Carla McRae is an artist working across drawing, digital illustration, sculpture, installation, murals and publications. With her signature blend of both detail and minimalism she creates bright, colourful work with bold forms and fine lines.
Inspired by each other's practice, Holly gave Carla some old swing tags and business cards to explore as mini canvases. They got together to look through them and discuss the intersection of their practices, and how dressing influences their everyday.
DRESSING FOR STATE OF MIND
HB: The last time we caught up I wrote a list of things I want to ask you about in the future: When I see you out in the world, the way you pair colours together I [can then see] it then translated in your work...
CR: I guess that makes sense. I mean when I’m pairing colours in my work I’m kinda doing it intuitively and I don’t have any colour theory knowledge I’m just doing it in a way I like.
HB: That’s beautiful.
CM: And so when I’m dressing myself I also wanna feel that satisfaction of something clicking or working? The thing that I am thinking about is yeah the colours that can work with the shapes and the way it can sit on my body and feel comfortable and not think about myself essentially. I wanna feel like myself, but I don’t want to ever feel like I have to think about what I’m wearing as I’m wearing it.
HB: Yeah, you wanna feel so comfortable that it is a second skin.
CM: Yeah.
HB: Do you not wear [certain] stuff when you’re in the studio then?
CM: I can’t wear jeans. I can wear these, coz they have a low in- seam / crotch. But if I’m wearing tight jeans, and I sit down and they are pulling up my bum, I can’t concentrate on what I’m doing. Like, in order to get my work done I have to be able to drop away from my physical self essentially. You know when you’re working and you’re in the wormhole and you’re not even thinking about the fact that you’re human anymore.
HB: I wanna get in that state!
CM: Well you do when you’re sewing though right?
HB: It takes me a long time.
CM: Your hands and your brain are moving in synchronicity and you’re not even thinking about your physical plane! *laughs*
HB: That’s true. Sometimes though, I’m doing it and I’m watching my hands, and someone once said to me when I was working that ‘there’s so much knowledge in your hands’ and it blew my mind coz if I’m videoing and I watch my hands back [now I think] ‘what the hell, look at them go!’
CM: Total muscle memory. They just do it. Those messages are ingrained.
HB: Yeah!
CM: So I don’t wear tight jeans. I like wearing baggy loose-ish pants, they don’t even have to have an elasticised waist or whatever, just a lower crotch. And I like boxy shirts and boxy tops and I have your merino top - the long sleeve one - and I wear that all through winter for days in a row. I actually wore it snowboarding in Japan a couple of months ago. With my brother, we did lessons and I wore that merino top every day that we went out, and it wasn’t even smelly by the end. I could do everything, and move and stack a million times.
HB: What did you wear with it? Just a merino and a coat or did you have a jumper?
CM: I had a merino jumper but I was too hot coz the sun was out, and it was one degree but doing an active thing like snowboarding I just burnt right up real quick, but I wore the skivvy and snowboarding jacket over the top and I was so snug.
HB: I wore mine on my hike up cradle mountain. The little t-shirt. I wore so many layers and then I took off all the layers and just had the t-shirt *laughs*
CM: I’m doing the Three Capes in Tassie in a few weeks time and I’m going to take your skivvy for sure!
This conversation was recorded in Holly's home studio amongst coffee and pastry. 11th of April, 2024.
