Meet Rita Grendze

We were lucky to catch up with Rita Grendze recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Rita, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

I grew up in a frugal immigrant household, youngest of six kids. There wasn’t much that went to waste in our house, clothes were home-made, patched, and worn until they wore out. Books were read and re-read until dog-eared. Toys were used in unorthodox ways to get the most fun out of them, often long past age appropriateness. We truly were a scrappy bunch: resourceful, creative, contentious, determined. We were not always each other’s best friends, but we were family.

Much of my artwork is rooted in similar principles: minimum waste, impermanence, frugality, memory, community, honest labor. I often start with abandoned objects that have come to me to avoid the landfill. When they are presented in large quantities, I find I want to catalog them in some way. I try to find a system to make sense of the unfamiliar abundance. I puzzle over what one can do with two palettes of books or a mountain of broken shovels, dozens of boxes of choral sheet music, or miscellaneous scraps of yarn. By spending time organizing, I forget, for a time, where the materials came from, what the materials were used for originally, and let their innate properties guide me.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I am a visual artist, creating immersive, touchable installations out of discarded and overlooked everyday objects. Most of my work starts with an abundance of materials, like my late mother’s knitting basket, or boxes of water damaged books.
While materials aren’t usually precious to me, the stories I eventually find within them are treasures. Working with used and familiar stuff has me curious about the inaccuracy of memory. My recollection of an event from childhood is going to be different from my siblings’: inflected with emotion, fading over time, possibly embellished with the retelling of it. Memories are often shared with me along with gifted materials. Sometimes those stories are recorded, but never illustrated or duplicated. While my cursory research and manipulation of materials helps define the look and structure of the work, my own associations with an object, a smell, or a place create an overlay of meaning, that is again layered with thoughts on how the stuff came to me, the giver, and shared memories. I offer the work in a space between truth and fiction, tethered to facts but still reaching, open to new interpretations.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

I think knowledge of your chosen visual arts field, a sense of play, and a consistent studio practice are key to success in visual art. It is crucial to have technical skills that are commensurate with your ideas: a bold concept in art will be more readily received if it is intentionally and skillfully crafted. Knowing the history of your medium, such as fibers, allows for a connection to different communities and deeper meanings. The good news is that skills can be learned, can be enhanced and honed to fit the idea. Ask experts. Take classes. I believe in always learning, furthering the ability of our hands to create what our minds can imagine.
Since skills don’t enter the artistic vocabulary immediately, but take time to soak in, having a regular studio practice is a must. A disciplined schedule naturally creates space for play, for experimentation and for mistakes. Make the studio work a priority. Dedicate a space (even if it’s just a corner of your garage) to that practice and just go to work.
It seems to me that the most interesting artists are those that are able to take deep dives into their chosen subject. For example, painting a single still life of a bowl of apples could be satisfying, but painting a still life of apples every day for a year will undoubtedly change the artist’s methods of observing and recording, provide deeper and more interesting layers.

What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?

There is quite a bit of “busy pride” in the art community, a debatable value placed on the number of exhibitions over the quality of exhibitions. As my work is getting more labor intensive and more complicated to move and install, I find myself thinking hard about the benefits of saying “‘no” to projects and jobs. Lately I’ve been approaching new exhibition opportunities with the following questions:
Is it a good venue (physically)?
Will it have an impact on the local community?
Will it have an impact beyond the immediate community, such as press, website or catalog publication?
How long will it be on view? Is it worth my time/gas/materials?
Will it foster future opportunities and connections that will help me grow my career?
Will it detract from current studio work?
If there is a no answer to more than two of the above questions, I pause to really consider the benefits and drawbacks to the opportunity. It’s empowering to value your time and studio practice.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ritagrendze.com
• Instagram: @ritagrendze

Image Credits

Photos by Sierah Barnhardt, Krists Luhers, and Indigo Skye photography