Ashby Lee Collinson Interview
Ashby Lee Collinson is a video and performing artist who has lived variously in Seattle, New York, Joshua Tree, and Portland, OR. Her work has appeared on Experimental ½ Hour, a biweekly public access television program produced in Portland and in the windows of PDXContemporary. Collinson has also appeared on the IFC channel’s Portlandia and is currently working on the third installment of her project, Princess Dies for the 2011 Time Based Art Festival, co-starring her father.
Sam Korman: You wanna do this interview now? I'm just doing some Internet geek stuff.
Ashby Lee Collinson: I think I can. I just need to finish this email and take a tinkle.
SK: Ok cool. Let me know when you are finished.
ALC: Or make a tinkle, rather. Or foster a tinkle. Imbue a tinkle.
SK: Manifest a tinkle.
ALC: Conjure a tinkle.
SK: Ha! Dinkle a tinkle.
ALC: "The secret" a tinkle. "The secret: The tinkle"
SK: Whoa, you're next show!!
ALC: DUH
SK: Or a weirdo European art movie.
ALC: I make spiritual television
SK: Television is already spiritual.
ALC: Spiritual like the best bootleg Bart cornholio you've ever seen.
SK: Shit.
ALC: It's a goal at least.
SK: Yeah, hard to match such a devious combo. Look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvgakwdsywQ Have you ever used one of these [Buddha Boards]? Speaking of spiritual.
ALC: Shit. I better stop before I begin.
SK: Ok, take care of your "the secret" and come back.
ALC: Oh Joy! There was a secret within my secret. This song helped: http://45h87733c0771n50n.tumblr.com/post/9343963782/take-wing-by-milan-pilar
SK: A precious stone?
ALC: That, my brother, is a secret.
SK: Ah ha. I have got some questions, because the other day you told me that you were stoked on the interview, because no one ever asks you, Why?
ALC: Truth
SK: Why do you think that is?
ALC: I assume nobody cares; they just want to watch stuff. I'm accused of thinking too much though, so I have no concept.
SK: By whom?
ALC: All of my close friends and also my family.
SK: But you've collaborated with your mom twice this year. She still tells you you think too much?
ALC: Oh she doesn't count. Collaborating with my mom doesn't include talking. It's more like a dare.
SK: Why did you decide to include her in your video Princess Dies--The Crowning (2011)?
ALC: There are many answers to that question.
SK: Ok Zen master.
ALC: A light torture for her own good. I wanted to make her sit through me wrestle a 7 foot beach ball, and have to sit there while I got slimed for 20 minutes. I asked her to write an introduction, depicting who she thought I was. If she truly wanted to accept my art, she should embody it somehow herself.
SK: Why did you choose the late, Princess Di as your subject for the video? Do you feel like you are playing her as a character? Is it homage? I recently read that she was escorted out of a John Mcenroe tennis match at Wimbledon, because the Royal Family did not want her to hear his offensive court talk.
ALC: Princess Di is the subject of the video due to her paradox. She embodied such an intense raw death drive that was squelched and also broadened by her role in the Monarchy. She was so graceful, yet so gnarly. She's been an example in my journey towards whatever it means to be a woman. I truly don't understand the constructs of reality. I have felt that I play her in my own paradox being a highly physical person interacting with virtual society. The first Princess Dies was a study in her being consumed by her simulacra and reaching her goal to be everywhere with anyone in need at once; dead. Without boundaries. She had a hopeful view of anarchy that is endlessly inspiring to my contrarian nature.
SK: How much of the goo made it into your mouth?
ALC: It was like treacle. More of it went into my nose. It was extremely difficult trying to breathe. The smell of sugar to this day sickens me.
SK: Yick. This seems like a perfect project for Experimental 1/2 Hour and you mentioned above that you make spiritual television. Can you describe what that might mean or how that might manifest or affect people? Rather, viewers...or worshippers...
ALC: Yikes. How about "stoners"...I guess my goal for the show is to express my consciousness outside of the boundaries of my own constructs—through experimentation. I'm really inspired by that one scientist that took LSD in order to "get down" with DNA. In so doing he discovered the nature of repetition and created the Genome Project. I'm just trying to blow my own mind so that people start to figure out how they can blow their own? Or maybe they can hear the thing my higher consciousness is trying to say that my hipster consciousness won't let me? Maybe it's more of a transhumanist television show than spiritual.
SK: You also appeared in an episode of Portlandia, which lampoons both the hipster and new age spirituality of Portland. You played the role of a member of a free-range organic chicken farm cult. Was this coincidence or choice? Has this made it into your artwork, as well?
SK: And do you see any comedy in your work?
ALC: I was approached for that project because I had been in a Levi's commercial directed by a mama of mine, M Blash, and they needed a girl with long hair. I'm readily open to making fun of myself and parody my own overblown sense of spirituality, so it has worked out nicely. I learned a ton working with Portlandia and it definitely has affected my artwork. I had a bit of a freak-out recently about it, and called my Dad in hysterics. He immediately set me straight "Did I raise you on Caddyshack or WHAT? Are you saying Rodney Dangerfield was not an artist?" I immediately felt better. And ultimately I can think a whole lot less about stuff because maybe I'm just goofing around with some heady crap and letting myself play so I can move on and live without my head up my ass.
SK: I'm gleaning that you play your own muse in a lot of ways.
ALC: I was so freaked out making my own art for so long I functioned as other people's muse. So now I'm processing it in this manner. I hope I get past it and explore ideas other than my own consciousness. Narcissism is so drab.
SK: I read this John Kelsey article [“Stop Painting Painting” Artforum 2005] recently and it might apply here: "The dandy makes himself static and detached, and his endless de-centering of his own identity is the means by which he makes the world around him start to lose its grip." It seems like there's a functional role in some of that narcissism.
ALC: DEFINITELY.
SK: At least for an artistic identity.
ALC: It's alchemical.
SK: BRB, I have to "the secret" and get my power cord.
ALC: I have to go to the river now.
SK: One last question.
ALC: Ok.
SK: You were the muse for an entire body of work by Storm Tharp. Playing your own muse, which you've outlined above, possesses its own generative value. How do you think it relates when you are someone else's muse?
And one last one, just because. Why Ashby? Do you have anything coming up that you would like me to mention?
ALC: Watching Storm look me deep in the eyes, expose my highest paradox, and destroy my face in a fluid and graceful manner was absolutely transformative for me. The experience liberated me. You'll have to ask him why he chose me. I can only thank my lucky stars that he could tell how badly I needed it. It was the only way I could start to understand my own grace.
I'm working on a new episode of Princess Dies for TBA! This time with an introduction by my DADDY!!!
SK: YEEEEAAAAHHHH. Thanks, Ashby!! Have fun at the river!!!
ALC: Thanks Sam! I'm so tired now! Thank you for asking, Why?