Lin Price Interview
Michele Lesko interviewed Lin Price at her home, sitting in the kitchen, visiting the garden & studio, where Price can see for miles across a beautiful landscape of hills.
Michele Lesko: Why are you an artist Lin, and when did you feel you were considered a professional artist?
Lin Price: I don’t exactly know why, I’ve just always been drawn towards images and making images, since I was a child. It is almost impossible to be a professional artist in a small upstate town surrounded by an area that is marked by rural poverty. It would be a lot to put on your art to try to survive that way. Happily, I’ve been able to make a living through teaching, which I enjoy. It frees me up to explore the ideas, themes, and painterly concerns that I’m interested in, and I don’t feel I have to try to match the color of someone else’s walls and sofa.
ML: Would you tell us about your studio; how its functionality helps your daily process.
LP: My studio constantly goes through varying states of functionality! I only know that when I suddenly can’t work anymore, it’s time to clean up the clutter!
ML: Will you talk a bit about how your latest paintings came to be?
LP: Often they are in triptych form or the panels are divided in half, so they become almost separate paintings, yet they relate to each other in some way. The newer ones are all rooted in simple human or animal gestures that reflect a particular circumstance or way of existing in the world. I try to use all of the formal things about painting, line, color, shape, texture, form, etc., in playful and unusual ways.
ML: Your work appears figurative, yet surreal in that the people in them are so completely self-contained. Do your paintings tell stories or are they more like poetry?
LP: My recent paintings are part of an ongoing series that features an "Everyman" and the difficulties of his daily mundane existence, his dreams below the surface, and his hidden eccentricities. I believe this is something that many people in our times can identify with. These paintings are rather idiosyncratic. I attempt to execute them with empathy and a sense of humor, sometimes using intense color for areas of respite, or as a nod to the color field artists. They are both poetic and semi-narrative.
ML: What artists influence you, and how?
LP: There is a huge, long list, but lately I have been looking at Philip Guston again, and I’ve discovered Honore Sharrer. I look for imagination in art .
ML: What, in your day-to-day, influences you and inspires you?
LP: Mostly, it is the day-to-day that influences me…the countryside that I live in, animals, dreams, reading, conversations with friends and family. The day-to-day becomes transmogrified in my paintings.
ML: How do you capture or retain those fleeting moments before you get them onto canvas and how do you keep motivated when things get tough in the studio?
LP: I don’t always capture or retain those fleeting moments…they are slippery little devils! When you are a painter, you are always dealing with the paradoxical nature of the craft …the pleasure and the struggle. But I have a rather blue-collar attitude towards painting, and I try to ‘just get to work’ and not worry too much about things like inspiration.
ML: Do you find that it helps or hinders you to think about audience?
LP: It would hinder me to think of an audience as I’m making work. I paint because of my own curiosity, because I have an idea, or I want to see something. Hopefully it connects with other people, but if I allowed the notion of an audience into my studio while I am trying to work, it would feel very phony to me, unauthentic.
ML: If you could own one piece of world-famous art, what would you choose?
LP: This question is hard! Andy Warhol said something about the best art anyone could make would be owning a piece of land and not ruining it. More and more, I see the beauty of that idea!
ML: How have you handled the business side of being an artist?
LP: I’ve found that honesty and professionalism are important qualities in all aspects of being an artist.
Michele Lesko: Why are you an artist Lin, and when did you feel you were considered a professional artist?
Lin Price: I don’t exactly know why, I’ve just always been drawn towards images and making images, since I was a child. It is almost impossible to be a professional artist in a small upstate town surrounded by an area that is marked by rural poverty. It would be a lot to put on your art to try to survive that way. Happily, I’ve been able to make a living through teaching, which I enjoy. It frees me up to explore the ideas, themes, and painterly concerns that I’m interested in, and I don’t feel I have to try to match the color of someone else’s walls and sofa.
ML: Would you tell us about your studio; how its functionality helps your daily process.
LP: My studio constantly goes through varying states of functionality! I only know that when I suddenly can’t work anymore, it’s time to clean up the clutter!
ML: Will you talk a bit about how your latest paintings came to be?
LP: Often they are in triptych form or the panels are divided in half, so they become almost separate paintings, yet they relate to each other in some way. The newer ones are all rooted in simple human or animal gestures that reflect a particular circumstance or way of existing in the world. I try to use all of the formal things about painting, line, color, shape, texture, form, etc., in playful and unusual ways.
ML: Your work appears figurative, yet surreal in that the people in them are so completely self-contained. Do your paintings tell stories or are they more like poetry?
LP: My recent paintings are part of an ongoing series that features an "Everyman" and the difficulties of his daily mundane existence, his dreams below the surface, and his hidden eccentricities. I believe this is something that many people in our times can identify with. These paintings are rather idiosyncratic. I attempt to execute them with empathy and a sense of humor, sometimes using intense color for areas of respite, or as a nod to the color field artists. They are both poetic and semi-narrative.
ML: What artists influence you, and how?
LP: There is a huge, long list, but lately I have been looking at Philip Guston again, and I’ve discovered Honore Sharrer. I look for imagination in art .
ML: What, in your day-to-day, influences you and inspires you?
LP: Mostly, it is the day-to-day that influences me…the countryside that I live in, animals, dreams, reading, conversations with friends and family. The day-to-day becomes transmogrified in my paintings.
ML: How do you capture or retain those fleeting moments before you get them onto canvas and how do you keep motivated when things get tough in the studio?
LP: I don’t always capture or retain those fleeting moments…they are slippery little devils! When you are a painter, you are always dealing with the paradoxical nature of the craft …the pleasure and the struggle. But I have a rather blue-collar attitude towards painting, and I try to ‘just get to work’ and not worry too much about things like inspiration.
ML: Do you find that it helps or hinders you to think about audience?
LP: It would hinder me to think of an audience as I’m making work. I paint because of my own curiosity, because I have an idea, or I want to see something. Hopefully it connects with other people, but if I allowed the notion of an audience into my studio while I am trying to work, it would feel very phony to me, unauthentic.
ML: If you could own one piece of world-famous art, what would you choose?
LP: This question is hard! Andy Warhol said something about the best art anyone could make would be owning a piece of land and not ruining it. More and more, I see the beauty of that idea!
ML: How have you handled the business side of being an artist?
LP: I’ve found that honesty and professionalism are important qualities in all aspects of being an artist.
IthacaLit: Lit with Art, A Journal of Literature & Arts © 2011-2019. All individual works copyrighted by their authors. All rights reserved. Credit IthacaLit. ISSN: 2372-4404