Photo Courtesy of Robert Diamante
- Date started working in metal clay:
- I went to the Tucson Gem show in 1998, and saw a demonstration at Rio Grande’s “Catalog in Motion”. Having started my career in ceramics, I was instantly riveted. This was a method of working that was in my wheel house. I went right home, ordered some PMC, called two of my artist-friends to schedule a play day and dove right in.
- Accomplished at what media in addition to metal clay:
- I started a ceramic studio when I graduated from college in the late 70’s. By the mid 80’s I moved my focus to metalsmithing and jewelry work. I especially enjoy working in mixed metals, and enamels. I joined the local lapidary club in order to learn how to cut my own stones, and I create mixed-media pieces from found objects that are my antidotes to my constrained and meticulous jewelry work.
- Website and short bio:
www.agte.com - I can’t remember when I didn’t like to make stuff. My best friend and I loved playing with our Barbies, but mostly so we could get out the hammer and build houses. Then I really built a house. Now I keep the neighbors amused with the totems I construct in the front yard, and live with a wonderful man who does the cooking so I can work longer in the studio. We adopted yet another cat.
- What is your inspiration now?
- I joined a woman’s writing group last fall, and writing helps me explore my creative self coming from another direction. Going to the weekly meetings is one of the few things I never miss. It’s taught me that if you just start working, and remove the filter and internal judgement about how something is supposed to turn out, you can amaze yourself over and over.
- Do you have a muse?
- Authors who write about writing talk about the exact things that artists deal with. Reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott was so moving and inspirational to me, I couldn’t return the book to the library until I had bought a used copy that I could mark up.
- What is currently on your bench/workspace?
- Copper beads I am hand-fabricating, beach glass from my recent trip to the California coast, postcards from the SNAG conference, a PMC bracelet I am making for a friend in London, enamel switch plates, and reliquaries I just finished to contain the ashes of a loved one.
- What project/direction are you working on now?
- We have a favorite wild place we love to walk our dog along the Erie Canal just down the street from us. There was a little abandoned blue fisherman’s cottage that we lovingly referred to as my future studio. Just recently an arsonist burned it down, along with a lot of the wild area around it. I realized in yoga one night I needed to collect pieces of the cottage, and incorporate them in my work. I’ve been using some of the burnt wood charcoal in paintings, and have some charred blue shingles that I want to use in the construction of spirit houses.
- How much time do you average at the bench per week?
- About thirty hours a week.
- What’s the average time you spend on a piece?
- That varies wildly. It depends on if the piece is for production and or if it for my own personal pleasure or inspiration. Something that I am doing research on can take months, a bezel set ring with lots of details will take a full day.
- Do you sell your work? and where?
- I have work for sale in a few local galleries, on my website, and Etsy. With the fluctuations of metal prices this past year I have chosen to curtail some of my consignment work, and focus on some self-assignment based pieces, in other words EXPERIMENT!
- Where do you get your new ideas?
- I’m my happiest in the studio when I have enough quiet time to follow a thread to someplace I never imagined it going, and then madly research the idea. A picture I’ve had sitting on my desk (for who knows what reason) suddenly relates to a song a friend sent me, then the theme shows up in the book I am reading for book club and I am off and running. Once I have discovered the kernel that gets me excited I have to make sure I stay in the studio and work, but not dictate the direction. It’s the same feeling the first time your dad let go of the handlebars, you love the freedom, you’re scared to death, and you have to try not to over think it.
- Do you keep a sketchbook and how do you organize it?
- I love keeping sketchbooks, and I really hate to “sketch”, I think because I have a hard time loosening up. I’m a cut and paste person from way back. I have boxes and old suitcases filled with magazines and odd paper. I do a lot of free association thinking by creating some kind of internal story or dialog with words and pictures in my sketchbooks.
We have a real wealth of music in Rochester and we have a few friends who host intimate house concerts on a regular basis. I always take my sketchbook, (I’m not very good at sitting still) and in the dim light I let the music guide my pen. The sketches are looser, more animated and full of life then anything I could do just sitting in the studio.
I make my own sketchbooks, usually out of found materials, and love, love, love fountain pens. I’m in an Artist-In Residence program at our local high school, and I always start our metal project by making our own sketchbooks, and it’s part of the grade, the finished piece is not independent of the process that created it.
- Are there places or things you avoid that zap your creativity?
- I try to avoid spending time and energy on mass culture. I get antsy and downright claustrophobic if someone tries to corner me with a conversation about someone like any of the Paris Hilton-type media people. It’s not real life, and it can be highly addictive. I listen to NPR in the studio, but I don’t sit down and read a newspaper because I think it tends to focus on sensational journalism.
I rarely go shopping. I’m immensely more satisfied making a lamp shade from old tea bag wrappers then going to the mall and trying to find something that isn’t, metaphorically speaking, “beige”.
- Do you have a ritual before you begin to create?
- I recognize that I am a pretty compulsive person. I really like to have an environment that is free of distractions. I love an organized work space. If I start working and I have to hunt for a tool or material it can shut me down. I leave my cell phone and computer upstairs in my “office”. And I make sure to group my appointments and customers into blocks of time.
- What do you collect?
- Sticks, birds nests, beach glass, books people throw away, red carpenter levels, fountain pens, old bottles, postcards, copper teapots, rusty stuff, oil cans.
- How do you rejuvenate your creativity?
- I take classes in things I know little or nothing about. Italian language courses, woodworking, electrical wiring, modern dance, writing. Last year I went on a shaman retreat. Trying to learn about something I know little about makes my mind work in a completely different way. You have a tendency to dislike the things you are not good at. Being in a situation where you are awkward and clumsy makes you a little more comfortable with being awkward and clumsy… and well, making mistakes and learning from them.
- What would your perfect creative day be like?
- I started a habit last year with Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way Every Day It was a book of daily inspirations about being an artist, and I would write in the book each morning, filling the remainder of the page. I’ve continued this “mediation”, even thought the book is filled. Instead of waking up and turning on the news or the TV, I take a cup of coffee back to bed and write. Either about my dreams, or ideas for a new project, something meaningful a friend did, or a reminder to be grateful, it’s meant to be a snapshot, not an essay. By keeping it intentionally short, I can do it even at the beginning of a busy day. It changes the day, it keeps the focus personal and internal, a place where I have control and command.
These muse interviews are always so interesting and inspiring. Thank you
Thanks Jessica! Hope you join us for the next one too 😉
She is a very inspirational woman with great ideas on how to create. Bravo!
An outstanding muse personality. I love the idea of taking a class in something that you don’t know nothing about. Thank you Elizabeth!
I enjoyed reading the interview until I read that Elizabeth Agte collects bird nests. Someone should tell her that it is ILLEGAL to collect any bird parts, which includes eggs, feathers and nests!
I am sensitive to your concern, and I would not do anything to affect the welfare of nesting birds. The nests I have were pushed out of trees by other birds, or turned that silvery color after being abandoned all winter, this is not illegal.
Enjoyed reading about you Elizabeth! Its fun to read and learn about another artist since you often find similarities to ourselves. You were the very first person I learned pmc from when back when at the Genesee Co-op. Aaaahhh, but the neat studio….certainly my husband wishes I was more like you in this regard.
🙂 Linda
I enjoyed reading about you. You sound like someone my mother would call KKKRAAZEY, that’s why I named my website Krazey Art. It’s a relief to hear that another artist does all of the various things that you do. I just myself started writing in addition to working with gourds, painting, sculptures and jewelry and am now taking courses in Archaeology. I was ready to give up taking any additional courses saying to myself ,”what are you nuts or what, why don’t you concentrate on one thing.” Maybe I don’t have to be interested in just one thing, I get too bored if I stick with just one media. Just wanted to express my thanks for seeing that there are other people out there in the world who do all kinds of things.
ILona
You made my day:)