[0:00 – 4:00: Acknowledgement of Country and Introduction]

[​intro music]​

Voiceover: You’re listening to the Cool Change Podcast, an irregular audio segment featuring conversations between artists and their peers discussing their work in our exhibition space. Cool Change wishes to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast is recorded, the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation. We pay our respects to their continuing culture, and to the contribution that they make to the life of this city and this region.

Jo: Hello! My name’s Jo… [​laughs​]

Carla: Oh, we’re really going! [​laughs]​

Jo: This is the crazy radio show. I’m here today with Carla Adams.

Carla: Hello.

Jo: And we’re gonna start with an acknowledgement of country. We’re meeting today on the Whadjuk Noongar boodjar, on land that was never ceded, that’s been stolen.

Carla: And we pay respects to elders past, present, and emerging.

Jo: Yeah. And all the Noongar people, all of them, all at once. We’re here today to talk about my exhibition that’s currently on at the Cool Change Contemporary gallery. I have a series of clothing pieces that I made, as well as some pictures, a zine, and some t-shirts hanging on the wall, and I’ve invited my friend, artist, fashionista, very glamorous lady, Carla Adams, to be here today to talk with me.

One of the reasons is that Carla has an Instagram account called ‘Carla Wears Stuff’, where you describe yourself as a fat Perth woman who likes pink, bold colours, and clashing patterns, and is one half of the collaborative duo Pierce I Love You. So technically – Instagram influencer.

Carla: [​laughs​] Someone did send me some clothes to wear once, so I guess that is technically a micro-influencer.

Jo: Also you’re an artist as well, and you have a show coming up at AGWA, it’s very prestigious… I’m in awe.

[​both laugh]​

Carla: That’s a true fact.

Jo: You have work at the Joondalup Centre at the moment…?

Carla: Yeah, the Joondalup Invitational Art Prize, currently on show at Whitford City… [​laughs​] …which is an insane place for an exhibition.

Jo: It’s also the common people, you know?

Carla: Yeah, absolutely.
Jo: Like, just ordinary people. Art right there in their faces.

Carla: My sculpture is right outside Lorna Jane fitness attire. Which made me do a giggle.

[​both laugh]​

Jo: Athleisurewear! Carla: Yeah, exactly.

Jo: [​laughing​] Athleisurewear… and also, there is another couple of reasons that I wanted you to come here. Another one is that you occasionally put a post of your colour matches on Instagram.

Carla: Hashtag nail colour match.
Jo: Nail colour match. I just really love that. Carla: Thank you.
Jo: I’m a big fan.

Carla: So I get my nails done in various colours, I change colours every couple of weeks, and then find things in the world that are the same colour and hold my nails up to them and take a picture. Which seems ridiculous sometimes; when I’m doing it, people often look and kind of wonder what I’m doing, but…

Jo: Cos it’s their clothes or something you match with.

Carla: Yeah, or an artwork that might be in a gallery, or just something on the street, a car… yeah. But yeah, most of the time it’s people’s clothes, actually.

Jo: Do you guess a colour that you think you’d see beforehand?

Carla: People notice the nail colour match before I do, sometimes. They go ‘Oh, that’s a nail colour match, you should take a picture of that!’

Jo: They are a fan club!
Carla: Well, you don’t need to start it Jo, it already exists! Jo: We believe in you!

Carla: So yeah, that’s fun, when people remind me that I should be watching out for this thing that I’ve started. And I also really love it when people send me their own nail colour matches. Which is great, yeah. Someone had green nail polish that matched, like, the Transperth logo on their SmartRider…

Jo: Wow.
Carla: Yeah, that was pretty fun.

[4:00 – 7:14: Serotonin dressing]

Jo: Another reason I wanted to talk with you today as well, is about a show that was here at Cool Change Contemporary that was called ​Heft​, and I don’t know if you said it, or if it was in the catalogue, or if it was both, but there was a point where you said that you cannot ‘float into a room’…

Carla: ‘Effortlessly’.

Jo: ‘Effortlessly’. And it really resonated with me, because I often feel that way. I know we’re not the same, but I feel manly and kind of gangly and – stomping into places, and I’m taller than some people, and just, like…

Carla: I guess a lot of that idea came from the fact that in media, women that are interested in art or anything alternative are often portrayed as this kind of waif… [​laughs​]

Jo: A tiny little…
Carla: Yeah, like, fairy…

Jo: …manic pixie dream girl that you can pick up and throw around, or something. There is a sinister thing about being overpowered in there that I suspect.

Carla: Oh, 100%. I guess the identity – when I made that show, it was a couple of years ago now. I was well and truly settling into my – oh, this is terrible – womanhood. But being an adult woman, do you know what I mean?

Jo: Yeah.

Carla: Like, well and truly. And maybe coming to the terms with the fact that I wasn’t going to change my personality or my physicality. So there was a lot of feelings about that.

Jo: Yep. There were these beautiful works, too, where you were flipping around some insults into empowering statements, and I thought about that with this show, too; that a lot of my clothing ideas come from a place of sadness, or despair, or a bad place, and this is my attempt to flip it around or be armoured and ready in a way I didn’t feel ready or armoured before.

Carla: Yeah, I guess clothes can really be a powerful way to clad your body in a way that changes your mood, or your, I don’t know…

Jo: [​laughing​] Does it… Does it? Does it work? Do you ever put on things and feel magically transformed?

Carla: Yeah, well, there’s that whole, like… like, the ‘serotonin dressing’, is that what it’s called? Where people well-dress if they’re feeling a little bit down that day, or they’re

having a bad mental health day, they’ll go and get out the outfits that make them feel the best, and put them on, and apparently… yeah.

Jo: I sometimes do the opposite. I’m like, ‘I feel shit. I’m gonna wear something that is super drab and sad, like me.’ [​laughs​]

Carla: Interesting. I feel like people are really underestimating my ability to wallow in a ball gown.

[​Jo laughs]​
Carla: I mean, I can lay in bed crying in my best clothes. Jo: Something sparkly, sparkly crying… [​laughs]​
Carla: That’s the only type of crying for me.
[​Jo laughs]​

[7:14 – 11:43: Clothing and associative memory]

Carla: Yeah, I know we talked in the lead-up to this about how clothes, certain items of clothes can hold memories, or you might think of ‘I was wearing that when I had a fight with that person’, or ‘I was wearing that dress when I met that person’…

Jo: Yep. Yeah.

Carla: I wore this t-shirt today because this t-shirt was new, and I really liked it, but then it had some bad energy attached to it. So I wore it in the hopes of getting some good…

Jo: Changing it around.

Carla: Yeah, maybe some of your good stink can rub off on it.

Jo: Ahh, sick! Yeah, make it stinky! It’s really yellow and bright, too.

Carla: Oh, thank you.

Jo: I don’t understand how we’d look at it apart from as a happy t-shirt. It even says ‘love’!

Carla: I did spill a little bit of coffee on it…
Jo: Oh, maybe that’s it. You can smell the coffee. [​laughs]​
Carla: You were saying they were stinking in here before… [​laughs]​ It was just me.

Jo: Oh no! But no, I was gonna ask about that, too, if you’re superstitious about garments as well. Because, yeah, I feel very self-conscious when I wear something for the first time, cos I’m thinking ‘I hope something good happens, because otherwise this

is always gonna have that memory of a bad time when I first wore it, and will I ever unforget that?’

Carla: I don’t know, it feels so ridiculous that so much of our dressing is wrapped up in whether…

Jo: Well, some people, you know – some people matter more than others.

Carla: True. And then if they don’t – if you don’t get enough compliments, it gets relegated to the back of the wardrobe.

Jo: Oh yeah, no-one noticed.

Carla: Gets taken out of circulation.

Jo: But maybe they were all having a shitty day, you know? Like, who knows what was going on with them? [​laughs​] That day they forgot, how dare they, to compliment your outfit!

[​both laugh]​

Carla: Yeah, they forgot to worship me. How dare they?

Jo: I have worn things, though, especially this, like, painty-drippy suit, that people just burst into laughter, seeing that ​(storage walking)​. It’s quite garish; I know when I’m wearing it that people will only have a strong reaction to it, it won’t be anything in between. But yeah, people have just laughed at me.

Carla: At you or with you?

Jo: Well, afterwards they always try to say – it’s like ‘oh no, I mean it in a loving way!’ But I’m also just like, ‘you were fucking laughing your head off before you checked me, so, you know, that was more for you than me’. [​laughs]​

Carla: Which is strange, cos I feel like that fabric is quite… like, it’s giving me kind of – bear with me – like, a lady in her late 50s who might be a curator somewhere…

Jo: Art school teacher. [​laughs]​
Carla: Well, that, but it’s monochrome, so I’m thinking maybe she’s a curator of a

hospital collection or something…

[​Jo laughs]​

Carla: She’s got big resin jewellery, and bright-coloured glasses…

Jo: Big resin jewellery, that’s a vibe. Or something made that looks like it’s seaweed. Yeah.

Carla: Yeah. Very neat hair.

Jo: Yeah. And really huge glasses. Massive.
Carla: And bright. Or clear.
Jo: And some very elaborate hair – highlights, or something?
Carla: I think just too neat.
Jo: Or just too neat. Looks like a wig.
[​Carla laughs]​
Jo: I look like the dog that’s been dragged out of the river when I wear that, so… [​laughs]​

Carla: I mean, that was a discussion we had before we were recording, but Jo called me glamorous; I said ‘I feel like a dog that’s been swimming in the river that someone’s just popped a bow on, and that underneath the bow it’s still got the sludge’.

Jo: [​laughing​] I stole it cos it was great! No, but seriously, you are very glamorous when I see you.

Carla: Thank you.

Jo: You’re always wearing something that looks very well put together. And carefully considered, too! I was wondering if you ever thought about your outfits as if they were artworks?

Carla: You make conscious decisions when you’re making an artwork about what goes together, and what colours, and what materials, and how it looks, and how big it is, and proportions and things, and I guess it is no different when you’re putting an outfit together.

[​Jo laughs]​

Carla: Even though the purpose of putting those things together might not be, you know, necessarily that you’re planning it to look aesthetically pleasing or whatever, in relation to an outfit, but…

[​music​]

[11:43 – 14:23: Taking up space]

Carla: Pretty much every moment of every day is me working out how to take up less space. I think I’m kind of okay with taking up lots of space in a complaining way, or…

[​Jo laughs]​
Carla: …in a funny way, or a loudness way.
Jo: ‘In a funny way’ is very disarming. That’s a good way.

Carla: I agree, yes. I really disarmed some art people on the weekend with a cocksucking joke.

[​Jo laughs]​
Carla: [​laughing]​ And then I just walked away, cos I didn’t know what to do. [​Jo laughs]​
Carla: Though, it didn’t go down as intended, so I was just like ‘see ya!’
Jo: You just drew some dicks on their faces and walked away. [​laughs]​ Carla: It’s true. [​laughs]​

Jo: But yeah, as we’re being bright and colourful with clothing, as well, do you think that ever helps? To sort of be like, ‘it’s too bad, I’m wearing [exclaims] bright! yellow. I’m not going to be able to hide anywhere.’

Carla: I think that we think about it in similar ways, because you’re – I mean, if I can use this word – brash; loud and unapologetic, I think in all the best ways. And I think when you take up space in that way and… I feel very visible in general when I’m out in public. So I think when I choose to wear something that’s bright, or something that maybe you wouldn’t normally see a person of my size wearing, I feel like that’s making me even more hyper-visible. So that’s definitely a choice, and it does become almost like a politicised thing. But I think maybe in the same way as I… when I wear something bright and colourful, there’s that thing of being more seen, and when you go out and wear this opulent slum queen jacket, which is fucking stunning…

Jo: Aw, thank you Carla.

Carla: Like, you know, you’re pumping gas, and you’re probably… everyone can hear your laugh and your joy that you’re expressing about anything, cos that’s what you do as Jo. But I think it works, you know? It doesn’t work to make you feel less bad about your body, or your personality, or your self, it just… the more you do it, it’s like practice, you know? The more that you do it, the less scary it is, or the less hard it is, or the less you worry about it, or… I don’t know.

Jo: Yeah. I think definitely practice makes you worry about it less. You end up with a set of responses to people who take exception to it or don’t know what to do.

Carla: Yeah.
Jo: Or you ignore them. [​music​]

[14:23 – 18:47: Professional appearances]

Jo: We both work in a professional-ish environment, with students, and we don’t have a uniform, but there are expectations about how we appear. My mum would use the word ‘presentable’; we have to be presentable. Which makes us sound like sandwiches. And the presentable nature is that we have to strike a balance between being authoritative and also approachable, and needing to move around or be in a workshop and be safe.

Carla: Yeah. So I think there is a way that those requirements can be smashed together. That you can be safe in the workshop with your steel-capped boots, but also wear something that’s…

Jo: For a meeting with some authority figures of some kind?

Carla: Yeah. But also, I like to dress like a dumb sexy adult baby.

[​both laugh​]

Carla: You know, you go to meetings with… I have several roles on campus at Curtin University, and sometimes it does require…

Jo: Oh, maybe we could just call them all ‘The Man’, you know, like the sixties? ‘The Man’!

Carla: Yes! So when I’m going to meetings with The Man, sometimes I… well, I just encounter everyday sexism. I’m not sure what it is about me that makes them disrespect me. Is it because I’m fat? Is it because I’m a woman? Is it cos I look like a sexy baby…

Jo: Pink socks!

Carla: Yeah, with pink socks. But regardless of any of that, I’m fucking good at my job, and that should be the thing that they pay attention to, or that should be the thing that makes the impression, not… [​sighs​].

Jo: Yeah, I know. There’s so much there, I don’t even know which tangent to go on.

Carla: I know.

Jo: I keep thinking about Julia Gillard having to spend too much time getting ready before she can do anything, and like, a male prime minister’s kind of just like, [​in a humorous voice]​ ‘I don’t know, I put a shirt on?’ [​laughs​] And he’s ready, kind of thing.

Carla: Well, as much as I despise him, Karl Stefanovic did the thing where he wore the same suit every day on morning TV for, like, a year or something. And no-one ever noticed.

Jo: No-one noticed. Cos they’re like, ‘oh yes, that was good form, sir!’ Carla: ‘Oh, it’s a blue suit!’
Jo: ‘Oi. Good man’.

Carla: I mean, I know that we don’t really have anything about fast fashion written on our thing, but…

Jo: Yeah, this is all designed to be quite slow. There is a skirt here that’s over ten years old, because I just fucking love it, and I thought about it. I also thought, mostly with the separates, about how they might go with other things. So I don’t buy fabric that won’t go with the other stuff I already have. That’s kind of slow.

Carla: And I guess when you are a fat person, I think you get resourceful with clothing. If you order something and it doesn’t quite fit, you jimmy-rig it so it does, or you put pins in it or something.

Jo: I’m just glancing across at all the t-shirts with like, cut bottoms that have got rolled up fabric at the bottoms. ‘It was wide enough, but it was too long!’ [​laughs]​ ‘Cos it’s a man’s t-shirt’.

Carla: And there’s something about that punk, do-it-yourself attitude, make do and mend, resourcefulness…

Jo: Yep, I’m a big fan of all of that.

Carla: But that comes across in your practice regardless of what you’re making. It doesn’t have to be clothes or garments, you know; it comes across in your drawings, and zines you’ve made in the past, like ​Cat Detectives…​

[​Jo laughs]​

Carla: …or sculptural installations that you’ve made.

Jo: Yeah, I’m just really impatient. It’s actually a character flaw. I’m like, ‘I want it fuckin’ donefuckin’now!Sowhatareweusing?Thispieceofshitandthisthing…'[​laughs]​ ‘Get it off!’

Carla: It’s an underrated skill! Jo: Aw, thank you.

[18:47 – 20:55: ​Miss Congeniality​]

Jo: We were going to talk about ​Miss Congeniality​, as well.

Carla: Oh, that’s a great film.

Jo: [​laughing​] Why did we wanna talk about it, again?

Carla: I just think it’s great, because she’s this – and we talked about you feeling awkward and kind of manly or whatever at the beginning – and she’s this pretty tough character that has to assimilate into this princess world.

Jo: Yeah. Gracie Hart, and then Gracie Lou Freebush in the ​(beginning)​. So this is my favourite movie – one of my favourite movies of all time, it’s not the favourite. It’s the one I always watch when I’m very, very sad, because it’s like an old friend. An old friend-movie.

Carla: Yeah. But also I think it’s just so much about beautiful female friendships, and…

Jo: Yeah, she doesn’t fall in love with the cop. It’s not about that, it’s about falling in love with Miss Universe.

Carla: These women that are quite different to her, but – I don’t know. Friendship and love transgress all.

Jo: I think as well she assumes that they’re all very dumb, and it turns out they’re, like, nuclear physicists and they’re – you know, there’s a queer lady as well, who is there to try and prove that other queer women can be there.

Carla: And they all look like little baby sluts.

Jo: [​laughing​] They do! They all look like the same person, but with different colour hair. Also there’s this epic scene where she’s walking out of the hangar, where they’ve spent 24 hours trying to wax her and make her hair go down, and she just – Sandra Bullock is a great physical comedian, and just stacks it hilariously. And then is like, ‘I’m okay, I’m okay!’ She does it a few times. I just really appreciate that.

Carla: She’s very good in that film.
Jo: Yeah, she just spontaneously falls over. Several times!

Carla: That film is, I think, more important than… [​laughing​] people may think. Someone write a PhD on ​Miss Congeniality!​

Jo: Yeah, the first one, definitely!

[20:55 – 21:52: Outros]

Carla: And maybe that’s a good place to wrap it up for this episode. Jo: Aw, thank you so much for talking with me today, Carla!

Carla: Thanks for inviting me, Jo! That was fun. I think it’s fun to talk about other people’s work, and…

Jo: I love talking about ​your​ work! Carla: Oh… thank you! [​laughs​]

Jo: I hope to talk in this way is something interesting and a little bit different from just delivering a little lecture.

Carla: I hope that too. [​laughs]​

Jo: Thank you! Carla: Thank you! [​music​]

Voiceover: The Cool Change Podcast is supported by the Department of Local Government, Sport, and Cultural Industries, and the Australia Council for the Arts.