I Photographed an Artist Living in her Tribeca Loft Since 1974

I have about 3,000 square ft the whole floor is 5,000 are there any other artists up in the building or is it just you I think it's just me my name is CLA Ferguson Claire Elanor Ferguson originally a couple was in here and they broke up the woman that was in the back area took on Lyn and me and we built the wall you know put in the electricity and we turned the men and ladies room into the one was the toilet and one was the shower like we managed to squeeze one of the those cheap showers in there so this allowed us to maintain the largest spaces possible cuz we were all artists that was 1974 I started off sort of when conceptual art was the rage and also I was in the woman's movement so I started by using my S as the subject matter these photographs over here are some of my early black and white photographs where I put my body in relation to other objects this led into my performance art I ran into Jackie Apple at Max gimlets on Friday night at a party she said oh you've got to do a live performance and I realized right away I yeah I had to that's okay whatever you're doing is fine okay great and then look slightly towards the window for me again yes perfect this is great one thing was a lot of women you know like this was three women on this floor two women on the sixth floor the factories went on for a long time so that it was half and half the floor below me was a paintbrush Factory the floor above me put lines on paper before they had offset Printing and and they had a guillotine that cut through the reams of paper every morning at 6:00 a.m. they would turn it on and it was this noise you know and then we had the discotek down on the ground floor that went until 4:00 a.m. in the morning so you had 2 hours in between these you know nois events but luckily it wasn't the second floor where they could not go to sleep until 4:00 a.m. also touching his side he was on the second floor after the paintbrush Factory moved out of this second floor he moved in there and he did his first one year in a k performance on the second floor also I don't know for sure what was here though we like to say it was a Pickle Factory just for the humor I'm more like paint out on the fire escape it's like or paint on the ground or oh you know and what is this door to so this is an old Elevator Shaft that uh is the elevator used to be one of those freight elevators so you could Bowe for it and Francisco would come down and the elevator doors opened into my space you know my section cuz we divided it up into three sections storage and I'd love a shot of you in there oh okay all right 3 2 1 [Music] I had my the CLA Ferguson school for silk screening and that's how I supported myself along with doing fine art prints for artists so I had these classes in the evening a couple of times a week I was a master so screen printer at that time so I could really you know do this in incredible prints for artists and I gave that up because of you know it's bad for your health I used to have all the prints hanging around you know drying and they all this the oil that's just store it just got to think of a way to get photos here that's great [Music] having this space over the years has totally allowed me the freedom to go in whatever Direction I felt like first of all you you know you have all the materials that you need I make these handmade little cards that say you know WB org and 99.5 Fm and listen and support the people's radio stations since 1949 and so I hand out thousands of these it's sort of an extension of performance art because I call out as people go by as my friends said I don't think I could do that once you just decide to do it it's not hard but it is getting past that personal thing where we're like too proud or and you know it does annoy some people and but other people it inspires them so it goes both ways you know also my cards especially at Valentine's Day or or Mother's Day or Father's Day then people go crazy getting these cards but but even apart from that it's a continual interaction with people Ono one you know realizing I have to get my Valentine's cards up and going because I I used to have to come in at night for I did it like the four days prior to Valentine's Day and I'd have to come in and just work like crazy making the cards so I'd have you know a apply for the next day I think I'm going to move the light over here and get a shot of you in front this is also your painting yeah okay wonderful and then can I get a hand as well on the table yes perfect and then look towards me you know I did have this sort of uh difficult childhood on an extreme level I won't go into that but uh when I learned about death I was really upset and um to the point of being you know sick to your stomach like like kind of upset and where you got no help from anybody in terms of talking about it or even the culture that maybe accepts death and so it just came as a terrible shock so at this very young age I tried to figure out first how to get around death but you know couldn't come up with anything so then I realized that you know being famous was not really solving the problem but as best you could do so then I wanted to get into the Bible to be famous but my mom told me that it already been um written and they weren't taking any additions so for me now being an artist I don't really care so much about being famous but because I have devoted my whole life to this activity and there's still the inevitable looming it's like I I do I am trying to consolidate it and put it into some form where it goes you know beyond my life the work I've done [Music] Claire Ferguson is one of 30 artists I photograph from my first Photography book uh documenting the last of New York City's original artist lofs if you're interested in purchasing the book the link is in the description below thank you so much for watching there will be more videos soon

Channel: Joshua Charow

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Id: oEUSpzK63rA

Length: 9min 39sec (579 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 05 2024