2021 MPLSART Sketchbook Project

&nbsp;

Upon asking Shade Pratt what it was that spurred her dive into the life of art and design, the answer at first was pragmatic &mdash; and profound.

&ldquo;I know design isn&rsquo;t going anywhere&hellip; Everything around me, you, from the computer you&rsquo;re typing on to the bench you&rsquo;re sitting on &mdash; has been designed.&rdquo;

For Shade, though, the value of design in her life doesn&rsquo;t solely consist of its practical use-value. To create something you&rsquo;ve never seen before is always a regenerative act.

Born in Maryland and raised in Minnesota, Shade returned east to the University of Maryland where she graduated with a degree melding art, architecture, engineering, and sustainability. Since then, between her world travels as a professional soccer player, Minnesota has always been home &mdash; her most recent stay elongated by the pandemic. As a designer whose visual acumen spans from shoes to murals to illustrations, Pratt says that&nbsp;&ldquo;Art is a part of everything I do.&rdquo; The value in art&rsquo;s omnipresence is that it&rsquo;s freeing for the artist.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjI3NDkwMDAx/full.jpg" />Untitled, acrylic on canvas triptych, each 18&quot; x 36&quot;

In the past few months alone, that same ubiquity has moved Shade Pratt to hone new and long-shelved talents. She tells me she brings her camera everywhere, so when protests started in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, &ldquo;I was out there &mdash; camera in hand &mdash; trying to shed light for everyone who wasn&rsquo;t here [in Minneapolis] on what was really happening.&rdquo;

But, as can be the nature of protest, being on the frontlines took a toll. &ldquo;So I started to paint,&rdquo; she says. By way of bright, dynamic, large scale murals, Pratt tells me how she moved her voice into the visual language of paintings. To be clear, undertaking large&nbsp;scale murals in collaboration with local artists was still a labor, be it of love. They stood long hours under June suns, climbing up and down&nbsp;ladders, paintbrushes in hand. Folks started seeing Shade&rsquo;s work donning the sides of buildings across the city and commissions started coming in. She tells me, &ldquo;I really haven&rsquo;t put down a brush since.&rdquo;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjE5NzUwMDAx/full.jpg" /><img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQ5NjUwMDAx/full.jpg" />The artist at work on her mural, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, at 605 Central Ave NE in Minneapolis.

The pieces that manifest are illustrative and for her, driven by nostalgia and abstraction &mdash; an emphasis placed on negative space. &ldquo;The problem can be knowing when to leave space,&rdquo; she says, &ldquo;where to stop&rdquo;.

When I ask about her process and sources that inspire, Shade tells me, &ldquo;Inspiration can come from anywhere,&rdquo; explaining&nbsp;that any moment in a day, every scene within a scene can be the seed for creative thought. Zooming out, Pratt mentions being inspired by transportation, cosmetics, infrastructure, and music colliding with it all. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t just stay in your market.&rdquo;

The line isn&rsquo;t straight, and the field isn&rsquo;t level. She shares that since May, much of her practice takes place within her home. Sometimes pieces are wholly driven aesthetically, and like we all hesitate to admit, content can arrive within a work much, much later.

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjUxNDYwMDAx/full.jpg" />At home as much behind an easel as she is&nbsp;out on the pitch, the artist also has a successful career in professional soccer.

Equally significant to her artistic practice and underlying motivation is the fact that Shade Pratt also happens to be a successful professional footballer, usually playing the position of a winger&nbsp;or attacker&nbsp;for multiple teams spanning continents from North America to Asia. Though with the onset of COVID-19 around the world, her training and playing has been placed on a bit of a hold.

What&rsquo;s revealed itself as critical to any discipline of hers, especially that of art-making, is time management, organization, and getting used to not being in one place for long. So whether it be through mural-making for the public or footwear design internships&nbsp;for the likes of Adidas and New Balance, Shade isn&rsquo;t afraid of fluctuation or of shaking things up. With plans to work with an up-and-coming brewery on a new mural, partnering with local businesses expressing a positive message will always be important to her. She shares that, when it comes to the field, her goal is to inspire girls to pursue sports.

When it comes to art, her goal is to speak to the community, better yet the world.&nbsp;<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color:rgb(237, 22, 144); background-color:rgb(250, 250, 250); caret-color:rgb(237, 22, 144); color:rgb(237, 22, 144); font-family:roboto,helvetica,arial,sans-serif; font-size:15.75px; letter-spacing:0.1686825007200241px">◼︎

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjMzNTUwMDAx/full.jpg" />Tumble, acrylic on canvas triptych, each&nbsp;40&quot; x 30&quot;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjQxNTkwMDAx/full.jpg" />

For more info and a full portfolio, visit&nbsp;<a href="https://shadepratt.com" target="_blank">shadepratt.com</a>&nbsp;or follow the artist on Instagram <a href="https://www.instagram.com/shadepratt/" target="_blank">@shadepratt</a>.

Banner image: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (detail), mural at 605 Central Ave NE&nbsp;in Minneapolis.&nbsp;All images are courtesy of the artist.

The 27-year-old professional soccer player and multidisciplinary artist/designer shares a bit about where she is and how she got there.

Shade Pratt Knows That Design Is What Makes the World Go 'Round

This is the first installation in a new and ongoing series of artist interviews. Our goal is to keep them concise in length yet rich in content. We&rsquo;ll speak with Artists from various mediums and at various stages in their careers. We want you to know the person behind the artist. In that vein, there is not a more appropriate artist to start with.

Entering Hilary Greenstein&rsquo;s bright California Building Studio is to walk into your childhood family room. Her paintings, based on vintage found photos, bring back memories of common scenarios we all experienced growing up.

<h2>The Artist as Person</h2>

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/hilary2.png" />

Hilary is a recent (2013) MCAD BFA program grad. Given the scale of her work, she knew she needed a studio straight away. When she isn&rsquo;t oil painting, she writes poetry, cooks, and plays with her beloved cat. She knew she wanted to be a painter very early on and got serious about it in High School when she attended MCAD&rsquo;s high school program. Hilary is a thoughtful, mindful person and artist. Her ability to pay attention to detail while keeping the big picture in mind is impeccable. She has a knack for the difficult task of determining when a painting is done. There are just enough brush strokes to complete the painting, but not the image, leaving the rest to the viewer&rsquo;s imagination. Hilary often works on multiple paintings at once to alleviate the natural tendency to overwork a singular piece. She views painting as an act of respect, paying homage to and treating the subject with respect. Balance is good word to describe her; it comes through in her art to be certain.

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/hilary1.png" />

Hilary and I spoke at length about her process, which is noteworthy. Though her canvases are enormous, she stretches them herself. She appreciates the balance of the scientific/ mathematical nature of this with the creative nature of painting. There is a right and wrong way to stretch a canvas, there is no wrong way to create a painting.

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/hilary3.png" />

<h2>The Art of Familiarity</h2>

Familiarity is a theme that plays out in many ways in her work. Many of the works in her prior collection contain wallpaper patterns painted as the background. Of course these pieces would look great on a wall in your home for obvious reasons, but they also conjure sentiments of home regardless of their resting place. In her current collection in progress she often uses house paints for the background. This accomplishes an interesting juxtaposition of color, but also creates an implicit reminder of home. It&rsquo;s hard not to feel nostalgic in her space. There are enough quintessential youthful scenarios that something will resonate with you. In my opinion, one of the greatest measures of art if whether or not it makes the viewer feel or think in any way. In that regard, these paintings don&rsquo;t just hit the bullseye they punch clear through it.

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/hilary4.png" />

Most of the works in her current series in progress contain what she refers to as lacunas. At face value they may be symbols of birth, death, or wounds while perhaps representing the temporary or fleeting nature of youth. The expressions on some of her characters are somewhat somber or serious, but Hilary strives to not only paint the anxious, rather to balance that with happy imagery. That is life, after all.

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/hilary6.png" />

&nbsp;

<h2>The Questions</h2>

(Josh Arbit): Why do you make art? 
(Hilary Greenstein): Paintings are my way to communicate. They are open ended, like poetry. A painting doesn&rsquo;t try to convince nor argue a point; rather paintings are open-ended and evocative.

(JA): Why does art matter? 
(HG):&nbsp;Art has been around forever, but every art show you go to presents new ideas and things not previously seen. It inspires and drives human connection, feedback, and reactions.

(JA):&nbsp;What does owning original art add to your life? What do people get from it? 
(HG):&nbsp;It adds dimension to a room, changes the space. Art subliminally influences who you are and what happens in that space. Paintings look back at you. Owning Art should appeal to people because it plays into our desire for the scarce and rare. It resonates with the millennial drive for authenticity and originality. It allows us to curate our persona and show who we are and what we are about.

(JA):&nbsp;What do you like most about the Twin Cities Art scene? 
(HG): It&rsquo;s big and it&rsquo;s small; more personal. It&rsquo;s Midwest friendly. There are many galleries, most of which particularly support emerging artists. The Art scene here is part of the social scene. It is accessible and lacks pretension. Painters here don&rsquo;t take themselves too seriously, nor do they put art on a pedestal.

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/hilary5.png" />

Hilary will have her&nbsp;first solo show, Stranger,&nbsp;opening at the Coffman Art Gallery at the University of Minnesota on March 4, 2016. For more details, visit her website&nbsp;<a href="http://hilarygreenstein.com" target="_blank">http://hilarygreenstein.com</a> 
 
-- Josh Arbit

Josh Arbit sits down with emerging artist Hilary Greenstein

2021 MPLSART Sketchbook Project

Community Spotlight

We can't do it without you.