In the midst of preparing for her new video installation The Plains of Sweet Regret, which will be on view at Lennon, Weinberg, Inc. from March 10 through April 28, 2007. The artist Mary Lucier took time from her busy schedule to talk with Rail Publisher about her life and work.
Phong Bui (Rail): Let’s start with your upbringing: When did you know that you were going to be an artist?
Mary Lucier: I grew up in a small Ohio town, in the northern part of the state, a very small place called Bucyrus. Both of my parents were artists of sorts. They were amateurs, and they taught all of us how to draw, and there were always paints and books and music around. There was a really favorable atmosphere in our home towards the arts. I think I actually made my first installation piece at about age five. I remember building thes¬¬¬e structures, piling up objects and balancing them against the wall, the railing posts, the banisters that led upstairs. I even gave them names. I would show them to my mother, feeling that this was really something.
