| Interview with Barbie Watts Gen: What inspires you to draw? Barbie: Images in my mind that weave themselves into my visual world. The compulsion to express that vision makes me draw, paint, print, write, play music, or be the actress. I've done all these things for the last several decades as habits, hobbies, experiments, entertainment and meditations...Sonoma County, cats and 9/11. Gen: What is the medium you are working with now? Barbie: I always am working in pencil and watercolor. I have been working in warm glass fusion and intaglio printing. I enjoy the printing so much I bought an etching press. There's so much to discover in that medium for me. Gen: When did you first start drawing? Barbie: As soon as I was able to spell the alphabet. I suppose I might have been drawing sooner, but I think my parents were trying to keep my priorities straight by keeping the alphabet the only thing I drew for a while. Gen: What artists do you admire if any? Barbie: So many...I studied art history to try and figure out what made an artist successful in his/her own lifetime. (I'm sold on the prolific theory - the more volume, the higher the odds you'll make a return on your investment.) I have a favorite artist for just about every medium; then, by period or type of art: Rennaisance, Mannerist, Baroque, Abstract, Surrealist, Impressionist...on and on. You get the idea. I admire the work of Donatello, Van Der Meer, George Bellows, Russel Flynt, Bonnard, Klimt, Paul Klee, and the great showmen, Dali and Warhol... hmmm... O'Keefe...R. Crumb... Stanley Mouse, Von Bode. I ramble. Again, you get the idea. Gen: When you start drawing, do you go from start to end or break in between? Barbie: I work on multiple pieces at the same time to keep the ideas fresh. It keeps me from overworking a piece. Also, gives me something else to work on when I need painting to dry or plaster to set. Gen: What kind of surroundings do you need to keep the inspiration entirely up? Barbie: I've needed to overcome my surroundings and just do it. I don't want to use my environment as an excuse to not do my art. |
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