Today we’d like to introduce you to Patsy Cox.
Patsy, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
My story actually isn’t that unique…it’s just that it reflects a point of view that is still struggling to find a place in the mainstream. Perhaps when we don’t have to categorize successful people with a little pigment in their skin as something different or “important” because it’s a POCP (person of color project), then my work may be done. Until then, I have a bit of an obsession.
When I moved to Los Angeles over 20 years ago from a list of middle American suburbs of homogeneity, everything from the native landscapes with bulbous, multiplying succulents to the obscure and other-worldly rare cacti to the vibrancy of color among the people at the car wash and grocery store – I was inspired to think differently about a future that not only Angelenos should aspire towards but one that immediately made sense to me.
My cacti collection became an obsession and at one time totaled over 5,000 specimens. As I watched my garden multiply it often represented how I felt about the world around me in Los Angeles – diversity, multiplying, growing, adapting, living, breathing. Outside of Los Angeles, I am “other,” but here I have a deep sense of belonging.
Mine is a story of fortune and misfortune. Fortune that somehow I was able to find a way out of the jungles of Thailand, my birthplace, during the last years of the Vietnam conflict. Misfortune when my Thai mother, my half-black, half-Thai brother, my white father and I settled in the working class, Irish-Catholic centric Dracut, Massachusetts where the only color anyone ever saw in a neighbor was in us. These were the days when racism was still PC. From Dracut, it didn’t get much better in Kearney, Missouri but my fortunate landing in Los Angeles about a decade later showed me that, while in no way perfect, “other” is the future.
With this in mind, it might make sense why I’m obsessed with the evolution of race in America and have a dash of optimism. We go backward and forwards as a society, but my work remains a constant – it’s an ever-present reminder of evolution and a marker of time….Hypothetically, all colors can be mixed from three primary colors. The use of color as a metaphor for race and culture became an integral part of my work. My longest traveling installation-based work, Urban Rebutia references the urban sprawl of Los Angeles. Each of the over 50,000 accumulated elements was fabricated from wet clay, bisque fired, glazed, and high fired in the traditional sense but without traditional purpose or appearance. The forms, each assembled by hand and unique in size and shape, are inspired by growth patterns based in nature (Rebutia is a clumping cactus) and employ the use of primary colors, alluding to the idea that all colors are possible from the mixture of red, blue and yellow, a metaphor for cultural and racial assimilation.
I have found a home, in my work, in my environment, and in my teaching. My greatest fortune is arriving at this place and time where the conversation has expanded both in the field and in a society that is currently reacting to a complex political climate. This is where my obsession resides. I see no other way than to keep making so that one day when no one sees themselves as “other,” my work will have arrived.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
I think obsessively; I work incessantly, I move constantly. Diversity, assimilation, growth, and movement within the context of a particular place have become the focus of my installation-based sculptures. They are representations of the urban landscape, the mixtures of culture, race, identity, and a comment on how these factors appear in a particular space as defined by its confines and surroundings.
I make large multi-part, evolving, reconfiguring experiences that are created through the accumulation of years of fabrication of objects from clay, in a traditional way, fired and glazed. All pieces are true to the process and traditions of ceramics and are shaped by my own hands. Simultaneously, I strive to conceive and present the work in contradiction to accepted conventions of my chosen material.
Flying into any large urban center, as you approach the descent you notice once stagnant structures begin to flurry with activity. The sheer volume and intensity of place become apparent instantaneously. A snapshot of our contemporary time, of excess, consumption and unrelenting activity. This is the feeling I try to capture with my work, a celebration of a multitude of moving parts. The conceptual combination of the manmade metropolis with the clumping, sprouting, flowering structures of natural plant life provides a point of intersection.
Have things improved for artists? What should cities do to empower artists?
It is immensely difficult to be an artist in Los Angeles. Rents are expensive, and studio spaces are small and hard to find. Los Angeles could do a better job with its resources to subsidize emerging artists, acknowledge mid-career artists and celebrate established artists. Supporting artists who are connected to their communities and speak the voices of our multicultural and complex demographic is especially important. Engaging and understanding ideas generated through cultures and voices that are different from our own makes us better global citizens and affords us a better understanding of ourselves and each other.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
My work only exists as art when it is installed in a space. It’s difficult to capture the installation experiences in an image, but images do reside on my website. The best way people can support my work is to see it in person.
Contact Info:
- Website: Website: http://patsycox.com/Patsy_Cox/home.html
- Email: cox.patsy@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/patsycox/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cox.patsy
Image Credit:
Personal Photo: Dryden Wells
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