Welcome to AllArtWorks Featured Artist Series!
1. What other profession is similar to being an artist and why?
Being an artist has a lot to do with using materials to create a comment about something I saw, and communicate my experience to others. In that sense, it is very similar to being a cook. A cook uses ingredients that are inspired by the season, a particular tradition, or a new combination of sources. There’s a harmony of flavors that is similar to the harmony of color in painting. There is technical knowledge that comes into play, and there is of course the satisfaction of 'feeding' your audience.
2. What’s the nicest thing you can remember someone said about your work, or an individual piece?
I was told my work resembles Philip Guston’s more than once. It is not obvious - but I’ll take it!
3. What’s one thing you’d like everyone to know about you as an artist?
I would like people to understand art is my livelihood.
4. What was the last piece of art that you saw that blew you away?
A piece by Faith Ringgold at her latest exhibition at the New Museum in New York - American People: a small sculpture of a woman in a green suit, in front of her is a pedestal with smaller wooden figures in an African tribal style and she’s holding a paper that says “save our children in Atlanta," and her purse is at her feet and all the very mundane and detailed contents (tv guide, credit cards), are spilling out. I just stopped in front of this piece, that was installed in the staircase, and I could not move.
5. What’s something you haven’t done but you want to do in art/painting?
A solo museum show with large canvases - 12 feet wide... That is my dream.
I like Ingres better because I relate more to the stillness and the quiet in his work than the full-on dynamics of Delacroix. So sorry Eugene! I love you both.
*The reason we ask about Delacroix and Ingres is because they were contemporaries with wildly different styles!
