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

ReMac, appreciate you joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

My father taught me how to use power tools when I was a child, and I really cannot emphasize enough the psychological doorways this opened for me when it came to my understanding of the nature of the world and my ability to participate in it. He taught me that I could make things I wanted, that I could fix things that were broken, and that most things could be learned with a little time and dedication. I feel incredibly lucky to have had someone to teach me these things – especially as someone born and identifying as female.

Now that I’m more-or-less an adult, it is obvious that those skills and that mindset have shaped the course of my life. I still work with wood and power tools regularly, for pay, around the ranch, and also for personal artistic projects. I love fully transforming spaces into maximalist shrines to reclaimed materials. The introduction to hand sewing that my mother gave me when I was younger set the stage for a lifetime of slowly advancing sewing skills – both hand sewn and machine.

At this point the only things that stand in my way are the constant inescapable dread that inexplicably plagues my every waking hour and my inability to fall asleep before 3am.

That, and learning to market myself better.

ReMac, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I do a little bit of everything! Fabric, wood, foam, painting, digital, dog grooming, hair cutting, makeup, set decorating, prop making, party planning, writing, sculpting, and more. Even things that don’t consider a particular skill of mine (metal working, automotive, gardening) are still things that I have and will continue to try my hand at. If you have an art or fabrication job you need help with I can either do it or connect you with people that can.

I especially love miniatures, soft sculpture, and any painting job. The highlights of my career have been helping my friend (and one of my favorite artists) Lauren YS create and install their room at Meowwolf Santa Fe, creating a series of competition-style game show sets for Blaze vs. Blaze with Sward Creative, and pretty much any job I do with my friend/artistic genius Sara Paquette.

For my personal practice I have been making fairly large (4ft long) intricately embellished stuffed horses, and working on a children’s book, while simultaneously building out the inside of a bus in the most aesthetically dense manner I can conceive of.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I am currently experiencing a pivot in my life as I type this. For years my friends and I made our living working art department in Hollywood, but for many reasons that work is hard to come by right now. I still occasionally work in that field, but even when the iron was hot I found myself with an uncertain future – the work was physically brutal, the opportunities for advancement did not necessarily lead to a sense of security, and, well, it was a lot of painting walls white.

Now that work in the film industry is in a lull, I find myself taking it as an opportunity to explore more independent artistic paths and try to develop a career that has a balance of working for others and working for myself. It is hard not to panic sometimes, but im not sure it’s possible to live a life without some amount of emotional scrabbling.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I am trying to reduce the amount of new things that I use. There’s so much trash out there, and honestly a lot of it gets thrown away too soon! Much of my fabric comes from fabric overstock, deadstock, and overflow warehouses. Most of the building and woodworking I do (for myself) utilizes reclaimed, rescued, and rehabilitated items and lumber. One thing I do miss about all the set jobs I was working is all the stuff I was able to rescue from the dumpster. I built half of my room out of a perfume ad. I’ll probably never be able to drive by a pile of thrown out furniture without having the urge to stop and dig through it.

Contact Info:

• Website: Remacmakes.weebly.com
• Instagram: Arts.and.disaster
• Other: Email me at [email protected] for inquiries and keep an eye out for future horse pillow drops!

Image Credits
Portrait by Sara Paquette, all other photos taken by me.