In 2023 we’re continuing our Storefront Window Installation Artist interviews where we pair our exhibiting artists with other artists and curators for interview conversations. This January - February we were pleased to host Natasha Brennan
Natasha Brennan is an illustrator and print maker who focuses on zines, art for children, posters, and community based projects. They graduated from RISD with a BFA in Illustration and a concentration in Literary Arts in 2020. They are also an educator and have taught for City Arts and Project Open Door. In their free time, they write stories, explore Providence, and dream of secret special places. Currently, they are an Artist in Residence at the Dirt Palace.
Below is a convo between Natasha and artist Jo Dery
JD: Hi Nat! Congrats on your window!
The work collected on your website shows your drawings in zines and comics, prints and posters, murals and illustration – and in your window installation, your drawings are sewn onto quilts and tapestries. What attracted you to working with fabric, and what was your process for incorporating your drawings into these new forms? How about the ceramics in the window? Clay seems like a new material for you, too.
NB: I feel like I've always been really into fabric. I really like all the textures and seeing how the colors interact with each other. I also think I got kind of bored just screen-printing on paper and I wanted to screen print on different materials. I've also always been into embroidery- since I was a kid, but I never knew how to incorporate it into my work. I think that is how the quilting came about. I wanted to try it and I realized I could put my embroidery onto all of it or incorporate it into that. I also really like how lumpy my quilts come out- at first, I was definitely really insecure about how I wasn't ironing or seaming anything together perfectly and then I just wanted to lean into it. And then I started really liking it- and it was more like my drawings- just kind of lumping everything together to make a huge thing. And also I wanted to work larger and I'd tried painting larger but I didn't like doing that. But I like quilting.
JD: I read on your Instagram that the large quilt was made using fabric from the last dress you ever wore… and that the quilt took you 5 years to make! If I may ask: I wonder what the circumstances were around you deciding to hold on to this dress. Did you imagine that one day, you would transmute it into a new object? And how does this quilt tell the story of the 5 years it took to make?
NB: So actually, the dress fabric is on the smaller quilt- it's the small one with the flowery edges and the large tulip man with eyes. I held onto the dress because I loved the fabric and I think that's why I bought it in the first place. I don't like wearing dresses and the dress didn't look good on me but I loved the fabric so I just kept it in a box. I only wore it to a wedding once. And then when I was working on all the little quilts for the window, I pulled it out and saw it as just a nice fabric. So I guess I always wanted to make it into something else. I have more of that dress fabric left and I want to use it again.
And then the large quilt is backed with an old bed sheet my roommate Julieta, from a few years ago, left me when she needed to move back to Mexico during the beginning of the pandemic.
The large quilt, I've been slowly working on since I was 19. It started with the embroidery of the gardening man in the center of the quilt and then I slowly started building it out. The main reason I really told Pippi and Xander that I wanted to work on having a window installation was because I wanted to finish the quilt and I really wanted to share it. And I feel really lucky I got to!! I think the large quilt really explains how I've changed as an artist- starting with embroidery and moving to just trying to quilt with fabric to screen-printing fabric and using that to make more
of a story or a narrative out of the quilt.
JD: I love that you say the quilt contains a narrative – I connect the gardening man with the figure curled up in a ball (a human seed!) with the drawings of blooming plants and flowers and with the text that reads “Welcome!” I think about the labor of care, and celebrating growth. I also think of Faith Ringgold’s narrative quilts – do you know those? (If not, do a deep dive!) I wonder if there are artists who work with quilts, narratives, or quilted narratives that have been an influence or inspiration?
NB: Faith Ringgold is one of my favorite artists!! Her work is totally an inspiration. I also love Tabitha Arnold’s narrative woven rugs about labor movements. Her work is really powerful and definitely a cool illustration/textile combo.
JD: I really love the work on your site that has social messages – there are prints that support children’s rights and safe injection sites, and a moving series of portraits of Rhode Island Activists created for the Rhode Island Social Movement Oral History Project at the George Wiley Center. What is the conversation like between your art-making and your activism these days?
NB: Awww I'm really glad you mentioned all of that, thank you. I love the George Wiley Center- I started volunteering there in 2019 and I met Camilo Vivieros and his partner Chloe, and Mae, Alesia, and Lily and from all of them I really learned about how to focus on and work for justice. I was able to help out with data entry and do some art projects and really just learn about how to be a better and more involved person and community member. I owe them all so much.
I feel like as I've spent more time working as an adult- my activism has drifted way more into education. I've been teaching after-school art in Providence for a few years now and I feel like that is really where my focus has gone. Working with City Arts and Project Open Door has been so meaningful for me and I want to be a full time art teacher now- that's my dream.
I've worked on activism and art projects with my students in a variety of different ways and I'd really like to share two examples! One of my middle school students; he had some trouble with the administration at his school- he is just so able to pick up on change and how it affects him and his peers' experiences. So I suggested that he make a zine focusing on the issues he had with the school to give to his principal and it was awesome. A lot of the examples were presented in a silly way- like why is there no more strawberry milk and the toast is moldy now- but that's still serious and important for youth to have access to food they like and food that's not moldy!!! The zine even got more serious though- he noted how a lot of his teachers don't understand his life- the things he struggles with and what he wants to learn about- and that hit home for all of us- like we don't know everything as educators and we need to learn from our students about what we should be empathetic to and how we should communicate. And he focused on how the school had just abruptly stopped their music program. Like no music- for any class. What a dis- service!!! Anyway, I was really proud of that.
One of my high school students made like the coolest poster ever. I asked them all to make a poster about a social justice issue or a fake event poster (stolen idea from Xander Marro). I really like to give my students options for projects so they don't ever feel like they have to do something they really don't want to do. It was a screen-printing project with just one or two colors using drawing fluid and screen filler so it was pretty messy and time consuming. She explained to me she wanted to make posters to hang up at her school about how messed up her school dress code is- it is racist and misogynistic. She told me how teachers chose larger Black and Latina girls to pick on and would get them in trouble for the dress code but not skinny white girls. We both got really mad about it and then she told me how a student stopped coming to school because of it. She made the most incredible poster with two drawings of teens in cool clothes that says "stop sexualizing teen girls" and "if you're uncomfortable, you're the issue." She also printed so many of them. So so smart.
JD: YES to making zines and posters with youth! I’ve been working in education my whole adult life, and I also see it as activism. My son is struggling with school this year, and I told him about your student’s zine. I think we might make one and call it “Snakes Not School.” (He is really into reptiles!) Did you have a teacher who was a champion of your art or activism? (Shout out to Brenda Loiselle, my high school art teacher!)
NB: “Snakes Not School” sounds epic!!! I would be very excited to see that in print. I had a really special art teacher when I was 10 named Cathie Nelson; she taught at an art camp near where I grew up in Maryland. She focused on how anyone can draw/make art - all it takes is some practice and a lot of different materials. She had the most amazing stories about when she worked at a post office in the area and people would come in really grumpy about the mail and she would just nod and sketch them in her sketchbook while they yelled about stuff. She’s the best.
JD: Something we have in common is a passion for keeping a sketchbook. I loved looking through your archive of sketchbooks online – though I know that sharing such intimate drawings and text can be unnerving! I think of my sketchbook as a repository for all the stuff that is tumbling around in my heart and brain. What does keeping a sketchbook mean for you?
NB: I think, for me, keeping a sketchbook means something really similar to you. It's where I feel like my most personal work happens. And it also just keeps me calm. I've had one with me always since I was like 16 I think. I just get bored and need to have something to draw in. I really need to update the sketchbook part of my website- I have so much more to share!! I think it's gotten sillier since I've become a busier real adult person- which is nice.
JD: Yes, for me too – it keeps me calm. My friend Sakiko once said: “A new diary is like a new friend.” The companionship of a sketchbook is so comforting, like a cozy quilt. A sketchbook is a great place for experimentation, too – do you use it as a place to try out new ideas, materials, etc?
NB: Yeah! I use it to try out lots of new things I’m thinking about, a lot of my comics start as just a sketch or a one panel drawing in my sketchbook. I like to use watercolor sometimes too, to practice how layering different colors or textures could work.
JD: And to finish up – What’s next for you, Nat? A nice long walk? A cup of tea? Petting a dog? Fries at the NY System?! (You deserve all of these!)
NB: I don’t know! Definitely hanging out with my partner, Avery and my cat, Thimble and probably making more quilts! They’re really fun :) and definitely a NY System mousetrap (grilled cheese).
Thank YOU Jo XO :)
Thanks for chatting with me! Xo Jo
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Jo Dery is an artist who experiments with visual storytelling. Her creative practice is rooted in drawing and writing. Each project takes the form that is most appropriate for its concept and content: a film, a book, an installation, a performance – or something new. She aims to balance the use of digital tools with evidence of the handmade, embracing an idiosyncratic personal aesthetic that is both playful and poetic. She lives in southern Vermont with her son, dog, and pet snake.
