Tanner Slick is a puppeteer, painter, sculptor, photographer, and organizer.  His work, in whatever medium, succeeds in being engaging, visually exciting, and, usually, entertaining- it’s dark yet playful, witty, fun, smart, and self-reflective.  Tanner’s mischievous and playful nature shines authentically through all of his work, which jumps effortlessly between media.  I was blown away by his insight in this interview!

 

 

 

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What are you trying to communicate or explore with your work?

I think I make art to try to understand myself. Generally, my work explores my own thoughts and ideas about my existence- who I am and where I am. There are many, more specific concepts that I communicate in different pieces, but they all come from an attempt to situate myself within the world around me. I learn a lot about myself when I look at what I make. I often try not to think too much while I’m working, so I can learn from looking. Each piece is like a compact and complicated log of information from myself to myself and to the world.

 

Where were you when you created one of your favorite works?

I’m not really sure, I’ve been in so many places doing so many different things that I like, but I think putting on my first original puppet production in Brooklyn in 2009, which was called The Sage: A HipHop Puppet Ballet, was probably one of my favorite times. It was with a big an amazing team of about 20 people. We had a lot of fun, did a huge amount of work and make something very cool together.

The Sage (Short) from Tanner Slick on Vimeo.

How do you see your art in relation to cultivating community and how does community affect the work you make?

My artwork is probably me at my most honest and raw. When I think about cultivating community, those are two qualities that I want to have in myself and in others around me. Sharing my visual work is a way for me to open up that kind of dialogue with people around me. I share something about me and then, hopefully, someone shares something with me, a response. Ideally, both sides are being real, that’s how community develops and evolves, or at least the community I want to have. With puppetry and theater, it is such a communal process and experience, that it has the power to cultivate a community just through happening and everyone has a hand in it. Then people see it and then they are a part of the community too, in a way. Its a beautiful thing.

What is your spirit animal?

It changes often, but right now I gotta say the albino skunk that lives in my backyard.

What places in Northampton and around are you most curious to see inside of, or to make work in?

Abandoned industrial spaces are really exciting to me. I like to go into places that have not been lived in or used in a long time because they are like physical ghosts. I don’t always make work in them, but I find them inspiring for what I do in my work space. I do a lot of dancing in these spaces though, which feels like art, or at least visceral expression and plan to be dancing in old, broke down ghost buildings ’til the day I die.

 

 

What are some strategies you use to sustain your creative practice?

Variety. I think my creative process flourishes when I allow myself to have a variety of ideas and practices. I make all kinds of stuff from food, music, puppets, movements and paintings, so I have a practice for every mood, I guess. This helps me keep on making even if I hit a block or something in one area, or on one project. I think continuing to work is what sustains my work, for me. I also get really excited by collaborative projects and feel that they are a kind of break from my own solo stuff, so I try to do that a lot too. making even if I hit a block or something in one area, or on one project. I think continuing to work is what sustains my work, for me. I also get really excited by collaborative projects and feel that they are a kind of break from my own solo stuff, so I try to do that a lot too.

 

You can see Tanner’s work in lots of places!

• Online at www.tannerslick.com
• In the window of Food For Thought Books in Amherst, starting December 4th.
• In a puppetry piece at the Band of Puppets Festival at the Bushwick Star in Brooklyn, NY December 8th-11th
• In a 2012 artists calendar that will be available soon in local stores!

 

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