Judith G. Levy
Interviewed for Friends of Johnson County Library by Shanta Dickerson
01. What is the first piece of art you remember creating. What was the personal and social response?
The first piece of art I remember creating was when I was about 3 years old. I was looking at my book about Bambi, and I asked my grandmother (who was taking care of me at the time) if I could draw in the book. She said, “Yes”, and I drew my version of Bambi. I am very glad she didn’t try to dissuade me, as I was very happy with my drawing and glad it was in one of my favorite books. Her permission helped me to start listening to myself and to begin to develop confidence about my ideas and methods of making art.
02. So much of your inspiration seems to come from family and familial history. What does “family” mean to you? What might your art mean to those without “family” – people they might not rely on?
First, let me say the following, because it is critical to understanding my intentions and my work. I create art that focuses on American public history, popular culture and personal narratives. My videos, prints, photographs, performances and installations explore how stories, memories and legacies are created and examine the charged content that exists between the lines. I often blend fiction and fact to illustrate how the threads of individual, cultural and national narratives rely upon fabrication, omission, and mistakes as they become accepted constructs of informal and formal history. I use familiar imagery and recognizable references, appropriation, and commonplace text and objects to create work that examines subjects such as racism, the expansion of the American West, and non-hetero-normative identity. Creating work that is complex but easily accessible is important to me, and I am interested in communicating not only with people who view art regularly but also with those who do not. I look for opportunities to present and exhibit in public libraries, universities and community venues. My work is influenced by my own queerness, by my former experiences as a social worker and community-organizer and by the struggles faced by my immigrant grandparents who had an endless capacity to ask questions and challenge authority.
By creating work that usurps conventional understandings, I frequently use humor, alternative narratives, the suspension of disbelief, and assemblage to synthesize ideas and layer meaning, as I explore elusive and explicit content. I simultaneously debunk established concepts and create new ones, so that they exist to create disturbing junctures that must be negotiated. Creating these upheavals often requires me to mimic the way history is taught, how souvenirs are created, how family stories are shared, and how personas are presented, while at the same time inserting challenges to these narratives that resemble their sources enough to be believed. I’m interested in creating new considerations, and provocations, as I ask the audience to re-examine familiar concepts and accounts. This work reflects my deep concerns about injustice, ideology, tolerance, and power as well as by my belief in our collective capacity to connect with one another, to create change, and to imagine possibilities.
Having said all of this, I use familial narratives, both invented and actual, to look at how we understand how we got to be the way we are as a nation and as individuals. I don’t romanticize the idea of family, as the families I invent as well as my own extended family are complex entities full of contradictions, struggles, joys, and loyalties. In my video interview with the last descendant of The Lone Ranger (who was a fictional character), family secrets, aging, and legacies are explored. In my video interview with the last living relatives of Huckleberry Finn (another fictional character), we learn that Huck is part black, having been born to a mother who was a live. I make these things up, in the context of family stories, in order to get at some of the issues that bear further examination. In this case it is race, slavery and the ongoing struggles to come to terms with our history.
In my own work about my family, Family Memoir, which is currently on view in the library, I use posters to describe an extended family that includes, heroes, lovers, dreamers and fighters along with family members who stole money, were prejudiced, and kept secrets. I also made a point, in my own family’s history, to make sure that LGBTQI family members and friends became part of the story, because so often we have been left out of both formal historical and familial narratives.
I don’t assume that all families can be relied upon. Some people have family members that are there for them, and some do not. Most families are complicated, some more than others. There are many reasons for this and too many to discuss here. All in all, we have to try to find love wherever it is meaningful. Most of us have a desire to belong, and for some it is within the context of family of origin. For others it is a family of their own making, such as a community of friends.
03. How did people react as I created “IMPOSTOR #2” a durational, two-hour, performance, which is on video.
Many competent people I have spoken to say that they sometimes feel like a fake and that they fear that they may one day be found out. I made this performance to acknowledge this, because it is a fairly common concern that usually has no basis in reality. Nevertheless, the Impostor Syndrome, which is not an accepted mental health diagnosis, describes this anxiety. People liked the performance and talked with me about it, sharing their own experiences and feelings.
04. Explain your “Opening Sentence” installation – what does it do to inspire reader and artists?
I love to read. I always have. When I was an adolescent I first read Jane Austen’s descriptions of her fictional character performing plays, poems and piano pieces for family and friends in intimate settings, I thought it was wonderful. There was a time when many people read aloud, wrote skits and entertained one another. “Opening Sentence” was inspired by what I read in Austen’s books. I thought it would be entertaining and inspiring to ask library visitors to read the first sentence of a book they selected as they stood on stage before an audience. And if they did this, they could keep the book! I also believe that we build community in many different ways and that by asking people to participate and share with one another would add a little connectivity. Libraries have become centers where people find many things, and for some, it is community.
05. Name one book that doesn’t deserve to be revered, and one book that you’d buy a copy for everyone, if you could.
This is a hard question. I read a lot of literary fiction, so I’ll speak to this genre. There are books that I think have received more praise than they deserve, although they may be popular. And a writer can write many good books and occasionally fail. Gone with the Wind was revered, when it was first published. It isn’t revered anymore. It just isn’t a well-written book. Sometimes a book that isn’t well written becomes popular, but it doesn’t hold up over time. There is a difference between great books and popular books, and there is always room, of course, for both. I revere all of Anton Chekov’s plays, such as The Cherry Orchard. I mention plays here, because I think sometimes people forget that they can get them at the library. In my opinion, The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen, was given more praise than it deserves. This really is my opinion, because the book won many prestigious awards. More recent books that I loved are Olive Kittridge by Elizabeth Strout and Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. I also just discovered James Tate, a poet, whose book of poems, Dome of the Hidden Pavilion, is not to be missed.
The book I’d give everyone (children included!) is The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.
Artist Judith Levy is based in Lawrence, KS with a studio in the Crossroads Arts District in downtown Kansas City.
This interview was conducted by email with artist Judith Levy and Shanta Dickerson, Friends Operations Manager. An edited (for brevity) version was published in the Spring 2017 GUIDE. Levy exhibited her work at Antioch and Central Libraries in 2016. She utilized books she curated from ones made available to her by the Friends for her interactive performance work “Opening Sentence” at the Friends Used Bookstore during the Johnson County Library Foundation’s October 2016 The Library Lets Loose event in October 2016.