ika pearl - USA ALL THE WAY

VESSEL Interview Series

Bailey Anderson: Hello, everyone. Welcome to VESSEL. Today I have with me, ika pearl, who is the incredible artist that created this lovely T-shirt behind us. It’s titled USA ALL THE WAY. So, ika, what inspired you to make this piece?

ika pearl: I am inspired kind of all the time, so it wasn't like I had this dreamt up overnight already. It kind of came from playing like a lot of the things I make do. I had been going through my great-grandmother's clothing and she had a lot of t-shirts, a lot of patriotic t-shirts mixed in with her giraffe t-shirts.

And I didn't want to throw them away. And I didn't have money for canvas or to leave the house, really. When I went to go visit the home that my grandpa built for her, and so I just started drawing on them with marker. And I think I've been really upset about the world we live in. I think that people need to see exactly what they do represent and if they can make a t-shirt that's, uh, a proud American t-shirt, I can definitely add to it and make it more accurate to what a proud American looks like to me and what comes from the current, I guess, idea of what Proud American is.

BA: With an identity that is American, there's a uniquely nationalist sort of background that comes with patriotic-ness and the red, white, and blue. How do you feel that, leaning into irony is kind of pushing the way, because everyone that's coming here is so that that shirt is incredibly powerful and it's been something very shocking to them?

And, I think that a lot of violence isn't spoken about when we talk about the way that Americans embrace that and their identity.

IP: I think that a lot of the overt art I was making or like thinking of making was less I don't know, it's a kind of second, second choice because people weren't going to be listening anyways. If I were to scream and shout, people were not going to listen. If someone was going to set themselves on fire, they were not going to listen.

And I think that to do it covertly and to do it in a way that could shock somebody and have them initially have a connection to something that they know and then have it flipped in front of their eyes, was something that I really wanted to do, and I had yet to test out. And I think with this, I'm seeing more and more that it does work too, you know, take on like their identity and, you know, be a mirror for what they're representing, for what they believe in. But I do think just being a mirror, is what I find is working most and is most powerful. I think people just need to be shown exactly who they are. Yeah.

BA: For the actual figure on the shirt, can you speak about that in the context of, you supplied the hanger from your aunt, it’s your great-grandmother's shirt… if you could speak a little bit about the form and the figure that's on the shirt.

IP: I think that I added that figure after I wrote the sentence and I adjusted the meaning of the shirt. I think that every time I'm in crisis, I always, you know, ask and wish and, and hope that my female ancestors are listening and that they're going to come to me because they're magical and women are magical.

And I, I think that the figure that I put on the shirt is more it's about being a woman, but it's about, more how a woman approaches hard times and steps up to become the man, to become the balance and also be beautiful and use that beauty and that power to change things and get people to listen.

I don't know, I think she is supporting the art world, her being on there supporting the artwork and it's allowing it to stand. And the women in my life have constantly been in the background of things of business, their marriages. They've been running the show secretly. I'm just tired. I'm tired of the men in my family being like, oh, grandma was just tough like that. Or Grandma was always in the office. Running his business. Running the family business. You know, paying for the graves, like having the plot already done.

And the men just being there to work hard and be alcoholics and like maybe give the kids some stories to tell, but I felt that I owed it to them and to myself to, to retell the story in, in the most honest way possible and with the women leading it instead of the men. But yeah.

BA: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, ika. It was a pleasure to have you and oh, it was great to have your work in VESSEL. So thank you so much.

IP: Thank you to you.

WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW HERE:

ika pearl is currently a local artist based in Las Vegas, NV.