In the Studio: Mary Little

How does your experience of having lived in Ireland inspire your work?

I grew up on the northeast coast of Ireland, on the Ards Peninsula, which is just 3 miles wide by 40 miles long. It’s made up entirely of low rolling, glacial hills called Drumlins. It’s a landscape that to me, as a small child, felt comforting and enveloping. The hills made it impossible to see further than half a mile or so, giving a feeling of being within the landscape, rather than on it. That landscape is somehow part of me; it's expressed in my work, rather than a direct inspiration.

So your background is in furniture design. How did you transition into making art? What carried over from furniture design?

I graduated from the Royal College of Art in London with a Masters in furniture design. Although I designed a small amount of production furniture I mostly created and made commissioned work for collectors. These were typically chairs, though I considered them to be sculpture. The major inspiration for these was their function, meaning a combination of ergonomics, the cultural aspects of how we sit, how we are perceived when sitting and what could be expressed emotionally.

I developed techniques and processes for making curvaceous forms by carving blocks of polyurethane foam and covering it in richly textured and colored fabrics. I learnt how to cut and fit fabric tightly over complex surfaces. I used the line of the seams as part of the expression of the form, and combined them with loose, but structured unpadded textile for additional volumes.

There came a point when I became more interested in the emotion generated by a work. I needed to focus and pare back what I was doing. I decided to leave function behind. 

The work seems architectural in some ways, do you find inspiration in the architecture of LA?

My work is architectural, in that it is formalistic and constructed. But I think what might inspire or maybe encourage me, are the generous residential spaces to be found in LA. I enjoy working at a large scale. The effect of gravity on the constructed canvas, especially at a large scale, can be very inspiring.

Can you tell us a little bit about how you came to work with canvas?

As I have mentioned I wanted to focus and pare back. My previous work had incorporated very textural, colorful and, expensive upholstery fabrics. I felt the need to move away from that, and to find the most basic, simple fabric. Around that time, I made a studio visit to an artist friend. He had some large pieces of canvas laying around, I loved its spare character and stiffness. He gave some to me, and I used it for my first experiments. 

Can you describe the process of creating each work? Do you use a computer to design your pieces?

When I begin a new work or series, I only have a notion of what I want the final outcome to be. I begin the work with hand sketches - actually they are more like diagrams. I use a 2D technical drawing program to develop the shapes for the paper patterns. I use those patterns to cut the shapes from the canvas, then sew them together. Often, in the early stages, I make trials to explore an idea. Once I think it's going to work, I make the complete piece. It's not until it's finished and hung on the wall, that I’ll know if it actually does work. If not, after a few weeks of living with it, I may alter or modify it, or I may abandon it, and start again. 

How do you come up with a concept for each series?

Each work is built on those that have gone before. When I’m developing a work there is often some aspect of what I’m doing that sparks my imagination, and which I’d like to explore further. That can be the starting point for something new.

How do you know when a piece is finished?

It’s a matter of judgement. It’s easier to know when it isn’t finished, or hasn’t succeeded, because it’ll have no “spirit”. It has to have something extra, or to become something that touches my emotions - it's like listening to certain music.

It’s finished when I look at it and can’t see a single extra thing that needs to be changed or improved upon. It’s when every part of it has become what it needs to become. 

About how many pieces do you make for each series?

To me it’s important that I follow the cycle of two series each year, but the number of pieces within each series is less important. I’ve made as few as 4, as in the Brea series from 2021, and as many as eleven, as in Unearth, produced during Lockdown. Though I‘d say the average is seven or eight.

Do you have an archive of your work?  

I do have an archive. For each work I keep the patterns with construction instructions, along with patterns made during development. I have physical binders full of these paper patterns, plus sketches for each series. I also photograph the finished work and often document a work’s development and fabrication.

I keep an inventory of where my works are at any one time - who they sold to, and how much they sold for. Occasionally, if acquired through a third party, I may not know where a work is, but that’s rare. It was fun to find out that Commune placed one of my early editions in a residence in northern California having sourced it through JF Chen. I had always wondered where it had gone, and now I know.

I also keep a record of the Certificates of Authenticity of each work.

Not so long ago, I was asked by Vitra Design Museum if I could provide them with drawings or documentation for one of my chairs they have had in their collection since the nineteen-eighties. That was a good lesson that maintaining an archive of work over the decades is important.

Photos by Alice Yoon