An Interview with Sonya Yong James: What Inspires her Iconic Textile Installations
Sonya Yong James, has created Spirit Is a Bone for installation at the Ogden Museum of Southern Culture in New Orleans. Sonya was awarded the Susan Antinori Visual Artist Grant in 2020 by Idea Capital.
If you are an Idea Capital Investor, you can feel very proud to have supported the efforts of over 127 Atlanta-based artists in their practice, including the uber-talented Sonya Yong James.
An Interview with Sonya Yong James
by Jody Fausett
Where were you born?
I was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. My parents met during the Vietnam War in Korea and moved back to Tennessee where my father is from. We moved to Atlanta when I was 6 months old. I’ve seen so many changes here in the past few decades including the city and the art community.
What are your favorite materials to work with?
For the past 18 years I have been working primarily with textiles and fiber. I also work with ceramics as well. A real consistent favorite is hand-dyed yarn. It is my version of a paint palette.
What is your motivating factor in creating artistic work?
It is the first thing I think about as soon as I was up every day, besides that first cup of coffee.
What do you like most about the art that you make?
I am a multidisciplinary artist that works with thread and repurposed cloth as I love the references that they hold such as mending, repairing, and connecting. This ubiquitous material is central to the human experience. Cloth is always touching us.
What do you feel you are trying to communicate with your work?
My current work speaks to my fascination and reverence for the natural world. I have been exploring narratives that speak to collectively shared mythologies and folk tales. Myths and fairy tales spin and weave stories of relationships, power, and morality. From Arachne to Rapunzel, ethereal threads of golden hair and silk serve both to protect and entrap, to create and condemn. These once familiar stories are then fragmented and conflated with others to form new clusters of meaning and are a perfect medium for modern allegory and what it means to be alive today.
As an artist, do you think your work is political?
“In our age, the mere making of a work of art is itself a political act.” W.H. Auden
For many, fiber art is synonymous with women’s art. Knitting, crochet, weaving, and sewing are historically associated with domestic work- clothing the body, providing warmth, adorning space - and speak to the strength as well as the exploration of female labor. I would argue that textile’s appeal is that it has a universal language that everyone can access or enjoy, regardless of cultural, political, and socioeconomic status. I’ve never been preoccupied by this topic and I don’t worry about being “political” enough.
During the Vietnam War, Eva Hesse was creating her seminal work out of cord and papier mâché that continues to influence young artists today. In 1989, the Guerrilla Girls presented work that criticized the establishment’s exclusion of female artists in their exhibits and Keith Haring made protest pieces about AIDS. In that same year, Sheila Hicks made some of her most important tapestries. She was recently included in the Whitney Biennial at the age of 77. These examples along with countless other ones exemplify to me that good work remains important regardless if it is “political” or not.
What are you working on currently?
I just finished a large installation for the Atlanta Contemporary and I am now continuing to try to find a venue and a space for my Idea Capital project. I’m also starting a new body of work and I’m doing the research and development for a large project that will be completed for installation here in Atlanta in the fall of 2022.
WANT TO CONTINUE TO SUPPORT ATLANTA ARTISTS LIKE SONYA YONG JAMES ???
PLEASE ATTEND OUR IDEA CAPITAL FUNDRAISER ON SUNDAY AUGUST 8TH
Our Launch Party will be a perfect chance to meet our spectacular and talented 2020 grant winners, enjoy great food and fancy cocktails, dance to the music of PANDEMIA, and learn more about the upcoming Grant Cycle.
IDEA CAPITAL relies on artists, creatives, and art enthusiasts in the Atlanta art community to contribute funds to support our annual Grant Program. Every dollar raised will go directly to Atlanta artists.
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The Idea Capital Steering Committee
Cinque Hicks, Felicia Feaster, Grace Gardner, Jamie Steele, Jess Bernhart, Jody Fausett, Louise Shaw, and Mary Stanley
About Idea Capital
Idea Capitalis a grassroots initiative founded in 2008 to help jump-start Atlanta-based artist-initiated projects that might not otherwise be supported through mainstream arts institutions. The organization and its grants are entirely funded through donations from artists and other arts supporters in the Atlanta community. In 2009, Idea Capital teamed with the regional arts activist organization Alternate Roots, which allowed Idea Capital participants to make their investments tax-deductible. Idea Capital encourages the Atlanta community to become investors in arts innovation in Atlanta by making an online donation at our website.