Interview With an Artist

Nina Pak is a multi talented artist who was the design editor for AustralAsia magazine in Moscow Russia. She now works with digital photography, publication, hand-made books, visual journals, collaborative art books, Compact Disc packaging, design & layout. Nina’s primary focus was in Photography and design work but most recently her passion for painting has been rising to the top of her priorities. Her paintings are mixed-media containing photographic elements and her current works are being produced in large format Color Carbon Fresson prints. Nina also served on the Glendale Arts Council in Arizona for several years. (Taken and modified from her MySpace page)

[This interview was conducted via one email]

Tell me about your childhood.

My childhood was far from ideal. My mother and father were both lovely people, who chose to bring me into the world to celebrate their passion, but they really had no interest in being parents. Both were very independent and had active social lives. My mother was a business woman, and did not have time for the usual mother daughter activities. I learned young how to cook and do other household chores to help out.
Each of my parents had been married before and had children from those marriages. My siblings were twelve to fifteen years older and lived with us only for a short time when I was very young, so for the most part I was raised as an only child, a latch-key kid.

My parents divorced when I was three but they remained very good friends. This was significant in the forming of my perceptions on the world and personal relationships. I was basically on my own most of the time, when adults were around; I was the type of child to play quietly alone and not to make demands. When I was completely alone, I was easily self entertained, and I had a number of invisible friends as well. There were rarely other children who lived near by, and at school I was an odd child and did not mix well, I didn’t understand other children’s interests.

Pets have been a constant part of your life, what is the importance of that?

Animals are a joyful part of this world. I believe we, as humans, are the caretakers of those creatures who have been domesticated, and we owe it to them to protect and nurture them. They also greatly enrich our lives. I have a very strong emotional empathy for animals and can not stand to see them abused or injured or in danger.

Is there anyone else in your family that is an artist?

I have a nephew, James Luckett, who is a photographer, and some of my father’s grandchildren are talented artists, but I am not currently in touch with them.

At what age did you start to explore your artistic abilities?

For as long as I remember I was using anything I could find to make, build, paste, nail, cut out, color, or paint… it was my constant activity. If I had a pen and paper I would doodle, if I had an old catalog I would cut it up and make paper dolls and clothes for them and houses for them inside an old shoe box. I would take old scraps of cloth and sew clothes for my Barbie dolls. At my fathers house I would nail old blocks of wood into some strange and wonderful structures. I rarely had actual art supplies, other than crayons or water paints. But I always found something to be creative with.

Is your family and friends supportive of your art?

My family was neither supportive nor not supportive, they were just glad that I kept myself busy. Sometimes they would praise me for something I made, but most of the time they just left me alone. I often wonder what I might have been able to do with my art if I had been given actual tools and supplies and some guidance at a younger age. Or even some access to art, a gallery, museum, or some art books. I had none of these until high school. I actually have no idea how I was inspired to be an artist. The only artistic influence I had was an illustrated fairy tale book.

Your images have strong spiritual overtones to them. Are you a religious or spiritual person?

When I was very young I began to have what would be termed spiritual experiences. The first one I personally remember was when I was five. I liked to lie on the grassy hill in front of our house and watch the clouds. On this day, in a relaxed state, I closed my eyes and watched the colors behind my eyelids turn from red to green and then suddenly everything around me in all directions opened up and surrounded me in a vivid light blue light. I was so startled that I opened my eyes, but I was still there, on the grass with the clouds above me. So I calmly closed my eyes, again the colors shifted, and once more my head opened to the blue light. It became my practice to go to the blue when ever I had time to be alone with out interruptions. There was other phenomenon I experienced as well, which I only learned much later was not common experience for everyone. Somehow these experiences lead to an exploration of eastern philosophies and religions. I now call myself a Buddhist, but it is perhaps more true to say I believe the world is more than what we see, and it is filled with beauty and spirit. It does not seem necessary to label what I am or to follow any specific religion.

You are a painter, photographer, lyricist/musician, jewelry maker, book maker, graphic designer; am I missing anything else ?

Just as when I was a child, I can be creative with any raw materials I pick up. I perhaps have too many interests. But I do also love to write.

Which of these talents was the first to develop?

Visual art was my focus, and drawing was first because a pen or pencil and scrap of paper were the most commonly accessible materials available to me. I later began to paint, and write stories, I did always take snapshots from age thirteen; I had a small camera. I truly wish I had someone who could have given me a real camera, and taught me more, introduced me to the mysteries of the darkroom and the magic of making prints. But it was not my good fortune to have these teachers until much later in life.

Which medium is your true love?

They are all part of me, How can I love one more than another, they are just facets of who I am. I am always most in love with what I have just created.

What is the process that you use for your paintings?

I am a mixed media painter at this point. My process is rather long; there are many steps, as I use a wet gel medium transfer technique. This is outlined step by step in my website blog, for anyone who is interested. I then paint into the transfer. I use every type of paint, ink, pastel, pencil or material that will give me the effect I am looking for.

Where do you your find inspiration for your painted works?

When I work, it is from a place where there in not much thinking, I would say I am most influenced my dreaming. I have rich dream worlds which I have been visiting from childhood.

How do you decide on your color pallet?

I don’t decide on a color pallet or anything else, I just let it come out.

You are a very prolific artist, how often do you start a new work?

I am very prolific; I find that it can flow out without hindrance if I am in the right state of being, so I like to work on many canvases at once, letting one dry while I add the next layer to another. Painting goes in cycles for me, I don’t always have a large studio space where I can make a mess, when I do, I take advantage and do a lot of work. If I have limited space I do other art work, such as digital imaging or jewelry making.

Does the same process that you use while painting apply to your drawings?

No, drawing is a meditative process, I doodle everywhere, I especially like to draw if I am sitting and listening to a lecture, it helps me maintain attention and focus so my mind does not wander away from what the speaker is saying. I also like to carry a sketch book with me, so if I am stuck waiting somewhere, I can draw or write down Ideas that come to me.

When did you begin using photography as a medium?

I took photography first in high school, but I did not own a good camera, or have money for materials or access to a darkroom outside of that limited class time, so I did not find it was a easy path to creating art at that time. It did however leave a lasting impression on me. When I was in my 30’s I took a community college class to learn how to document my paintings, I was sending out a lot of slides at that time and found it was too costly to pay someone else to do it. Then unexpectedly, I fell in love with what was possible, and it changed everything about my art.

What draws you to photography?

Perhaps as a painter I lack the skill to render everything I want to create. Although I had some training in college and private instruction, I had very few good teachers. I went to college during the time when “express yourself” was the main focus and there was very little basic technique passed on to the students. So I am largely self taught, by trial and a lot of error. I found that photography added the missing elements that I could not bring to the work on my own. It gives my world form in a way that is more true to what I see in my dreams.

How do you decide on a theme?

That is an interesting question. With the Tarot, I was working on a video for Hathor’s Sister, it was my idea to have one scene with a tarot layout, and I finally realized what I wanted to do with the cards, I had to make my own. Well, I had been designing tarot cards off and on since my twenties and always would drop it after some point because the tarot is a complicated study and there are many elements that don’t jive. But here I was coming at it from a purely visual point, not from a place where it had to all make sense. So I posted the idea and thought I would have a few people who would want to work on it with me, and my plan was to just do enough to make that layout for the video. But to my surprise, within two weeks I had all the cards assigned and for the next year it took over my life. After the bulk of that shooting was done, I had learned that people are inspired by the story, they need something to attract them.

I posted the Innocent Dark; that is another story. I visited Patrick Alt during the time of Photo LA, an annual event in that city where many of the nation’s photo galleries are represented. I was privileged to be Patrick’s house guest and to attend his annual Photo LA party. Patrick collects art, and interesting people. He is one of the countries treasures in Alt Process photography; he and many of his close friends are creating rare works of art. It was during this visit that a friend of his challenged me about my pretty art. He felt it necessary to reflect the darkness in the world with his art.

So, I realized something rather obvious and yet profound. My art is safe. It is beautiful. I have no need to reflect the darkness, the evil side of this world, because I have lived within it, It has touched me, I have been personally exposed, as a child, and young adult, to the fear, and evil things that many people put in their art. I made art to create a safe place for myself to be, a beautiful world to live in, that was insulated from what had hurt me. I chose the innocent dark to explore this part of myself that became aware of the question of darkness in art.

The short answer is that there is no set process to making a theme, if something comes up that has some meaning for me, then I explore it, otherwise I find trends in the work I have been doing, and offer them as a choice to my models, as a means to tie together bodies of images, such as “The Elements”.

When you decide upon a theme how do you choose your subjects?

When I have a project I post it on Model Mayhem or other similar sites, and then I choose from the models who contact me for the work. At this point I also have a list of models in every state and in other countries, who would like to take part in any trade or collaborative project. So it is just a matter of looking up their profiles and seeing who will fit the look or character. Or in many cases I prefer to just choose a model that interests me and then without any preconceived ideas, I like to see what evolves at the time of the shoot. In any case, even if I have a plan, as I did with the tarot project, it never turns out how you expect, there are always other things that come out.

Describe your post image process.

I work mainly in Photoshop and my most common tools are masking and layers.
I do not have a set way to work with an image, I experiment, every image is different, so every image has different tools applied to it, or different layers. It is not uncommon for me to have up to 10 layers in an image. I do create a lot of my textural layers with paint and then photograph them for use in Photoshop.

I read that some of your work is being produced as Color Carbon Fresson prints. Tell me about that.

The Fresson Family in France has been making color carbon prints for generations. Their technique is a guarded secret. I know it takes at least 3 days to make a print and it is perhaps the only archival process for making a color print.

I wanted to make a piece of art that was lasting and worthy of the image. I am looking for gallery representation for this work. I know it is perhaps a fruitless endeavor as many of the people who might buy a photographic print do not know the difference between a Fresson print that will last for a 1000 years; and a Giclee, ( that will fade in a matter of 50 years in the best case scenario). But I know the difference.

What other alternative processes do you use?

I am learning and exploring Alt Process because I want to reproduce my art in a form that is lasting. Ink jet or Giclee prints are not archival. They have improved the inks in recent years, so they are more stable, but they will fade and disappear in a matter of years. My biggest problem is that my work is really best in color, and most archival processes are for black and white. Nevertheless, I do really enjoy learning and experimenting.

You are a mixed media artist. Why do you choose to combine your photographic images with your painting as opposed to using editing software such as Photoshop?

Because there is nothing in digital imaging that can imitate the texture of real paint on board or canvas. I do my best to try, and my photography work comes close, but I still love to paint.

What is Hathor’s Sister?

I was fascinated with music, being raised on the Beatles and Elvis, and later Joni Mitchell. I had a strong affinity with lyrical writing and a desire to create songs. I did not however have any musical talent, or rather had no training. It was not until Marta, a close friend of my family, who is like a sister to me, began to explore her musical talents, that I was drawn into the recording studio with her. It was by her encouragement alone that I went beyond writing the lyrics and began to record my voice in spoken word and song. And we formed Hathor’s Sister together.

The name is a personal matter, something close to us both, it is a long answer and not something I can give you in a short interview.

I write the music in the same way as I paint or do photography. I sort of dream it, and then I wake up and write it down. Or maybe Marta will say: lets do an album that deals with… and she will say a subject. Then I will find my daydreams contain elements of these images, and from them word fragments that I write down, then after a while I sit down and put them together into a song. I do most of the writing for Hathor’s Sister, but sometimes we write together. Or we will take a poem I wrote some time ago, and with some changes, we turn it into a song, such as Genocide on our first album. We made that into a song one evening at a coffee house, Marta with her guitar and a pad of paper and the poem in between us. Marta is a talented song writer in her own right, she has many self published albums. She chose to give me most of the creative freedom for the writing on our work together. It is her way of honoring our friendship, her gift to me.

How has your extensive travel influenced your art?

Any chance to experience a new culture, or different language will enrich your life, having a chance to live in a different country, to truly absorb the differences, will give you unexpected insights into your own self development. This is how it is for me anyway, it gives me new ways of seeing, and everything goes into the art. Everything that changes you, gives you new insight or inspiration, and will also change your art.

Would you say that you have a gypsy’s soul?

No, far from it. I love to travel, and I had an adventurous soul in my twenties, I threw myself into experiences because I felt I had to find myself in other places, cultures and religions. I was looking all over the world for what I already had inside. It just took me a while to realize it, and then I found I was happy to be at home. I still enjoy traveling; there are places I want to see and photograph. But I also need to have a home base. I am actually quite an introverted person, I like having alone time.

Tell me about the use of mythological, occult and mystical iconography in your art work.

Mysteries have always interested me, Ancient cultures, forgotten knowledge, symbols, these are things that draw my attention and find their way into my art. It seems that there is always so much to learn, and discover, I am an avid reader and always surround myself with interesting books. My husband is also very well read and a great inspiration for me. There is just not enough time to read or study everything I am interested in. But what I do study usually ends up in my art, or influences it. On my desk now for example: stories by Jorge Luis Borges, A Woman Encyclopedia of Myths, The Decameron, The Kabbalah, The Hopi Survival Kit, The Gnostic Gospels, a scifi novel called Replay by Ken Grimwood, Blink, and The Pessimist’s guide to History.

You were also on the Glendale Arts Council. With the financial (and I suppose political) condition of things at the present, funding for the arts in schools and cities has greatly been diminished. What are your feelings on this?

The right brain activities in school have never been considered of any great importance. I feel it is a very important aspect of human development and a necessary element in children’s education. Having been a dyslexic child myself, who excelled mainly in the arts, I can tell you it is not easy for anyone who is not talented in math or science to go to public school. Many children who have brilliance in unorthodox ways are overlooked and do not get the guidance they need. I know this, as I did not find out that I have a high I.Q. until I was an adult and joined Mensa.

To change this, the very nature of education has to be transformed. The perception has to shift. A different fundamental awareness has to be there. And for that to happen our whole society has to become a little less ignorant and a little more enlightened… how we teach our children, is how the society will be, if you don’t teach people how to ask the right questions, if there is no curiosity, if there is no freedom to explore what your own talents might be, then people will remain ignorant and the same conditions will prevail.

What is the purpose of art?

To inspire, to heal, to give a feeling of goodness to anyone who lives with it, to share beauty.

Who are some other artists that you admire?

Dante Gabriel Rosseti, Sandro Botticelli, Nicholas Roerich, Svetoslav Roerich, Freda Kahlo, Arkhip Kuinji, Leonor Fini, Kay Sage, Magritte, Remedios Varo, John William Waterhouse.

What is the meaning of DreamLoka, the name of your website?

Loka is a Sanskrit word for world. I also like the fact that is sounds like the Spanish work Loca which means crazy. So DreamWorld or Crazy dream, they both work for me.
When I was looking for a name for my website I wanted to call it dream world but that was taken, so out of all the possible variations my husband came up with DreamLoka and I loved it.

If for whatever reason the art gods said you only had 10,000 images to make and after that there is no more. No matter how much you bargain and plead with them you only have the ability to make two more images and then you are finished. What are those last two images going to be?

A mystery, they will be what those same gods dream for me.

Living or dead, if you could be any other artist for one day who would it be?

Remedios Varo. I would just like to get inside her head for a little peak. Her dream worlds are similar to mine, but I love her tendency towards the surreal.

Do you feel that your pieces may somehow actually be self portraits?

Actually every artist have themselves and what they have experienced to reflect back and into the art they create, so in this way, yes, all of my art could be said to be a part or a portrait of myself. And it is often true that images made by an artist look like themselves, especially drawings and paintings, because it is their own face and body they see in the mirror everyday, and they know those features best. Many artists use a mirror image to learn about drawing the figure and portrait. But now I will be a true Gemini and say that I also am very empathetic, and I am a good observer of expression, body language, energy and mood. For this reason I feel I am able to see things in my models that many other people do not capture. Some times my photos have been called soul portraits. Often the people I photograph are struck by what I see and show them, a deeper part of themselves that they rarely share; or an unmasked emotion, or an opportunity to act out a part of their being that has not had expression. In this case I believe that I am just a safe receptor, for what opens and is released when I have creative time with a model.

Why do you create?

Because I can’t not do it, I feel driven to do it, I exist for it.

You can view more of Nina’s work at the following links/

http://www.dreamloka.com/home.html

http://www.ninapak.com

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 10:50 pm and is filed under Photographers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.