An interview with the newest Struts Gallery Video Artist in Residence on her experimental stop-motion animation
Sierra Weston, a Toronto-based mixed media and sound artist, is the current Struts Gallery Video Artist in Residence. She will be working on an experimental stop motion animation video between Jan. 29 and March 26 before returning to Toronto. In an interview with The Argosy, Weston welcomes people to visit her at Struts and learn more about her puppets.
Weston is from the California Bay Area and holds a B.A. from the University of California in design and art history, as well as an M.A. in art history from the University of Toronto. Weston was born in British Colombia. and lived there until she was two years old, then her family moved to Silicon Valley where she lived until she was 22. Growing up, she did a lot of theater and dance, later branching into experimental media and sound art. This is her first stop-motion video and expands on her background in music, performance, and mixed media.
Weston draws from her educational background in art history and material culture, using the idea that objects are part “of an accumulation of personal histories and emotions” to inspire the puppets and their weapons. A lot of Weston’s work is about exploring how objects can embody emotions, and how emotions can “be put into objects” through touch. Weston’s puppets embody emotions like anger and jealousy. For Weston, “anger is a really hard emotion to deal with because it makes you feel so guilty” she says. She continues saying “I think that part of me needing these creatures to embody my anger is the idea that anger doesn’t really solve anything, it just becomes this thing that ends up hurting you.”
Speaking with The Argosy, Weston walked through her process, and how her projects tend to start with a thesis or system that later branches out. Her current project is a narrative video that is “a fantasy of revenge and punishment, but also a reminder to myself– what does revenge actually get you” says Weston. This project’s story is set in the realm of the inner-self or mind. Puppets are “birthed” from the realm of the inner-self into the exterior world, where they fly into a city, go into a lair, and collect weapons, before flying back through the city and into a different room where they enact revenge. Weston says the puppets are “apparitions that appear and decide that I’m right about everything and that I deserve everything that I want.”
Weston starts creating a puppet by making prints using a gel pad. These prints are highly textured and include sporadic patterns created using found stamps. Weston says she makes “a lot of stuff based on intuition,” as she “used to have a lot of trouble with the decision making aspect of making things” and would find herself “paralyzed” during the creation process. For Weston, improv was a helpful entry point into sound art and music practice, and helped with decision paralysis. Weston says “finding that patience where you allow things to arise instead of just making decision after decision or feeling frantic in a performance setting” was a critical turning point in her practice.
After making the puppet, Weston spends time sitting with them and looking at them. Weston says it’s important to her to be “an artist that knows their materials and techniques.” She spends a lot of time with the things she is making, sitting and holding them, and thinking about the ways things actually move. Weston says that a lot of her work “is about looking for an idea of truth.” Weston was inspired by a drawing class in her undergrad, when her professor told the class to “look at something, and when you draw it, don’t draw it the way you learned how to draw an apple, look at the actual line that’s in front of you.”
To find out more about Weston’s projects which include an installation made in collaboration with Owen Kurtz inspired by Lady Gaga’s album Artpop and experimental music, visit: https://sierradoesntskate.com/