WEBVTT 00:00:22.534 --> 00:00:26.720 URSULA VON RYDINGSVARD: My work is so labor intensive that often 00:00:26.720 --> 00:00:29.000 I'm doing things that are highly repetitive 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:34.353 in order to get to the end of  the piece or of the project. 00:00:47.240 --> 00:00:50.600 It's actually pretty easy to have an image, 00:00:50.600 --> 00:00:54.045 but to realize it is a deep deal. 00:00:54.480 --> 00:00:57.080 Often when you're in the  process of realizing an image, 00:00:57.080 --> 00:00:58.834 it's going somewhere else. 00:00:59.360 --> 00:01:04.240 If that tangent starts going off in  a place that feels more exciting, 00:01:04.240 --> 00:01:05.783 that's what I go with. 00:01:09.400 --> 00:01:12.480 I grew up as one of seven children 00:01:12.480 --> 00:01:16.656 in the post-World War II refugee  camps for Polish people in Germany. 00:01:17.480 --> 00:01:20.320 My parents were extraordinary survivors, 00:01:20.320 --> 00:01:23.640 and my home was one in which  words were not used very often, 00:01:23.640 --> 00:01:30.469 and in fact anybody that used too  many words was automatically suspect. 00:01:30.960 --> 00:01:34.890 I drank from the world through visual means. 00:01:35.600 --> 00:01:40.000 That was a huge source of the  information by which I lived. 00:01:41.680 --> 00:01:45.800 I learned you smile but you ration that. 00:01:45.800 --> 00:01:48.640 You laugh, but not very frequently, 00:01:48.640 --> 00:01:50.905 and really at appropriate times. 00:01:57.200 --> 00:02:02.680 And that working hard was the answer to life. 00:02:02.680 --> 00:02:06.918 I almost think of it as the way  that the Shakers might live. 00:02:08.200 --> 00:02:10.320 We stayed in wooden barracks, 00:02:10.320 --> 00:02:13.160 raw wooden floors, raw wooden walls 00:02:13.160 --> 00:02:17.120 and raw wooden ceilings so 00:02:17.120 --> 00:02:22.283 somewhere in my blood I'm  dipping into that source. 00:02:24.160 --> 00:02:26.400 I build everything out of cedar. 00:02:26.400 --> 00:02:29.440 Very neutral. Almost like a piece of paper. 00:02:29.440 --> 00:02:33.640 When we build the sculpture,  we build it layer by layer. 00:02:33.640 --> 00:02:38.040 I draw the outside lines of each  of the pieces that you see here. 00:02:38.040 --> 00:02:39.000 The cutters cut them. 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:40.280 We put them back here. 00:02:40.280 --> 00:02:42.800 We then mark it precisely. 00:02:42.800 --> 00:02:46.240 On the outside--you see some  of these marks on the outside? 00:02:46.240 --> 00:02:50.040 And on the inside, on the top portions these marks 00:02:50.040 --> 00:02:52.040 are actually the most precise of all 00:02:52.040 --> 00:02:55.600 so that if any one of these pieces  were to be tossed or to be lost, 00:02:55.600 --> 00:02:58.238 we could find them and put  them back where they belong. 00:03:05.120 --> 00:03:08.080 We build it and screw it all together. 00:03:08.080 --> 00:03:11.720 And then we take it off layer by layer by layer 00:03:11.720 --> 00:03:14.039 in order to glue it layer by layer. 00:03:21.800 --> 00:03:25.355 The cutters by the way are  the princes of my studio. 00:03:28.560 --> 00:03:30.960 There are cutters who cut lyrically, 00:03:30.960 --> 00:03:33.480 there are cutters who cut very aggressively, 00:03:33.480 --> 00:03:36.734 and depending on what I need, that's who I use. 00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:43.434 In order to make an organic form you  need to have many, many straight cuts. 00:03:51.880 --> 00:03:55.581 The surface is a kind of landscape  that I get carried away with. 00:03:56.932 --> 00:04:01.400 My definition of a landscape  that could also have to do with 00:04:01.400 --> 00:04:05.000 the kind of psychological landscape  or an emotional landscape. 00:04:11.738 --> 00:04:14.920 Graphite is a very, very fine  powder and because it's so fine, 00:04:14.920 --> 00:04:17.520 it's able to get into the pores of the cedar. 00:04:21.320 --> 00:04:23.760 I really put it on in a very hefty way so that 00:04:23.760 --> 00:04:26.827 I really grind it with a brush into the surface. 00:04:27.834 --> 00:04:33.840 And then we scoured the surface to further define 00:04:33.840 --> 00:04:35.840 what I wanted the surface to do 00:04:35.840 --> 00:04:38.440 because that surface is extremely important to me 00:04:38.440 --> 00:04:41.514 in terms of communicating emotionally. 00:04:52.520 --> 00:04:53.960 I never do a model– 00:04:53.960 --> 00:04:57.160 I never do drawings for my works– 00:04:57.160 --> 00:04:58.920 because they close me in. 00:04:58.920 --> 00:05:01.330 Because they limit my options. 00:05:04.444 --> 00:05:06.084 You can't get too predictable. 00:05:06.084 --> 00:05:08.125 You have to have surprises all over the place. 00:05:08.720 --> 00:05:11.480 If for nothing else, then  just to keep my head going– 00:05:11.480 --> 00:05:13.609 keep my mind alive. 00:05:14.960 --> 00:05:17.360 But I think to have any level of interest 00:05:17.360 --> 00:05:20.680 you have to have some sort of combat, you know, 00:05:20.680 --> 00:05:23.204 that's occurring within the work. 00:05:24.440 --> 00:05:29.640 And anger has been a tremendous  mobilizing force for me. 00:05:30.160 --> 00:05:32.037 I'm grateful to my anger. 00:05:33.960 --> 00:05:42.080 The confrontation in part lies  with my struggle with the cedar. 00:05:42.680 --> 00:05:45.240 It's always telling me what it needs to do 00:05:45.240 --> 00:05:49.216 and I think that I'm trying to  tell it what I want it to do. 00:05:50.040 --> 00:05:55.501 This is a sculpture that I want  to look as though it's ravaged. 00:05:56.737 --> 00:06:01.650 As though it's been kind of beaten up by life. 00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:10.180 Anything that has to do with chaos is as  interesting if not more so than order. 00:06:14.280 --> 00:06:18.822 This is a machine that's meant only  for metal to grind on top of wood 00:06:19.760 --> 00:06:22.720 and what it does is it burns its surface. 00:06:22.720 --> 00:06:27.797 For me, that's what gives it a whole  other landscape and a whole other depth. 00:06:29.720 --> 00:06:33.640 Mine are definitely not utilitarian objects 00:06:33.640 --> 00:06:36.954 but I learned from that which is vernacular. 00:06:58.920 --> 00:07:01.280 I consider these my drawings. 00:07:01.280 --> 00:07:05.400 They are three-dimensional but  they're actually quite complicated 00:07:05.400 --> 00:07:08.600 in terms of all of the markings on their surface. 00:07:08.600 --> 00:07:10.781 This is chalk and that's graphite. 00:07:11.994 --> 00:07:14.240 It's made out of wood--out of cedar, obviously– 00:07:14.240 --> 00:07:18.520 but it's still lace because it  wanders in a way that's very wayward 00:07:18.520 --> 00:07:19.720 and it's very open. 00:07:19.720 --> 00:07:21.200 You can see through it. 00:07:21.200 --> 00:07:23.000 I deliberately, consciously, 00:07:23.000 --> 00:07:26.013 set out to make it feel and look light. 00:07:28.920 --> 00:07:36.164 I love the man-made and nature kind of  really becoming fused or becoming one. 00:07:37.080 --> 00:07:39.400 For the project at Madison Square Park, 00:07:39.400 --> 00:07:43.547 the urethane bonnet, I wanted a transparent look– 00:07:44.325 --> 00:07:48.360 a look of walls that the light went through. 00:07:48.360 --> 00:07:59.120 I wanted a very agitated surface and the hood that  is over the bonnet is almost like a little porch. 00:07:59.120 --> 00:08:01.960 It's very erratic and it's very celebratory 00:08:01.960 --> 00:08:05.685 and it needed that translucency of the light. 00:08:06.349 --> 00:08:10.531 I think there were twelve marriages  that took place inside the bonnet. 00:08:15.040 --> 00:08:18.385 Certainly that part of the  piece was a big success. 00:08:21.040 --> 00:08:26.021 I do have books that I've written in. 00:08:27.440 --> 00:08:31.840 I use this as a way to talk to myself 00:08:31.840 --> 00:08:35.336 and I write down my dreams, 00:08:36.320 --> 00:08:39.954 documenting them is one of the  things that makes me feel lighter. 00:08:44.640 --> 00:08:50.621 I draw because it's something that  I like to do from time to time. 00:08:52.040 --> 00:08:53.880 I've never shown my drawings– 00:08:53.880 --> 00:08:55.918 I'm very shy about my drawings. 00:08:57.268 --> 00:08:59.268 They really are mine. 00:08:59.520 --> 00:09:01.200 I can't help but think right now that 00:09:01.200 --> 00:09:04.650 maybe the best drawings are the  ones that I leave for a while. 00:09:05.520 --> 00:09:08.552 Let it gestate because as time goes by 00:09:08.552 --> 00:09:10.628 I think it becomes more and more obvious. 00:09:11.178 --> 00:09:16.040 This particular drawing I've  worked on for I think over a year. 00:09:16.040 --> 00:09:20.640 It's almost like a patchwork quilt you know? 00:09:20.640 --> 00:09:24.764 And I think of these things not really as sewing, 00:09:26.160 --> 00:09:32.520 maybe as cuts that the surgeon then sews later. 00:09:32.520 --> 00:09:37.390 I think of them as a kind of landscape  that you look at from the top. 00:09:56.720 --> 00:10:01.840 This piece is the most baroque  piece that I've done in my life. 00:10:01.840 --> 00:10:05.351 It's also the kind of landscape  you find on a human body. 00:10:07.800 --> 00:10:12.640 The interiors of these pouches  had a tremendous amount to do with 00:10:12.640 --> 00:10:16.134 defining what the exterior does. 00:10:22.680 --> 00:10:29.600 I want people to enjoy the  voluptuousness of the piece. 00:10:29.600 --> 00:10:32.701 I want the piece to walk with them. 00:10:34.280 --> 00:10:39.240 I feel that anchoring these  structures and anchoring these forms 00:10:39.240 --> 00:10:43.559 is a part of the power behind how it speaks. 00:10:44.452 --> 00:10:50.474 Gravity serves an incredibly  important purpose for me. 00:10:54.320 --> 00:10:58.000 This wall pocket has a flat, flat back 00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:02.685 because it actually can edge up against a wall. 00:11:03.280 --> 00:11:05.720 There's kind of a humbleness to it. 00:11:05.720 --> 00:11:10.233 There's almost an introverted feel that it has. 00:11:11.240 --> 00:11:17.136 I need the inside to be as  carefully considered as the outside. 00:11:18.120 --> 00:11:23.955 And I have this idea of almost like  something that would– 00:11:31.463 --> 00:11:36.342 you know, almost like something that a body could excavate from. 00:11:38.196 --> 00:11:44.540 You know, could sort of be  molded with and then escape from. 00:11:46.600 --> 00:11:51.520 My whole cedar studio is loaded  with pieces that are unfinished 00:11:51.520 --> 00:11:55.440 and I need all of those things  in my environment to feed me, 00:11:55.440 --> 00:11:59.240 to give me always options. 00:12:03.880 --> 00:12:07.240 Nothing can exist in my head without opposites. 00:12:07.240 --> 00:12:10.440 The opposites don't have to be complete opposites, 00:12:10.440 --> 00:12:14.560 but they can be things that  don't ordinarily belong together. 00:12:14.560 --> 00:12:22.520 Within a piece that has tremendous  amount of agitation and agony, 00:12:22.520 --> 00:12:24.680 there can also be something very hushed 00:12:24.680 --> 00:12:29.160 and very quiet and very lyrical and very humane– 00:12:31.680 --> 00:12:37.204 also within the context of something that  feels as though it's full of violence. 00:12:38.280 --> 00:12:43.560 That within it one can have  something that feels humble 00:12:43.560 --> 00:12:53.080 and that feels as though it's capable  of giving you a "głaskać po głowie" – 00:12:53.080 --> 00:12:59.120 the capacity of petting you on the  head in a most gentle sort of way.