Randy Globus

By NAWA member Susan M. Rostan

Randy Globus is a Florida-based watercolorist recognized for her compelling paintings of carousel horses and, more recently, hand-made puppets she calls “avatars.” Arranging her avatars in environments much like a diorama or a stage comprising found or created objects, Randy then takes numerous photographs, with varying compositions and lighting, to see what feelings she can evoke for use in her large and small-scale watercolor paintings.

Randy uses her avatars to represent people in her life or, as psychologists would describe, aspects of her accumulated and inherited imagery residing in the depths of her mental landscape. Randy explains that her work is her road to self-discovery and telling stories through art is raw and emotional. She tries to transform her drawings and paintings into emotions that can be comprehended and felt by others as it relates to their own experience.

With a solo show of Randy’s art scheduled to open on October 12, 2023 at the Arts Center of Sarasota (Florida), I interviewed Randy for NAWA NOW. Following is our conversation (edited for clarity):

Susan Rostan (SR): Let’s start with the show itself and how that came about.

Randy Globus (RG): You know, I feel that I just got lucky. The curator, Christina Baril, saw my work online or at a live show. I’m not quite sure how she came across my work. She emailed me, introduced herself, and asked if I’d like to show at Arts Center of Sarasota. At first, I thought, “Oh, this is one of those pay-to-play galleries,” because that seems to be kind of the way it goes down here in Miami. When I responded to her email, I suggested we talk. We set up a Facetime conversation, and I first told her, “Listen, I don’t want to waste your time. Is this a gallery where you ask people to pay to exhibit, like you’re renting space?” She said, “Oh, no, no, not at all.” So, then, we got on with it.

SR: Did she come to your studio to pick pieces for the exhibit, or was that left up to you?

RG: She looked at my website and told me she was particularly interested in the work I’ve been doing for the last couple of years – the sequential avatar paintings. So, I showed her many of those.

Confronting My Demons

SR: Were there pieces you added beyond what was on the website?

RG: No, not everything was on the website. I have paintings in those series I hadn’t done yet that I showed her in the last month or two, and then she sent me a contract and a gallery floor plan. I drew a scale map of the gallery, measured all my pieces, and submitted an outline of what I wanted – which was too many pieces. All artists will do that, right? We want it all in there. She edited it, and I must say it looks much better. I respect that she’s a curator, and I’m an artist. So, we have a plan now. I submitted around 25 pieces to show, plus some sculptures, and she edited it to around 15 pieces. We’ll also have a few pedestals with three-dimensional work.

SR: Your watercolors are exceptionally large, and they all need framing under glass. Do you frame them?

RG: I hang my very large pieces “banner” style. They would be way too expensive to frame and ship. I would have to have crates built, which would be a fortune. There’s no reason they can’t be rolled up and hung banner style. Many large artworks, like quilts, and many Asian artworks on paper are exhibited that way.

Conundrum, 23 x18,5, Transparent watercolor and casein

With the large-scale, sequential pieces comprising several panels, I have framed several individual panels to send to exhibits elsewhere. I decided to not frame them for this exhibit. I have these very subtle, transparent bulldog clips, so it would be nice to have the flexibility of hanging them vertically, horizontally, or like a comic book page. You can install the pieces more flexibly when you’re not framing stuff.

SR: The sequential pieces you’re talking about are the ones you organized like a graphic novel. Have you cut them apart since you made them?

RG: I painted a black border around the pieces because I wanted them to look like panels from a comic book or a graphic novel. They were on a large sheet of paper; the overall size was 72 x 72 inches. So, I separated all these images for the curator to determine the most effective way to install them in the gallery in Sarasota. They’re edited a bit, so they won’t all be in there, but it’ll be sequential.

There is a whole series called “In My Closet.” It’s about my devils, demons, and skeletons. We all have stuff that happened to us in our lives, even before that, like inherited trauma. And, particularly, during Covid, I felt I was trying to sort out what these devils and demons were. I was questioning how I had become the person that I am. Why do I have specific knee-jerk reactions to things? Why do I have an eating disorder? I was trying to find out why I am the person I am. And a lot of what happens is, you know, peeling away layers of your psychic onion. And a lot of it is facing some memories that you have suppressed. But the thing is, once you face them, even if they’re painful, awful, and difficult, you kind of wind up with them being a bit less scary because they are not a secret anymore. When things are a secret, there’s something terrifying about who will find out. You know, like things, secrets have power. I’m very anti-secret. So, once you diffuse that, you still have your devils and demons. Still, they’re less scary.

The painting, where I’m in my devils and demons, is like, “Randy, you got these guys.” Still, they’re part of who you are, and now that you got them, you face them, you know, you can deal with them or try to. There are times you have more control over them than at other times when they are more controlling. But at least you’re facing that, and they become less scary. And that’s what this whole series was about.

Avatars for Confronting My Demons

SR: It seems you have made the intangible real in your drawing. So, you’ve given some form to the things that scare you, which in a sense, gives you some control?

RG: To a certain degree. There are times when it’s like being an alcoholic, which isn’t one of my issues. Eating disorder is a big issue of mine. There are times when I’m in more control, and times when the “ED” is in more control. But I’m less hard on myself. I’m just accepting that we are all these very kinds of flawed human beings and just accept myself for being this person with these flaws.

SR: You are kinder to yourself, perhaps. Your image of Shari Lewis, Emmett Kelly [Ed. Note: Emmett Kelly was an American circus performer who created the hobo character “Weary Willie”], and a doll – Chatty Cathy or Charmin’ Chatty – struck me because I was obsessed with Emmett Kelly as a child. From your imagery of him and the doll as early influences, it seems there is a fear of them. I understand the doll now, but I drew Emmett Kelly constantly as a child. I was, I guess, enthralled with this whole concept of masks, being able to hide your emotions as a clown could do.

RG: Well, that’s what I found terrifying. I had a phobia as a kid about dolls. And the thing that I think you’re referring to with the masks, Emmett Kelly, who was like a hobo, was a sad clown, but he had that painted smile on his face. It’s Conflict. That is what I think it is—the conflict. I believe that we all have that within us.

SR: I could certainly relate to that.

RG: It’s the same kind of conflict when you lose a loved one. You want to let them go but don’t want to lose them simultaneously. It’s such a conflict.

SR: You’ve recently lost your husband, and I’m sorry you had to go through that.

RG: Although it’s not so recent, I suffer it every day. I think that when you lose a loved one, people say you move on but you don’t move on like that. They’re part of the fabric of your being for years and years, and you accept it, but you don’t move on; you never get over it.

SR: There’s the other thing I see in your creation of the avatars: In a sense, the things you have lost, you’ve made real again, using them in your work literally and emotionally.

RG: Yes. Absolutely. The avatar of my husband, I made it out of his clothes. It just helps me. It helps me process. It helped me process the loss. People do different things when they go through a loss. They may go to a bereavement support group, as I did. But people have other ritual things they do when grieving. And part of my grieving process was to create his avatar and do these paintings of him.

Heartstrings (Randy’s husband, Rick, and Puppet)

SR: Your creation of the avatars is very imaginative, drawing on your resourcefulness, using things around you, using something that belongs to the person you’re depicting, and creating a form that represents the person and the emotional attachment you have to that person. And then the second phase of your work is posing your avatars with still-life objects. And that, too, is an inventive phase. Whereas, the third phase of creating the watercolors, the experimentation and the unknown come about from the use of the medium – the painting medium – which in a sense, is a construction. There appear to be three phases, three different opportunities for you to be subjective and imaginative in your decision-making. Do I understand that correctly?

RG: Yes, you do. I have a lot of processes, and as I’m working through the process, it changes, but the steps mean you’re making choices all along. When I do the photography part, I can take hundreds of photos, and sometimes I don’t like any of them. Then I go back to the drawing board. It’s more interesting when something doesn’t work because then you can ask yourself, “Why isn’t this working?” And then you can figure it out. You learn more from your mistakes than your successes.

I wouldn’t move on from one stage to the next until I thought that stage was successful. I don’t take that avatar to the next step until I’m pleased with that avatar. And I don’t use those photos unless I am happy with them. Then I can compose a painting. This happened to me recently. I work very slowly, so it’s a drag when a painting I have spent a lot of time on is unsuccessful. Just recently, I cut an unsuccessful painting apart. I then took some more photos and recomposed the new ones with elements I liked from the unsuccessful painting. Everything that I work on up until a certain point is a struggle until it takes on a life of its own. I don’t like it if I don’t think it’s good. But I say to myself, “No judgment, no judgment.” You have to get over the “hum” and keep growing. And I make myself do that.

SR: Of the pieces in the exhibit, do you have a favorite?

RG: Well, I’ll tell you something that won’t be in the show. It’s a sad story. The painting (“Remembrance”) was an absolute favorite of mine. It was in an exhibition of Mid-Southern Watercolors, and it got lost in shipping, never to be recovered. So, thank God for images. It was a painting of Puppet and pictures of my parents from an album of black and white photos. It was a favorite of mine.

But in the show, I like the one I call “Old Friends.” I didn’t create this avatar. She came to me from a friend, and all the pieces here were gifts from friends. I’m pretty pleased with this one. I guess I do like this one a lot.

Remembrance, 30 x 38, watercolor

SR: You did a series of watercolor paintings of carousel horses carved by Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the early 20th century. You have mentioned that In Eastern Europe, these immigrants created carvings for synagogues, but when they came to the States, there was no work for them, so they found employment with carousel companies. You explained that you were focusing on these carousel horses because they looked like they were struggling. Other carousels looked happy, but certain carousels just looked tormented, and they fascinated you. I understand that you went around the tri-state area, photographed numerous carousels, and created composites from the photographs. You intended to evoke a particular drama and express the repression of the Jewish people that’s been going on for thousands of years. You named them Stampede, The Human Race, and Barbarossa, which was about the Nazi invasion of Russia in World War II.

That was a fascinating research topic. Given your interest in this subject, my question is whether your family had any trauma associated with the Holocaust that might have drawn you to those images.

The Human Race

RG: My family was already here, so we didn’t experience the Holocaust, first-hand. I’m sure some relatives were lost, but I didn’t know them. As a Jewish kid growing up in New York City, I’m the child of first-generation Americans. My grandparents were Eastern European Jewish immigrants. I grew up hearing about the Holocaust continuously, as I’m sure most Jewish kids of my generation did.

Barbarossa

Because it was very important, my parents always said, “The world should never forget. They should never forget because then it will happen again. It can’t happen again.” And when I would go to my Jewish youth group where I grew up, they would show films and photographs of the Holocaust. It was talked about frequently, and it still is. On a trip to Berlin a few years ago, I was very surprised at how they spoke of the atrocities of World War II. It’s really at the forefront of German culture. I mean, in a good way. It’s definitely in a good way, but it’s upsetting. We tend to try to bury the ugly past here in America, but in Germany, they certainly don’t; they teach the kids about it.

SR: These were compelling pieces. When were these carousel horses done?
RG: I started them in early 2000 and ended around 2011.

SR: So, you weren’t creating avatars at that point? They are almost like the proto-avatars, where the existing carousel horses inspired the watercolors.

RG: They definitely represented the artists that created them, who lived through 4,000 years of repression. So, I would say they did precede the avatars. I have always made puppets and characters, but to make them for paintings intentionally started after this.

SR: Can you give me the dates for the exhibition at Arts Center Sarasota?

RG: The opening is on October 12, 2023. The show will be up through November 10, 2023. I will also be doing an artist talk on Friday, October 20, 2023 and again on Saturday, October 21, 2023. I’m doing a workshop from 1 pm to 4 pm, and everyone is invited to make avatars. It will probably be mostly kids, but adults could also come. I will have a range of materials; some will be more suitable for younger kids and others for older kids. I’m looking forward to that because I love teaching. I love being with kids all day. They are so in the moment.