Abstract

Artist Angelica Pozo discusses her personal background and development as an artist. Pozo grew up in the Bronx in New York, and attended boarding school on Long Island. Pozo first realized she had artistic ability after receiving painting lessons in the second grade. Pozo studied ceramics at Moore College of Art and Design but later enrolled at Alfred University which was a "ceramics heaven." Pozo initially resisted outside influences on her work, focusing on ancient and primal work. In later years, she used her Cuban and Puerto Rican identity to shape her work. Pozo began to develop more functional pieces of art starting with photographs that looked like landscapes to more abstract work. Pozo decided to relocate to Cleveland after visiting several times. Pozo established a studio in Cleveland with several other artists who "energized each other." One of her favorite art pieces is the Fruits and Vegetables in Gateway District, inspired by the old Central Market. Pozo considers her most important accomplishments as residencies in schools, being able to share experiences, and being a catalyst for community projects.

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Interviewee

Pozo, Angelica (interviewee)

Interviewer

Busta, William (interviewer)

Project

Cleveland Artists Foundation

Date

10-29-2008

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

40 minutes

Transcript

William Busta [00:00:00] And then we’ll go from there.

Angelica Pozo [00:00:01] Okay. My name is Angelica Pozo. I was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1954.

William Busta [00:00:11] When were you? Did you always live in the Bronx? Always live in New York as you were growing up?

Angelica Pozo [00:00:16] Grew up all through my formative years, and my parents didn’t move away from the Bronx until I went away to college. So pretty much grew up all those times. But in fifth grade, fifth grade, or sixth grade, sixth grade, they sent me off to boarding school in Long Island. So I really kind of grew up on Long island in a Catholic boarding school, though my parents lived in New York.

William Busta [00:00:40] And why did they send you to the boarding school?

Angelica Pozo [00:00:42] Well, being protective Hispanic parents, they didn’t want their only female child running and both being workers and me a latchkey kid, they didn’t want me running wild, rampant in the streets of New York. So they shut me away on Long island for my own protection, I guess.

William Busta [00:01:10] When you were growing up, when did you first realize you had artistic ability?

Angelica Pozo [00:01:15] Well, my parents noticed that I was especially proficient in my coloring book, working, doodling or painting and drawing in my coloring book from very young. And so in second grade, I started after school. They started giving me after school painting lessons, my school. That was when I was still going to the day school, but it was a Catholic school also. But one of the eccentric nuns, she gave oil painting lessons after school, and I took them from her.

William Busta [00:01:48] And did the other students recognize you as an artist?

Angelica Pozo [00:01:56] I’m trying to at that point. I don’t recall being singled out as an artist within whatever we did in class. I just remember that my parents did see that proficiency in me and decided because that was an offering there at the school, that they offered me that, though really at that age, I enjoyed that. But I also was similarly fascinated with music, and I really wanted piano lessons, which they did not give me. So if they would have, I might have been in a different discipline at this point.

William Busta [00:02:35] Did you ever pursue music after that?

Angelica Pozo [00:02:41] Excuse me? I did in college when I was an undergrad. I did take. Decide to take. Realize that I could take piano lessons as part of my electives. So I took two semesters of piano lessons before that, though I did start at Moore College of Art in Philadelphia as a painting major and became disenchanted with the painting department at the time. And in the sophomore year, they had an interim month where you can take different between the first and second, second semesters. And during that interim, I was strongly considering quitting art school and going to school for voice. But Then I took my first ceramics class and then that sent me into that direction and I stayed in visual arts. But then I went to Alfred University College of Ceramics to finish off my BFA and during that time I did take some piano lessons because of my interest. And now I try to at least once a month go to do karaoke to get it out of my system.

William Busta [00:03:51] Get back to that in a little bit. But when did you first start to identify as being an artist?

Angelica Pozo [00:04:01] At the end of- I kept on taking after school art classes or taking the art classes all through high school and always had an interest. But I was also very good in my other studies as well, specifically in math and science. So I had other options when it came to senior year, which my parents really did try to push me towards. But I kept on going back to the arts as my interest because. And the main reason why at that point, because I remember it’s like almost every week I would consider, it’s like, okay, you’re a really good arguer, you could be a lawyer. So, okay, maybe I could be a lawyer for a week. It’s like, nah, nah, nah. And then, okay, well, maybe you can be a doctor. I would consider different things for almost about a week. And at the end of the week I realized, no, that really wasn’t me. And what really got me to, what really finally cinched it for me is that I realized that in the arts I could have curiosity about a lot of things. I did have curiosity about a lot of things. And I can pursue an interest in a lot of things, whereas if I picked any other field, I would be channeled into that one interest or that one concern. And so that’s what really made me decide that, no, I just really want to be an artist. And then I started applying to art schools and then, you know, got into more college of art.

William Busta [00:05:25] When, you know, you first, a lot of people talk about that there’s a certain culture, a lot of artists talk about there’s a certain culture shock when they first get into an art school that suddenly from being a person with artistic ability, they’re suddenly in a culture where that’s expected rather than exceptional. Did you feel that as well?

Angelica Pozo [00:05:45] Well, I did have a bit of a. Because I was one of the more talented artistic in my high school, which was a small high school, small Catholic girl girls high school. And they did not give us a lot of. We didn’t learn a lot of skills or my portfolio was weak. It showed some promise, but was weak. But I had good grades and So I did have a hard time getting into art school then. And more College of Art accepted me under a condition. And I had to go in during the summer and take a drawing class and a design class. And so it was because of the strength of my grades that and strength enough of my portfolio that I was able to get that far. So that was a reality check, I guess, to see how much more I needed to learn.

William Busta [00:06:41] You said you went as an undergraduate to Moore as well as to Alfred.

Angelica Pozo [00:06:45] Yes.

William Busta [00:06:45] And was there any other? Just those two?

Angelica Pozo [00:06:47] Those two.

William Busta [00:06:50] What was your development that caused you to move from Moore to Alfred University?

Angelica Pozo [00:06:57] Well, it was the. It was. The Moore College of Art was a private school, and it was very expensive. And also it was all during that second semester, that interim and second semester of sophomore year, that I was disenchanted with the painting department. And it was that second semester that I took the first ceramics class. So it was during that beginning of that semester when I was kind of thinking, well, I might just quit all this and go to Boyce. And so it was because of that. And then I decided after that first semester of clay, I thought, well, I’m going to make a change. This is too expensive anyway. It’s private. I’m going to drop out. So I dropped out for a year of the college and researching about other options that were in state and less expensive than I found Alfred University. And it wasn’t until I got to Alfred when I realized that this was. I had gotten to ceramics Mecca. I just figured, well, it’s an in state school. It’ll be cheaper for me. It’s a good place. And I just kind of stumbled upon, like the best place to be.

William Busta [00:08:09] That was going to be one of my questions. Did you realize that when you apply that it was one of the best ceramics?

Angelica Pozo [00:08:16] I didn’t at the time, no. I just applied because I was in state school and they had a BFA and an MFA program. And I thought, well, I could do both my BFA and MFA. But once I got there and did my BFA they like you to try to get other influences. So then I ended up going to University of Michigan for my MFA.

William Busta [00:08:37] So even when you were first at Alfred, you were thinking about a graduate degree?

Angelica Pozo [00:08:41] Yes.

William Busta [00:08:43] You already were that focused into the future? And why was that? You thinking about teaching?

Angelica Pozo [00:08:50] No, I just. Well, I guess I was at the time. Maybe at the time I was thinking of teaching, but I was just thinking of moving through to the terminal degree. My parents were really pushing me. They’re saying, get it over and done with. We don’t want to be paying for you in the future. So it was like, just get all your schooling done and get done with it. So I was in that mentality also of going through and realizing that that was the full extent of the education that I could get in that field.

William Busta [00:09:25] At Alfred, they have a. Not only an artistic ceramics department, they also have a technical ceramics department.

Angelica Pozo [00:09:33] Engineering.

William Busta [00:09:34] Yeah, ceramics engineering. With your background in math and science, was that part of the attraction?

Angelica Pozo [00:09:42] Yes, ceramics did. That was part of the attraction of ceramics. The one part. As far as the painting, I liked when I worked with painting, I liked working it in a plastic. I liked the plasticity of paint and working in a painterly way. And so the clay appealed to that part of me. And then all the glaze calculation and clay calculation and all those formulations and everything appealed to my interest in science and math. And so I was like, oh, I can use that part of my education as well. So that was part of the attraction.

William Busta [00:10:18] Were there any teachers or other students or what was? As your style developed, is there something that particularly influenced you or supported you or encouraged you or discouraged you?

Angelica Pozo [00:10:31] Well, I had, I guess the initial encouragement was to be in clay. I had- Ken Vavrek was my teacher at Moore College of Art in ceramics, my first teacher. And in contrast to the painting, what I was getting from painting teachers at Moore College of Art, if I was in a different school, I might have stayed in painting. But they were very technically oriented, the painters. It was just all how to paint and still life and technique, which was all great, but there was nothing in terms of ideas or concepts development. And so by the time I got to a year and a half and I’d been taking already three painting electives, I was thinking, well, we should be doing something a little bit more like, you know, for ideas, and wasn’t coming out of there. And then already, then I took my first ceramics class, and already the first problems they were giving you was teaching us technique, but was already giving you problems to solve. It was like, I remember one. What is ugly? Making ugly- You know, it’s just like, you think, well, you know, so it makes you think, rather than just, here’s a still life, paint it, you know, and use this technique. And so that Ken Emmerich, rather, I could say that he was instrumental in getting me interested in clay and in developing ideas and thinking as far as what I’m making has some sort of content to it other than just for the sake of making something. And so after that, I worked very closely with. With Wayne Higbee at Alfred University. He was one of my closer teachers, but I had a lot of other, several other teachers. Bill Parry, who’s gone now, he was my- I had him as a special private- Now I can’t think of the name of the term, but it was a special private class or specialized class that, that individual class that I made with him. And I talked to him a lot about different concepts and stuff. And so he was a good mentor. He was more of a sculptor rather than a potter and was interesting to talk to him on an individual basis about my concepts and ideas. So he was instrumental.

William Busta [00:13:05] You were speaking of content. How, what issues, what were you interested in doing with content in the beginning? And how did that change?

Angelica Pozo [00:13:15] Well, in the beginning I just knew that I wanted content. And I think. And I just actually have been just thinking about that. Just I think yesterday I was just thinking about how all my explorations in my work, though it has content that has had content at times that connect to the outside world. A lot of it is an exploration of myself and finding myself. And so I remember in that earlier stages there, I did not want to be influenced by outside forces too much. I resisted looking at a lot of other different artists work. What I really looked at was a lot of ancient work and a lot of primitive work and indigenous work because I felt that was very primal and very. I was not shaded by politics or other things. It was more primal. And I was attracted more to looking at those influences. And then as I did my work, so it was almost as if taking a Ouija board and trying to find myself and my place. And I found I was doing. I think I was doing these series of photographs. In this one photograph class, I was taking independent study. That’s what I was trying to independent study with Bo Perry, independent study with another teacher. I was doing these photographs and they were looking very landscapey to me. And so that’s when the influence of landscape started to seep into my work, to my drawings, into my ceramics work, and then to plant forms. And thinking back, landscape is very important. And plants in my home and growing up, my mother had a green thumb and plants all over the place. And, you know, so I can see the influences, but I was trying to reach them some more subconsciously rather than to say, look at it more like, okay, I’m from Puerto Rico, I should be interested in this or whatever rather than from an outside source. I was trying to find it from the inside and then recognize it like, oh, they make sense, you know, so that was my route.

William Busta [00:15:35] When you went to graduate school, was there a specific objective that you had in mind? Were you thinking about what you wanted to accomplish as an artist or anything that you expected from it?

Angelica Pozo [00:15:51] I was focused on because I had to finish my schooling and everything I was telling, okay, going into my terminal, finishing up in school. And I really didn’t have any particular because I started graduate school right after undergrad. So it was just sort of a continuation and a new environment and having more space to work on whatever my ideas were. So I was very much open and ready for whatever direction that would take me. So I didn’t have any particular.

William Busta [00:16:35] And did your work change when you were in graduate school?

Angelica Pozo [00:16:37] It did. It did. It changed it several times. It changed from undergraduate to graduate. It changed from first semester to second semester drastically.

William Busta [00:16:48] What were those changes?

Angelica Pozo [00:16:50] Well, in undergraduate school at the end of the year was looking at the work looked a lot like ruins and architectural ruins or natural landforms. And so I started doing that those and they were glazed with more natural colors, either terrace celadons or just sort of natural lichen kind of textures. And I started doing that at University of Michigan. But then what I did with the University of Michigan, then I started building them and then turning. Whoops, bang. And then turning them upside down so that they would the flatness, they just would be upside down. So I just like flipped them on the other sides. And that created a totally different dynamic. And I was doing more drawing, abstract drawing. And then I started putting those abstract drawings on the surface of them. So they were had painted lines and colors and shapes and forms on them, but still very sort of natural and you know, like land formation kind of shapes. And so those transformed and changed into different, you know, cave like looking forms and you know, from being righted right side up to upside down. And then towards the end of the. Oh, then I broke my arm between first and second semester and I couldn’t do any clay and I was doing. So that’s when I did a lot of drawing. And I think actually that’s when probably during that time that I did a lot of drawing. It was after that that the drawing then got onto the clay pieces because all the clay pieces I made first semester, at least with my broken arm I could paint them. So I started decorating them in that way so I could get someone to move things for me and then I could decorate. I broke my left arm, but it was a full cast like this. So I can at least had my right arm to paint and draw. And then my drawing teacher kept on saying, you should draw with your left arm. With my left non dominant broken arm, so he’s trying to shake it up. So I did. So I did the drawings. So I broke my arm. So that kind of set me back. And I started doing paintings. And then once I started making some new work in the second semester, they were smaller pieces and they looked more like the drawings. They were like slabs and they looked more like the drawings that had a lot of different sort of shapes. And the drawings started, look, they were landscapes that they were getting a little bit more stylized and larger shapes and forms like plains. So a little bit more city kind of shapes were kind of coming in urbanized sort of shapes into the landscape.

William Busta [00:19:53] How was it different from the changing culture, from moving from the Bronx? I’m sure that Philadelphia wasn’t that much different, was it? But certainly upstate New York was, and certainly Michigan was.

Angelica Pozo [00:20:07] Well, from Catholic boarding school to then have, you know, being in Philadelphia that, you know, that was like. That was being wild, wild time, you know, just sort of, I’m free, I can do, you know. So, you know, even though I was in a dormitory, but I still had the first semester and then the second semester I was in and had my own little apartment, but it was an old hotel that the school had bought, so it was sort of a dormitory, but you still had your own little apartment. So you had more freedoms. So that culture was like, kid in the candy store or something, just be free. But also I was underage drinking. Drinking age was 21, so I wasn’t that wild. But still it was. It was just to be roaming around the city and meeting different people. And that was an eye opener. Especially at that particular time in the early ’70s. The culture on the streets at that time was pretty interesting. So that’s a different mentality. And then from going from there up to Alfred, where it’s like at that point, the town was one block of stores on one side of the street and that was it. And I didn’t have my own vehicle, so I was pretty much locked in there. But that gave me a lot of time to really concentrate on my work. So I felt like it was really good for focusing. Then Ann Arbor then provided a little bit more of an ambience of a community and of a city and of other things, other distractions of having to drive across or I didn’t have a drive car yet then, but taking the bus across town or just the movement of your day to day things took more time and I kind of missed, especially being in graduate school. I kind of missed being able just to roll down the hill and be in the studio. So life, more of life impacted on my concentration. But then I think because of that, that’s why then when I graduated, I did stay in Ann Arbor for a few years because I then was able to take advantage of a lot of things that I didn’t have time to while I was a graduate student. And I was on the film society on this one Cinema Guild, who were the ones that ran the Ann Arbor 16 Millimeter Film Festival. So I was on board and a screener for that and got interested in film and was a DJ for the college radio station. And, you know, so did all these different things that I just wouldn’t have had time to do as a student.

William Busta [00:23:04] And what brought you to Cleveland?

Angelica Pozo [00:23:08] My friend Mary Jo Bowl, who was an undergraduate while I was a graduate student there at Michigan. At Michigan when she graduated. And I stayed in Ann Arbor for. For a few years on, I would come and visit her a few times and got the feel for the city and she’d take me to the West Side Market. And I loved the West Side Market. And she had gotten a few grants. And I realized the Ohio Arts Council was one of the better states arts councils and that studio space was really cheap. And I was starting to feel like it was time to move on from Ann Arbor and a studio space opened up over here. And I decided, well, I wasn’t really that interested in pursuing teaching positions anymore. They were hard to come by. And anyone you could come by, they would be in some boondock somewhere. And I just like, well, that’s not really what I want to do. And so I decided to come and try to start my career here and took that space and came here on a lark with no job, no nothing, just studio space and some money saved up in the bank or Leap of faith. Yes, but it worked out.

William Busta [00:24:29] Let’s talk a little bit about your work and issues probably of identity. A lot of the work that you’ve done, certainly that I’ve seen since you came to Cleveland, has to deal with your cultural identity as Puerto Rican. But the your. And correct me if I’m wrong, but the community in which you spend your time is the art community. So is that correct? So that identity comes from within rather than from within a context?

Angelica Pozo [00:25:05] Yes, the identity comes from within. And as a Puerto Rican and Cuban, because one side of each parent, and just as I was sort of Ouija Boarding. Trying to find myself and my interests. I used my art or have used my art to find my identity in Alfred. Alfred also had those interim projects between the first and second semester. And one of the things I did while was there was I took an independent study and went to Puerto Rico and looked up all the different cultural institutions and just tried to find out on my own about my culture in an artistic and cultural sense. That the part that I didn’t get from my mother, outside of the food that you eat and some of that, but find out about the indigenous culture, what the state of the arts were. So I did a month of just roaming around and checking out all these different institutions and museums and talking to different people. And so that began my exploration of myself as a Puerto Rican. And Cuba was not available to me as available. So that, yes, I’ve lived mostly in the Cuba in the art culture. But as far as my ethnic culture is a very strong. Is a very important source of who I identify with and of my internal identity.

William Busta [00:26:43] Right. Because there’s a limit to. There’s probably too much art being made that’s about art. Right?

Angelica Pozo [00:26:49] Yes.

William Busta [00:26:53] I can understand that. Since you’ve been in Cleveland, the content of your- You’ve done a lot of. I mean, the focus of this interview is not on the series of projects that you’ve worked on, but rather on how your development relates to your work and where that comes from. From and how you feel about your development as an artist. So I’m going to lead through a couple of things like that. How has the work developed as you lived here? Has it been affected by Northeast Ohio?

Angelica Pozo [00:27:32] I think that it probably has been. When I moved into the. Well, I’m thinking as far as who I share my studio with. And I do remember when I first moved to Cleveland, I shared my studio with Deirdre Da and Andrea Serafino, Paul Dubaniewicz, Mary Jo Bole, George Bowes, Dan Postotnik, all those. Quite a few of those people did a lot of painting and figurative or illustrative work on their pieces.

William Busta [00:28:13] How did such a powerful group of artists get together in one studio at one point in time?

Angelica Pozo [00:28:18] I don’t know, but it happened. They just gravitated to each other.

William Busta [00:28:24] Did the energy of everybody working together really make some compete with each other?

Angelica Pozo [00:28:30] I don’t know. I didn’t feel like a sense of competition. Everybody was working in their own direction. But there was a lot of synergy there as far as what people were doing and excitement about each other’s work and cross influences. But So I never. Before I came to Cleveland, I really did not concentrate on functional work. And so that I think being in those studios with those people and having the studio sales and needing a source, whatever source of income I can, I started making more functional pieces. And. And so that made me bring my drawing or my painting even more so onto my ceramic pieces, because that’s when I was doing those picture postcards, started making those picture postcard plates and doing some imagery, more imagery on my work. And I remember thinking that I was being influenced by the culture of the studio, of being geared towards functional pieces, which I did for the sales, but I also did my sculptural pieces as well.

William Busta [00:29:42] And the content of the work, you’ve. If you’re going to. Has the content changed through the years? And why do you think those changes take place?

Angelica Pozo [00:29:56] The content has kind of like, has moved forward or moved on. It started, as I said, with those. Those photographs that look landscapey and this abstract drawings, which I did at the time, not necessarily think of landscape, but the abstract drawing, and then recognizing landscape and then turning them into. More purposely into landscape, and then turning. And I remember I had this purple mountain series, and the purple mountain became sort of almost a figure. And. And I started putting them on the making forms that were purple mountains. And so it went from landscape and large landforms to then. And then doing the picture postcard, the very realistic picture postcard plates, and putting those on also on some of the sculptural pieces to then being interested into elements of landscape, the plants. And so it became more microscopic. Instead of the big landform, the. The, you know, looking at the plants, the concern of the environment, then taking it to a social level and thinking of environmental issues. And so that also became another layer of the work. And then in still looking at the individual forms and the plant forms and the seed pods and doing the blossom series, which then once again, then reverting back to defining myself, recognizing attributes of femininity, and then defining different attributes of femininity and my own femininity in the work. So that’s sort of the path that the work has been taking. And now I’m starting a new series of work and once again with platforms, but sort of I’m going to be bringing in some elements from the past of making a vessel and then making the plant that comes out of it. So I’m resurrecting a form that I did way back in graduate school and using that as my base and then creating some plant forms in sort of a bead like fashion, which sort of brings me back to, like, I like my necklaces and stuff like that. Liking- One thing I like about working tiles. I like working individual pieces that get put together, and then also some of those temple boxes that I made, where I made all those little bricks and everything like that, and then putting them together. So this will be another way of making a lot of little parts and then putting them together. So that’s a new direction that I’m going in with my work.

William Busta [00:32:47] What do you feel has been your most important accomplishment as an artist?

Angelica Pozo [00:32:53] I’m an important accomplishment.

William Busta [00:32:55] Or one of them.

Angelica Pozo [00:32:56] Or one of them. Well, as a ephemeral accomplishment, I really enjoy doing the residencies in the schools and being able to share my creativity and to be able to be that open about my work, that training or that experience that I’ve gotten. I think that- And then- And especially when I do, like, some big community projects and stuff like that, and being able to be a catalyst for that, I think is a big accomplishment. As far as, you know, physically, you know, the. The physical. The completed project, you know, my big. Some of my big public pieces, I would say, are some of my biggest.

William Busta [00:33:56] Do you have a favorite?

Angelica Pozo [00:33:57] Favorite? Well, I still. I still like the one at Gateway with the fruits and vegetables and all that. I really enjoyed working on those. That was a lot of fun because especially that represented. Even though that represented the Central Market. My motivation is because of my love of the west side market, which was one of my three main reasons for moving to Cleveland. So it was part of my being able to express my love of that experience.

William Busta [00:34:30] And the West Side Market does have sort of ceramic things.

Angelica Pozo [00:34:33] Yes. Yes, they do. Yes.

William Busta [00:34:38] One of the differences of, I think, an artist working in craft media and let’s say ceramics in particular, is that it’s a type of art world that’s not centered in New York City. It’s an art world that’s all over the country. And if there is a ceramic city in the country, it’s the National Ceramic Education association, the NSECA annual conference. Do you participate in that?

Angelica Pozo [00:35:03] Yeah, yeah, I’ve been going just about every single year.

William Busta [00:35:05] Okay, so that is a. What is it, 8,000, 10,000 ceramic artists gathered together in the city?

Angelica Pozo [00:35:14] It depends on the city, but I think it’s up to- It’s a little over 6,000. Was the. It keeps growing every year, but it’s a little over 6,000 that come to the conference. So. Yeah, that’s a lot of people.

William Busta [00:35:27] And you mean? Why do you go?

Angelica Pozo [00:35:31] Well, I. It’s good networking. I do see a lot of people that I see my old teachers from Alfred. I see a lot of people that I went to school with or gotten to know through the years. There’s good discussions, there’s good exhibitions, good panel discussions and stuff, and there’s good exhibitions. And as a self employed artist, almost every time I make some sort of connection for either a workshop or.

William Busta [00:35:59] You.

Angelica Pozo [00:35:59] Know, or some sort of job or, you know, so I make. It’s good for me to have my face out there because you know, with the book that I wrote and I go now I do book signings every time I go and you know, people see my face in the book and they catch me on the walking by. It’s like, oh, Angelica, we’ve been wanting to bring you. So it puts my face out there so that these chants or these connections that people are thinking of making, they see me and they do make it so things happen.

William Busta [00:36:41] What is the largest obstacle that you faced as an artist? Is there anything that you feel has held you back or anything that’s been in your way or prevented you from accomplishing? I’m not talking internally, but external forces.

Angelica Pozo [00:36:55] Well, I guess the biggest problem is my income. I just tell people I don’t do this for the money. I do this because I love it. But as far as being able to move forward at this point, I am finding that it’s just difficult as a self-employed person where you have to handle everything and the promotion everything. And also part of the reason why I am able to be self employed is because I have many hats within that art realm. Either the public art or the community art or the artists in residency, in the schools and then my own studio work. It’s hard to promote all that at the same time and also be a homeowner and landlady with my house and studio behind my house, which is ideal. But that also brings another layer of work that’s not related to my central main mission of creating work and getting it out there so that it’s like if I had a higher income, if I made more money or whatever, I could pay for other people to do some other things. So I’m just sort of not big enough or not making enough connections or jobs or whatever to hire someone. And so I’m just kind of in that limbo stage of like I could use a little bit more help to get a little more things, you know, to give more time for myself to do other things. So that’s what I’m feeling is my biggest obstacle. Right now is being able to push low forward. And one thing that I am, and also to get then from doing all those other things to get more time to do my own studio work, which I am starting to a new leg or new block of time. I have some shows coming up in February, March and gearing towards possible one person show then in 2010. So I’m starting to do more work and I would like to, now that my name is out there more nationally in the ceramics world, is to get now a new body of work and now with that in my name, get the commercial galleries. Because I have not been able to pursue that just because I’ve been doing all this other stuff.

William Busta [00:39:17] So do you have any public commissions you’re working on right now?

Angelica Pozo [00:39:23] The only one is it’s not a major one, but it’s for MetroHealth. I’m doing a donor wall project for them and that’s the only one I have.

William Busta [00:39:33] What have you just finished? A bench project.

Angelica Pozo [00:39:36] I did a bench project at East 118th and Buckeye this summer. And then a couple summers ago I finished one for East 82nd and Quincy at Quincy Park. So those are two most recent.

William Busta [00:39:49] And those involved you and other people or just yourself?

Angelica Pozo [00:39:51] Just myself.

William Busta [00:39:53] And how do you like those? Are you going to do more benches or what do you see as the public work you’d like to do?

Angelica Pozo [00:40:00] The public work that I’d like to do, I’d like to, because of my love of plants and nature. I’d love to make forms or sculptural pieces that interacted into a natural setting or a botanic setting. I’d love to work with the Botanical gardens.

William Busta [00:40:16] Is there anything else you’d like to talk about?

Angelica Pozo [00:40:21] I can’t think of anything.

William Busta [00:40:23] Matt, do you have any questions? 

You took mine, so. Okay. 

Thank you very much.

Angelica Pozo [00:40:28] Okay. You’re welcome. Okay, cool.

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