Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Carla Ciuffo. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Carla, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

One of my most favorite projects was spending time as a visiting artist with Harvard’s Disease and Biophysics Group. This was my first collaboration uniting art and science, sparked by Harvard’s Tarr Family Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics, Kit Parker and his invention of a rotary jet spinning technology. Professor Parker’s groundbreaking work has created a textile that is evolving for a spectrum of futuristic uses – from wound healing, tissue and organ growth to “smart” sports-related products and high couture. I was offered the opportunity to make it into art.

After two years of working closely with the nanofiber technology at Harvard, I developed tiny nanofiber “canvases.” Using small swatches from the canvases, SEM photos were taken utilizing Harvard’s electron microscope. I expanded these images into an enormous cosmic garden. The work turned into a solo exhibit at Tinney. The experience is something I cherish.

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

I can’t remember a time I wasn’t involved in making art. As a toddler, I began ripping up paper to make collage on oaktag, graduating to covering our basement walls with the stuff I made. My teenage obsession with Aubrey Beardsley was intense, and somehow I managed to take double period in art in high school while ditching math. The art never stopped being made, but I wound my way through adulthood living mostly in New York City and working in various jobs.

I left, and worked for myself, owned a few non-art related businesses. Thirteen years ago, I moved to Nashville with my wife Angela and started seriously pursuing a creative path.

My series “Thrill” was accepted to the Nashville Arts at the Airport program and five large format pieces hung in Nashville’s International Airport for several months. That was my first exhibit. When I challenged myself to strip all the color and noise away from my imagery, I created the series “Stasis” and Tinney Contemporary, a gallery in Nashville, began repping me. And that was really the beginning. Since then I’ve been creating and selling to collectors and corporate clients around the world.

My ties in Nashville include photographing artists that include Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Buddy Miller, and Elton John that all are part of Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame’s permanent collection. That came about through a submission to the iconic music festival Bonnaroo through Arts at the Airport. I had the opportunity to photograph artists that included headliner Elton John and created panels of moving “lenticular” artwork that hung from different skylight locations at Nashville’s International Airport.

I love making things move and have also completed a few short animated films and short videos – most that appear on my insta feed. They’re like a journal of sorts for me. I can be an insomniac and most of the videos are created at 3am, basically pouring my feelings of the moment into something that allows me to move on.

One other surprise that occurred during the last few years was a call from the NY Times asking me to shoot for their opinion columnist, Nashville’s Margaret Renkl. Margaret is an author I revere and follow, so that was a kind of magical connection. The NY Times also gave me an opportunity to photograph poet, and award winning Ada Limón,who became our newest United States Poet Laureate

Currently I’m preparing for a solo show at Tinney titled “Lunar”. It’s the culmination (certainly not the ending) of my love affair and obsession with space and time. The images are abstracted from photographs I’ve taken at various observatories, a landmark crater and geographic sites that inspire other worlds. I’m working with different mediums for this show – layers of silk, some metal work, and lenticular art, which adds depth and motion to a print, allowing the eye to concurrently view alternating sections of multiple images. The back gallery will contain a wall of video art, and a Lunar scent. The show opens January 14, with an art crawl opening on February 4, and is up through the end of February. I’m excited to present this show. It’s been a tough few years – lockdown, the restrictions of Covid, the difficulties of travel.The show is an emotional response to the expanse of the universe and how the idea of it comforted me the last few years and continues to provide fascination and breathing space.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

There is an unnamed artist who posted this on instagram “I Make Things to Keep Myself from Dying.”

After some soul searching – and some successes and some failures, this, for me, is an honest statement. I want relevance in my life, and making art keeps relevance in place. And beyond that, I just need to do it – and that keeps me from dying. The most agonizing, fulfilling, awful, wonderful continuous cycle of work is what drives my journey. The challenges, surprises, as well as the grounded moments of accomplishment all pave the creative path for me.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had to unlearn rejection and what that means, which is, things change.

I have a strong ten year relationship with the gallery, Tinney Contemporary, that reps me here in Nashville. Years ago, when I was introduced to Susan Tinney, owner of the gallery, to introduce my early work, I was gently let down. The work wasn’t a fit. Tinney was the gallery I really wanted to be a part of, so I was devastated. After that, I channeled the rejection into challenging myself to create art that was stripped away of all color, and texture. To create huge swaths of negative space in a place I called “Stasis” – the moment in between. It became the core series of my work. A few months after posting a few images of the art on social media, I received a call from Susan. The rest, for me, is history, as I work towards my third solo show there, opening after the first of the year.

My point is that rejection doesn’t mean no forever. Yeah, it can hurt. But it can be used as a creative force, to work and make something new, better, different – to put something else out into the world.

Contact Info:

• Website: carlaciuffo.art
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carlaciuffoworks/
• Other: repped by Tinney Contemporary in Nashville https://www.tinneycontemporary.com James Gallery in Pittsburgh http://www.jamesgallery.net