BmoreArt

While Baltimore may not offer ancient traditions, the art scene here has benefited Foss. For three years, she served as artist-in-residence at The Creative Alliance, a stint that will be celebrated with an exhibition of her work March 14-April 18th of this year. Foss credits this residency with a period of productivity and greater focus on the creation of original instruments rather than historical recreations. Regular meetings with Joy Davis at the Creative Alliance allowed Foss to share her progress and reflect on her process, and she cites this connection as having a significant impact on her work. 

While at CA, she also taught community classes and collaborated with Artesanas, an organization of Latin American women who share traditional crafts in Baltimore communities and which is part of the Creative Alliance’s CIELO program (Creative Immigrant Educators of Latin American Origin). Despite being an introvert, Foss seeks out these connections to share what she has learned and to continue her own education and growth. 

Foss’s commitment to her art and to its ancient origins is inspiring, and, this spring, the public will have the opportunity to see her historic recreations at The Walters with the upcoming exhibition: Latin American Art / Arte Latinoamericano as well as her original pieces at The Creative Alliance.

Looking forward to all of this, I spoke with Foss about her practice and what brought her to this work.

According to the bio on your website, you were introduced to Pre-Columbian instrument-making “under the tutelage of composer and educator Alejandro Iglesias Rossi and musicologist and educator Susana Ferreres, at the National University of Argentina at Tres de Febrero.” What led you to study ancient instruments in the first place and how did you end up at the University of Argentina?

I was always interested in and involved in music-making: playing piano and singing in choruses throughout childhood and then singing in an acapella group during college and in jazz duos in Washington, DC and in Buenos Aires. But it wasn’t until I was living in Argentina that I had the opportunity to pursue a degree in music.  

I had been living in Buenos Aires for two years at the time and initially started looking at master’s programs because I wanted to stay but needed a Visa. As I started researching programs, I quickly realized that it was an incredible opportunity because I could afford to put myself through school there without taking on a mountain of debt. This really set me free to follow my heart in choosing an educational experience.  

I was drawn to the National University of Argentina because they put a lot of emphasis on interdisciplinary programs and as a result have some very innovative programs. When I discovered their Master’s program in Musical Creation, New Technologies, and Traditional Arts, I knew I had found something incredibly unique. This program talked about the “integral musician” and how the creative process can be undertaken as a path of self-knowledge. They promised that students would build their own instruments, learn to play them, and use these to compose their own music. This holistic approach really excited me. I had no idea where it would lead in terms of career, but it spoke to me on a very deep level.  

 What aspects of indigenous instruments appeal to you? How are they different from contemporary instruments?

Pre-Columbian ceramic instruments are incredibly fascinating for so many reasons—both in terms of their formal and their acoustic qualities.  

One of the first things I noticed about these instruments, some of which were made thousands of years ago, is that each one is a unique work of art. Oftentimes ceramic flutes, whistling bottles, rattles, trumpets, and drums have been sculpted, carved, or painted in the likeness of more-than-human beings that have symbolic or cosmological significance for specific cultures.  Each instrument has information encoded in its form and iconography that tells about the way that its creator saw and lived in their world. 

As I studied hundreds of artifacts and saw how different cultures had transformed birds, animals, plants, and deities into instruments, it really changed the way that I thought about what a musical instrument is and can be. What does it tell us that, in Central and South America, musical instruments have so often been one of a kind, reverent celebrations of the natural and supernatural worlds?

Acoustically, the instruments are astounding, and have expanded my understanding of sound, the importance that it has, and the effects it can have on our bodies. From studying historic instruments and learning to build my own, I’ve learned a lot about acoustic phenomena that we don’t really encounter in our world today, but that were evidently important in some Pre-Columbian cultures. For example, there are certain types of flutes and whistles that produce very particular sounds that could be described as intense, strange, or sometimes even chilling.  And all these sounds are essentially originating from one type of acoustic system, but people explored it and found all the minute acoustic and formal variations that existed to produce different results. This tells me that people were very interested in sound and very skilled researchers who were conducting extensive investigations through their instrument-making practices. 

I like to think that sound has information, so when we build and play and listen to these kinds of instruments today, it’s like opening a portal to an experience that was designed in another time, in another world. What does it feel like to hear these sounds today? What memories, emotions, or images come up? What do the sounds remind us of?

When did you begin working with clay and what was it like learning that process? What exactly is the process? Do you use other materials besides clay?

I had a ceramics class in high school, but it wasn’t until I started the master’s program in 2012 that I began working with clay and building instruments. Since then, the combination of building with my hands, working with clay, and making something that is both visual art and a musical instrument has completely swept me away!  

I do use other materials like wood, gourd, seeds, bone, etc., but most of the instruments I’ve been building lately are made using clay. To build instruments I use earthenware clay and time-honored hand-building techniques like slab-rolling, coil building, and pinch-pot. 

To finish my instruments, I paint them prior to firing using engobes or clay slips that are colored with pigments and oxides, then I burnish the leather-hard clay using polished lapidary stones to give it a smooth finish, and after firing I polish them with beeswax to saturate the colors and bring out the soft tactile quality of the clay. I’ve learned since returning to the US that these are considered “low-tech” or “primitive” finishing techniques, but they’re just the way that I was taught in Argentina. Ceramics is such a huge world of material and technique, and I kind of like staying in a bit of a niche, especially when it means I’m keeping my methods close to the traditional ways of fabricating the kinds of instruments that I make.

Where do you get your inspiration and what is the process for you from the seed of an idea to the completion of an instrument?

The process of making an instrument depends on whether I’m creating a historic recreation or an original instrument. If it’s a historic instrument, like the replicas I’ve recently created for the Walters Art Museum, then I ideally spend time with the original artifact to take lots of photos and measurements to gather data. Sometimes I also consult x-rays to get an understanding of the inner workings of the instrument.  

I cover my studio wall with photos of the original so that I can study every detail and every angle, and I start creating the replica—constantly referencing the images and measurements I’ve gathered. It’s an intense process of deep observation, where I attune myself to every minute detail of the original, while I try to channel back out, through my own eyes and hands, a recreation that is as faithful as possible. This is a profound process, where I’m tracing with my own eyes and hands information that someone hundreds or even thousands of years ago, encoded into shape, iconography, and sound.

When it’s an original instrument, I usually start with a more-than-human being that I feel a sense of kinship with. I’ll look at dozens of images of a specific bird, animal, or plant, and do sketches to think about how to find the essence of that being in a way that will make sense for an instrument. It’s a complex balance between form and function—where I want to capture something of the likeness of that being, but I also need it to be a playable and interesting musical instrument. This is a dance, and sometimes as I start to build the instrument, the formal design will have to shift or even change completely for the benefit of the functional aspects. 

I prioritize my pieces as being musical instruments first and foremost, so if the shape needs to be altered to ensure a good sound, then I will do that. Then, if it’s a flute of some kind, tuning is its own journey! I tune the instruments before firing, and rather than seek out specific notes or scales, I like to do what I call “intuitive” tuning, which just means that I play and tune the instrument until I find something that I think sounds interesting and has great musical potential. This can take time, sometimes days or even weeks. Notes shift up as the clay dries, and again when the piece is fired so the tuning process can be tricky.

On your website you mention the interconnectedness and shared energy that ancient instruments can create. Could you describe a bit about the spiritual aspects of your work? 

I think that any tool or practice that helps us to anchor into our bodies and into the present moment can become an element of our spiritual practice. When I’m working with clay and building an instrument, I find that I almost effortlessly drop into a place of presence and flow that can feel challenging to get to at other times. I don’t take that for granted, and I also see that it’s not just me—so many people in instrument-making workshops say the same thing: that the activity has a calming or grounding effect, leaving them feeling more at peace at the end.  

Playing instruments is the same; I find it impossible to be anywhere else when I’m playing an instrument. Especially when improvising, which has become a vital part of my practice these last few years, I feel like I am co-creating with my instruments in a space of presence where I can remember and feel a sense of connection.

The instruments themselves, which take the forms of different more-than-human beings that I feel kinship with, also remind me of a way of seeing and being in the world. We are a part of nature and, lest we forget, we are very much interdependent with our living world. It would be to our benefit to remember this and to act accordingly, and I like the fact that these instrument-making practices and the instruments themselves remind me of this.

Your instruments are works of art themselves and are inspiring just to observe, but you also use them in performances. How important is the community/performance aspect of your work? 

Community engagement has been an important part of my practice since I started the master’s program in Buenos Aires. Sharing these instruments, both in performances with the Orchestra of Indigenous Instruments and New Technologies that I played with for many years, and by teaching others to make them at the National University of Argentina, is very much a part of the artistic-academic paradigm that I was trained in.  

Since returning to the US, I became a “solo” artist for the first time, but community engagement has taken a fundamental role in my practice once again. I feel so inspired when I share these instruments—whether through a rattle or flute-making workshop, or through a live improvised performance. To see how people respond to specific instruments, what it feels like when we experience them together, and what people do with these traditions when they make their own instruments, brings in a lot of new information that continues to enliven and shape the way that I think about the instruments and what I’m doing with them myself. Sharing them in different communal settings creates a kind of feedback loop that I find both stimulating and enriching.

What music do you listen to?

I listen to a lot of music by producers and artists I learned about while in Argentina, where there’s a movement of downtempo and folk/organic electronica that’s been developing for years.  I really like El Búho, Kaleema, Chancha Via Circuito, Barrio Lindo. I’m also a huge fan of Fémina, Weste, Minük and Sofía Viola.

Why Baltimore?

When I returned from Argentina in 2021, I knew I wanted to be close to family, who are in Frederick, MD. I was looking at Baltimore and DC, but I’ve lived in DC in a past life and really wanted a clean slate somewhere new. When I was accepted to the artist residency at Creative Alliance, that sealed the deal! My three years in residency there helped to connect me to community, to the art scene, and to the city in a way that I’ll always be grateful for. 

Since arriving in Baltimore, I’ve felt so inspired—both by the openness, authenticity, and creativity of people here, and by the playfulness, quirkiness, and depth of the art scene—in particular the experimental sound and music scene. Baltimore has helped me to reconnect with a sense of play in my own practice, and I’ve created more work here—of all different kinds—in these last few years, than I have in my entire life! I’m excited to call this city home and feel that we are a very good fit for one another.

Melissa Foss will be exhibiting at the Creative Alliance March 14-April 18, 2025. 

Her works will also be on view at the Walters Art Museum with the exhibition: Latin American Art / Arte Latinoamericano. May 17, 2025–Ongoing.