Semaphore for Geese and Goslings

A couple years ago my partner brought home a strange painting from the thrift store.

The painting, which was signed by an “A. Thrasher” we were unable to track down, sported a fleet of Canada geese gathered near the reeds of a murky, still pond. I say “fleet” and not “gaggle” because “gaggle” implies an innate goosely chaos, and these geese were distributed evenly across the water in a way that felt deliberate. It was so deliberate in fact, that it was quite eerie. Each goose was in one of four positions; left profile, right profile, back facing, and white feathered behind up in a half dive. They looked like flags; a code almost legible in an avian language we didn’t know.

I am familiar with geese as signs and symbols. I’d been making pictures of geese before this particular semaphore came to roost over our bed. A goose has many linguistic roles. It’s a creature of chaos, the ultimate charmer, the joke, Mary Oliver’s guide for the soft animal, a pinch on the butt, a question with a difficult answer, an intention to help only to hurt, a whistleblower, a nightlight, our bird, a disarming by renaming, a consolation for the hard choice. The goose waddles across boundaries of culture, a globally familiar creature in its paradoxical ability to be a curmudgeon with grace.

When I have run out of words and pictures to describe this life in 2020 (and believe me, I have run out often), I filled all those spaces with geese. The narrative eases back into a space I understand. I’d like to think A. Thrasher did the same in their painting, and maybe I will crack the cryptogram if I just line those geese up right.

 INTERVIEW:

Simon Tosky: I tend to think about most animals in a passing way, for example "I'm glad I didn't run over that deer with my car!" -- It seems that you have really incorporated the Goose into your life as well as your work. What sparked that connection?  

Lauryn Red Welch: Yes, other animals come and go, but the Goose is Forever.

When Sam first started getting sick and was having trouble getting out of bed, birdwatching was one of the few things we could do together. So each bird, especially the common ones, the ones we think of as trash birds- pigeons, gulls, crows, vultures, geese, became immensely important and developed its own mythology accreted by our encounters with them. My first goose encounter that meant something was at Purchase, when I rushed this giant flock of Canada geese on the lawn and they all took off at the same time, like how you see in the movies. Sam’s first goose encounter was as a kid being forced to bring food and water to the geese his parents were raising. They would honk and bite him when he brought the food in, and also honk and bite him as he left the pen. I was fascinated by this creature that could be magical and graceful, and yet so hilariously unpleasant.

Simon Tosky: When I think of Geese I imagine their earthiness, yet your color palette is often very ethereal. There's also a physical sensation from the patterns you use. What informs your color and pattern choices?

Lauryn Red Welch: Colors and patterns are a way of piecing the world together. Not something applied superficially to the surface, but an entire visual logic that speaks to how something exists in the world. I keep a library of palettes and patterns that I know I’ll want to reference later. A lot of these are from my own photos of New Hampshire flora and fauna, Geese included. Textiles, especially my own clothes, movies, paintings, and magazines, even Google are also fair game. My only two “rules” are that I’ve had some experience with what I’m looking at, and that it delights me. Often the “real” color of a thing is superseded by what’s necessary for the overall color logic of the painting to work. Half the time that overall color is coming from the impression of a specific memory, and the other half of the time it’s me saying “well, I haven’t made a green painting in a while, I should try to do that!"

Simon Tosky: What's a day to day like in the studio? Are there any treasured processes or rituals?

Lauryn Red Welch: I’m still trying to figure out my optimal studio situation. I’ve tended to paint in spaces that were immediately connected to where I was living, both in NH and during the pandemic in NY. That blending of art and life sounds incredibly romantic, and in some ways it is, but I have found that I am not very good at switching from one frame of mind to another. What starts as waking up and drinking a delicious cup of tea in Sam’s hand-built ceramic dishes surrounded by Mark’s and my finished and half finished paintings, quickly turns into accidentally spending all eight hours of my studio time in the living room "studio" doing data entry for work. I’ve been trying this thing my mentor recommended called “simulating a commute” where I demarcate the transition from one type of work to another by physically moving my body to another space, even if it’s only a 15 minute walk to get a cup of coffee. Now that the Hunter studios have reopened and the physical separation is built in, this has gotten better, but I still need to remind myself that different spaces serve different purposes.

Simon Tosky: There is an undeniable element of humor in these paintings. What role does humor play in your work? And how has your experience/knowledge of geese led to these anthropomorphic depictions?

Lauryn Red Welch: You’ve had a goose experience, haven’t you? They’re fairly dangerous and aggressive. Their bites can draw blood and at the very least you’re left with a number of bruises. They’re used as guard animals in many communities. But geese are also totally absurd. They have waggly necks, they make farty noises, they smack their funny beaks when they eat grass. I’m sure you’re familiar with the Untitled Goose Game. You play a horrible goose that wreaks havoc on a village. Geese are unpleasant, but they’re never fatal, and they’re always funny in their inconvenience. In my paintings I’m dealing with a lot of things beyond my control- loving and caring for someone who is chronically ill, being housebound, isolation, bodily frailty, pain, a pandemic. To name something is to take away its power over you. So I disarm these things by putting them into the body of the most absurd and wonderfully inconvenient creature I know. 

Simon Tosky: To be honest, I really have avoided geese my whole life! Although their poop is pretty unavoidable... stepped on geese droppings many a time at SUNY Purchase. 

What does it feel like as an artist to make work about things that are out of your control? I feel like there's a catharsis in dealing with these subjects in your work. 

Lauryn Red Welch: It doesn’t seem to make much sense on the surface, since as you are familiar with, painting is all about a loss of control in a very blunt kind of way. Most of the time making paintings feels like an itch I can’t scratch. I can’t get the paint to be the thing I need it to be, but I keep trying! The act of putting paint to canvas is very simple though. Painting for me is always an exercise in meditation, and the slow, methodical build up of visual decisions helps me pinpoint, name, and re-articulate the things I find worth remembering in struggle. For many years I've listened to Sufjan Stevens while painting, because his music is often about the humility of struggling with grace in the face of much larger forces. His work is so deeply human. In my process, I’ve come to believe that somewhere in painting is also the capability of transmogrifying struggle into joy and grace while still retaining its truthfulness.

Simon Tosky: If you had to pick a spirit goose, which species of geese would you choose?

Lauryn Red Welch: Oh man, I have thought so hard about the ultimate goose spirit! There are tons of goose breeds and species, but to be honest, I’m probably closest with the Canada Goose, or the Cackling Goose which is like a mini Canada Goose. My text tone is their flight call, so whenever I hear the geese over Prospect Park, I think someone is trying to get ahold of me.

 Stay up to date with Red’s work @laurynredwelch on instagram.

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