Fresno Famous

Shannon Hunter and Jared Jurcak take a break from seven straight hours of production and talk about the work they’ve done over the last four months for Hunter’s upcoming solo exhibition – Home Is In Your Head.

 

Jared: I'll probably smoke multiple cigarettes during this.

Shannon: Ok. So! Shannon Hunter, Jared Jurcak, taking over the world of art in Fresno! No, I'm just kidding.  First question: Have you ever worked on a project of this size, where the images and the execution is not yours?

J: Nothing of this scope. I’ve been contracted to edit images and work with people who are doing shows. I’ve kind of consulted on shows, but nothing like this.

S: When you’re working on those other images do you mean graphic/web design stuff, or strictly photographs?

J: Some of them have been me editing my works for them; either my photos of them or photos of their bands.  I actually did retouch a few images for an artist who was showing in Seattle. Never front to back like this.

S: So you mean including the..

J: The production, the design.

S: Back in October when I asked you edit my images, I had only just begun working on the series and approached you with a handful of images and a vague idea of what I wanted to do in order to turn them into a proper exhibition. Did you have any reservations about editing without having a clear idea of what I was looking for?

J: No, I didn’t have any reservations. Initially I thought it was like, “Hey, will you edit my photographs.” I think that I maybe then volunteered to help design other elements, like the promotional card, and then it sort of snowballed.

S: Right, it did sort happen organically that I realized I needed help with certain parts I had not considered yet. It was kind of funny, I didn't anticipate that you would end up doing so much.

J: I do always brag about my mat cutting skills.

S: That’s right, you were quick to brag.

J: Right.

S: I was curious what it would be like for you to work with a friend in a client/editor relationship. Do you work a lot with your friends?

J: I do work with my friends quite often, just not in this sort of way.

S: I wondered if it would make it sort of different, or strange to work with me.

J:  Well, you did fire me twice.

{Laughter}

S: That’s true. I did.

J: You’ve gotta put that in there.

S: {Laughs} I know. I know.

J: And canceled your show three times, I think?

S: Technically only one time publicly.

J: Right, you privately canceled multiple times.

S: I privately canceled the first time.

J: It’s kind of good for the show you know it’s like, “Oh shit, she canceled it. She’s going crazy.”

{Laughter}

S: It was almost like a publicity stunt to draw attention.

J: Right, “Why did she cancel it? I’ve got to go see.”

S: I didn’t really give you too much direction as to what I wanted you to do with the images. This was my first time working with digital images, so at least for me, I approached the images as my compositions and then knew that I was going to leave it up to you to clean them up. I trusted that you knew what to take care of.

J: I think for the most part we did, and we took a very client/editor approach by using the Dropbox online and I would retouch an image and then put it in the box and you’d review it and let me know what you wanted changed. They were all elements that were initially distracting to a photographer’s eye, but if we would have left them I don’t think anyone would have noticed them; I don’t think they were things that would have necessarily detracted from the image.

S: You were very easy to work with. And I really sort of stole your format anyway.

J: I think I was maybe kind of flattered by the format theft.

{Laughter}

S: So back to me firing you, how did you feel about that?

J: Well, the first private canceling I talked you out of pretty quickly.

S: Yeah, it was within about six hours.

J: And you were like, “Oh, yeah you’re right.” And then the public firing was like, “Holy shit, she already canceled it once, so is this really going to happen?”  And it was even closer to the opening date.

S: At that point I felt that since the images weren’t done being edited, then no skin off anyone’s nose just five hundred dollars out of my pocket for mat board and Plexiglas.

J: Oh right, a small price to pay.

S: {Laughs} Right. Well it was something personal, and I don’t want to say something like, “Oh, I’m allowed to be emotionally erratic because I’m an artist.”

J: How cliché

S: I know, right?

J: “Tortured artist.”

S: I’m laughing! I know.

J: Way to play that card.

S: So you edited almost all of the images within a weekend.

J: I did a bulk of the work in a few days. I didn’t set out to do that, but I’m a big time procrastinator.

S: I knew that, right.

J: But I love deadlines. I often procrastinate right up to the last minute. I don’t think my work suffers, I think I’m actually better under pressure; under a deadline.

S: I mean you did know back in November that nearly half of the images were ready for you to work on.

J: Right. I looked at them for a long time.

{Laughter}

S: Right, I suppose you had a pretty good relationship with the images and what they looked like.

**

S: So we’re in the midst of assembling the images, mats and Plexiglas today, how’s that going?

J: You actually realize it’s not that easy, like you said earlier about my familiarity with the format and how easy it would be to put them together. But you know, we’re encountering a bit of human error with mathematics, you know, you can’t rely on the guy at Allard’s to be precise in his mat-cutting. But you said it well when you said that if people at the show are there and judging the framing…

S: Right, that if the images aren’t strong enough to distract from the fact that the Plexiglas is a little off or..

J: Right, if there’s a chipped corner..

S: Then yeah, I need to break my cameras.

J: Right, right, break the cameras.

S: Right, then I shouldn’t be doing this at all.

J: But it’s going well!

S: I think it’s going well!

J: We’re running out of time.

S: Yeah, we are.

J: The sun is setting right now.

S: We technically only have tomorrow, because you have a day job and I have grad school, and we’re installing on Tuesday.

J: I have the feeling we’ll be working on some finishing touches on Tuesday.

S: So how do you feel about having a big part in a show that is going to hang in one of your places of employment?

J: I like it. I’ve done it before when I showed work in my coffee shop in Seattle. It was up for about a month and a half, and it was kind of fun to have that sort of anonymity. Well, unlike this show, my name wasn’t on the wall, I don’t think a lot of people going into Iron Bird know my last name. So, to hear good or bad comments, like when people say, “Oh, these are weird” or ask, “do you know the artist?” and I’m like, “Yeah, he’s a real asshole.”

S: Oh, don’t tell anyone I’m an asshole. I like them to find that out on their own.

S: I thought that would be interesting, as a patron of Iron Bird Cafe. I’ve been telling people that I’m going to avoid going there for the month of February because it will be strange to be surrounded by my work. Though I did enjoy your joke awhile back that I should pose next to the images.

J: Like a modern art installment.

{A black cat scurries along the fence in the yard.}

J: A black cat just crossed our path.

S: It did!

J: Is that a bad sign?

S: Are we going to die before finishing the show?

{Laughter}

S: So do you have any questions for me?

J: No, no I like how this was mostly about me.

S: I’m excited!

J: Right, we’re going to leak an image tonight. We’re going to tease people.

S: Actually they’ll see the image before they read this, or alongside it.

J: Oh, you’re being teased.

S: Yes, reader you’ve been teased.

**

J: I feel bad for whoever has to transcribe this.

S: It will be me.

**

S: You know it hasn’t been so bad, well, I mean you sat in front of your computer for multiple days, but it hasn’t been too much work. {Edit: What the hell am I talking about? It's been tons of work.}

J: You did work on this over a few months. You’ve been done making the images for a few weeks now. It’s really satisfying right, to see them come together?

S: Absolutely! They’ve been so abstract just sitting online and in the dropbox. So to see them as actual prints is very exciting. When I have had shows in the past, working with film, you get to sit with the actual prints for awhile. Whereas, with this show I didn’t have any sort of real life interaction with the images.

J: Right, I didn’t really involve you in that whole process. I figured that was sort of my job.

S: It almost feels like I’m really seeing them for the first time, in just the last 24 hours.

J: Right.

S: Well, I hope everyone comes.

J: Right. Home Is In Your Head. #producin. #earlythirties.

 

 

{Disclaimer: Over 200 "likes" and "ums" were omitted from this transcription. Hunter & Jurcak sounded like two Valley Girls talking about making art. It was like, so ridiculous.}