Natalie Lanese interview, 30 July 2024

Abstract

Natalie Lanese, an artist from Cleveland, has a rich art education background and has become well-known for her public art installations that contribute to the vibrant art scene in the city. Her notable projects include a mural titled “Glacier Caves” in the Clark-Fulton neighborhood and a project for the Innerbelt Bridge in Cleveland. In this interview, Lanese emphasizes the importance of bringing art to public spaces and how it plays a vital role in fostering accessibility and community engagement.

Interviewee

Lanese, Natalie (interviewee)

Interviewer

Kanewa-Mariano, Makialani (interviewer)

Project

Community-Based Public Art

Date

7-30-2024

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

46 minutes

Recommended Citation

"Natalie Lanese interview, 30 July 2024" (2024). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 455004.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1343

Related Resources

Public Art @ Cleveland Voices

Transcript

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:00:03] Today’s date is Tuesday, July 30, 2024. My name is Makialani Kanewa-Mariano with the Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection at Cleveland State University. Today I’ll be interviewing Natalie Lanese. Thank you so much for being with me today, Natalie.

Natalie Lanese [00:00:16] Thanks for having me.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:00:18] For the record, could you state and spell your name?

Natalie Lanese [00:00:20] Yes. Natalie Lanese. N-A-T-A-L-I-E. Lanese. L-A-N-E-S-E.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:00:28] Where and when were you born?

Natalie Lanese [00:00:30] I was born in Cleveland in 1980.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:00:33] Where did you go to high school?

Natalie Lanese [00:00:35] I attended Beaumont High School in Cleveland Heights.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:00:39] And did you go to college or where did you go to college?

Natalie Lanese [00:00:41] I did. I attended Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:00:46] What was your major during your undergrad?

Natalie Lanese [00:00:48] I majored in art and education. I started as a studio art major, and I ended up graduating with a BA in art history as well as my education degree.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:01:08] So that was for your undergrad?

Natalie Lanese [00:01:09] Mm-hmm.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:01:10] What did you focus on in your, did you go to graduate school?

Natalie Lanese [00:01:12] I did.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:01:13] What did you focus on for that?

Natalie Lanese [00:01:14] After college, I moved back to Cleveland and I attended Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Institute of Art. They have a master’s, an MA program in art and education. So I furthered some of my education coursework there as well as focused my studio coursework at CIA. So that was a very cool program to be a part of. The main goal of focusing in the studio at that time was to develop a more cohesive portfolio to apply to MFA programs with. So after that, I applied and attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and received a Master’s of Fine Arts from Pratt in painting.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:02:07] And do you primarily live in the Cleveland area now?

Natalie Lanese [00:02:09] I do now, yeah, I moved around a bit, but I moved back to Cleveland in 2020, so I’ve been back for about four years.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:02:18] What’s your current occupation?

Natalie Lanese [00:02:20] I am a self employed visual artist. I have my studio here in Lakewood, and I live a few miles away. I also teach. I’m adjunct faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Art. I also joined the exhibitions crew at the Museum of Contemporary Art last year. So as a full-time practicing artist, I pieced together different art-related jobs as part of that role.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:02:52] What year did you start teaching at the Cleveland Institute of Art?

Natalie Lanese [00:02:55] I think I started in 2021. I think it was that summer.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:03:01] And how long have you been working as a self-employed visual artist?

Natalie Lanese [00:03:05] I started that in 2018. I had been teaching at a small university in Michigan for about six years at that time when I decided to take a step away from teaching full-time to devote more of my own time to my work.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:03:28] When did you first realize you had an interest in art?

Natalie Lanese [00:03:31] Hmm. Probably as a very young child, my mom enrolled me in art classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art. And I have very fond memories of spending summer days downstairs in the classrooms and then going up into the galleries as part of those lessons, you know, looking at paintings and coming back downstairs to work on a project. So, you know, judging from how much I remember that experience, I have to believe it had a pretty positive effect on me as a youngster. And throughout grade school and into high school, it just increasingly became my priority and my main interest. And, you know, something that I really wanted to pursue beyond school.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:04:28] What medium of art do you specialize in?

Natalie Lanese [00:04:31] Well, I studied painting, but even as part of that degree, I was focusing quite a bit in collage. And that, and in graduate school was when I started making site specific installations. So I think those. Those kind of three disciplines or areas are where I think of you know my specialization being.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:05:02] What themes or styles does your art encompass?

Natalie Lanese [00:05:07] Well, I make abstract patterned paintings and collages. I think initially, a lot of the patterning was inspired by interior design, a lot of referencing of vintage magazines and home design books that I collected. This would have been earlier in my career as a graduate student. And, you know, I think those were really the foundations of what has evolved over the years and is still kind of stuck to a pretty simplistic formula of painting some kind of pattern collaging, whether it’s a photographic image or a superimposed painted image or shape or color, and combining those things to kind of create some optical sense of an impossible space or a flatness or a kind of maybe feeling of depth where there isn’t one. So, yeah, there’s– I’m sorry, kind of forgot the question I started going on.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:06:37] Thats okay. You were going to say, just about the themes and styles.

Natalie Lanese [00:06:39] Yeah. Okay. Okay, thanks. Yeah, so there’s, you know, I think certainly, like, you know, these kind of domestic interiors and kind of retro home styles that, you know, initially inspired things, but that, you know, was also influenced by pop art, by a lot of abstract painting from the middle of the 20th century. And over the years, you know, these things have all kind of come together into, you know, abstract paintings that I’m making murals, you know, very large-scale, site-specific installations. So they’re, you know, these kind of initial, simple ideas that have evolved into more complex and larger things.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:07:32] What was your original goal for yourself as an artist?

Natalie Lanese [00:07:36] Hmm. Original. Well, I guess when I first consciously decided I was going to be an artist. I was a freshman, or going to be a freshman in high school, I kind of, when I went to Beaumont, they have a really great art program that you can enroll in for all four years. So it’s almost structured like a college art program in a way. And so I did that. And so going into it, I, like, you know, I felt like at that moment, I made a choice, like, I’m gonna be an artist. However, at that point, I don’t know that I had a goal, because I don’t think I entirely understood what it was. I just knew I liked to do it, and I had gotten enough feedback at that point in my life that I sort of knew I was good at it. But I don’t, you know, I don’t know what I thought I was going to do. I was also interested in being a teacher at that time, and so I guess that would, that was an initial goal, but as I went through college and then through graduate school, you know, the goals kind of started adding up. You know, as you start to understand more about the profession and the industry and what kinds of things are in reach, you start to develop more goals around it. But, yeah, I think initially I thought I’d be an artist and a teacher, and that’s what I’m doing today.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:09:16] Who else contributes to your work? Do you collaborate with other artists, or do you work primarily alone?

Natalie Lanese [00:09:23] For my, you know, my own, like, paintings and the work that I make in my studio, I’m primarily working alone. However, I have had some different roles over the years where I’ve collaborated with other artists. Like, in the last ten or so years, I’ve worked quite a bit with my friends and colleagues at graphite design and build, and they are a sculpture and design studio based in Toledo, where I was living before I moved back to Cleveland. And they specialize in sculpture, in designing museum exhibits, playgrounds, some public art. They do a lot of large scale, three dimensional work, but often need a painter for some of these projects. So I’ve been very lucky to collaborate with them on some very cool projects that they’ve done. So those are instances where I really enjoy getting to work on a team and work on a small part of a much bigger project. For instance, they redesigned what’s now the Promedica Museum of Natural History, which is at the Toledo Zoo, but it’s a renovated WPA era building, and they were the executive design consultants on the project. So they redesigned the entire layout of the building, everything down to, like, how, you know, how the exhibit halls would be set up and where the exhibits would be down to, like, every blade of grass that’s in the dioramas. So they really saw the big picture of the project and then hired me and a team of painters to paint all these diorama backdrops. So, like, kind of scenic painting in, you know, the background of these, you know, prehistoric ice age scenes that they made. So, yeah, there are opportunities, you know, to work with other artists, which I love, but I’m also someone who has been an introverted person my whole life, and I, you know, really enjoy working alone and, you know, entertaining myself in that way. So I enjoy both sides of it.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:11:54] How does your work engage public involvement?

Natalie Lanese [00:11:58] I think, you know, one, you know, and you asked me about goals earlier, and, you know, I think a goal of mine that emerged when I was in graduate school was, and this is a, this is a point in any, you know, artist’s experience where, like, you know, the academics of it are sometimes take over. And the way we start to talk about the work that we’re making is, you know, kind of understandable only to people who are going to graduate school in painting. You know, it becomes so overly specific and academic in a sense that, like, you know, I was able to keep up with that as a student. But I recognize that once I left school and was out in the world and especially knowing that eventually I would find myself back in the midwest, that language and that way of talking about my work wasn’t necessarily going to communicate what I was doing to people in Cleveland, let’s say. So I think a goal for me for a long time was to make sure that my work was always accessible. And I remember when I had my MFA thesis exhibition, I remember saying it was really important to me that, like, you know, my, both my graduate advisor could walk into that show, and my mom, who’s, you know, doesn’t, you know, didn’t study art. And maybe a five year old kid could all walk into that gallery and experience something from the work, that the work could kind of function on multiple levels, but certainly be available to anyone who might encounter it. And then over the last decade or a little bit more, I’ve started making a lot more public art. And that really became the driving force behind those projects was, you know, only some people walk into a gallery or only some people walk into a museum. But, you know, what about putting painting in a space where everyone can see it and everyone has access to it and then making the thing that everyone can appreciate on some level? So I think that’s kind of the foundation of how I think about, you know, the community or the public kind of interacting with the work that I make is that it should be there for everyone and not just for the folks who have that specific education or who walk into a gallery.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:14:51] In the community you grew up in, were there any works of public art that you can remember?

Natalie Lanese [00:14:56] Hmm. Well, I went kind of specific to the suburb of Cleveland that I grew up in, and I’m like, I don’t think I can’t remember any art there, and I’ll feel really bad if there was. And I’m not remembering it. But I mean, as a kid, I definitely remember the free stamp being installed downtown and then the public outcry over it, and I thought it was cool. And I didn’t know who Oldenburg was at that point in time. And then as I grew up and went to school and learned more about his work, and he’s an artist I admire quite a bit. Obviously, I appreciate that work very much, but that stands out as a public art memory from when I was a youngster.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:15:51] How do you think either seeing that work of public art or maybe not remembering or seeing a lot of public art in the suburban area you were speaking of kind of shaped the work that you did today?

Natalie Lanese [00:16:03] Hmm. Well, I think I was always a fan of pop art. I mean, I mentioned that I had been going to the museum as a pretty young kid, and I always loved Warhol’s painting that’s there, Marilyn x 100. And, I mean, in Warhol, I haven’t really mentioned him, but has been a massive influence on my work and my studies and my research over my career. But you know, what a great example of an artist whose work is functioning on that, like, accessible spectrum of, like, making, you know, really important social commentary and saying important things, but also, like, appealing to me, walking in as a child, you know, and just responding to the colors and, you know, to the image of Marilyn and so forth. So, yeah, I think, you know, somewhere I had some knowledge that, like, these, you know, popular symbols could be art. And seeing the free stamp downtown, like, I think I liked it. I like art that’s also humorous. I think that’s really important in artwork. And so, yeah, I think I just, I recognize that. And they were also artworks that, like, gave me permission to do that. You know, not all work has to be very serious or have, you know, a really important message necessarily. Art can be lighthearted and make you laugh and also say something more than that as it’s doing that.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:17:54] Have you, and when did you first collaborate with the LAND studio?

Natalie Lanese [00:17:58] I have, and the first project I did with Land Studio was in 2012, and it was a project that I did for the Innerbelt Bridge, which is, I think, now the George Voinovich Bridge, the I-90 bridge downtown. It was being rebuilt by ODOT. And so they put out the call for public art projects to be part of that construction project. So land studio project managed the, I keep saying the word project, and they actually put the. They put that call in the newspaper, and my dad saw it and sent it to me. I had not done a public art project before that, and he said, you should apply for this. And so I did, and my concept was selected for the project, so I completed that work with them in 2012.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:19:09] Do you have any favorite collaborations with them outside of that project that you’ve done?

Natalie Lanese [00:19:14] I’ve worked with them one other time, and that was in 2022. I did a mural on the corner of West 25th and Walton Avenue in the Clark-Fulton neighborhood, and that is a large abstract painting titled Glacier Caves. And they worked with me a bit on the project, and as well as the Metro West Community Development Corporation there. So it was kind of a tag team project between the two organizations. But, yeah, land has been really instrumental in getting my work out there, which has been really great, but so many other artists and great projects around Cleveland. So it’s been really fun to know them and support their work and what they’ve done for Cleveland for the last 10–15 years.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:20:14] What was the subject or the content that was kind of in that mural, specifically the glacier caves.

Natalie Lanese [00:20:21] So that mural was very much inspired by the building that it is installed on. And just to kind of paint a picture of it, if you’re driving north on West 25th, like, from Metro Hospital towards, you know, towards Ohio City, this building is enormous. And there is, it’s on the west side of the street, there’s a park, like a big parking lot in front of a small strip mall on the block in front of it. And then there are, like, no trees there. So if you’re driving north, this side facade of this building is a completely uninterrupted, massive wall. And so when that site was selected, I walked over and I kind of drove around a little bit and making that approach, driving north. One thing I’ve always done since I’ve lived in Cleveland, my whole life is, like, daydream about it having mountains, because I love mountains. Mountains. And I also love our lake. So it’s fine that we don’t have them, but there’s always some days where the clouds are low in the sky, and they’re way in the distance and silhouetted in a way that you’re like, whoa, what if those were mountains over there? So I’m driving up to this building, and it looked like this opportunity to reimagine a different landscape or if, like, geography existed in Cleveland. And I had been doing at the time quite a bit of research about the glacial activity of, like, northern Ohio and, you know, how it carved out our landscape. A lot of the smaller paintings I was making at the time were studies of, I mean, very abstract studies, but studies of glacial erratics. So boulders that had just been deposited in the process of this mass, you know, dragging across the land. And, you know, you might be out in a field in Ohio and there’s like, this enormous rock there, and you’re like, how is that there? So all of that to say, like, it just seemed like a great opportunity to pretend like this building was and, like a giant glacier and imagine that, you know, that massive thing kind of, you know, coming at you from the lake, you know, pushing south towards our national park or whatever. So it’s, you know, it’s a fairly abstract interpretation of that. But I think the final piece kind of, you know, some people say it looks like melting ice cream, which I’m very happy about as well, but it’s kind of this, like, flat, you know, kind of wall of shapes that are, that are kind of, that are coming at you. And, yeah, hopefully, you know, kind of translates to people who see it as a massive plateau or a big glacier or mountains or something, you know, some topography that really doesn’t exist in that part of the city.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:24:09] Besides the Glacier Caves in the Clark-Fulton neighborhood and the inner belt bridge, throughout the city of Cleveland and the surrounding area, where can the community view your public art or even if it’s not installed there anymore? Was there any other pieces around the Cleveland area?

Natalie Lanese [00:24:25] I have a piece in the Putnam collection at Case Western Reserve University. So that’s, it’s indoors, but it is in a fairly public space on campus. It’s in the Tinkham Veale University Center. So if you walk in there, it’s kind of in the main atrium kind of space there. And that one is entitled Cavern. I made that in 2017. And it is also a mural painted directly on the wall. So it spans the first and second floors of the wall that’s kind of behind the stadium seating that comes down there, and then I think that’s it. I had the original artworks from the Innerbelt Bridge project at Mahall’s in Lakewood for quite a few years. They’re no longer there. But if anybody frequented the bar in bowling lanes, they may have seen them there for a little while.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:25:33] Why do you think public art and art in the community is important?

Natalie Lanese [00:25:38] I mean, as I said before, I really have a strong belief that art should be available to everybody. And so putting it outside, I think, is a way to do that. You know, putting it where everyone can see it. But, you know, beyond accessibility, I think art can carry a very powerful message, whether it’s intending to communicate something political or social commentary or something like that. But even in the, you know, in the instance of abstraction, you know, there’s a powerful message in color and in, you know, fun shapes and in its ability to spread a something joyful. And so I think giving artists the opportunity to help design what’s around us in our communities is a really powerful choice and one that we should continue to support. I think a lot about, like, you know, buildings just show up. You know, of course there’s permitting and, you know, approval processes and things that have to happen for a building to go up. But, like, the public doesn’t really get a say in, like, I like that building or I don’t. You know, there’s so many parts of our, especially our urban landscape that just appear in front of us, but then art shows up and everybody has something to say about it, good and bad. So it’s like, well, why not? Why can’t a painting or a sculpture also just appear? All these other things are kind of just forced upon us in our communities, and then we just live with them, you know? So what if it is something that’s beautiful? What if it is something that’s pointing out a very important message? You know, I just. I think it’s a good thing.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:27:59] What are your hopes for your future with organizations like the LAND studio or just your own personal community works?

Natalie Lanese [00:28:06] Well, I’d love to do more public art. You know, it’s both an interest in, you know, working with a community and, you know, collaborating with other people and developing my ideas, but also, like, kind of a somewhat selfish interest in, like, working at a monumental scale. That’s something that’s always been exciting to me and one that I really got to practice a bit with the glacier cave’s mural, you know, not just working large, but really envisioning a composition that, like, felt big and felt like something really large and kind of transformed an architectural structure into something else. I think that’s always been one of my big interests in being a painter is that the, the simple act of, like, adding color to something can transform it. And, you know, the more chances I have to, like, do that on a larger and larger and larger canvas is really exciting to me. So the potential of that would be great. But, yeah, I think I’m also, you know, we’ve been in a moment for a little while where a lot of public art has been figurative and very message oriented. And I certainly get some feedback on my projects that indicate maybe a lack of understanding of abstract art. So I definitely have a desire, like, the teacher in me wants to engage a community in conversations about that and involve folks in a project where they get to participate and then hopefully better understand that simple, formal elements could make also a beautiful and important thing.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:30:31] Have you ever worked on other projects, I know you mentioned the Toledo area. Have you ever worked on other projects, collaborations, or installments outside of the Cleveland area that you want to talk about?

Natalie Lanese [00:30:41] Sure. Yeah. I have quite a large mural project in downtown Toledo that was installed at the Promedica headquarters. And since I did that project, Promedica has funded multiple murals kind of surrounding their headquarters building. This is right in Promenade park in downtown Toledo. And so it’s been really cool to see more public art kind of build up around that project. I think I did that in 2018. You know, over the course of six or so years, they’ve really kind of developed this whole campus of, you know, public artworks that are there, both sculptural. There’s, like, illuminated works there in addition to murals and other things. And then I also participated in a cool project. It was also through the Ohio Department of Transportation, where they. The Skyway bridge in Toledo is on 280, and it crosses the Maumee River, and there’s a central, like, spire that ODOT was replacing all of the light bulbs in it. And so because they were moving to using LEDs, they had all the capabilities for them to be programmable in different ways. And so they enlisted, I think, eight or nine artists to design the lighting schemes in the bridge. And so I worked with the arts commission in Toledo, and the engineers at ODOT, me and several other artists who don’t like, work in lighting. So, like, we had a very limited understanding of that side of it, and then the engineers, like, didn’t have quite the understanding of our side of it. So that was a very fun collaboration to kind of figure out, like, what’s the best way for me to translate my idea so that this engineer can, like, program it into this, you know, lighting situation. So that was a different and cool project to be involved in, and it’s still there. I think each day of the week, it rotates like a different artist’s work is up. So if you’re ever driving through Toledo at night, you might just see it.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:33:12] How about any projects, installations, or work in galleries or museums, either within the Cleveland or outside of the Cleveland area?

Natalie Lanese [00:33:21] I’ve been kind of continuously pursuing exhibiting my work, whether they’re, you know, smaller paintings or site specific installations. Last year, I had a show at the Akron Art Museum with. It was a collaborative project I did with Andrea Myers, and she’s an artist based in Columbus, and she works mainly in, like, textiles and sculpture. And so we combined our processes to create kind of a two room installation that was called Land Jam. And we did some hiking around Cuyahoga Valley National park and kind of took inspiration from other, you know, kind of outdoor spaces around the country and created these, like, soft sculptures of rock formations and then painted the walls of the two galleries. So we created kind of this very colorful, quilted looking landscape that you could move through and kind of hike through in the gallery. So that was at the museum for about a year. It just closed at the end of May this year. I also had a. Had a show this spring in Mosso, Italy, which is about an hour and a half or so northwest of Milan, so up in the alps. And I did a residency at a contemporary art center there last summer and was invited to participate in a show this spring that included eight different artists exploring the limits and outer limits of line, which was the title of the show. So I was there in March to install a site specific work in a 17th-century building that had been a residence and then a convent and then vacant for several years and now reimagined as a contemporary art center. So it was a very cool project mashing up centuries of architecture and art that was existing in the building. And I. Yeah, I’ve been exhibiting my work in Ohio and regionally. So, yeah.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:35:53] Did you say it was a study of line?

Natalie Lanese [00:35:55] Did you say it was a study of line? Did you say? Not light?

Natalie Lanese [00: Mm-hmm, yeah.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:36:05] How does the art that you create, create connections between you as the artist to the community that you’re in, specifically your work?

Natalie Lanese [00:36:16] Wait, can you repeat it? Sorry.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:36:18] So kind of, how does. How do you use art? Or how is the art. I know you kind of answered this question a little bit in other responses. How does it create a connection, between you, the artist, the place where your art is in the community?

Natalie Lanese [00:36:31] Hmm. Well, you know, I think I’ve said it a few times in the interview but, you know, I’ve always wanted to make work that, you know, people, no matter who you are, could appreciate it and could walk in and feel as though you understand it. Like, there. You know, even if you are someone who is intimidated by art, that there’s something there that you recognize or that you like, a color you can associate with something or a color combination that’s nostalgic for you or something like that. There’s always clues like that in my work that I hope people can grab onto. And so I’m always trying to kind of dissolve that mystique a little bit about the art, you know, the art or the artist between me and the viewer. You know, like, leaving an evidence of my hand in the painting, whether it be a brushstroke or a drip or a wobbly line or something that makes it more human. You know, someone can walk up to the work and understand that, like a human being created it, then, you know, there’s, like, there’s some recognition there of a person making it. You know, I think the challenge of working abstractly is that the work is very open ended. So I don’t have the luxury of, like, telling someone what to think about my work when they look at it. It does put some of the work into the viewer’s hands of making sense of it, but I do my best to be generous with it in terms of giving, like I said earlier, like, clues or something that anyone could kind of grab onto and appreciate about it.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:38:48] Do you have a favorite example of how your story, personally, your personal story, connects or connected to a place that you’ve created public art in?

Natalie Lanese [00:38:56] Hmm.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:38:58] I know you kind of said you will sometimes put a sense of the artist’s hand within some of your paintings.

Natalie Lanese [00:39:05] Mm-hmm.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:39:06] Maybe something more along those lines.

Natalie Lanese [00:39:09] Yeah, I don’t know. I tend to, the public projects are complex in that it’s a little bit more like working on an assignment where you have a certain set of parameters, so you have the site where it’s going to be, and that dictates the size and scale of the project. And then you have, you know, like, a design review committee who has certain rules about, you know, what the design can and can’t have in it, and then you have a budget that, like, you have to make sure this, you know, is a fair amount of work for, you know, all of your expenses and what you’re, you know, the work that you’re gonna put into it. And then you have a timeline, which sometimes is never or very often is not long enough. So it’s hard, like, it’s really hard to think about, like, what, you know, and I’m kind of a logistic-y, like, organized person in that way where, like, I don’t know that the, like, the work is really ends up being about, like, my personal experience in a place so much as, like, this, you know, kind of designed solution to, like, what will work under all of those conditions. I know that just kind of, like, takes a lot of the fun out of the story of the work. I mean, I guess, you know, my work still has a lot of. There’s often an imagining of what if this was a different kind of place that drives the designs. As I talked about, like, you know, imagining Cleveland having mountains, or when I designed the piece that was, that’s in Toledo at Promedica, it was imagining that, like, the river, like, that this whole city was on water and that there were ships, you know, kind of driving all over it. And so there’s always this imaginative element that I bring to, like, you know, oftentimes some theme of, like, nature taking the place of an urban space. But I also understand that that is not like, that’s, even though that’s the inspiration for a lot of my work, it’s often not necessarily evident in the final piece. It’s just like, my way of getting to, like, getting to the next step of the design. And so I guess all that to say, like, when I’m in my studio and I’m. And I can make whatever I want, I think that’s where my. I think more personal experience comes through in the work, because I’m kind of free of those kind of boundaries that are set up in a public project. Whereas with those projects, like, you are a little bound by circumstance to really make the thing you might really want to make. If that makes sense.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:42:40] What advice would you give to artists who wish to design creative spaces in their own communities through public art?

Natalie Lanese [00:42:46] I have so much advice. You know, I guess we have so many good resources around for educating, like, emerging or artists newer to public art on how to do that work. And so I guess, like, the easiest bit of advice would be to seek, like, seek those resources out, because I didn’t. Either they weren’t around when I started doing the work, or I was unaware of them. And so there was so much about it that I learned, you know, just by doing it and by making mistakes and learning from them and kind of learning as I went. And my sense is that especially in Cleveland now, there are, like, so many people in organizations to look to who can offer help on just knowing that you need to have insurance for a project and understanding, like, how to rent the equipment and how to set up a space and, like, you know, all these things that, again, like, I kind of figured out as I went, you know, but, like, aside from the planning and, you know, logistics of the projects, I guess, you know, it’s like, some good advice might be to understand that, like, you’re working for a community. You know, as fine artists, we often have the luxury of doing what we want. But in the instance of working publicly, you are making something for the people who live there and who work there every day. And, you know, understanding that there’s a responsibility to those folks and to whether it’s an effort to include them in some way or incorporate their perspective into your research or however you may work as an artist. I think it’s really important to be mindful about where your work is and who it’s for.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:45:20] Is there anything else you want to add before we wrap up the interview? Any final thoughts, experiences that you think is important for others to know about you or your work?

Natalie Lanese [00:45:33] Not that I can think of.

Makialani Kanewa-Mariano [00:45:35] Well, thank you again so much for meeting with me. If you would like to hear more about the artist and Natalie Lanese’s experiences preparing to create public art in Cleveland for the Innerbelt Bridge project, please refer to the Cleveland Voices interview that was conducted by Jim Lanese on June 9, 2012. The time is now 2:04 p.m. I’m going to stop the recorder, completing this interview with Natalie. Thank you.

Natalie Lanese [00:45:57] Thank you.

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