Fielded by Kay Heino
Here at the MFA Promo Team we have a new member, Alexis Schramel, and thanks to her, I was able to meet and speak with her mentor, Monroe Isenberg! I had the opportunity to ask a few questions via email , and I received some great responses! Filled with so many great ideas and such a great personality he truly enlightened me. I learned a lot about him as an artist and a lot about the process that goes into professional practice. Thank you Monroe for the responses and thank you for the knowledge. Below is our conversation.
KAY:
Well first let’s start with a hello, and can you introduce yourself? Can you let us know what you do for a living and / or what you do for your practice?
MONROE:
Hello Kay, thanks for your interest in my practice. My name is Monroe Isenberg, and I received my MFA in Studio Arts from University of Maryland. I am currently based in Los Angeles working as an artist and educator.
My interdisciplinary practice engages minimalism, light and space, and reacts to natural phenomena to explore our entanglement with the world. More specifically, I am interested in working through the transcendence of water, earth, forests, light, time and storytelling to explore how we may enter into greater reciprocity with one another and non-human beings. By building objects and spaces, and weaving experiences into new relationships, my work functions as an imaginative tool that cultivates more connected states of being.
KAY:
Next is, as someone who has lived in multiple places, do you find anything from your travels have inspired you?
MONROE:
I’m fortunate to have had the opportunity to live and work in multiple places. Living in communities with different histories, demographics, cultures, and values has opened up the world. It’s challenged me to become a better listener and be more imaginative. Every place I have lived, both rural and urban, nationally and internationally, has taught me how to be resilient and hard working, but also how to sit silently and learn from those who were there before me. The most beneficial thing that I have learned is to resist individualism because it is isolating. Oppositely, togetherness is a healing tool that can connect us more to our humanity and creativity.
In the west fjords of Iceland I experienced the transformative power of living in a community that wholly supported creative freedom. This experience deeply impacted my understanding of what a creative practice involves. It helped me draw new relationships to the Earth, natural systems, and our relationships to cycle. There are things I experienced in Iceland that are beyond words and escape definition. I saw the world differently, and I try to carry this way of seeing and being into my work. This experience also helped me realize that my work responds to the landscapes I inhabit, the architecture in which I live, the quality of light in the atmosphere, and the living things who populate the area.
KAY:
I see you were included in Sculpture Prize and were a finalist! Congratulations are in order, so congratulations. How did it go? And how did you receive that opportunity ?
MONROE:
Thank you! Are you talking about the William and Dorthy Yeck Sculpture prize at Miami University? If so, the Juror was Mark Dion and although I didn’t win the prize, I was honored to be included amid a fantastic and small group of artists. The piece that was included was a video of my performance, Sisyphus Wears a Tie, in which I dressed up as a 1960s pencil pusher and pushed around 300lbs of brackish ice in Penny Pack Park until it melted. This location intersected a public park, Philadelphia prison, bird sanctuary, gun range, and superfund site, all situated on historic Lenape trading territory.
I found out about the opportunity through Jefferson Pinder, an incredible and very influential performance artist, community organizer, and sculptor in my life. He suggested I apply.
KAY:
You work in a lot of different mediums (so do I , I’m a multimedia artist) can you talk a little about how you manage your time to be able to work in so many mediums?
MONROE:
I work in many different materials and approaches because I am curious about how the work might change depending on how it is presented. Working in this way is exciting because my approach constantly takes me into new terrain where I can feel like a beginner again. Although the road blocks I run into can be frustrating, I try to embrace the new because this is where my creativity lives. I usually have two or three different projects I am working on at a given time to keep me interested.
Creating a loose schedule or structure for the day helps with efficiency. After you graduate and if you want to be a full time artist, work 8-9 hours a day on your practice with a couple breaks throughout the day. Treat your practice like it’s a job because it is one. Eventually, take weekends off if you can afford to. What your studio practice entails is up to you. Generally it involves emails and communication, applications, researching/reading, gallery/studio visits, keeping track of taxes, marketing, outreach, networking, and making. My practice also includes walking, singing, dancing, writing, and time spent in silence. Time spent making is only about 40% of my total practice balanced with these other tasks mentioned above.
KAY:
And last question is, can you provide some advice about what to do after graduation with an MFA? (example : connect with other artists, studio visits, apply for grants, etc. )
MONROE:
This really depends on your goals. I suggest outlining what your goals are during your MFA. If you want to be an artist, it’s an advantage to start your professional work during your MFA candidacy. Show your work now, build your network now, build your online presence now, take risks and reach out to artists you like now. Apply, apply, apply. Rejection is normal and happens to everyone, even the best! Support your peers, their success is your success. Share resources. Do not think about your art in competitive terms or that you need to be the best. This is a reality pushed onto us by the forces of capitalism and the institutionalization of art. It’s more constructive to think about our creative work being in conversation as we build together new collective visual languages that reflect the concerns of our time.
I highly suggest a residency (ideally one that has a work exchange or stipend so you don’t have to pay). Making art in a nonacademic space can do wonders for creativity and it opens up avenues to view work in a non judgemental way. In my experience, making art is more joyful in these places, and you meet folks you would normally never have the opportunity to meet and who can change your life. Residencies that are good for post grads are Franconia, MN; Salem Artworks, NY; the Lunga School, Iceland; Vermont Studio Center, VT; USF Bergen, Norway. There are so many!
A good trick is to look up the artists you like and visit their website. Usually they have their CV on their site. Look at their CV and research the opportunities that they have included.
