Some Serious Business presents #FiftyQuestions to highlight folks who are creating, presenting, questioning and critiquing. Each featured artist picks a handful of questions to answer.
As Michie starts her residency in Tuscany, we asked her to answer a few of our signature #FiftyQuestions that probe the intentions, emotions, and practices of artists, writers, and thinkers. Artists with something to say, inquire here.
4- Describe your ideal workspace.
An open room with a desk + comfortable chair; adjoining room for books and electronics
7- What project of yours do you personally consider your most satisfying, and why – regardless of external support or accolades?
The Island of the Mapmaker’s Wife, filmed in Amsterdam, because I had such talented collaborators, and the most creative control, hence freedom.
11- What is your current guiding motivation to work and/or express yourself?
Historical crisis.
13- Do you have a relationship with the distant future – in other words, are you making artwork that bears a message or impact for coming generations?
Be here now is the best you can do.
18- Can you recall your first memory of bliss in self-expression?
A black & white photograph, taken inside a cathedral with a 4×5 Speed Graphic for my first college photography class.
23- How would you describe your ideal relationship with other artist colleagues?
Ideally, we would have good dinners, exchange Ideas and offer each other helpful critiques … but alas, things get so competitive.
25- Do your dark nights of the soul tend to be constructive or destructive to your self-expression?
Mostly destructive, which means—finally, probably, constructive.
26- Is destruction a positive phenomenon for you?
In the movie business, when you get stuck or lose the plot, they say, “Blow something up.” Sometimes it works.
32- How have your years in artmaking affected or influenced your sense of self?
They have been my path to who I am.
38- How important is it to you that others connect and understand and appreciate your work?
It is important, and always delightful, but not essential.
47- Describe the greatest gift someone has given to you that invigorated your artistic expression?
This residency is one of the best.
48- Are you more interested in the universal or the individual? How important is it to you whether you express yourself as a unique person, or rather add your voice to a collective conversation?
I’m interested in ways the individual connects to the universal.