We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Andrea Alonge. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Andrea below.
Hi Andrea, thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
I was asked to create a textile installation for Meta Open Arts to be installed in one of Meta’s employee headquarters. My work is centered in connection and relationships, especially within the context of the digital age. This request gave me a physical space for a tactile work that would be surrounded by people whose jobs entailed creating a digital space for connecting with others. Meta is particularly interested in setting up environments where their staff can form meaningful relationships with one another to facilitate the best outcomes for their projects. My piece, which was 35 feet long and 10 feet high, drew from this idea and was a visual representation of flows of energy and information, and had many different elements that connected. My install was also full of rich connections, with staff walking by as I was working and chatting with me about what I was doing, and I felt this added so much to my process and to the piece itself.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I grew up in Arizona watching my mother, father, and grandmother make all kinds of things. My dad was a woodworker, and made all kinds of things for our house, but also built RC airplanes. My mother sewed us clothes and Halloween costumes, made craft items for our house, sewed quilts and blankets, and had a loom where she wove rugs and other domestic objects. My grandmother was a kindergarten teacher and would make a lot of her teaching tools- educational coloring books, illustrated stories, and props for teaching. At a young age, I started making little rooms and furniture out of cardboard boxes, and started sewing as well. In high school, I made ceramics and was encouraged by a teacher to think about applying to college for art. I went to college with a a major in ceramics for a few years, and then took a break and moved to Oregon, where I found myself stuck without a dedicated space for ceramics. I began to think about what my art practice entailed, and how I could continue to make art without the need for a large ventilated space, a kiln that needed a lot of electricity, or a space for wet work, and returned to making work with textiles. I had a lot of fabrics that were given to me by my grandmother and mom, and I started thinking about those vintage fabrics and what they meant to me. I love secondhand shopping, and the history involved in the items I find, and this has become a part of my regular practice. I also remember the halloween costumes my mom made and the fabrics involved in those kinds of crafts. I really enjoy the play between vintage and kitsch, fabrics that have history, materials that reference different stages of our lives. My favorite works are those that remind me of childhood and grandma’s house, dressing up for fun and getting ready for school, growing up in the 90s and having all of that history in one place. I ended up going back to school for Fiber at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago, and getting my BFA. After this, I moved to Detroit and got my MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, where I really honed my material sensibility and began to consider how I wanted my practice to evolve. I was making quilted works there, but my works centered on cell phones and how their prevalence changed the types of connections we make in society. However, this work felt less personal to me, and after I moved to Seattle in 2016, I started making more abstract work that strangely felt much more like a reflection of myself and my relationships with others and my environment. I moved to Portland in 2019, and here is where I’ve felt like I’ve made the best connections, both in my practice and in my life. It helps that many of my friends from grad school live here, and the art scene here is very supportive. I’ve spent the last few years as a member of two different artist-run galleries in Portland, and it’s been a great place to try different things while really getting to know what I want most from my work. I finally feel like I’m firing on all cylinders. I have a full time job that isn’t my art practice, but have still managed to produce a large amount of work outside of this job, and I think it’s made me hungry to keep that momentum going in my studio. I could have given up, I could have said it was too much, but the art is the thing that keeps me going, and helps me be my best self in all areas of my life. I feel very proud of the body of work I’ve created in the last five years, and I think I’ve started to open up a space where I can begin to think about doing this full time. I have an installation coming up in Soho House Portland, and I am really excited to get to show a wider audience what I’ve been making.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
As an emerging artist, I thought I needed to say yes to everything to get my name out there. I thought I was willing to do whatever anyone asked in order to show my work. In the past few years, I’ve been unlearning this thought process, and have realized the benefit of and have gotten comfortable saying no. For instance, I recently had a show in which the gallery director insisted on a number of things that made me uncomfortable- telling me they would sell work that was not for sale, installing multiple works far too close together, installing them incorrectly with possible damage which I would have to cover with my own insurance, etc. Each of these situations presents an opportunity for me to stand in my power, to say no, to get comfortable with being the boss. This is my work, and I am the one advocating for it. It’s been a good life lesson as well- saying no and having boundaries is how we tell others who we are. My art practice is the area of my life where I have the final say, and I’ve intentionally leaned into projects and commissions where I have some freedom. I’m not just a set of hands that make- this art comes from my brain, and that has value outside of my technical skills. My creative skills are what draws viewers to my work. I think everyone should be able to have that area in their lives where they believe in themselves enough to say “nope, this is not for me”, or to say enthusiastically “yes! I can do that!! here’s how it’s going to go!” I feel lucky to have had multiple opportunities where I could say no this year, and that’s actually such a good thing.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
There are so many parts of my practice that are rewarding. That moment when I step back from the completed work, and have that flood of “oh…that looks good” and then months later it looks even better because I’ve had some space from it. The moments making it, where my hands and my brain are in flow and I reach that still center inside myself where everything is calm. The conversations about the work with others, which give me new perspective on the work and new ideas. The thoughts about concept in the pieces themselves as I’m making them. But I think my favorite aspect is the opportunity to connect with people who see my work, whether they love it or hate it, whether those connections are in person or in the digital space, and I appreciate and value the friendships I’ve made through making, showing, and talking through my work. It is deflating to make work in a space and never see anyone interact with it, and I love that social media and the digital space make it possible for me to interact with people all over the world who find me because of my work but stay because we have a connection.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.andreaalonge.com
- Instagram: @andreaalonge
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Andrea-Alonge
Image Credits
Mario Galluci, John Whitten