Michelle Stuart: An Interview

Born in Los Angeles in 1933, Michelle Stuart spearheaded the use of non-traditional materials from nature in the early '70s, and has produced and exhibited her work internationally. Stuart has been grappling with ideas of land and space, history and myth, the atomic and the cosmic for more than four decades. Standing as an outsider to 'mainstream' art practice, Stuart focused on the natural world of quarries, waterfalls, and Indian mounds while revealing the cultural and geological history of these spaces, and how to trace these histories onto large paper scrolls and in books layered to parallel historical change.

In this interview with Kate Horsfield, Stuart wanders through her influences coming from the California landscape and culture of her childhood through her encounter with the New York art world.  "The pieces are named after places, but the place is really like putting your feet on the ground in order to fly.  Having a base for a flight of some sort that has an idea behind it."

A historical interview originally recorded in 1978. Re-edited in 2008 with support from the Lyn Blumenthal Memorial Fund.