FATTY SPICE: FALL IN LOVE WITH YOURSELF

Fatty Spice's website is a teenage girl's fantasy: handwritten notes, flowers, lace, collages...It's a pink explosion of art and weird teenage-dom complete with a 'Date me' contact page. She wandered into HausWitch to hang these wild-looking mirrors all sarcasm and dark humor and we're pretty much obsessed with her.

Fatty Spice has a fascination with the mundane objects that we put our meanings and emotions into. We imbue the tiniest, seemingly most innocuous items with our vibrations, memories, and emotions. She takes those things and frames them, putting them on the altar of her artistic expression, showing how important that movie ticket stub, napkin or literal piece of trash might be simply because it reminds us of something bigger.

In her installation at HausWitch, she takes hand mirrors — something we've all used and critiqued ourselves with — and relates them to self-image and how we view our beauty.

This is a vibe we are ON BOARD with. We asked her a few questions about her story, mission, and working with volatile materials.

HausWitch: How/when did you start making art? 

Fatty Spice: As a child I was signed up for dance and tennis and things like that but I started noticing my interests went more into the creative realm in middle school. I had taken a couple ceramics classes throughout the summers — maybe someone had a birthday party at a pottery studio and I latched on. In junior high my brother was taking music classes so I tried to get in on that with piano and guitar lessons but the whole practicing thing wasn’t working out for me. I was signed up at Mass Art for a pretty cool summer program and took computer animation and darkroom photography.

I feel like my start was very formal — like children don’t usually take computer animation and experiment with film — and maybe that’s why my work now explores the emotional drama and aesthetics of being a human and mostly channels a stereotypical teenage girl vibe. 

HausWitch: Do you have a regular artistic practice or ritual? 

FS: My studio practice is pretty much backwards. I usually work on the container, reliquary, or frame first. Starting with sometimes foam/paint, and then embellishing. Once that is laid before me I am like “okay, yes, this is perfect for this thing or that thing”.

Somehow the object communicates the aesthetic layout first to me in secret and then I get the whole picture and put it together. I feel like the best of my work just comes from having no concept first — it may seem a little bullshit to other artists but there is no right and wrong of creating. I wouldn’t say my process is a set ritual every time, but creating and bedazzling the pieces is part of the finished piece — like honoring the items inside and decorating them is a performance that goes along with the finished product.

HausWitch: What made you explore working with such dangerous materials?

FS: In high school and college I was somewhat safe — stayed with photography and moved into a niche interest with bookbinding. I spent an extra year at college because of how safe I had been. At some point safety became restricting and counterproductive.

I had let my teachers and peers down with the easiness and predictability of my work but once I graduated the real creativity in me kicked in. I took a huge risk coming from a teeny high school and college and moved to NYC the day after graduation. Being around that community of artists who were fearless and full of confidence (which I soon learned to be false but still affective like a placebo) was inspiring to me and just triggered my exploration. 

HausWitch: Is there a message or mission you rely on for your body of work, or do you find each piece takes on a life of its own?

FS: Most of my work deals with the emotional drama of being human and the aesthetics of overreaction. I like to poke fun at how dramatic everything is when we are in the moment of whatever it is. Being in Catholic school until 9th grade meant I had been in and out of churches regularly. I love the extreme care architects and whoever take to plan out how everything should look for this “person” (aka Jesus) no one has met. The imaginary part of religion and how we bring that into physical life fascinates me.

I also enjoy taking ordinary events in my life and just blowing them out of proportion. I have a piece where I built a reliquary holding all of these objects from when I had moments of anxiety living in NY. There is literal trash — like a bar napkin inside the embellished container. In the moment of anxiety at that very bar I was overwhelmed with my adrenals in overdrive but looking back I am like “Ha! That was stupid of me.”

HausWitch: Any future projects we should keep an eye out for?

FS: I think for the first time in my life I am being ambitious planning some shows and larger pieces. I hope to have a solo show/installation soon and you can keep up with my future through Instagram. 

HausWitch: Where can I learn more about you? 

FS: A little shameless self promotion here - www.fattyspice.com and @fatty_spice on Instagram and I usually answer DMs or emails — there is a specific section on my website where you can ask me on a date so that’s a fun way to talk.

HausWitch: Where can I purchase your art? 

FS: Right now the only place you can purchase anything that has been created by me is at HausWitch! <3