Ryan Fitzer

SouthSide Artists | A documentary about the UTD/Southside Artist Residency | By Quin Mathews Films

A lot of my current direction was facilitated by the University of Texas at Dallas/Southside residency program I was in right after grad school (2004-2005). I was accepted with the ceramic sculpture that was completed for my graduate thesis. The reason the residency was so important to my development was that it gave me a year-long soft-landing from grad school during a time when a lot of things in my life/work were in flux. I was able to make a lot of work and branched outside of my ceramic roots for the first time.

It’s really difficult to watch myself on video. I have a hard time being natural. In fact, I wouldn’t know natural if it hit me with a stick. Still, I was happy that all the crap that came out my mouth still holds up. Quin Mathews (the filmmaker) spent a good deal of time interviewing me and thankfully only used a little bit. I was so drained after the interview.

I have a hard time articulating my thoughts when I’m talking about my own work. Luckily, it’s not evident in the clips he decided to use. But I do come off a little forced at times as a result of the way the film was cut, grabbing parts of sentences and pinning them together. I’m sure there was a good amount of “blah, blah, blah” he had to trim.

I wanted to preserve this short documentary because you cannot find it anywhere as the whole thing was pretty informal, also, the program was short lived and shut down in 2006 (it had only run for 2 years). Hopefully Google Video is the right choice and the other residents from the program will find their way to it.