Marie Ringwald Exhibiting Artist Interview September 2023

Speakers: Marie Ringwald, Artist, MarieRingwald.com

Marie Ringwald: Hi, my name is Marie Ringwald. First, I want to give a shout out to Judith Heartsong for founding Artists & Makers. Judith invited me to have a solo show at the gallery. And in July of 2015, the exhibition was up. We called it Adding and Subtracting because that's how I work. Here are some pictures from the exhibition. I had works on paper and of paper. I had freestanding sculptures. I had constructions made of wood and other various materials. Also in 2015 at the end of the year, artist Steven Boocks invited me to be in a show that he called Go To 11.

Marie Ringwald: Hi, the gallery space was perfect for me. It's a 30 by 30 ft square room that has three doors and the doors provide a really good flow through the space. I had steel pedestals that held some of my freestanding sculptures. And we put two in the middle of the room and surrounded them with these nice wooden benches that Artists & Makers had. Here are a couple shots from the opening and finally, another picture of the installation. One of the things I liked about having an opening, there was that the hours for the gallery were generous, there was plenty of parking for people who came to visit. And finally, Mark Jenkins reviewed the show in the Washington Post.

Marie Ringwald: I'm fascinated by vernacular architecture, simply made buildings that are used to hold things, store things, work in, barns, Quonset huts, simple shops, tobacco drying barns, sheds, et cetera. I also really love the materials that those structures are made with. So my sculptures incorporate those materials, wood, paint, sheet metal, including aluminum and tin and lead and copper. I also sometimes use plastics and paper based boards and lots of fasteners, a wide variety of fasteners. I often start by remembering a place and paring it down to what I feel is essential about the building. Some of my series are more abstract or non objective, and they are based on the materials themselves. The constructions can be wall mounted or freestanding. I want to thank Artists & Makers for allowing me to talk to you about my work and showing at their gallery. Signing off.