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I’ve known Porkchop for many years now starting from when I owned a punk rock store a few doors up from the Parlor Gallery. I’ve always admired his hustle, he’s always busy working on something, one cool project after another. It’s hard enough for a full-time artist to be able to support themselves no less three children! The man doesn’t sit still for long, so I was happy to sit down with him one night at the Parlor Gallery to talk about some international attention he’s been getting the last few months. We spoke about the controversial “Giving Tree” over the holidays, the exciting news about his solo exhibition at the Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art in St. Petersburg, Russia and an in-depth conversation about the story behind his work of art called, “Elucidation”.

Were you surprised at all the attention that The Giving Tree received over the holidays?

Yeah, that was wild. I have friends out in Colorado that saw it and my sister in Oakland, California. While in Miami for Art Basel, I saw something in the Australia and Argentina News. At last count, 44 different news agencies picked it up. Next Christmas, I may need to open up a little “Santa’s Workshop” making cardboard Christmas trees! (“The Giving Tree” merchandise including t-shirts, sweatshirts, ornaments and puzzles are still available at the two FUN HOUSE locations on Cookman Avenue and in Convention Hall.)

Tell me about your show at the Erarta Museum.

I met them a few years ago at Art Basel. They bought a few of my statues. This show was three years in the making. Erarta is a large museum with five floors. It’s the largest private contemporary art museum in Russia. Part of it is a permanent collection which they bought and added two of my pieces to. The other floors are galleries where you can purchase the art. That’s where my 25 pieces are. The exhibition is called, “La Catedral”. I was planning on attending the opening of the show, but with everything that’s going on there with the current situation with Ukraine and Russia, that couldn’t happen. The museum is having a virtual opening instead.

Can you explain the story behind your body of work called, “Elucidation” .

I started painting over mannequins in 2013 and creating these skull-like figures with the idea of how religion evolves and how it borrows and steals from other religions. My installations are similar to an altar so people get the religious aspect. I also create small figurines and busts that I upcycle. I find, fix, build up and paint over them. They get a new lease on life like the full-length figures. They are the equivalent to a reliquary. So, again, there will be some confusing familiarity, “It looks like Beethoven, but…?”

I like text, so I wanted to incorporate text, but if a person does not connect with that word or doesn’t like that word, then they disconnect from it altogether. At first, I said I’d use different languages, but then decided to make up my own. The language is made up, BUT it looks very familiar, like Yiddish or Sanskrit.

Serendipity. Instinct. Timing. These three words ran through my head as I listened to Judi Tavill tell her story. All young Judi wanted for her future as she prepared for college, was to graduate from RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) and be a Fashion Designer. It was all planned out. Instead, she trusted her instinct and took another path being pulled toward Washington University School of Art (St. Louis).
At Washington University, it all came together for her. Doors opened for her that may not have, had she gone the original way and attended RISD. Recently, Judi turned 50 and started reviewing her life and art path. She turned inward, trusted her instinct and changed paths, once again. Judi Tavill is a ceramic artist and sculptor who works and lives in Rumson.

What brought you to create the art that you make?

I was the head designer/design director of Lilly Pulitzer creating everything from textile print
art to garment silhouettes to in-store shop illustrations. I left to start my own line until my first son, (Musician, Jake) was born. I went back to consulting in fashion and created the first “bear” outfits for Build-A-Bear Workshop, among other fashion and textile design
projects. After having my second son, (Artist, Sam), I found clay was off and running. I moved
from creating wheel thrown functional pottery, to deeply carved and textured decorative
pottery and objects. It was great and hard and I loved it until I wanted to “express” more in
my art.

What inspires you?

Inspiration comes from the connectedness of nature and our human connection to nature. I
look to the structures I see in trees, plant life, rock and coral formations and see the direct comparison to that of human bodies and the systems within: vascular, muscular, skeletal. The clear similarities further emphasize the human connection with the earth itself. Basically, we are all ultimately connected, which in a way is a lovely idea, BUT it can be uncomfortable and messy, but it JUST IS.

You recently changed your art from small ceramics to large scale sculptures, tell
me about that change.

I started to rethink my art. I was successful with making functional art: teapots, cups, vases
(and her famous chip/dip bowl), and the decorative pieces, but I wasn’t saying anything.
When I turned 50, I figured it’s now or never and asked myself, “If I could do whatever I
wanted, what do I ultimately want to do?” I wanted my art to be unique and to affect people.
I also wanted it to be different from my functional art – art that you can’t quite figure out right away. I started thinking about energy and connection. My current sculptural series titled, “Entanglements” addresses an awareness of self and society. Humanity being inextricably connected biologically, environmentally, societally — forcing us to contend with the truth that if we cannot find a way to “come together,” we break apart. What you can’t tell from photos of the work, is that the sculptures are pieces that connect together. So, it can be changed by interlocking them in a different way. Or, a collector can “grow” the art, by adding another section to the existing piece at a later date.

How do you think the community can better support their artists?

I think it is important to have art in public spaces to expose people in their daily lives to visual art. I would love to have someone during their day, not actively seeking out art, but just going through their day, notice art and have it effect their perspective at that moment. I feel there are many reasons why people are not exposed to art and/or think they cannot relate. I think it is important to ease people in to see things they are not familiar with and to experience how visual art affects you and can get into your psyche. Getting art into public places and letting the community see what is happening right under their noses may just pull their interest into bringing more art into their private homes. Or, to appreciate it and support more public installations. The community can bring attention to the artists by sharing images, art events and including the local artists in opportunities where their work can gain greater exposure.

Check out Judi’s art at: jjuditavill.com, IG: @juditavillart FB: juditavillart

I’m a self -aught artist. A few years ago, I started to collage because I realized I was missing a creative outlet in my life and felt stagnant and unfulfilled. At that time, I was working full time as an acupuncturist and part time as a social worker on an inpatient psych unit with the chronically mentally ill. When COVID hit I had to close my office for a few months, which allowed me the time and space to dive headfirst into my art. Initially I was just exploring different types of collaging, then more mixed media collage. This eventually led me into painting my backgrounds for certain collages and then making more mixed media art in general. I’ve always used my art to process my life, both internally and externally. I currently work out of my home. I converted one of my bedrooms to my “art room,” but will also hang canvases in the hallway and paint there or my backyard.

My days basically consist of waking up, making coffee, feeding the cats and I start to create until I go to my office. Once I’m done sticking needles in people, I come home and create some more. I usually have multiple works going on simultaneously, so having that break away from my art helps me get better perspective on what I need to modify or work on. I mainly listen to Buddhist monks chanting while I work. I have a lot of inspiration. I have a few “muses” in my life or will get ideas/visions while treating people or while I sleep. I’ve also curated my home and yard to provoke creativity. If I get in a funk, some days I sit in it. I feel as though I give a lot of energy and myself into my art, so there are times I just need to recharge. Other times I go through the ridiculous amount of material I have, and connections will connect in my brain, sparking inspiration. I also go to museums or look at other people’s art for inspiration or for new things I can try. Since I have no training a lot of my work is trial and error.

I’m currently just entering my work into juried exhibits. One of my pieces is currently in a juried show at the Atlantic Highlands Arts Council until January 2022. I have 3 pieces that are in a show in Jersey City through Art House Productions. I have another piece that was accepted into the National Collage Society Juried Exhibit which unfortunately is only online this year due to COVID. Otherwise, I do group art shows at Bond St. Complex frequently and have a few pieces at Pulp in Asbury.

I feel the community could support less known or starting out artists better by showcasing their work. It’s wonderful to see art around town but it’s mainly muralists and not artists that produce smaller works in different mediums. There are so many great artists out there that just do not know how to get their work seen. Luckily a lot of local businesses like Bond, Medusa, Pulp, Severed Wing and Café Volan allow for the space for local artists to show their work.

When I first saw Shari Epstein’s work my abstract heart fell in love! Shari and her mixed-media collages have been on my radar for several years. However, I had never met her until preparing for this article. Shari’s artwork is elegant and refined, yet edgy and contemporary. Right now, the series that Shari is working on is a bird series, called, “Avian”. She acquired a beautiful set of fine paper napkins which became the main star of the collages. Once those napkins are gone though, that series is done and she will move on to a new series of fabulous work.

Art can sometimes get very serious, controversial, complicated and deep. Other times, it is just pure and simple fun! That brings me to the art of Highlands artist, Steve Solop. Steve has had an impressive career in the fashion business and after a life-changing medical emergency, combined with quarantine and a global pandemic, he started making quick, whimsical drawings on his phone that he started posting daily. I first saw one of his digi-drawings in an art show that I had my work in also at the Atlantic Highlands Arts Council. His “Poochie Poochie Poo” was so damn cute! After the virtual opening, I looked him up on Instagram and loved his pictures! Seeing them on my feed each morning was (and still is) a pure visual treat!

Tell me about your art background?

I don’t have any schooling or course study in the arts. I have a design background. In high school when everyone wanted to play like Hendrix, I wanted to dress like him, once I got this thought into my head, I couldn’t let it go. I asked the sewing arts teacher to help me make a shirt. It was a great success! That summer I made 13 shirts. I then pitched to the Principal what a great idea it would be to let me take the sewing class. My wish was granted and this amazing un-square life of mine commenced! The word got out and The New York Times published an article referencing my shirt-making which caught the eye of a private design school Headmaster, Joe Cybick. He sent me information about the school and I enrolled after graduating college (I attended FIT and Villanova as well).

Located in Gramercy Park, it was few blocks away from my favorite NYC hang, Max’s Kansas City. I ate a late lunch there every day, sometimes lunch would last into the evening. Max’s was the home of all the moving stars, hangers-on and wannabe’s. It was a comfortable hang, a visual and audio smorgasbord. Max’s was the Algonquin Round Table of our generation. This was 1978, a pivotal year, a cultural and generational turning point.

Eventually, I went to work at Brooks Brothers where I managed the shirt factory, I was then recruited by Perry Ellis. Perry was a petri dish of creativity and fastidious intellect, the best of the best – Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, the amazing illustrator, Richard Haines.

What brought you to create the art that you make?

I suffered a massive heart attack on Memorial Day 2019, the kind no one really survives. I was fading fast for what I thought were my final moments. Once you realize you are rendered helpless, you stop the struggle to survive, a very easy exit, stuff races through your head pretty quick and you think about all you left on the table. It happened fast and unexpectedly. My life has been very different since that day. This would be the beginning of removing constraints, restrictions and discovering what has been locked away, resulting in my quick digital snippets.

How did the quarantine/Covid-19 affect you as an artist?

When the city went on lock-down and coming to the realization that my businesses of 20 years were probably no longer, as I always do, I kept a positive outlook. I continued to doodle and post with no agenda or preconceived notions. The daily postings were the perfect therapy for my social media friends and myself. We became this huge support group. I received tons of notes saying that they looked forward to seeing my daily drawings and how uplifting they were. What a lovely surprise that my sloppy doodles made such an impact. Moreover, it has encouraged others to step out of their comfort zone and start doing daily doodles. Patty, my wife, continues to look at me with bewilderment and amazement as this evolves. This is a gift I am grateful for and do not take for granted.

Where do you work out of?

I can work almost anywhere, I create on my smart phone, which is a Samsung Note 8, it’s with me all the time. My brick and mortar design studio and custom dress shirt shop are located near Sandy Hook.

How often can you create?

With my smart phone, any time I have a spare moment or an idea, that’s the beauty of it. I pull the stylus out and start hacking away. It lets me be spontaneous to my thoughts and observations. I post daily to my social media accounts and I will soon offer NFTs.

Christopher Lopa, a.k.a., Scrappyboy, has been creating collages for over 40 years. His collages have been on album covers, printed in art books, and swapped with fellow artists from around the world. Visiting Scrappyboy’s studio is like entering his brain, which is a warm, wild, fun, dark, yet colorful place to be!

What brought you to create the art that you make?

In 1975, I created a 3×4’collage of Linda Blair based on her character in The Exorcist. I also used to create my own calendars and would write daily what I did and what punk shows I went to. I then started adding things to them like ticket stubs, pictures, all these scraps of my life. That was the beginning of my collaging. I couldn’t paint or draw and collage materials were readily available. You’re only as good as the materials you use. Your imagination should not have limitations, I used what I had around me – newspapers, magazines, markers, scissors.

Tell me about your art and your process?

I use an X-Acto knife and books that I pick up at flea markets and thrift shops. They are older, dated photography books, art books, children’s picture books and anything visually interesting. I look through the images in the books for a background and most always find the most outrageous exact opposite of whatever the background may be, or vice versa. If I find a pretty flower, I want to put it in a war theme. If I find a cool graveyard background, I’ll probably put two people dancing over it. I like extremes. I have visions, I see collages before they’re actually put together and things just fall into place. I don’t dawdle over a collage, I create them in like 10 or 15 minutes. Nothing sits for days. I put it down before I have a chance to obsess about it, then it’s done and too late for me to do anything about it.

Where do you work out of?

I have a studio (I call it his “Collage Cave”) in my basement in Neptune City. When my husband and I lived in a loft in the city, he being a photographer, created these giant black foam core backdrop “walls”. We then used them to create our bedroom in our loft. I didn’t want to look at the black walls, so and I naturally started to collage them. I tacked up band pictures, band posters, magazine ads, and all kinds of fun crap. They moved with me over the years and a couple decades and now are the walls of my art room. I add new photos and ephemera and move things around to keep them alive and interesting.

What do you listen to when you create?

Oh, my punk rock, of course! Some days it’s GBH, Anti-Nowhere League, Killing Joke. I also love 70’s disco, I love Donna Summer, I love Frank Sinatra, I love The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees. It depends on my mood.

As a collage artist myself, I have a collection of flea market finds as well. Being a book lover, I find that I can’t cut up books to use in collages, like defacing a beloved book is going to land me in “Library Hell”! How do you feel about that? Well, I used to feel that way too, but remember, I use old books that are one step away from a landfill. So, I’d rather give them some love and new life as art. When I find a new book, I get energized and excited flipping through it and “seeing” all the collages I can make from it. I feel it’s better than having the books sitting on a shelf for years until someone throws them away! (This point of view inspired me to use my books, thank you SB!)

You can find Scrappyboy’s collages on his website: scrappyboy.blogspot.com and
IG: scrappyboys_salon

Now that we have stretched out, shed the “athleisure wear” and got vaxed, how exciting is it to see the world opening up again and adding things to our weekend calendars?! I for one, am stoked to be able to see some live music and go to art openings again! One Opening I am looking forward to is at ChaShaMa in Matawan. ChaShaMa offers 11 artist studio spaces and an exhibition space steps from the Matawan train station. It’s run by my dear friend and Asbury local, Donna Kessinger. The Opening is this Friday, June 25th from 6-8 pm with live music being performed by Johnny Nameless. This dual show called, “Headspace”, will be featuring the art of Kelly Benning and Campbell Grade. I follow Campbell’s art page on Instagram and contacted her about her art and this upcoming show.

What is your background, are you self-taught or did you go to art school?

I went to Elmira College and majored in Studio Arts. I took classes in a lot of different media: digital, sculpture, printmaking, and I pretty much sucked at everything that wasn’t painting so it makes sense that painting is what I continued to enjoy after school. I love painting because it’s tactile and mushing paint onto a canvas just feels good. Oil paints are even better because I can still push them around a week later because they take ages to dry.

Tell me about the art your exhibiting in the “Headspace” show.

I created this series because I had done some 10″x10″s, 4″x4″s and eventually found 2″x2″ canvases. I really enjoyed the challenge of working on something that small, but also with my limited attention span, they were projects that I could easily finish. When I was making these paintings, there was always leftover paint on my palette which I hated to throw away. My solution was to scoop it all up with a big brush and plop it onto the small canvas. It just developed from there. I like to see how much paint I can get on there and the different strokes I can make with a brush that’s the same size as the canvas while still maintaining separate colors and layers.

How often do you create?

I really try to sit down and make something every week, even if it’s just a small study of one of my plants. Life can become so hectic and if you don’t make the time for art then it quickly stops being a priority. Like I said, I have a limited attention span, so I usually have multiple projects going at once.

If or when you get lost in an “art funk” (like writer’s block for artists), what helps you get back to creating?

I did not do well with creating last summer during Covid. Not going to work and not having a social life made it very difficult to do anything. I had zero motivation. I do work better in isolation, but since everyone else in the house was also home because of the “lockdown,” I felt unable to paint even when I wanted to. However, this show was supposed to happen last year, and I would not have completed 100 paintings in time if everything didn’t close down.

As a Monmouth County resident, how do you think the community can better
support their artists?

It would be nice if there were more opportunities for artists who are just starting out. ChaShaMa is great because it gives artists the space they need to develop their work and it’s created a community in and of itself. A lot of young artists need more than just a month-long show to launch their careers, they need resources to create and they need opportunities to learn how to market themselves and make connections so that they can continue showing their artwork after their exhibition. A lot of artists have to figure out how to navigate this on their own and I would like to see a nurturing art community helping and guiding the young artists.

See more of Campbell’s work on her website: https://campbellpaints.wixsite.com/home
& Instagram: @campbell.paints

ChaShaMa on Instagram: @chamatawangalleryandstudio

Email Donna ideas for shows at: Donna@chashama.org