CATHY WEISS
Can describe your background as an artist. What inspired you to be an artist?
I grew up with very strong women. My mom made all my clothes growing up, she was very creative and artistic. My grandmother was also a colorful person. She was always knitting and cooking. She was a famous chef. She had the first Jewish Hungarian cooking show on TV. She had a restaurant in the thirties that served old Hollywood. When I was about 10, my brother, who is 12 years older than me, had a girlfriend who was an artist who went to Mills College, and incredibly talented. The two of them would take me to look at art. She taught me to draw. Ever since then I wanted to be an artist. It just made sense.
Later I found out my birth mother was an artist. That was how she met my birth father because she was studying at the Art Students League of New York.
You are a product of passion Cathy.
It’s both nurture and nature that I became an artist. It was always in me and then it was nurtured by my family. In high school I was always making and doing. I had a great art teacher and decided to apply for art college.
Printmaking is a large part of your practice. Why is that?
I was young when I went to college (17). I was creating pen and ink drawings, and then tried etching at college and liked it. Then I tried lithography and relief woodcut. The minute I tried woodcut I knew this was it for me. I never did another etching or lithograph again.
During grad school I worked at the Bob Blackburn Printmaking Workshop in New York. He was still alive at the time and it was magical to be in his studio.
When I moved back to Los Angeles and had my kids, I was painting commissions for my mom who was a designer. I did a ceiling painting in a castle that then became the home of Johnny Depp. Once my kids were a little bit older, I turned my focus on my work.
A friend suggested that I try out the Los Angeles Printmaking Society. It was a segue back into the art community. I immediately started working on the big National exhibition in 2009. I pulled in Bob Blackburn's work and I met a lot of people. I worked really hard. I then found a space to open a gallery. We had LA Print Space for two years until they wanted to quadruple the rent.
We did really great shows! We brought shows from Israel and did an Irish LA exchange through my connection with the Director of the Irish Film Festival in Los Angeles who asked me if I wanted to do the art for the Irish Film Festival. I said, “I have a bigger idea.” What we did was amazing for a big group of LA artists and Irish artists. I found a space, and we had guest curators, and we did a lot of shows. My focus became more about my woodcut printing and making three dimensional work.
Cathy Weiss, Welcome Stranger, 2019, woodcut print, stencil, 39 x 86”
Do you feel the amount of complexity that you bring from a subject matter perspective is best expressed with wood carving?
I love being able to make very intricate work. Many years ago, my daughter was thrown from a horse and broke her back. I made a work about the experience. The carving is so intricate. I started doing skeletons and repeating the iconography and symbolism in the work. It's almost as if I can do more with carving than I can do with the way that I paint.
My understanding in determining a good print is really about working the possibilities with the techniques themselves. Would you agree?
I would say that I'm not a typical print maker. It's a starting point. I am not a master printer that works with different mediums. For me, woodcuts work because I love doing it, and, I like the effect I get from it. I could probably express my ideas in a drawing, except for the fact that I like to work on other mediums, not just paper. Like printing on cork, and printing on silk. I can then add colour to the work. Sometimes when I do a painting I can't get certain effects I want. I like to think about how I can show my ideas using a different mix of media. Such as my piece Return of the Divine Feminine, 2011 (below), where the woman is pulling dragonflies from the centre of the earth. I've installed the work a couple times and every time a little bit differently. Once, I installed the work 30 feet across. With printmaking, it allows me to do installations, and three dimensional work, and the ability to repeat using blocks. I never do two of the same, but I might use one figure and one work and then reuse the same figure somewhere else. My pieces are unique.
Cathy Weiss, Return of the Divine Feminine, 2011, woodcut print mixed, 105" x 30” x 5"
Cathy Weiss, Waters of Strength, 2019, woodcut print, cork, branches, 70” x 50”
Which is not typical printmaking?
No. It's a huge amount of work. For example, Waters of Strength, 2019 (above), my piece of a woman that I printed twice on cork, was influenced by a trip to Morocco when I visited a cork forest.
Recently, I have printed on paper, then adhered the paper to either wood or just printed directly on wood, as I like to add different dimensions to my work, whether it's flowers, or branches, or it's wood that is layered to create a relief.
Sometimes, I use different materials for ease of logistics too. One thing that I love about working with paper is that I can roll it and it's easy for me to ship. I might have a piece that can fill a 30 foot wall but it will all fit in a tube.
Recurrent themes in your work include time, place, nature, mythology, numerology, courage, valour… women whose shoulders we stand on, the colour blue. For me “feminine strength embodies every work that you do”. Can you explain how your ideas have formed?
I am interested in myth, truth, and storytelling. I think when this all started many years ago all I cared about was making work. Then it was about the politics of the day. I researched, and listened and read about many different things. I listened to a sermon about Martin Luther King Day and the preacher talked about a rabbi that wanted to march with Martin Luther King. And he was told, “you know, Rabbi, you're not allowed to march”. And he said, “when I march my feet are praying.” When I heard that I was so inspired I did a piece about it.
Over the years, I would just find a sentence here or there or something struck me that I wanted to know more about. And so I would start researching it and creating work. Life influences me too. I did a piece about letting go when it was time for my kids to go to college. And there was a time when I was feeling very stressed and I created a work with a rope around my neck. My work is personal stuff, and it is also about what is going on in the world.
Cathy Weiss, Knot Within, 2010 woodcut print, rope, wood, print on paper with rope and wood, dimensions: 78” x 48”x 3”
I find interesting the symbolism of knots and knotting and their meaning in Judaism. I find the symbolism equally interesting in other cultures such as in India, or in Ireland. Researching cross-cultural symbolism and what it means to different people, meant that I was creating personal work but I was also making work that was bridging cultures and ultimately more global.
Many years of teaching and raising kids has meant that I come across a myriad of different symbols. The Myosotis, or “Forget-Me-Not” flower, is a recurrent symbol in my work as it was a flower that my grandmother grew in her garden. She wore turquoise earrings, and told me that baby girls in Hungary would get their ears pierced at a few days old, and given little turquoise and gold “Forget-Me-Not” flower studs.
When I researched the “Forget-Me-Not”, I found that it has a rich history and meaning behind its humble appearance. The plant grows an abundance of small blue flowers that have become a symbol of remembrance of true and undying love. The common name “Forget-Me-Not” was calqued from the German Vergissmeinnicht, and first used in English in 1398 AD via King Henry IV. A large number of stories and myths surround the plant, including one of two lovers walking along the Danube River first seeing the bright blue blossoms. The man retrieved the flowers for the woman, but he was swept away by the river and told her not to forget him as he floated away.
I bought a pair of the Victorian style earrings for my daughter, and I also bought a pair for my daughter-in-law when she got engaged to my son. I also have a couple pairs if I ever have a granddaughter. My daughter and I both have a tattoo of a “Forget-Me-Not” flower, because the day that she was born, they bloomed in my garden and her birth flower is a “Forget-Me-Not”.
So, like the flower, I intensely research my work, in the context of my own life, and that of others, by looking at the symbolism and meaning of certain iconography, and its roots, either fact or fable, that set us apart as different, but share so much in common.
Cathy Weiss, Coming In, Going Out, 2010, woodcut print, 88" x 42" x 5"
During a trip to Spain, I learned about the darkness of the history of the Muslims and the Jews. After almost a millennium of harmonious existence in Spain, what had been the most populous and prosperous Jewish community in Europe ceased to exist on the Iberian Peninsula. The thousand-year history of Jews in Spain is a dramatic chronicle of power and influence, of the horrors of the Inquisition, and finally, the Expulsion.
It was a community that flourished under both Muslim and Christian rule, enjoying prosperity and power unsurpassed in Europe. But it also endured considerable hardship. Fundamentalist Islamic tribes drove Jews from Muslim to Christian Spain. In 1391, thousands were killed in waves of massacres throughout the country, and more than a third of the Jewish population were forced to convert by anti-Jewish rioters.
A century later, the Spanish Inquisition began, accusing thousands of these converts of heresy. By the end of the 15th century, Jews had been expelled from Spain and forcibly converted. Legend has it that Jews from Spain took their house keys with them, hoping some day to return.
The symbolism of the key features in my work. I did a recent piece about Hadassah, the eponymous heroine of the Book of Esther, finding her courage, because she ultimately saved the Jews of Persia. Her story provides the traditional explanation for the Jewish holiday of Purim. The use of the myrtle flower in my work also has a specific meaning, as the myrtle is an evergreen, and the rabbis compared it with the good qualities of Esther whose Hebrew name was Hadassah ("myrtle"). Its aromatic branches were used for preparing the bride-groom's wreaths and were used in festivities and betrothal celebrations, and some of the sages would juggle with myrtle branches, throwing them up and catching them. Many customs using the myrtle flower are still carried out today. Everything I do has a specific meaning.
Cathy Weiss, The Three Keys, 2022, woodcut print on washi mounted on wood, dimensions: 46” x 62” x 2”
Another thing that seems to influence you enormously is a sense of community. Can you explain how it affects your work?
The whole reason community is important is because my parents were very liberal democrats. I grew up with them working for different candidates. My parents were there when Robert Kennedy was killed at the Ambassador Hotel. My father helped many people, including many women, succeed in getting them a judgeship or getting them the funding to do a preschool for example. They were very involved in community and did a lot of work. I think that was instilled in me.
I was a very shy person, very uncomfortable in my own skin I would say. Working with children I always felt like I could be myself. Having my own children was very important to me. Temples and schools provide community, and as a teacher and mother I was meeting families and doing get togethers and then Big Sunday started. It is where I do Mosaic suns. We do murals and gardens and I get a lot from giving to someone else. Like teaching, it gives me a great sense of belonging. Maybe it's because I was adopted, even though I have the most amazing family in the world, yet finding out who I am and finding a sense of belonging and community has been very important to me.
Mosaic suns community project.
What is it about lore that fascinates you?
I have a work with a scroll attached to it, Asherah, 2021, and I ask people to write one paragraph or a few sentences about a woman whose shoulders they felt they stood upon, which is then added to the scroll. It could be someone in history or a mythological character; it could be their mother. Many people wrote very beautiful things. The idea of the scroll came to me as it is unraveling, there's no end to it, which is perfect. Of course, what scrolls signify also interested me; bringing people from different cultures and posing the question of how these women give us strength.
Cathy Weiss, Asherah, 2021, woodcut, stencil, watercolor, wood, 96" x 41x variable
It's interesting that you look for roots and alignments, even in mythology. You have Spanish heritage and you have explored that in your work, as you go beyond that with your travels and exploration of Morocco, continuing to trace roots further and further back. Your work does seem to start with the very personal and then it branches out globally, via historical lines. You often have figures in your work that are grounded in themselves but often you add literal tree roots, or threads that spill out of the work.
I often create a root system in my work. I always do three roots. There are many meanings for the number three such as harmony, wisdom and understanding; past, present and future; birth, life and death; beginning, middle and end. It is the number of the divine. In the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah, it is believed the soul consists of three parts. Most of the time I use an oak tree in my work, but it could be another tree if it's something specific. I think like you're right, it starts with the self but moves out.
The idea with the keys and immigration - it really hit me about what is happening with the number of people trying to leave Africa and heading to Italy, and those in the United States, trying to cross the border from Mexico. Then there is the tragedy of the Trump administration ordering children be taken from their mothers at the border. So much of what has happened in history, is still happening in current times. The players have changed. Even during the Holocaust in World War II, in the United States, there were people who did not want to help the Jewish people. There's a lot of bad history in this country.
There's bad history everywhere. In Australia, The Stolen Generation form a part of our modern history; Australian indigenous children taken from their families and sent into missions and given a colonial white man's education.
Canada too.
Taking people off their reservations or even putting them in reservations, it's the exactly the same thing. It's enormously traumatic. To heal those wounds is a very hard thing to do. The Black Lives Matter movement, the civil crises peaking in the United States in March 2020 brought a lot of issues to the fore. Despite the tragedy, people are questioning history: how it has been written, by whom, and for whom. Myths, truth telling and stories is apt and topical.
Cathy Weiss currently has a solo exhibition Tel Tales at UCLA Hillel, Los Angeles, until December 9, and, work in the group show LAPS 22nd National Print Exhibition at Mixografia, Los Angeles until November 12.
Click here for more information about Cathy and to see her other work.
Printmaking • Painting • LA artist • WTM Artist
