The Wash: The Art of Gathering with Elevine Berge
By Yves Golden
The Wash is our Interview series where we converse with artists, visionaries, poets, plant lovers & friends. We share with you h the musings and excitements happening in our community.
This week Yves and Elevine explore her love for gathering, uncovering who she is as a hue, and what makes her tick as an artistic polymath. Elevine is an art director, photographer and producer. I met Elevine at Saipua many moons ago and was enamored with her unique aesthetic sensibility. She has an uncanny knack for designing with care, reverence for the work, and a soothing quality that makes you want to linger in her spaces for hours if not days. Elevine will be curating a series of shows in the garage of Calyx Studios. We're excited to share her world with you.
"I only care for dirty colors. With a secret dash of cobalt blue."
YBG:If your creative impulses emitted a hue what color would it be and why?
EB: I know some would say my hue is ochre, but I think in dusty tones from the earth, from browns and blacks to earthy whites. I only care for dirty colors. With a secret dash of cobalt blue.
YBG: What other material qualities would it have? How does this form inform how you water your “craft”?
EB: Textured, weathered, and bathed in salt water or fresh mountain air. Wood grain, heavy antique linen and crisp cottons, rough rock edges or the geometry of brutalist architecture, the shiny spinning metal spokes on a bicycle wheel, smooth clay, beeswax greased leather, dry grasses rustling in the wind. I seek nature and its raw materials.
"I try as often as possible to work with people I enjoy spending time with, and to put myself in situations I can learn something new from or add to my existing vocabulary of experiences."
YBG: What or who waters your taste? Who or what do you find infinitely inspiring?
EB: Places, spaces and people - indoors and out, a maze of crooked streets or wide open skies, friends and strangers. Traveling and experiencing new ways of living and creating fuels me and makes me feel alive.
YBG: What traits do you look for in a collaborator?
EB: I am drawn to collaborate with people and projects that are curious, positive and open to explore and engage all senses in the process, be it short or long term.
YBG: When visioning your dreams of the future, what has changed? What brings you more joy and inspiration?
EB: Not that much has changed actually - the context yes; with climate change and political unrest bringing in a lot of different perspectives on geography, movement and process. But my abstract ideas of my dream future have always involved exploring places and gathering people in different ways, which is also what brings me joy and inspiration.
YBG: How do you balance doing what you love and doing what you have to do for work?
EB: I try as often as possible to work with people I enjoy spending time with, and to put myself in situations I can learn something new from or add to my existing vocabulary of experiences. Sometimes lessons and inspiration shows up on jobs I least expect it from. Being open and saying yes comes very naturally to me, so I have also learned to think twice and say no when I feel something is not for me or if I feel my time and efforts are not respected. This way I can better carve out time to focus on the projects that matter to me. - When work is creatively aligned, I truly forget it is work.
To me the people and the vision is more important to me than exactly what role I play, and so to me that is also a barometer for balance.
If there was a through-line that connects your creative practice together, what would that look like?
Searching, seeking, finding, sharing. I think this is a pattern I am starting to realize is my way of creating. Whether it is through traveling, reading, touching, thinking, sourcing, living , connecting, curating, editing, promoting, initiating, or showcasing, I am constantly on a journey of revealing something new for myself and others.
Photography is an integral part of your practice. I've heard through a little bird (Cara) that you are working on publishing your first book of photographs. Talk to us a little bit about this process and what working through this medium means to you. What is a photograph to you?
Photography to me is really about capturing a moment, and getting the chance to savor it. My experience of the present is at times super strong and the total feeling of all my senses bringing me lots of input can be a lot. Getting to totally surrender to my visual brain and zoom in or out via the camera, work on compositions and the like, is a really comfortable place for me to be in.
The medium has always been with me in different ways; as a photojournalist during high school, sculpturally and exploratory through university, curatorial through a photo publication I ran in London with a friend, and later both as documentation and an extension of the exploration of my surroundings.
I have done photo work for other people on and off for several years, also often with other people’s work in the lens, and this book project was honestly spurred by the wanting to make something just for me; to get to dig through my personal archives and see the stories there in a different light by picking them apart and weaving them together again. And to care for, pay attention to, and share, that story for once! In a solid format off of the screen.
But because I, like many artists and creators, have a hard time trusting the value of my work, I am truly grateful for encouragement and guidance from people I trust, helping to push this process forward. (Thanks little bird Cara <3)
YBG: Your curated Corner Market events are a coveted pop up in BK - what informs the curation of your events? When did you start this project? What threads your curation of art objects, people and vibes together?
EB: CORNER market is named after our very first event which was going to be a one-time thing; the deli on the corner of my building had sadly been left empty for a couple of years and I was tired of always seeing a shuttered gate there. I managed to convince the real estate people to rent it to me for a long weekend; we cleaned and installed it all on Thursday, opened with an art exhibition and antiques show on Friday, added a handful of unique vendors’ pieces on Saturday and Sunday we rolled in racks of vintage clothing. It was madness, but so fun. - I would not have been able to pull that off without the wonderful help of Emily DiPalo, Alexandra Sheehan and Kendall Anderson.
A few months later I asked to borrow the space again, but someone had finally signed a lease to open up something there, so I was offered an empty old yoga studio not too far away instead. This second iteration of the market took place the weekend before the covid lockdown, just before the city changed in major ways, which has been wild to think about.
The season definitely informs the curation, but there is no set structure. I really put the events on when I feel inspired by something or someone or somewhere, and by an idea of how I feel it can work together to create a good time. I am a longtime horse girl for example, so I did a (subtly?) cowgirl themed version a couple of years ago, before cowboys were all fashionable like now.
CORNER market was always about the gathering of people’s creations in a physical space. As covid waves came and went and came again, I was encouraged to bring it online, which brought on different possibilities for collaborations and projects for fundraising for different causes I care about.
And well, although I always think about the most recent market as the very last one I will ever do, I always seemingly end up finding a good time for another one. - This weekend’s CORNER will be..the fifth I think. So here we go!
