Drew:
You use the pseudonym Damarisland. Is this a way for you to define that space you are in when you are performing and creating art for yourself or do you feel like someone is entering a unique land during your performances?
Damaris:
I was using this as a pseudonym when I first started performing in Denver. I was using the moniker as a way of branding/marketing my work. Now that I have matured a bit I am thinking that I will continue making work using my full name.
I have been sort of trying to phase out of Damarisland this past year; using it as my production house name rather than a title I call myself. Grip yourself for a URL change in the near future to damarisdrummond.com.
Drew:
You grew up in Maine, as your site says "on a steep hill". How did those two elements contribute to your character? Maine, for someone who grew up in the New York area, sounds so remote and isolated. Is that so, and does having that kind of space make one more creative, simply out of need for stimulation? And what about the hill? Is that a teetering influence, like you are never on level ground? I grew up in a hilly town and I always looked at the hills as frozen waves, whose crests I could run up on top of or "surf" down on my bicycle.
Damaris:
Growing up in Maine is all I know. It's hard to have an analytical grasp of one's childhood. In those formative years you can't really step out and imagine things any other way. I suppose it's just like how I grew to be six foot tall in sixth grade. Always towering, I can't ever imagine any other vantage.
Maine is rural. We rode bikes a lot, made forts in the woods and played Swiss-family-Robinson on the rocky shores. I was imagining all the live long day, but I can't tell you that the same thing would be untrue were I to have been raised in Chinatown.
Drew:
I really liked two of your works on your site in particular. One is 16, 17, 18 and the other was the Two Loops and a V. 16, 17, 18 is about writing to an unknown lover. Why is the height of the windows you rewrote your old journal entries on important? Did the height and perhaps fearful feeling of being up on the 30 foot ladder, help you to recall some of those feelings or was it simply to show a distance to that time and how love can be so precarious?
Damaris:
Climbing the 30 foot ladder was an act of contrition. I have always been afraid of heights. I wanted to face that fear. Many times I perform and feel this super-human force seem overtake me. I was not afraid while performing 16, 17, 18. The height of the windows was meant to illustrate in physical space the want of a high school aged girl wanting to fall in love.
Drew:
What I like about Two Loops and a V, in which your knitted clothing unravels and is unravelled and turned into a "cathartic web", is how it relates to the story of Penelope, who delays the suitors competing for her in the absence of Odysseus (who has been gone for twenty years since his departure for the Trojan war). She tricks them by claiming she will choose one of them when she finishes weaving a burial shroud for Laertes, Odysseus' elderly father. During the day she works on the piece, but in the night she unravels it. Was that story on your mind when you did the piece?
Damaris:
It was not. However, I love the correlation you created.
Drew:
A lot of your work focuses on your face and your body...or at least part of your body as in your Legs Project, in which the camera follows your lower half in fish net stockings around. How do the topics of narcissism and exhibitionism influence you? Do you feel like your work is about seducing the viewer...or maybe the broader question is...Do you think art is about seducing the viewer?
Damaris:
I think that there are multiple ways to entice a viewer. When dealing with performance, there is an obvious physical interaction your are eliciting with your audience. The fact that I am a female in my twenties does seem to attach a sexual prowess to some of my works, especially Internet-driven works like 365 Faces. Does this strengthen or weaken the success of my art? If a forty-year old construction worker were to put on fishnet stockings and ride that bike in Legs Project an entirely different meaning would be generated. Maybe I should try that.
Narcissism is something I am fascinated by. In this day and age when everyone can be self-ordained experts on everything, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, blogs, everybody's voice/insights can try and shout over the masses. I am just trying to cut out a slice of magic in this stark reality: to create from my experiences and imagination.
Drew:
Keeping on this topic, how do you anticipate your work and your audience to change as you eventually age? What do you see yourself doing 10 years from now...20 years from now?
Damaris:
I've been writing a fair amount of dialogue lately. My latest pieces have taken the form of more theatrical renderings of reality. I would like to continue to play with this format. I used to write plays as a child and am interested in experimenting with that through stage and video. My love and I are also starting a band!
Drew:
You studied in France and Italy. Both of those countries have much more of street performance culture than any place in the United States. Did that presence influence your work or are you more influenced by the performing arts culture in the fine arts, and if so, who has made an impression on you?
Damaris:
I am extremely impressionable. It's fair to say that every cultural experience I have had has informed my work. The traditions and history of Europe never fail to influence me.
Drew:
Thank you for your time.
Damaris:
Thanks for you interest.
You use the pseudonym Damarisland. Is this a way for you to define that space you are in when you are performing and creating art for yourself or do you feel like someone is entering a unique land during your performances?
Damaris:I was using this as a pseudonym when I first started performing in Denver. I was using the moniker as a way of branding/marketing my work. Now that I have matured a bit I am thinking that I will continue making work using my full name.
I have been sort of trying to phase out of Damarisland this past year; using it as my production house name rather than a title I call myself. Grip yourself for a URL change in the near future to damarisdrummond.com.
Drew:
You grew up in Maine, as your site says "on a steep hill". How did those two elements contribute to your character? Maine, for someone who grew up in the New York area, sounds so remote and isolated. Is that so, and does having that kind of space make one more creative, simply out of need for stimulation? And what about the hill? Is that a teetering influence, like you are never on level ground? I grew up in a hilly town and I always looked at the hills as frozen waves, whose crests I could run up on top of or "surf" down on my bicycle.
Damaris:
Growing up in Maine is all I know. It's hard to have an analytical grasp of one's childhood. In those formative years you can't really step out and imagine things any other way. I suppose it's just like how I grew to be six foot tall in sixth grade. Always towering, I can't ever imagine any other vantage.
Maine is rural. We rode bikes a lot, made forts in the woods and played Swiss-family-Robinson on the rocky shores. I was imagining all the live long day, but I can't tell you that the same thing would be untrue were I to have been raised in Chinatown.Drew:
I really liked two of your works on your site in particular. One is 16, 17, 18 and the other was the Two Loops and a V. 16, 17, 18 is about writing to an unknown lover. Why is the height of the windows you rewrote your old journal entries on important? Did the height and perhaps fearful feeling of being up on the 30 foot ladder, help you to recall some of those feelings or was it simply to show a distance to that time and how love can be so precarious?
Damaris:
Climbing the 30 foot ladder was an act of contrition. I have always been afraid of heights. I wanted to face that fear. Many times I perform and feel this super-human force seem overtake me. I was not afraid while performing 16, 17, 18. The height of the windows was meant to illustrate in physical space the want of a high school aged girl wanting to fall in love.
Drew:
What I like about Two Loops and a V, in which your knitted clothing unravels and is unravelled and turned into a "cathartic web", is how it relates to the story of Penelope, who delays the suitors competing for her in the absence of Odysseus (who has been gone for twenty years since his departure for the Trojan war). She tricks them by claiming she will choose one of them when she finishes weaving a burial shroud for Laertes, Odysseus' elderly father. During the day she works on the piece, but in the night she unravels it. Was that story on your mind when you did the piece?
Damaris:It was not. However, I love the correlation you created.
Drew:
A lot of your work focuses on your face and your body...or at least part of your body as in your Legs Project, in which the camera follows your lower half in fish net stockings around. How do the topics of narcissism and exhibitionism influence you? Do you feel like your work is about seducing the viewer...or maybe the broader question is...Do you think art is about seducing the viewer?
Damaris:
I think that there are multiple ways to entice a viewer. When dealing with performance, there is an obvious physical interaction your are eliciting with your audience. The fact that I am a female in my twenties does seem to attach a sexual prowess to some of my works, especially Internet-driven works like 365 Faces. Does this strengthen or weaken the success of my art? If a forty-year old construction worker were to put on fishnet stockings and ride that bike in Legs Project an entirely different meaning would be generated. Maybe I should try that.
Narcissism is something I am fascinated by. In this day and age when everyone can be self-ordained experts on everything, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, blogs, everybody's voice/insights can try and shout over the masses. I am just trying to cut out a slice of magic in this stark reality: to create from my experiences and imagination.Drew:
Keeping on this topic, how do you anticipate your work and your audience to change as you eventually age? What do you see yourself doing 10 years from now...20 years from now?
Damaris:
I've been writing a fair amount of dialogue lately. My latest pieces have taken the form of more theatrical renderings of reality. I would like to continue to play with this format. I used to write plays as a child and am interested in experimenting with that through stage and video. My love and I are also starting a band!
Drew:
You studied in France and Italy. Both of those countries have much more of street performance culture than any place in the United States. Did that presence influence your work or are you more influenced by the performing arts culture in the fine arts, and if so, who has made an impression on you?
Damaris:
I am extremely impressionable. It's fair to say that every cultural experience I have had has informed my work. The traditions and history of Europe never fail to influence me.
Drew:
Thank you for your time.
Damaris:
Thanks for you interest.