Lea Feinstein speaks with Austin Carting on Sounds Good about her exhibition opening at the Ruth Baggett Gallery in Paducah this Saturday. “No Dawdling” will be on display through July 31st.
“No dawdling, to me, means jump in. Don’t hesitate, don’t hold back, don’t judge yourself too much. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes just get the hell going,” Feinstein says.
Feinstein says “No Dawdling” was a quote from American avant garde composer, writer, and artist John Cage and served as her mantra during her May residency in Paducah. She says a month long residency doesn’t leave much time for overthinking.
The exhibit is made from acid free, waterproof, recyclable Tyvek house wrap. Feinstein says it is the same material used for FedEx envelopes. It has served as her painting canvass for years, but she says she used her residency to explore its three dimensional-applications.
Feinstein says some of the exhibit was inspired by her deteriorating studio space on the second floor of the Make building, which had been damaged by fire. “[A] whole 20 piece, ten by ten series of collages are really made from the body of the building that I was inhabiting,” Feinstein said. She pulled things off the ceiling and used pieces of wood she found lying around for the collages. “I guess that’s kind of a carnivorous art practice.”
Since 1998, Feinstein has only been using her left hand to make art. She calls her right hand the hand of intention and her left the hand of revelation. Feinstein says this is her dedication to embracing accidents and a lack control in her art. “What I find when I use my left hand is that I don’t judge my work very much. I just let it roll out,” Feinstein said. “So what I was trying to do by choosing to use my left hand was to defeat my time worn mannerisms of my right hand. And I have been really pleasantly surprised.”
