This is one in a series of DREAMQUEST interviews. They exist to encourage you to follow your own dreams. What follows is a look into the journey of MO RINGEY.

What drives you to re-purpose items that others throw away, things that you have to meticulously prepare before you can even begin to do something with them?
I feel that objects bring with them the residue of past lives and have been witness to life’s private dramas. They are like the keepers of inaccessible secrets, forever locked away with the objects. Some of my objects actually debate me in a way. The diner stools, for instance, fought me every aesthetic step of the way. I had this whole vision of how I wanted them, and no matter what I did, chemical reactions happened or other unforeseens, and the end result was that they had an extremely serious and elegant look with somber tones, kind of like a Parisian-chinois aesthetic, when my original vision was bright and cheerful and almost carnivalesque. They seemed quite satisfied when they were finished. It took me months to be able to see them for what they were and not what I hoped they would be. To this day they seem rather self-satisfied. Maybe they desperately needed a change after a lifetime of lining a diner counter with various butts perched upon them and having to absorb the odors of the grill and pies and such.

Other pieces are more complacent. The washing machine so wanted to be made masculine so I acquiesced and created a plaid-like pattern. It seemed so proud when I was done, and when the wringer arm is swung just so, it resembles a pharaoh, so I had the legs and lever gilded in 23k gold leaf. The ironing board is another plucky piece; it started out as a bright madras plaid and everything went wrong, so I started over and made a simple dot pattern almost like a Wonder Bread wrapper. Once I changed the pattern it went smoothly.

Why do you go to the trouble to reclaim glass, spend hours lovingly staining it, and then smash it to bits only to reassemble it?
It’s just another manifestation of my Obsessive-Compulsive personality. I am totally OCD. And I just love abandoned and discarded things. Things that seemingly have no use are fascinating to me.

Also, it appeals to me because it’s a challenge. I thrill to projects that are difficult in some way or totally unique. It is really fussy stuff to work with. Lately though, I see lots of other people starting to work in tempered glass, and one artist even claims to be THE pioneer of tempered glass art. This makes me want to move on to something new. That and the mess and toxins involved with the stains and the adhesives and grout and chemicals.

Who most inspires you personally and why?
I am much inspired by Alexander Calder as I love his work and find it fascinating that he invented the mobile, named as a counter to the French “stabile”. I also very much admire Marcel Duchamp because of his use of objects and the wit and soul and search evident in his work. Joan Mitchell is one of my favorite painters, and I am much enamored of Gustav Klimt for obvious reasons and parallels.

What are you currently working on?
Right now I am curating a show about the lack of coverage in the arts, which will run for the month of February 2008 at The Hampden Gallery at The University of Massachusetts. I have a 2D work in a show that is up at The Augusta Savage Gallery, made with glass paints on gessoed handmade paper. That show is en route to Cameroon, West Africa next. And I am doing a filmed interview for cable access television.

And I am madly applying for grants to build a full scale installation, which will be a room based on a feminist novel written in 1983. The installation will cost about $80K to build, and so I have assembled a team of advisors at 5 colleges and museums across the US, including a preparator at a prestigious museum and professors of fine arts, women's studies, art history, and culture and anthropology. With their support, I am in the grant process, and if we can raise the money for materials etc, the project will begin in the spring (ed: of 2008) and will take up to a year to complete at a 40 hour week with interns etc.

So between having work in a few places and spending days on grant narratives etc. and then, oh right, earning a living with freelance work, I am averaging a 60 hour week, and so at this time I am not actually in the hands on part of any of my projects. Sometimes the planning takes a lot of time. My work just came back from the museum (ed: Springfield Museum of Fine Art) so one of my other projects is returing all the work to the people who own it and lent it for the show and assimilating it all back into my studio. While it was gone I painted my floor and sealed it with a poly coat and rearranged everything to fit better. 

But at this moment I am just painting. I need a break from the physicality and the toxins of my sculptural work.

If you could offer one piece of advice, what would that be?
Art is that which comes from the soul. Follow your most random inclinations. Don’t copy others. That’s not art, that’s just imitation. Don’t be afraid to be original. Art with an underlying guilt complex is tortured, and that can be felt by all who encounter it. Art is not about ego or entitlement. The best art is free of all that. You can’t tell people what and how to feel about your art. Attempting to convey that you are the best or the first or the most muddies the waters of perception. And always experiment. Don’t waste all of your time planning or trying to figure out how to do something based on available instructive materials. Forethought is good; plunging in and using your experience as a guide is actually doing something.

Mo, thanks so much for your time & heartfelt best wishes with all of your projects!

To learn more about Mo's work, see her website www.fridgequeen.com.