2006 was a good year for Kristan Kennedy. Her work was again in the Oregon Biennial at the Portland Art Museum as well as in the Fresh show at the Elizabeth Leach Gallery. And Leach, who represents Kennedy, also took her work to Aqua Art in Miami. Meanwhile, as Visual Art Program Director for the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA), Kennedy brought the visual arts roaring back into the center of PICA’s programming with the visual arts component of the TBA Festival that she curated (“I live in a magical world….”). Kennedy’s been active as an artist (she co-founded the artist collective Swallow Press (x2) years back) and with PICA for a number of years now. As PICA prepares for its gala TADA and the announcement of the lineup for the 2007 Time-Based Art Festival, Kennedy took a moment to answer the questions of the ultra Q.
Qualities you most admire in design: Problem solving
Qualities you most despise in design: Computery feeling
Reading: Art Resources Transfer’s series of artist conversations, right now Paul Chan / Martha Rosler also and always Saveur Magazine + Teen Vogue
Listening to: Bongwater, Devon the Dude, George Harrison, Best of the Bee Gees
Dream project: Holding hands
Favorite virtue: Empathy
Favorite vice: Plastic earrings
Tragic flaw: Talkity talkity talkity blah blah blah
Glamour, 2005. Kristan Kennedy. Drawing acrylic ink and marker.
Secret superhero power: Benevolent Manipulation
That which keeps your afterburners firing: Vietnamese sandwiches + John Lennon
What you’d like to be when you grow up: Marc Jacobs’ muse
Portland’s best kept secret: FUBON
Portland heroes (sung or un-): The People of SE Yamhill Street, The People of PICA, The People of Warehouses Past, The People who Show Up
Interesting on the horizon (PDX): Miranda July at PICA on May 18