artist's interview: MARISSA ARTERBERRY

the queen herself,
Marissa Arterberry

all pieces displayed below 
are original creations by: Marissa.

She is the Universe

Map

Funkstress

Azmera and The Tar Baby

Marissa Arterberry is a positively vibrant young artist whom i had the pleasure of meeting while we both were getting on our feet in New York City. i was drawn to her warm smile, funky fashions, Ma’at tattoo, and her genuinely caring demeanor. originally a California girl, Marissa currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.

about her creative work, Marissa writes, "My work centers around rituals created to heal a collective history, and I focus on women as the conduits for these self-created rites. I can't let a photograph of a lynching or the traumatic history of slavery just 'be.' My paintings and drawings essentially amount to 'laying hands on' a particular memory or person. At the same time, these healing rites are a celebration of life and survival, and the strength and beauty that emerges when one comes out on the other side of pain."

may you enjoy this super rich unveiling of my first long-distance artist’s interview. 
queenly insights ahead, no doubt.

kelly: Marissa! an honor it is to interview you. tell me, what drew you to New York City at this point in your life? how long have you been there? … we have similar stories in that we both recently parted from the city ~ you returned. how do you feel about your return? MARISSA: Wow, ecstatic really. It was a blessing to have the opportunity to come back a little stronger and wiser, with both eyes open to the realities of living in this city. In my return, I kind of think of myself like water. I really did just have to let go (of preconceived notions, my issues surrounding materialism and material possessions, so many things!) and just allow myself to flow into this place, and trust that I would be taken care of, and that if I was patient, the things I needed would come my way. I didn't try to force things the way I did the first time around. I learned to breathe and appreciate what was right in front of me.

kelly: how are you creatively impacted by New York City? lay it on me real. on the flip, tell me about your California home and how you feel inspired by that place too. MARISSA: Wow, well as most people know, space is at a premium in New York. It's expensive just to pay rent, much less have a studio space, and the spaces New Yorkers occupy are usually quite small. It definitely altered my creative process and the way I relate to space. I've always painted these big bright canvases, but becoming a New Yorker, the spacial and economic realities of it, pushed me off the canvas. I couldn't afford canvas, and didn't have space for it either. That's when I started to explore works on paper more. I found books on the street that I tore the pages out of and made little watercolor and ink pieces on, and I've started creating this series of hanging figures from cut paper and yarn (stuff I can buy cheap) and that has revealed so much for me about my work in relation to the space around it. So I would say being in this place has lead me in some exciting new directions. In northern California, the art culture is much more open and outdoors, which was great. I would set up at all sorts of festivals, paint collaborative murals in front of live audiences, that kind of stuff. There's a lot of interaction between the artists and the community there. Folks are painting outside, having public viewings at their studios, and participating in all sorts of community projects.

kelly: you’ve been quite fortunate to do some yummy traveling. what inspires you about the places you’ve visited? how do these inspirations live in your art? and what places do you itch to experience next? MARISSA: I have had some very exciting journeys, each taking on very interesting forms. I traveled to Costa Rica with my science class, and we spent our days hiking the rainforests and studying plant and animal life, and visiting these amazing preserved wild areas of land. I traveled to Ghana with 3 Black Studies professors, tracing the journey the kidnapped/enslaved Africans took, from the villages all the way to the dungeons on the coast. We poured libations and laid so much baggage down there. A poetry professor also took a bunch of us to Quebec for the huge FTAA protests that occurred there a few years back. That was an eye opening experience, seeing all these people come together in various forms of resistance, and witnessing the realities of a police state. These journeys have influenced my art on so many levels, but the main thread through all of it has probably been the interconnectedness I've found with people all over the world. My travels showed me that we have so many common struggles and dreams. They showed me the importance of sharing my own story and perspective as a positive voice. People around the world will hear it and share it. Next for me will have to be Brazil. That place is calling to me in my heart and my bones.

kelly: let’s talk about influence. i know you love Kara Walker. i know you are crazy-inspired by music and dance too. you also seem to be a flowerchild/butterfly all your own. so, what artists, musicians, eras, and colors give life to your processes of creating? MARISSA: Oh wow, it always comes back to music. It's kind of funny, I study the lives and work of musicians more than I do visual artists. So much of what was going on in the 1960s and 70s inspires me. You had so many new scenes exploding: folk music, soul music, funk... and the art that came out of it: the psychedelic Fillmore concert posters, amazing album cover art like Santana's Abraxis, The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, all the Parliament Funkadelic album covers were just out of this world. I watch a lot of old films, documentaries, and kid's tv shows (old Sesame Street clips especially!) from that era, just soaking up colors, patterns, and themes. As far as visual artists go, aside from Kara Walker, I'm also inspired by the work of Ana Mendieta and Frida Kahlo. I admire their fearless self-exploration.

kelly: i love that you are a writer. atop all your mad talent in the visual realm, you have a skill that i think is super important for all artists to exercise. talk to me about your stories, blogs, and other writings. does your writing connect up with or inspire your painting? MARISSA: Yes, the writing connects with my paintings in so many ways. My ongoing series, Azmera's Journey Back to the Electric Homeland, is a series of paintings and drawings based on a story I wrote. Also, when I come up with the characters I paint, I often give them names and backstories; it definitely takes the work to places it wouldn't have gone otherwise. The blog I write has also been a lot of fun. I get to pick the brains of some super-talented artists, document art history as it's happening, and connect with so many fascinating people.

kelly: you love fruit. you love vegetables, lol. gimme your top 6 fruits and top 5 veggies, por favor. MARISSA: Veggies: spinach, bell pepper, collard greens, cucumbers, carrots ~ ~ ~ Fruits: strawberries, grapes, nectarines, mandarins, pineapple ... P.S. CANNOT MENTION MY LOVE OF FRUITS AND VEGGIES WITHOUT GIVING A LIL SHOUT TO MY AMAZING HEALTH NUT FATHER, WHO KEPT THE KITCHEN FULL OF THEM!

kelly: you love music. gimme your top 4 female artists, top 4 male artists, and top 3 groups. MARISSA:

Female:
Phoebe Snow
Joni Mitchell
Erykah Badu
Roberta Flack 

Male:
Prince 
Stevie Wonder 
Jorge Ben Jor 
Bob Marley 

Groups: 
The Beatles 
Led Zeppelin 
Santana 
Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66

kelly: alright, queen. let’s play the alphabet game. please gimme an alphabetical list of words (one word per letter) that communicate feelings of enjoyment, creativity, likes, loves, self-description, etc. this is a freeform exercise intended to line us up with your coolness. MARISSA: 

A- Authentic 

B- Beauty 

C- cathartic 

D- dynamic 

E- ecstatic 

F- figurative 

G- goddess 

H- happy 

I- interesting 

J- joyful 

K- Knowledge 

L- love 

M- mindful 

N- never-ending 

O- open 

P- purple 

Q- queen 

R- Marissa forgot this one! i vote: rockin'! 

S- squid 

T- turtles! 

U- uninhibited 

V- voluptuous 

W- wind 

X- xylophone 

Y- yes 

Z- Zora Neale Hurston

kelly: talk to me about some of your favorite creative accomplishments. also, i’d love to know what you are currently working on … and what events have you recently been connected up with in the city? ... what do you see for yourself in the near future as far as creative work goes? MARISSA: The project I'm currently working on is a yet-to-be-titled installation in my bedroom. It's inspired by the theme of Osun in a modern-day context, Osun's daughters. I am putting together music, photographs, paintings, and letting it all bleed into performance. I'm creating a large interactive altar that will take up one wall of my bedroom, and having a very small gathering to view it. I'm enjoying the intimacy of the entire process, and the act of creating this little golden realm. I'm also super proud of my Funkstress series, a series of big bright paintings of goddesses inspired by funk music and costumes. It has been so much fun to just put on some Parliament and paint! And the series has been very well received, which is always exciting. I've been connected with a lot of events in the city; it's all kind of a wonderful surreal blur. I've been filming a lot of events for this wonderful Brooklyn-based creative website, Society Harriet's Alter Ego. I received a cute little Flip Mino HD cam from SHAE and I go to different art events and capture performances (like yours!), interviews, and all kinds of groovy stuff. 

kelly: lemme just say to our readers that something i really appreciate about Marissa is her openness in communication through dialogue, letter writing, emails, and dreaming. Marissa, when you moved back to Cali after your first go with NYC, you were open with me about your processes of self-healing during this time of realignment. how does the concept of healing influence your being and creation? MARISSA: Healing is really at the core of all my work. Growing up, I was always a very happy and optimistic little person. As I got older, I learned that things were not that way for a lot of people around me. For a long time I got teased about being "too happy.” A lot of my art came out of wanting to spread that joy I felt inside. I wanted to make other people smile, or help them feel healed. Everything I've done has pretty much grown from that.

kelly: ~ Yoruba ~ Oshun ~ Women ~ Blackness ~ Sisterhood ~ Ancestry. talk to me about these things. MARISSA: …Well, as far as Blackness goes, my very first and very best lesson came from Kermit the frog when I heard him sing 'It's Not Easy Being Green.' The songs parting words are, "I am green and it'll do fine, it's beautiful/And I think it's what I want to be." When I grew up, I was surrounded by so many people trying to tell me what a limiting thing Blackness was. They would go on and on about how being Black meant you could NOT do this, you could NOT do that, you could NOT associate with certain people. They defined it as this very narrow existence of isolation, struggle, and hardship. I think that is ridiculous, because Blackness is magical. It is a magical state of being that holds so much ancestral beauty and diversity. And if I look to my ancestors, I don't feel limited at all. I feel like I can do anything, because they overcame obstacles I cannot even begin to imagine. I will not boo-hoo about that. I will cry tears of joy for their powerful strength and resistance! And speaking of magic, Osun. Her name literally means "source." She is water, a source of ever-renewing life, of power within. Osun has helped me to find my own strength, to heal, and to find my center when I lose my balance. Her strength runs deep. An elder woman once told me, "Osun talks to you." I have never forgotten that, because I feel it. She comes to me in visions, and visits me in the form of hovering honeybees and random pumpkins left on the street! Sisterhood... something I'm so very appreciative of. I am so blessed to have the most lovely group of powerful and creative sister-friends. If I need a hug and some tea, or to go out, wear flowers and howl and the moon, I could not ask for more wonderful people to do it with. My sisters keep me smiling.

a very special thanks to Marissa for this awesome interview. ❤