ThreeWalls Blog

An Interview with Pete Schulte

posted July 3, 2010 in residents

Iowa City based artist, Pete Schulte, recently completed a residency at threewalls.  Pete's past and current work is number of projects, including drawings done in graphite and pastel, installation, and objects.  Towards the end of his stay, Pete opened his studio to the public, showing an installation of his own work and "Not Here Not There", a group show he organized within the studio space and back rooms of threewalls.  More of his work can be seen at schulteprojects.com.

Having already completed two other residencies this year, the studio seems to be an important part of your work.  Can you describe your process in making work? 

Drawing is the cornerstone of my practice.  It is my daily activity and the point of departure for all of my projects.  From there, a variety of activities commence, including sculptural, social, site-conditioned, time-based, and curatorial projects.  I don’t privilege any particular media or work from a specific position - theoretical or otherwise.  I simply try to move through the world with eyes, heart, and mind open. As experiences and ideas impress themselves upon me they often find tributaries into the work that I make. In so far as the studio is concerned, I’m less interested in the idea of The Studio (writ large), than I am in the idea of collapsing the distance that exists between where the work is made, and where and how it is presented. 

I’ve noticed that the studio space also comes into play in your documentation. Shadows cast on drawings are thoughtfully placed, and windowsills become backdrops.  How would you describe the role of the time and of the physical space around you in your work? 

The conditions of a given site are important to me regardless of whether they are in my studio, a traditional exhibition space, or perhaps something less rigorously defined.  In the contemporary artworld, site-specificity has become increasingly, and to my mind, rather narrowly articulated by mere responses to a given set of architectural conditions. While architectural conditions obviously inform one’s response to site, the potential field of inquiry is vastly larger.  It seems far more interesting to me when artists working in this realm expand their line of inquiry to include the potential psychological, historical, political, social, and/or spiritual implications involved in working with a particular site.

Can one frame a space and time the way one traditionally frames a drawing?  On some level it’s a very simple question, but it has continued to fuel my exploration and practice. My studio has generally been the arena where this process unfolds.  On a practical level, treating the space and time as the work helps me to keep anything and everything in play and worthy of consideration - be it the drawings, a sculpture, a windowpane, a pile of records, a stone given by my daughter, etc.    

What have you been working on during your stay at threewalls? 

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about a book called The Drop Edge Of Yonder, by Rudolph Wurlitzer. At the beginning of the novel, the main character is cursed to live between life and death, not being able to discern the difference between the two. Not Here Not There is the name of the character that places the curse, and it is also the name that I’ve adopted for the installation at threewalls.  Between leaving my home and losing someone very dear to me, I’ve been struggling with an inevitable sense of drift; questioning where I am, reflecting on what’s been lost, at what cost, taking one-step, then another, and, invariably, trying to move a little further up the road. An obvious metaphor for life is also a reality that’s being compressed into a very short period of time for me. While I may not have been completely conscious of it while making the work, this sense of drift, loss, reflection, and uncertainty seems to be coursing through everything that I’ve done over the last few months - sometimes more apparent, sometimes less. 

The installation is comprised of several drawings, some previously made, others on sight, as well as a few sculptural pieces and objects.  The raw nature of the space, as well of traces of its previous history have been left in tact but, in something of an homage to Gaylen Gerber, I have painted portions of the walls gray.  It’s also important to note that the installation, like much of my of my work, is never ‘finished’. The space at threewalls remained in a constant state of flux for the duration of my stay, just as the ideas and work generated there will continue evolve after I leave.

 Narrative seems to be a significant part of your work.  Can you describe its function in your practice?  How does it relate to your use of text? 

It’s funny to hear that because, for many years, my work suppressed - or at least attempted to suppress narrative completely. As my work has evolved over the last five years or so, that has obviously changed - a change that I’ve come to embrace. I tend to work from the heart, as opposed to some sort of ironic posture or theoretical position, and the seems to resonate on an emotional level.  I’m interested in art not as it is separated or divorced from life, but deeply enmeshed within it.  I don’t set out to tell stories or dictate meaning, but – as the answer to your next question will attest  - narrative seems to attach itself to the work and accrue meaning over time. 
 

About five years ago I made a small, rather unassuming drawing; graphite on paper.  I’d been concentrating on work in this vein for several months, but something about this drawing felt different, both in terms of my facility with the materials, as well as the manner in which I had been thinking about conceptual resonances within the work.    The paper was becoming slightly soft and compromised, and the image sort of breathed itself up and into the surface. It just felt right, and I continue to identify with this drawing very strongly.  Around the same time that I made this piece a friend related the story of a mutual acquaintance that had recently passed.  On his deathbed he scrawls a note to family and friends telling them not to worry, that he would indeed be taken care of when he crossed over.  He signs his name, and in the post-script writes, “Quiet please. When I am gone, I am gone.” Eventually, that phrase – which completely blew me away - latched itself on to the aforementioned drawing. If nothing else, my work on whole tends to hinge on nuance and subtlety, and when I give artist talks I usually try to take few drawings, as it is difficult to get a sense of these qualities when the work is projected and dramatically enlarged.  Several years later, I’m giving a talk at small college in northern Iowa.  After the talk I packed-up the drawings, and took them home.  When I unpacked, that particular drawing was gone and I have not seen it since.  After the initial disappointment, I became amazed that the drawing had become the title.  Quiet Please. When I am gone, I am gone – was indeed gone. My next impulse was to simply re-make the drawing. I was immediately reminded of the phrase (which I later found to be attributed to Heraclitus) – You can never step into the same river twice because new water is always washing over you.  I can make a drawing - same size, same materials, same imagery (for lack of a better term) - and not ever replicate the original.  Which really calls into question any notion of a multiple.  This experience has had a profound effect on my development and continues to open doors and fuel aspects of my work.  When I’m not sure what to do, what to draw, what to make, I will often re-visit this idea – the trapezoid, as you call it.  I’ve drawn it and remade it in several permanent and ephemeral forms over the years.  It seems to function as something of a marker for me; showing me where I’ve been, where I am, and where I might be able to go.  Quiet Please.  When I am gone, I am gone. 
 
Your work has a similar sensibility to the way you arrange a space.  Do you approach your curatorial and collaborative projects in the same way as you do your studio work? 

I try to find the most interesting and efficient ways possible to communicate and resist privileging one over the other.  I approach all of my projects in this way, whether it’s my work proper or curatorial projects.   Collaboration is tricky, as it necessitates a negotiation between the parties involved.  Generally, I find collaborative projects to be immensely difficult and rarely engage in them.  The collaborative projects that I’ve been able to sustain, particularly The Men’s Sewing Club with David Dunlap, work because of the deep respect and the shared sensibilities of the participants.  David and I occasionally question the production of our collaboration. Is it the drawings that we produce - or - the conversations and ideas that evolve as we share the space and time.  I tend to think it’s the latter.  

You’ve created an exhibition in your studio here at threewalls, which includes your own work as well as the work of other artists.  Can you tell us about some of those artists and the pieces you’ve chosen for the show?  The show isn’t limited to artwork, and also includes threewalls debris, such as leftover floor planks from Claire Pentecost’s recent installation and stacks of our yellow folding chairs.  The result feels deliberate and well put together.  How did you decide to utilize the space in this way, embracing the objects the gallery keeps hidden away? 

My initial plan for threewalls involved opening an ad-hoc alternative space in my studio.  I have long been interested in the work of Chicago artist Gaylen Gerber and thought this the perfect opportunity to not only foreground the curatorial aspect of my practice, but to also engage him in something of a guerilla collaboration. Unbeknownst to him, I intended to call the space The Gaylen Gerber Gallery and would promote the evolving exhibition as Pete Schulte and Gaylen Gerber with… (insert names of participating artists here).  I painted a portion of the space middle gray and brought with me the work of several other artists whose work would be, in Gerber’s language, foregrounded in this exclusively Chicago context.  I offer this simplified précis because I still love the idea and would like to see it come to fruition at a later time. However, when I arrived at threewalls and got a feel for the space, it simply did not feel right for the project and I decided to go in a different direction.  As luck would have it, (threewalls director) Shannon Stratton paid me a visit toward the end of my stay, and asked if I would like to open my studio/installation to the public during Eric Fleischauer’s opening the next night.  There are two different storage/work rooms situated between the main gallery and resident studio at threewalls. Over the course of our conversation Shannon expressed a desire to have residents utilize those spaces as well.  I told her I might have an idea, she told me to do whatever I want, and in less than 24 hours I put together a show that included some of the work that I brought, some work in the threewalls collection, and some debris and ephemera that was hanging around the space.  As I mentioned above, I really just try to be sensitive to the spaces that I’m working with/in, to allow the histories and conditions of the space to be revealed, and to hopefully spark resonances between the site and work presented. To offer one example - it turned out that the debris from the previous show was completely conversant with John Dilg’s amazing painting of an ice-laden tree.  I usually come back to a place where I simply ask myself, “How does it feel?”  Dialing it down to this degree helps me to not pay so much heed to established logic and academic propriety. Like the installation of my personal work, the group-show was titled, Not Here Not There, and seems to embody a similar spirit of drift and wandering.  The show included the work of Mariah Dekkenga, Julia Schwadron, John Englebrecht, Sophia Toal-Schulte, John Dilg, Josh Anderson, David Dunlap, Stacie Wilson, Noel Allen, and Claire Pentecost’s Debris. 


What’s next for you?  Any upcoming exhibitions, projects, residencies?

I’ve spent the last five months on the road and in various residencies, so I’m looking forward to a little bit of consistency and stability, at least for the foreseeable future. Before embarking on my travels I left my home in Iowa City, not knowing where I would land at the end of it all.  As fate would have it, a very exciting opportunity has just emerged in - of all places - Iowa City.  I’m about to take up a new position there as curator and director of a space called The Times Club, which is part of the legendary Prairie Lights Bookstore.  The Times Club has an interesting history, as it is located in the exact same space that the local literary society met throughout the 1930's, hosting writers Robert Frost, Sherwood Anderson, Langston Hughes, and e e Cummings, among others. Reportedly, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas were scheduled for a reading but were sleeted-in at Waukesha airport-- or so the story goes.  At any rate, the owner wants to explore new possibilities and programming in the space, and seems to like the curatorial ideas that I’ve brought to the table.  I am also scheduled to have a solo show at Iowa City’s PublicSpaceOne in February.