Hayley Barker

The interview was conducted by Ilana Stanger of TheArtBiz.com.

When did you begin thinking of yourself as an artist?

I’d have to say I didn’t begin to think of myself as an artist until five years ago. As an undergrad I didn’t feel that art was my place, even though I wanted to study it. I didn’t find my niche until I saw performance art. That was a pivotal event for me. I saw Karen Finley at the University of Oregon, where I was getting a B.A. in art. I’d taken every single kind of art class I could, and after that a professor directed me towards performance art.

What do you consider performance art?

A lot of people ask me that. I’d say that performance art is an event or experience that the performer calls art. Limiting it in respect to what that could be is completely unnecessary.

How did you break into the performance art world?

I spent my last year in undergrad writing and then performing a piece. That led to doing performance with a group of people in Eugene and Portland, Oregon.

I’m always interested to hear about artists who work collaboratively. Is community still a part of your work?

Occasionally. I had a group of friends in Iowa City [at the University of Iowa MA/MFA program] whose work I would document with video, so I was part of their performances. It was a very loose collaboration.

What led you to graduate school?

The economic background I come from is very working class, and I never had access to video cameras or computers. Grad school gave me access to those things; it was an opportunity to develop skills in technology. I began using video to document performance. Recently my interests have turned more exclusively to video.

Does working with video, as opposed to a more traditional art form, affect the way you’re perceived as an artist?

Absolutely. I feel sometimes as if I have to defend why something like video should be in an art space, as opposed to in a theatre. Some people think because you make video you want to make entertainment movies and music videos. My education as a videomaker relates to drawing and painting and photography. That’s the frame of reference that I work within. At Iowa my concentration was intermedia: video, performance, and installation.

Did graduate school meet your expectations?

It did in that I had a lot of access to technical equipment, and I found a group of people to share and critique my work with. But it also led me in directions I never expected. I never thought I’d be involved in video. I got into performance because it’s very immediate and personal and physical. Video seems like the complete opposite: impersonal, ephemeral, easier to package. It’s surprising to me sometimes that I do it, but for those very reasons I use video to comment on video.

How do you handle video distribution?

I’ve focused on trying to show my videos in smaller art festivals, and also at gallery shows. A lot of times my videos have performance elements as well, so I have to be there for them to work. I can’t just send them out, which makes it difficult to distribute them.

How did you first begin showing your work?

So much of my work is time-based that I’ve been primarily involved in one-night shows, mostly through meeting people and going out there and asking for a show. Group shows are a good way to start. Gather a group together that has a similar vision, or a body of work that feeds off each other, resonates. You don’t have to fill up a whole space. See if you can create a package and sell it to a space.

What are your current art goals?

Well, recently I’ve had to make a lot of choices about where I’m living and what that means to my art career. My own goals right now have to do with finding a place that will suit my needs as a video maker, because so much of my work is landscape. Eureka, California feels so right for me. I need quiet.

What are you working on now?

Besides teaching? That takes up a lot of time. I’m finishing a piece that I started a year ago,“159 mornings.” I took a photograph of the sky at the same time every day from the same spot on my front yard in Iowa. I did a video installation a few months ago where images of the sky fade from one to the other over an hour and a half. I finished photographing the scene and now I’m digitizing them for video.

Any advice for those looking for teaching jobs?

It’s been such an amazingly time consuming process. Know that you want to teach, because otherwise it’s a lot of work. You have to have a very good idea of yourself as an artist and what it is you have to offer as a teacher. Present yourself as a very organized person. Be thorough in the search, and timely—-it sounds basic but that’s a lot of what gets people far in a job search. You have to just be professional in every way you can be. If you have any way to gain experience in technology you should, because that really benefits right now. Even if you’re teaching has nothing to do with computers, it will get you further. It’s so competitive.

What is it you’d most want your students to understand about art?

The most important thing is that the art they make is primarily for themselves. If art isn’t pleasing to them, if making it isn’t a vital and exciting and scary and exhilarating experience, then I don’t know why you’d do it. You don’t have to make art, no one has to make it, unless it is exciting. And it can be.

Believe in your own unique vision. Art making takes time and patience. Know that if you are dedicated to the process, that amazing things can happen that will change how you see and understand the world. If this is cliché, that's ok. It’s true.

This article was originally created for TheArtBiz.com. It appears on NYFA Interactive courtesy of the Abigail Rebecca Cohen Library.