I Told Him These Things I'm Telling You Now From Lessons in Survival series, Jennifer
Archival pigment print
24 x 32 in
Conversation with Vanessa Briscoe Hay and Sandra-Lee Phipps
Matney Gallery recently spoke to artists Vanessa Briscoe Hay and Sandra-Lee Phipps about their work, their friendship over the decades, and their collaborations on Sandra’s series of photographs, Lesson in Survival. Both artists are profoundly influential Athens, Ga, music, and art scene veterans. Vanessa Briscoe Hay is the lead singer of the legendary Athens band Pylon Sandra-Lee Phipps, a professor of art at The Savannah College of Art and Design known for her iconic early photographs of R.E.M.
You need to believe in something, from Lessons in Survival series, Vanessa, 2019
Archival pigment print
34 1/2 × 46 in | 87.6 × 116.8 cm
Frame included
Matney Gallery: Thank so much again for meeting again. Iit's such an honor to be speaking to both of you. Can share about your friendship and how these photographs came into being?
Sandra Lee :I will say first that the reason that I ended up photographing Vanessa, was that I was working on a longer project and photographing women in many locations, but what really is important to me about Vanessa as a friend and also just as a being is her intuitive nature. And so it's the intuitive nature of what happened in front of the camera. No, we did not plan that in a particular way. It was more about we're going to meet, we're gonna meet in this very private space where anything goes a very private space that had a body of water. So you know intuitively and it did not take long to take these photographs. She was in going on her way to band practice. So we kind of just collaborated in the space. And I, think that that's very important, or this is my take on it, that I did that with the women that I was photographing for this project. that we used nature and experiences in nature or with nature to kind of guide us.
The nude presented in an atypical form/shape is a political act these days, and it's kind of an act of liberation. I feel like Vanessa has definitely been a part of that. That was what one of the intentions of the work that I was making at the time and I think women presenting themselves outside of the norm is a liberation for all. Sandra-Lee Phipps
Vanessa::First of all here I am a 60 year old peeling my clothes off but it's art, you know, and I am an artist too. I understand what modeling is and what being part of a project is. When we came into that space, I just completely trusted Sandra Lee and followed her directions.
Sandra; But you kind of led the way in the sense of reacting to the spaces that we were in, and then we eventually moved to the water and that was exactly the surface that we needed to be working in. That happened pretty quickly. Those pictures happened very quickly. I was standing on a rock hoping for the best as Vanessa turned her way through the water.
Vanessa: That's right. And then when she was like, “look this way, go back that way.” I felt very comfortable. And what's remarkable about these photographs to me is how much they remind me of 18th century painting. They're very large. There's something about the way she has me posing and the background. You can't tell where it is. Somebody said, “are you in the middle of the ocean”? They just couldn't tell. It's very ambiguous, where I am but I was there reacting to different thing. In some of them I look fierce, in others a little frightening maybe but you know, one reason also I decided to pose for her at my age is I believe that the human form is beautiful. Even if it's outside of what considered society's norms at the time. You go back to Titian and Rubens and you see through time there have been different body types who have inspired artists. and so it' so nice to say as an older and a larger person that I was able to do this and so I'm very happy with how they turned out.
I believe that the human form is beautiful. Even if it's outside of what considered society's norms at the time. You go back to Titian and Rubens and you see through time there have been different body types who have inspired artists. VANESSA BRISCOE HAY
Spinning out on turns, it gets you tough, from the Lessons in Survival Series, Vanessa, 2019
Archival pigment print
34 1/2 × 46 in | 87.6 × 116.8 cm
Frame included
Edition of 5. VIEW ON ARTSY
Sandra-Lee: And I felt something when I took them, but then when I saw the results, I was like, “Oh my"!, and anyone that I showed them to was just like, these are amazing. The quality of light, the quality of the water that you're working in and your gestures were all just I would say intuitive, natural reactions to water, which was part of what I was trying to capture with the atypical female body and the idea of the contemporary nude, something that is not what you always see, but the light definitely reminded me of the paintings that you're referring to.Vanessa is, like I said, an intuitive collaborator. I've always thought with your music, you're the same way. You know, your intuition as a woman is paramount. I've been reading this book called Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. And it's all about women sharing their intuition, trusting it, and the wisdom that's there. And I've always felt that from you, Vanessa, as a woman, that you're wise beyond your time. You are a mythical woman in all the art that you create and with your voice. You've used your voice in that way, and you used your body in that way in these photographs. One detail I wanted to point out is that she painted her toenails pink and had she not done that, the pictures would not have the delicious significant details that they do have when you get close to the image and you look at all the little parts of the water. It looks like we stylized this but we did not. It is very Athenian in the sense of being very organic.
Vanessa: It is my pleasure to work with you on that Sandra Lee, and I'm happy to have a drawing in this exhibit too.
Sandra Lee: Yes. Absolutely.
Vanessa Briscoe Hay in her studio
Matney Gallery: , Vanessa, You are a musician and singer, but also a painter and an artist in that way. Can you tell us how the two interacted and then also specifically the work that you have in the show? How did you create that?
Vanessa:Well I originally came to Athens and I was enrolled in the arts school at U G A and I graduated with a degree in drawing and painting. I hung around town for a little while because my first husband couldn't seem to graduate. And in that timeframe is when Pylon was formed. Pylon were am offshoot from the U G A art school and it started out just as a one-off project. We were gonna go to New York. We had a goal of going there, getting written up in New York Rocker and disbanding. I mean, honest goodness, that was our goal. And I completely understood that because when you were an artist, a lot of times you'll have a goal or a show in mind and then you go do it and it's over. So that was what Pylon was, an art project.
Dream of John Seawright, 2001-printed 2021
Archival pigment print
12 × 16 in | 30.5 × 40.6 cm
So all of the members or artists we were on and off for a long time between 1979 and 2009 when the guitarist passed away then Pylon came to an end. In the meantime, I had another recording project called Supercluster and then in 2014, Pyon Reenactment Society started. But in all of that time, you know, I was a mother. I worked first as a Kinkos manager, then I went to nursing school. I was a nurse, and I was a mother of two children. Artists are wired kind of differently, even though I was busy with all of that, I was still by myself scribbling on the back of envelopes. I'd have, words coming in my mind, songs coming in my mind. I'd make little drawings wherever I could. I'd put up a lot of my toxic supplies though, with kids, and I'd just put it all away as far as making larger objects for a long time. But since my girls are grown and Pylon Reenactment Society is performing and recording , I've had time to go back through some of my older work and also make newer work. Last year, Sandy and I were in a group show in Atlanta
Sandra: The Beauty of Nature.
The piece that's in the show is from around 1985. I remember at that point I made a series of drawings kind of in that vein, and that I was reducing the human figure to its most primal or most iconic. This one is a male figure, I believe and he's like protecting his maleness., all huddled up on the rug, and he's surrounded by a lot of chaotic energy from the universe.
Vanessa: We all had these pieces in there and it was just exciting to be in a show again and also I've become represented by John Lee Matney. He came here and looked at a lot of my stuff he took a painting right off of my wall and took it to the gallery. One that I did of a dream I had about John Seawright. Talking about intuition, dreams have definitely inspired a good bit of my work, to be honest. Sometimes things just come full blown in my head in the middle of the night, and I have to record them into my iPhone or write it down and then go back to sleep. It’s just exciting to me to be able to create again. I am painting again. The piece that's in the show is from around 1985. I remember at that point I made a series of drawings kind of in that vein, and that I was reducing the human figure to its most primal or most iconic. This one is a male figure, I believe and he's like protecting his maleness., all huddled up on the rug, and he's surrounded by a lot of chaotic energy from the universe. I remember making that drawing and the thoughts that were going through my head. I am just wired that way. I remember as a small child used to daydream a lot. I daydreamed a lot and I think that you can teach yourself to tap into that, but I feel like in a lot of ways I'm lucky. It is just something that's always been there for me. People ask me, where do you get your ideas? And I always tell them, I have no idea where ideas come from.
Sandra:You know, there's a practice that I've been looking into called dream Yoga, and I've been trying to practice that. And I've had some in, in fact, I had a very incredible visual dream last night. Maybe we should do like a collaboration this summer, dream yoga.
Vanessa ;Oh yeah. That would be fun if you know, one of us gets some ideas. I actually did a series of small paintings that were about extremely vivid, lucid dreams. Dream of Johny Seawright was one of those. I have four or five of them here in the house. It would be fun to do some photographs like that. I mean, some of them are bizarre. I don't know how you would realize them.
Sandra: Surrealism. We'd have to resort to figuring out how the imaginative is made real.
I wanted make sure we talked my feelings that the nude presented in an atypical form/shape is a political act these days, and it's kind of an act of liberation. I feel like Vanessa has definitely been a part of that. That was what one of the intentions of the work that I was making at the time and I think women presenting themselves outside of the norm is a liberation for all.
Vanessa: Yes. I think that's definitely true because it takes all sizes to run and work in this world and being an artist and seeing models and also being a registered nurse, I've seen every type of body type you can imagine. And the human form in and of itself is just amazingly beautiful. A lot of people just don't realize how beautiful they are because they look at a model and say I'll never look like that. Yes of course you are, you look like you.
Sandra. So disrupting the standards of beauty and art, I feel is very political and important to continue. That's the intention in the work.
Vanessa: Right. There was a little bit of a political stir at your school, wasn't there?
Sandra: You know it was a woman that was my champion to get the work up on the walls. Of course people are sometimes uncomfortable looking at the images, right. They're confrontational on some level and then beautiful. They work on many levels. And that's why I feel like when people see them in a room, they're kind of drawn in because it's so it's such a kind of confrontational thing to see a female form fully nude and in action. Resting and in action at the same time. And that's why the work is called Lessons in Survival. The idea of of of being kind of supported by water and yet water is so something we struggle in, something we have to have, something we're made of. All of those things. I was trying to pull all those pieces together.
I will say that I love Vanessa's work ethic because the last itime I visited her when I arrived, where was she? She was in the painting studio before dinner painting away. She’s like, it's very important to continue your practice. She does it in band practice and performing, and I intend to follow her lead. Vanessa has always been the wise woman me that I needed to know.
Matney Gallery: Can you comment on your medium, the iconic photos that you took of R E M, and your history. How did you get started in photography and what inspires you and how has it changed over the years?
Sandra Lee:I went to UGA and I got a degree in photojournalism because I knew I had to support myself. And back then, that was actually a good option. I did end up working, moving to New York City, working for the Village Voice and then freelancing for the New York Times. I did what I intended. But what I really learned the most at U G A was in the art school. That's where I met all of these characters and everyone there had more of a fine art approach to photography than journalism. So I've always had both of those parts to myself. I learned about pinhole photography at U G A. Michael Husky from Pylon and I think Michael Stipe also and a lot of people were building their pinhole cameras and working there And then I worked for R.E.M. for quite a few years and did a lot of their iconic original images and moved to New York City and then I went to N Y U for graduate school. I was a practicing photojournalist for years, and I decided I wanted to really work on my own pieces, not just commissions or assignments. And so I started working with the body in that way. I kind of always have. For my MA, I got pregnant the year I started graduate school and I did a series of self-portraits with pinhole of my body, my whole experience. That was where the body became important to me in making artwork and I've continued to do that moving forward. And then I did a project called Safe about feeling safe in the cultural environment or not unsafe in the cultural environment that we live in, in nature. And then I just kind of continued that quest or that idea following through with another body of work of women in nature and a contemporary approach to a female body, female nudity. And that's what I intend to do next. I'm also an ally to the Stop Cop City movement in here in Atlanta and saving the Wani Forest. I have a desire to go there and photograph. Now, of course it's been closed by the DeKalb County government and the forest is being destroyed. I would love to take some photographs there of the female body. We'll see,
Matney Gallery: How would you describe Athens in the 1980s.
Vanessa: It was very inexpensive to live here. So I think that provided people with freedom also the group of people who were here, who were in and around the school, and also people who lived in town like Jeremy Ayers and John Sewright are two examples of people that were not in the art school who were around and very influential to us. We had we had so many creative people here it blows my mind and it's not just from being a college town or whatever, I think at different times in history, different cities have become almost like little energy spots or vortexes But you know, you see that the energy jumps around and we had it then. It still pretty cool here now, but of course it's different
Sandra Being young in that group of people, we kept just kind of pulling each other on, like pushing each other to keep going, keep doing, keep pushing the boundaries. The energy was intense. It really was. Vanessa, I wanna say that I teach at SCAD and (for) lot of my young students Pylon has a resurgence as you know. I had someone show up at a field trip the other day in their Pylon t-shirt, and they're all excited about your photographs in the hallway up there. So a lot of my young students know who are and they love it.
Vanessa Oh yeah. We have a group of people who are our age and maybe a little younger, and then we have a whole new group of fans that are in their teens and early twenties. So we'll play some places where, like the first time we played Nashville several years ago, Pylon Reenactment Society, I was like, how come all these kids have x’s on their hands? And they said, oh, that means they're underage. And I was like, wow.! That just blows my mind. Half the audience have x’s on their hands and I saw the same thing in Brooklyn and I've seen it in Los Angeles.
Sandra: Jennifer Hartley, is a painter in Athens who is in one of the photographs for Lessons in Survival, She calls Athens her spiritual home. And I feel like in some ways, no matter where I go, Athens is my spiritual home.
LMG: Any final thoughts?
Vanessa; Well I wanna say that I admire Sandra Lee Phipps work ethic and I just admire her work. She is always such a cheerleader for others and I just don't want her to forget who she really is. I mean, she's a true artist. She's very strong woman and I love her. I just wanted to say that.
Sandra: You know, I feel the same way about you. We're soul sisters, that's for sure. I feel I've always felt like Vanessa and I knew each other in another life. Absolutely. I've just always felt like she's the wise woman and that I've known this wise woman before. Jennifer Hartley, a painter in Athens who is in one of the photographs for Lessons in Survival, calls Athens her spiritual home. And I feel like in some ways, no matter where I go, Athens is my spiritual home.