Imagination, beauty, connection and slowing down are radical acts. ~Aiyana Masla
Patricia Caspers: I know you are a visual artist and a writer. What inspires you toward each? Are the inspirations different, or does your work ever cross over?
Aiyana Masla: Both my poetry and my visual art are rooted in how beautiful and how heartbreaking it is to be alive. Basically, I strive to pay attention. From this, my work is created to uplift the small details, and the expansion that is possible in fleeting, human moments. My poems and my paintings — and also the practice that is the act of making them — are tools for resilience and a way to praise.
While I explore this in different ways with my visual art and with my poetry, both are acts of appreciation, integral parts of my social and my civil practice. To me, they are disciplines united by a commitment to presence, which is culture-making. I invite the viewer or the reader to experience the present moment as it is, and to be touched by their basic aliveness. I ask them to slow down. I ask them to come close. I ask them to imagine. And in the world we live in today, I believe that imagination, beauty, connection and slowing down are radical acts.
PC: Oh, I can really see the praise that you're bringing through your work! Do you always work in watercolor? Can you tell me about the inspiration for the issue's featured piece, Madre?
AM: Thank you for appreciating my work. I always draw. I take a sketchbook with me everywhere. I've learned this from my painting teachers, the most influential being my dad, Robert Masla. I'm so lucky to have learned from him — he is an incredible fine art painter and a masterful teacher. He taught me that drawing is essential for painting, that it's a practice that informs whatever medium we work in. And for the last few years, I've loved working in watercolor. I love it because of how playful it is. I love the way I've been able to learn its rules, more or less, but ultimately it has its own impulse, and sometimes — often — it surprises me! It's a medium that's really responsive. Change something like the brush, the kind of air drying the paint, the paper, and the rules change. It's sensitive, and it moves — I like interacting with such an alive medium.
In terms of your second question, whatever art I make, it is made through me, but it is not strictly of me. I work on craft and play with discipline, but I don't take responsibility for my work as a whole. I show up; that feels like my responsibility as an artist. I show up to the practice, to the act of painting, to the act of creating, to art, as daily and as moment to moment as l can. In a lot of ways, this means slowing WAY down. And sometimes, in this process, the content of my paintings reveals itself, often surprising me.
With Madre, I was immersed in the practice of slowing down. What was coming up in the slowness, as it contradicted with our fast, extractive, accelerated culture, was a lot of grief. Grief about disconnection, grief about the climate catastrophe, grief in my role as an oppressor, as a part of this capitalist society, grief about my comforts and the ways I live in separation from the natural world, from others ... then surfaced a ton of anxiety.
I began to try to move through the anxiety by exploring the complex, intricate, big story underneath (and shaping) my unique, small life. To explore relationships with my Jewish diasporic ancestors, and thus with land, with place. This exploration has been profound — deepening my connection both to being a part of this ecosystem and to having a body, this body. The painting Madre came from searching for ways to learn true interdependence, to connect, to understand not only my impact but also to learn to reciprocate. Making this painting was inspired by a yearning to honor where I've come from, where we all come from — to respect — to heal — and to remember that I am a part of this living earth, that we all are.
PC: "Making this painting was inspired by a yearning to honor where I've come from, where we all come from — to respect — to heal — and to remember that I am a part of this living earth, that we all are."
Madre expresses this idea perfectly.
What are you reading? Or what's in your to-be-read pile?
AM: Thank you. I start my days with a poem — currently I'm re-reading Ocean Vuong's masterful new work, Time Is A Mother. I learn so much from reading other poets. Also, I ADORE picture books. Two of my current favorites are: From the Stars in the Sky to the Fish in the Sea by Kai Cheng Thom, illustrated by Kai Yung Ching & Wai-Yant Li, and What is a River? by Monika Vaicenavičienė.
Other current reads: People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks
To read: World Enough & Time, Christian McEwen
Just read and recommend: Momo, Michael Ende
Adding also! ( I love books so much!)
A couple of current favorites are:
Fiction: Cantoras by Carolina De Robertis
Non Fiction: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
PC: I'm trying to start my days with a poem, too! I'm currently reading Ada Limón's Bright Dead Things. What have you learned from Ocean Vuong, as a writer or a visual artist?
AM: Nice! I love her poem towards the beginning of that book, the one called "During the Impossible Age of Everyone." "I want to try and be terrific. Even for an hour." Ayyyyy!
Ocean Vuong has taught me so much — opening up my view of writing in particular. His work inspires me to question conditions and limitations. Why am I so comfortable in expectations? What am I afraid of in terms of breaking and going beyond limitations? Reading Vuong challenges me to see that we get comfortable with what we are taught, with what we expect language to do, and that this comfort is restrictive. We can move beyond expectation and limitation and into the uncharted imagination, through form, content, the way we express. There is an invitation in his work that stands out to me as well. I'm moved by his relationship to experimentation — play — adapting form, syntax, syllable, word, lyric, and yet he doesn't leave behind the reader/audience. The work is far from inaccessible or hard to understand. That tangible sense that everything is available to be brought beyond our expectations, to anyone, at any moment ... .
He has encouraged me, as a painter, to be bold in service of beauty. I had the privilege of hearing him read / speak last year, which is where I got my copy of Time is a Mother. Honestly, it was an evening that had me in tears, several times. I really appreciated what he shared, and when he spoke about beauty as being medicinal, as being for our health, like, what is life without beauty? this really rang true for me.
Aiyana Masla: Both my poetry and my visual art are rooted in how beautiful and how heartbreaking it is to be alive. Basically, I strive to pay attention. From this, my work is created to uplift the small details, and the expansion that is possible in fleeting, human moments. My poems and my paintings — and also the practice that is the act of making them — are tools for resilience and a way to praise.
While I explore this in different ways with my visual art and with my poetry, both are acts of appreciation, integral parts of my social and my civil practice. To me, they are disciplines united by a commitment to presence, which is culture-making. I invite the viewer or the reader to experience the present moment as it is, and to be touched by their basic aliveness. I ask them to slow down. I ask them to come close. I ask them to imagine. And in the world we live in today, I believe that imagination, beauty, connection and slowing down are radical acts.
PC: Oh, I can really see the praise that you're bringing through your work! Do you always work in watercolor? Can you tell me about the inspiration for the issue's featured piece, Madre?
AM: Thank you for appreciating my work. I always draw. I take a sketchbook with me everywhere. I've learned this from my painting teachers, the most influential being my dad, Robert Masla. I'm so lucky to have learned from him — he is an incredible fine art painter and a masterful teacher. He taught me that drawing is essential for painting, that it's a practice that informs whatever medium we work in. And for the last few years, I've loved working in watercolor. I love it because of how playful it is. I love the way I've been able to learn its rules, more or less, but ultimately it has its own impulse, and sometimes — often — it surprises me! It's a medium that's really responsive. Change something like the brush, the kind of air drying the paint, the paper, and the rules change. It's sensitive, and it moves — I like interacting with such an alive medium.
In terms of your second question, whatever art I make, it is made through me, but it is not strictly of me. I work on craft and play with discipline, but I don't take responsibility for my work as a whole. I show up; that feels like my responsibility as an artist. I show up to the practice, to the act of painting, to the act of creating, to art, as daily and as moment to moment as l can. In a lot of ways, this means slowing WAY down. And sometimes, in this process, the content of my paintings reveals itself, often surprising me.
With Madre, I was immersed in the practice of slowing down. What was coming up in the slowness, as it contradicted with our fast, extractive, accelerated culture, was a lot of grief. Grief about disconnection, grief about the climate catastrophe, grief in my role as an oppressor, as a part of this capitalist society, grief about my comforts and the ways I live in separation from the natural world, from others ... then surfaced a ton of anxiety.
I began to try to move through the anxiety by exploring the complex, intricate, big story underneath (and shaping) my unique, small life. To explore relationships with my Jewish diasporic ancestors, and thus with land, with place. This exploration has been profound — deepening my connection both to being a part of this ecosystem and to having a body, this body. The painting Madre came from searching for ways to learn true interdependence, to connect, to understand not only my impact but also to learn to reciprocate. Making this painting was inspired by a yearning to honor where I've come from, where we all come from — to respect — to heal — and to remember that I am a part of this living earth, that we all are.
PC: "Making this painting was inspired by a yearning to honor where I've come from, where we all come from — to respect — to heal — and to remember that I am a part of this living earth, that we all are."
Madre expresses this idea perfectly.
What are you reading? Or what's in your to-be-read pile?
AM: Thank you. I start my days with a poem — currently I'm re-reading Ocean Vuong's masterful new work, Time Is A Mother. I learn so much from reading other poets. Also, I ADORE picture books. Two of my current favorites are: From the Stars in the Sky to the Fish in the Sea by Kai Cheng Thom, illustrated by Kai Yung Ching & Wai-Yant Li, and What is a River? by Monika Vaicenavičienė.
Other current reads: People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks
To read: World Enough & Time, Christian McEwen
Just read and recommend: Momo, Michael Ende
Adding also! ( I love books so much!)
A couple of current favorites are:
Fiction: Cantoras by Carolina De Robertis
Non Fiction: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
PC: I'm trying to start my days with a poem, too! I'm currently reading Ada Limón's Bright Dead Things. What have you learned from Ocean Vuong, as a writer or a visual artist?
AM: Nice! I love her poem towards the beginning of that book, the one called "During the Impossible Age of Everyone." "I want to try and be terrific. Even for an hour." Ayyyyy!
Ocean Vuong has taught me so much — opening up my view of writing in particular. His work inspires me to question conditions and limitations. Why am I so comfortable in expectations? What am I afraid of in terms of breaking and going beyond limitations? Reading Vuong challenges me to see that we get comfortable with what we are taught, with what we expect language to do, and that this comfort is restrictive. We can move beyond expectation and limitation and into the uncharted imagination, through form, content, the way we express. There is an invitation in his work that stands out to me as well. I'm moved by his relationship to experimentation — play — adapting form, syntax, syllable, word, lyric, and yet he doesn't leave behind the reader/audience. The work is far from inaccessible or hard to understand. That tangible sense that everything is available to be brought beyond our expectations, to anyone, at any moment ... .
He has encouraged me, as a painter, to be bold in service of beauty. I had the privilege of hearing him read / speak last year, which is where I got my copy of Time is a Mother. Honestly, it was an evening that had me in tears, several times. I really appreciated what he shared, and when he spoke about beauty as being medicinal, as being for our health, like, what is life without beauty? this really rang true for me.
March / April 2023
Aiyana Masla is the author of the chapbook Stone Fruit (Bottlecap Press, 2020). Her work has appeared in Cordella Press, Field Notes, in the collection So Many Ways to Draw a Ghost, and elsewhere. Aiyana grew up in a rural hill town, and is now living in New York city. She is an interdisciplinary artist and anti bias educator who's been managing chronic illness.
Art: Aiyana Masla. Quarantine Series #3. Watercolor, ink, and pencil