Breathing, Burning

Charleston Ducote

Interview by L. Valena

October 23, 2021

So let’s start from the top. Can you start by saying what you responded to?

Initially whenever I looked at the drawing, some words came to me. The words were: triumphant, hopeful, rebirth. So I was kind of thinking along those lines. I was also really captivated by the light, how the figure was illuminated from the background. That was how I responded.

What happened next?

I sat with it for a couple of days. I let it stew in there, and then I started mind-mapping. I drew out those words, and my associations with those words. My first response was to draw a female figure that’s hopeful, triumphant, emerging from the ashes. Kind of phoenix imagery. But lately, I’ve been focused on drawing energy and light, so I decided to go in that direction.

Can you talk about what it means to draw energy and light?

Yeah. It’s something new that I’m exploring. I usually draw things very realistically – I try to capture it as is. But even that is totally relative, how a person sees something. I wanted to collapse the space. In my drawing, I was going to resort to my usual method of rendering the birds a lot more and making them pop, but stopped myself. I didn’t want to focus on them. I wanted to focus on the background and bring it towards the viewer. I tried to mess with the viewer by flipping the colors and the linework so that it was heavy in the background and would bring that forward, and set the bird figures back.

Is messing with the viewer part of capturing that energy? Capturing that tension?

Exactly. I wanted to start exploring tension between the foreground and the background, or what you would normally consider the background. I am currently working on a series that explores sexuality, reclaiming sexuality for women in a patriarchal world. I am working with pastels more, and having the entire illustration board filled up with one plane. I just want to play with formal elements and lines -- I’m reducing it every time I work with a new thing. Reducing the elements, taking away stuff, and getting back to lines.

Recently I did one with lipstick and firecrackers in the foreground, and then in the background, the same colors, really red, but with a lot of line work, and it’s coming at you, but you’re not really sure what’s in the background or foreground. It’s not really a fully formed thought, but I’m having fun exploring that.

I love messing with the viewer. That’s a big thing I explore in my own work. It never gets old. It’s really exciting.

I agree. It makes it more interesting to look at. You have to think about it. Sit with it.

How about birds? Is that subject something you have a relationship with that you’d like to talk about?

I don’t really have a lot of experience with birds. I have a lot of experience with other animals, but birds are kind of mysterious to me. I just read The Dark Half by Steven King for the first time, and in that, there are sparrows that serve as psychopomps. I was thinking about that too, but I didn’t want to go so literal and into mythology. Birds are cool.

I love the word psychopomp.

Me too! It’s so mysterious. But it sounds exactly like what it is: something taking you to the next world.

It also reminds me of the word pompadour. Kind of glam and fashionable. Love it. Should we get a layer deeper about anything? Is there anything you want to explore further?

Am I allowed to know what the other artist was thinking, or do I have to wait?

Sorry, you have to wait!

Aw! This was fun. I’m going to keep exploring the idea of fucking with the viewer, and see where I can take that. I might research birds a little more too. I also was going to do a Louisiana bird. There’s the Neotropic Cormorant that’s coming back in Louisiana, and I wanted to do something with that but decided not to. It did get me thinking about wildlife in Louisiana, which is close to my heart.

Do you have any advice for another artist approaching this project for the first time?

I liked the email that you sent, that said it’s not supposed to be a big deal. You don’t have to make a literal response to everything. Just have fun with it. Make associations in your own brain -- that’s the whole point. I like that it’s like a cool version of artist’s telephone. It’s going to be interesting to see what we started with and what we end up with.

Call Number: Y62VA | Y65VA.duBre

Charleston Ducote was born and raised in southern Louisiana and is currently a biochemistry and graphic design student in colorful Colorado. In her search to find her own artistic voice, her work investigates the coexistence of beauty and terror, as well as deconstructing trauma and empowering women.