(A) How do you transition into a new body of work?

(M) I’ve come to see the preparation for new work as just as important as the work. Prepping the canvases, organizing the paint, and spending time away from the studio just thinking loosely about where I want to go with the paintings are all important steps. I have a pretty heavy puritanical work ethic that I’ve begun to seriously question, especially around the studio. The studio, as a place in which there is space for non-linear thinking, is in direct opposition to our goal-oriented culture. So I try -- and I mean this modestly -- to question some of the ingrained structures and rules we have been taught on being productive and successful. I sometimes go to the studio to simply look or read. I have long, meandering imaginary conversations in my head with people who are on my mind that day. Or I lie on the floor and talk on the phone, two things I cannot do at home without having my kids all over me.

(A) Thoughts on drawing? What is the relationship between your drawing practice and painting

(M) Drawing is central for me, a primary language, a way of thinking. I’ve started to define drawing as simple decision making. Like if I throw a pot on the wheel, for example, then I am drawing when I make the neck a bit longer and thinner. And it feels like drawing when I shift the value down on a color in a painting. Drawing is changing the overall shape of a paper painting. That said, I also just draw. I draw when I have a vague idea. I draw when I am stuck. I draw when I want to be in the studio but don’t want to commit the time to painting. I draw while painting and, in this sense, painting and drawing are one and the same. I also love to draw with my kids. And I hoard their drawings in my studio and steal them from my husband.

(A) What is your process when making the large wall works - do you work off your drawings or do you start with a cut piece of paper and just start adding and subtracting?

(M) I begin the large paper paintings by considering their overall scale and then an overall palette and laying the paper down over the floor. I work for a few sessions on setting up a kind of gesture or momentum and try to make the color and forms work together. I make them entirely on the floor so I work leaning over them, crawling and walking on them, and using pretty saturated paint that flows with gravity. Then - this is part that I love - I cut it all up and start over with another set of colors and possibly a different composition and then bring the two worlds together. It’s all about finding that place where the colors and forms almost work with and against one another at the same time. They are disorienting and fun to make and I want to share that sensation through the work. I add and subtract through the whole making of the thing and am never really beholden to anything about it until it’s up on the wall. I relish every step of the process besides the gluing.

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