful to entice people is a very American thing. They do not concern that in Europe so much at all. They’re they’re more the concept is the primary purpose of it. And just aesthetics as far as making something look beautiful is completely irrelevant to people in Europe, as far as I can tell, except maybe like Persians or something. Interesting. It’s weird. Well, okay, I’ll give you a reason why I say that. In America, this is something I’ve learned through the podcast through all these conversations I’ve had. So in America, it’s generally very capitalistic. So like, you produce an object, you sell that object, then you take that money, and you reinvest it and make more. That’s sort of the nature of the practice in America. In Europe, it’s very much about, you come up with a really great idea you apply for a residency or a grant or some funding to produce the thing, and then there’s no need to sell it, because it’s already been paid for by the grant or the residency or whatever. So it’s not the the intention or the need to sell is not important, because the practice of producing it has already been paid for.

Gretchen Schermerhorn 22:08
Yeah. So that makes me wonder, and I totally, I completely understand the the logic and the thinking behind that. But it does make me wonder what happens to the What happened to that piece or Cooper’s or, you know, does that matter?

Matthew Dols 22:26
I don’t know, I’m not sure what happens. I mean, a lot of times, but no, I shouldn’t even say no, I have absolutely no idea what happens.

Gretchen Schermerhorn 22:33
Well, I actually would buy into that, that model a lot more. But I guess the the older I get, and the more I think about the idea of making, and the idea of creating is for me a lot about sharing. So for example, you know, the other day I posted something, I’ve never done this because it feels I don’t know, to me, it just feels a little desperate or shady or something. But I posted some of the pieces that I’m that I’m working on right now and said, Hey, you want to trade you up for you know, bartering or, you know, DM me if you’re if you’re interested.

Matthew Dols 23:14
Okay, wait, hold on. You’re saying on Instagram.

Gretchen Schermerhorn 23:16
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And, again, I was really hesitant about that, but then I’m trying to look into like, why, you know, you know, what is that wire? Why are you feeling that, but I did it and got some pretty good response with with trades. And so the money and luckily, I mean, we’ll talk about this more, I, I have kind of a nine to five that pays my bills. So that wasn’t my end goal. It was really, how can how can I share what it’s not for me about the money, it’s about sharing, getting it into people’s homes or or getting it in front of someone who will appreciate it and likes it. And you know, every time they look at it, they they maybe think of something is the most important thing. So I guess I’m I’m sort of asking that what happens to it? Does it just, you know, end up in that artists hat home or under their bed, you know, or that’s important to me, because I want that to live with other people.

Matthew Dols 24:23
Oh, well, that’s like when I, when I talk to young artists, I don’t mean necessarily like by age, but I mean, young to the practice. They often say like, Oh, I make my work for me, I don’t make it for anybody else. And I’m like, That’s bullshit. Because if you made it for you, you wouldn’t be showing it to me. So, but simply by the act of even showing your work to and somebody else means that it’s not just for you anymore. And a lot of people sort of don’t understand that. That balance of you know, there is that always that nagging thing of like, I want to make something that’s true to myself that’s about me about my aesthetic, whatever. My concepts are But there also does still need to be some engagement in the social like the not necessarily social media, but like the I want the public to quote unquote, like approve of it or appreciated or respected or whatever. Because as much as people say like, Oh, I make it for myself. No, no, if you made it for yourself, you wouldn’t show it to anybody. Yeah, good point. Yeah. I agree. All right. Moving forward, you now work at pyramid Atlantic, which I have long standing love for. I went to the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC. And one of my professors, I believe, in multiples of my professors, but the one I associate most with is Georgia deal. And she was also working at pyramid Atlantic when I was there back in 1998. Era, that timeframe. And I believe she’s still working there as well.

Gretchen Schermerhorn 25:52
Yeah. She recently taught a class before she and Tom moved to Asheville area, she taught a class for us and yeah, we’ve had a long standing relationship with Georgia she she’s been so supportive with us, meaning, you know, when we need art for an auction or teaching a class I mean, granted she she gets paid but she’s just always game you know, I love that she’s she’s always down for, for stuff. So that openness has always been appreciated.

Matthew Dols 26:27
Okay, so for the listeners who may not have had the admiration for pyramid Atlantic that I do, please tell everybody sort of what is pyramid Atlantic.

Gretchen Schermerhorn 26:35
So pyramid Atlantic is an art center split with a specialization in contemporary printmaking, paper making and book arts. And we like to say that we make contemporary art with antiquated equipment. And so when you walk in, you’ll see and hear the presses running smell the ink, we’re very deliberately low tech and hands on. And while we have toyed with digital art and digital having digital labs, and and I certainly am a huge advocate of those of that media, we always come back to having a haptic physical hands on experience when making so that’s really important. We have a gallery upstairs. And we have exhibitions that rotate about every six to eight weeks. Of course, we’ve kind of gone to a virtual platform, although we did have an in person opening in November with time tickets and low capacity. We have 17 private artists studios, so all of those artists have anywhere from 125 to 300 square feet, and they have a key and literally come and go 24 hours a day. We have artists, residencies internships. We actually have one one particular residency, long standing residency with the Corcoran, whereby their professors nominate an outstanding graduate or undergraduate student. And they have a residency we have fellowships for, I would say, seasoned mid career to seasoned artists. There’s a lot of layers, and I’m just kind of scratching the surface, but it’s it’s

Matthew Dols 28:22
lovely. Yeah,

Gretchen Schermerhorn 28:24
it’s a pretty amazing, almost 40 year old organization, which is like two lifetimes for a nonprofit.

Matthew Dols 28:32
Well, okay, so that’s the key thing, too. It’s a nonprofit. Yep. Okay. Now in your title is called artistic director. Now I see artistic director and all kinds of things from plays and theater and dance to this. So what is the term artistic director mean in a space like this?

Gretchen Schermerhorn 28:48
Well, it means that a couple different things, it means that oftentimes I conceptualized either with a partnership with our executive director or some of the some of the staff programs. So everything from exhibition ideas to artists, recruitment, to education programs, and in our education programs, they’re not only workshops, workshops, hands on workshops, but also with our residency program. So coming up with particular ideas, it’s been a lot of it’s conceptual. But I would say that what’s also really important to pyramid and our history, because it was founded by an artist is to maintain my own practice as an artist, so exhibiting lecturing, doing residencies, so that I’m kind of staying fresh and understanding, you know, the industry and so, I would say again, in short, it’s being an artist currently practicing and then also for the organization consumption. Analyzing and coming up with programs and then implementing those programs. And it’s, it’s really, for lack of a better word and to use a trite word. It’s just a fun job. You know, the other day, I said to my executive director, I said, What do you think about an exhibition about games? And you know it because I like it, tell me more. And I was like, Well, I’m just thinking about artists who make work in in the, in the framework of, of games. And that could look like, you know, book arts printmaking. But then, or maybe something like carving a woodblock into a ping pong paddle. But then also kind of thinking about the the long history of performance art and games, like I’m thinking about Matthew Barney’s piece of, you know, jumping on a trampoline and making a charcoal drawing on the ceiling. So that physical aspect of using your body or maybe we have a screen print off where people you know, it’s like dueling pianos, but people are screen printing against each other. And the first one, you know, kind of like, hands on a hard body, you know, documentary, The first one who passes out, you know, is the, the other one’s the winner. So, to be honest, that’s where I thrive. And sometimes it can be totally wackadoodle to Pee Wee’s Playhouse kind of, but it’s really fun imagining that and, and having the support to, you know, from the rest of the staff to be like, let’s try it. And I know where this is going in my head, I went to another Art Center not far from us the other day. And they’re kind of they’re part of want to give too much away, but they’re part of kind of a bigger system of local park and planning. I’ll just say that. And

Matthew Dols 31:51
I’m trying to guess, guess what you’re talking about? Glen echo?

Gretchen Schermerhorn 31:54
No, no, Glen Echo, but you’re getting you’re getting closer. But anyway, the point is, I was at a friend’s exhibition. And I really wanted to do some social media, like, finally got to see this artists exhibition, I’m so excited. And the gallery director was like, well, don’t post that because we’re not technically open. And I was like, Well, wait, I’m here. I’m seeing the exhibition, you allowed me to come in. But you’re not open Anyway, it was so freakin frustrating, because they had all these layers of bureaucracy of whether they could be open or like couldn’t be open, or were they doing this under the radar, in which case I shouldn’t be posting. So the point of it is, I can usually that we have such a small staff at pyramid Atlantic, I can usually look at my co conspirator, my executive director and be like, what do you think about this? Should we be open? Or, you know, and it’s, it’s so nice that we just kind of look at each other and go, should we do this? Should we do this without all these layers of bureaucracy that many organizations have. So I would say in this crisis, in this pandemic, it’s been really nice to be able to act fast. Another example would be after George Floyd’s murder, we wanted to do something really fast. We didn’t want to sit on it, we didn’t want to wait. So around that time, we actually had the artist Amos, Paul Kennedy, who’s really well known for his letterpress, printed posters around social justice, and even just some kind of light hearted, you know, funny and ironic letterpress prints. But what we were getting was we we’ve got something to say we need to get it out now. We plastered the front walls with His permission with I mean, the front windows with his letterpress prints. And I hope that that kind of accumulation and that many of those posters really, you know, put it out into the world or whoever drove by the building, at least, that we support you. We you know, we are against racial and justices and, you know, Black Lives Matter to this organization. So, I guess what I’m trying to say is being able to act quickly, without a lot of layers and bureaucracy and nuances, has been, you know, just really a way that we can thrive and show leadership, I think,

Matthew Dols 34:22
Okay, well, what I’m started thinking about when you were talking about that is sort of like printmaking. You mentioned a long time ago now, the use of the antiquated equipment in this modern era. And so I started thinking about like is, is the general practice of printmaking, bookmaking, all these kinds of things is the interest waxing or waning? Because I generally feel like it goes one way or the other. It’s very rarely just like plateaued. It’s either there’s a sudden interest in it or it’s it’s sort of going out of favor back and forth. So where do you feel like it is right now? As far as interests

Gretchen Schermerhorn 35:02
are trying to, I’m trying to answer that question like, really, honestly, from what I’ve observed, not just to like, you know, oh, it’s, you know, so popular and people love it.

Matthew Dols 35:12
Yeah, it is what? Okay, wait, okay, you got to understand. I love printmaking, I’m on your side. But the reality of it is, is it’s a very niche thing. It’s a very specialized the interest but to be not only like a buyer or a collector of it, but also to be a producer of it as well. So like, it’s always going to be a niche thing. But it sort of ebbs and flows over the years. Like, I remember a time when it wasn’t very popular at all to do printmaking. And now and then I do recall a time maybe about 10 years ago, when it’s sort of, I think it was probably right around, like when the Obama poster came out kind of thing, like printmaking suddenly had a big, you know, influx. And so it goes, it goes back and forth. I mean, it’s not. So this is, though, knock on printmaking at all, this is just like, how is it going is, is there a new interest? Let’s say, how about this is majority of your interest in printmaking, at this point, more older artists by age older artists coming to printmaking or younger people coming to print?

Gretchen Schermerhorn 36:15
Well, it’s interesting, you asked that question because here’s, here’s an observation. So let’s take the type shop, for example, letterpress printing. Interestingly, what you’ll find is this, it shouldn’t be dichotomous, but just by age, you’ll find a big kind of parties of interest. So you find a pretty hardcore party. That is a lot about the fine print and about the material, the technique, the light kiss of the paper. And not always, but often what we see is those are older gent, those are older men. And when I say older, maybe anywhere from like 65 to 85, kind of that area of age. And then interestingly enough, we see a very, very different kind of population that often doesn’t know and I want to put this in a way of like ignorance is bliss, doesn’t know those rules, and doesn’t care quite honestly. Now this of course, are these are really big blanket areas, because there are certainly a lot of folks in between that. I think I’m I probably am kind of in between that. And they’re making this younger audiences often women, often designers, often kind of di wires, I would say. And there, they are creating gig posters, they’re creating design ephemera and collateral. And so sometimes you’ll even see those two populations court sort of printing side by side, you know, we have several presses. And boy Howdy, sometimes you want to be careful, because there is there is a there is a big distinction in the aesthetics and, and the even things like a simple example might be, you know, it still is pretty popular weathered typefaces. And so you’ll see kind of this, this interest in particularly whether typeface or shitty printing, you know, and when I say shitty, I mean, over ink smashed into the paper, but as a deliberate aesthetic choice. So it’s really interesting when you see those, those kind of groups like, run into each other. And, and quite honestly, I think that’s one of the great things about pyramid is you can have that conversation you can have that, that those things can coexist.

Matthew Dols 38:46
I was at the University of Iowa, and I remember my professor, who was an older professor, you know, older even when I was there, and I was like, Oh, yeah, I want to do this on my lithograph. And he’s like, you can’t do that you’re going to break the stone. And I was like, let’s give it a try. You know, like, why not, you know, like, in my youth, I loved pushing the boundaries of what was possible and all this kind of stuff. But of course, if I were to go into a printmaking shop, and now and somebody were to say, Oh, you can’t do that, because you might break it, so not to go like, oh, okay, no, then I won’t do that. Yeah, like there is a certain amount of like, push and like desire to push the boundaries that youth comes with that age as somewhat sort of makes you a little more timid, or at least a little bit more respectful of

Gretchen Schermerhorn 39:31
Chris, I like that word respectful or, yeah. Well, back to your question or back to your kind of thought. And again, I’m really trying to be honest with myself, and I think this is the honest truth. So you know, with the 2000s or lightsaber, early 2000s to 2012 1314 we we saw a pyramid especially a big ship In digital technologies and methods for production of particularly artists, books, and then there, there became this question of, you know, why why even print anything anymore? Why? Why did why do we need to have that is that just, you know, kind of doing this visual masturbation of like having this thing, this product. And so I think now what we’re experiencing, and I’m I’m really, really happy to see this movement is this, again, going back to this physical experience this sensory experience. And, you know, you see people putting their nose to prints. You hear people when they walk in, say, Oh, I love that smell, that smell brings me back to my childhood or that, that smell brings me back to graduate school. So having that tangible setting, each letter, for example, slows you down. And I think you know, you hear a lot about the slow movement in everything from cooking. But I really do think there’s something valuable to the slowing down movement in art two. So to answer your question, I do think people are moving away, there’s this kind of the pendulum is swinging back. And I do think people want to have this intentional relationship with their art making, and their their, even their art that they collect. And of course, that jives really well with our practice at pyramid Atlantic. Now, again, what you’ll see is that I think is really, really nice happening right now is that we are going back into this tradition of prints as protest as social justice forms of social justice, as you know, something when you got something to get off your chest, dissemination of ideas, critiques of politicians, and that’s, that’s really fun, fun to see

Matthew Dols 42:03
what you are in Washington, DC at a very tumultuous time, for sure.

Gretchen Schermerhorn 42:07
True, true. I mean, we’re poised for that. And I would also argue that we have an amazing collection of wood and lead type. Because I think of our product, you know, our location, you know, I feel like DC and Philly are both just that the long history of printing. So we get calls not as often as we used to, but we get calls at least once a month, like, Hey, you know, I’m selling, I’m selling my grandparents house. And there’s, there’s like a whole lot of stuff letters down in the basement and he wants to do this thing. You know, we’re like, be right there. You know. So,

Matthew Dols 42:48
oh, yeah, I used to work at the I think it’s called Center for the Book in San Francisco. And like, one time they were they said, hey, look, there’s this guy selling some old lead type, which let’s go to his place. We showed up with his warehouse and I shit you not this warehouse was probably 50,000 square feet of nothing but wood letterpress type and print images that are out there, we’re all would type in a blood type hi at all set and ready to go. And he was selling all of it. And we we sat there for the whole day for like eight hours just rummaging through everything. We didn’t even get through like a 10th of the place. It was amazing. I really hope he didn’t throw it all out.

Gretchen Schermerhorn 43:32
Yeah, well, I mean, it’s it’s funny how things become, you know, they go move in and out of being valuable. And I was thinking about presses, for example, you know, people, people 20 years ago, couldn’t get couldn’t pay someone to haul off their presses. And now, you know, sell for 10 $12,000

Matthew Dols 43:54
Yes, yeah, I was doing it 20 years ago. So like, I was doing it when it was everything was dirt cheap. Like I could have bought a press for like, I could have bought a prep like a vandercook was offered to me. And they said just pay for the shipping. Yeah, like they didn’t want any money. This it just cover the cost of the ship. Yeah, you can have it and I was like, it was great. Except I lived on the third floor. And that would not be very good. Wait, so you didn’t get it then? I did not.

Gretchen Schermerhorn 44:23
That would be that would Yeah. No lift just you lived on third floor stairs. Yeah.

Matthew Dols 44:29
Third floor of a wood structure building too. So like, I don’t think the floors could have supported it. Yeah, that too. Yeah, I know. So I used to run a nonprofit years ago and I was a photography darkroom back when dark rooms like physical wet dark rooms were a thing. And I went into it thinking like, Okay, this photography darkroom, it’s gonna be all men and I ended up finding out like, 90% of my people were women. That were my studio. Send the participants like I was shocked. Because, you know, at the time photography was primarily more so a male thing than a female thing. So the printmaking, what kind of gender split Do you find in printmaking?

Gretchen Schermerhorn 45:13
Well, it’s funny. And actually, no surprise, you mentioned that about women, because I find that whether it is our beginning classes to our kind of what we call our master classes, to even using the studios independently is about I would say about 90% women. And I have real no scientific data to back. Why that, why that up, and I actually want, I want to talk to some other organizations. But here’s my personal observation, or my personal hunch, I think oftentimes, women are okay with being lifelong learners a little bit more, or maybe okay with being students or interested in continued learning. And again, this is like super personal and only by hunch, mainly because of what I see in my parents. But I think I think it can’t what you’re describing comes as no surprise. So that’s how it sort of breaks down. But I would say our instructor base is, is pretty evenly dispersed, but our student base and our population that regularly uses the studios is heavily, you know, women, I would also go further to say heavily white middle aged women. And so one of the questions we’re always asking ourself is how do we change that? How do we recruit? How do we, you know, make that more diverse? So you mentioned earlier in our podcast about printmaking being Nish, and I could not agree more, I could not agree more. I mean, I actually wouldn’t have gotten into printmaking unless I had I took it as an undergrad. I think I think I had to i’m not i can’t quite remember, but I was an art education major at the time, and had to take a printmaking class and got totally turned out. I was like, this, this is this is me, I get it. I appreciate it. The aesthetics, the history. I love it. So yeah, I would say heavily women heavily my white middle aged women. And so, you know, for us, that’s a problem. We do more active recruiting, in terms of our interns, we reach out to organizations that work with people of color, you know, we don’t we want printmaking to be accessible, inclusive. Yeah. So that’s, that’s a long answer to your question. But

Matthew Dols 47:52
woba deseas. I mean, nothing personal in Washington, DC, but it’s reasonably segregated in many ways. I mean, it’s generally not like on racial lines, but on socio economic lines, like there are poor areas, and there are wealthy areas. I know, even in Arlington, where I grew up, there was very distinct lines of sort of the socio economic lines. And it’s really tough to, because like, as a person that wasn’t on a higher Stratus of the socio economic stat line. Like it was difficult for the, like, I was not wealthy, but I was around wealthy people. And they didn’t want me in as much. And, of course, I was also part of a country club, where when I brought like a black friend of mine to the country club, they were like, um, he can’t come here. And I was just like, really, like, seriously, like, this was this was like, What see the late 18, late 1980s. And a country club actually turned away a friend of mine, because he was black. But anyways, the DC is a bit tough to try and create that, because there’s a lot of history of, of sort of racial divides and things like that in the DC area. And I mean, I would imagine it would be very difficult as a, you know, you all are in the suburbs of Maryland to be able to try and bring in some of those other, just anybody non white, really. So I mean, and and part of that, too, is like as I’m thinking as a nonprofit, it would benefit you if you can get more diversity. And because then you’ll there will be additional grants and other funding outlets, they would be accessible to you if you could figure out a way to incorporate them.

Gretchen Schermerhorn 49:28
Well, I will say that we have been in Prince George’s County for five years before that we were in montgomery county. And Prince George’s County, if you look at the demographics has much, much, much more diversity. And furthermore, I would say that becomes a little tricky because yay, yay, great, but it becomes tricky when of course, an organization that has a founder who’s why has, you know, a staff that is primarily white, the last thing you want to be seen as interlopers, you know, so I will say that just by nature of where we are now our population, our audience is a lot more diverse than it was in montgomery county. So in our a lot of our programs to take that into consideration. Now, I will say that when we go to printmaking conferences, or when people travel down from Philly to visit us, that audience tends to be white and middle class. But I would say in our in our neighborhood, it’s a lot more diverse people, people who come in, and that’s really refreshing. So I’m really glad that we, we moved, quite honestly, and I’m a Montgomery County resident. So,

Matthew Dols 50:53
indeed, all right, you brought up the you talked about collectors. So how is the collector? I don’t know market? Like, I mean, are there. A lot of collectors that are collecting printmaking these days, specifically, sort of in the DC area, or even within that like to is, do you find because this is one little pet peeve I have about the arts is a lot of people think that their target market is where they live. So like you’re a DC artist, you think people should be buying your work in DC, but chances are most of the people that buy your work are not in the DC area. So like, Are there a lot of people collecting printmaking and books and everything else? you all do? And and are they all in DC?

Gretchen Schermerhorn 51:35
Okay, so what we’re finding right now, what we’re seeing a lot of is folks who have a collector base, that, okay, let’s make up a illustration. So, I’m an artist

Matthew Dols 51:51
in diagram, I love Venn diagrams, or an Excel spreadsheet to an Excel spreadsheet.

Gretchen Schermerhorn 51:57
I like that I also love infographics too, just just love org charts. Let’s say you’re a sculptor, and you’re your sculptor, your sculptures start at 25k, something like that. Right now, with our economy, it’s such that it is and the ability maybe to get to a foundry or I don’t know, I’m just kind of making that up. So many, many artists have figured out or have begun to understand, oh, I can reach an emerging collector audience? And how do they do that? How do they create the same conceptual work ideas, you know, things that are kind of their signature style, but how do I create it at a different price point to appeal to emerging collectors. And so that’s what we see quite a few. That’s what we see quite a bit of artists who come into pyramid they have recognized that the collecting audience is changing. They’re changing in what they want to pay. They’re they’re changing in what collecting looks like. And so that’s what we see quite a few of people coming in these days, we also have a big, I would say, Miss mission or a big kind of idea that collect collecting should not be for the elite, that collecting an art collecting is is for everyone, anybody who wants to collect. Also this idea of collecting to appreciate are collecting art that will appreciate or saying someone is a very important artist, you should collect them. I don’t really subscribe to that I believe that you should collect what is what is makes you think what makes you smile, what makes me I’m saying these things is like all different pockets. What every time you look at it, you see something new, and makes you makes you wonder and inspires you. So with that kind of with that idea. We most of our exhibits, all of our exhibits 90% of the work has to be for sale. And furthermore, we try to create different price points, less expensive price points. So that work does sell and I would say especially in the past four to five years pyramid Atlantic has had a really strong track record of selling work. Just for as an example in this past exhibition that we had. That just closed. For us selling $9,000 worth of work is pretty pretty dang good for being in a pandemic and we’ve sold we’ve had exhibitions in the past year that have sold close to $15,000 of work. And for works that are under $500 and in our last show under $100. I mean all of the works in our last show were $50 so you can do the math. We sold 9000 $1,000 worth of work, we believe also in paying artists for their work. And yes, from time to time, we do have fundraisers and auctions where we are asking artists to donate. But we try to really keep that to a minimum so that we’re not, you know, I think artists, you know, this get hit up all the time, you know, for in lieu of exposure, you know, so,

Matthew Dols 55:25
which is bullshit. But, yes,

Gretchen Schermerhorn 55:27
so we really have a passion for helping people build up their art collection. Now, as I’m kind of answering this question I’m thinking about where your question about where are they based. And I would say that many of our collectors are many people who buy art in from pyramid to collect are actually Prince George’s County residents. And we know that because we we obviously, get that information when when we take their payment. But also, even before the pandemic we have, we try to make it always a habit at our openings to ask, you know, where did you come from, or, you know, and so many of them say, Oh, I just live right up there up the street. And we just find that right now. And I think you’re seeing this a lot of different venues, there is a huge push for value based consumerism. And so supporting the organizations supporting the artists supporting things that are valuable to you is where a lot of people are spending their dollars. So we find that Prince George’s County, particularly Hyattsville, there’s a real focus on supporting hyperlocal just, you know, buying local, supporting local. So, you know, to answer your question, I think a lot of our collectors, our buyers are from Prince George’s County, specifically Hyattsville. Now, that changes a little bit, when we move in to kind of a different market of price, I find that there’s a, you know, there’s a lot of prominent DC based collectors, or even national collectors who live outside of the DC area that may be willing to, you know, drop three or $4,000 for a print by hung loo, or, you know, Joyce Scott, or Renee stout, so those folks tend to live further out.

Matthew Dols 57:23
Okay, this brings up a topic that I’m actually really fascinated by for my own practice, and I hope other people are too, that when it comes to works on paper. So like, I go back to photography, and also I know, printmaking is pretty well as well, certificates of authenticity, and then sort of how to combine them. Now I’ve come up with a system where I create a certificate of authenticity, where I handwrite all the details in and then I have a hologram a matching numbered hologram sticker that I put on the certificate, and on the back of the work as well so that they sort of associated to each other. Is that a common practice? Or am I being overly obsessive compulsive?

Gretchen Schermerhorn 58:02
Hmm. I don’t think you can be too obsessive compulsive? I don’t, you know, in this in this practice, you know, think about there’s a lot of counterfeit shit going on in the world. But I yes, we have for for the works that we sell both in our retail space up at the front and our artwork archive, we have certificates of authenticity. Now the hologram thing, that’s pretty fancy, that’s pretty cool. You’ll have to share with me how you do that offline.

Matthew Dols 58:31
Oh, I’ll share it online there, there are sticker producing companies there all over the United States all over the world that you can basically use just by matching, they have what are called matching number stickers. And they and so like basically, to have like, you know what, number 101 and two stickers is a one on one. And you put one on the back of the work and one on the certificate of authenticity. And basically, if somebody tries to peel up that sticker, it like basically destroys the sticker. So you know, it’s basically tamper proof. So it sort of gives a cert a sense of certainty to the buyer that this piece of art goes with this certificate of authenticity.

Gretchen Schermerhorn 59:09
Matthew, what made you decide to do that will personally experience some counterfeit or some

Matthew Dols 59:15
No, I I picked that up when I was in the United Arab Emirates. There, I saw some people that had done that. And then I actually had a buyer that specifically asked me for a certificate of authenticity with a hologram sticker on it. And I was just like, a what much like you are. And so I did my own research on it. And he even showed me another piece that he had bought that had it and I was just like, well, that that’s amazing, because that creates that like iron clad provenance for that piece for the rest of eternity. Like so. Like there will never be a question that those are meant to be together. Mm hmm. Yeah, I

Gretchen Schermerhorn 59:59
think that definitely has value and of course adds value and gives a certain amount of security to, to your buyer for sure.

Matthew Dols 1:00:08
And I’ve also had the experience where when I take it into a gallery, they’re like, oh, you’re very professional. Like, it gives that sense of arrogance. Like, Hmm,

Gretchen Schermerhorn 1:00:19
well, that’s interesting, too, right? Because I think there is something about if the, if the maker if the artist thinks about these things, and shows that certain level of professionalism and respect, I think we can command that from other from whoever it is your your gallery, or your buyer. So I think I think I’m gonna look into that right now. We just have certificates of authenticity that the artist signs,

Matthew Dols 1:00:49
how many mural actually has a online database that they will create the matching stickers for you can pay them and they’ll they’ll produce a certificate of authenticity with the matching stickers for you. The system does exist out there, paper companies like Harmon mule do create these things for artists. Interesting. Okay. All right. One last question. Well, actually, two last questions, real quick one, and then a big one. Quick one is editions these days, what’s what are you seeing as far as like the size of additions? So are people doing short run? Are people doing long run? Like what’s the sort of trend on on the size of additions these days?

Gretchen Schermerhorn 1:01:31
Well, I think it depends on the project and dissemination and the goals of the project. So for example, when after board Floyd’s murder, and we decided it was really important for pyramid Atlantic to take a stand, we asked artists to come up with some designs and or if they’d be interested in coming up with some designs, and then after they came up with the designs, we would pyramid would print them. And again, and then we would give them away for free, anybody who wanted one of these posters could come and you know, pick one of these up, and the artists were recognize the printers were recognized. So in that case, the the end goal was to get as many out, you know, and we did, I think 715, something like that, of these. So again, and you can still drive around this was in when was this it’s during the summer, but you can still drive around and see those prints hanging in, in people’s windows. And so the goal, of course, was to get as many out get them, you know, into people’s hands. So in some cases, though, the artists will, particularly if they’re maybe emerging or or if this is their first foray into printing, they may choose to do a smaller edition, sometimes budget plays into it, or sometimes, you know, if we have a grant or some underwriting to produce it, that kind of helps dictate or carry the addition size. But I would say, across the board, if it’s not for some type of protest, persuasion, social justice issue where again, the goal is to really get it out there, folks across the board are doing smaller additions, and they’re doing variable additions, you and I talked a little bit about our background. And after I knew that I really wanted to be a printmaker, and change my major from art education to printmaking. And maybe this was maybe some of your experience too. But during our critique, we had to put, I can’t remember three or five prints up on the critique wall, and part of our grade, not only concept and execution, but was how do these prints look? Like? In addition, how similar do they look? And I’m, I’m telling them putting that out there because I think it’s a it’s a vast departure from a lot of the way we think is printmakers now, I think a lot of the way we think about printmaking is we have a matrix and a substrate, but having that those that addition of prints is not exactly about making them exactly the same. Every single one and having that slight nuance or slight variation, I think. Now, of course, in some cases, that you really would want them to be all the same, you know, but I will say smaller additions, variable additions, artists, proofs, and experimentation has been of more interest, I’d say probably in the past 10 years.

Matthew Dols 1:04:38
Yeah, I mean, I’m thinking as a buyer like when I go to buy prints, I will always ask to look at numerous prints before I choose which one I want to buy because I want to see because I mean no matter how technically perfect you are, there are always little subtle nuances that are different and I mean, it could just be the the substrate itself like the paper is slightly different. To tone or flex, or to deckled, or whatever. So like, I will always want to look at multiple prints before I buy any one because I want to find just the right combination of, you know, a mistake, or an intentional thing or combination of the mediums and the and all the different stuff because, and then of course, there’s the number of the addition as well, because like, I like, I like what he wait, okay, when it comes to additions, I generally like low numbers, like I love buying number one, or even maybe an artist’s proof, but I don’t like I’m not a fan of like, number 75 of 75. But I know people that love those looks like what’s your take on that? What would What do you prefer?

Gretchen Schermerhorn 1:05:40
I don’t really care. And and that’s because aside from gripe points, most of the matrix are gonna hold up through many hundreds of printings. But I am a big advocate, like if I had a favorite number ever friend whose favorite number 13. And I like that you have a thing, and I kind of wish I had a thing. But right now, because of the resilience and the durability of so many of the matrices that we use now. And I could understand again, with Dr. points, and with some etchings, historically, you would want a lower number, you could tell the difference. But now, I think unless you have a like your thing, you know, and I think that would be really cool to have in across the board when you collect shoot for for that. But I’d say doesn’t matter.

Matthew Dols 1:06:34
What an amazing collection to create, I want to create a collection where every single piece of work in it is number 13 of whatever the audience like, yeah, that that’s the collection, what’s my collection, my collections number 13. That’s what it is, yeah.

Gretchen Schermerhorn 1:06:47
Or even when we do print trades, we do print trades a lot kind of internally, or we invite people to do print trades. When we get them all back, right? And divvy them up, we’re making sure that in each portfolio across the board, they’re all the same number, you know, so that when you get back your portfolio of 20, prints your your number, and I will say on that kind of favorite thing. Some people are like, can I have addition number? You know, 15 out of all of them? So, yeah, I’d say the number of the editions does play a role for some people, not for me, but I could see why it would would.

Matthew Dols 1:07:30
Okay, fair enough. All right. Last question. Any advice you can give to anybody out there right now from your experiences, both as a practicing artist, but also as the artistic director of a nonprofit,

Gretchen Schermerhorn 1:07:41
I would say if you are out of school, if you are out of your education tribe, I would say whatever that looks like, find a group. And even if you are an introvert, I’m an introvert personally, finding your people is a really great way to stay connected. And I mean, much like what you’re doing, you know, you’re you’re connecting with people. So I believe I really believe connection, and that can even look in a can be a very indirect way. You know, like, I feel like, even if I’m not directly communicating with someone, but I can see them across the shop, you know, pulling these big monoprints. And they’re working with dura lar matrices, and all sorts of cool stuff I’m learning and I’m bringing that in. So I would say find, find your tribe make it if you don’t have one. I think one of my biggest pet peeves is people saying they’re bored or people saying this town sucks, or whatever it is, it’s like, only bored my mom you say only boring people get bored. So find your find your find your group that or create your group. And I can’t stress this enough. I mean, you know, this, when we get out of school, being in school is the easiest time you’re ever going to have as an artist. If you really want it, whatever it looks like for you, you know, gallery representation, teaching, you’ve really you’ve got to try this is an incredibly competitive industry. And most likely, it’s not going to fall on your lap. So you’ve really got to create opportunities, try new things, be experimental, put yourself out there. So that’s what I recommend. That’s, you know, it’s it’s not it’s, it’s not going to fall in your lap. So you got to create it, you got to keep on trying if you really want it.

Matthew Dols 1:09:39
I remember being in DC and, and at the time as a student, I thought, Oh my gosh, I’ve got to be like the best of the best in DC and all this kind of stuff. But since then, I’ve now lived you know, throughout the world in many different places and like, DC is a very small community arts community in many ways and very incestuous like the same people exhibit But at the same places and, and it’s all who you know, like it. If there’s any place that I’ve experienced, that’s who you know that DC was definitely one of the top ones. And it’s, it’s a tough market if you’re not part of the IT Crowd to be able to be successful in the DC area. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, I would agree. But DC also is has a glut of places like pyramid Atlantic, there are so many, you know, if you’re a potter or a welder or, or a photographer, there are many nonprofits out there that sort of specialize in whatever you want to specialize. Problem is, of course, like, I grew up in Arlington. And so I never went to pyramid Atlantic, because it’s in Maryland, you know, like, we don’t cross the river, like, too much like you, Maryland people never come to things in Arlington, we know.

Gretchen Schermerhorn 1:10:53
Well, I hear you. And it’s so funny, because you know, grown up in Texas, where it would take hours to really feel like you, you know, went somewhere got into a different state. This area, the DMV area is so close. But I think there’s something psychological, there’s also the way money is allocated and broken up. So there becomes like these grant cycles, we’re only DC residents are only Maryland or only Northern Virginia, you know, pull them, applicants are eligible. So that plays into it. But I think there’s something psychological, I’ve juried a couple of shows it’s Torpedo Factory, and just the thought of like, Oh, my gosh, I got to go there. Well. And I will also say, you know, this being from this area, traffic is a bear out here, the Beltway is a real, you know, pain in the tail. So that that plays into it, too. But I think there’s something psychological that it just seems so far seems, you know,

Matthew Dols 1:11:50
oh, it does. I mean, but where I grew up, I could literally get to the line of Virginia, Maryland in less than six minutes. But Maryland felt so far away from me, but it’s only six minute drive. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it it’s a very interesting segue, like people in DC don’t like going to the suburbs, people from the suburbs don’t like going into the city. And of course, people from Maryland don’t like to go into Virginia and vice versa. It’s a fascinating community, because it’s, in many ways, it’s very segregated. And part of that is the arts community as well, because like, I found that almost all the artists that I felt like were sort of The IT Crowd, I mean, keep in mind, this is 20 years ago, but like the artists who were in the crowd were the ones who lived in DC, like so that if they lived in DC, and they were able to attend all the things easily and able to just drop by and have coffee with people, it always made it much easier for them to sort of be part of the crowd, because they were simply with like you were saying active in the tribe or the community.

Gretchen Schermerhorn 1:12:51
What also think about people who rely exclusively on public transportation and in pyramids, current location, and last location, well, no current location, we are Metro accessible ish. I mean, there, it’s still like a parolee about a 15 minute walk. But I will say in our old location in Silver Spring, we being right on the red line, yes, it’s a little bit, it would be a little bit out of the way, but at least it was still very Metro accessible. So I think there’s there’s something you know about that, too, in terms of proximity. How Metro accessible, are you?

Matthew Dols 1:13:29
Certainly, any last thing you want to bring up that I didn’t touch on or that you want to expand on?

Gretchen Schermerhorn 1:13:34
Well, maybe this ties in to your last question, but I think that being a especially right now, we’re we’re not so immediately connected face to face, being open to problem solving, and trying to figure out, Okay, what is it that I that I really need? I think I’m guilty of all the time thinking if I only had this, you know, and this could be a particular piece of equipment. It could be, I don’t know, accessibility or something, if I only had that. And I think what I’ve really enjoyed seeing right now is in this was this happen, I saw it a lot when I was teaching for the University of Maryland last spring when everything shut down. And we all had to quickly go online, is how do you look around you, you know, in your kitchen, or in your bedroom? or wherever it is? and say, okay, you know, I don’t have a press, I don’t have that particular type of ink or whatever. But what could I use? That would still accomplish and fulfill the same challenge or parameter? You know, but I don’t have to think oh, if I only had this, so I guess I talked about this a little bit. But But as our think one of your biggest jobs is going to be how do I problem solve? How do I figure out how to do this with limited resources? limited budget, maybe limited time. And I think if you can, you can thrive there, then it’s going to help you figure out some of the things that you just mentioned, or we just talked about, like finding your tribe and continuing to make. So yeah, I really like talking about this, this kind of stuff. So I, I’m going to have to listen to the rest of your episodes now to there’s some ones where we talk about this exact stuff. Yeah, yeah.

Matthew Dols 1:15:27
Well, I mean, like, what you’re talking about is basically the idea of limitations. You’re encouraging creativity. Yeah. I mean, I find it all the time. Because like, throughout my career, I’ve, I’ve gone from having amazing resources, and amazingly large studios to work into having no studio and no resources, and then going back to having massive studios, amazing resources. And then no studios had no resources throughout my career, so that, you know, the size, the scale, the intricacy, they all sort of flux, depending on, you know, where the world is, how much money I have to spend on something, what resources I have available to me, but one of the things that I think make creative people resilient in this kind of effect issues is that we, like you say, problem solve, we, you know, you instead of sitting there going, Oh, I can’t make art because I don’t have those amazing resources. We go, Okay, I don’t have those amazing resources, what else can I make? And you just keep busy? Like, for me, one of the biggest words that I keep remembering is just tenacity is like, the most important thing, because if you don’t have that, then just go get another career. Because you kind of have to have that if you’re going to be in the arts.

Gretchen Schermerhorn 1:16:40
Exactly, exactly. And I think also, another thing that you see more and more people doing is branching out into other areas. You know, we talked about this a little bit earlier, but without that stigma of like, oh, you’re you’re you don’t you don’t do this or you that is low brow? Or, you know, I think is it still? Is it still scratching that itch? Is it still? Putting? Is it still communicating the the ideas that you want to communicate? And if the answer’s yes to both those things, then I’m really happy to see that though, those boundaries are opening up. And I used to be really concerned about that. And I still am to be honest, you know, like I even when I posted anything social media, it’s like, how does this play into my brand? or What is this saying? Or are people gonna think I’m, you know, not a serious artist, and I want to be honest with that, I face that all the time in my deep, you know, insecurities, but I think I’m really happy to see that that is becoming more broad and open.

Matthew Dols 1:17:49
I think more people are just talking about it. Like they’re, I think all artists as a, as a species, we’re all insecure in many ways in different ways, and our own unique ways were insecure. And I think simply more people are talking about that insecurity now than have have in the recent past anyways, because, you know, it’s just become more common to say, Yes, I’m insecure about this. Yes, I’m uncertain about that. I mean, like, it’s funny, because I just had this conversation with a collector recently, which was that this collector loves and it’s their favorite thing to see his process videos on Instagram. Like, they love seeing the process of creating a piece. Now, me I’m old school, I’m very traditional, I don’t want people to see my process, my process is my thing. I don’t want you to see that because, I mean, like, you know, I don’t know 40% of whatever I make is never gonna see the light of day so like, if I show a process video of something and then I end up ruining it. Then I’m horribly embarrassed that you saw all those videos because it didn’t end up being successful. So I’m very awkward about that. I it’s very uncomfortable for me to let people see into my process. But that is one of the most popular things these days that people want to feel like they’re part of that artistic process. I don’t like it. I mean, I’ll do it but I don’t it’s very awkward for me. Yeah, it is awkward. It is and but I feel that I can see why why collectors it’s like pulling back the curtain right and and it personalizes it, I don’t want the curtain pulled back, I want them to just love my arm.

Gretchen Schermerhorn 1:19:38
I see both sides of it. I really do.

Matthew Dols 1:19:41
Don’t get me wrong. I love seeing those videos also of other people, but it’s just very awkward for me, like I mostly because I think it’s because I I feel like I fail more than I succeed. And so I don’t want people to see my failures. I want them to only see my successes which of course But again, that’s a generational thing. You know, like, I mean, I remember my professors and I would see them work at the school on stuff. And they would fail at it. And they’d be like, that’ll never see the light of day. And like nobody, the only people that ever saw it were like me because I was standing right next to them. And the only things that made it to the public viewing was just like their absolute best works. Only nothing else ever saw the light of day. But now there’s this incredible desire in social media and all these other outlets to see the, to a certain extent, to see the failures to see the mistakes to see the the foibles and things that sort of build up into a success, even if the failures happen. Yeah. And I find that very awkward.

Gretchen Schermerhorn 1:20:45
Yeah, well, of course, I mean, it’s awkward if we’re the if we’re the one that it’s happening to. But again, it kind of goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning. And I think there’s growth in in that of people, the viewers that is seeing that not everything, that this person you idolize as an artist is, is great. And that humanizes them and makes them more like you. And there’s also opportunities for growth me, you know, this as a professor, there’s opportunities for growth, because you can see that, oh, they what they tried, and at least they’re trying, right, at least they’re trying something and taking a risk, which I think is also really important as an artist. Yeah, but I understand when it’s happening to you. It’s not, it’s not fun.

Matthew Dols 1:21:30
Yeah, I’m, I’m very insecure about a lot of things. But the one thing I’m not insecure about is looking like an idiot on this podcast, I’m perfectly fine to sound like an idiot. But when it comes to my art, like I want people to highly respect my art and respect to the process, respect my concepts. But it’s an interesting shift in the dynamic of like, people want to see that process more and they want to feel more connected to know this. And it’s a it’s a generational shift. It’s a it’s a it’s something that’s changed between when I graduated school and now and so I gotta keep up with the times I guess.

Gretchen Schermerhorn 1:22:10
While you’re doing it, you’re doing it here. But I think there’s something to that that you’re okay with. Not having the answers on this podcast, but insecure about it when in your art. But anyway, that’s that’s another side. Gretchen, Matthew and Gretchen podcast.

Matthew Dols 1:22:28
Yes, next time. All right. Well, thank you very much.

Gretchen Schermerhorn 1:22:32
It’s been my pleasure is really been a great opportunity. You know, sometimes it’s almost like writing an artist statement when when you do these things. It’s kind of like, what is important to me. I’ve never had to really vocalize it or or you know, but when you’re forced to do it, when you’re forced to talk about it, things become clear to you. So thank you so much.