Interview: Christina Varga, Artist and Founder of The Phoenicia Festival of the Arts.
Welcome to our interview series on the Shelter Upstate Journal where we profile people who inspire us. Real people, real homes, real workspaces, real stories. This month Winona & I visited Christina Varga at her art studio and gallery space Varga Gallery on Main Street in Phoenicia NY, ahead of her inaugural Phoenicia Festival of the Arts this August 4th, 5th and 6th.
I met Christina almost 10 years ago at a home birth class when we were both pregnant with our oldest children. Neither of us ended up having a home birth, but I have been fascinated and intrigued by Christina ever since. She is a powerhouse of a woman, bursting with love and creativity. Christina founded VARGA Gallery in 2003 in Woodstock NY, and in 2019 moved the gallery to 60 Main Street in Phoenicia. This weekend (August 4,5,6) Christina is organizing the first ever Phoenicia Festival of the Arts - taking over the town of Phoenicia with art installations, music, theatrical performances and more - all from and by local artists. She also recruited me to contribute to the festival by creating a window display in the art gallery on Main St, and helping to create set decorations for the performances she has lined up at the Phoenicia Playhouse. I interviewed Christina about the upcoming festival, living and working in the Hudson Valley, motherhood, and creativity.
Meet Christina ~ Artist, Mother, Homeschooler, and Festival Founder.
Currently listening to: Varga Gallery Playlist
Last reading: I just got The Flowering Wand by Sophie Strand which is truly inspired. I haven’t finished it yet, but she and her mother Perdita Finn are both incredible writers. I’m dying to get a copy of How to Lose Friends and Influence No One by Mary Giuliani. Her title is my life motto. Plus, it’s published locally, and I love James and Jackie at The Golden Notebook for expanding into publishing.
Recently Watching: Ancient Aliens My DVR is 95% full and it’s all Ancient Aliens Episodes. I love it for all the interesting History. I’ve learned about so many different ancient cultures and been fascinated by all the obscure information I get from watching it. It’s totally mesmerizing.
Venetia: Where are you from and what led you initially to move to the Hudson Valley?
Christina: I was born in Milwaukee and moved to Budapest with my brother when I was six to attend school and live with my grandmother. When I moved back to the United States we lived in Tampa, where I lived the hottest, sweatiest, least comfortable and most difficult part of my life, until I went to the University of Florida. I spent the summer after graduation in Montreal, then drove down to NYC to live in an apartment I found through a friend of a friend. I lived in NYC for 8 years and moved upstate to Woodstock in 2002. I’ve been living in Upstate New York for twenty something years and love it here.
Venetia: What changes have you seen in the Hudson Valley since living here? Is there anything that excites you or upsets you?
Christina: Change doesn’t upset me. It’s interesting to watch how things change and how people adapt. There are some difficulties, there are generations of folks who have lived here in the Hudson Valley who find even someone like myself who has been here two decades a non-local. But change is inevitable, and the best that people can do is make change for the better.
Venetia: Have you always been an artist? How did that evolution come about?
Christina: I have always felt very comfortable creating, and never doubted that what I was making was art, but I didn’t start selling work until I was 27. My very first painting sold was titled “Love Knot”. DJ Kevin Gould bought it out of a club called NV, where I had a fantastic art installation. That was the day I realized I could do something besides a daily grind - I was then traipsing through a heavy duty freelance career at all the places I ever thought I would want to work. I didn’t sell another painting for some time, but it gave me the guts to try to make a life out of making art.
Venetia: Why did you choose to raise your family here and home school your children?
Christina: I absolutely LOVE this area. I resonate with it. When I am not here I am waiting to come back here. It’s the best place I have ever been, and I am so grateful to have found it. My garden is rewarding, my surroundings are beautiful and healthful, I have an amazing art studio with a panoramic view, and I can’t imagine anything else. I homeschool my kids because I love being with them and helping them to learn about and navigate life. We enjoy being able to spend our days as we like, and I prefer the idea of letting them follow their interests and pursue their own learning path. They have an entire library of books in addition to my own library on all topics, and all kinds of reference materials. The art studio is a rich learning environment where they can create things, and we spend a large amount of time outdoors in the garden, at the river, outside. I can’t imagine a better life. We are able to travel for weeks at a time, and my children experience an incredible array of things most kids don’t.
Venetia: Tell us a little bit about your gallery space in Phoenicia?
Christina: I always say I judo flopped into this space. I had been showing in it for years as “The Arts Upstairs” as it changed through many hands. It finally became mine when the landlord asked me one day who was going to pay the rent? I’ve officially been here since February 2019 and it’s the best studio I have ever had. There are I think about 10 rooms. We have a dance and movement room, a playroom for the kids, and a library. There’s an attic upstairs and the entrance is on the ground floor, so there’s also a foyer with more exhibition space. Over the years I have been given scads of art materials, canvases, frames, ephemera… so it’s really, really, full and sometimes falls into TOTAL chaos, but it’s great. I’m hoping this latest madcap Feng Shui, de-clutter, un-hoard, art cleanup sticks, but I know myself well enough to know that it will probably be back to crazy eye candy land soon enough. Plus, I seem to collect animals, so that makes maintenance essential. We have Tia the Cockatiel, Potato the Russian Tortoise, Kenji the Albino Corn Snake, Carmen the Bearded Dragon, and several white button quail. It gets dusty.
Venetia: You've said the Phoenicia Festival of Arts has been 20 years in the making, can you share more about this?
Christina: One of the things I have learned that I really enjoy is bringing people together through fabulous Art Happenings. I do things like invent “Art Hangs” and invite the super sexy phenomenal artists I know to slink about together and rub up auras and mix-a-lot. Curating art shows of all varieties, having art hangs, creating cable access broadcast shows, being on the radio, connecting with people through creativity - all of that is Exactly My Jam. I love the people I ask to do it with me. I love the people that come to see these crazy salon style installations, video projections and theater productions. I just love everything about creating and connecting with people through creativity, whether it’s music or performance or movement or visual arts. It’s all a unique way to communicate and reaches people on the deepest levels.
Venetia: What/s your artistic process like?
Christina: First, I like to create an ocean of materials around me. I like to see what comes to me and make things with what I gather through the multiverse sluicing me materials. Most often I like to start with something that is already something. I don’t think I have started anything on a white canvas in years, though I do love making and stretching my own canvas. Mostly I consider my palette all the things people bring me: vintage magazines, old art supplies, leftover things from their kids, art books, tools, paints - people bring me everything. I do buy glue and varnish and occasionally tools and whatever I need, but as for my materials - they comes from everywhere and I churn it into art. My most favorite thing to do is rescue all the single use plastics and paper holographics, (highly tinted colorful materials that mostly go straight to the trash or the ocean and are everywhere - and once you have kids you see it is REALLY everywhere). I have boxes of toys that have some of the most beautiful colors you’ll ever see that would have ended up in a landfill. It’s a lifelong project of sequestering single use plastics into artwork and keeping it out of the ocean.
Venetia: Do you have any advice for artists who are also mothers?
Christina: Try to not take a full-time job. Try to ease your way into making your creativity. Find people who make it worthwhile and feed those avenues until it feeds back to you. See if you can manage to have your kids with you and raise them learning to make art. My son, (and I will be forever amazed and impressed by this), figured out that he could make a dollar every time he let someone pet Potato, his tortoise. They both are enjoying the experience and I’m astounded at his zero overhead profit margins. My daughter is about one of the best portrait artists I have ever seen and she’s nine. She really captures people in her drawings, and they see it, too. These skills may not have blossomed in my children if they hadn’t seen me being creative, figuring out how to make a living by finding what people need, seek, long for and pursue - which is creativity, humor, affirmation and love.
Venetia: What's a typical day like for you?
Christina: I try to do my computer things in the morning while my kids are still asleep. Then I spend my time rallying them to get up and eat, and shuttling us off to wherever we are going that day, which is often to the studio. Sometimes we go to a homeschool group meetup, sometimes swimming or outdoors. Mostly we stay in the area. We have projects we work on, things we do, we garden - though not as much since I have launched this festival. We have a sailboat that we like to go out on, sometimes we go eat or see movies. Normal kid stuff but no malls and no social media, although they do love to veg out on YouTube while I cook or clean. We live a very creative life, the kids are both dancing in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Victoria Rinaldi at The Orpheum in Tannersville. Sometimes we do after school programs or fairs to be part of the entire community of kids. It’s a very good life.
Venetia: What are some of your hobbies and interests outside of being an artist?
Christina: Gardening is my number one, having birds apparently my number two. I have many peafowl and a few too many peacocks. I love traveling, road trips, and seeing America by driving around in it. Almost my entire life I traveled somewhere exotic at least once a year although not so much in recent years. I love being in other places absorbing other cultures, languages and talking to all kinds of people. I love being around large animals, I love being in nature and at rivers and I love sunshine.
Venetia: What inspires you?
Christina: Beautiful things, beautiful people, watching things grow, sudden ideas, quantum physics, 5D consciousness, watching people make music, birds, happy kids, forests, miniature landscapes like a mossy bed or a little tide pool. Being near the ocean, fish, astounding movies, things that are riveting and galvanizing and forward leaning and edifying. Stuff that makes you go WOW.
Venetia: What are some of your favorite places in the Hudson Valley for food, shopping, hiking and activities?
Christina: I mostly do what I call Apocalyptic Shops at Aldi’s where I buy an overstuffed cartful of things like pasta and cereal and meats and cheeses and bagels and hot cocoa and peanut butter and all that jazz. I get my daily gallon of milk from the local supermarket, any random things like wonton wrappers or bananas and an occasional vegetable from Tremper Hill Farms. Mostly I try to grow a lot of what we eat and try to eat something from the garden as often as I can. I can a lot of food, tomatoes mostly, but I also gather peaches and apples from friends and neighbors. I tried making grape jelly, but my family prefers store-bought. My favorite restaurant is Pancho Villas in Tannersville, we all love to go there. I live in a hiking heaven but mostly we walk up our own mountain and on our neighbor’s 100-acre property. We love going to the reservoir and our local libraries and my kids like to hang out with their friends.
Venetia: Is there anything else you would like to share or like people to know about you?
Christina: I’m very friendly. I like almost everyone, but I can’t stand gossip or backbiting. If you have a creative project or something you are trying to get off the ground I’m your Huckleberry. I’ll invite people to join my crusades, but I’ll never wait around for permission or for people to get things done and mostly go about my projects solo because waiting for action or for people to keep up, get back to me, take me seriously, give me permission, none of these things are important or hold me back. I always say It Is Better To Ask Forgiveness Than Get Permission for any creative project. I have more gusto for boundary pushing plans than other people have the stomach for manifesting. I get a lot of “Where do you get the energy?” and “How do you do this yourself?” but it’s my nature. I have almost 6 planets in Sagittarius and that probably has something to do with it. I love people, art projects, food, creativity, gardening and gathering. A lot of love for mankind in general and people specifically.
Christina and Venetia working on the art installation for the Phoenicia Festival of the Arts. Art pictured by Christina Varga and Michael McGrath.
Interview by Venetia Boucher. Images by Winona Barton-Ballentine. Artwork by Christina Varga, Michael McGrath, Acacia, Andy Wallhore/Adam Zaretsky, Shiv Mirabito and Jeffrey Fulvimari.