Extremes ~ Evelyn Markasky

Celery

What is art? Is it something I make to sell, is it a statement, is it a feeling... is it all those things? Is it some of those things, sometimes? Is it one of those things all the time? Why do I do what I do?

Sometime to straighten out my thinking I read Andy Warhol or about Andy Warhol. Right now I'm reading 'I'll Be Your Mirror, the Selected Andy Warhol Interviews.'
This is from an interview with David Bourdon 1962-63. (p. 7)

B: A few years ago, Meyer Schapiro wrote that paintings and sculptures are the last handmade, personal objects within our culture. Everything else is being mass-produced. He said the object of art, more than ever, was the occasion of spontaneity or intense feeling. It seems to me that your objective is entirely opposite. There is very little that is either personal or spontaneous in your work, hardly anything in fact that testifies to your being present at the creation of your paintings. You appear to be a one-man Rubens-workshop, turning out single-handedly the work of a dozen aprentices.


W: But why should I be original? Why can't I be non-original?

He always reminds me to be just who I am.
And that some days I work with vegetables and somedays are more technical...
I like thinking that is extreme. It doesn't mean that I'll do that, but it shakes me out of my safe- boring-box and alters my thinking just a little bit.