Aliyah Marr (author, designer and inter-media artist extraordinaire), sits down for a one-on-one conversation. Discussing her artistic education in Paris, and her current life in Southern California, Aliyah reflects on her past, and speculates about her future; contemplating her stance on art, and the art of surfing.

Dee-Marie: Do you currently live and exhibit your works of art in New York City?

Aliyah Marr: I have exhibited internationally and nationally. I do not often exhibit because of the time it takes to do so. Two years ago I gave up my life in New York City to come to Southern California. Like they say in Monty Python's Flying Circus, "... and now for something completely different."

I originally went to New York to perfect my graphic design skills and to exhibit my art. At the time of the dot-com craze I was at the pinnacle of my design career; finally, my hard work was paying off. But, it wasn't to last long. After the dot-com bubble burst the economic situation was very bad for a while; art directors, like myself, were having to work at McDonald's, yet the cost of living was still high. When I asked myself the question, "Now what?" I still couldn't come up with a better place for my dual careers in art and design, so I decided to make a move based upon a different criteria—what did I really want? What new challenge could I pursue?

 

Beauty Tip #1—Exfoliate © Aliyah Marr 2002

 

DM: Did you continue with your art when you moved to California, or did you go in a totally different direction…what new challenges did you pursue?

AM: Well...I always wanted to learn to surf, so I decided to get rid of everything, pack a bag and got on an airplane for the other coast. It was a crazy idea, but it was the best thing I could have done. For a while, my condition of total career burnout prevented me from working as a designer. I didn't have a studio, so it was hard to work as an artist. I wasn't ready to get back in the art world; all I could do was surf.

DM: Ironically, often taking a break from creativity ignites the urge to create. Was that the case with you? What creative waves are you currently riding?

AM: Now I am writing a book on creativity in a blog online, called Parallel Mind (Everyone is welcome to read this book as I write it).

I also have an interest in creating or participating in conceptual, interactive spaces for collaborative communities of creative individuals, like Renderosity. I think that this is the wave of the future, and that traditional galleries belong to the 19th century.

I am also working as creative director for an action sports TV show, called Planet X. We are about to shoot off in other exciting directions.

DM: Like your art, you seem to be branching out in eclectic paths. What specifically piqued your interest in working for a sport's TV show?

AM: What do I like most about the job? They understand that I need to go surfing! [laughter]

DM: Although you presently reside in California, you also have an international art education. Where did you go to school in Europe and what did you study?

AM: I went to the famous Ecole des Beaux-arts in Paris, France. I majored in painting with a minor in printmaking. I was very traditionally and rigorously trained: anatomy, art history, etc. It was an interesting experience; everyone should go to a real art school for at least one year. Can you imagine how much better the world would be if all the politicians had to try to be artists first?

DM: As an art major myself, I can appreciate that statement. How did you qualify for the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-arts? Did you also take classes in the States?

AM: I had to have a couple years in a University here to even get in the school in France—they are very elitist, but then again, so is the United States. It was a great experience, but I have to say that an artist ultimately trains herself. That is why I didn't want to teach art for a long time. I felt that if you were an artist, you just were, and would find a way to do your art regardless. The doing is all the training one needs.

My opinion has changed somewhat since then, and that is evident in my book on creativity. Plus, I really enjoy teaching design, and love art for art's sake. It seems like a truth hidden inside a paradox—as many truths are—that what is most valuable in life is what is often what society values the least. Art is at that stage in most of the USA.

 

The Book of Hours: Magician's Assistant and Fortuna © Aliyah Marr

 

DM: Is your artwork a way to make a living, or is it your reason to live?

AM: I have learned to survive, as many artists do, by first becoming an illustrator and then by becoming a designer. This was not a bad way to go, because it gave me many skills that feed back into my artwork. I like to say that doing art is my way of thinking at a level that is wordless, and can't be reached any other way. In many ways it is a spiritual activity, like a kind of meditation that returns images from a deep universal consciousness. I like to say that the better artist I become, the less and less my personality will be stamped on my work, and more universal it will become.

DM: You are a master of both traditional and computer generated images…what is your favorite media to work in?

AM: I like to say that I am an inter-media artist; I am comfortable in any medium. When I have a concept for the piece, it seems to call for the best medium naturally. For instance, I wanted to explore putting a poem in a virtual 3D space: I had a copy of QuickTime VR and thus made the Subversive QTVR series.

 

Subversive QTVR—Circular Breathing 2 © Aliyah Marr

 

Another time, I had an idea to change a movie from a story to a non-linear piece, so I created the Subtitulo movies; in which I re-edited two famous foreign films, taking out the story line and dialog, and inserting new subtitles to translate the emotions of the actors. I like subverting media: taking an off-the-shelf package and doing something unusual or conceptual with it.

 

Subtitulo (Bergman) and Subtitulo (Kurowsawa) © Aliyah Marr 2002

 

Although I do some fairly intricate programming, I am not a lover of tech: it is just a tool for me to use (or misuse) as I please. The rule of thumb for me is that the content rules the medium, not the other way around. A lot of times a client in my design business makes this confusion, and wants to make decisions based upon the technology available. Tech should never lead concept or content, just enable it. Technological decisions are then easy to make because the concept and point of the whole project is clear.

I still love painting; nothing can replace the tactile and sensual qualities of oil paint on canvas or wood. When I still had my studio on the East Coast, I painted murals on the walls. They were amazing; they used to change in the light as the evening came on; I used to even like the way the oil paint smelled. I was forced to change my technique somewhat when I went even larger; so I used acrylic paint like huge watercolors. The color was so pure, but a bit unpredictable; it is too easy to put it on too heavy, and then the acrylic looks too much like the plastic that it is.

DM: According to your artist statement, on your website, you have two major artistic voices. Do you blend, or juxtapose, your dual creative personalities into your works of art?

AM: For a while the two voices: the Yin and the Yang were very separate. The Yin was soft, reflective and meditative; easy to look at. The Yang voice produced expressive, aggressive work that was at times difficult to have around. They were equally part of my own development, so I had to provide time for both sides. I would often paint both styles in one session—I worked on up as many as ten paintings at the same time.

I put both voices into my Tarot deck; I didn't want to make up new illustrations, so I used my paintings for the images on the cards. The Yin paintings gravitated towards the Major Arcana, because of the contemplative nature of the images matched the Zen-like meanings in the higher cards, and the Yang towards the Minor Arcana, because of the natural turmoil in the images. We need both voices in our personalities to make a balanced person: Jung refers to them as the Anima and the Animus. The Tarot became more balanced by including both voices.

 

Transformational Tarot Arcana Cards © Aliyah Marr

 

DM: As a long time reader of Tarot cards, I was especially interested in your online deck of Transformational Tarot cards. Your deck's artwork is both impressive and unique. Tarot readings are serious business to the devoted spiritualist. What was your intent on basing your cards on the whimsical art of master surrealist, Rene Magritte?

AM: You probably like the imagery because they were not created as Tarot illustrations: the paintings were executed over a 15-year period. The Tarot deck came much later. My first idea for the deck grew from my admiration of Magritte. He was an artist and intellectual, perhaps the first conceptual artist ever, in that he was interested in perception and in how images and words are intertwined in the brain.

There is a very good book on Magritte written by someone who knew him personally and was privy to his sketchbooks and journals. In that book, it is clear that he was exploring the relationship of words, images and perception. When he titled his paintings, he did not describe the image; instead he tried to choose something—seemingly unrelated—that would make the viewer's mind do a kind of mental back-flip.

The surrealists explored all kinds of things to produce this effect, even invented simple machines to produce new sentences out of random elements. I thought that it would be fun to do something similar: I'd randomize the titles of my paintings using a card deck program that would have a number of cards with images and a number of cards with words. The "art" would be made by the computer program that randomly juxtaposed image cards with word cards. The context of the image placed near a word changes the meaning of both the image and the word. When you put them together in groupings of two or more—in which the groupings and card placements themselves have meaning—all of a sudden you have a meaningful Tarot reading.

DM: What software did you utilize in creating the Transformational Tarot program?

AM: I used Adobe Flash and Actionscript programming. I created the program first—to prove to myself that I could program a non-repeating random script—and then created the design. I realized that I had to make it meaningful as a Tarot, so I gleaned meanings from three books on Tarot that I had for the cards. However, I still had some doubts; it was only when I tested it and when others endorsed the deck that I knew I had something there.

What is magical is how—like quantum physics—the expectations of the viewer seems to change the outcome of the shuffle. This happens in a physical Tarot deck, but the virtual nature of my deck makes it even more possible and the magic more plausible somehow. I have had people tell me it was the best reading they have ever had. I believe them because the deck works for me too. I invite your readers to try it—the first time is free.

DM: Besides Rene Magritte, do other artists influence your work?

AM: I like to say that art doesn't progress, so that it doesn't get better than the unknown artists of the Lascaux caves. In my career as an artist, I have done hyper-realistic paintings and naive work, and I have to say that now I prefer what is produced as spontaneously and simply as possible: I understand now why Picasso regressed to childlike drawings as he progressed as an artist.

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication," Leonardo da Vinci used to say. With all I know about artistic anatomy, sometimes I am just trying to throw my knowledge away so I can say something more directly in my art. As a designer, I rely on the slickness of the computer to produce things just so, but as an artist I like to work in deliberate ignorance sometimes. And while I admire 3D animation for the beauty of it and for the technical difficulty of the medium, the work-style doesn't suit my more spontaneous personality.

As far as influences, there are so many, and they don't include only visual artists: the writer Jorge Luis Borges, neurologist Oliver Sacks, Einstein, mythologist Joseph Campbell, and many others. I find inspiration in everything around me; I used to tell my students at Parsons that you know you are an artist when you find inspiration in a stain on the floor of the New York subway, in graffiti on the walls, or in a snippet of a conversation you overheard today. An artist is always attuned to things others simply overlook. Leonardo da Vinci, said he found compositions for his paintings in the cracks and chips on the plaster wall.

DM: Do you have one specific artistic muse?

AM: Everything and anything interests me; the world is a huge playground for a creative individual.

DM: Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to allow our readers to get to know you. As a last questions…what advice can you pass along to artists wishing to make a living at their craft?

AM: Well, don't be shy of doing whatever you can to survive in this crazy world. Then turn around and use it in your art. For example, I had an acquaintance who had a master's degree in English Literature, who was bemoaning her fate when she had to take a job as a secretary at the World (wide) Wrestling Foundation. I thought: What an amazing opportunity for a writer: the stories you could collect! Everything that happens to you is an opportunity; just be aware of it, and use it to make art. Your experiences are the paint, the skills you gain are your brushes, and your life is your canvas. The art you create is you.

We invite you to visit:

• Aliyah Marr's Web Site
• The Transformational Tarot
• Aliyah Marr's Articles
• Parallel Mind by Aliyah Marr
• radi8, Interactive Works of Art

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