Interview to J. R. Carpenter

Interview to J. R. Carpenter

My background:

I was born on a farm in Nova Scotia, Canada. I have lived in Montreal since 1990. I studied classical drawing techniques at the Art Students' League of New York, and then Sculpture and Fibres at Concordia University in Montreal. But now I am a poet, a fiction writer and a web artist - I did not study any of these things. I began using the Internet as a medium in 1993 and have been making web art projects since 1995. I am self-taught as a writer. Mostly I read and read and read.

When do I create?:

I work all the time. Constantly. I work on more than one project at once so if I am unable to proceed with one thing I always have something else to do. I spend a lot of time applying for grants, residencies, exhibitions, festivals, publications, and competitions. Sometimes I am able to live entirely off of my art and writing. Other times I have to take on outside work. I have had every kind of job.

Inspiration:

I am often inspired by non-art things. I love to cook, and have many ideas while grocery shopping. I read a lot, and this is a big part of my work as a writer. I also love music. I cannot listen to music while I am writing, so I listen to very loud music in my headphones while I am walking. Walking is an inspiring activity, especially walking with the dog. I carry and pen, a notebook, and a camera with me everywhere I go.

What is art?:

Everything has the potential to be art. Art is a point of view, a sensibility. I do not think a thing needs to be in a museum or a gallery to be art. I love literature, but I find the most fantastic stories are told by people who are not writers. The role of the artist and the writer is to notice, to recognize, to capture and try and transcribe the fleeting stuff of everyday into a semi-permanent form for others to enjoy and maybe learn something from. Not that art has to be educational, not at all. But anything that encourages people to think even a tiny bit beyond themselves is magical.

Have I exposed in Italy?:

I have one work on the First Independent Free Internet Art Gallery, based in Italy. In 2002 I lived in Rome briefly and made one of my largest web projects there, How I Loved the Broken Things of Rome: http://luckysoap.com/brokenthings Since then that project has been named a Web Art Finalist in the Drunken Boat PanLiterary Awards 2006 and has been exhibited in Montreal, Mexico, Toronto and soon New York. I continue to be obsessed with Rome. At the moment I am reading Catullus, Martial, Horace and Ovid, and also Elena Ferrante.

How do I image my work in a city_space?:

I am not sure if I know what you mean by this question; I will answer in this way:

My most recent web art work is all about cities. Cities are complex and constantly shifting. It is difficult to capture the essence of a city, in part because each citizen sees the city in a different way. I do not like the idea of creating an art work that sits in a room and waits for everyone to come visit it. I create projects online in part so everyone can visit them. The web consists of a multitude of sites - web sites. I think it is useful to use a web site to try to represent a city as a site, however partially. How I Loved the Broken Things of Rome is an exploration of how the past and the present exist together in one site, in very much the same way that tourists and Romans must exist together in one site. There are so many tourism web sites about Rome. The tourist wants to know everything about his destination before he arrives; I hope How I Loved the Broken Things of Rome illustrates how impossible it is for the outsider to really know anything about where he is without understanding where he comes from.

My newest web project is called Entre Ville: http://luckysoap.com/entreville It is a portrait of my nieghbourhood in Montreal. Entre means between, and Ville means city. Entre Ville refers to the interior city - la citta quasi-invisibili - the back yards, gardens, balconies and alleyways where real life takes place. Similarly to How I Loved the Broken Things of Rome, Entre Ville contains poetry, photography, audio and video - the web can combine all of these elements in such a flexible and accessible way. Entre Ville was commissioned by the Conseil des Arts de Montreal. I wanted to create an art work that every Montrealer could see, and that could show everyone in the world my Montreal.

More information about these and other of my writing and web art projects can be found on http://luckysoap.com

caio,

JR