We were lucky to catch up with Zoe Alexa recently and have shared our conversation below.

Zoe, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

Yes, much sooner! While I have always had a hand in the art making world, it wasn’t until I was exposed to working in casting, welding, construction, timber framing, upholstery etc. that I found myself saying goodbye to the institutional art career I thought I had to admire and follow.

I found the connection to my creative practice grew deeper as I gained experiences with how the world is (physically) built around us. From the utilitarian objects we use everyday, the structures we reside in and around, essentially everything that we come into contact with has been informed from a fine tuned skill set. These are the things that make my heart throb, haha.

I was employed as a studio manager at The Crucible, a nonprofit industrial arts school in Oakland, CA and was blown away by the 11-14 year old students who were learning how to weld their own tables and fabricate the coolest frankensteined bikes. If I had known about those kinds of opportunities when I was that age – that it was accessible and powerful- I would have immediately stopped rehearsing boy band dances and made a b-line to the welding bench.

I can’t REALLY wish for things to have been different. I mean, my practice is very much one based on the cumulative life experience, as I hope many other creatives might agree. I believe everything we absorb becomes a specialized tool in our fanny pack work belt, whether that is past traumas, love, or a previous career in accounting.

Zoe, 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?

Hello out there! I am Zoe Alexa and I create playfully-odd sculptures and installations. Features recognized in my work are organic shapes common to microscopic organisms. Many of these sculptures have recurring titles of “(something something) Pickle”, so imagine an amoebic or space-like pickle creature and there you have it!

I worked my way through 9 years as an art school undergrad, attending multiple colleges and running through various degrees. I came out with a BFA in Sculpture after exploring every degree available. In that time I also received a certificate in movie makeup and prosthetics, which further expanded my grasp on mold making, casting, science and color theory. Bouncing around from that many institutions with the lack of transference of credits has contributed to the running joke that I’ve been trained way too many times in color theory, yet talk about it as though its all intuitional.

The work I create, I just hope it continues to have a physical presence that people can run up to and say “What the *$!& is that?!” I also strive for my work to be much more interactive, to be snuggly, to have a fully immersive physical experience. As far as what lies at the core of my work; I seek out this comedic space where our irks and traumas are able to meet our most playful selves.

I incorporate different materials into my work. One sculpture is made from chicken wire, cement, homemade paper clay and foam balls to resemble a cosmic pickle. Another piece, a wall mounted sculpture, is upholstered in velvet and is shown as a monster going through a very dramatic episode of emotions.

I also paint architectural watercolors, usually captured from my travels, that are the balance to my creative practice. Having something that is controlled and precise in nature to paint, contrasted with the avenue of ambiguous forms and creatures, colors and materials – well, it makes me happy, and people enjoy it.

I always prefer my relationships with clients to be an opportunity to share, especially when it comes to detailed commissions. If I am painting their home, I want them to share with me some memories of that structure. I might ask a client what their favorite road is that they’ve ever driven down, what their relationship with snow is, what 3 colors represent the experience they have when eating popcorn. Questions we may only interpret as necessary for children- simply put, but dynamic in nature. This way of getting to know people is so necessary for me in order to explore the collective creative space we all inhabit.

I believe my uniqueness shows in my insatiable hunger for exploring. I love science- chemical makeup and reactions, doing the research. I’ll take materials I’m working with and make test samples combining any combination of alcohol, latex, milk paints, wood dust, cement, and oils, just to see what comes out of it and can inform my process to a piece I’m conjuring up. The most exciting class I have taken in college was during my Industrial Design phase, and this class was called Connections: Fusing, Bonding and Pressure… along those lines. We were shown every possible way to connect materials together, from welding, chemical makeup up of glues to rivets and hardware. Wood to glass, glass to plastic, metal to fabric, you name it… that’s my idea of a good time in creative education!

I want to be mindful of including upcycled materials as well. I’m working towards making my work monumental in size, so as to incorporate what could take up the inside space of that structure… things that end up in the landfill, things that in their own space being taken up could fill and momentarily have their next life.

In my sculptures, I would say I make an effort to use at least 20% of upcycled materials. I evaluate the design and imagine how much of the space being occupied, the shape of the intended feature, can be reinforced or filled with materials that would usually be thrown out.

I frequently visit a facility, the Resource Depot Center for Creative Reuse, in West Palm Beach, for my materials. They collect and distribute items that are heavily focused on artistic and educational practices, and you can fill a bin for a very low cost. It is my church. I weasel my way over there for inspiration, very often.

A material I use for the shells of my sculptures is paper clay. It is a substrate made of paper pulp, pva glue, joint compound, flour and oil. The original recipe I use comes from an artist Jonni (www.ultimatepapermache.com) and it is so spectacular to work with. I have tweaked the recipe to work with my practice, but I owe it to her for the knowledge. The paper I use is from a huge bin of menus that my husband created at a restaurant he had in NC called Knife and Fork. Everyday was a new menu, and I adore reading them as I rip them apart, knowing the ink will bleed into the bones of this substrate. I like the magic of introducing things imbued with life and history in my work. I’ve almost run out of menus now.

My proudest moment of navigating this creative world is a piece I made for my senior thesis show called An Attempt at Getting Over Your Self. It is a metal sculpture I fabricated, standing 6ft tall and it curves up and out so the opening is facing you. It is wrapped in fabric, and upholstered with padding on the inside. This sculpture is a nod to the ego, the ability to let go, to explore and crawl inside, with no direction but your own will to remain curious. As you can imagine, after 9 years as an undergrad in art school, I was really questioning why I was there, and what’s up with everyone taking themselves so seriously? I didn’t want to imply that I was telling people HOW to get rid of the ego (you can’t, especially when consciously trying to), but merely the funny things that happen when one attempts to start on the journey. One can simply sit on the lip, or crawl inside this cornucopia shape, where half way in you may get stuck with your hind end poking out for the public to observe. I believe it tests your willingness to explore something different from the usual portal or chair. The feedback I got, from all ages, was “I don’t know what it is, or what I’m supposed to anticipate, but it did something to me -I did something WITH it- that I will never forget.” Friends and family were laughing at each other, and taking pictures, like they had never seen each others bodies move like this before and they all wanted a try.

While showing this piece at a gallery in Oakland, CA, someone came up and asked when they could have a turn with it. I was puzzled by the inquiry, like I had set a fair time limit, so I wandered over and found that there was a lady sitting at the bottom of the cavernous structure. She had been meditating there for a good 10 minutes. She climbed back out with a smile and said the acoustics were great. That was cool.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

More art everywhere! More murals, more hidden art where bricks in a building are missing, more outdoor sculpture fairs, more opportunities for the youth to create art that will be out in public… and most importantly, great pay for these creatives to do so, through systems set up to help support an artist’s survival. Provide mentors, guides, and studio visits with curators.

And artists… go do something pro-bono. Make it an obligation to give your talent freely once in a while. Once a year, once a month… volunteer your knowledge, your skill set. Make a tiny art kit to keep in your bag and hand it to someone who seems like they are having a bad day. Email me, I may not have the direct resources depending on where you live, but I’ll take a look with you and see whats up.

The youth and especially those who are marginalized and underserved are too often in a position where they don’t even know their potential for creativity. It is unfortunate what is happening to the education system and the lack of arts education. We have to come up with more systems where not just the art, but the means of delivery of creativity, is abundant and the desire to freely share the tools we use is accessible. It is the artists and creatives of this world who can make a thriving ecosystem through their teaching and sharing, and it is society that needs to then financially support them in doing so. Give the artists more money. Give financial support to those who -don’t- know what they are going to make, but show the passion to build their creative realm.

Working as a teaching artist has shown me the tether to how important it is to also be taught by your students. When I work with students, it is an opportunity to educate them on the importance of abstraction, free hand sketching that taps into emotions, expression of the body incorporated into your work. No matter what the assignment may be, or outcome hoped, I always tell my students that I am here to share with you the tools I’ve learned, now you have the authority to make/build anything you can dream. Every single time I know I am going to see something that I could have never predicted, that someone will tell me a theory of why they did what they did and I will become overwhelmed with emotion. It baffles me that we don’t have a system in place to make this avenue of teaching arts more financially suitable.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

The mission to my creative journey is to make our perception of the space around us, the space we share, change. I have dreams of making gargantuan sculptures in public spaces. Not just plopped in a pretty spot or park, but incorporated into hillsides, alleyways, on the side of a building, -through- buildings. I’ve always seen my work as holding some sort of space for healing, play and release – a place to let go and have a unique experience. I guess I see my future work as having momentum in social practice with regard to studying and interpreting people’s interactions to the pieces.

My stepson (I still insist he calls me his slide mom, so much cooler than stairs) used to ask me before every walk “Why are we going on a walk again? What are we going to do on this walk?” And I would remind him of all the beautiful things we would come back with each time, as proof of the uncertain. Someone’s initials carved in bark, a stolen mango from a tree, the most perfect kicking rock which was kicked all the way home so it could be painted and kicked again, wild bunnies, a love note someone lost to the wind. These can be the glories of one meditative action. I want my interactive public work to have that potential for people to have collected or absorbed the memory of that experience into their being.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.zoealexa.com
• Instagram: @zoealexa
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJp2Rk7h7hw&t=253s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v98I5CFmqT0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNxSpsshkOg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcUM7FhZTP0

Image Credits
Zoe Alexa