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

Orli, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

The summer before my Junior year of college I had the privilege of studying abroad with Brandeis in Siena, Italy. While I was there I studied late medieval/early renaissance Italian artworks such the Allegory of Good and Bad Government. The experience of being surrounding by art and art history pushed me to commit myself further to art making. I was also able to get to know a number of jazz graduate students studying in Siena, who pushed me to take my own craft more seriously. They showed me that it is possible to pursue a creative career and life despite the challenges it presents.

Orli, 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 am a visual artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. I am originally from New Rochelle, a suburb about half an hour north of Manhattan. I have always loved drawing since I was a little, but I fell back in love with it in my high school art class. Since then I have studied art and art history at Brandeis University near Boston and the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island.

I work with paper pulp as my main medium, and more recently started working with metal as well. I made works that are somewhere in between paintings and sculptures, which I think is a silly binary anyways. My works tend to be abstract in that they don’t realistically represent things from life, but they very often reference multiple recognizable forms such as butterflies, the human figure, or letters from the alphabet. Lately they have been a combination of either steel or copper and colorful paper pulp. I make textures in the pulp either by creating impressions in it by hand or pressing it into a mold, so it often ends up mimicking geological forms.

Every time I think I’ve nailed down what I’m doing conceptually in my work I gain inspiration from something new that complicates my understanding of I think I’m doing. I allow myself to get lost in the making process, which allows me to stay open ended while working because as I continue it becomes less and less about the end result. Instead I continuously learn from my pieces, I keep seeing new things and making new associations, connections, and discoveries. It’s what I love about making art and what keeps it interesting for me. I’m not the type of artist to solve problems, maybe I’m more the type to reveal the unpredictability of things.

I’m proud that I’m still doing it. Being an artist can be so challenging in so many ways. There are many people who have, and continue, to doubt me, and theres also a lot of self doubt. I’m not sure I really believe in myself now, but I guess so far I love making art enough to keep doing it despite the practical, financial, and psychological challenges.

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

As a young artist I had to learn to stop putting subject before object. When I was in college I started making work that was about feeling my way through the physicality of art making. My works went from representation to material exploration. But I didn’t know at the time how to present my work intelligently to my peers and teachers, so I returned to representation because then I had something concrete to talk about when prompted. But these works were merely illustrations of ideas, not explorations of something new. In graduate school, I had to unlearn the idea that my work had to have a specific subject that was easy to present to people and to relearn how to play and experiment in the studio. It’s a lesson I’m still learning.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I think the hardest part of being an artist for me is the lack of time I have to devote to my craft. In order to afford living in NYC, a hub of art opportunities, I have to work full time, leaving me little time and energy to make art. When my professors were young, NY was a more affordable city than it is now. People were able to work part time and still pay their rent, but that lifestyle gets harder and harder as time goes on. I think if there were more opportunities for grants for artists it might be easier for us to balance working with working in the studio.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://orliswergold.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/orli_s_art/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/orli-swergold-2023a6112/