[00:00:02] there's something really profound about just the idea of being an artist. Somebody just saying, yes, I'm an artist. And you're like, okay, you're an artist, i'm here for you because I'm in that community too.

[00:00:11] If there's a point where I'm hitting my head. I'm like, what is wrong with me? This is so stupid! Those are usually the best ones. If I give up in the middle of a project, it's gonna be a good one.

[00:00:24] We had spent years meticulously making this wood piece. Spent a day carrying them through the space, putting them on packing blankets, very carefully.

[00:00:34] And then we came back the next day and everything was gone. The general contractor took every piece and literally threw them into this room. He's like, oh, I was told we had to make room for a sculpture that's coming.

[00:00:48] on a job site, people assume that I am working for the artist. And so often I get people complaining about the artist to me. And I'll usually just play into it. Oh, you're telling me. I mean, I have to deal with him every day!

[00:01:01] I've tried to build in this kind of subprocess that allows me to fail and mess things up before the project. In public art, once you start, you're locked into this thing that you have to make. And to make sure that before I get locked in, I've got room to really make bad things, to get to the good thing.

[00:01:28] Welcome back to the Installation Art podcast, the world's number one and only podcast about installation art and the people who work with it. In this show, you will hear about the joys and challenges of the medium and get a behind the scenes look at the career and process of internationally renowned guests. I am your host, Anastasia Parmson.

[00:01:52] Today's guest is an artist who refuses to be pinned down. Aaron T Stephan is a multidisciplinary artist based in Portland, Maine, whose practice spans sculpture, installation, public art and even performance. Aaron's installations can be found in major public spaces across the United States, including Tampa International Airport and San Diego International Airport, as well as his playful street lamps at Texas Tech University.

[00:02:22] His take on our relationship to objects and the artist's role is what really sets him apart. It is a pleasure to introduce  Aaron T Stephan.

[00:02:35] thank you Aaron for taking the time to come and talk to me for the podcast.

[00:02:39] Absolutely. Happy to be here.

[00:02:42] I'll start with just a few quick round questions to warm us up. On a scale of one to 10, how weird are you?

[00:02:51] I think I'm inwardly weird. I don't know. I'm probably pretty weird. I don't think I come off as incredibly weird.

[00:03:01] I have weird, I have weird thoughts, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mask it. Yeah. That's right.

[00:03:07] And when you're working in your studio, what's your favorite beverage?

[00:03:12] just straight flat water all the time. I'm boring. Just water a lot, a lot of water. I like to hydrate. I'm very pro hydration.

[00:03:22] Good for you.

[00:03:23] Yeah, you?

[00:03:25] I like flavored sparkling water, like LaCroix and stuff like that.

[00:03:30] We have, I have, right next to my studio is this marine terminal. And often trucks can't get into the marine terminal with stuff on the back of the truck. So sometimes I'll just have somebody come to my door and be like: I've got 20 cartons of hot dogs that I need to get rid of. I'll take them to the local homeless shelter or whatever.

[00:03:50] But we had, last year it was somebody that had sparkling water. but I mean, It had to have been like 5,000 bottles of it and everybody, yeah. There's a studio complex next to me and everybody was drinking the sparkling water for like a year

[00:04:05] That would be like winning the lottery in

[00:04:07] Yeah.

[00:04:07] view.

[00:04:09] Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty good.

[00:04:12] and what kind of stuff do you like to listen to while working, if anything?

[00:04:18] I listen to podcasts all the time.

[00:04:20] What kind podcasts?

[00:04:22] Everything you can imagine. I'll listen news podcast, I'll do a lot of true crime, which I don't really want to admit out loud. And then I do some art, like I do The Art Angle and things like that. Anything about a cult. I'm like, so down with cults.

[00:04:38] Yeah, I'm into that.

[00:04:40] I don't know why, but somehow I find it uplifting. I don't know.

[00:04:43] Oh, really?

[00:04:44] Yeah, it's ridiculous. But yeah, I dunno.

[00:04:47] Do you have a favorite quote?

[00:04:49] Yeah, there's this thing that goes through my head sometimes that there is. I think it was like Grant that we had a president in like mid 18 hundreds. And he was on his deathbed and he said something like, I seem to be a verb. Which goes through my head often. I feel like I'm becoming a verb, like I'm just doing things. I don't know. I think it says something about needing to back up and think about what you're doing, you know, instead of just taking action. But thinking about that action maybe.

[00:05:21] That's pretty good. Well, let's get into it and let's go a bit back in time. Tell me briefly about where did you grow up and what kind of stuff were you into as a kid?

[00:05:37] I had a pretty funny childhood. I grew up in a very poor rural area and I had these kind of hippie parents. So it was this rednecky, self-sustaining farm with a lot of crocheting and things like that. And I wanted nothing more than to leave. But it was an environment where we're constantly making things. Like the default wasn't buying something, it was making that thing or fixing something. You know, there's this constant like relationship with stuff and objects and things that I definitely carry with me. And that's really important to me, that came from that environment.

[00:06:23] And how did you come to discover Art for yourself?

[00:06:28] It's funny, I, I feel like I wanted to be an artist long before I even knew what an artist was.

[00:06:37] Yeah.

[00:06:38] I feel like it's kind of hard to explain but I think part of it is feeling different. Feeling like I wanted a different path to exist outside of at least the, the environment that I was in.

[00:06:54] Really, ever since I can remember I wanted to be an artist. But I think my idea of what that meant has changed over the years immensely. But I think there also is something... I don't even know how you put your finger on it, but there's something really profound about just the idea of being an artist. You know? Somebody just saying, yes, I'm an artist. And you're like, okay, you're an artist, i'm here for you because I'm in that community too, you know. Whatever that means to you. So I don't know, I guess that's an expression of what it means to be an artist to me now. But I can't remember a time that I didn't wanna be an artist.

[00:07:29] So what does it mean to you to be an artist now?

[00:07:33] I think standing on top of the cliff of capitalism and watching everybody jump off. I'm not even, there's no way that as an artist or as artists, we exist outside of capitalism but I think there's a certain big side of not fully adhering to those rules that is pretty magical. I don't know, it feels like such an old idea, right? It's like the Avantgarde or something. But it's like existing outside of your normal systems, kind of saying, okay, how, how can we address these things, think about these things in a different way over here?

[00:08:10] Um, you know, it's like an alternative path,

[00:08:12] Yeah.

[00:08:13] I think.

[00:08:14] So you studied art, correct?

[00:08:18] Yes.

[00:08:19] What was that experience like?

[00:08:22] I had a pretty random and halting and kind of stop and go education. But for me, like I said, I grew up in a very rural area. I didn't really have that much access to art. : And so I think most importantly, going to, I went to art school at SUNY Purchase, it's Purchase College now. It's right outside of New York City. And for me it was an environment, It was a way to learn about the arts and different arts communities. I don't think it had that much to do with learning how to make art or learning how to discuss art, but just being in that environment and kind of discovering all the different things an artist can be. And so I went to Purchase College. But then I, I went to India for a year, with no money and just kind of like wandered around.

[00:09:10] As you do.

[00:09:11] as one does. Yeah. And then I spent a year in San Francisco and then I started grad school at SUNY New Paltz and then I dropped out of grad school a year later. And then I started grad school again a year after that but kind of denied that I'd actually had done a year and so just started over. where I live now is Portland, Maine. But for me, all of that was, I mean, I had grown up in this area and I was pretty naive about a lot of different things and I think it was this process of just finding myself within the world. Yeah.

[00:09:46] So how did you then get into making installations and public artworks? ' cause that's like a pretty big... you know, it's pretty consequential, it's not something you can necessarily dabble in. You have to be all in.

[00:10:06] firstly I was very good at just faking things until I could, until I could figure out how to do them. And I don't know...

[00:10:14] wait, does that mean that you would like apply for opportunities having no idea how to actually make the thing and then...

[00:10:21] of course. I mean, of course, but I, I still do that. I think I, I had a lot less fear when I was younger. And I don't know, just, I guess a lot less to lose. But I definitely would take on these large projects, just kind of having faith that I could figure it out. You know, I also, I have, I have a weird relationship to stuff and objects and things and techniques.

[00:10:45] Sometimes I feel like I have a better relationship to stuff than I do people, you know? But a very kind of fundamental part of a lot of my projects is just figuring out how to do this thing. Um. and I've been fortunate enough that people have faith in me that I can do that.

[00:11:00] You know, I feel like now, I have enough projects under my belt that can be like, okay, these are ways that I've succeeded at different things. But yeah, it's, it's, it's always a challenge. And I had this project, I would say 2022 or 23. I wanted to tie this huge knot out of guardrails in this roundabout in, um, Iowa.

[00:11:23] And I proposed a project with no idea how I was going to do it. And then I got a couple pieces of just guardrail and brought them to the studio. And of course, the nature of guardrail is that it's tool hardened. And so you can just bend it, you can take a piece of guardrail and just bend it 180 degrees, let go and it just bounces back to its original shape.

[00:11:42] And so I realized I'd had to make this 16 foot tall piece with over 300 pieces of the guardrail that you make into the shape in the studio. But as soon as you take it apart, it just bounces back to what it was. Right. And you know, very early on I was like, oh, wow, this is not your normal material. It doesn't,maintain the memory of what it was. And so in a way I was like, okay, I have to maintain the memory of what that was. And the installation of this is a performance, And so I like built it in the studio, I marked off all the, we actually geolocated all these different points in the sculpture and those were the support points. And so we knew that we needed to meet all those points again somewhere else.

[00:12:23] So we built the sculpture, took it down, took it a mile down on somebody's property, and built it again so we knew that we could perform this. took it down again and with the geolocation points, we put the footings in, we put the poles in to support it, shipped it out to Iowa and then performed the piece again.

[00:12:43]

[00:12:43] So you mean you twisted it into shape in situ, at the site?

[00:12:49] at the site

[00:12:50] yes.

[00:12:51] Wow.

[00:12:52] yeah. And so a lot of projects are like that for me. And I love that! I mean, I, I love figuring that out. For me that's a thrill, you know?

[00:13:02] That sounds extreme. Like you like to make your life hard.

[00:13:06] It feels like that often as well, yes. I mean, I feel like we all kinda get that as artists. I mean, that's part of the gig in some way or another.

[00:13:16] Yeah, I always say about it that it's kind of like pick your form of torture.

[00:13:21] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:13:22] Like you look at another artist's practice and you think, I could never do that. That looks like pain, you know, pain in the ass.

[00:13:30] And then they look at your practice and they're like, I could never do that.

[00:13:34] Yeah, yeah, exactly. And but why is there always that torture too? Like why is inevitably there? I don't understand that either. But it seems to be for everyone, you know? Everybody just needs to torture themselves.

[00:13:48] I think we secretly enjoy it, come on!

[00:13:51] I guess so. I feel like I always putting myself in the position of... but I mean, it's also, I know the things that I can do and I can't do, you know, so I'm like, oh, of course I can do that. I have a project right now that we're installing in a month and the piece weighs 40,000 pounds. I don't know what that is in kilos. I dunno, it's a lot, it's like a hundred cars or so I mean, it's like a massive amount of weight and just like trying to figure out how to transport it and,Yeah. How do you move it?

[00:14:20] Big tractor trailer and I borrowed a forklift, which is very exciting.

[00:14:24] It has to be like a special grade forklift as well, no?

[00:14:28] Well, we're palletizing everything and then stacking it and it's, it's a whole thing. But yeah, just more torture I suppose. But yeah, I feel like often, at least with me for art, there's things like, I also do a lot of like, performative events that are these kind of like over the top, you know, we'll have people eating dinner and then build a structure around the people eating dinner and then, you know, move up top and they're all things that you would never do in real life.

[00:14:58] You know, you only could do as an artist. For me that's the, there's so much beauty in that of just being like, oh, I don't need this rationale of... the rationale of being like, oh, you shouldn't be building things around people. You don't have the money to do it. It's way too much work, et cetera, et cetera and down the line. You know, I mean, my job is in a lot of ways is to create magic, right? that's what we're all trying to do.

[00:15:24] I think maybe.

[00:15:26] Have you ever taken on a project where halfway through it you're like, I don't know if I can pull this off.

[00:15:34] Yes. And those are always the best projects. Those are the ones that always end up the best. and I'm like, oh, if I give up in the middle of a project, it's gonna be a good one. If there's a point where I'm like hitting my head. I'm like, what is wrong with me? this is so stupid. those are usually the best ones.

[00:15:56] Well, give me an example.

[00:15:58] I'm doing this project that I had, um, kind of briefly installed a couple years ago as just to see how it's going. But it's this piece that weighs 40,000 pounds and it's 6,000 concrete blocks that descend in size. So they're full-sized concrete blocks and they get smaller and smaller and smaller in this installation.

[00:16:18] And we have been making by hand concrete blocks for the past five years for this piece. You know, and the piece is 50 feet square. And so I don't even know where it would go after it's going into the show, you know? I mean, it's just, none of it makes any sense. So there's definitely been times for the past five years where I'm like hitting myself in the head like, why? Like I am so in debt, I put so much labor into this and there seems to be no reason that I've done this. It just makes no sense. And then there's some projects that I'm not gonna name that I've done that i'm like: oh, this is making sense, I feel like I have my career under control, i'm making this project in the studio, especially the public art projects. And you install it and you're like, oh, it's not that great. You know, like, the magic isn't working. And those are usually the easier projects. How about you?

[00:17:13] Well, I'm usually fairly well prepared. Like I don't do stuff on-site that's critical. But. That said, earlier this year I had to install in basically half a day inside a container and I had to line the container. And the panels would not stick to the walls, they were basically holding on by spit and hope. And I was like, well, this might collapse during the event or it might not.

[00:17:47] And did it?

[00:17:49] It held it, held it, it was fine, but I was like, I'm never doing this again. I'd probably do it again, but.

[00:17:56] Yeah exactly. Yep. You're gonna be doing it tomorrow.

[00:18:00] Yeah.

[00:18:01] Do you build everything yourself for the project?

[00:18:06] For the most part I do. Which is kind of rare, especially for a public artist, you know, most people have their own fabricators. But I find I would prefer to do less projects and fabricate them myself than to do more projects and have somebody else fabricate them. If anything, I think everything that I do, even though I'm not sticking to one material throughout projects, it's all material based, it's all technique based, you know, and it, that's really integrated in the project. And also I just, I like to make things. Even if I have too many people working in the studio, I'd rather make things than manage people. And so, for that reason, yeah, I try to make sure I'm making most of the stuff.

[00:18:45] Yeah.

[00:18:46] kind of skills have you had to learn to be able to do it?

[00:18:50] Oh my God. I just learned how to use an English wheel. It's

[00:18:54] What is that?

[00:18:55] oh my God. It's the simplest thing in the world. It's like this big arm with these two wheels on it. And you take a piece of metal and just push it through this thing.

[00:19:03] Ah. Yeah.

[00:19:04] It's putting just a slight amount of pressure onto it. And so you're spreading the metal out and it curves the metal. And if you see somebody that does it, that knows what they're doing, they'll make an entire car body out of this. And it's just like this magical, beautiful process that, I mean, I just kind of touched the surface of it to do the thing that I was doing.

[00:19:24] So I learned how to do that, which is pretty exciting. For a person like me.

[00:19:31] Yeah, you're obviously into using your hands and figuring out the engineering and all the stuff.

[00:19:40] Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I mean, that's... it's important to me.

[00:19:45] Talk to me a bit about the benefits versus challenges of working in the public space and working with permanent installations.

[00:19:56] Interesting. Have you done public work?

[00:19:59] Nothing that's permanent.

[00:20:02] Yeah. For me, it's. There's a few kind of crucial points that are really, really interesting to me. You know, if you're making work for a gallery or a museum, you don't know where it's gonna be, right? It could go above somebody's couch. And, and for me, this kind of leads into the idea of public a being an installation, right?

[00:20:21] Is that like, when you're making the public work, you know where it's gonna be. And for me, that means so many different things. If it's at a street corner, you know that people are gonna approach it by these very prescribed viewpoints. If it's in a tourist area, somebody might see it once and then never see it again. But if it's in a local area, you might see it every day and you want something that lasts through, you know, that can change with the community. That can mean something to that person 10 years from now, after they have seen it 2000 times. And then scale wise, you're playing with the environment that it's in. And all those things are really incredible to me to think about and to create within that environment.

[00:21:03] I think also there's this sense of ownership that's really interesting. If the community's paying for it, they'll make sure you know that. But there's a sense of ownership of the piece. And you always get pushback. I mean, somebody's environment is changing, right. And there's always pushback on that. But inevitably, like a year later, people own that thing. You know. I live in this port town. And years ago they were building these oil rigs and it's a fairly small town and they're building these oil rigs on the water that were there for at least a year. And they're the most hideous things you've ever seen. And people were so mad when they started building these things. But when they left and the oil rigs left, everybody was up in arms and really upset that they were taking their oil rigs away. But there's something about this built environment and things that you actually live with and they become meaningful to you that is really interesting to me too.

[00:22:04] We've had conversations on the show before about the longevity of public art and whether there should be kind of, I guess, clauses in the contract where the artist has the right, or maybe the client has the right to review, you know, in five years time, in 10 years time, whether that work is still relevant to that site.

[00:22:29] What do you think of that?

[00:22:30] Sure. I mean, I'm into that. I will often put into my contracts to have the right to take my name off of the piece if anything changes. You know, everybody's always worried about copyright issues and things like that. I don't want them to take that piece and cut it in half and then still have my name on it or alter it in some way and still have my name on it.

[00:22:50] And so that's usually my biggest concern is that if it's altered in any way, you take my name off it. And then there's usually, at least here in the States, there's an option to buy it back. Like if they're gonna take it down, they have to offer it to you for sale before they offer it to anything else or anywhere else.

[00:23:10] Ah, okay.

[00:23:11] That's also a thing that's interesting. But yeah, I'd like a review. I mean, I don't the idea that public art or monuments are permanent is just ridiculous to me. it's an expression of community ideals, an expression of institutional ideals, different things like that. And those things change. To a certain extent in a lot of my work, I try to anticipate some of that, but you are not gonna anticipate everything. So, yeah, I'm down with that for sure.

[00:23:40] But you've also done installations for like gallery spaces and stuff, like the concrete blocks.

[00:23:47] Yeah.

[00:23:48] so I know you said you don't know, but what happens to that work after the exhibition ends? Do you reuse it or do you sell it or?

[00:23:57] I've always kind of run on this like having faith that something will happen with these things. I don't, you know, It doesn't make sense to have all these concrete blocks. But these things just float around and somehow it has worked out for me, i'm lucky in that way, I guess. But I also sometimes get to the point where somebody will offer me like a year long show, and I'm like, oh, that's a year of storage, you know?

[00:24:23] Yeah, a year long show is great!

[00:24:27] yeah, yeah, yeah. But for me, it's also along the lines of like none of this is practical. None of this really quite makes sense. But somehow I'm still vertical and functioning in some way. Yeah, I don't know what happens with that. But these things find homes in some way or another. yeah.

[00:24:48] How do you approach the inevitable commercial aspect? How do these big projects get funded?

[00:24:55] I don't know. No clue. It's such a variety of different ways that these things happen. Honestly, the public art projects or the public commissions are the easiest ones to deal with because there's a contract, they're paying you to do this thing. And so that's an entirely different approach.

[00:25:12] But I think it's better in the past 10 years. But the lack of like regulations or standards within the art world is just insane. But I mean it's also kind of the beauty of it as well, you know? But I, there's so many shows that I have that I lose money on. There's shows that I make money on. There's stipends. It's all over the place.

[00:25:36] I feel like I, I know a lot of artists that keep closer track of money and closer track of how things are getting paid for. And I kind of work in a little more of a mishmashy way.

[00:25:48] You know, I'm not, if, if I'm still making art and I am, which is a privilege, just an absolute privilege. But if I'm still able to do that and I'm 51 years old, I feel lucky. And if I'm losing money on this project, then making money on this project then it all evens out somehow. Um, wow. I mean, that's incredible. So I don't know, I just don't have the fear of losing money that, that a lot of think artists do.

[00:26:17] And just to, with complete honest, I mean, that's a privilege for sure. You know, I've, I've been lucky.

[00:26:23] Yeah.

[00:26:25] do you have any behind the scenes stories of like logistics? cause if you are making it all yourself in your studio for a public project and then you have to transport and install it, you must have some crazy stories about that process. Do share.

[00:26:51] I feel like if you get like a couple people who make public commissions together and you get them to start complaining about things, it could go on for days. So, um, I bet.

[00:27:02]

[00:27:04] I was thinking about this beforehand. There was one project that I, it was all wood. I do a lot of these pieces of wooden ladders.

[00:27:12] And it's funny because in the studio, you're in this very kind of protected environment and it's an art environment. And as soon as you go to a job site, you're just, everything feels exposed, right? And, uh, I had done this project with these ladders. It was broken down into two or 300 pieces we had spent years meticulously making this wood piece.

[00:27:35] And we, uh, drove down and I think it was a 10 story building, so it was a huge job site. And it's like there's a very different field to that. And we got there and we spent a day taking all the pieces, carrying them through the space, putting them in the room that they're gonna be installed in on packing blankets, very carefully.

[00:27:55] And then we came back the next day and everything was gone. And the general contractor took every piece and literally threw them into this room. And I was like, what? What happened? He's, he's like, oh, I was told we had to make room for a sculpture that's coming.

[00:28:14] My God, no!

[00:28:16] Yeah, yeah.You know? and again, it's funny, some situations like that, you just, you have, you also as an artist on a job site, you have no power. You have no power. The only I've found that the only power you have on a job site is they want you to leave. And you can use that as leverage to get things done because you're like, okay, as soon as I get this done, I'll be out of here.

[00:28:42] Okay wow. Yeah cause when you're installing for a show in a gallery space, then they're all about you. It's like do you need anything? And.

[00:28:52] Yeah. And it's a complete opposite. I'll also have this thing, which is very funny, is that most public artists don't install their own work. And I'll often install my own work just 'cause I know it best and I can do it most efficiently. But on a job site, people assume that I am working for the artist.

[00:29:12] And so I'll, you know, so often I get people complaining about the artist to me, complaining about how much the artist is getting paid. And I'll usually just play into it. Oh, you're telling me. I mean, I have to deal with him every day. Yeah. I mean, he's the worst.

[00:29:30] Yeah.

[00:29:31] Is that where you got your idea for that TED talk where you get an actor to play you?

[00:29:37] Yeah. That was more just not wanting to do a TED Talk. But I had the actor for years, I would send him to openings as me. And he was just kind of my, my, my, stand in for a while.

[00:29:51] I think Maurizio Cattelan did that early in his career. He got a curator friend to pretend he was him.

[00:29:59]

[00:29:59] Yeah, I mean it was, it's good. It's kind of nice if you don't want to go to an opening, you just send him. But then it's also really funny 'cause he would introduce himself to my friends as me. And then they would always, you know, there'd be like a lot of difficulty in apprehending what was happening.

[00:30:19] That's pretty great.

[00:30:22] w something that's a challenge for you right now?

[00:30:27] Well, this is talking about introducing a lot of torture into your life. I have this show, it's a solo show with these concrete blocks. It's a singular piece in this large room. And we decided that we wanted to do, at the end of the show, do a dinner project in the same space. And so the last two or three weeks of the show, we're gonna move the 40,000 pounds of blocks out of the space and then do this dinner performance. But we've never done one of these in a museum. It's not a museum, you know, it's contemporary art space, not like they have a collection or anything, but there's other work hung in the galleries.

[00:31:07] And so kind of navigating that environment with this event. And it's an event that we're, we're building around the audience and all this other different stuff. What I've realized like the past week is that we're doing this performance, we're kinda lacking this theme, and the museum's really worried about what's showing in the gallery during the day.

[00:31:29] And so I've decided to run with that and have paintings or fake paintings hanging in the walls that we were going to use as building materials to create the structure at night. And then it's gonna come back down and be a show during the, you know, but kind of playing off of the idea of it being an art gallery with art being installed or something like that.

[00:31:49] So. But it, yeah, that's, that's the big challenge right now. And to cook dinner in the space without an open flame and to build things without making any dust and et cetera. All, all those kinds of things.

[00:32:02] Yeah. Is there also like things about paint and offgassing all those things?Yeah, I've had people say oh no, you can't paint such and such time before whatever, and I'm like, okay.

[00:32:20] Yeah. Yeah. Are you, do you, use acrylic or are you, are you, I assume you're using water-based paints, right?

[00:32:28] Yeah, water based

[00:32:30] Yeah. That's good. I, I feel when, when people smell chemicals, they get very upsetin a museum, I find. Like, it, it changes the dynamics of things.

[00:32:41] Oh yeah. No, you can't have that.

[00:32:43] Yeah. Yeah. Even if it's harmless, if it smells like it's not.

[00:32:50] Hmm. No, I mean, I was denied from an artist studio once because I told them that I use MDF. Like small panels and I have to cut them every once in a while. And they were like, no MDF dust is toxic, you cannot.

[00:33:07] Oh no. Yeah.

[00:33:09] I'm like it's really not that bad. It's only bad if you're breathing it all day 24 7. Like what?

[00:33:15] Yeah.

[00:33:16] It's funny, I use so many different processes and I try to be very careful, especially when I have people working in the studio. But I went to the doctor the other day and he's just kind of trying to assess what sort of danger I am in from different things. He's like, what kind of dust are you?

[00:33:32] I was like, I, you name it. He's like, no, but really, and I'm plaster concrete, cement, well there's paint, fumes and the, you know, and I'm like trying to list the things. And he finally just said to stop, I don't, I can't, you know. Like the variety of like stupid things. Yeah. Like I said, I'm careful, but it's a thing as an artist.

[00:33:59] Hey, a quick intermission to thank everyone who has filled out our listener poll so far. Your feedback has been really helpful!

And if you haven't done it yet, I would love to hear from you.

It only takes a few minutes. It's anonymous, and the link is in the show notes, or you can leave me a voice message at speakpipe.com/installation art podcast. your input is very important, and it will help shape the future of this show.

[00:34:34] Tell me about a time when you had to make a difficult decision in your career, or you had to learn a hard truth.

[00:34:45] I, think that there was some point that I had started doing public artworks, and then like two or three projects in, and, you know, kind of approaching it with a certain amount of youthful confidence. And then like getting to a project that didn't work. And you're like, oh, I've just made this thing, it's cost a lot of money. It's cost the community a lot of money And it's gonna be there for a really long time. And when you do that, you know, I'm, I'm the kind of artist, I'm like working in the studio and 25, 50% of the stuff that I make, I'll just throw away because it's not working. Which you can't quite do as a public artist. And for me that was, that was big. You know, it was big to realize that you need to back up.

[00:35:36] For me, it means that I've tried to build in this kind of subprocess that allows me to fail and mess things up before the project. I think in public art, once you start, you're locked into this, this thing that you have to make, right? And to make sure that before I get to that point, before I get locked in, I've got room to like, make models, to play around with different models, play around with scale, size, color. To really make bad things, to get to the good thing. You know I'll do a lot of 3D modeling these days. Even like I'll be working on something and I'll write about it just to be like, am I gonna discover anything about how I'm talking about this or explaining it? but just to make sure that there's something about the artistic process that's still there. And I think it's a mistake that a lot of public artists make is that you get locked into this thing. And if it's not good, there's nothing you can, you know, you can even be in mid-process and be like, oh, this thing that I'm making is not working and if it wasn't a public art project, I might change this thing, or I might change this process with color and all these other, but you can't because you're locked into that thing.

[00:36:48] But there's no way to speak to the client and be like, Hey, we need to alter this or?

[00:36:54] There is, and you can do that. But it's not easy because you already told them with complete confidence and green was the right color, you know? And now you're coming back and telling them that the purple is really better. And so it's, it's a hard conver, you know, and that happens, but it's a hard conversation to have, you know. And then there's the difficulty of who are you having that conversation with, right?

[00:37:18] I mean, there's a mediator that you're working with. But it's really the initial committee that approved of this project and that committee no longer exists, so you can't go back to them and change these details. And there's very often not a process to do that because that's not something that happens within the building environment.

[00:37:37] What would happen if you just changed something without consulting with anyone and be like, well, it is what it is?

[00:37:44] I would never do that.

[00:37:46] Really?

[00:37:49] There's certain amount of leeway with different things. Um, honestly, you risk not getting paid.

[00:37:55] Yeah, right.

[00:37:56] So, you know, it's a funny, process. cause you're just, you're getting locked into the system. That's also, it's a system that's not built for artists, you know. If anything, it's a system built for architects and builders and all this other different stuff. So yeah, it's always different and difficult to navigate.

[00:38:15] So the project that you say didn't work, was it obvious to the other party that it wasn't working or was it just you who knew it wasn't working?

[00:38:27] probably just me, I don't know. Probably just me. And it's funny 'cause I'm very hard on myself. You know, and every project I see the, problems with it. But this was definitely one that I was like, oh wow, there were some bad decisions. It was just not an effective use of form and location and all these other different things. but it's certainly a hard pill to swallow. For sure.

[00:38:51] I bet. I mean, it's a bit easier if you are the only one who knows it's bad.

[00:38:59] I guess. Is it though?

[00:39:03] I mean, I think it would be way worse if everyone else knew and you didn't know.

[00:39:08] Yeah. It's funny, my, my wife is also an artist and she talks about how when she had jobs, she was critical of like everyone around her. And now she's alone in the studio and she's just critical of herself. You know, like you're the only person that can answer for this thing. So Somehow it's worse that I'm the only one that...

[00:39:36] What's been your biggest project or proudest moment so far?

[00:39:42] I find that I have projects, and this might be something only I know as well, but there's projects that are good and you kinda go along, you look out of these things and then there's like punctuation points and I'm like, oh, that's magic. And it's almost always something that is really... I may have made an opening for that magic but it's not due to anything on my part necessarily, you know. Or even might be me recognizing this thing and kind of like coaxing it out a little bit. This piece that I'm installing with these concrete blocks I'm like really excited about and it's funny, it's one of these things where it's a piece that works, but I can't quite figure out why it works. and there's a lot of things that just happened. And it's a very visual piece that I'm usually not... you know, I'm more concerned with form than visuals and, um. There's something that happens there that I'm I'm like, oh yes, that really worked. You know, for me it's like every 10 years there's a piece that I'm like super proud of this thing and almost that I allowed this thing to happen. yeah. Yeah.

[00:40:50] How did you find that idea? How did you come up with it?

[00:40:55] it's funny, I, I I have been working in all these project with concrete blocks for years. There's this company, Sears & Roebuck that started in like 1905 ish, started producing this concrete block machine and you'd buy this concrete block machine out of catalog. And what came with the concrete block machine was blueprints to build a house. And so you basically get this pile of sand and this pile of concrete delivered and you'd just start making concrete blocks. and it was called The Wizard.

[00:41:28] I loved the idea of this because it really represented this kind of like pull up your bootstraps idealism. But also the failure of that, you know. And kind of the ridiculous, like it's just too much work. It's just stupid. You can't start making concrete blocks and build a house! I mean, it's just years and years of back baking labor and it doesn't make any sense. But it's this thing that I understand so deeply.Like I grew up in an environment that that's what you do. Like you do not ask other people for things. You do it yourself.

[00:42:00] So for me, it was just this encompassing of this ideal that was so deep in me and I so understood, but I so understood was wrong and it's ridiculous and has failed. and so I looked for these machines, I couldn't find one and so I made one myself and I would just go to the studio every day and just start making concrete blocks in the studio to see what came out of it. And a lot of projects came out of that process.

[00:42:26] But one of them was I started making blocks at different scales and I like immediately saw that there's something interesting there. I initially kind of grasped on the idea of a piece that contains a full sized concrete block and a model sized concrete block. And you're going from an ideal or like a, a model of something, a model that represents a something else or represents an ideal, into that actual thing. And having these scaled up concrete blocks that trace that path from the representation and the real from the model and the ideal to the real thing that's in front of you. and I really liked that dynamic and so I just started making, you know, 14 different sizes concrete blocks, laying them out in different ways. And we're talking over like years long, just kind of doing this more and more, in larger and larger fields. And it wasn't quite working. I was just doing these like huge fields of fading concrete blocks that go from really large to really small, and something was missing.

[00:43:29] And there was one day that I was like, oh, I'll arrange them with the small ones in the middle and larger ones in the outside. Simple idea, right? But all of a sudden the ones towards the middle recede into the distance, and so it almost creates this void in the center of the work. And then I pushed it a little bit larger because I knew that if you could get those ones at the center that are far enough away that you can't quite see them, right? They almost go out of focus, that you can't figure out what's happening in the center of this field. and that's this visual thing that I just almost would never use, but it created this situation where you have the large field of these concrete blocks and at the center there's almost this vortex or this kinda like magic area at the center that something's happening.

[00:44:14] So I guess all of that's to say, I mean, it was just this long process of playing with this material, using this material over and over and over again, and kind of coaxing things out of it and kind of like understanding what it can do, and how it can function.

[00:44:31] So are the biggest blocks the real block size or are they oversized?

[00:44:38] I did a thing where the ones at the edge, they go oversize. And the only thing that did for me was it throws you off. And so you can't quite understand where you're standing 'cause you can feel that they're not right, that they're too big. But there's this descending sizes going down in front of you and so it like almost pulls you into the piece because the real size are like two feet in.this is the minutia of creating fields of concretre blocks. But yeah.

[00:45:09] if you could wave a magic wand and just do anything anywhere, no constraints, what would be your dream project to make?

[00:45:20] How would you answer that question?

[00:45:22] Don't throw back at me.

[00:45:25] Well, I You got any ideas? I don't, I just, I feel like I don't, um, I feel like I just don't function in that way. I feel like I don't function in that way. I mean I'm doing the best that I can and it's a progression... a career is a progression. Right. it would be nice if I uh, if I got paid for making things, you know? and sometimes I do. but yeah, I don't I don't have the, but do you have an answer for that question?

[00:46:01] Mm... I think my dream project at the moment would just to make a really big, in like not a big installation, a big exhibition consisting of either multiple installations or something that fill a huge room because I just don't know how I would do that right now.

[00:46:26] Yeah. So, Yeah. So you're just setting yourself up for more torture. Yeah.

[00:46:33] Yeah.

[00:46:35] Hmm. That's interesting. Yeah. I mean that's more about support, right? I think. To get to that point?

[00:46:45] Yeah, support time, budget, credibility. Yeah.

[00:46:51] Yeah.

[00:46:53] It's funny, I just don't think I, I, I, think that way, but I also, I'm, for me, I like responding to spaces. I like responding to where I'm at. I think, yeah, I think it's more of a progression.

[00:47:07] So you like to basically build your project based on the brief and the location and all that.

[00:47:16] Yeah, I think so. I think so. like, I don't see a space and be like, oh, I wanna make a sculpture for there, you know? but I definitely, there are projects that people will approach me to propose a piece for this space or that space and some of them feel a lot better than others. And some of them are a more ideal situation than others, you know? And so there's certainly that. and I definitely, like, for me, it'd be nice to have a big museum. It'd be nice to have a retrospective or something like that, you know, but that's about situation and support and space.

[00:47:50] What would you like people to take away from experiencing your work?

[00:47:56] I really believe in the agency of materials. and I feel like in a lot of ways we are getting, I think we're getting farther and farther away from understanding the world that's like the physic, like the objects that are around us, the materials that are around us. And I really truly feel like a lot of our problems arise out of that disconnect. And so for me, I think it's, I hope that somebody sees my work and has a new understanding of the stuff that's around them. A new understanding of the world, you know, a way to approach or enterinto a relationship with, with materials. Does that make sense?

[00:48:37] Well, I mean, I think if people know your work, yes, it will make total sense.

[00:48:42] Yeah, and I mean, for me it's also, it's a dialogue too. But it's funny, I, I find that.for me, the, how somebody understands, understands my work, how somebody approaches the piece, their, understanding and relationship to it is of utmost importance. And I, um, I've always thought that every artist felt that way.

[00:49:09] and I feel like, they don't you know, I feel like everybody approaches it differently and like, some people just don't care what, you know, it doesn't matter what the person experiencing the work feels. But for me, that's, that's the, and it's not even like controlling what a person feels or saying you need to feel this thing, but like, I know that I want to pay attention to what that is, what that understanding is. How that person's interacting with that work. And for me that's like, that's everything. That's where it sits in that. I think especially also with public art that's been really big for me. Which is different than a lot of people approach public artwork, I think.

[00:49:42] You ever go and lurk around the workand try to eavesdrop what people are saying about it?

[00:49:49] sometimes, I mean, it gets back to you, whatever it is. Um, but it's also, like I said, I'll I'll do I'll do the installation and stuff and it's usually with that, you get some pretty honest feedback. Especially when they don't know that you're the artist.

[00:50:03] yeah.

[00:50:05] yeah. I just had this, um, this piece I just installed a couple years ago at Tampa, airport. And I mean, we were installing it for like three weeks. But a really good friend of mine, Matthew Mazzotta, who does public artwork as well, was doing a piece about 50 feet away. And it was a very, an amazing, beautiful piece, but it was very splashy. It was this big, um, the legs of this flamingo like huge, coming down into the space with his head coming down. It was a beautiful piece and he hadn't installed it yet. And every person that walked by would be like, where's the bird? Is that a bird? Where like, and I just remember this kid going by and being like, mommy, where's the bird?so yeah, so you get a lot of feedback. You know, and yeah, a lot of people asking what it's for, what it is and things like that. Yeah.

[00:50:54] Yeah. My favorite of the few experiences I've had is just watching people essentially walk over it, past it and not even notice that there's something weird, different, whatever. I just, I find that fascinating.

[00:51:15] Yeah, I mean, it's, I mean, something like, that's interesting too to me because like it doesn't have to be a good reaction. I feel like that's also a big problem with public art, every reaction doesn't have to be positive, right? I don't know, look at Bruce Nauman where he's got like a clown taking a shit, right?

[00:51:32] You're not gonna look at that and feel great about yourself. But It's effective. you know, like, it does something. It's effective. It tells you something about the world that you're in. And I, I feel like that's important. And those people that are walking by your work and don't even notice, it's still affecting them. It's still affecting the world and how they understand the world. And I don't know, I, I am more interested in that than the person's going by gives you thumbs up, whatever. I think art should be more complex than that. You know.

[00:52:04] Ever had complaints like audience members or somebody complaining something to do with the work.

[00:52:10] Nobody has ever complained to me about anything. yes! Where do we, I don't, like everybody wants public art to move and they want like neon or some sort of lights on it. That's always, always, always a thing. I have an amazing article. I did this piece with these light poles here in Portland. Oh my God. I actually did the project for the price of materials because it was right down the street from my studio and I didn't have much work in Portland and so I just did it and it was these light poles that are intertwined. And there was so much pushback on this piece.

[00:52:49] But there's this one article, somebody had written a letter to the editor of the newspaper that was the most poetic dis of my artwork. That I've actually made many studio assistants read it and it's just like, it was these intertwined light poles. I mean it was this horrible metal me medusa's head of evilness. And it was like, kind of in the shape of a tree, and he's like, what's a metal tree of urban decay? Why not green and colors? and And, I mean, it was the most beautifully written trashing of my artwork. That was pretty incredible. I, yeah. And yeah, there's a lot of press that comes out and there's also a lot of, I mean actually that was also one project that, there's a lot of press about, you know, you could use this money that you spent on this project for useful things. Like that's always...

[00:53:43] yeah, that's probably always some kind of feedback present in terms of public art.

[00:53:51] Yeah.

[00:53:51] Um, in Australia, there's a surprising number of public artworks that are nicknamed something to do with Poo. Yeah. Like where I live, there's like a piece that people call Poo on a stick and there's multiple.

[00:54:12] One of the most amazing ones I've ever seen is in Oklahoma City there's like this, um, I think it's a roundabout and there's like a utility things in the middle that the city decided to build a fence around. And it's Oklahoma City, so it's OKC and they often refer to it as OKC.

[00:54:31] And they had built this fence and I, I can only assume that somebody within the city had decided to put OKC, all over the fence. And it's this round ring fence OKC, but it's just haphazard all over the thing. And they kind of lovingly refer to it as the Oklahoma City cock ring.

[00:54:50] 'Cause it looks like it says cock all over it. But it was almost like with a certain sense of affection. And it was like yeah, it was an incredible reading of a public artwork that was just ridiculous.

[00:55:04] I loved it. Yeah.

[00:55:05] What advice would you give somebody who is intrigued by public art, would like to maybe make something, doesn't know how to start.

[00:55:19] there's probably a pile of things that I would tell someone. Um, I find number one that there's people that will do one project and understand immediately that they don't want to do another one. And then there's people that, Could do the other.

[00:55:36] I kind of talked about this before, but the idea of being able to, whatever your artistic process is, build that in beforehand. You know, make sure you're not losing that. Cause if you don't have that, you've got nothing. Right. and so I think that's really important.

[00:55:50] I also feel like people get really beat down quickly. Like most of the projects that I apply for, there's at least 2, 300, 400 other people applying for it, right. And then you're finalist and you might not even make that. And so there's a lot of applying, there's a lot of rejection. Like I get at least one rejection letter every day,

[00:56:15] Wow, that's brutal.

[00:56:17] Yeah. And that's something to get used to. And in a lot of ways, especially public art, especially if you're like a finalist and you look at what the other finalists made, you'll understand what they were looking for and you're like, oh, I just wasn't that. You know, it's not... more often than not it doesn't feel like a judgment of what your artwork... of whether you're good or bad.

[00:56:37] It's like it didn't match what they were looking for. It didn't match what the space needed. I think that's important to keep in mind. And then there's a lot of situations where it's like, I'll propose a piece for a space, i'll get rejected and then two years later somebody who was on the committee will come back to me and want that piece for somewhere else. They'll want me to propose something else. You'll get these series of rejections all the time but know that it's leading somewhere. yeah, it's leading, like you're entering a community of people that are really interested in artwork. Some of them are gonna reject your work here but accept that there. And it's important to keep a level head within that. And how difficult it is to keep a level head.

[00:57:16] Yeah, we've talked on the show before about how public art is really difficult because it's not, like you say, it's not something you can really practice and make hundred of in your studio until you get good at it. You just have to like get into it and find out.

[00:57:37] Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's a thing. And I, yeah. And there's so much, there's a lot of bureaucracy involved that I find that I'm good. Like I like talking to architects and engineers. I'm not particularly fond of meetings, but there's a lot of those. But it definitely takes, it takes a different thing. And then it's also funny in that, especially with public art, like you're dealing with different standards all over the place and different approaches to work. You're dealing with peoples that are expectations of what an artist is and what an artist does are completely different.

[00:58:12] And working in a project in Flagstaff, Arizona right now, another project in Sacramento, California, another project in Massachusetts. And they're all, like, their understanding of who I am is entirely different. You know, and you have to be able to read that kind of like understand how you can fit within what they're understanding. And also read what their expectations of you are.

[00:58:33] It's funny, I just had an introductory meeting about a project that I have yesterday. And I'm just like, I sit in this meeting with the architect, the engineer, the program manager. And I don't have a specific project and I'm just throwing out questions for them that I know what the answer is but I want to hear how they'll respond, you know, and like how they understand this site, how they understand the community, how they understand all these different things.

[00:58:57] I'll be like, Hey, what do you think about having a knife on this piece? Is that bad? And you know what the answer is, but like how they respond to that is really important. And different things like that just to kinda like feel out what the environment that you're entering is I think is really important.

[00:59:14] Give me an example of like what's something you've come across where they assume an artist to be something- something that's really bizarre or surprising.

[00:59:28] well, I feel like there's in certain places there's like a reverence for art. You know, you're like: oh, you're the artist! I don't know what you do, but we're gonna support you. Right? and then you'll also enter some places where there's just doubt. You are an artist, you are gonna mess things up and they're trying to figure out how to mitigate that. And that happens like all the time. As I'm saying this, I'm trying to think of specifics. And then there's also people that, this is the worst, people that are checking you. Like you, you have a project manager that's constantly questioning everything that you're doing rather than helping usher you through the situation and through the bureaucracy is pushing against you. And that can be really difficult.

[01:00:11] like I had this meeting yesterday about this project and there was just a lot of explaining of things that I already, you know... there's a thing called, um, attractive nuisance. Which is very common in public art. Like if you take a ladder and you put it in public, you're asking people to climb it and you can't do that. Right? But if you take and put a pole that somebody could as easily climb, it's not an attractive nuisance And it's okay because you're not inviting that interaction. And I had this committee spending half an hour yesterday explaining this to me, and Oh, I understand that. But also, once again, it's just how they're explaining it to me is, is, is really important and interesting.

[01:00:56] it's funny, like everything coming, up in my head, I'm like, oh, I shouldn't expose that thing. Or, you know, different experiences it's not, yeah.

[01:01:06] I will actually, there's one that was recently that just, it became this person's nickname as a project manager that the first meeting with all the artists that are finalists and we sit down in this Zoom meeting and she says, okay, all my artistas are here. Which would just like that spoke so much to how she's approaching this and she became the artista woman and I hope to God she's not gonna listen to this podcast.

[01:01:34] So what are you working on right now and what's coming up for you in the near future?

[01:01:40] I have this piece of concrete block and this performance piece that we're working on. I have a project in Elk Grove, California that I'm working on. I think that's the next imminent public art project, which is just outside of Sacramento that I think we're installing in June. And then strangely enough, there's another project in Sacramento that's a little bit after that, that we're working on.those are the the big things and there's other little projects kinda simmering in the background.

[01:02:09] And where can people go and see more of your work? Find out more about you?

[01:02:16] I have a website and that would be the place to go. Website or Instagram. I've been a little bit lax and I'm posting it in Instagram lately, but. But, definitely you can go to my website.

[01:02:26] Okay. Well I will put the links to your website and Instagram in the show notes so people can easily click and find you.

[01:02:35] Awesome. Great. I appreciate that.

[01:02:38] Well thanks so much. it must be getting a bit late on your end. I'll let you go.

[01:02:45] I appreciate it. It's been fun to talk.

[01:02:56] That was  Aaron T Stephan based in Portland, Maine. You can find out more about his work on his website aarontstephan.com and follow him on Instagram Instagram @AaronTStephan. You can see his work in person all over the United States. Just go on his website and find the nearest project to you.

[01:03:18] And if you wanna see an example of Aaron's artist talk slash performance work, I highly recommend watching his TEDx video titled I am Not  Aaron T Stephan. I won't give away the plot twist, but it's kind of genius and full of humor. You will like it.

[01:03:36] Links to those, as well as everyone mentioned in this episode are in the show notes and on our website, installationartpodcast.com.

[01:03:45] If you enjoyed this conversation with Aaron, I hope you will leave a rating and review wherever you're listening. It helps other people discover this show and keeps me going.

[01:03:56] Thank you for listening and until next time.