Sara
Krajewski: Your videos on view at the Henry show us just
a snippet of a longer period of observation. Why did you
choose video to record or represent these experiences? Do
you feel that the videos condense the broader experience
into a moment that's timeless in a sense, like a memory?
Cat
Clifford: Video seemed the most direct medium. If I used
drawing or dry-point it would be once more removed from
these experiences. There is certainly a place for that in
my practice but it didn't seem right for the kind of intimacy
I was experiencing with this landscape.
Two
of the videos were created during a residency in Wyoming.
I spent my mornings and evenings for five weeks watching
deer feed. During the hot hours of the day, I looked for
their beds and spent a lot of time attempting to move like
them. In To Walk like a Deer brief moments of these attempts
are recorded and compiled together. The result is a series
of snapshots but somehow the piece's form has made it more
universal and not specific to a certain time. I like to
think that all of the videos succeed in doing this. Although
this place and its experiences are highly personal, there
is something familiar and reassuring about the videos for
most viewers.
SK:
Do you lose track of time when you are observing things
in nature?
CC:
If I've lost track of time, I know I am making (or more
likely, made) something that will resonate with me later.
This is because I am completely committed to what I am doing
and responding to the place in which I am doing it. I'm
invested. Without this, the piece is forced and the sincerity
and honesty I am seeking is not present.
SK:
The videos each present a visually compelling landscape
that has been carefully framed, rather than simply presenting
a space in which the performance took place. Do you think
about the more traditional forms of landscape art when making
your videos?
CC:
I started out as a landscape painter. The bulk of my education
was in painting so I apply that language to my work. I am
very aware of the composition of my images and, in a way,
think of my videos as moving paintings. I have two ways
of working with the camera: it is either stationary or hand-held.
It is in the stationary pieces that I see the greatest connection
to the traditional genre of landscape art. I go out into
a landscape and find there is something specific to that
place I want to capture. I then spend a fair amount of time
finding the right spot for the camera ? just as a painter
would find the right place for her easel. I also find a
place for the action/performance to unfold. In this way
I am not simply recording the landscape but rather reacting
emotionally and physically to it (much the way one would
through the process of painting). In my hand-held pieces,
the camera carefully follows either my left hand or my feet
while they navigate a landscape be it a deer path, a river
crossing, a trailer site. This method allows me to be part
of the landscape just as the creators of my favorite landscape
paintings and photographs were. It is easy to be detached
from a landscape if you're constantly looking at it through
the lens.
