An Interview with Artist Paige Grover
Every month during the First Friday Art Walk in Denver’s Art District on Santa Fe we bring in an artist or maker for a pop-up! This month we’re featuring multidisciplinary artist and longtime Strawberry Mountain customer Paige Grover!
Ahead of her pop-up with us, we asked Paige some questions about herself, her art, and sustainability. It’s a fascinating look into her mind and we think you’re gonna love it. Enjoy!
When did you start making and selling art?
My first memories of making and also enjoying art was in my kindergarten art class watching Mark Kistler on Imagination Station, following along with my classmates in the pull down vinyl screen (that I always wanted to play with). I remember feeling really good at the end of art class. Three years later (seventeen in 4th grader time) my dad gave me a Mark Kistler follow along drawing book, his cartoon surreal worlds and people teaching me genuine lessons in value and movement, alongside the lesson of letting go of what you’ve seen, and drawing what you are looking for.
I started selling art in the 7th grade. My middle school art teacher, Emily Berset, catalyzed my decision to follow a path of creating and sharing art through her whole essence of being. I had never met anyone quite like her in Texas, where I grew up, before. So, I figured I’d help fund my earnings (solely dedicated to shopping for clothes and goodies and trinkets) by selling custom iPhone or iPod cases I bought in bulk off Amazon and drew on with sharpie. All for the sweet deal of $10, profiting $2 because I didn’t really think it made sense selling my art since I enjoyed the process of making it so much.
What inspires your work?
The river is the first thing that comes to mind. Along with visual art, I’ve always found a lot of flow and consequentially stillness (which led to self love, actualization, vocalization) in writing. All I can remember in my middle school writings are rivers and cosmos and mountains and how we all breathe.
On a grounded level, I am deeply inspired by the natural world and it’s repeating patterns. I compulsively and unconsciously wait for similarities and are inclined to investigate the differences. This materializes into the human body, especially hands and faces (often forgoing having to do hair because it intimidates me and probably some esoteric reason I’m not yet aware of), alongside landscape elements (mountains, a river sometimes, rain, trees, flowers).
On a personal, phenomenological (phenomena of living through a felt experience) level, I often find myself dumping past experiences into my medium, now much more controlled knowing I can use it as I use a little bit of yellow to soften the red I’m using: as an ingredient not a dish.
I’m inspired by asking myself questions and tactically working my way around, through, and on it. I gain insane amounts of creative motivation when I really sink myself with a great question. One of those has been surrounding the inherent duality we grow up with. The head is separate from the body and heart and spirit, the humans are separate from the animals, we are all separate from the plants. The river and sand have no means of knowing one another. The grass does not perceive my foot covered by rubber and laces. God is not in us, we are not each other. But, are we?
To me, this creates a “safe” division of space between everything. To me, Safe no quotations eliminates the space between each other, not by sitting next to everyone in the world at once, but by flowing through activities that bring you to a space of oneness. When I am no longer an artist making my piece of art, but everything I have ever encountered, every subliminal message felt, every thought realized flowing as itself, the art existing as a limb that grew from the trunk of itself.
In that, Ram Dass, my personal trauma and how I chose to move with it, the mountains, being uncomfortably vulnerable with safe people in my life, and the very process of recreation all inspire me.
I could go on forever.
What does sustainability mean to you and how does your art reflect that belief?
The concept of not considering the affects of our output is massively disturbing to me, and yet having been a human myself, I can understand how people get lost in a variety of ways. Most of us are not living, and have never lived, in cultures that have any muscle memory of the land and the symbiotic relationship people can have, have had, and do have with it. Scarcity mindset is a criminal that sneaks into our brains in so many different ways.
Even if you recycle but you have a deep seated fear of there not being enough for everyone, you’ll find unsustainable habits creep their way into your mode of being. This bleeds into creating, into eating, into how you talk to yourself. So first and foremost I deeply believe sustainability begins for the individual and collective when the individual confronts what is no longer sustainable within themselves.
When I studied abroad at Burren College of Art on the west coast of Ireland, I was confronted with questions about process. If I liked rivers so much, how come I used plastic paint? If I wanted people to connect with earth more, why did I paint a mountain with toxic oils instead of creating an unexpected outdoor space that doesn’t stay in a gallery but lives to be accessible to anyone?
These were really good questions. I did talk a lot about yoga and self love and loving others. But I certainly had a lot of shit inside of me that needed to be addressed before I started being able to see sustained affects in my output.
In getting ready for this show I focused on using what I had, minus buying some new wool yarn for rugs (which im now realizing I could’ve sourced from ReCreative Denver!!). I pulled paintings I wanted to touch up for years with paint previously purchased to clean house on old materials, and paid for prints from my friends at Blazy Builds using scrap materials I had saved from being dumped like a little art rat when I had worked there, alongside gifted paper from a dear friend Deborah Howard (beautiful artist in the Santa Fe art district community).
There’s a millions ways I’ve shifted into a more sustainable lifestyle and plan to, I cannot wait to be growing large amounts of what I eat, creating what I would’ve previously bought, and sourcing from really interesting secondhand spaces.
What is your goal as an artist?
My goal is both selfish and selfless. Selfishly, I want to spend all my time creating. This means seeking inspiration, researching, reading, exploring, grounding in nature, exploring my own self, sourcing materials, collaborating with the materials, and getting to see someone light up or feel something visceral when interacting with my work.
This is where selling art and time for specialized input comes in, and where I always find a pain point. It feels almost inherently wrong to charge money for something someone deeply connects with. I want to give away everything I do and keep a few for myself. I’m an animal at bartering, even though I don’t get to do it that often. I do, however, understand that money isn’t inherently used for pure evil either. It’s simply a vein of energy exchange (that has become incredibly not simple due to nasty Scarcity Mindset Monster). I am learning what feels appropriate in how I price now understanding Bills. But the spirit of the exchange needs to remain in line with the rest of my process. I love the idea of being an artist that is flexible with prices, open to random donations to round down prices for folks who can’t afford the listed one from folks who more than can. I love the idea of bartering.
Regardless of any currency, I do want to share what I make. I am appreciative of others who do that, so who am I to judge what others may or may not enjoy? The sharing feeds a network that encourages more creation that reaches more people without needing to charge anything, that allows me to give to my communities so that they may feel the same freedom of flow I get to when creating.
If you were an animal/breakfast cereal/ice cream flavor/style of architecture what would you be?
I would be a jungle cat of some kind//cinnamon toast crunch//lavender blueberry with Bailey’s ice cream//and fairy cottage core architecture. Is that allowed?
What’s next for you? Are there any projects or goals you are currently working toward that you'd like to share about?
I am incredibly inspired to publish a poetry book, and start writing a much longer book. Perhaps intermingling with visual art in some way? I also have had a dream of creating a “wind room” that would basically create the feeling I got reading and then watching the scene in the Great Gatsby when the giant white billowing curtains are blowing in the living room near Daisy.
I also have been recently excited by rug tufting and plan on dyeing my own wool with what would normally be thrown out in a compost or trash bin, or flowers / plants I grow (or source responsibly!).
In that same vein I am excited to do a lot with natural pigmentation in my work.
Are there any artistic mediums you’d like to explore that you haven’t yet?
I have always been captivated by clay, and took one ceramics class in college. It is tactile, I can source it naturally meaning part of the process is essentially playing in mud, it is both malleable then rigid, it is delicate yet strong, and THEN I get to glazing?? A truly beyond exciting medium.
Thanks for reading! If you’re interested in being one of our featured artists, send us an email. We’re always looking to expand our community and showcase the talent our city has to offer.
Until next time,
“Be excellent to each other”
