My interview with Eli Holvey-Slifer!
J- Is there a specific art movement that has influenced your
sculptures?
E- Yes, cubism is definitely a big inspiration for me. I am
pretty close to where street art has gone lately, like cubes, clearly defined
box of polymer, that’s what I’m into I think that’s beautiful you know? It has
the same swiftness that I’m into. The cubists are pretty sharp.
J- What’s your favorite medium to work with sculpture wise?
E- Definitely woodwork, it’s natural and hard enough but
still malleable. It’s manipulated fairly easily but hard enough to withstand
time. There is a certain swiftness I enjoy in my work, and wood makes it
relatively easy to achieve.
J- You said you like wood because it’s something natural. Do
you tend to create natural forms in your work?
E- Yeah, I like the teardrop a lot. It’s a good natural
form. I made one wooden piece using the teardrop form. I hung it from the roof,
and it ended up swinging and creating a pendulum. I didn’t plan for that to happen, but it was one of the
larger scale pieces that I did. I find myself drawing teardrops sometimes…. A
lot of the time.
J- (Laughs)
J- From looking at your sculptures, it looks like you work a
great deal with metal as well. Can you talk about one of these pieces?
E- This was an assignment that we were where supposed to
make something related to the body. This is a chest piece, almost. We have all
of these resources available to us, but this chest piece isn’t ideal and
wouldn’t protect a person from much.
J- Where there any other requirements?
E- Just to make something related to the human body, and
that’s the direction I decided to take it. It actually fell apart.
J- It fell apart?
E- Yeah you can’t put that in the interview. (Laughs) I had
it outside and it started rusting. It looks kid of cool I have a
photograph.
J- Do you generally photograph your work?
E- Yeah, I don’t do a ton with photography but it’s
interesting to me to photograph my paintings and sculptures. I like taking
close ups of the different materials I use as well as parts of my work; the
photos end up very abstract. I could see myself continuing with this.
Photography is important to me, I would like to do it more and learn more about
it.
J- I can teach if you if you need to learn! (Laughs). Yeah the
pictures look really cool! That one looks kind of like fish guts.
Do you enjoy working in any other mediums?
E- I draw and
paint. Honestly, I would like to be able to just paint skateboards and sell
them for a living. I’m always painting my boards. I like bight colors in my
paintings, so…my paintings are mostly about form. As a sculptor, it feels
natural and it’s very planned. But not completely planned
J- Do you feel like your photos, paintings, skateboards, and
your sculptures all kind of relate in that way? What other ways do you think they do?
E- Well a lot of my work is about form as I said. I also
think they would all be able to exist together in an interesting environment
that no one has seen before …they would be a collection of pieces that are
something new. I am concerned with the synergy of objects and how my pieces can
act as one or stand on their own.
J- I know your brother and your dad both sculpt as well. Is
this how you got involved in sculpture?
E- Yeah definitely. I didn’t do too much woodwork as a kid
though. My father was always dragging cedar trees out of the woods and this cool,
big arbor in the backyard that he made with all of the plants in the backyard
climbing up that. He always has trinkets around.
J- That he made?
E- Yeah, I actually have a cool one in my room, its kind of
like what I’v been doing lately its like a synergy of objects, he has that
going on too. It’s a seashell with a piece of wood coming out …like a tree
branch growing out of it. And he has river stones with a ceramic leg, like a
baby’s leg, just cool stuff like that.
J- Do you find your work relating to his?
E- We both have a natural, primitive, fascination. I guess I
want to do two things I want to make something that’s primitive and back to the
roots and natural but I also want to make stuff that’s alien, swift and modern.
And it’s interesting to think how those two can relate together.
J- Is your brother’s work like yours at all? I’v seen his
jewelry, but not much of his other stuff.
E- I wouldn’t say they’re too much alike, but they have a similar
sense kind of because he’s working with his jewelry and metal stuff he’s bee
doing lately, the uniformity of all of these things, so in that sense yeah.
J- I enjoyed hearing about your work, thank you!
One of my favorite current photographers, who I discovered a few years ago in my internet travels, is Alison Scarpulla. Scarpulla's dark, surreal, world of strange figures and beautiful colors immediately drew me in. Every time I look through her work, I want to jump up and run into a forest with my camera. As a photographer myself, I sometimes have a hard time figuring out i she uses film or digital/ darkroom or photoshop. Maybe this is part of the magic of her incredible body of work. 
