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Interview: Mollie Young
July 27, 2005
1. How long have you been a resident in Siskiyou County?
I moved here in 1994. I lived in Portland before I moved here.
What brought you here?
I retired.
2. Can you give a short explanation of your specialty or your artistic medium?
I concentrate on two areas. One would be painting and the other silk screening. Basically, I started as a painter and that evolved. While I was doing painting I was also doing interior design. The interior design lead me into fabric making because I couldn’t find the fabrics I wanted for my clients and being an artist I decided to design them myself. We started that and it was pretty successful so my husband and I went into it together. For about twenty years we did fabrics and we had show rooms across the country. When we retired, then I went back to my painting. I have been doing that for the last fifteen years.
Are you still making your fabrics?
I’m not doing fabrics for upholstery or yardage anymore. What I do now is mostly my scarves on silk which is smaller, about three feet by three feet.
3. How long have you been making art (professionally and unprofessionally)?I have always been involved in art since I was a child and professionally, that is all I have ever done as a career.
4. How have you learned your art? Have you had any formal art education? If so, where, when and for how long?
Because I started as a child, I have always been involved and working in it and I just became more and more involved in it. For college, I went to the University of Oregon. I was in the fine arts area there. After that I went to Rudolph Schaffer School of Design in San Francisco and studied interior architecture and also textile design. Then of course, always classes off and on.
5. Have you had any special mentors that have influenced you and your style?
I could give you some mentors, not who have influenced me in any style but just people who have always encouraged me. I think that because they encouraged, their encouragement was such that they didn’t influence me. Rudolph Schaffer was the big one and Rachael Griffin. Rachael Griffin was kind of neat because she was my art teacher in grammar school. Then she reappeared and was my art teacher in high school and then when I was older and involved in the Portland Art Museum she resurfaced as the curator there. So she was kind of a thread through me life which is neat.
6. Can you talk a little about your experience as an artist in Siskiyou County? (In other words, what is unique about being an artist in this area?) (Pros and Cons) (economic, cultural, physical/geographic)
Physically and geographically it’s a beauty down here, its incredible. Being from Portland where it rains a lot and then coming down here with the open sky has been unique for me.
7. Do you feel like living in Siskiyou County has influenced your art? What aspects have you drawn inspiration from?
Oh yeah, I would say geographically; the mountains and the color. The color down here is beautiful.
8. Are there any other things you would like people to know about the relationship between your art and the place that you live?
Just that I am translating the beauty that I see and hopefully others can see it in my work. I have been very thrilled with the wildflowers and the native grasses here.
9. If you had to describe your style in a few words how would you do this?
Well, hopefully I’m individual. I am always exploring which makes my work very eclectic.
10. What is it about making art and the creative process that you find most interesting or are most passionate about?
Exploring how things are going to turn out. The colors and where you place them in relationship to each other. It is always an on going process. Just to be able to interpret what I see and feel and hopefully it can be translated to others that way.
11. Do you teach art in anyway or are you interested in being a teacher?
I taught for the last six years at the high school in Klamath Falls. If it works in with everything, then I would be interested in doing some more teaching.
12. Do you have one particularly interesting story about your adventures as an artist? The most unusual work you've done, the hardest work, the most interesting commission, celebrities you’ve worked with, your biggest success story or biggest failure, or your earliest memory of making art.
One that I came up with that I thought was kind of interesting is that I once had to design a strip through a well known designer in San Francisco, Michael Taylor, for a tent in Saudi Arabia; a big tent for whomever. Now with everything going on over there I found this to be an interesting commission. Of course I never saw it. Every once in a while I would get pictures.
13. Is there any way you would like to see your county arts organization better assist you?
Promotional ideas for me would be great. Also, I think it would be great for you guys to be able to link to our future website.
14. Because of current trends in funding for art programs, all SAC involvement is done through volunteers. Is there anything that the SAC is doing that interests you and that you would like to help us with in the future? Some options: art walk volunteer, teaching program, becoming a member…
I wouldn’t be able to commit my self to a whole summer of teaching but if there was a specific class I could teach I would be interested in that.