Martha Russo answers...
What is your definition of art?
Art is visual philosophy. Art has the potential to change the way one feels, thinks, lives.
How would you describe your artwork?
My work is abstract, organic forms that change spaces. My hope is that the abstract nature of the work suspends language long enough to allow the senses to ponder and to muse.
What influences your art?
Everything oddly beautiful, everything in nature (especially underwater and in the mountains), the meanderings in the body, scanning electron microscopes, chemistry, art and artists, lots of the same of something, my kids, husband, family, friends, peers, and students.
Who are your favorite artists?
Anish Kapoor, Jana Sterbak, Ernesto Neto, Eva Hesse, Scott Chamberlin, Antonio Gaudi
What is your favorite artwork by another artist?
Most recent favorite is "Memory" by Anish Kapoor
If you could have dinner with any artist, living or dead, who would it be? What one question would you ask?
I would make a cake with Julia Child and Antonio Gaudi in a house designed by IM Pei and the grounds designed by Maya Lin and have Louise Bourgeios and about ten, ten- year olds come and eat the cake. I would ask them how to stay a kid.
Describe one challenge you constantly face in your practice?
That I have to sleep .... wish I always had more time.
How do you know when an artwork is complete?
Just sense it. Not really sure.
What is one discovery you have made while working?
I try not to know what I am making and set up my process so it is all about discovery. Therefore, I make small discoveries all the time. That is what fuels the work and me.
What is the role of the artist in today's society?
See-er , feel-er and tell-er
What is the strangest comment someone has said about your work?
Not sure... some people are afraid of my work...makes them feel queasy.
What else are you interested in besides art?
Playing any kind of sports, music, cooking and eating great food, helping our two children grow up, teaching art.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Constantly juggling raising a family, staying happily married, making art, teaching and playing as much as possible.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
How much I hate computers when they don't work.
Which living person do you most admire? Dead person?
Living = Toshiko Takaezu, artist and my first art teacher at Princeton University when I was an undergrad. She taught me how to work.
Dead = Odelia Avantaggio Leone, my grandmother, who taught me empathy.
What is your greatest extravagance?
Drinking prosecco whenever there is the slightest opportunity.
What or who is the greatest love of your live?
What = art and everything surrounding it.
Who = my husband, Joe, and kids, Odelia and Henry
When and where were you the happiest?
Lots of choices.. But the most recent was in Positano, on the Amalfi Coast in Italy, at a small family run restaurant on a cliff over-looking the Mediterranean with my family having the best home cooked Italian meal of our lives. All old family recipes. Never had anything like it before..ever!
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I would change having only 1 of me... would love 2 or 3 of me so I could do it all, all the time.
Where would you like to live?
Other than Colorado... which is really ideal for us... the island of Elba off the western coast of Italy for a good part of the year and then in the winter nested in between some big mountains so that we could ski all the time.
Who are your heroes in real life?
My mom, Emily, who is 85 and has raised 4 kids, been a medical social worker, and has survived cancer 3 times.
My dad, Tony, who is 85 and has raised 4 kids, been a dentist, and was a decorated hero in WWII.
What is your motto?
Do everything with a sense of urgency and a sense of elegance and a sense of humor.
