In her installation, “Protest Flowers,” Fair gives a voice to the flowers, allowing the audience, who are encouraged to interact with the plants, to listen to something. The movement and dynamism of the flowers is their way of speaking. When the audience takes time to linger beneath their looming petals or operate their motors, they are listening, and that is the protest. The movement of the flowers is not reliant on Fair pushing the flower, but it's something that can invite the viewer further into the work.

SB: As you worked on the installation, what surprised you most from the time of conceptualization to realization?

TF: It's been a long-distance run. I was working on capturing flowers and molds for a long time. When I came upon the sunflowers and figured out a way to thicken them up and cast them with a rubber and dirt mixture. That was the first surprise that I loved, just how the flowers transformed. It was a long time before I put the flower, stem, and leaves back together to be conventional. When the pandemic hit, I began “Portable Window,” which had a lot of movement; it was mobile. I would roll it and set it up in different places. That kind of movement helped to

push me to take advantage of how the silicone jiggles and moves. I just started robotics last summer, and that was really like the first time of experimenting with really simple movement and attaching robotics to the flowers.

SB: Odd-kin refers to a kinship between a group that extends beyond blood relatives, including non-human objects and inanimate objects. Given this, and your experience realizing your work and it now existing in the OK space, what have you noted about the relationship between you, your art, and people? 

TF: ODD-KIN reciprocated the experience of the exhibit. I was a little apprehensive about the opening. You work in your studio alone, and you're kind of in a solitary space with them [the flowers]. So bringing them out into public is something like imagining. I mean, there were a lot of people at that opening. Kate is just such a warm and welcoming person. I was nervous about all those bodies in the space, that no one's going to see the sculptures, but it was the exact

opposite. As people came in, moving and driving the flowers around, while the ones on timers shifted, the more chaotic the space got, and the more the flowers rolled, ached, and flailed around in protest. It was an incredible outcome for me to see the flowers do what they do. And the more the people came in, the more they stood their ground. 

SB: From where do you draw inspiration?

TF: I got a grant from Brandeis to research the women in “More than Minimal: Feminism and Abstraction in the 70s,” [an exhibit at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis in 1996]. But a lot of the women, even at the time of the show, had already been deceased. But there were a couple of women that I reached out to. Mary Miss and Jackie Windsor were the first artists I interviewed.  But just starting a conversation about the lineage of what that show meant for them. And I was trying to think about what the more than minimal was for them. That was kind of how I framed the conversation. But this kind of like the hunches is that like I relate to the women in that show, you know, twenty years downstream, and how does my work fit into the lineage? And so it was kind of a way to look back, to look forward. But it also gave me a lot of it; it gave me the mojo to believe in my own making and creation, and to let that be, which is harder than you think. There’s a lot of pressure to ask yourself, “Is it too finished? Is it not finished enough? Is it too loud?” All of these things pass through your head when you're in the dialogue of making with materials. Looking back at that show, for me, Mary and Jackie Windsor helped me find my sensibility. That show had an everlasting impact on me. The process of capturing the flower is one thing; letting the materials mix and finding a weird aggregate of silicone and dirt. But it also enabled me to reconstruct the flowers, stems, and leaves. I leave a lot of process and trace behind, which is one of the main things that the post-minimalist sculptors allowed into their work. They allow some subjectivity into the work. For me, that is a very important part of what the lineage of more than minimal is. 

SB: Tell me a little bit about your studio practice. 

TF:  I have a lot of trial and error in my studio. And I feel like I love to hack things out. So I'm not like an extremely proficient craft. I've never taken a course in mold making. But I've kind of gathered things along the way and figured out what works for me. I love working with people like a foundry, or with professionals who are on top of that stuff. But a lot of times, the way I'm doing things has directed my outcome. Whereas, in mold making, you're supposed to be able to repeat the same thing exactly again and again. I can never do that with my molds. But I love staying curious in the studio by trying new things. The kinetics is one of those things where I'm very much a novice, kinetics 101. But I like to tinker and try things out physically, thinking with my hands. 

SB: Having realized this work, are there any ideas starting to take root about where you want to go next?

TF: I want to keep lifting some of the things that ODD-KIN is giving me back. I feel that the experimental feeling in ODD-KIN is right for the work. I would like to take some of the pieces and expand on them a bit. The vintage tools in the show– like the handles you turn– I want to further develop. But, I want to keep the labor in, like in grief and the crunches. There’s something that I keep working with. 

SB: Is there anything you would like to share that I haven’t asked? 

TF: I would want to give just affection to the way Kate has developed the space. This series that you're doing now is a new thing where you're creating an archive of conversations, which is amazing. For young artists out there, for old artists, for whoever, Kate is a team player. When she came into my studio, there wasn’t a finished piece all wrapped up and tidy. I rely on a curator, like Kate, to dream into the work and to believe in the work that it's gonna an experience that can work at a space like ODD-KIN so like I just like give a standing applause for Kate who gave me the platform to bring the work down to the gallery and just let the work be exactly what it is. And that's like, that is a gift, right? So I think the other shows that ODD-KIN has performed in, I've seen them all, and they are great. So I just love to be in the lineage of the ODD-KIN artists. It’s a huge honor.