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Ariel Bader-Shamai

KEY WORDS

sentimental, people, artist, art, thinking, weaving, prompt, feel, pillows, photos, captions, haiku, love, idea, photography, song, guess, lives, album, knowing

Ariel Bader-Shamai is a textile artist, photographer and archivist based in Montreal. Weaving emotional landscapes primarily with recycled materials, Ariel is also a weaver of personal histories and craft through her archival work and friendships. She was a co-founder of HAVN (Hamilton Audio Visual Node), an interdisciplinary and experimental arts collective and venue formerly based in Hamilton, Ontario.

This conversation took place in February 2023.

We can get started with how we met in Hamilton. We established we thought it was through email and COVID, but we worked together before that. When I was managing Synonym, this cafe bookshop in Hamilton, we scattered your beautiful photos all throughout the space for Super Crawl, which turned out beautifully. Yeah, and then we remained connected somewhat in the art community. But, yeah, it really was COVID, sending long-form emails to each other back and forth.

That was like early, like, super early COVID.

Yeah, let me see the dates on these, actually. Yeah, April 13, 2020.

Wow.

I wasn't able to see any of my friends back in Toronto and loved every time I connected with you, and, yeah, it felt really vulnerable to send an email like that to someone I didn't know. I had just been through a super recent breakup and knew you had as well. And I was just like fuck it, we're both artists. We're both like...

We're peers. We were in semi-parallel-ish situations too.

Totally. I always admired how even looking back on these emails, you're always offering space. You said, "I'm always happy to hold the space for you, listen, share." Always checking in, "I don't know if this will speak to you," then will share your thoughts. Something about your work that's always spoken to me is its awareness of where it sits with others. You're creating these things, but then how they interact with the hands that they end up in, whether it's nature, landscapes in your photography, or other people, in artists that you're taking photos of, and then into weavings, pillows, there's some conversation going on. So, it's appropriate that we start with these emails, too.

Yeah, I like how you just laid that out.

Maybe you could talk a bit about how weaving started to come up for you in the pandemic, where your art practice was at that time, and how it evolved?

I started weaving in the winter of 2019. We went to the Art Gallery of Burlington, their artist's material fund, which was part of an exhibition. It was a room full of materials used for exhibitions or workshops that were leftover and a free for all basically. I took these cut-out looms and a bunch of yarn with me, and I was just figuring it out a bit through the winter. And then, when suddenly I had nothing to do but stay home, I became extremely consumed with it. Yeah, that's how I got started.

This also brings me back to when I asked you and your roommate at the time, Sahra, to participate in Ceremony. I was specifically asking people who made other types of art, who didn't necessarily write, for some written submission, whether it was poetry, prose, choppy paragraphs, or whatever it was. I remember I asked you because I admired the captions that came with your weavings; they were so beautiful and told a story. It was funny because I remember you wanting to be involved. Then you were like, "Oh, I'm not a writer! I don't know if I can!" and I was like, "Please!" Obviously, there was no pressure whatsoever, but I wanted to stress that you not being a "writer" was the point, kind of, and I really loved your voice in those captions. Then you came out with this beautiful little haiku. It was so perfect and fit so beautifully in the first book. Could you talk a bit about those captions, how they work together, how you'd come up with them?

For the weaving specifically, I was trying to give the backstory and lots of information about what I was thinking through while making it. Weaving, to me, is such a meditative process. I think I'm overly sentimental a lot of the time. You can see that in those captions. But also, I just thought when I see any art, I love hearing about its backstory or what provoked or inspired it. I like informing the art that I'm like consuming in that way, and I love context. I love history and all that, how it all works together. So I was hoping to validate what I was presenting through Instagram somehow, to let you know this is what I was thinking about, so maybe you'll understand? And in that time, just trying to share and connect with people.

Yeah, the context and history aspect of that is interesting, as well. Those weavings are almost like an archive of that time.

Totally.

“Maybe there's even something in the exchange itself that is transformative.”

– Ariel Bader-Shamai

And now they live with other people too, which is neat. And those captions are just as much a part of the weaving as the weaving itself. When you would sell one of them, would they come with it?

No, I never thought about doing that, actually. That's a really nice idea. There's one weaving that I traded that I want back so bad. I don't think I can tradesies backsies.

That must be a difficult part of making art if you're sentimental or the process around it. What does letting go of those feel like?

It also means so much to me that anybody would ever possibly want something that I made. One of the first shows I presented at HAVN I had maybe 40 photos on the wall. People responded to it in a way that I was not anticipating. I gave them all away. I was like, you, you want this? Like, no, no, I don't want money, take it. It meant so much to me. It is kind of silly; I have no record of where these pieces went or anything like that. I don't know. I'm a people pleaser too much in that way. But also, when I see pillows in somebody's place, or I have a couple friends that have my photos in their homes, that's such a lovely, lovely feeling. Very nice.

That feeling of trying to strike a balance in making art, making it from this really vulnerable and feeling-oriented place, and then also trying to make money off of it to sustain yourself as a career artist, I feel like it's two extremes. Maybe the purity around making art is being able to give it to anybody who it speaks to. It feels so unnatural to attach a price to that. I was listening to a podcast, Time Sensitive, and Hank Willis Thomas said, "you don't go into making art to make money; you go into art to make an impact on yourself first, and then on the audience that interacts with the work. There is no greater reward than feeling transformed by something that you're a part of making." Or maybe that's the highest potential of art, to discover yourself and others. I don't think putting a price on that experience and exchange will ever be natural so long as you're making art from that really genuine place.

Maybe there's even something in the exchange itself that is transformative.

Yeah.

Especially with the weavings when I'm giving you a little information about it. It's like, we're connecting, and knowing that somebody else is on a page with you, or something like that, feels good.

“Because a lot of my work is emotional, I think about the parts of me that flow through me, that flowed through my ancestors, who I don't know very much about at all. I think it's interesting that perhaps I feel what they felt. I hope that maybe we would connect in some way.”

– Ariel Bader-Shamai

This is making me curious about the one that you wish you could get back. Was there any particular story attached to it? Or was it a favourite design? Or you really loved how it turned out?

It was one of the first ones that I did, and I love how it turned out. I love to experiment and try different things with different mediums generally. I always feel there's something about the first few tries of something when you don't really know what you're doing as much before you get into the rhythm and the routine of like, oh, yeah, this is how it's gonna begin or whatever. Just like, more playful. I just want it back, but no, it's fine. It's fine.

That's so funny. So then, when did pillows come into the conversation?

Later in spring of 2020, I bought this really funky pillow from another pillow artist. I was inspired and wanted to make our home funkier and more comfortable. And I'd been doing this weekly Zoom with my mom, a couple of my brothers, and my cousin in Boston, who is a neuroscientist, and I'm saying that because it comes in later. We were doing this weekly creative get-together for an hour, where I would give a prompt on something. Everybody was coming from different backgrounds in what they like to do and what they're good at, and maybe wouldn't necessarily call themselves an artist all the time. We would offer a prompt, and then you come back next week to share what that made you think of or what that inspired you to doodle or take a photo of on your phone or an article you saw or whatever. I don't remember the prompt, but my cousin, the neuroscientist, said that when we're lonely, the same part of the brain that craves food is activated. So like, touch hunger is a real thing.

So like, craving touch is the same as craving food? Kind of?

Yeah, it activates the same place in your brain. Thinking about that really got me going because you couldn't touch anybody at that time! You couldn't even get close. You couldn't see their faces. It was wild. Yeah. And it was the same thing as the weavings where people seemed to respond well to it, and I just started making more.

With the pillows, were they as sentimental to you as the weavings?

I don't know; they serve a different purpose. They're not as sentimental to me, but it means the same thing when someone buys one and tells me how it brings them comfort or, like, people have told me the weirdest things they use their pillows for. It's very cool that I can make something, and it ends up as a personal object to you. Same thing with quilt-making. I love the idea of sharing warmth that way.

I feel like it's the reverse for weavings; you are giving this sentimental story with the meditative act of putting one together. And then pillows, you're creating this thing that comes from a really sentimental need, and then the story is filled in by the person who buys it.

I like that.

And then quilts are just like a whole other thing.

Whole other ball game.

Also, so special about the once-a-week prompting with your family and them having that openness to practice that altogether.

So fun, I really enjoyed that. I don't remember when it fell off, but at some point, people just started getting busy.

I feel like that conversation lends well to one of the first questions about who you bring forward with you in your life and work. What comes up for you with that question?

Because a lot of my work is emotional, I think about the parts of me that flow through me, that flowed through my ancestors, who I don't know very much about at all. I think it's interesting that perhaps I feel what they felt. I hope that maybe we would connect in some way.

I know you have a lot of old photos and heirlooms in your apartment, too. Even though you might not know details or a lot about your ancestry, do you feel like you have a strong connection with whoever you mean when you say ancestry? Like a sentimental connection even though you might not know every detail?

“Maybe the purity around making art is being able to give it to anybody who it speaks to. It feels so unnatural to attach a price to that.”

– KT

Yeah, I think so, for sure. I love looking at these photos of my grandmother and my great-grandmother. When I look at pictures of my great-grandmother I'm like, who are you? But then I'm also like, Oh, you're me. I see you, I see me. Yeah, what were you thinking about? I don't know. With the risk of sounding very cheesy, I have to censor everything I'm about to say with this, but maybe, one of the histories of Jewish people is that you're constantly moving. I can vaguely trace back where my family came from, but even that was not for long because they had to move from somewhere else and somewhere else before that because of, you know, antisemitism and war… so the idea of searching for a home, but I don't know what or where that home is. I think this is probably something, maybe a feeling they had? That sounds awful, I feel condescending, but they probably had way more important things to be thinking about.

Something that comes to mind through a story like that is in these personal histories where there's instability in physical and geographical aspects of our lives, we find ways to have a home through touch and other people. The things you make aren't necessarily tied to a place, and for some people, their work is very tied to place. Did other people in your family do textile work or anything like that?

I'm not sure. My Bubbie, my dad's mom, crocheted blankets. I know that. I imagine she did other things. I don't know that much about her.

Were you the first in your family to pursue an art career?

No. In my immediate family, yes. But not in extended.

“I'm starting to think of myself more as a technician than an artist with photography. What I love to do outside of work or my job is work with people on what they need, to express their vision in image form for them, like with Julieta and her pastries. I've always loved working with musicians when they're rehearsing or performing or other artists just in the act of creation. I don't know why, but that is always super appealing to me. Even when I go to see the work of other photographers, it's stuff like that that really appeals to me, being able to see these moments that reveal something about people or creativity.”

– Ariel Bader-Shamai

How does calling yourself an artist feel? And did you always call yourself one? Do you call yourself one?

I call myself an artist. It seems like everybody has such a hard time owning that. I definitely did, too, for a long time, and then I just was like, just get over it! I am comfortable saying that I'm an artist because I make art. My mom always says like, the eternal struggle of having to work is like, do you find a way to make your passion and your art the way that you support yourself and make money, or do you find another job that can support you and allow you to have an artistic practice? I've now experienced both, and I find them both extremely difficult.

That's such a valid point. Yeah.

But I much prefer being able to work on art and not worry or have any thought about, like, how am I going to sell this? I have a job that supports me right now, so the price of my work doesn’t have to be my focus at the moment.

That question, I think, is the perfect way to explain that tension of, like, you made something, and it's a little heartbreaking asking how am I going to sell this?

Yeah.

Like, complicated. I don't know if you have a similar answer to this question, who lives on through your work? It's paired with, what will you leave behind for archaeologists of the future? What will be found of the art that you make?

I hope nothing. I don't know; I'm just emphasizing this idea, right. One of the reasons why I like working with recycled materials is because they come from something else and can also become something else. I was talking to somebody about the idea of preserving art. Yes, it's very important, and I studied photo preservation for a couple of years. But also, it's very interesting to see how things degrade and change over their own natural lifespan. That means you don't have perfect things in the end, but I don't think anything should stick around forever. I know I have so much stuff, but I hope it's not always around. I hope it becomes something else eventually.

So when you think of the pieces you make, you hope that they evolve almost to be unrecognizable to you but will have that sort of connection point maybe buried beneath them?

Yeah.

This has been coming up a lot more in design as well. Designers are finally thinking about degradation or what happens to the building that we build when it starts to destroy itself. And what does sustainability look like? They're starting to develop in the whole lifecycle of an object as opposed to just building it and not thinking past it.

Yeah. That's what we should be thinking more about.

So with that, when you choose materials for what you're making, I know you use natural dye methods, is that where that comes into play as well for you?

Maybe. I haven't used natural dye in a while because I no longer have the best setup. But yeah, I think it's so cool that you can make beautiful colours out of things you can find in nature. When I was doing that a lot three years ago in lockdown, it was just walking around the neighbourhood and finding materials growing around me, and that's fun as hell. It's cool. It's magic. It's the same with photography; you see the image come alive from nothing.

Yeah, it's wild to think that something like lockdown, or being extremely limited in movement, you can be forced to learn how to do different things with what is inside of that. I think that's what creativity is. It's like, okay, we have the same things we've always had; how do we use these things in new ways? To use what you already have in new ways. That's why creativity is important for everybody. But yeah, it's neat to know that didn't limit you but just forced you to learn new ways of making different colours.

I also like knowing what my limits are and figuring out how to work within them. When I was thinking about why I wrote a haiku, the first artist statement I ever wrote was in a haiku structure as well. I like knowing that it's a very simple structure, and I can work with that. Give me the boundaries, and I can figure this out somehow.

Yeah. I love that. Is there an area that you're dying to work in, or an area that you'd love to collaborate in, a new method?

I want to do more collaborative work with people. It doesn't necessarily have to be weaving. I was thinking about my friend, Vanessa; who wrote a poem that I responded to with a weaving. I did the same thing with a musician who wrote a song, and I responded to it with a weaving. I like the idea of working with somebody who works in a totally different medium than me, prompt-based stuff. We're given the same prompt, and how do you interpret it? And how do the pieces communicate with each other? That stuff is very exciting to me, and I would like to do more of it. I also want to do more in the same vein with photography. I'm starting to think of myself more as a technician than an artist with photography. What I love to do outside of work or my job is work with people on what they need, to express their vision in image form for them, like with Julieta and her pastries. I've always loved working with musicians when they're rehearsing or performing or other artists just in the act of creation. I don't know why, but that is always super appealing to me. Even when I go to see the work of other photographers, it's stuff like that that really appeals to me, being able to see these moments that reveal something about people or creativity. I haven't analyzed this too far yet, but I do want to photograph more people. I think that's always a celebration.

The distinction between technician and artist is interesting. Where do you see the separation for you?

When I think about what I want to do with a camera, lately, it's something that's in service to another person. It's helping them with what they need in an image format. Within that I have an artistic eye, and I create artistic images- but as opposed to me having a particular vision or idea that I want to exercise with a camera or compose with a camera. I got no ideas. None. Maybe because I am so sentimental, I can't- I need it to be more abstract. I need to figure out how to express some new ideas or something like that; I need another medium.

I like the idea of seeing mediums as tools and understanding that our relationship with them can change over time. Just because you take photos, or perhaps at one point in your life, photography was your main medium as an artist, our relationship with all those things change, and what you make art with can change, but it doesn't change that you're an artist.

Yeah. Yeah.

Do you have a song, movie, phrase, a book you've been thinking about lately?

I have so many songs in my head, yes. I think I tell you every week, I listen to the new SZA nonstop. Her songs are in my head all the time. In her song, Blind- and I was like thinking about this, and I was like, am I gonna sing it? Or am I gonna present the words? Like I don't know how to… I'm not gonna sing it. But she's like, "It's so embarrassing. All of the love I need living inside of me. I can't see, I'm blind." Ugh, like, obviously! Yeah, but also in Kill Bill when she's like… I'm gonna fuck this up…. She's like, "I'm so mature. I got me a therapist to tell me there's other men out there," or whatever. That whole song. It's so chaotic. And I love her for coming up with it.

We are so blessed for SZA in our lives.

Thank god for her.

I love it. So good. So good. Yeah, I there's some sort of comfort in like hearing lines like that, there's something when these huge pop stars release these albums, it's like, oh, we're all learning the same lessons. Celebrities are like us, too (laughs).

Yeah. She definitely had some good therapy albums, I think. Or yeah, there's like one part, like a recorded conversation with somebody at the start of the song, and it's like, "If nobody needs you, you're free."

“I got no ideas. None. Maybe because I am so sentimental, I can't- I need it to be more abstract.”

– Ariel Bader-Shamai

Yeah, damn. Yeah, I'm gonna listen to that album after this. Do you want to add anything else?

I have no idea what I've said. I'm sure I fumbled my words. I forgot something, but thank you.

No, no. It was amazing.

“I was talking to somebody about the idea of preserving art. Yes, it's very important, and I studied photo preservation for a couple of years. But also, it's very interesting to see how things degrade and change over their own natural lifespan. That means you don't have perfect things in the end, but I don't think anything should stick around forever. I know I have so much stuff, but I hope it's not always around. I hope it becomes something else eventually.”

– Ariel Bader-Shamai

ARIEL BADER-SHAMAI

Ariel Bader-Shamai is a textile artist, photographer and archivist based in Montreal. Weaving emotional landscapes primarily with recycled materials, Ariel is also a weaver of personal histories and craft through her archival work and friendships. She was a co-founder of HAVN (Hamilton Audio Visual Node), an interdisciplinary and experimental arts collective and venue formerly based in Hamilton, Ontario.