Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest recently hosted David Sharpe and Anne Abrons as part of the facility’s annual Artist in Residence program. I had the pleasure of visiting with these two talented artists just as they were finishing their time at Bernheim and preparing to head back home to New York.
Sharpe grew up in Owensboro, Kentiucky, attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and currently shows with Carl Hammer Gallery in Chicago. Abrons attended Bennington College and has shown with Ruth Siegel Gallery and Michael Wells in New York and Sonia Zaks Gallery and Printworks Gallery in Chicago.
I first met Sharpe around a year or so ago when he had an exhibition at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, so it was a pleasure to see him again and to meet his lovely wife. If their cordial hospitality, cold tonic, and the scenic view of Lake Nevin wasn’t enough to take my mind off the oppressive heat on that sweltering July day, then the extraordinary body of work they had created during their stay at Bernheim surely was. The following is part of a follow-up email interview about their lives and work.
You two have been together as partners through life for quite a while – 36 years. You live and work together, even sharing a studio together. I would imagine that it would be quite difficult for a couple to live harmoniously when their home and work lives are so closely intertwined. Do you ever find it difficult working together, critiquing each other’s work, or dealing with each other’s professional highs and lows?
Sharpe and Abrons: Yes, we moved in together six months after we met, in 1975. Actually, sharing a studio and having side-by-side careers has been easier for us and less of a challenge than parenting two kids. Maybe we’re just lucky, because we have no recipe – but without a doubt, our mutual commitment to art is one of our strongest bonds.
David, you primarily create landscape imagery, and Anne, you primarily create still lifes. I did notice one piece in the studio that you two collaborated on together. Is that something you do very often? I have often found that trying to push two or more artists to work together on one piece doesn’t often work out well. Do you think it might come easier to you by already being so familiar with each other’s personalities, strengths, and aesthetics?
Sharpe and Abrons: The landscape and still life works that you saw in the studio were a result of our Bernheim experience. We also work with figure, cityscape, and interior motifs – subject matter comes from anything within our experience or surroundings.
Our collaborating started soon after we moved into our loft, in 1981. In 1980, a visit to Pompeii – seeing the frescos and mosaics there – was a huge influence for both of us. When we bought our loft, we decided to paint directly on the walls – that really was the genesis of our collaborating. Collaborating is really fun. We treat it like jazz improv and don’t completely plan it out, so there’s a lot of room for surprise.
You currently live in New York, so what did you want to take advantage of by coming down here and working at Bernheim Forest?
Sharpe and Abrons: Bernheim gave us the opportunity for landscape-in-depth, way different from a day trip to the country. And the benefit to our work with more or less getting away from the distractions of our daily grind was immeasurable.
It was incredible to live with so many different kinds of trees. We loved waking to the birds, biking through the arboretum at the end of the day, and going to sleep to the crickets.
Do you two get to travel to different locations specifically to work on your art often? If so, how much do you feel you bring back with you and are able to utilize when you are home again working? Do you ever go out with an idea of things you specifically want to focus on when working outside of your home studio, or do you prefer to just go out more as an empty vessel and just absorb your environment and let the work flow freely through you?
Sharpe and Abrons: Bernheim is the first residency that we’ve applied for, but most of our travel is linked to work – even traveling for pleasure is centered around museums. We search for what is personally relevant, but not necessarily with a fixed idea of what that is. We’re a sum total of all our experiences, so taking a pocket sketchbook everywhere is important – never leave home without it.
You both seem very comfortable working in a number of different media. Do you feel more drawn to one over another? Do you feel the different media inform or affect your approach to each other?
Sharpe and Abrons: We probably spend more time working in oil – but definitely when one or the other of us works with graphite, woodcut, ceramics, or whatever, it gives us both an opportunity to pause, think, question, etc. And invariably we impact each other with our work.
Anne, you said that you have recently begun creating ceramic vessels that you then use as subject matter in your monoprints. Do you create the ceramic pieces with the main thought of how they will be used when depicted in two-dimensional work, or do you just create the vessels on their own accord and select what you like from however they end up?
Abrons: I started hand building recently, after years of collecting vases, plates, and pots for use in still life. When I cruise the decorative arts collections in museums, I’m drawn to ceramics which have strong forms or a graphic glaze handling – so yes, I am thinking of use in painting when I look at pots. But in the ceramics studio, the work has its own life and tells me what to do.
-Daniel Pfalgraf
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