We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Av Grannan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Av thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

I grew up in an artistic family. My mother owns a branding studio and is an artist; my father is a tenured Professor of Graphic Design at Mount St. Joseph University and a painter. My childhood was an intense visual and auditory experience. Running around my dad’s studio as he would paint, going to galleries every other weekend, and doing figure drawing with my parents and their artist friends as I would try to figure out what art was. My parents tried integrating art into every part of my childhood, which I am incredibly grateful for. We would go to the art museum of Cincinnati, and our family would make a game where we would bring sketchpads to make a tally of all the butts and boobs we could find. From there brother and I would scavenge around the sculptures and paintings to see who could count the most. In contrast to other kids’ childhoods, I grew up talking with my parents about my conceptual ideas philosophically, breaking down the puzzle pieces of history and problems in humanity. Those abstract conversations helped me understand who I was, how an idea as small as it might seem can be translated into something larger than life, and how it can fit in today’s society. My parents supported my artistic path and helped me learn new techniques and discover how art can make an impact. As a kid and into early High school, I learned so much from my parents. When I began my journey into 2D art, I would always run up to my dad to show what I had done that day or what I was working on. If it was a drawing and he knew he could help me improve, he would sit down and place a tracing paper over the piece. He would draw over it to show me what was working and what didn’t. How lines could look better if slightly curved, and a visual could flow better depending on where there were spaces to rest your eyes and how to watch out for certain conjunctions. Even though it was brutal to see him draw over a piece, even on tracing paper, I learned a lot during these critiques. I went to my mom if I wanted help with color theory and anything related to Photoshop or Illustrator.
After taking all of these skills into my young adult life in college, I realized that I could think more three-dimensional and loved bringing things to life. Whenever I wanted to talk through conceptual ideas that I had, when I was home from break, I would go on long walks with my parents to discuss ideas, grow them and develop them. So, saying that my parents have impacted my life would be an understatement. My parents have been my friend, professor, and mentor throughout my artist process and have continued to support me.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My name is Av Grannan, an artist, and designer based out of Chicago, and I make wearable functional art that lives on the body. I recently created my brand called Sublime Remains. Sublime Remains is about a collection I made on creating my hyper-reality with roadkill. As a society, we are more disconnected from nature than ever. In place of our intrinsic need to connect to nature, we are becoming more dependent on distortions of reality. I have presented a fake symbiotic relationship between perished animals and humans with this collection of work. These new relationships connect individuals back to the sublime of nature and their environment. I looked at roadkill and sketched. I make illustrations, and from those illustrations, I make three-dimensional pieces that live on the body. And the garments are the new environment that this creature is living on. Most of my materials are either natural, deadstock, or upcycled. For instance, I have scavenged for thrown-out couches on the road, similar to roadkill, to give them a new life. I am continuing to evolve Sublime Remains by building this new world, environment, and the creatures that live on it and, hopefully, see my work walking down the street one day. I am very proud of how I can build a new piece in my mind so that it is easier to create by spinning it around in my head to see all angles and deconstructing it so it will be easier to pattern out of paper and then in the material.
What sets me apart from others is that I am world-building on the body. With the mindset of our bodies as our environment, the layers and textures we use build what we wear daily to become our diverse microbiome. What is living in this new environment? When I make this new reality, I aim to shatter people’s day-to-day routines when they see my pieces walking down the street. I play havoc with people’s memory of what an animal looks like. I induce this confusion in the hope of people going back into nature to confirm what the animal resembles. What I want people to know about my work or when you buy a piece from me is that it’s not just something to add to your wardrobe. It is a piece of wearable fine art. Most of the sculptures I make are multi-functional, and when you are done using the bag, you can hang it back up on the wall for display. Since I am using natural, up-cycled, and deadstock fabrics, the past stories of the leather, canvas, and materials are layered and sewn together to create a new tale for the patron.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding thing about being an artist and creative is being able to think of the most obscure ideas and turn them into a reality. It’s satisfying to close your eyes and see something three-dimensional and then be able to hold it in your hands a couple of days after creating it. It’s magic. Another rewarding aspect of a creative is meeting like-minded people and connecting with them on this whole other level because of how your mind works. It’s interesting to hear what other people are striving to create and the concepts that connect with their pieces. Hearing how other artists try to make an impression on the world continues to spark my passion and pushes me to keep creating to have the same impact. It’s gratifying as an artist to share my creativity with people through my work. Integrating functional wearable art into our day-to-day is vital because it changes consumer mentality. It brings more worth to everyday objects, makes the wearer feel unique, and gives them a sense of wonder. I make goose bags, beetles, and opossums that people can casually wear. Who wouldn’t want to have that as their livelihood? I get to develop this whole new world and have found a way to transform it into my job. Artists cause emotion with their work. Whether that be confusion or awe, it’s incredible to see someone become affected by a piece you have made.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

This is hard to answer because with each new concept or collection, my drive changes based on what topic or idea I have come up with to illustrate my pieces. I am continuing this concept of creating a new reality with this offset version of nature, roadkill, but I am now bringing Disruptive Realism into play. CNET article states that Disruptive Realism is an expression presented in an everyday context that disrupts people’s perceptions about different things. So in these terms, I am disrupting people’s perceptions of what they think an animal looks like in hopes of making them want to go back into nature to reaffirm their thoughts. I want to disrupt people’s day-to-day repetitive routine of going to work, eating, and sleeping. Maybe they walk by someone on their way to work who is wearing one of my pieces. This small interaction makes people question their perception of reality.
I am working towards fitting enough time to create another collection to show in the Fall. Now that I’m working full-time with Sublime Remains, it has been interesting to figure out a balance between being an artist to make a living alongside creating new work to continue my practice and start the projects I want to achieve. I look forward to starting this new year by creating full-time and figuring out the next step in my creative journey.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sublimeremains.com
• Instagram: @avgrannan and @sublime_remains

Image Credits
21C Museum Hotel Chicago credit for black and white cover image, and image of the three garments standing by each other. white beetle backpack taken by Emily Wiethorn The rest of the images were taken by Av Grannan