Meet American Artist Molly McCall whose talent for creating works revolving around the passage of time delivers photographic and mixed media compositions that are not only entirely unique, but also nostalgic for many. McCall’s work, which is memory based, is focused on the beauty of California’s central coast, where McCall was born, raised, and where she continues to live today with her husband Gordon and their two German Shorthaired Pointers.
Although deeply immersed in the art world today, McCall began her career in the world of fashion with her own private label which featured in stores like Nordstrom and Henry Bendel. Having exhibited at venues such as the Barcelona Foto Biennale and Griffin Museum of Photography, McCall’s coveted work has become a part of some of the world’s most prestigious art collections where it has even been featured in taste-making magazines such as Architectural Digest.
Recently, we were given the exclusive privilege to chat with Molly between her busy schedule which includes running her family’s business, McCall Events. Read on to learn more about McCall’s current body of work, up and coming projects, and how her family influenced her passion for art.
What are you currently inspired by?
“I have been working with an art mentor, Lon Clark, for several years through the San Francisco Studio School. He is the first teacher I have had who works with both photography and painting—my two subjects—and who was willing to take me in and work with my desire to join the two. Lon first directed me toward abstract expressionism, and I was inspired by the exuberance and energy it conveyed. I immediately was drawn to the concept of “sensate” as well as creating a sensory feeling within my work, which opened up my visual world immensely and made me look at color in a totally new way.”
How did you first become interested in art? Was it an experience in your childhood or did your passion develop later in life?
“I am a fourth-generation artist. My immediate family of seven siblings are all accomplished artists: painters, writers, musicians [and] sculptors. Our early home environment was austere, but we had our creativity to keep us engaged with one another and our surroundings. Without television, we were left on our own to create entertainment and activities as well. Making art was just what my family did as well as play acting and performing for one another.
I was introduced to classical art at a very young age. Frequent trips to Los Angeles and San Francisco always included a museum exhibition or a theatrical performance. I can distinctly remember the French Impressionism show at the De Young Museum when I was about 10 years old. I was in awe of the scale of the work and the visual boldness of the colors, the brushstrokes, and the way the subjects were captured in such a loose form. It made a permanent imprint on me and I was inspired by the way it left a lot up to the imagination.”
Have you always been drawn to mixed media?
“Yes. Because I was exposed to so many different types of art mediums, I have always tried to create my own artistic language using multiple layers and materials. My creative career began in textile and clothing design, so I have an affection for the surface of things as well. All of my work is based in photography, but I like to push the boundaries of the medium. I’ve used a variety of materials on my images from spray paint to house paint to collage, ink, pencil, tar, glue, etc. I’ve sanded, torn, and even burned my photographs. Photography to me is still a magical process in which I feel I will never find the end of it. It’s the process and exploration that brings me back again and again.“
Can you walk us through your process for choosing the subjects depicted in your work?
“I have been interested in memory for a very long time. I’ve explored this subject from many perspectives: collective memory, historical memory, personal memory. I continue to be intrigued by its illusive nature and impact on our sense of identity and humanity. I’m very keen on change, the passage of time, loss, and the ephemeral nature of living.
My new work is in response to the environmental changes of our time, the parallels of flux between memory and nature, and explores the transitory state in which we live. The title of the series is The More Things Change, and is comprised of large scale color photographs created by layers of multiple images taken over a lengthy period of time.”
Is there a particular piece that you believe defines your work best? If so, what piece and why?
“My art took a noticeable turn when I started working with Lon Clark at the San Francisco Studio School. The support of a mentor gave me both an anchor and a sail. I started to take chances and not judge my work so harshly, and I began a dedicated studio practice that shifted my work into a new place.
When I look back at this early work, I see a thread that brought me forward. The work from this time taught me how to listen to my instinct and not question it, and to just keep going. I am not sure I will ever arrive at a definition for my work, because I don’t think I will ever arrive at a definitive point. It just keeps evolving and building on itself.”
What do you aim to express through your work?
“I am optimistic by nature, so that is always an underlying current in my work. I am also keen on the idea of expressing something visually in a way that makes people think, and leaving just enough unsaid so that they can add their own interpretation. I have always been intrigued by contrast and duality. I like the energy it conducts and the way it can transform an idea with the tension between the two.
My new work explores a sense of change by creating a simultaneous impression of one lengthy moment in time. The lack of detail plays a unique role in my composition and is achieved by various digital techniques with layered images of the same subject taken over a lengthy period of time. This technique conveys not only the passage of time, but the history that I have with these locations in a metaphorical way. Color is captured in a dynamic way to create empathy. Scale speaks to the power of nature and the way it can make one feel small. Also, I hope to convey the state flux that is shared between memory and nature and a sense of calm that can occur within chaos.“
How do you believe that your locality of choice has influenced you as an artist?
“As a native Californian, I am predisposed to the landscape. I spent the majority of my childhood outside and have been inspired by nature my entire life. Growing up with open space, the ocean and a river close by profoundly shaped my sense of being. I also grew up surrounded by some of the most notable artists and art in the world whose work was also influenced by nature and the power of its beauty. Western artist Jack Swanson was a frequent guest in our home and close personal friend of my parents. Photographers like Ansel Adams and Edward Weston were people living in my town, and they moved around the community just like any other citizen. The artwork of California landscape painters like Maurice Braun, E. Charlton Fortune, August Gay, and contemporary artists like Wayne Thiebaud, Richard Diebenkorn. and Russell Chatham, was and still is frequently on exhibit in our community. And of equal importance were movies, the Western film genre in particular. The cinematic expanse of the landscape still captivates me to this day. My favorite Western of all time is The Big Country, filmed in Northern California. It is still studied today as one of the all-time best films for cinematic artistry and capturing the freedom of the West.”
Are there any artists in particular that you believe have influenced your work?
“I love photography and collect it as well, but I am influenced by other forms of art, mostly painting. Abstract painters like Swiss artist Uwe Wittwer, Scottish artist Pete Doig, and British artist Laura Landcaster, all of whom work from photography, and abstract expressionists like Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler, whose work I often look to for color inspiration.”
Take us through a day in the life of Molly McCall.
“I divide my day into part work in my office with my family business and the rest of the day either in my studio or in the field. The early morning and late afternoon are optimal hours for my creativity, but I have also been known to duck into my darkroom and not return for eight or nine hours.
On a perfect day, I get an early start on a hike with my dogs at a nearby regional park, a former cattle ranch, which involves hours of soaking in the landscape and patiently waiting for a feeling to take over, the clouds to gather, the grass to blow, or the water to stand still: something that visually creates a mood. Sometimes I don’t even take a camera but bring a sketchbook. The process of drawing helps me record a different kind of response that inevitably shows up in my photography.”
You’re currently working on a large body of work for the Quail Lodge Resort. How did this project challenge your creative process?
“I did a lot of traveling last year and decided at the end of the year that I would focus my next project on my own backyard. As memory is my main topic of interest, I thought I would explore the landscape within my own memory. Having lived in the same town almost my entire life, I am constantly confronted by the past and the passage of time, and I am keenly aware of how it has formed my artistic sensibility. This new work explores locations that I frequented as a child and attempts to capture the transitory state of the present.
The challenges to this new work were mostly internal, with movement playing a key role in conveying a sense of change and the passage of time. Part of my creative process involves the act of motion, and I wanted to embed that in the work as well. Hiking, swimming, and riding a motorcycle are all activities that unlock creative thoughts for me. There’s something about physically changing the speed at which one moves through space and time that disengages hesitation and self-judgment, somehow unlocking that first thought, that uninhibited moment before you start piling on all of the debris that pollutes it.”
Where to next?
“I have three solo shows coming up this year.
The first was to be at Quail Lodge Resort in Carmel, California, and was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. I will be rescheduling this show hopefully this summer. This exhibition will be of my recent landscape work titled ‘The More Things Change’ as well as a new group of cameraless lumen prints made with only photographic paper, the sun, plants from my garden, and darkroom chemistry.
The second solo show will be on exhibition this summer at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, Massachusetts, a small town about 20 minutes north of Boston. I won the honor of this exhibition last year and have been awarded a room in the museum to display my work. I will be displaying darkroom images inspired by a poem written by Irish poet WB Yeats called Into the Twilight. My exhibition is titled ‘Remembering the Twilight’.
My year will close with an October exhibition in Barcelona, Spain at the FotoNostrum Gallery. My work is included in part of the Foto Biennale, a group show of photographic artists from all over the world, as well as a solo show of my landscape work ‘The More Things Change’.“
Where can we follow you?
“I post new work, artistic inspiration, and studio projects along with images of my beloved dogs on Instagram and Facebook.“
Images courtesy of Molly McCall
