Maker Monday: Sydney Rose
In case you missed it – last week we launched our Maker Monday series and shared an interview with textile artist Gillian Schultze. Today we spoke with visual artist Sydney Rose. Sydney creates primarily collages that tell stories of human behaviours and habits. Most recently, she was featured in a mini-doc on CBC Arts where she talked about her art and creative process.
Tell us a bit about your art.
My art is playful. It’s surreal yet familiar. It asks questions and tells stories of who and what we are as human beings – our behaviours, beliefs, histories and dreams. Contradictions. I work primarily with collage as a medium to create tactile remixes of existing images, using abandoned and discarded materials.
Do you have a favourite piece of art that you have created?
If I could pick a favourite piece of art that I have created, it would have to be this huge landscape painting my husband found on the side of the road. It’s one of those mass-produced pieces that are often found at thrift shops. It was beautiful and familiar in the way that pristine landscapes are, but alien to me in the way that pristine landscapes, untouched by humans, are becoming implausible. To tell a new story, one of “An Expedition Towards Extinction”, I added some collage elements: dinosaurs, predators and prey, a few man made objects and some more subtle elements – the faces of our sapient ancestors hidden in the trunk of a tree. These interventions turned someone’s garbage into the time-twisting tale that has become the centre piece of my bedroom. It honours the original work of art while existing as something new and meaningful to me. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to part with that one.
You create the most unique collages of art using discarded books and other pieces – how did you get started with this type of art?
I first started working heavily in collage around 2014, a couple of years after graduating from the photography program at OCAD University and after moving, back to Sudbury, into the home that had belonged to my grandparents. I had dabbled in the medium here and there over the years but never really saw it as a legitimate art form until I began to look at the work of other contemporary collage artists. I only recently began reading interviews and articles written by these artists and many of them put into words all of the reasons I keep returning to processes that are heavily tactile – ones that reuse and recontextualize existing materials.
I feel that we are progressing too quickly at times, as humans do, and we are constantly consuming and pushing things aside to make room for the next big important thing. In our current age of technology and omnipresent virtual experiences, interventions and communications, the reference books and encyclopedias we once relied on for information are collecting dust in our basements. Definitions and their illustrated representations seem archaic and concrete in print when compared to the fluidity of truth in what we share through the internet. Collage allows me to play with these ideas and use the illustrations found within the pages as puzzle pieces that come together to tell new stories.
What is your creative process like?
My creative process involves making use of every bit of spare time I can on my art practice. Like many people, I have a full time job that is separate from my creative endeavours and a family that I love to spend time with. Almost all of the work I produce is created on my couch while watching movies or listening to podcasts and YouTube channels, hanging out with my favourite dudes. I flip through books, cut out the images I am drawn to at that point in time and then I play: I combine and recombine and rotate and discard before searching for more images to complete the composition. I prefer scissors over xacto knives or blades – I feel much more comfortable cutting when I’m able to move both the scissors and paper freely. I rarely set out with a preconceived idea of what I am going to create. Collage is a highly intuitive process. You have to trust yourself and your eyes. Memories and the subconscious come into play in the selection process and guide the work into it’s final form. From there, once things are glued in place, I scan or photograph my collages and experiment with how they might look as clothing, books and accessories. I feel very strongly about infiltrating people’s homes with weird art in ways that are both accessible and functional.
Do you take custom orders or commissions?
I won’t always take on commissions or custom work, but when I do, it’s usually the ones that I can really connect with the first time they are described to me. I had this wonderful woman commission a piece for each of her three children to hang in their bedrooms… and the process was really interesting. She had these objects and animals that, for her, were symbolic for each child and the task of finding the elements that would come together to evoke that meaning for her was like being sent on a scavenger hunt each time. When I do take on custom work, there is usually a lot of back and forth communication – snapshots of the piece in progress, a few potential compositions before the pieces are glued down. I like to collaborate with the person who requested the work so that there is an opportunity for them to feel involved in the creation process – to feel more connected with it. I have a hard time taking on commissions when I know I won’t be able to put that time in.
Congratulation’s on the awesome mini doc on CBC! How did this come together? What was the process like?
You don’t even know how pumped I am about that CBC mini doc! I remember seeing the one Brandon Gray had done about Nico Glaude’s installation pieces and being so excited about how well it told his story and how it represented the Sudbury art scene in a new light. Then I saw the one about Good Luck General Store and I was hooked on Brandon’s nack for storytelling through his videography. He messaged me out of the blue one day to ask if I had anything I was working on that had to do with nostalgia, kids or danger. I said yes without even thinking and then panicked immediately afterwards. It was my first interview on camera, with a hidden mic and it couldn’t have gone more smoothly (I didn’t turn beet red, start sweating or freeze like my childhood self would have). Brandon is such a personable guy. He genuinely wants to tell the unique stories of artists in Northern Ontario and is willing to put the time in to get to the core of those stories.
There was a lot of talking, exploring and just hanging out over the course of a weekend. We did the interview the first day and then shot a bunch of B roll footage the next. While we were wandering around, I picked up a few things on the ground that became the majority of elements for the collage piece I am putting together at the end of the video: a discarded party banner, scrap board of wood and all these little circles that I can only assume are left over from fireworks. Assembled together with a few images of children and some birds suspended on the heads of pins, “The Pursuit of Happiness” will be one of the shadow box collages included in my solo exhibition at Artists on Elgin this coming August.
Do you have any tips for other makers who may be looking to start selling their own pieces of art?
If I had any advice for anyone making anything that they want to sell, it would be to just do it. Put yourself and your stuff out there. Work hard. Prioritize your time. Set realistic goals. Be genuine. Take feedback where you can get it. Pay attention – to what the creatives are doing both in your community and in other places. Reach out to other makers. If I’ve learned anything about Sudbury in the recent years, it is that more and more creatives in this city are open to sharing advice and information based on their own experiences. Create the things you are passionate about before making what you think others will buy…. and work at them in a way that others will become passionate about them. Believe in what you create. Find your little pocket and own it.
Where can we find out more?
I try to keep my website (www.sydneyrose.ca) updated with high quality images of my latest collage works, while my Instagram account (@sydneyroseart) is where I share process pictures and day to day makings and observations. I am also on Facebook as @artsydneyrose. Prints, clothing and other items featuring my work can be purchased through my Art of Where shop: www.artofwhere.com/artists/
Emily Franceschini
Emily Franceschini is former full-timer and lover of all things purple. In a past life, Emily worked as a marketing manager and spent her free time searching for the perfect cup of coffee. Now all of her time is free time and she's spending it exploring the world.
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