In Good Company: Steven Husby
This is the first in an ongoing series of short interviews with artists that we work with or admire called “In Good Company.” Answers are lightly edited for length and clarity.
Name: Steven Husby
Location: Chicago
Education: School of the Art Institute of Chicago (MFA) and Minnesota State University, Moorhead (BFA)
Hometown: Huron, South Dakota
As a child, did you know you wanted to be an artist?
Absolutely. I can hardly remember a time when I didn’t want to be one. The closest I think I ever came to any other profession was when I was nine or ten and started telling adults that I wanted to be an interior designer. I’m guessing that can be blamed on the influence of the hit 80s sitcom Designing Women, which I watched with my mom on a pretty regular basis.
What has been a defining moment of your artistic career so far?
There have been two moments that were hugely affirming: getting into the MFA program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and being offered an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago a few years later.
Have you had any jobs outside of the art world? If so, how have those jobs informed your work as an artist?
When I was a student I worked in a warehouse loading Coke trucks and in a factory that made product decals and tiny folded paper medical labels. The places proved hugely influential to my own aesthetic decisions in my formative years as a young artist: the mostly warm, industrial aesthetic of the warehouse–rich rust-colored reds and ochres interrupted by cool black and white point of sale stickers, the crisp red and white of the trucks–and the ice cold 21st century look and feel of the windowless fluorescent lighting of the factory, populated by precision-engineered German paper folding machines and beige 80s printing machines.
What is your favorite non-art object in your studio right now?
A pair of flash cards with geometric shapes that I picked up from a library sale when I was in college. There is no text on either of them, and I don’t have the rest of the set, so their purpose remains unclear.
Do you have any personal collections besides art?
I’m an avid reader, so I have a lot of books–mostly philosophy and nonfiction. The habit began at home when I was a kid. My grandma had a lot of art, objects, and books collected from her travels in retirement. She often brought me knick-knacks like carved wooden animals–which I still have and enjoyed “curating” when I was a kid. The oldest book she had was one on Roman History printed in the 17th Century, which I inherited from her.
If you could partner with any company to show your work, what would it be and why?
Given the importance of reading in my life, I think working with a publishing company or a library would be a natural fit for me. A lot of my work is made for big walls and open spaces, so I think a lot of it would also be perfectly at home in the lobby of a bank–or in any space that functions as an intermission between more private space and concentrated activity. I've often thought that some of my work would work well in a hospital. No one really likes to think about needing care, but I think there’s something uniquely humbling and contemplative about the experience of being in those spaces–waiting or working–that makes a person receptive to the more abstract point of view that I’m often trying to tap into and open up with my work.
To see more of Steven Husby’s work, check out his website or Instagram.
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