We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Deborah Aschheim. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Deborah below.

Hi Deborah, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

Raleigh Stories, a project I have been working on with Raleigh Arts since 2020, has been a transformative experience for me, really thanks to the generosity and openness of Raleigh community. Sometimes, for a public commission, artists come in and make something for the public based out of their studio practice, it might be an artwork that they could have made somewhere else. I really wanted to make work that was site specific and relevant to the people who would live with it. Raleigh Stories has offered an opportunity to deeply integrate these aspects of my practice into one project.

My work is about memory and place. I make installations, sculptures, drawings, digital and social media projects and temporary interventions into public space. My projects are often based on historical research and deep level community engagement. For Raleigh Stories, I spent time in historical archives, including the State Archives of North Carolina (@olderaleigh) with their fantastic archivist Ian Dunn (who is also an accomplished artist in his own right) and learned about Historic Black Neighborhoods of Raleigh (https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/products/9781467150880) from Carmen Cauthen, who wrote an incredibly well researched book on the subject. I have had the opportunity to interview and draw more than 300 Raleigh residents, ranging from people I met casually at pop-up events to participants I collaborated closely with on in-depth, multi-part family histories. You can see the portraits and stories here: https://www.instagram.com/raleighstories/

These 300+ drawings and texts are now part of the City of Raleigh’s permanent collection to be shared alongside oral histories, audiovisual resources and other artists’ works. The final products of Raleigh Stories also include installations at Raleigh Community Centers, including Peach Road Park (https://raleighnc.gov/arts/services/public-art/raleigh-stories-public-art-project-peach-road-park), Walnut Creek Wetlands Park and Barwell Road Park (in progress.)

I love being able to make a permanent connection between the community centers and the people who make these places and buildings come to life. We prioritized sharing artworks in neighborhoods that are further from the City Center, where residents might have less access to Raleigh’s art and culture resources. I hope one day every kid can grow up having access to art in their own neighborhood. How cool would it be if every park was able to feature arts and culture as central to the park’s mission, as much a part of the site’s identity as sports and recreation are?

Finally, I am proud of the mentorship project that we were able to develop through Raleigh Stories. Three amazing artists, Akira Dudley (project: “Peach PARTy” at Peach Road Park, @king_akira), Kulsum Tasnif (“Backpacking Method” at Method Community Park, @backpackingmethod, @kulsumtasnif) and Cianna Jackson (“Finding I Am” at Tarboro Road Park, @sincerely_cianna) completed their own community-based art projects as part of Raleigh Stories. Akira’s was a one-day art festival at Peach Road. Kulsum’s and Cianna’s are still on exhibit, so please check them out!

My favorite thing about being a public artist is having a way to make deep connections with people and places. Raleigh Stories has really been a means to get to know people from across Raleigh’s diverse communities. Raleigh has become a kind of second home to me. This is the kind of public art, that really allows artists to get out of their studios and into the community, that I want to create and advocate for. A big shout out and thank you to Raleigh Arts for supporting and to everyone who has participated in Raleigh Stories.

Deborah, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I studied Anthropology in college, and I think sometimes the work I am doing at this stage of my career is based on an idea I had of what Anthropologists might do when I was 18: meet people and embed themselves in their worlds to try to understand and communicate what their lives are like to others, so that we might appreciate each other better. (I’m not sure that’s what Anthroplogists really do, though.)

I got my MFA in sculpture and for much of my life I made room-sized, immersive installations, often incorporating light, sometimes video and sound, that tried to conjure up invisible worlds of biology and neuroscience. I made landscapes of blown-up invented viruses (this was decades before Covid19), http://deborahaschheim.com/projects/more,
and “nervous systems for buildings”
http://deborahaschheim.com/projects/index/neural-architecture,
and I mapped my own neural networks of memory across the space of galleries and museum, built around fragments of our family home movies, http://deborahaschheim.com/projects/index/on-memory
As part of this work, I was invited to be the inaugural Hellman Visiting Artist at the Memory and Aging Center at UC San Francisco, (2009-2011, http://deborahaschheim.com/collections/view/374) the medical school of the University of California. I was fascinated working alongside doctors and scientists trying to understand the diseases of memory and forgetting, and more than that, I was deeply moved by the patients facing terminal diagnoses, who invited me and my musician collaborator Lisa Mezzacappa, into their lives in the hope that science and art might help other people.

This experience of being embedded in a non-art institution transformed my vision of possibilities for the relationship between my art and non-art life. Although I still made installations for art spaces, increasingly I wanted to make things for other kinds of spaces, like the hospital waiting room where you wait to see the neurologist, or the bus stop where you wait for a ride home, or to park where you come to unwind from the stress of the City. I was moved by the opportunity to be “embedded” in other people’s worlds, with the idea that my status as an artist could be a kind of “passport” into experiences and lives that were different from my own.

Since UCSF, I have been artist in residence for Santa Monica Fire Department, and for Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, an amazing brain and spinal cord research facility in Downey, CA. I spent weeks in Western PA getting to know rehab and vision patients to make portraits of people living lives not limited by disability for University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Mercy Pavilion. From 2019-2020, I was the Creative Strategist/Artist in Residence for Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder, the department that oversees elections for the largest (10 million people) and most diverse electoral district in the US—my job was using art in outreach to historically underrepresented communities of voters. (http://deborahaschheim.com/projects/index/public, https://www.instagram.com/365daysofvoters/)

Some day, I would like to make immersive installations again, that you experience by going to a special room with no windows to have a compelling aesthetic experience. It’s fun to do projects where you can control almost every aspect of the viewer’s experience, but it doesn’t feel as relevant to me right now to make work for the small art gallery audience. Since 2016, when many things I care about in America and the world have come under attack, I have felt the need to be in communities, not removed from the public. The work of sharing stories and trying to help people connect feels satisfying and in this time, urgent.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

One thing I am not sure non-artists understand is really how hard artists work, and how many diverse skills they have to bring to the job, and how tough it is for artists to survive in our economy. I blame Hollywood, which only gives us tortured male artists who are irresponsible but supported by a spouse or gallerist or family member and get to somehow live outside of capitalism and do lots of day drinking. This scenario does not describe any artist I know.

Really, artists have to be a very efficient, well run small business with incredibly tight margins. They have to stay informed of opportunities and submit proposals, which is similar to an architect bidding for a contract, except that the contracts are smaller and the writing, image prep, and other administrative tasks like having a current resume and updated website, are time consuming work the artist doesn’t get paid for. Many artists need a studio separate from living space, which is hard to find and expensive, and they have to budget for art supplies, transporting works, and hiring assistance for works they can’t finish or move by themselves.

If you show in a gallery, the gallery will take 50% of any works sold, which means if you sell $50,000 of art (which is a pretty high bar,) you have to pay for probably two years of labor, studio rent and money spent on materials to make your show out of your share of the revenue ($25,000.) I’m not telling you this to complain, just to underscore how careful artists have to be with money even if they are very successful at selling work.

If you do public art, the standard percentage for the artist’s fee is 20%. So, when you hear about an artist getting a $100,000 commission, this is not a $100,000 grant. The artist can expect to make $20,000 profit over the 1-3 years it will take to complete the project. The rest of the money goes to fabricating the artwork, which has to be built to the engineering standards of City building codes so it is safe, and may require permits and specialized installation. Artists who do public art need to manage complex projects with conflicting timelines, deal with contracts, and coordinate with contractors and City agencies. I created the mentorship program to give some talented Raleigh artists an opportunity to do these things on a small scale, because even if you go to school for art, this practical information is often not taught.

Teaching is how a lot of artists really make their living, but the full time “tenure track” jobs that included health insurance and some kind of job security are increasingly scarce. So many artists teach as “adjuncts,” driving from school to school to teach a wide range of classes, often not knowing in advance what their classes will be next term and without sabbaticals or paid vacation. I know “paid vacation” sounds like a real luxury—but for artists, “vacation” is not time to recharge, travel or rest—it is actually the necessary time we need to think and work so we can create new art.

(A related issue is how this unregulated art economy creates an inequitable access to art as a career, because artists who have access to independent funding and do not need to derive income from their art, have a lot more opportunities to pursue expensive education and other advantages. This exacerbates the lack of ethnic, gender and socioeconomic diversity in the “art world”.)

So, when you go to vote, if there’s an arts initiative on the ballot, or capital construction that might have an arts component (when City of Raleigh builds or renovates a public facility or space, sometimes 1% of the municipal construction funds are set aside to fund public art,) remember what a good value you will be getting— I guarantee, the artists will work hard for the money.,

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

For me, the most rewarding part is being able to connect with other people through my work. I always tell people I do this kind of community engagement based work so I can make new friends. I say it as a joke but it’s true, I love meeting new people and I often develop long term relationships with people I meet through my projects. I really like coming to Raleigh because after 4 years of Raleigh Stories, I have so many people I look forward to seeing every visit. I think everyone who lives in Southern California should have to have a “Plan B” in case our home falls into the sea. I know you all don’t really need more people moving here, but I see why people love living in Raleigh.

The biggest honor for me is when I am able to make artwork for someone that can help them with grief or trauma. Since 2020, I have made drawings for families impacted by law enforcement violence. I make drawings of loved one who were killed, as a gift and a memorial and to help with healing. The subject of law enforcement violence is so polarizing that I think a lot of people who would otherwise support a family grieving the loss of a son, a daughter, an aunt or uncle or parent, niece or nephew, get caught up in the politics of the issue of police accountability and neglect to provide the kinship and care they would offer if the person’s relative died in an accident, or from a disease. In these situations, the gift of art from a caring stranger seems to comfort. The families tell me in this moment when they feel very alone, art can really help. So, that is my best thing I know how to do.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://deborahaschheim.com/projects/, https://www.pasadenatimetravel.com/, http://365daysofvoters.com/
• Instagram: @raleighstories, @365daysofvoters, @robinsonparkproject, @sunvalleystories, @justice.drawings
• Linkedin: Deborah Aschheim
• Other: vimeo: https://vimeo.com/user33103803/videos

Image Credits

Deborah Aschheim (artist photo): Photo by Monica Almeida, photo courtesy of of Los Angeles County department of Arts and Culture.

Aschheim_01_Raleigh_Stories portraits: credit: Deborah Aschheim
Aschheim_02_Peach_Road_Park: Credit: Tzu Chen Photography©
Aschheim_03Walnut_Creek: Credit: Tzu Chen Photography©
Aschheim_04_Joe_Holt_Jr: credit: Deborah Aschheim
Aschheim_05_June_23_2021_Raleigh:credit: Deborah Aschheim
Aschheim_06_365DOVdetail:credit: Deborah Aschheim
Aschheim_07_MotherandChild copy: Credit: Zoë Taleporos
Aschhheim_08Landmark: credit: Michelle Westmark Wingard