CARY HULBERT

Cary Hulbert is a multi-disciplinary New York-based artist, educator, and curator. Cary received her MFA from Columbia University, BFA from Montserrat College of Art, and is a Bronx Museum Artist in the Marketplace alumni. Her exhibition highlights include The Bronx Museum (NYC), Fisher Landau Center (NYC), The Jewish Museum (NYC), Ortega y Gasset Projects (NYC), IPCNY (NYC), Danforth Museum (Boston), Liu Haisu Art Museum (Shanghai), Taimiao Art Gallery (Beijing) and the Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina (Novi Sad).

Hello Cary! Thanks for joining me for Mint Tea. To begin, what’s your favorite tea?

I actually spent a few years of my life only drinking tea, and gunpowder green tea is my favorite because it's almost like coffee – it’s got a lot of caffeine.

Could you tell me about your background and your practice?

I did a BFA in printmaking at Montserrat College of Art, where I graduated in 2007. Then I spent a good amount of time at various print shops, one in Boston, one in Austin, Texas, and then finally chose to get my MFA from Columbia where I graduated in 2016. I’m someone who's always held a full time job while being an artist and I deeply understand art as a second full time job and what that’s like. A lot of the time, I think of myself as strictly a printmaker, which is why I chose to go to Columbia. It's a multidisciplinary program, and I deeply wanted to just try something else. Printmaking, I think, will always be a part of me. But I definitely learned to view printmaking more as a toolset. Printmaking, to me is almost all the mediums put together. Let's say you're working on copper, that's a metal, you can use a jewelry saw and cut it into shape, which is somewhat sculptural, even relief, you're carving the wood and that's very sculptural, monoprinting is like painting. It kind of encompasses all the best things. I've learned to kind of view it as a tool set for other things I want to do. I can take that specialization and I can break it down into other media that I can use in my practice.

What projects are you working on right now?

I have kind of a crazy schedule at the moment, so I'm trying to be very kind to myself. I'm not working on any bigger, larger projects, but I am working on these drawings, which because of my schedule, I've kept small, like 16 by 20 inches. I draw a little bit here and there, just for my sanity. Over COVID I began creating these fantastical landscapes, and that's what I'm continuing now. At the time, to me it was more about freedom. I felt trapped in my practice – even before COVID, everything felt so heavy, I didn’t really like the way the world was going at the time, I didn’t want to keep doing this work about the environment because everything was just so sad. I just didn't want to go down that route, I wanted something lighter. So I ended up making these surrealist landscapes that have a lot of bright colors in them and a lot of animals in them, or sometimes animal parts.

That's what I'm continuing now. It was about a very freeing moment that felt good, and it was also about getting back to my roots as someone who drew a lot. After grad school, I kind of stuck in this really digital medium. A lot of stuff was digitally printed, and I would silkscreen over it or etch over it. I was really using that as a way to speed up my work, but also to speak to these other forms of reality and other dimensions, which is always kind of about escapism. So that's still there, but I'm much more lax with what comes out and I'm not being as strict with myself about having these overarching conceptual things in my work. They're kind of what I think needs to come out of me now, which is something that's kind of bright, even if the content itself is sometimes a little strange. There's a lot of dog heads with flowers coming out of them. They're kind of cute looking, but they’re also a little strange.

I am the most familiar with your color pencil, gouache, and silkscreen works. Can you talk about how and why you choose to work with the media that you do?

Yeah, as a printmaker, I have forever worked with oil based inks and more toxic substances, a lot of alcohol, a lot of paint thinner, epoxy and other things that give off gases. During the pandemic I just couldn't bring that home. I just was so tired of wearing gloves, needing ventilation to work, because I know it's toxic and the thing comes with a warning – CAUSES CANCER. It took me the longest time, but especially during the pandemic I was like, “No, I don't need to use any of this, I just want to draw.” I didn't even do that quite right. Like, I'm someone who's very slow to make a decision. I actually bought a lot of watercolor pastels, thinking I would draw and bring them into the print shop and create a monoprint through them. In the end, I drew all these things, and I was like, “Oh, I like them this way. I don't need to force it through printmaking for it to be my work.” Everything is water-based, because it's much better for you and for the environment, but it also gives me a little bit more working room. I can use colored pencil as colored pencil, but if I wanted to, I could go in with water, play with it a bit more. It's very forgiving. Even the silkscreen itself, I can reactivate. So I actually like that not only have I brought everything to a green kind of practice, I just feel better, especially having been an artist for so long, making that healthy switch. But really it feels really good to just have everything be very malleable.

What is your creative process like? Do you start the work with a specific image in mind from the beginning or does it evolve organically as you go?

It's kind of a mix sometimes. If I've seen something I like, like if I go to the Met, sometimes there's a composition or color or something I saw where I'm like, “Oh, I have to do something like this.” And then sometimes it's totally just out of my head. I do make sure to just sit down. My schedule is super, super busy, but no matter what, I'm in the studio every Sunday, and if I'm lucky I can get in some more time. No matter what, whether I have an idea or not, I sit down and I listen to a podcast, and I just draw. And if I don't know what to do, I have an album on my iPhone, which I've been collecting for years now, of just things that inspire me, and I sometimes draw from that. So sometimes it's very precise, others I just sit down and draw, and they don't always end up as finished work that I like or show. But no matter what, every Sunday, I go and I draw.

How does working with multiple media affect your process? Does the silk-screening process come first? Or do you begin with a drawing?  

At this point in my life, I just know that whatever I want to make, whatever comes out of my mind, I can make it. Because I've done sculpture, I've done installation, I’ve done photography, obviously printmaking, and it's really good to know that if I wanted to make something, I would know how to do it. I think just having all those little tools to make something helps me just like make it in a way where I can get my end result the way I want it. I'm pro-multimedia stuff. I feel like it’s silly to only do one thing. You should use everything you can, everything you know.

What inspires your images?

So many things. I had a dog, and he passed away a couple of months ago. I knew he was sick for four or five months, knowing he was not going to make it. So I was drawing him, wanting to stay home for a little bit, then it just became too much with my schedule. I have one piece where, the form of cancer he had, his bones were kind of like Swiss cheese. It’s this one particular drawing where all the rocks had holes in them, and they're all doggy spirit lands, and they're all about the world he would go to when he passed. And so it was my way of dealing with my dog. After he passed I wasn’t able to draw dogs for a while, and they just started reentering my work recently. I also draw my cat, who I’ve had since I was about seventeen. So my inspiration was owning these pets, and sometimes it's a bit more emotional. But with animals, I think in particular, I like things that are kind of domestic but also wild. Like when I'm with my cat, I always look at her and I think about how she's probably lived longer because she's been an indoor cat with me, but also that she's still feral, and if you rub her the wrong way you’ll know.

I noticed the presence of dogs in many of your works. I know you already mentioned the personal meaning, but do they signify anything? What attracts you to them?

They're so domestic, but wild. I grew up with dogs too. But yeah, I guess in a way I only use a couple of reoccurring animals, which are cats, dogs, snakes, and kind of moths or butterflies. I think sometimes it's the pattern that the creatures have – the moths are a really good example of being able to add in more detail in my work. They also just tend to be things that humans think are cute. The same thing with flowers too. Like, I don't know another human that doesn't like flowers, but we cut them, we put them in our house and we even dye them colors. It's always funny to me how these natural things are always brought into our life in a way where we control it. But I just like animals, I really have a really deep soft spot for animals. And I think I make these worlds for them, not for humans. They're like these spirit worlds for animals or other planes where they can be happy, like exist in multiple dimensions fading in and out of whatever they want.

Can you talk about any other imagery or symbols that you like to work with?

I do have like a common reoccurring general landscape. This kind of concept of total nature. There's nothing, there's no other sign of our world in there. In terms of symbolism, there are just a lot of flowers, which I also think are connected to the ideas of regeneration, regrowth, rebirth that's kind of part of that. And so that's always constantly at play. I maybe brought up the snakes before, but they definitely are like a feminine strength. A lot of people think of Adam and Eve, but I tend to think more of pagan earth goddess vibes when I think of snakes.

I see that your work shows many different kinds of flowers. How do you go about picking the right flower for each work? What is your favorite flower?

So sometimes I'll just see a flower I like and so I’ll just screenshot it. That’s how I ran into this night blooming flower that only blooms once a year. It has this beautiful appearance where the stem is really interesting looking, and that has entered my work of late. Someone asked me what my favorite flower was recently, and I just responded with mutated flowers. Like if you look it up you can actually find mutations of really cool looking flowers. Hybrid flowers, which usually are the ones that look really cool, that have a lot of specks and veins in them. And then of course my probably ultimate favorite is like the classic daisy because it’s so iconic. It’s like, “flower!” But yeah, it's a lot of Google searching. Actually, my mom is also really into gardening and plants. So for her birthday I ordered her something and so I got a magazine and I was like, “Oh, I'll take this to the studio.” Like maybe this will help me pick a flower for the next drawing or something. I’ll just go to The Strand, go to the used book section and look through their garden section. I have a book on Japanese gardens, and I have a book on orchids, and I’ll rifle through these things. Orchids are beautiful. Some of them look like aliens.

What is your idea of utopia?

Well, I don't think it can really be found in this world that we live in. But my specific utopia is like a safe place, lots of land. I actually think of my parents’ house upstate. I think it's somewhere where nature can be itself and things can just kind of self-sustain and cohabitate. I just think of the kind of natural environment that hasn’t been touched by humans.

What are your favorite colors? Do they find their way into your artworks?

Yes and no. At the moment, I'm having a green phase. But very rarely will you see a really green green in my work. You might see a neon tennis ball green, which is one of my favorite colors. I guess sometimes the colors I work with start to become my favorites, like I'm starting to get really into hot pink now. But I'm pretty sure green is probably my favorite.

Is there a new medium that you would like to try or to work in more?

Ceramics. I have tried it. I took a pottery class at the YMCA a few years ago after graduate school. I want to try more handbuilding.

Where are you located now? Do you think living in Brooklyn influences your practice?

I think living in New York City affects everyone's practice. And I think it's because of the bombardment of imagery and intake that we all get on a daily basis. Like, just leaving my apartment and going to the subway is already so much stimuli, overwhelmingly so. But if you just practice looking, every once in a while I’ll look up and I’ll see something really bizarre, like a bunch of birthday balloons tangled or something that's like a moment of breath and clarity. Or just a really beautiful color or mural. I don't know if it necessarily affects my work directly, but living in New York City, the amount of input I get is max. If I had time, I could just go down to the Flower District and I could take a million photos that would all be so inspirational for me. Everything you need in New York City, you can find it. You know, people always expect me to say I draw wildlife and the outdoors because I'm nowhere near it. And I think I would draw what I was drawing, wherever I was living, but I do think I get a lot of inspiration from being in the city.

How do you stay connected to your community?

Well, first, I work at Columbia, so I'm constantly working with young artists every day. And then there's always my peers from my classes, and everyone I've met from all the years and going to shows. I think it's kind of sad, maybe, but the way I stay connected with most people is Instagram nowadays. But I also have Project Gallery V, which is a gallery I run with my friend Trinity Lester. That's another way. A lot of the people I've met through PGV, I've only met in the digital world, and every once in a blue moon, I'll meet one of them in real life. And that's amazing. But I'd have to say for the most part, I stay in touch with the community through Instagram and through Columbia.

Tell me more about Project Gallery V. How did it begin?

It began during lockdown. I met Trinity when she was an intern at the Leroy Neiman Center, which is where I work at Columbia. During the pandemic when everything shut down, people lost jobs, people lost shows, a lot of people lost a lot of momentum in their career, which I think was a really big concern for artists across the board. So we started it as a way to boost morale, and it slowly grew, we started selling work, and that’s when we started working on it to make an LLC. And now we do juried shows. So now we have something like six curated shows, and then four juried shows. We've grown a lot and we do Instagram features of artists every week, we do interviews, and we have the shows themselves. It's a lot of work but it's also a lot of fun and I think a lot of people like that kind of grassroots platform. It offers an alternative way that a gallery could be run, which is for emerging artists, and supporting the emerging artists versus just looking for a trendy artist and asking them to show hoping to gain something from them.

What's your favorite tool?

Colored pencil!

Do you have a specific colored pencil that is really small because you use too much of it?

Yes, I have a few of them. There's three at this point. In the beginning I would draw in the black pencil, now I never use the black pencil because that one's really tiny.  But the baby blue and the light pink are almost gone. And then my favorite one to draw in is a brick red.

What is the space where you do your work?

It's my studio. I work in there because I pay for it, so I'm like, “I gotta go there.” My studio is in the 1717 Troutman building, which is somewhat well-known just because it’s massive, so it does really well during Bushwick Open Studios.

Do you have any ritual that helps you get into the zone?

I’m like a graphic novel nerd, kind of. I've read a lot. I always have a graphic novel checked out from the library. And one trick – it’s not really a trick, but I always read like for an hour or so before I go to the studio. Sometimes it’s just reading, but looking at all the graphics, which are usually beautifully illustrated, gets me inspired and like in the mood to draw. It's like yeah, so right now I'm reading “Edina” by Moebius, and the colors, the colors! So great. It's absolutely beautiful, so well-drawn.

When do you know when you are finished with your artwork or a body of work?

That's a really good question. Sometimes I know when something is good or I’m like, “Oh, this turned out better than I thought.” Other times I've finished something and I'm not entirely sure I like it, but I know that it's done because I don't like going back into work. It's either done enough for me to show or it goes in the trash. Very rarely do I have a lot in between things. I don't like overworking. Sometimes I'm not totally sure, in the sense that I'm happy with it. And I don't want to say that happy means done. I guess the only end point is like, it's complete enough where I don't need to go back into it anymore, and I'm not going to set it on fire. Yeah, it's either done enough, or it's kind of trashed and hopeless. But that's how I work. I have to finish something, like I'm not good at leaving things on. That's not a character trait of mine. 

Who are your favorite practicing artists?

I have a friend, Cara Lynch, who I actually have three pieces of her work in my room. Which I didn't even realize, I was like, oh my god, I'm a big fan. Farah Mohammad for sure, who's another good friend of mine, she just had a solo show in Chelsea. She's someone who pushes printmaking to a new level or at least makes you kind of question what the medium is. She's very intricate with her details. I think some bigger artists would be Peter Doig, for sure. Hayley Barker is an artist that I really love on Instagram. Dasha Shishkin, her work is so bizarre and interesting and very fun. Dante Migone-Ojeda, he’s actually one of my best friends, and his sculptural work is really amazing.

What gives you the feeling of butterflies in your stomach?

Well, butterflies can be caused by a multitude of things, but in relationship to my artwork, it's when the art goes somewhere. When it's going to be in a show or someone purchases it, so it's leaving my studio for somewhere else. It feels so good when it has a home. I just showed at the Bronx Museum and that was like a total stomach butterfly. It was such a wonderful moment to have work there, and that just felt amazing for the whole six months. But yeah, when it finally leaves my studio, it’s real. It gets actually put into the world of reality and existence.

www.caryhulbert.com | @cary_hulbert