Equipped with pointy scissors, an archival glue stick and a keen sense of the beautiful and bizarre Alexis Mackenzie is part artist, part treasure hunter and a one woman confetti factory.

Well, I'm 29 and I live in beautiful San Francisco... I never really know how to answer the hometown question because I feel rooted in so many places. I was born in Ann Arbor and spent a lot of time in Michigan growing up. I lived in Iowa City from age 2-16, moved to Vermont at 16 and that is where I go "home" now, to see my parents and for holidays. I also lived in Boston for about 4 years, while I was in school there.

I went to the school of the Museum of Fine Arts, and Tufts University, it was amazing. They have a BFA program for artists, where I took all my studio classes at the museum, and my academics at Tufts. I really loved it for the academics, which were so creative and interesting; I took classes on things like 'Magic Realism', 'Deconstructing Disney', Colonialism, 'Genetics, Ethics and the Law', Hitchcock, 'Romanticism and Realism', 'World Religions and Sexual Ethics', 'Women and Madness'... I wasn't quite as thrilled with the studio side of things, it was hard to get into the classes I wanted to take because of how the registrations process was set up, so I mainly stayed home and did my own thing. There was no attendance policy for studios and we were awarded credit at the end of each semester, at a review board. It really allowed me the freedom to explore and focus on my collages.

I always have a hard time describing my work, mainly because I feel like when I say that I make collages, people instantly get a mental picture of "collage" which is usually like, y' know... more hodge-podge than what I do. This is a difficult question always. Well, I would describe them as sparingly composed and seamlessly put together. They usually feel quiet to look at. I think they are peaceful, which makes sense because I feel like when I'm working, I'm meditating; it's very good for clearing my head of daily noise and clutter. They are generally depictions of ladies inhabiting and exploring a strange and beautiful world which is in a continual cycle of breaking down, decomposing, and giving way to new beautiful life. I like to combine elements from disparate ecosystems in order to accentuate their similarities, and to place things in a context which changes their function and relationship to the things around them. Surreal is one word for it. One thing that I strive for is to create things which are beautiful just to look at, and also rewarding to think about. That to me is what makes good art - accessible and challenging at the same time.

I've been collecting books for years. When I moved here I shipped seven boxes of books, which wasn't cheap. At this point I have a very carefully assembled library of source material; when I go book shopping, I spend hours, and am highly selective. There are so many things to consider: I cut the books up (no copies) so I try to avoid anything too valuable, nothing rare. Paper quality matters a lot, color palette, subject matter, quantity and variety of imagery, obscurity and the ability of the images to be re-contextualized. To cut things out I use scissors, I think they are for sewing or something. The blades are very short and they are curved, so there's never a straight line. They come to a point (blunt tips=bad). They are basically an extension of my hand when I'm using them.

To hold things together I just use acid-free permanent glue sticks. The main thing I like about them is they are clean and easy to apply, and stay tacky long enough to work with something for a few minutes before sticking it down, which is really important because I do so much layering... (Click here to see some of her process)

Hmmm... I've found so many wonderful things over time... The best thing I've found on the street has nothing to do with my art really. A couple months after I moved here I was walking down Page street and saw a box on the curb - on top were some good magazines so I stopped to look through it. Underneath the magazines were four family photo albums, full of someone's life: her baby album, her teenage years, her mother's childhood, her parents' wedding, an essay by a friend about her struggle with cancer, and tucked into the back, her funeral leaflet. (see a sample) The albums are amazing, often hilarious, heartbreaking and thought-provoking to look through. One thing I want to do is find the person and return these albums to them... I have some wonderful books that I just hold on to so I can look at them for inspiration, too... one of the funniest images I've come across is of one the old-fashioned ladies I use holding a parasol, and throwing horns with the other hand.

I was just thinking about this the other day... in a way I see the collages themselves as new worlds grown from the books I destroy to make them, just like the things I represent in them. The fact that they are collages is the foundation of what I see as layers of meanings/analogies for everything in life that breaks down and becomes new again. Our relationships, our bodies, our ideas, our feelings, the food we eat, the planet we live on... everything. All things living must take life from somewhere, all things dying contribute to the cycle... I sound like such a freakin' hippie... so basically I see the books and the collages as a life-death cycle which is pretty much what everything I do is about.

Extremely different from what I do now... I can show it to you, I have it here. It was part journal entry, part drawing, and one collaged element. In my early collages I used a lot of objects - feathers and light switch covers and ribbon and tape and glitter, a broken watch - anything I could glue down, really. Making collages started with keeping a visual journal in high school.

I usually have a very general idea of what I want to create when I sit down to work, but I can't plan them - the narrative evolves based on what I'm drawn to in the books and what fits together and feels right, and makes sense to me. It's almost eerie sometimes how things fit together in the most wonderful and surprising ways... sometimes I feel like I am just channeling something and finding things that are meant to be together, that were incomplete until they became part of the stories in the collages. Often times after I complete pieces, I find things that I didn't even realize were there. It's easy to spend time with them, I think... they are sort of like snapshots in a way, pictures of moments between other moments - something happened leading up to the moment in the picture, and something is about to happen that we won't see. I can't control them very well, so I don't plan for anything.

It has to have a balance of many things - imagery, composition, and meaning. I lay everything out flat and work on them for hours or days, however long it takes (weeks for larger ones) until it feels right. I cut out a lot of things that never get used and I save everything, even the paper that I cut things from. I use it all, or intend to, eventually. The silhouettes of things and the remaining paper are often so beautiful just by themselves.

For an aroma... maybe it would smell like freshly cut grass, that lovely summery smell. It would taste like berries picked alongside the trail on a hike in the mountains - huckleberries and little tiny strawberries... or it might taste like homemade pie, a little tart - not too sweet. It would sound like the t-coil mode on my hearing aids, which picks up all the electrical signals around me. I can hear light switches and security gates and all sorts of things... exactly like this: cabinetmagazine.org/issues/21/kubisch.php

Hmmmm, any person... maybe Dorothy Parker, just because she would be so much fun to talk to and go to a bar with afterwards. You know she'd be making the best wisecracks and drinking everyone under the table.

It looks like a confetti factory! I actually made the decision to get rid of my furniture last weekend... I never sit on it and I need more room. I need a bookshelf too... if you walk into my studio there are lots of plants, mostly succulents but also an orchid and this crazy sort of butterfly looking plant that opens up during the day and closes at night... lots of little knick-knacks on the mantel among them, little bird statues that friends have given me, some fake sushi (Saba!), some playing cards, and some collages. I have a huge wonderful Nathan Cordero piece along one wall, and a painting by my friend Jane Kim, and several collages hanging on the walls. On the floor is an explosion of books - stacks and stacks of them, some half open and all in tatters, in a sort of halo around where I sit on the floor and work. I'm going to get a table when the furniture goes. mixed up in all this are empty glue sticks, paper clippings, all my old mix-tapes from high school, a broken space heater, a floor light, scissors and pens and pencils, CDs, empty water bottles... and more books.

Yes, very blue carpet! I'm not wild about the blue carpet but it makes for a nice quiet apartment and comfy floor sitting... it's sort of like being in Greece, all blue and white.

I have so many shows coming up all of a sudden (see list below)... The main thing on my horizon right now is an August solo show in LA's Chinatown, at a new gallery called POVevolving. the gallery was founded by Jeremy Mora who is also an amazing artist - POVevolving is a multifaceted thing he is doing, I was also part of a limited edition print project he curated about a month ago. He's been amazing to work with so I'm really looking forward to the show. I'm so excited about the work I've been creating this past year, I can't wait to see where things go as I work on this show... I'm also going to be part of a collage show this fall at a new gallery here in SF called Fivepoints Arthouse, it's in North Beach. The show is called "little paper cuts: contemporary collage from the west coast". As they put it, it's going to be "... an exhibition of the finest, most innovative, forward thinking examples of contemporary collage being made on the west coast.... artworks that challenge contemporary, conventional notions of what collage can be." so I'm excited to see who else becomes involved in that show.

... and lastly, as you know, there is the upcoming world tour for our new band Mauled By Boarlets... a tropical/concrete band which sounds like dolphins having nightmares, and parrots reading your mind... there will be Hawaiian dresses, torn fishnets, up-dos, chains, steel drums, savage whiskers and brutal hooves.

My favorite sandwiches are the ones at 'say cheese' in Cole Valley... the signature sandwiches are so fresh and tasty and have the best ingredients... for music, i really have always loved Holly Golightly best since I discovered her. I've been pretty obsessed with The National's album "Boxer" for the past couple months... and I don't know what I'd do without Sam Cooke to listen to. Favorite thing that happened this week would be spending time telling stories and sharing laughs and having dance parties with my wonderful friends here in San Francisco, the best place in the world to live if you ask me and a lot of other fine folks...

I would maybe live in the Victorian era... the crazy fashion and weird society would be too much fun... or possibly the 20s, the flapper era, living a completely Fitzgerald existence... all speakeasies and glittery dresses. Plus, if I could be in Berlin, I would have lived through the beginning of dada and would then be experiencing the post-dada era and beginnings of surrealism.

A great interview of Alexis from Art Adventures

Upcoming Shows:
May 17th: Savage Whiskers @ FECAL FACE DOT GALLERY w/Jessica Cusick
May 17th: 4th Annual Tree Show @ Giant Robot
May 22nd: (as-yet-untitled solo show) @ BellJar
June 7th: Hello Comrade! Bring a Friend @ POV
August 2nd: (as-yet untitled solo show) @ POV
October 10th: Little Paper Cuts @ Fivepoints Arthouse {moscomment}

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