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08/08/2008: "INTERVIEW WITH ARTIST SIGAL M. BUSSEL"
L.A.-based Sigal Bussel came to her art from a nontraditional background. She earned a BA in Economics from UCLA and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She spent a considerable amount of time volunteering for various public and charitable organizations.
While working on Wall Street, Bussel felt a rising need to make a difference. Art became her way of reaching out to the world. She has exhibited around the U.S, China, Israel and Mexico, and has also been commissioned to work on a number of public art projects. To see more visit www.sigalbussel.com.
Laurie: You just came back from Beijing a couple of months ago?
Sigal: What a remarkable experience. I had a solo exhibition at the Beijing World Art Museum. It was very humbling to be one of the only foreign artists to exhibit during the period leading up to the Olympic games. It made it that much more special.
Laurie: How did they receive your work in China?
Sigal: They were really embracive, which was nice to see. It is amazing to be in another country and have people from a different culture experience my work. Most of my work is very large scale...
Laurie: How large?
Sigal: The paintings are over ten feet, and the sculptures start at nine feet and go to 100 feet. In China there is room for large-scale work... the exhibition spaces are larger. They are very open to foreign art that is coming in. Because my work has chains and a lot of other materials, I did not know what the reaction would be in China, but I was pleasantly surprised.
I was fortunate to arrive in Beijing early and had the opportunity to create two pieces there. It was wonderful to bring my experience in Beijing – working in a different country, interacting with a different culture – into my work. 
Laurie: You were telling me how you came upon the sticks you used in your installation.
Sigal: I was looking for chains and we were in a market, one of those small markets, and all of sudden I ran by wood sticks – barbeque skewers – and it reminded me of my childhood. We used to play this game - we would drop the sticks and pick them up one by one...
Laurie: Pick Up Sticks.
Sigal: (laughs) In Israel we called it something different. Dukim...
It was great to be in the market – thousands of miles from home – and all of a sudden see something that was so simple that reminded me of my childhood. I bought the sticks and I did not know why I was buying them. At some point I had the chains in my hotel room and I had the sticks. I started making a head with the chain and filling the face up with the sticks. That’s how two more heads made their way into the museum.
Creating this work brought me full circle. I was in China, and it reminded me of my childhood. Art connects; it transcends cultures and boundaries, countries and nations.
Laurie: Tell me more about this exhibition.
Sigal: The whole series is called “Heads: The Voyage of Self-Discovery” and it is basically my personal, emotional journey through the past few years. I have been painting these heads; heads devoid of facial features… these very generic heads. I was using them as a mirror to look into myself. This journey enabled me to take a closer look at myself, but also to examine my interaction with the people surrounding me and with society as a whole.
Laurie: When you say your emotional journey and self-discovery, what did you find?
Sigal: I learned a lot. What I really wanted was to get to my core - what’s important to me, what drives and motivates me, who I am. I had made a huge transition in my life from the business world to art. I became really passionate about creating – painting and sculpting. For me it was a self-journey of following what I am passionate about... to create work that speaks to people and touches people, and I don’t think anything can compare with that feeling.
It’s about being true to yourself... it is about you and not about anyone else… you waking up in the morning, you going into the studio, you creating work.
I hope that when someone looks at the work they go through that same journey I went through in creating them. Those heads are mirrors, and they allow me to look into myself.
Laurie: So that is what the heads give us in a way, we can look at them as a mirror and have the chance to look inside more, and hopefully that journey of self-exploration will spark in ourselves?
Sigal: Yes. When you do abstract work you want someone to feel… I feel something when I create the paintings and I’m hoping that someone else gets something from them as well.
Laurie: Did something specific push you into this self-exploration?
Sigal: A few years ago one of my best friends passed away... when you look at the first few heads; they were about dealing with that loss and that despair… like a big part of your life gets yanked away and there’s that uncomfortable emptiness that you all of a sudden feel.
Then you go through the healing process and it takes a while before you feel comfortable with that empty space again. I think we are in a society that is not comfortable with the empty space of just being alone… you walk down the street and you are on your cell phone or you are on your iPod. We don’t walk down the street just with ourselves anymore; we don’t spend alone time. So I think part of that journey, part of the healing process, was becoming comfortable with being alone, with that empty space. 
When you look at the background of that green head [Faces No. 2], it has a cement color – uncomfortable, unwelcoming. Much later on, when I became more comfortable with that void, you see the white background in that painting [Faces #3]. I finally got to a place where I felt... you know... he was watching over me and he is part of me, of my life.
Laurie: From that alone time did you then go back into the world differently?
Sigal: Very much so. I think experiences like that make us re-examine our lives. We should be happy in what we do … we should be true to who we are, and what we are doing, and the way we live our lives. We should do that not only during those times - when an external event forces us. I think we should do it everyday. 
Laurie: The chains – you were concerned taking them into China, and you told me before that people have different interpretations… what do they mean to you?
Sigal: I started incorporating found objects, which let me explore my relationship with my surroundings. It let me bring my surroundings into my work. Chains have different connotations, but to me they express our emotional make-up – our ‘emotional DNA’.
Laurie: In the China exhibition you also showed, for the first time, a new project?
Sigal: Yes. ‘Living Monument’ is a project I’ve been working on for the past two years, collaborating with one of the top architecture firms in Mexico, Arditti + RDT. It is a 100-foot sculpture - the size of a ten-story building – based on a radiation mask [a device used during radiation treatment on cancer patients]. The idea was to take the mask and transform it into a human head. We wanted to give cancer a face. We want to tell everyone who’s fighting this disease that they are not alone, that we are all in this fight together.
Laurie: What kind of reactions did you get?
Sigal: People were really touched. During the opening ceremony of the exhibition, I found out that the person who heads the foundation that sponsored my exhibition was in the hospital and is fighting cancer. The people from the foundation were extremely moved by the work. I feel like the sculpture provided a sort of safe zone, where it was okay to talk about cancer and express feelings and emotions about it.
Laurie: Why did you take it from indoors to the outdoors?
Sigal: The percentage of the population that goes to a museum is small compared to the overall population. Placing the sculpture outdoors allows us to reach a broader audience.
We thought about the metaphor of the city with the freeways as its veins and arteries. We thought of placing the sculpture by the freeway as a way to integrate it into people’s everyday lives.
Laurie: So you originated this project. How did you get the people from the other disciplines involved?
Sigal: I approached the architects and they thought it was a great project for a great cause. I think that we all need to give back, and they feel the same way. We want to a make difference.
We are intersecting four disciplines that don’t very much intersect - art, architecture, health and education. Would the sculpture have come to this point without those other disciplines? No. It pushed me creatively.
Laurie: So you feel like this collaboration really helped with your creative process?
Sigal: I think that whether it’s China, here, or anywhere in the world, if you are open to the creative forces around you, and you’re willing to take yourself out of your comfort zone, it brings a whole new world of possibility. It takes your work to a different level - the work becomes more powerful and profound.
Laurie Lamson is a writer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She produces and directs mini-documentaries for neighborhoods, causes and organizations, and is currently raising funds to make a documentary about Edward Goldman’s Fine Art of Art Collecting classes. Learn more at www.jazzymae.com.
