Planning everything out and having it all defined? No thank you, not for this artist

Artist Denja Harris would prefer not to know. For example, when she reflects on completing her first solo museum exhibition earlier this year, the period leading up to it was full of unknowns and she loved it.

“I think the ways that I navigated through it is still kind of just finding comfort in that lack of definition, even trying to turn anxiety into excitement about not knowing what is going to happen next. That’s the fun part. I don’t know who wants to know everything ahead of time, so the unknown just leaves so much possibility. If everything is defined and you’re just boxed in, it’s rigid. I love not knowing anything; the less I know, the better,” she says. “I feel like, being a Capricorn — and I don’t know much about astrology, but I do know myself — I can tend to be so rigid. As I get older and the more I work as an artist, it’s probably really helped me become less rigid and more fluid in my life. My practice is very intuitive and spontaneous and not planned. I think, maybe, that has helped me be that way in my personal life.”

Harris is a contemporary fiber artist whose work includes soft sculpture and installation, with group and solo exhibitions beginning just a few years ago, in 2021. She uses both dead-stock and new yarns, taking an intuitive and spontaneous approach to her work, which most recently was featured at the Oceanside Museum of Art with “The Space...