Artist Profile |
A Conversation with Artist, DJ, Printmaker, Educator, and Organizer Mary Tremonte
Mary Tremonte's artwork was featured in our recent blog post that called for community action in the wake of devastating arts and culture funding cuts by the Trump administration. Mary's work played an important role in not only capturing the spirit of the call but visually commanding the attention needed for this communal action. That is the space that Mary's art often occupies: equal parts powerful and playful, an invitation and also a directive. Whether she's DJing at a queer dance party or selling screen-printed bandanas covered in raccoons at a craft show, or producing work for social justice organizations like JustSeeds, Mary's work is bold, inviting, and ever ready to remake the world.
Here's a little bit more about this multi-faceted Pittsburgh-based artist in her own words.
You make art centered around our natural world (rodents, mushrooms, owls), queer iconography, and phrases born out of political moments and movements. How are these themes related for you?
My work is rooted in affinities and connection, creating objects and experiences that can bring people together to find one another. I think about ways that the more-than-human world communicates with one another nonverbally — through color and movement, and also thinking about how humans communicate with one another nonverbally, in the clothing that we wear and the different signifiers we wear to show our politics, identities, and affinities. I was a teenager in the 90s and was really into DIY punk and zines, and how you would literally wear your politics on your sleeve with a screen-printed patch of a band you liked or a button expressing a political idea. These are all ways of communicating and finding affinity, be it in a shared identity, but more so a shared ethos. This also intertwines with my practice of throwing community-based dance parties, and thinking about ways to commemorate the ephemeral, temporal spaces of the dance party.
I co-organized a monthly queer party in Pittsburgh called Operation Sappho for six years (2006-2012, when I moved to Toronto for grad school), and we'd have a theme each month, one month the theme being queer scouts. Attendees wore their old scout uniforms, people who identify as queer now, but might not have when they were younger perhaps, you know, being in a homosocial, context of scouting where they had some of their first queer feelings and experiences. I hand drew and screenprinted these really simple queer scout badges, thinking about, "If there was a Queer Scouts, what would be the badges that you would earn?," and then gave those out to participants at the party. After that, I was, like, well, I should make the poster of all the badges that you'd want to earn as a queer scout. And then I went on to have embroidered queer scout merit badges made, which I have reordered so many times that there are now over 10,000 of them out in the world. Many people who I have never met wear these badges, and they have even been bootlegged as hand-embroidered patches, onto ceramics, and even as a tattoo! The image and object as signifier has a life well beyond its connection to Mary Tremonte as its artist-creator, and I love that! It feels like a sign that it is a successful (ongoing) project and prefigurative idea.
How does your work across different artistic mediums (DJ, printmaker, educator, etc.) influence each other?
I would describe myself as an artist, DJ, printmaker, educator, organizer. The main form my work takes is silkscreen printing, and I also DJ and organize events and workshops. I would say that connection is at the root of everything I do, so creating objects and experiences that can bring people together to find one another. Sometimes the form this takes can be a publication (like a zine), or an exhibition, as a way to create publicity around an idea. (see also previous question).
We featured your screen-printed work Building Power, Building Resistance in our column Arts and Culture are Under Attack. Help Us Fight Back. Can you tell us more about the story of this print and how it came to live with the collection of prints available on Just Seeds?
Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative is a decentralized group of 39 artists who create graphics and prints in tandem with and in support of movements for social and environmental justice. Justseeds is my activist art family, and I have been a part of this group since we formed as a cooperative of 13 members in 2007, through existing networks of socially-engaged artists coalescing around Josh MacPhee, who originally started Justseeds in 1998 to distro his own activist posters, zines, and records. We create thematic print portfolios, lead art builds, wheatpaste in the streets, and engage in many other print-centric activities in social movements. We have a huge section of downloadable graphics on our site, for non-commercial use, and have ongoing thematic “care packages” of graphics, that collect graphics from many more artists and designers far beyond our group of 39. We currently have eight care packages of graphics expressing solidarity with Palestine and resistance to the ongoing genocide in Gaza, for example. We have a robust online shop where you can find our work (including this silkscreen print!), and I am currently managing that shop out of the Bloomcraft building in North Oakland.
I originally created "Building Power, Building Resistance" in 2018 for our Community-Supported Art (CSA) subscription. This print was inspired by hosting ARYSE, a Pittsburgh-based program that supports, uplifts and empowers immigrant and refugee youth, for a screen-printing workshop in my studio. It is based on a photo of teens working together in the studio. One of the many things I love about printmaking is the way it intrinsically allows for working together cooperatively, in both sharing space and equipment, and also in the physical making of prints. I created a subsequent edition of this print as a fundraiser for ARYSE, with slightly modified text at their request: “Building Confidence, Building Power.” I think both wordings work really well with this image of collective creative action!
What do you think artists’ roles can — or should be — when it comes to social justice and advocacy?
This is a huge topic, and I could talk about it for a very long time, but I’ll keep it brief for this interview. I think on a very basic level, artists and the work we create can expand our capacities for understanding and dreaming of other possibilities and futures, beyond the here and now. I also believe the process of creating and being creative is not limited to people who identify as artists, but rather, everyone has that capacity to create, and it feeds our spirit as humans to make things and express ourselves.
Art can have many roles in our intertwined struggles for equity and justice, as a tool to communicate and amplify messages, and as a means to materially support movements agitating for justice, and individuals in the spirit of mutual aid, as with the Free Our Mamas poster project organized by the People’s Paper Co-op that benefits the Philadelphia Community Bail Fund. Or the many artist editions sold as fundraisers benefiting grassroots efforts to support folks in Gaza, such as Many Lands Mutual Aid. As artists we have tools to help uplift the experiences of those who are disenfranchised, to offer material support, and to create pathways for connection and understanding.
What does it feel like to live and work as an artist right now in Pittsburgh?
I love Pittsburgh. I have lived here on and off for over 25 years, since I moved here from the DMV (DC-Maryland-Virginia) area to attend CMU in the late 1990s. I think it is a wonderful place for artists, both in its still relatively low cost of living and studio space, but more importantly in its intersecting networks of creative communities and economies, built on support and cooperation more often than competition. As someone working primarily in printmaking, it really behooves me to work with others to share space, equipment, and resources to make our work. I have been part of several wonderful collective studio spaces, including Babyland (R.I.P.), my current print studio Lavender Estero, and the artist-run nonprofit Artists Image Resource (AIR), where I interned as a student and volunteered for many years.
There are lots of opportunities for visual artists and DJs/musicians to collaborate with and contribute to grassroots community projects. I learned how to DJ at WRCT, CMU’s community radio station, and moved beyond the airwaves to DJ dance parties as a piece of the activism and community-based work I was doing with my friends and comrades — benefiting projects such as The Big Idea, Book ‘Em, and Free Ride. The purpose of these parties was both material support and awareness-building for these projects, but also to create a space for us to come together in a joyful movement of our bodies, beyond the ongoing daily work of building the world we want to see through volunteering, meeting, and protesting. The social element of this work was very important to me, and I continue to see that reflected in ongoing party-with-a-purpose organizing in Pittsburgh’s present day, such as the recent benefits for Pittsburgh Palestine Coalition, the Stop Cop City protestors, and the In Bed By Ten series (whose 10th year anniversary party benefited Prevention Point). By throwing events like Spritz (an afterparty for In Bed By Ten, with dream collaborator Stephie Tsong, aka DJ Formosa of Jellyfish) I’m combining my love of partying with a purpose with building queer — explicitly sapphic and trans spaces. Hope to see you on the dance floor soon! Protect the Dolls. Free Palestine.
Catch Mary Tremonte at Queer Craft Market Pride Edition on Sunday, June 15 from 4-8 p.m. at Union Project (801 N. Negley Ave.) in Highland Park.
To view more of her work, visit marymacktremonte.org or give her a follow at instagram.com/marymackprints.
This interview has been published in its entirety and without edits to preserve the artist’s authentic voice and expressions. The views and opinions expressed are those of the artist and do not necessarily reflect the official policies, positions, or views of the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council. As part of our commitment to artistic freedom and open dialogue, we do not censor artists or alter their words.