Yashua Klos

 

Yashua Klos
By: Arielle Bielak

Yashua Klos is one of those rare people who can capture my undiluted attention over the telephone.  We found ourselves weaving a rich tapestry of dialogue as we spoke over the phone on a recent Saturday. Perched on the sunny side of my porch at home, I listened to Yashua unfold an epic tale of his life and travels up to this point. It’s all rather heart-warming to know that part of his younger days were spent right here at Marwen.

Arielle: When I called before you said, “Oh, I can’t wait for a 773 number to show up on my phone”, you  evoked this feeling of missing Chicago. I know you’ve been away from here for a long time, do you mind talking about that fondness you have for the area code vis-à-vis Chicago itself?

Yashua: Yes, yea. That’s such good way of putting it, I certainly have a fondness for that 773 area code and it’s funny, when I bump into people in New York and exchange cell phone numbers and they have a 773 area code it--something about it I think truly does make me feel maybe a little bit more connected to them just because that’s an area code number that I’ve been used to dialing ever since I picked up a phone when I was young. And there’s got to be some psychology there. It’s very comforting to hear that in a place like New York, because it’s so large. In Chicago, community was kind of built in.

Arielle: I’m curious to know a little bit more about his constructed community that you’ve been making for yourself in New York. Is this an a la carte group of people that have come together, or do you find you hang out with folks from Hunter? Who is it that you call your community?

Yashua: Right. Well, I’ve been very fortunate because in my transition to New York. I made a stop doing a residency in Skowhegan over the summer, right before I started grad school in New York, so, unbeknownst to me, about half of the people who were at this residency in Skowhegan were either from New York already or moving to new York directly after the residency. I literally drove right from Skowhegan, Maine, in August, to my apartment in New York. That apartment I actually got from one of the residents in Skowhegan. I hadn’t even seen the apartment, he wanted to move out of the apartment and move in with his girlfriend, and I needed an apartment because I was starting grad school at Pratt, so, from that, I think that that really just started my foundation of community. Two of the other residents from Skowhegan happened to live in the same building that I moved into, the same apartment building, so I had neighbors that I had just met and hung out with and had a great time with over the summer.

 Then, when I started school at Pratt, that was a great way to have a way to meet people of similar interests, obviously, and to help each other kind of navigate how to live and get a job and take classes and do all those basic things and have fun in New York. Transferring to Hunter I just broadened that community even more. I’d say that most of my community are either artists or they’re somehow dealing with art as a profession. I think that’s really just the nature of being a student in New York and I’m constantly surrounded by creative folks. So that’s pretty much the basis of my community and also my job, which again is art related.

 I teach art at the Children’s Museum of Art, so they’ve also been very helpful as far as coming out to my art events or partnering with me to make outreach teaching a lot larger and stronger with different communities and different neighborhoods in New York. I think that in a way that workplace at the Children’s Museum has also become a very supportive community.

Arielle: That is incredible, I actually did not realize that you were working there and teaching.

Yashua: Yeah, yeah, well actually I’ve been working there for about a year and a half now, and it’s been going great, and actually I just picked up like three more shifts at work. I calculated my hours today actually and I’m working about 23 hours a week there and going to school part-time, so I definitely have a full plate. But it’s so exciting, and you know how fantastic it is to work with kids who want to make art and who are creative, because they’re always so energetic and enthused.

Arielle: Yeah, I do, we have that in common and you know it can really make your life a much sunnier experience. Just to be around that energy is very refreshing.

Yashua: Yeah, and one more thing I’d say about that is that I think I also realized I needed to teach because my art making experience, being a student, seemed to be so self-indulgent, in a way.  I think that in a way that’s necessary as an artist. It’s kind of, you know, isolation is practice, where you sort of just bury yourself in your studio, and you’re milling through your own concepts, thoughts and things, and I felt that I needed a balance, because as a student I was always just innovative with learning and teaching myself new things and practicing new things, and exploring my art and the art scene here in New York that I think I really felt a need to reach out and help others and teach kids. And for me outreach teaching was something that became really necessary as part of the service that I felt like I had to do to be balanced. So, it wasn’t something that I even planned on getting back into when I came to New York, I actually planned on just being a student and kind of living off my loans, but I think the reality of how difficult it is to survive financially in New York and also needing a community that I felt of service to, both of those things kind of sunk in. And I’m really happy now that I’m back teaching.

Arielle: So, it sounds like you have a lot of synergy happening there. You mentioned getting back into teaching, and I am wondering if you’re referring to a different teaching experience. I’m also curious to know what you’re teaching specifically.

Yashua: Right, so, in Chicago, well, first I’ll say I was raised by a public school teacher. My mom was a public school teacher for like, 25 odd years and she just retired which I’m happy about, and I’m sure she is too.

Arielle: Wow, that’s incredible.

Yashua: Yeah, yes, I’m so proud of her. I taught at the neighborhood club in Hyde Park. Various age groups, probably every age group from 8 to 80 years old because I even taught senior citizens arts and crafts there. I’ve taught at Milburn alternative high school, I’ve taught at Dunbar doing an afterschool art program, and I’ve done one on one art teaching, just private art lessons of all different ages. So I had already had a good foundation in teaching before I came here to New York and at first I think I was kind of intimidated. Coming to New York is intimidating because it’s such a big place, and it’s such a vast place, and such an aggressive environment, that I think I didn’t immediately want to kind of dive back into the public school system and start teaching again. But after I did, now I just can’t get enough of it. I mean, it’s going so well, and the kids here are--they’re so creative, there’s so much kind of, intermingling of different cultures here in New York that the kids already sort of have a natural exposure to a lot of arts, and just, I think it’s a very familiar, casual setting, it’s not something that’s like, kind of mystical to them.

Arielle: It’s not mystical?

Yashua: It’s not, it’s not mystical to them and it’s not separate from their-- but I think that’s how kids are in general, it’s not until we get older that, you know, we start to see art as some kind of specialized and elitist cultural field.

Arielle: Right.

Yashua: For children it’s still about gaining a voice and expressing who they are. So, yeah, that’s what I’m doing now and I’m teaching with the Children’s Museum of Art.  I’m doing an outreach in the Bronx once a week, I’m doing an outreach here in Brooklyn twice a week, and I’m doing an outreach on the lower east side of Manhattan once a week, and I also work with physically disabled kids at NYU Hospital.

Arielle: Yashua, you’re putting us all to shame! How do you have time for all of this? Well, now, you’re doing this outreach through the Children’s Museum?

Yashua:  Yeah, the Children’s Museum of Art in Soho, and it’s a great place, they mostly do guided workshops for small children during the day, but I work with them in the capacity of outreach teacher. I’m always out of these different locations, teaching.

Arielle: Oh, okay, so the nature of your job is that you are not based in Soho to do your teaching?

Yashua: Right.

Arielle: Oh, okay, awesome, awesome. Well that’s exciting, probably exhausting but exciting.

Yashua: Yeah, and to be honest it kind of gives me fuel to do my own work, just to see the creative, enthusiastic attitude of the kids makes me--it gets me pumped to go in my studio and make art too.

Arielle: Well, now, that is great synergy. Going back to this idea of the artist in his or her attic; this is the complete antithesis of that, and yet your work is very provocative and interesting and layered. You’re proving a very important point by doing what you’re doing.

Yashua: Right, right. And you’ve just brought up a good point which is, I think, in a way, me reaching out to the youth and doing, you know, continually teaching is a way of reconnecting with community for me. Grad school is a different type of community than a community of underserved kids in the south Bronx. I really enjoy this like cross-cultural dialogue that, you know, I receive from both of my communities and both of them inform my work, for certain.

Arielle: It’s like a cross training in creativity with these different experiences. Isn’t that the nature of creativity, to like take two seemingly different things and see how they work in you as you channel those things?

Yashua: Sure, yeah, and I think that’s, you know, as far as a lot of the artists I look up to I think, I look at their work and I see that they kind of remind me of commonalities that exist in a very diverse set or group of things. They’ve sort of taken off some of the assumptions that we all associate with different things and they’re showing us how actually things are very close to home and very personal for all of us. And, I hope that my work in some way does that. Working with the children I think is really just almost like an exercise in honesty, because kids don’t make art that isn’t completely what they feel. They don’t make art to impress others, they don’t make art with an agenda, they’re really just trying their best to have fun and express their own voice.

Arielle: Are you getting in touch with your own personal history as you’re looking at these kids make their work? In terms of how you were feeling, as a young person, making art, getting in touch with this dialogue, with creativity, at, Marwen and via your mom?

Yashua: Sure. Again, I think I was very lucky when I was young because my mother put me in classes at the Hyde Park Art Center when I was young, whether it was doing ceramics, or I remember a comic books class that kind of made an impression on me, and I don’t know if I ever, at those times in my life, really thought about that those classes would lead me to try to pursue art as a profession. I was just a young kid who knew that I liked to draw and make stuff, and I’m really grateful that I had a mother that pushed me, which was not the case with a lot of my peers, whose parents are a bit more skeptical about art as a profession.  That as a foundation I think was really helpful to me getting to where I am. I’m really proud to be in a position just to expose, the same way that I feel that I was exposed. Again, with these children at this point the oldest group that I work with is teenagers, and to them I don’t push an agenda of pursuing art as a profession, that’s not actually-- to me what I think is helpful to them is just to realize that they can use art to have a voice and to be creative, and to just let loose a little bit. For those who want to take it further, certainly I’m there for them to facilitate that in any way possible. In fact, my group of wheelchair bound teenagers at NYU Hospital--I just had a recent show at Rush Arts, gallery-- and I invited that group of kids to a field trip to come see my show, the show that I was in at Rush Arts. So about five or six of them came, they rented a bus, five or six of them came down and it was an incredible experience for them because I don’t think any of them had ever been into an art gallery and seen that kind of a show and that kind of presentation of artwork, so I think that they were extremely grateful, and that they had a great time. They asked really intelligent, great questions about the work and really responded to the work in, just, a very honest way. For me that was like a cherry on top of the pie, you know?

Arielle:  I’m curious to know what you’re listening to and looking at right now.  

Yashua:  I like the question because sometimes people ask, “which artists are you looking at,” and there are times when I don’t have a list of visual artists that I’m looking at but I know that I’m being informed by different aspects of culture that may not come from the fine arts realm, maybe through music or movies. There’s an artist, Mika Rottenberg, actually who’s in this year’s Whitney Biannual, and she visited us at Hunter and did a lecture.  Most of her work is film and video, though she does some drawings, but I think her work is really interesting. As far as 2D artists, some of my classics that I keep going to are Kerry James Marshall, who’s a Chicago head. I’ve always looked at his work, ever since I was introduced to his work and I think he’s informed my work a great deal.

 Also, I have a good friend actually back home in Chicago who just started grad school at UIC named Faheem Majeed, and we communicate over the phone. When I go back home we kind of compare notes and catch up with one another in terms of the work we’re doing, and he’s doing some really fascinating work that is really about the South Side Community Art Center, which is where kind of the community back home where I was rooted in. The work that he’s doing in terms of exploring the history of the South Side Community Art Center, and some of the history of the neighborhood, and the gentrification, the implications of gentrification and property value and things like that that are happening in that neighborhood right by the Ida B Wells projects and the South Side Community Art Center, those things are really fascinating to me. When I go back home I make sure to check in with Faheem for a little inspiration.

Arielle: What are you listening to music-wise?

Yashua: Let’s see, well, musically, the thing is, to be honest with you, I’m really a hip-hop head, and a lot of that comes through in my work.

Arielle: Cool.

Yashua:  I’m a little disenchanted with hip-hop right now, and I think that my work is critical of hip-hop, in a way, but also celebratory of it. It’s sort of a tense situation because I love hip-hop, but it’s not the hip-hop I once knew. But having said that, I like artists like Common, and there’s a group from Virginia called The Clipse. Which is C-L-I-P-S-E. Kind of like eclipse without the E.

Arielle: That’s a really cool name, actually, I have not heard of them before.

Yashua: Yeah, it’s really gangster music. It’s really like, street oriented music, but it somehow actually transcends a lot of the kind of BS that I hear in more of the commercial kind of thug, rap stuff. I also listen to a lot of old, soul music like Sam Cook, or Al Green, and I’m always interested in new music, actually.

Part of the reason why I’m fascinated with hip-hop even in its disappointing state for me, because it puts me in the weird position of, in one way being sort of seduced by it, and then analyzing my own behaviors and saying wait a minute, what is it about this that I’m still letting slip under the radar. For me, as far as things I agree with and disagree with and don’t want to promote. It’s always like an interesting self-exploration and like a sociology experiment almost. That deep. It’s that deep for me.

Arielle: When I go ahead and just listen to things where I don’t agree with everything they stand for, whether it’s their politics, or their behavior, there’s definitely this guilt. Some of the more mainstream hip-hop artists are so difficult to listen to--because usually in my own listening I have tried to sort of go off the beaten path as much as possible.  But even somebody like Dr. Octagon, who I think was, in that incarnation, off the beaten path, leaves me unsure whether to feel offended or to feel elated that he’s transcending misogyny.

Yashua: Yeah, yeah, we could talk about that for hours, because it is tricky. When I did a residency in France, after I did undergrad, I didn’t listen to any hip-hop during the 6 months of France. It was like countryside, totally peaceful. We’d wake up, drink wine, and paint. And that was 6 months. I got back home, and my best friend picked it me up, and it was a bunch of my friends who were hanging out. And in his car he’s blasting this group that I just named, actually, The Clipse, and it was one of their first radio hits. It was all about heavy drug dealing. And it was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard in my life. I was shocked. I was coming from the South of France and I was just feeling like still very pure, and like a monk almost, and he’s blasting this drug deal music that was being played on the radio! I couldn’t believe the world that I had come back to! I was like, this is insane that this is even legal, you know, that my friends are listening to this kind of stuff. But having said all that, the record that he was playing I play now, and it sounds fresh to me. And even though it’s certainly extremely problematic and dangerous and hurtful, something about the lyricism and the melodies and the music is very sophisticated. So it’s a weird place, it’s just so complicated that it’s fascinating.

Arielle: I really wanted to talk to you about your residency, in Maine. You have been going through all of these amazing places and experiences ever since…I mean that seems to be your MO: France, Marwen, Hyde Park Arts Center, all the many different universities you’ve been through, Skowhegan…

Yashua: Right, right.  I used to make a joke about how after I transferred from Pratt to Hunter that I was going to apply to Yale the next year…I feel like extremely fortunate to have been exposed to Marwen at a young age, and the Hyde Park Arts Center and I think that those exposures kind of unknowingly just made my view a lot larger. I mean, I realize somehow, in the back of my mind that the possibilities had opened up for me. The residency in France was just incredible in terms of opening up my worldview. I went after I graduated in 2000 for six months for the summer, and then I returned in 2001 for six months also. So I spent a total of a year there.

Arielle: So, I’m guessing you had a good experience.

Yashua: Yeah, well, they couldn’t get rid of me. If I could have found a way to go back again, then I probably would have. But it was incredible, I really got along well with the teacher there, Patrick Betaudier.

Arielle: Yeah.

Yashua: He’s a master painter and an incredible teacher, and I had the good fortune of meeting him at IU, where I did undergrad, and he taught a painting course there and invited me and a handful of students to join him at this residency the following summer. So, it just worked out great, and like I said, just being in France, I was able to travel around Europe just a little bit, and that just kind of like, broke down so many things that I had assumed about the rest of the world, things I had assumed about myself, and things about myself as an American. I was put in this brand new context to see culture and identity and politics in an entirely new and different way. And at that point, all of the sudden everything I ever saw on the Discovery Channel became real to me. I was like, all this stuff that I’ve seen on the nature shows and the Discovery Channel, where you see these different cultures across the world, you know that it’s real, but you’re so distant from interacting with it unless you’ve stepped outside of your own culture. I think at that point, for me I realized like, wow! You know, it’s amazing that this little village that I’m in France can exist on the same planet as my apartment on the south side of Chicago. They’re two totally different worlds, and that started to, for me, ask questions about what the rest of the world is like. I think got obsessed with exploring and finding out more.

Arielle: Marwen students have for generations been going to Maine on an Artward bound trip like the New York one you participated in.

Yashua: Cool, what do they do there?

Arielle: Oh! Well, when they go to Maine with two teaching artists, they stay on an island owned by a supporter of Marwen named Virginia, and they make artwork.

Yashua: Wow.

Arielle: It’s a small island. I haven’t been there but I hear it doesn’t take too long to walk around it. It’s big enough for a place to live, and you can hike around. Anyway, she opens it up and has been opening it up for years to a group of Marwen students in the summer.

Yashua: That’s cool, that sounds so cool.

Arielle: Yeah, so they go out with two teaching artists, and they learn to paint from the landscape, and they basically just work all day on technique, and they usually do sumi ink, and watercolors. It depends on the teaching artist, and they fly out there and they spend this time in Maine, and it’s incredible. I know a lot of the students that have gone throughout the years, and every single one of them I have spoken to had a really neat experience being in Maine and kind of fell in love with it, which it’s hard not to, kind of falling in love with Maine and just being in that nature experience.

Yashua: Right.

Arielle: Would you recommend to those students to go to the residency in Maine or even the other one in France, speaking of residencies?

Yashua: Oh, I definitely would. At this point I don’t know how accessible [The French residency] is, because I haven’t talked to Patrick in so long, so I don’t know if it’s accessible to get to that one, but there are many residencies in France. Many are even inside of Paris and close to Paris, which is also an incredible city.  It’s a total international city, and a metropolis. So, those kinds of experiences are invaluable. You know, especially at a young age, to get exposed to international experiences. Just stepping out and being immersed in new cultures. Those kind of experiences, whether they…you know, even nationally, even something like Maine, you know, they open up your view in ways that, at the time, you’re not even totally aware of. You just know that you’re having fun, or you know that the food tastes different, or you know that the language is difficult. But later, when you reflect upon it, you realize how enriching those experiences so can be. So, I would definitely, definitely be behind suggesting that anybody at Marwen, or any young creative person to step out and try to travel around as much as they can, really.

Arielle: Well, that’s great advice.

Yashua: Yeah, yeah. I think so. When I went to France the first time I got back I was telling all my friends, oh you’ve got to go to France, and if you can’t go to France, go anywhere. Just step out, travel, see something different. It’s going to challenge the ways that you think, you’re going to develop some entirely new creative ideas from the experience.

Arielle: Do you think that the Marwen students that you met with in New York, because they were going away from Chicago and kind of stepping out of their boundaries, do you feel like they were having that experience?

Yashua: Oh yeah, definitely! I was saying actually, while they were here that I could have been…I wish I could have hung out with them most of the time that they were there! And I wish that when I was at Marwen that there was a program like that in place, because I would have loved to take advantage of something like that. I mean, to get exposed to New York City, even beyond the art world, just the vibe of New York City and just seeing it and making it tangible and real I think is a really valuable experience because you realize, you know, nothing is so far away. You can take an airplane and get to any place on this world. It’s all possible, as distant as it seems on TV or in movies, it’s all possible. We can all get to these places and access them. And I think a trip like that, to New York, is just really valuable for that.

Arielle: Well, can you just give me a quick little comparison in terms of your experience at Marwen? It sounds like that’s a good counterpoint, you know, certainly we’re doing things a little differently now.

Yashua: I was at Marwen ’91 and ’92, and I got there really because my mother, again, placed me in a program. It was very, very impactful. Being from the south side of Chicago, I hadn’t actually traveled much to the north side, and Marwen was like, in a weird way an exposure of myself to my own city of Chicago, in a strange way, because I wasn’t used to getting out to the north side.  Anything close to Chicago Avenue is like, you know, the north side. That’s what’s really cool about Marwen. When I started Marwen I was a little bit reserved, because I was a graffiti artist and I wasn’t ready to sit down and learn art, like art practices and techniques at the time. But what I found when I got there was that a lot of the other students were interested or doing graffiti as well. And I saw the little tags on the tables and stuff like that, and that kind of made me realize that it doesn’t have to be a separate world, that graffiti art and fine art can actually be shared worlds, and Marwen was one of those rare places that understood that art is art. And I think it broke down some of those assumptions that I had, those separations between what might be considered acceptable or high art and you know, low art. So, I think that Marwen, for me, was really key in breaking down those assumptions and just really appreciating myself as an artist without a category.

Arielle: Well, it’s funny because it’s probably been about three years, maybe something like that since we started offering a fine art graffiti class.

Yashua: Yeah, the kids that were here told me about that!

Arielle: Yeah, what did you think about that?

Yashua: I think it’s cool! I think it’s a great idea, actually, and there’s some really good artists from Chicago,  who’s in this year’s Whitney Biannual, or maybe last year’s…or maybe it’s Venice, the Venice Biannual he’s in. He’s a traditional graffiti artist from Chicago who’s making huge movement in the fine arts world now. He’s brought a lot of that graffiti attitude and that street art attitude with him.

Arielle: Yeah well, the climate for graffiti art has certainly changed, obviously, and I sent you that article. I think we both know that things have changed greatly, but I didn’t know that about you, and so I think it’s funny that I chose that article to send, about the Brazilian brothers. I didn’t realize it would be that relevant to you. I fell in love with the article and their responses, and their art and their style, and it’s just like, I have to share this!

Yashua: Totally, I’m glad you sent that, that was a cool article!

A: Yeah, yeah, I had not heard of that magazine before, a coworker had it, and whatever, it’s artists interviewing artists and it’s just totally rad. So I’m, again, glad that you enjoyed it. I’d be happy to send stuff like that in the future.

Yashua:Arielle, thanks, this is so fun, I’m so glad you considered me for this.

 

 

ALUMNUS ARTIST PROFILE
Yashua Klos
High school class of 1995

Q. Share with us the name of a Marwen teaching artist and/or or staff person who significantly impacted you.

A. Sadie Woods was just very supportive and enthusiastic. She got me excited about participating as an alum with Marwen.

Q. What is the most important issue being addressed in art today?

A. I don’t see a common issue being addressed right now. I still think we are in a pluralistic art world- where maybe what’s becoming more and more evident is that cultural context is key in accessing art.

Q. Where do you go to learn?

A. Hunter college MFA program. I also study my friends. I make lists of books, movies, and artists they’re interested in and I go and find out about them. They usually have much better taste than me.

Q. Where is the best place to see art in Chicago?

A. I like the Smart Museum in Hyde Park and the MCA. Art collector Daniel Texidor Parker’s house in Hyde Park is also a favorite of mine because he’s curated his expensive collection so well-and he lives in it!

Q. Where is the best place to see art anywhere?

A. Museums all over the globe. But some people have nice tattoos too.