Interview with Paula Schubatis
September 2019
“My practice can be described as a series of failed attempts at regulating excessive existential thoughts related to material, object and experience. I want to know how things work. I seek to understand the world through the mechanics of interacting with physical forms. In this method of trial and error, failure is inevitable. But failure does not have a negative connotation in my mind. It represents a breath of understanding and comprehension.”
“To know how something works, you must know how it doesn’t work.” - Paula Schubatis
Paula Schubatis is a Detroit-based painter, textile artist and designer who explores the potential of unconventional, overlooked or often-wasted materials in creating elevated design objects.
After earning her BFA in 2013 from the University of Michigan Stamps School of Art and Design, Paula explored the conceptual and performative aspects of art through many residency programs in Detroit and abroad including: Red Bull House of Art Detroit Cycle 6, The Atelier House, Hilmseln, Germany and Arusha Meru International School, Arusha, Tanzania.
Paula's practice is driven by her passion for the performative and ceremonial aspect of design and art making as well as the ritual of utilizing functional objects in everyday life. Her work takes on beautiful, painterly, ethereal forms but is often a good-natured poke at traditional notions of style/taste, form and function.
IMWG: You studied painting in college, what drove you to fiber and weaving? Are they any connections between the two in your work?
PS: Painting and fiber are two related, but incongruent forms of expression. I make and do many different things; sculpture, installation, painting, drawing, fiber, performance, participatory experiences. They all exist separately and together at the same time, happen sporadically at different times.
Weaving is similar to painting for me, but it is a little more finite. I like the fact that I can weave something, advance my warp, but can’t go back and change it. The problematic part of painting is that choices are layered on top of each other. Weaving gives a more rigid sequential structure to aesthetic choices. In my work I merge seemingly incongruous materials, forms, patterns and it becomes an exercise in problem solving, so I need to have some set of focus, some parameters.
IMWG: How do you describe your practice? What is the motivation behind / in the object?
PS: My practice can be described as a series of failed attempts at regulating excessive existential thoughts! I want to know how things work. I seek to understand the world through the mechanics of interacting with physical forms. In this method of trial and error, failure is inevitable. But failure does not have a negative connotation in my mind. It represents a breath of understanding and comprehension. To know how something works, you must know how it doesn’t work.
I am an artist, designer, but first and foremost a teacher. The artist gives perspective by revealing truths. The designer thinks more altruistically and creates things which attempt to solve world problems. But, the teacher shows others how to solve their own problems. My work is meant to be very didactic, offering an abstract visual language based on familiar materials, forms and patterns that are interpreted differently by each viewer based on their own unique experience. And even the function of each piece is determined by the viewer.
Because of the very tactile focus of my work my process is incredibly analog by nature. I prefer to do just about everything by hand, even if it takes an absurd amount of time. There’s much more gratification for me in handwork. Technology is useful in expediting and automating process, but that’s not my objective.
The novelty and the danger of autonomy is that it optimizes output, but limits the possibilities of outcome. When we automate a procedure for making, we also automate how we think about what we are making. A high volume of output with the same outcome diminishes utility. What’s the point in saying the same thing over and over again, coming up with the same solution for the same problem, over and over again? The plurality of my work comes from creating the same structure, but with different data.
With the discipline of self-regulation comes self-actualization. I want to be one with the work, in it. I want to spend hundreds of hours hand stitching things, untying impossible knots.
IMWG: What are some of your influences?
PS: I am interested in the logic behind things. For the past few years, the approach and design of much of my woven work has been based off of data structures of theoretical computer science. Which makes me wonder if my work has really become a map, chart, game, diagram, prophecy or meditation..?
“The future of furniture is in its modality. We are the architects of our own realities. Good design should make people think for themselves. I also, believe we are beginning to remember the importance of aesthetics in function.” - Paula Schubatis
IMWG: Within your work there are so many different materials, many of which are reclaimed fibers. What drives your material selection?
PS: My work is not about the materials themselves, so much as the interactions I can create with them. I have no ownership over the materials. They have no master. I can only have ownership over what I choose to do with them, the visual and contextual relationships I can build with them.
Because most of the materials are found they become a language and an artifact within the work. Recycled denim, excess twill yardage cut into strips and hand dyed, discarded zippers, spools of infinitely tangled trim materials left for trash at an African market, strips of tarpaulin from discarded IKEA bags, plastic twine (also from the IKEA reject bins) …incorporating these materials into my work allows them to adapt from their typical use and contexts. The materials become functional objects within the work. As people start spotting the zippers or the plastic twine comparing the colors and textures created from these everyday, throwaway objects, that is when the magic happens and the function of the work is fulfilled.
Sustainability was never the primary focus, I just started to use easily accessible materials around me to create interesting juxtapositions of color, texture and original contexts and to record certain experiences associated with these materials. That being said, I believe my work heightens our awareness of how we interact with certain objects and materials including our habits of waste which is certainly a problem that can be solved through design.
IMWG: What do you think is the future of furniture and design?
PS: The future of furniture is in its modality. We are the architects of our own realities. Good design should make people think for themselves. I also, believe we are beginning to remember the importance of aesthetics in function.