Jude Vivell and I visiting in Vermont, sumer 2018.
See Part I of the interview in the category "The Interviews." Thanks again to friend and fellow artist Jude Vivell of Soho, NYC for the interview!
What is your experience of being a woman artist? How do you comprehend and experience the new surge of feminism that the "Me Too" movement has brought our lives?
Women are innately scientific, diplomatic, philosophical, and defenders of justice. They are anything they aspire to be. I have great respect for the Italian Baroque painter, Artemisia Gentileschi. In the 17th century, as a youth in the Roman court, she challenged her tutor, and rapist, endured torture to prove her validity and won. In Florence, Artemisia succeeded in becoming the first woman admitted to the Academia del Disegno (Academy of the Arts and Drawing). My reality with the "Me Too" movement is visceral, after leaving home my nineteenth year, I was placed in a dangerous situation. Given more than my share of idylI and nurture, I seldom heard my parents raise their voices, and was never spanked. And that environment created a determined, willful, and adventurous youth.
More women are running for political seats than noted in history. Kindness and respect are not a political party, but a quality of being.
My father, Babbo, and I visiting the Italian grandparents.
In your life, the impetus to create is very demanding—taking form in both visual art and writing. What do you think is the main thing you want to say or express with each genre of your work?
I have always expressed myself by pen and brush. On learning to write, I wrote poems for my parents, "The cat, and the bird..." In my father's pride and zeal over his first-born, he copied the collection and passed it around the office. In my novel, I wrote to answer a question or ask one. I like to think I appreciate humor and use it when appropriate. Painting or writing is the marriage of meditation and inspiration. Artists make their world. We meet the populace at the crossings that bind art and writing to the human soul.
I want to know all about the space or spaces that you work in, how are they arranged? How do you maintain your workspace? Do you mind others entering them? Do you tolerate interruption?
Well, dear Jude, I don't have one. Mine remains in the drafting stage. My easel stands at one end of the living room. My writing desk is a small, round Gustavian eighteenth century table. My childhood home decorated with vibrant Persians, found me bent over my drawing pad for hours, as the folks watched the news or Masterpiece Theater. My parents contemplated sending me to RISD, though never mentioned due to the cost. We sent our eldest son Johns to RISD. I always have a notebook and pencil with me, because words are ever present.
I work best alone in the house but can handle activity. How do I maintain my physical space? In writing binders. Writing a novel is an academic venture. I want to connect. Life is a metaphor for everything we can't quantify. We are constantly transformed like the face of a cliff by moonlight. An artist's task is to give shape to the dark side, and to the elusive joy.
Thank you, Jude!
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