Joe Fig: Judy, your work is very painterly and your installations are mentioned as painting in space. Were you ever a painter and if so, how did you transition from painting to sculpture?

Judy Pfaff: I was a painter. At Washington University in Saint Louis, I studied painting and printmaking. And at Yale, I came in as a painter and left—not a painter. And that was because Yale had this system back then. This is in the early 1970s, where you would have this open area for critiques called “the pit”. You brought your paintings in, set them up, and then this row of men would go at them. You weren't allowed to speak and no other student was allowed to either. And I thought, that is just not right. So I decided to put things in the wall in my studio so I could not bring them down, and I got out of all of the critiques and I thought it was brilliant and that started it. 

But also my teacher Al Held was married to Sylvia Stone, who was a sculptor. And he was best friends with Eva Hesse, who died right before I came to Yale. And I was just nuts about her and her work and what it stood for. She was brilliant and charming and a flirt, so I've heard. 

Joe Fig: After Yale, you moved to New York. Who were you hanging out with at the time? What was the art scene in New York like?

Judy Pfaff: I think because I was the only woman in my class—and at that time, by the way, there were no women teachers, or very few, in art schools—I was offered real, full-time jobs at major institutions. I chose to teach a class or two at Queens College. I worked at a frame shop, at Jared Bark Frameworks, which let me meet a lot of people. And I was hanging out with Bill Jensen, one of the great painters, Al of course, Alex Katz, Elizabeth Murray. Paula Cooper Gallery at that time was on Wooster Street, right below the frame shops. So I could go into Paula Cooper's every day if I wanted to, and I met Joel Shapiro and that whole group that was affiliated there. 

But mostly I was busy. I had about three or four jobs. Al Held gave me my first show at Irving Sandler's Artist Space in 1974. I'd only been in New York one year, and then the next year I was in the Whitney Biennial in 1975. Things were going so fast, I don't even think I paid attention. I just thought that's the way it was always going to be, I guess. 

There was a lot of drinking and there were a lot of parties. And every location had a different group that was there. All the way downtown was much more blue chip in a certain way. Prince Street Bar was probably the first elegant bar. The Broome Street Bar was full of working class people and poets. Gordon Matta-Clark opened FOOD. It's a different world now, it really is. I don't see any of that kind of—it wasn't comradery, it was just that the number of artists was 500 instead of 10 million. It's really different. And you were talking all the time. 

Joe Fig: Your work often merges industrial and organic materials. How do you decide which materials belong in a given piece and what role they'll play in shaping it. Like the work on view in Cristin Tierney’s booth at the fair, La Calle, La Calle Vieja, which includes a propeller and a water can.

Judy Pfaff: I had  just moved to Brooklyn, and we had a side yard, so I was planting things. And when you have a tree or flowers, things fall down, fall off and die and revive themselves. And during that time, from 1984 to about 89, I said to myself, "Don't make another installation. You have no friends, you have no money, you're a pain in the ass, making everybody crazy. And at some point you have to realize, some things should sell." So I was struggling with how to compress installations but make an object complicated enough that there are things to look at. I don't like single things or empty things. 

If you lived in Brooklyn at that time, there were metal spinning shops. There was lumber. It was really a great place. If you needed a nut or a bolt or any kind of hardware, it was available. Now you're online and getting it from Amazon. I got to meet all the guys in these factories. There's a lot of wire work in my sculptures. There was a place that made bingo cages, so they had machines that made lots of circular wire things. I would go in and just get 500 five-inch discs and so on, and it was so fun. I would have buckets of the most fabulous materials and they got to know me. I’d get phone calls like, "How would you like some aluminum discs"—or stainless steel or whatever. And the geometries were always in my wheelhouse in a way. 

Joe Fig: When you’re compiling all these pieces and materials together and assembling them, how do you know when a piece is finished?

Judy Pfaff: I have a formal eye. There’s usually something that’s equalizing. Well also, it may be a fear of empty spaces. When every space is full, then it’s probably finished. I can’t put anything more in there.

Joe Fig: Because we already planned the exhibition. And the younger curator was obsessed with what the title for the show was going to be and what's it going to be about? And I kept saying, “Just let Judy be Judy and do her thing. Don't worry about it.” But you're right. Then the hurricane hit. Generally, I see your installations as sensory environments and usually not narrative, right?

Judy Pfaff: It’s beginning to change. And I think also they probably were [narrative], I just didn't tell anybody.

Joe Fig: Because in Sarasota, especially after the hurricane and the destruction, it did have that narrative element to it. And I know it really touched the people who saw it, especially on the west coast of Florida. Can you talk about what made that installation different from others? Was there more of a narrative element?

Judy Pfaff: It was complicated for me because I knew I wanted to have it. I mean that word explosive has always been in my vocabulary, but if you hook it to a particular event, it’s a balance between having imagery but not being triggering or upsetting. I didn't want to upset the community. It was just like, chaos is everywhere, especially now. So it had a bigger aspect to it. It had these tree forms, and they're all steel. They're actually quite heavy duty. And the cable rigging, the anchor has to be rated. You can't have a weak link in a system where things are flying above your head and the public is walking through there. 

Joe Fig: I remember coming in maybe the second or third day of installation and you had some of the main framework and you came down with a big 53-foot truck and then a smaller truck. And then you had a whole floor just full of stuff that you would go and pick through and start building things. The show had boats that were cut in half and flying in the air, and chairs, and umbrellas. Speaking about pulleys, you were using the boat cleats and sailing rigs to actually suspend the work. So it was functional, but then also narrative.

Judy Pfaff: Do you know how expensive boat hardware is? It's amazing. If I go to Home Depot, I can get a cleat for $2 but if I go to the marine store, it's $25 and they have all these variations and they're all deluxe marine standards.

Joe Fig: Once the show is over, the installations are basically disassembled and they kind of disappear. What do you think about the importance of impermanence and legacy, and how do you sell something like that?

Judy Pfaff: I think I’ve made over 120 installations. Not one of them has ever sold. Not even an inkling, not even a bite, not even a nibble. But I love doing it. I just do. It’s like having a brand new studio and each space offers a different kind of image. 

Joe Fig: When people walk through your installations, what kind of emotional or sensory response are you looking for, if any?

Judy Pfaff: I have nothing to do with that. I know what I think. It’s interesting for me, and this show did it more than most because I was around it. People would tell me their experiences with the storm and their experiences with the installation was more relatable because of that narrative. And that was explicit in the writing about it. So that was interesting for me. I have avoided narratives all this time and now I’m thinking I should be more narrative. It’s helpful I think, especially for people who write about things or want to have a clue into the work. So I should not be as opaque as I usually am about those things. 

I remember there was a show of drawings, big drawings, and someone said, “I love the one with the snake.” I have never done a snake. I said, “Thank you. I love that piece too.” People see what they see. I think my stuff is very accessible. You can identify things like that’s a big round sphere and that’s a watering can and that’s an old sign. I think people look and put parts of the puzzle together. 

Joe Fig: I think your work is also deceiving because it seems very physically heavy, and it’s often hard to figure out what the materials are.

Judy Pfaff: I had a review once that named five materials–paper, cardboard, saran wrap, whatever it was—one of them was correct. That is steel. I’m welding, I’m doing all this stuff and it’s all physical.

Judy Pfaff: It would have to be when I was working with Holly Solomon in 1979–80. The work was called Deep Water. I was beginning to have some recognition, but I was really upset about the last show that I had done in Houston. They were these stick figures, and they were all people I knew. When a head fell off, it was upsetting. When you're 30, you think about all your relationships. So I identified everyone who was important in my life and made a thing for them and the things were made out of a certain material. I did one for the artist Richard Artschwager, he was made out of rock maple. He was walking into the wall. He's stubborn and we were teaching together at Cal Arts. And then the next time I tried to use that work, it had lost something. 

And I went to Mexico, landed in Cancun and went to every market and every pyramid and shop. And I thought about the color thing, man, those guys in New York, they don't know shit about it. It's all black, white, awful, intelligent, Minimal, cool. And down there, it's hot in every way. The flowers are more colorful, the fish are more colorful, what you wear and everything. That's the whole culture. And it felt very generous. 

So I came back and I told Holly that I'm not going to do those figures anymore. I was in Greenpoint and I was on the roof, using rattan and natural fibers, and the wind would come through and the material would roll around on the roof. And I thought, “That is so great.” When I got to the gallery, there was no wind. There was no sun. It was lifeless and dead. So the installation part was to bring it back to life, bring the color in. And Holly just said, “Judy, this is really hippie shit. But if I could sell that, I would be one of the great dealers.”

Joe Fig: You've had a long, amazing and boundary-pushing career, and I certainly believe you're at the top of your game making the best work. If you had to go back and talk to your younger self about starting out, what would you say?

Judy Pfaff: Maybe I’d tell myself not to argue as much. Another thing is, I've always taught. This is my 53rd solid year of teaching. Students are great. I probably would learn how to listen more instead of just becoming competitive in a way. I probably shouldn't have drank as much, so I would remember more. 

Joe Fig: Were you competitive with other artists or with yourself?

Judy Pfaff: With myself. I think what happens with my work is, and I've said this before, every year I try on a different material to learn about it. Or a tool. Like, it’ll be the year of the router, the year of aluminum foil. So it's a lesson for me. Right now, I am involved with neon tubes. So light and color. Neon is old fashioned. You have to be a nut to handle it. Especially with mine, I'm weaving it. It's not flexible. It doesn't move around. It doesn't want to.

Joe Fig: You’ve had some great highs in your career. You are a MacArthur Genius winner. I'm just curious, as an artist, how does it work? How are you notified? What impact did it have on you emotionally and creatively, and what do you do with the money?

Judy Pfaff: All interesting questions. There are dossiers on everybody and people put your name in the hopper. I've never told this story before to anyone who might repeat it, but I thought I was going to get it two years before I did. Not because of ego, it was because people—like Chuck Close—were saying, “Be home on this day.” That phone call never came. And I was like, “Oh my god, I’m so glad I didn't tell anybody because I would be embarrassed and mortified.” And then when I did get it, the guy who was in charge of the MacArthur program, Daniel Socolow, called me and he said, “Thank god you got it this time.” Because he got complaints from the people who put my name forward. 

So yeah, it was a phone call very early in the morning. Well, it was 8 AM, it wasn't that early. Elizabeth Murray was part of how I got it. She had a place upstate north of mine and she said, “Judy, I'm going to come by. I need to see your space. I need to see you. I'm going to come by Monday morning at 8 AM.” I'm like cleaning the house for a month—really excited. And she never came. The phone call came. So, that's how that happened. And I called her later. I said, “Are you coming?” She said, “No, I just needed you home at the right time.” The funny thing is, nothing changed. Nothing sold. I didn't get more shows or less shows and I didn't go into the city for about a year because I was embarrassed. Like everybody knew my financial situation. I felt a little..

Joe Fig: Like winning the lottery. Well, literally.

Judy Pfaff: Winning the lottery and people jumping out of the woodwork. The way they give you the money is, it's $25,000 every three months that goes into your checking account and you pay taxes. But you can plan ahead, of course. I've always worried about money and for five years I didn't. And the minute that stopped, it was like, “Oh, now what am I going to do?” But I built the studio in Tivoli, New York, with that money.