“A Woman From Elsewhere”
Join us on a journey of cultural exploration with Vesna Kittelson, a tri-located citizen of the world, gracefully navigating Croatia, Cambridge, and Minneapolis. Raised in Communist Yugoslavia, her captivating life story reflects the power of curiosity, offering unique perspectives on the world. Vesna’s artistic journey transcends not only borders but also linear time, weaving ancient Croatia, scholarly Cambridge, and vibrant Minneapolis into a rich tapestry of experiences and art making.
Discover the profound interplay of words and art in Vesna’s latest creations. She challenges traditional language boundaries, exploring the ineffable aspects of communication. Fascinated by dictionaries and the primal nature of language, her work invites viewers to contemplate the enigma of language and welcome a myriad of interpretations, transforming each piece into a dynamic dialogue between the artist and her audience.
Links
VESNA krezich KITTELSON
"Synthesis: Lost and Found in America: The Art of Vesna Kittelson," Afton Historical Society Press, 2020
WAM On Demand- (Virtual Studio Visit) Vesna Kittelson
Podcast/ Vesna Kittelson, “Lost and Found in America”
Podcast Transcript
Pat:
Fill To Capacity, crazy, good stories and timely topics. Podcast for people too stubborn to quit and to creative not to make a difference Inspiring, irreverent and informative. Stay tuned. Hi, I'm Pat Benincasa and welcome to Fill to Capacity. Today's episode, a Woman from Elsewhere. My guest is Vesna Kittelson, artist, professor and colleague. Vesna Krezich was born in Bosnia and Herzegovina and grew up in Split, in communist Yugoslavia, which is now Croatia, during the reign of Josip Tito. It's important to note that Croatia was never under the Soviet Union. In 1948, Tito broke off relations with the USSR. It had its own form of socialism and it differed from the Soviet model. In Yugoslavia there was exposure to Western culture, music and movies. Vesna received her law degree from the University of Split in 1969. The University of Split allowed Vesna to study at Newnham College at Cambridge University in England, where she met and married David Kittelson, who was a PhD student there at the time. But at Cambridge, Vesna did a 360 degree turn and decided to study art in the United States. She attended University of Minnesota where she earned her bachelor's degree in studio arts and her master's degree in design. She lives and works in Minneapolis Now. Vesna's work is in museums worldwide Walker Art Center, Weisman Art Museum, Yale University Art Library, Getty Research Institute, and that's only to name a few. There is a beautiful book of Vesna's work called "Synthesis Lost and Found in America. She is a naturalized American and lives between Split, Croatia, Cambridge, England, and Minneapolis, Minnesota. You could almost say she is a tri-located citizen of the world. Wel come, Vesna. So nice to have you here.
Vesna:
What a perfectly correct introduction. Thank you.
Pat:
Thank you. I know I'm excited to have you here between all the emails and our Zoom conversations, so I am really looking forward to this. I'd like to start with you growing up in communist Yugoslavia. Can you share some memories, especially how it shaped your early life?
Vesna:
Yes, you know it was quite a significant way of lifestyle that I didn't know or noticed until I really went to England and came to the United States. Then the contrast became very obvious and clear for me to see how I actually grew up before I went elsewhere, and that's why I'm "a woman from elsewhere.”
Pat:
Yes.
Vesna:
What I think obvious differences were is that I lived in a system that was top down you know, everything was ordered from above and the rest of us had to accept it. And it was in very few layers. I mean, it was rather a crude system. What was noticeable, is that Croatia, and you were so correct it being different from other parts of communist states. In the fact that we had a lot of tourists even then, so we could see people from other places. We could see them in our streets, on our beaches, and so that was one very abstract but relevant connection with the outside world.
Pat:
Well, that leads me to my next question, I think you've beautifully segued into it. How did exposure to the tourists, the Western culture, music and movies influence your perspective on art and the world?
Vesna:
Well, it is interesting because I think it was in my case, those people who were naturally creative to actually take something from watching people from elsewhere, and thinking how do they live, what is their life? There is so much that is imagination, because of course you don't connect with tourists who come for four days or five days, and then when you're a child in particular. But I was always sort of like those people who observe streets, sit and watch people walking by and thinking about what kind of culture do they carry inside of themselves. But that is because I was curious and continue to be curious as an old person. It doesn't matter, you're going to be curious. So I belong to that category of people and I'm always feeling that there is always something out there beyond what I can see. So it was that kind of connection. It was very abstract but, I think, based on curiosity about what is over there, how, where I am not?
Pat:
It's interesting that you studied law at the University of Split and then you went to Cambridge on the idea of studying law and the English language there, but instead you changed your focus to art, and you studied in the US. Why art? What inspired you to make that change?
Vesna:
You know, not being really with my parents because they were concerned about how will I survive. Art was not on the table of possibility and so when I was away it was kind of an unstoppable force and I was horrible at it. I mean, I never had a class in art really. I just was somebody who did art in school when I was young child and it was noticed, that's all that happened. And then law school meant no connection, but I did dream of becoming an international lawyer, traveling and collecting art. I never thought that I would be an artist, but I did think that I would very much connect with art. So that was kind of my side plan, you know, to be collector and travel and pick up things and bring them home.
Pat:
Now I have to ask did you defect, or was the Yugoslav government OK with you doing this?
Vesna:
You know, I think that I was one of first 100 or 200 people who were given permit to go away, and my permit was based on the fact that I wanted to practice international maritime law and that I needed English language as a base to be able to read documents or make documents, which was crazy, because you had to study that for many more years, not just three months, like I was, or six months, but you never know. When you're young you think you can do it, so I asked to go to Cambridge and they gave me permission. Now the chief police man, chief of the police in Split was our neighbor and we were not close neighbors, but he knew who we were, and so I think that that helped me get that permit to go, because we were sort of well-behaved citizens in communism, I think, because my parents were acceptable to him. He, may be OK. This is how we think. We don't know, but we think that's how I got that permit. So I was one of the very first early people who were given permission to go out. But later, maybe 10 years later, the communist state under Tito still opened up borders. So actually, it was desired for Croatians to leave, so there are fewer of us in that beautiful land that Croatia is. The fewer people the better, and so that's how I think I was given this permission to go.
Pat:
Interesting. Now I want to shift gears a little bit. I am mindful that our listeners are from around the world and may not be familiar with art history references. So, with that said, I'd like to give our listeners an overview of your work. Vesna Kittleson's diverse body of work is deeply autobiographical. Her recent installations inspired by her childhood and split Croatia evokes the city's ancient ruins. Color Field paintings from her University of Minnesota days captures memories through abstraction. She delves into the emotional with war paintings reflecting the Balkan Conflict and 9-11. In Cambridge, England, her botanical watercolors pay homage to Emma Darwin and later becomes "Mrs Darwin's Garden: Book Four." Her large paper sculptures are vibrant expressions of personal reflection. Dynamic cutout portraits of her students reveal her connection to fellow immigrant artists. Through various mediums. Vesna's art resonates with her deep connection to the everyday worlds that ignite her imagination. Vesna, your artwork draws from such diverse sources of inspiration, from your childhood memories in Croatia to your experiences in the US. Can you share a bit how these personal connections influence your creative process?
Vesna:
Yes, I mean you have done a beautiful introduction and I just can add details, really, because you have done it so very well. But okay, so my mind is made so that it is interested in creativity. In that sense I don't recognize any borders. I am interested in African art, in Native American art, equally as I am interested in our European, Western Culture, art like Velazquez or Caravaggio or Monet or Manet. All is in the game for me. I stand in front of something, and I see it with my mind, the way I can take something from it, that goes into my mind and cooks in there so to speak, and it is somehow back on the surfaces that I use for creating my piece. For example, when I first came to the United States, this was the first time I saw Africans carved faces like masks, and I love it so much. I bought them, I have a collection of it. I wasn't really thinking of this as my culture or not my culture. The world is mine and beyond the world, if I want it, and because I admire it, I'm not using it or looking at it or buying it because I contempt it, I love it, and I think that an artist in Africa or India or North Africa is going through the same similar processes that we are here. When you are creating, you are creating. It's all open and it is what you know. It is about that which you feel. So that's why I am using all of the sources. Anything that I come upon that spoke to me is incorporated somewhere in my mind and it comes out in a different shape and different form, but meaning of creativity, as I think we all share we who are artists. We are artists and we share that drive for creativity and whatever comes out is really authentic. Yes, you know, if I go to Japan and I see some art, it's not my fault. Exactly, it's a matter of fault. It's a matter of seeking connection with the culture that you are looking at in the piece of work. Yes, because we carry all of that, and so, as I am an international citizen, I am open to anything you know. To be honest with you, this podcast is part of it. This is an experience. Now it's going to affect me. I don't know how, we will never know, but we are doing something.
Pat:
Yes, you could say this is a real-time collaboration. Actually, podcasting for me is portrait painting. I don't use paint, I use words, and you are the portrait that reveals itself, as you've done through your work and now you here.
Vesna:
That's what I'm talking about. So everything that you're experiencing can be part of who you are in some way. Yes, it's not defined, but it is part of something that you are.
Pat:
In 1989, a key moment in the world, revolutions broke apart communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe, including the fall of the Berlin Wall. How did these events affect you?
Vesna:
Enormously. First of all, I had these wonderfully intelligent parents. To just mention that I was very influenced by how they saw life in communism as a child and as a grown-up person as well, and it was very much their dream come true. The Berlin Wall coming down was a very big symbol of things in Russia, being sort of thump, thump crash in ten minutes. Whoever ever thought of that? We thought it was forever, eternal. In the end it just showed itself how empty and fragile that system was and how quickly disappeared. And it disappeared from our conversations around the table here in our dining room with our friends. We used to mention Russia occasionally, or Soviet Union, and then it was gone. Was there to mention here? And so I was so affected that I took part of my grant to go and see the Berlin Wall. I was never, ever there before, but I went to see where it all happened, where it was the most relevant that it happened. And at that time, I have to confess, we were not thinking that the war would happen to us and that war happened to us as some degree of consequence of crashing of Soviet Union. Croatia was, as you mentioned initially free of influence of Russia, directly but indirectly to Serbia, and Serbia is their satellite. So we were, of course, living this communism through, particularly rule of Serbia, and all of a sudden the question was now what will happen? But nobody was thinking of war. I have to say war is an extreme circumstance. I was never thinking that that would happen. So that's how it affected me a lot. I had traveled to Germany to see where that symbolic line was and to see the people, and I actually did experience some moments where individuals were still in East Germany, sort of hanging onto that system because that's all they knew. Why would a young person have such an open mind about this, thinking this would be fantastic? No, they were scared.
Pat:
I'd like to go in a different direction about places where you live. You live in Minneapolis, Croatia and Cambridge and again, you are that tri-located citizen of the world. I want to know how do you manage the logistics and emotional aspects of living in three different countries?
Vesna:
You know, that is really sort of significant experience actually, because these are three completely different cultures from each other. Now most people would find it maybe somewhat perplexing, at least, but I am that type that likes that. So when I'm in England, England and Cambridge offer that which doesn't exist in Minneapolis or in Split. When you in Split in Croatia, that is an offer that doesn't exist in England or United States. When I'm in Minneapolis in America, then I have experiences that don't exist in the other two. So what I do is I focus on it and I take what is the best, what I think the nurturing for me. I don't know if it's the best for everyone, but what's nurturing for me. I like the differences and that actually helped me also learn the difference between criticism and critical thinking. I think that there is a difference. Criticism can be just personal rambling about something that you don't agree with, but criticism means understanding what is behind it. Critical thinking, I mean In art. That was very important to me to learn about critical thinking. I think, rather than when we were young, we would do criticism, but I don't think that that is as deep as critical thinking. Like why am I doing this work? What does this work? Tell me, those are super hard questions, but it is good to come to that point where you can ask them.
Pat:
Do you think this tripartite of countries gives you a different worldview as opposed to staying in one place?
Vesna:
Yes, they are completely different, and different means difference in architecture, for example. I mean it is ancient city in Croatia that started during Roman times. Cambridge is started somewhere around the 1400s and it is meant to be scholarly place, so it's the books and research and experimentation which is wonderful. And then Minneapolis is a new city. I love that it is new and that we, you and I and other artists can have an input and an impact in how it's shaping culturally. These are big words for such small possibilities for us, but that is what we are doing. Americans have also their own stamp on place, yes, and we are in a new culture. This is only like 200 year old city compared to one that I come from in Split or Cambridge, and so we know that the new means a new vibrancy, new courage. I feel like I can do any kind of work that nobody would stop me because it's all open. We're new. So these are the three things that are, I think, scholarly Cambridge, and then ancient Split, and then new Minneapolis have offered me to expand my thoughts and expand my, I think, courage.
Pat:
As you were speaking, I had this image of you as time traveler. Now I've been focused on the placeness of your life, but you're also a time traveler. You go from the time of Diocletian in Split, Roman times and all of that antiquity to Cambridge, the medieval structures and the scholarship, and then fast forward to Minneapolis. There is a fluidity in time travel that you entertain and allow. So it's not just that you're in the three places, you're also in three different time sequences. It's like you're not bound by linear time.
Vesna:
No, linear thinking and linear time is just not my thing, to be honest.
Pat:
Vesna, I think we see that!
Vesna:
I go vertically and horizontally, and I think that is one specificity of artists. For a feminist artist, yes, you go in layers, you don't go just linearly, and linear is important because you feel that you are moving within your time. I mean that's important, but the way we think is an analysis in layers, so linear and vertical. For me that's scary.
Pat:
I want to go deeper into time. Nina Simone, for those of you who may not know who Nina Simone was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, composer and civil rights activist. Nina Simone said: "t's an artist's duty to reflect the times in which we live Now. Artists often serve as a mirror to society, capturing the zeitgeist, the spirit of the time. Whether intentional or not, their work speaks volumes about the era they live in. What would your work say about the time and places that you've lived? Vesna?
Vesna:
I think, for example, maybe I should mention my very most current work I'm doing. What I want to do is say that I believe that language is the most important historic aspect of civilization. That is when we started communicating and learning and developing language, a million years ago, but that is very present today. For example, you and I are now communicating with words, so I'm making the word that's called words, and then equal sign, mathematical co-equal sign beyond the measure. Why am I saying that? Because the words cannot be measured by three systems of measurements that we have in their content. We cannot measure the content, so it is beyond the words, what we mean and what we want to see and how we function. It's more than words can describe. Because words cannot be measured, I thought I would make the work that is about image of a dictionary and words leaving the dictionary. Then they cannot be put under any kind of time, under any kilograms, under any miles and kilometers. They cannot be used to capture the word. So what am I doing here? I'm using language, which is the oldest form in human communication, with the new idea of these measurements that we use to measure Mars, sea, waves, the buildings, Eiffel Tower. We can measure all that, but we cannot measure content of words. So I am doing something that is a new thought, it's mine and, who knows, maybe I'll be killed for it, I don't know by critics, but a language, on the other hand and words is old, yes, and that goes for all languages in there many more than 200.
Pat:
What's interesting about that is that we live in a culture that measures everything. Everything is quantified, everything has a value assigned to it, and when you're speaking, I can't help but think that you are talking about the ineffable, the mystery that you allow for the mystery to come into this discussion about word yes.
Vesna:
So here we are. We are using this language as a tool to communicate, but we have inside of ourselves a lot more that words cannot describe. They cannot be measured in content. I mean, we have eye contact. We were saying that we will do a Zoom because we want to see each other. You see, why is that? In addition to pronouncing words and reading meaning, we also want to see each other as face, if possible.
Pat:
This discussion reminds me of one of the first linguists, at least in Western Civilization, Dante Alighieri. In the 1300s, when he wrote the Divine Comedy in the Tuscan vernacular, I was surprised to learn that he went from region to region and to cities and he jotted notes about the dialects. He was somebody who knew the power of language as a cultural identity. So the idea is that this awareness of dialect, these nuances of being by place, locality and region, and what you're doing, it's like you're the sock in the dryer and when you pull it out, it's inside out. You're taking verbal language and turning it inside out, which I think is fascinating.
Vesna:
Yes, and why do I even come upon this? Because as an immigrant and a few years ago I was getting older and thinking about so what am I? It turned out that I think that I still remain an immigrant wherever I am. That is really my condition. In Croatia, I feel like I am an American. In America, I feel like I'm European. In Cambridge, I feel like I'm American or Croatian. I mean, it's crazy. I felt like I had to figure out what, then, would I identify with. And it would be a dictionary. A dictionary would be sum total of an immigrant's existence. Yes, that's what it is. So that is why I work with dictionaries. They describe all of us with that language. Yes, even educated or uneducated, it doesn't matter. All the words that we use are in a dictionary. So that is for me, sort of an identity card, really. Yes, a dictionary. I am an immigrant. In the end, even though I am happy with living here and living in Cambridge, I remain an outsider to some degree, and you don't think about this, especially because I am so interested in fitting in wherever I am, it doesn't matter. But you know, when it is sort of sum total of you, what would it be? It would be dictionary for me, because I remain an immigrant. Yes, and it's not a painful thing, it's a happy thing. Yes, I think, being an immigrant if you know, I'm not down and out as an immigrant, but an educated one that's always wonderful. Yes, yes, I would live in any culture, it would be okay.
Pat:
You really highlight the immigrant dilemma. How can I fit in, how can I remember who I am? How can I honor who I am?
Vesna:
I had to face some surgeries and I was just thinking about what is the sum total of my identity? And my identity would be really the dictionary. Yeah, because that's how I started, and you are never done with the dictionary. No, I have some of the words. English, for example, is a very big, strong language. It's incredible. It's incredible.
Pat:
Well, having been raised by immigrants, my parents learned to speak flawless English, but most of my relatives spoke broken English, Italian and broken English, and I was always marveling at the words they would invent. You understand what I'm talking about. There were words that were so inventive, they would make nouns, verbs or they would turn things around, and it was delightful because there was nothing in English like that!
Vesna:
Yes, you know I would talk many times. Oh, I never heard of that word, and of course mine, especially in earlier years.
Pat:
So the combination of words in your work, in addition to the visual, in addition to the image, seems like such a rich pathway.
Vesna:
Yes, I have to say that I think, due to our time, which is a mix of absolutely everything, if you want to be positive, you would say it's really wonderful mix of everything. Is it also allowing artists to work any which way. I don't have to work like formal, 19th century oil painter. Nobody's asking me to do that and, as you know, I did, in Young Americans, which is cut out. Yes, that was really connected more with African masks than it was with the Western way of presenting art, but I liked very much that I could do a cut out and put this portrait on the wall and have a very direct relationship or response to it as a viewer. So, for example, that is a standard or thought that I wanted to fulfill, which was a contemporary one. Yes, it's not really something I learned in school or that there was a book about it or anything like that. You make your own and I have, to this day, mix techniques and often people say, wow, what are all these techniques? Anything that's on my table I grab and I use. I have come to that point that where I think that the first artist was a person on the beach that picked up a stick and drew a line in the sand. I can come to that point where I work with anything that's around me. I am OK and our time allows for that. We don't have to work formally like 19th century artists, 18th century artists or anything like that. We can be inventive using anything at all as a technique. Yes, many techniques. I don't even want to talk about them because it takes 10 minutes to say all that I used in my speech.
Pat:
But it's so much more than the material and the technique. Yes, your work is always multifaceted, multi-layered. What you see is not what you get. You see it, but there's so as you stare at it, there's so many layers to it.
Vesna:
Yes, and I can see that, because when somebody looks at it it's different things that they noticed from somebody before or somebody after them. And that is interesting too. Yes, because people carry some curiosity in themselves about certain technique and they see it and they talk about that. But there are many more.
Pat:
Yes, the finished piece has the alchemy of what the viewer brings to it, their joys, their sorrows, their interpretations. So the pieces keep reinventing themselves. That's the power of art!
Vesna:
And what I don't want is to have finished work to full stop to period, because I think openness allows me for more things to come in, like clouds do in the sky. I bring I don't mean negative, but like travel. There are more things allowing themselves to enter my work, and at this point, when I say allowing themselves to come into my work, it's more like I follow my work. I don't tell my work what to be, it tells me what it needs, and I have to figure it out, and so it is a conversation between us, rather than me beating my work into certain work. I don't do that. You do it first when you're in school, because maybe you get an assignment and you're to look like it should be, like you were told. But you know we are far from that. Yes, we just allow thought, and a lot of new experimental moves are much more interesting to me than having a definition that is written in stone. It's not. Yeah, art is open. For me it's always open mind, open door, open influence, I don't care. Open.
Pat:
As we come to the end of the hour, I think that our discussion today has really centered on the meaning of place. Place as a concept reflects the essence of your artistry. In the tangible world, it's like geographies, precise coordinates of longitude and latitude, the canvas where your creative vision comes to life. Yet in the ethereal realm of spirit, place transforms into a metaphysical tapestry. It weaves together the threads of memory, culture and emotion. It echoes the laughter in old cafes, it carries the scent of fresh rain on pavered walkways and cradles the timeless secrets of generations. Here, place transcends mere coordinates. It emerges as the sanctuary of the heart and becomes a vivid reflection in your artistic journey, Vesna Kittelson.
Vesna:
Yes, thank you so much. It is fantastic presentation on your part. I am so impressed. I mean, this is kind of all of me was in this interview and that is interesting. It's not that I'm hearing my words coming out of my mouth, I am all into it, and that is really thanks to you, and you're very poetic about presenting art. I love that. I really commend you for that. Thank you that you have done this interview as an artist.
Pat:
Vesna. We're artists, we're nothing else, Right? Well, Vesna, thank you for joining us today and sharing this wonderful world in your head, your work, your outlooks, your insights. What an honor having you here today. Thank you so much.
Vesna:
Thank you so much. Thank you. I really appreciate you very much. Thank you, Pat.
Pat:
And thank you listeners. If you enjoyed today's podcast, please hit subscribe and tell your friends. Thank you and bye.
