Mint

Miyoshi Barosh received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design, and her MFA from California Institute of the Arts. She currently has work at the New Children’s Museum in San Diego and at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles.  In addition to showing in New York and Los Angeles, she was Managing Editor at BOMB magazine in the early eighties in New York, and editor and publisher of Now Time in the early nineties in Los Angeles.

Miyoshi is currently in need of experienced studio assistants. She is looking for rocking grannies who are good with knitting needles and / or crochet hooks, who are non-smokers and will work for snacks (if interested, comment on the post).

LP: Ok Miyoshi, Favorite book of all time? It’s a hard one, I know. Maybe just something good you’ve read recently?

MB: My favorite book is either the one I’m reading now, or the one that I’ll read in the future. I hate to think that my favorite book is one I’ve already read, because, then, each subsequent book would be a dissapointment. Books currebtly next to the bed: The Duchamp Effect; Elfriede Jelinek’s Greed; and David Foster’s Oblivion.

LP: Do you listen to music while you’re working? If so, what is it?

MB: I like everything from A3 to Young Marble Giants. Anything reminiscent of Brechtian cabaret is my favorite music right now for the studio.

LP: Describe a good dream you’ve had recently.

MB: I like this phrase, appropriated from Walter Benjamin, because it reads as bombastic manifesto: “the dreams that seep through to daylight and are antithetical to the Work Machine.”

LP: How does the idea of process play into your work?

MB:There usually is a conceptual underpinning, which is often clichéd by phrase, image, or idea. From there I like to layer images, colors, textures…Accumulation allows be to be looser with individual elements because the collected bits create lots of complexity. I like the juxtaposition of jarring elements, I find it reflects our networked lives.

LP: What sort of concepts surround your use of domestic materials and processes?

MB: I started using embroidery, crochet, knitting as well as recycles sweaters and afghans as a reaction to the use of fabricators by Pop artists like Jeff Koons and Paul McCarthy. To counter testosterone-driven Pop, it seemed that “handiwork” would add a kind of Kippenberger-esque artworld f**y** as well as tactile, “happy” coziness. I try to use craft materials in a way that’s not precious or traditionally beautiful but has some muscular legs (see Giant Legs above).

Miyoshi’s work is represented by Luis de Jesus Gallery in Bergamont Station

Don’t forget to check out Miyoshi’s work on the gallery’s site.

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Lindsay Preston is an artist and graphic designer from San Diego. In “Lindsay’s Quick Queries”, Lindsay brings you work by contemporary artists, and answers to the questions everyone has been wondering about them, like “pancakes or waffles?”