Artist Lecture reflection - Karly Klopfenstein

     Karly's lecture stood out to me as unique from other artist lectures I’ve attended in the past. Her art work quite different from anything I’ve ever seen; but what I appreciated most was the fact that she gave the audience a real sense of the practical side to being a young working artist, which is something I have not really had the chance of listening to before. Since she is a St. Mary’s alum who is now out in the world actively producing art work and living as an artist, I found it easy to relate to her and begin to think more realistically about my own life after graduation. I enjoyed the way that she organized the lecture by first giving a brief overview of her previous works, or things that she has done since graduating from SMCM, and then focusing more on a detailed synopsis of her efforts towards finishing her most recent project: creating a huge, half-scale size tank made of cardboard and other lightweight items, covered in her own hand-woven rugs on which different patterns and symbols of traditional middle-Eastern culture are displayed. The rug tank acts as an ironic political commentary about wars in the middle-East. She also creates a deliberate dialogue between the viewer and the work about tanks as symbols of war, and what it means to create a tank and take it completely out of any war context and cover it with something beautiful and hand-made. Both Karly and her work embodied a slight sense of humor, which is something that I really enjoy in an artist.



      Although her sculptural works are quite different from my own work as a photographer, I think that it is always interesting and necessary to get some insight into how other artists work. As she discussed details about the work she is currently doing towards finishing the rug tank even as she is in residency here at the college, I really appreciated how she was able to give the audience an honest sense of exactly how much time it takes to finish a work, as well as how much money, effort, and dedication it takes to do studio work on your own. She mentioned that she has been constructing the tank and weaving the rugs for almost 2 years now, and that she is still pushing herself pretty hard in hopes of finishing it by the time she leaves at the end of this semester. To me, this really puts things in perspective. As someone who has no idea what it is like to live and make art, and figure out how to keep making art, this was tremendously helpful in making me start to think about what my life will be like in the future. During her studio visit to my SMP studio, she told me that she lives to be an artist, and that she’ll do whatever she needs to do to keep making art. She also said that each of her projects leads to the next, and that this is how she progresses in her work. These comments really resonated with me and inspired me to keep at it, and really focus on photographing and doing whatever it takes to keep doing it.