#ARThags: Christine Stoddard, Quail Bell Magazine founder

The latest showcased indie artist in our #ARThags series is Christine Stoddard. She’s a multimedia artist, poet and the Founding Editor of Quail Bell Magazine. Settle back and enjoy her art!

Describe your art in less than 100 words…

Christine Stoddard: I am an interdisciplinary artist who works with words and images. Often I merge the analogue with the digital. While much of my work falls into the realms of books, photography, video, and sculpture, I am loose with my materials and enjoy experimenting with new formats. Mookychick published a review of my digital poetry chapbook, The Silhouette Woman, earlier this year. That book, which was released by Moonchaps of Moonchild Magazine, combines words, images, and video. It is not a traditional book, but then again, it is not meant to be.

Choose 3-5 pieces you really like…

I am including four still images and one video….

Butterfly Spaceship

“Butterfly Spaceship” is a stained glass sculpture that I chose because it was my first-ever exploration of glass, which is now a material I adore and want to continue exploring. Currently I’m doing a woman’s scholarship program at my glass school so I can learn more about this magical material. Women are under-represented in the glass arts, so I hope to bump up the numbers and inspire other women to consider glass as an artistic medium.

Fox in the Hen House

“Fox in the Hen House” is a mixed media diorama that includes clay, bones, eggshells, cardboard, aluminum, acrylic, and wood. I recently showed it at the Baltimore Taxidermy Open at the Walters Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. I chose it for this feature because it shows my love of mixed media and the playful nature of much of my work.

Marine Encounters

“Marine Encounters” is a digitally manipulated photograph of a huge mixed media painting I made while the artist-in-residence at Annmarie Sculpture Garden, a Smithsonian affiliate in Southern Maryland. I chose it because it shows how I’m constantly reimagining different versions and formats of things I’ve created.

Junk Crab

“Junk Crab” is a mixed media sculpture I created as part of an 11-part sculpture series at Annmarie Sculpture Garden. Each sculpture is made of recycled materials, acrylic, and plastic-based cardboard, and a ton of varnish.

Blizzard Beast

Blizzard Beast from Quail Bell Productions on Vimeo.

“Blizzard Beast” is a speculative fiction video that I edited using stock and iPhone footage. I chose it because I make a range of videos, including poetry films, animations, music videos, and more. This video happens to be one of my latest ones.

Another recent one I’m fond of is “Lamentations”…

Lamentations from Quail Bell Productions on Vimeo.

Some say creating art can be solitary. What do you say?

I would say that it’s often solitary, but it doesn’t have to be exclusively solitary. I am quite comfortable spending hours by myself. If it weren’t for the fact that I’m married and live with my husband, I’d make a great recluse. That being said, I also make a lot of collaborative projects. The Internet makes it easier than ever before to make work with other artists. I founded Quail Bell Magazine, now run by Gretchen Gales, in part so I could meet other creative people from around the world and make art with them. I get a lot of inspiration from fellow artists, but even when we work together, I often take my part of the project to a quiet place so I can work in solitude for a chunk of the process. I need that time alone.

What do you love to capture/reveal/explore in your art?

The spiritual/emotional core of a subject is one I gravitate to by instinct. The media have shifted over time (from pastels to watercolour pencil to oils/acrylics to mixed media/collage work, and even film/music/sound). However, with this series I am discovering a lot of echoes from my watercolours of a decade or so ago in the transparency, bleeding, and superimposition.

Any upcoming projects or things you’re working on right now?

I’m wrapping up an artist residency at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House in the Upper East Side of Manhattan and will have a solo show there in December. The details are still being finalized. I’m also going to be showing Water for the Cactus Woman, a solo exhibition at Valet Gallery in Richmond, Virginia where I went to college, in early October. The exhibition is a projection and sculpture realization of my book by the same title, which was released by Spuyten Duyvil Publishing earlier this year. You can order Water for the Cactus Woman on Amazon.

Where can people find out more about you?

My Facebook page is @artistchristinestoddard and I’m also on Instagram as @artistchristinestoddard.

Calling all artists with ARThag souls:

If you would like to be featured on Mookychick, please visit our #ARThags artist submissions page.