October 21, 2024
I'd known Elizabeth Sher for years although I hadn't been touch with her for a long time. Then, I got a note from her about her upcoming exhibit at Oakland's Mercury 20 Gallery. Its title would be "Bound, Unbound, Rebound." She sent me an invitation and the timing was good. Earlier in the year, I'd interviewed fellow Mercury 20 artist Mary Curtis Ratcliff at the gallery. Maybe I could follow this up with an interview with Sher.
     She liked the idea and we settled on a studio visit. It would be a nice place for our conversation. Studio visits with artists never fail to be a special kind of treat, and my visit with Sher at her studio in Oakland was no exception.
    We'd spent several minutes just chatting as I was savoring all her art, poking into flat files and asking questions about this piece and that one when the moment came when I realized I better start recording....

Richard Whittaker:  I take it you went through art school. [yes] Where?        

Elizabeth Sher:   I started college in the East and didn’t like it. Then I transferred to UC Berkeley in 1962 where I got a BA in Art in ’64. Then I left and worked in Washington for a year and missed the whole Free Speech thing.

When I’d left UCB, I did not know one person who smoked marijuana. In 1965, I returned in September to go to grad school and the world had changed here. Anyway, I went to grad school from ’65 to ’67 at UC [Berkeley], and I also studied etching with Gordon Cook who taught at night at the San Francisco Art Institute. He was a mentor to me. And at UC, Elmer Bischoff was a mentor - along with Karl Kasten and George Miyasaki.

I also had a wonderful experience with David Hockney. He’d just come to L.A. and once a week, he came up to teach a seminar at Cal. He was fabulous. He was so smart and great. So many of the professors were bitter. Not the three I mentioned, but a lot of them just felt like they weren’t getting their share. They were just grumpy and very sexist. They could never figure out which of us was which, and why we didn’t want to sleep with them—which never even occurred to us. Right? We were were hardworking art students, and it never occurred to us that we would be sleeping with these old men. So they just assumed we were lesbians.

RW:   That’s interesting that many of the art professors were bitter. I mean in the Fine Art world, what is enough?

ES:   That’s always true.

RW:   Recognition is hard to come by. Some, a very small number, get embraced by the museums and so on…

ES:   Well, you know, we all talk about it. I’m in the Bay Area Women’s Legacy Project (BAWALP). Jan Wurm is running it now. Edith Hillinger started it, and there were 20 of us.

RW:   Edith is wonderful. I remember when she was starting that.

ES:   We started out asking what should we do with our work? It ended up that we were doing these books. We started with one book in 2000. Each of us wrote something and had a page about a career and a painting. Then we decided we would do it by decades. So there’s the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, the aughts, and the teens is coming out soon. In each of those we wrote about that period, picked a painting and a photograph of ourselves. So it’s a record and  we’ve been putting them in libraries, museum bookstores and places like that.     

RW:   That’s good. You know, I interviewed Edith twice.

ES:   I know. She’s fabulous. I shared a studio with her for a little while. Anyway, we had all these ideas, and a website where we’d put our work. Then we started doing these books. It’s been very good because they’re in the Library of Congress - and a lot of other libraries. It’s a way of saying,  “We’re here. We were here. We’re still here."

RW:   Well, that’s good to hear. So changing gears, let me ask you something about your roots. When you go back, where do you think this life of art you have lived started?

ES:   Well, I always liked making things as a kid. When I was at camp, you know, at eight, nine, ten.

RW:   What kind of things?

ES:   Anything - jewelry, belts, lanyards. And then in kindergarten, I met my best friend on the first day, and she always knew she wanted to be an artist. Then I realized I never even thought of that.  I mean, around my house, my mother had artwork, but she was a musician, and my dad was a lawyer. So Music and symphony was more in my family.

So I was friends with her in kindergarten. We were inseparable and I thought, “I like that. I want to be an artist, too.” So it was because of her that I realized that’s what I wanted to be.

RW:   It’s hard to imagine this carried through for you from that moment. But I think it’s a mysterious thing when people know from an early age what they want to be when they grow up, and they actually carry through. There must have been something that was already in you.

ES:   Oh, yeah, I was already making things. I just didn’t have the concept of that being a career. I was always making things, but my high school didn’t really have much of an art program. So when I went to college…

RW:   Can I interrupt? I just wonder if  there was anything you made before you left high school that stands out for you - something particularly satisfying?

ES:   No. I just kept making things. We had some kind of art in high school, but it wasn’t a very strong program.

RW:   Did you ever go outside your house, out in the yard, and fool around… like did ever make mud pies, or anything like that?

ES:   Not mud pies, but my mother liked to arrange flowers. We had a garden. She was always bringing flowers in, and at Christmas, she would spray all the leaves silver and make decorations. She had a lovely sense of style, and I saw that. Do you know what I mean?

RW:   Sure.

ES:   She was very into clothes, and I got that, too. So there was that sort of visual aspect to my life.

RW:   I find this intriguing because of my own experiences when I was a kid. Did you ever look at something and think “it should be a little different,” or “this one’s just right”?           

ES:   Yes, I always had that. Always had that. I mean, with knickknacks, I’m always arranging them. We were offered some of Bella’s [Feldman] smaller sculptures when she died.  And JP, who had been with her for 26 years—he was like a son to her—is in charge of her art. And at the memorial service he said to those of us who loved her so well for so long, that we could each have a piece. Now, some are gargantuan and he wasn’t offering those. But she made all these “war toys” and small pieces. So we all got them. I got two. We could pick the one we wanted. Right? I live in a condo about five minutes from here, and have a little house on the Russian River. So, I took one up there and kept one here and had to go through rearranging all the things, you know.

RW:   Sure, I relate to that. Now I remember how I felt about the taillight on the 1952 Lincoln. It wasn’t quite right, but on the ’53, they got it just right. I mean, that one was perfect, you know?

ES:   Right, I know. I’m totally that way. I’m a totally visual person.

This is funny. So, our house in Berkeley—the one we used to have—there were a lot of steps to the front door, and we had a railing put in. It was painted warm black. Then it started chipping a little. Meanwhile, up the street at the park, kids were writing graffiti on the fences, which were shit brown. So, my husband decided he would paint the graffiti out whenever he saw it. And when he went to the paint store, the man was so impressed, he gave him the shit brown paint, which was very sweet.

So anyway, I came home after he’d painted our railing, and I said, “Oh, my God! You painted it with the shit brown paint!” And my husband said, “No. It’s the same color as our house.”

I’m like, “No, it isn’t.”

“The guy at the paint store said it was!”

So I brought the two paints out because they were close, you know, warm black and shit brown. Not that close! But it was close. And they couldn’t see it. I mean we all see colors differently.

RW:   That’s interesting, having this kind of keen eye.

ES:   And also being an artist, it gets better and better. Do you know what I mean? Your whole life you’re looking at art and looking at colors, and going to museums and looking at everything, so it becomes a strong muscle.

RW:   You mentioned that Elmer Bischoff was a mentor to you at UCB. I have a feeling he must have been a good mentor.

ES:   He was incredible and I’ll tell you why. I didn’t grow up being a great draftsperson and when I arrived at Cal, they weren’t about teaching you how to draw. It was all about push/pull.

RW:   What do you mean “push/pull”?

ES:   Abstract. So the professors had all learned to draw, and then moved from that into abstraction. But they were only teaching abstraction, which in my opinion, was a mistake. I had a class and it was all about lines going this way, and lines going that way. That’s all it was. But I did learn composition this way. However, I had a painting class with a model (with Elmer), and a painting class without a model. I was always good with color and composition. He loved the awkwardness of my style and encouraged me to continue that, because I was putting a ton of energy into my art. I mean, that was what I came to grad school for, and that’s what I was focused on. Not anything else. And he responded.

RW:   How lucky for you.

ES:   He was great. And a wonderful man. He was fresh. He wasn’t bitter.

RW:   Well that’s an interesting issue—the reality of how many artists are not happy. I could say the same of myself, I suppose. I’ve never been embraced by the art world, so to speak, although appreciation and support have come my way – mostly through artists and art librarians, God bless them And again, what is enough? It’s a deep question.

ES:  That’s always true.

RW:   I once heard Laurens van der Post give a talk about Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest. It was his last, or next to last.. He spoke about what what he thought its message was, and put it this way:  “You can go only so far in art. If you want to go further, you have to turn towards religion.” I found that pretty powerful. And it reminds me, I was going to ask you where you are with Judaism?

ES:   Well, my family was very reform. Very. They belonged to a temple and my father worked for some Jewish organizations to get a lot of anti-Semitic stuff out of textbooks. I mean, we celebrated the holidays. But we just weren’t very religious.

My husband was brought up a red diaper baby. He’s from New Jersey. He’s very culturally-Jewish, but not religious. I’m not comfortable with any organized religion. I do yoga. I like meditating, but I’m not a Buddhist. I believe in spirituality, but I’m not into any to any specific sets of beliefs.

RW:   Here’s a story that’s connected; it must have been in the late 80s. There was an article in Artweek - “What Is Art” - really dense and postmodern-esque – and I found it so full of BS I decided to just to start asking regular people “What is art? myself” I started at the Oakland Museum. I’d hold out my mic and say, “Excuse me, sir. I’m asking art lovers – people who come to the museum – what they think about art. Would you be willing to talk with me for a couple of minutes?…”  

It’s amazing how, if you show up with a microphone, people fall right in line. So I asked, “What is art?” And people would talk. After awhile, I realized the language I was hearing had a strong spiritual flavor. This was consistent. And I thought, "Wow. God is still alive in art in regular people's hearts." Then I tried an experiment. I asked if they thought art had a spiritual element and people pretty much always agreed. They often put it as a basic thing somehow. Then I asked, “Do you think art has a religious element to it?” This was a total no-go zone. Nobody liked that word.  

So, I’m bringing this up because you did use the word “spiritual.”

ES:   Absolutely.

RW:  Okay,  you have a spectrum in  your art making and I wonder how you regard its underpinning - or even any metaphysical basis - for the art you make? What’s the drive of it, so to speak?

ES:   Right. Well, I don’t think anybody chooses to be an artist. I mean, you might have fun painting on Sunday, and they may be beautiful. But the drive to do it - the need to do it is something you don’t choose. Like I can’t choose to not make art. I don’t even know what I’m going to do with it all, but I can’t not make it. It’s my center.

So when I made a film, since I didn’t know what I was doing, I kind of threw out all the rules I’d learned. I brought that freedom back to making painting as well, which let me be more my authentic self.

I think I try to be as authentic as I can making my art. That’s not a thinking thing. It's a making thing. There’s a great meditative quality. When you’re really in the zone when you’re making art - I mean, it’s your center. Lulu [M. Louise Stanley] says when it’s going well, it’s better than sex. She always said that.

The IRS used to audit me all the time because my husband’s a lawyer. In the beginning, I was running my business out of my savings account. So the rule is, if you make it available to sale, you don’t have to sell; you just have to make it available. Some artists are professional, but they’re afraid to show. Their art is never good enough. It’s never ready enough. The same with musicians. But for me, the final step is to put it out to the public.

So, I try to do that with my art - with my films and my studio art. I put it somewhere. In general, it’s more so that people who don’t know me, can have a response. That final responding is part of the art process, for me.

One thing I think is amazing is that art can reach across millennia. People look at art from here, there, and everyone - and respond to it in really meaningful ways. I think it’s so wonderful that art does that. That’s one part.

The other part is that, as an artist (not counting commissions) I make whatever I want. And sometimes somebody buys it. What a crazy thing! How amazing is that? I make exactly what I want, and someone wants it. That’s like a miracle of art. And it’s not because it’s an investment, I mean isn’t that amazing? [yes] I don’t know if I answered your question.

RW:   Yes, very clearly—that you didn’t choose this.

ES:   No. In fact for a long time, I thought I could do lots of other things. I could be a buyer for a department store. I love clothes, I’d be good at that. I have very strong executive function and thought well, I could do all these other things. But I never did.

Then I realized no, I can’t do all these things. I can only do this. And I can teach.

ES:   My husband is a terrific photographer, but he said “I couldn’t stand all of the rejection.”

RW:   I remember Richard Berger saying about one of his exhibits at a small gallery in SF, “Sometimes I ponder why I spend my best energies in this remote place.”             

ES:   And the other thing is the Bay Area is really a terrible place for artists. It’s a wonderful place to make art and be an artist, but it’s a terrible place for the business of art.

My niece is a painter in Brooklyn and she’s doing very well. It’s very good art. It happens also to be salable. It’s not junk. It’s beautiful, and she’s trained and all that. But so much more is going on there, you know, in New York.

When we were first married - this was Nirvana, right, the Bay Area? Who would ever leave? We were married in ’67. If I’d said, “If I’m going to make it as an artist, we have to move to New York.” He would have said, “Sure.” Phil’s from New Jersey. But that never even occurred to me.

RW:   And here we are. I want to ask you about your I.V. Films. I mean, you taught at CCA - painting and drawing. Right?

ES:   And I taught “Introduction to Media Arts” and seminars. I was never in the film department, though. This was a core class, a fabulous class. We started when there was no technology, but we made it work. There was a lecture and three labs. I taught one of the labs for a number of years. It was really fun.

RW:   So tell me about I.V. Films.

ES:   I. V. Studios. Well see, in the beginning, when the IRS came around they said you need to get more business-like. I was teaching. I showed him all the galleries. And the guy would say “Well, what hours are you open for business?” So I got a business checking account. This was like the late ‘60s,  early ‘70s. And I named my company “Kiss My Productions.”

RW:   [laughs]

ES:   But when I started making films, I thought well, I should have a more business-like name than “Kiss My Productions.” So, “I.V. Studios.” It could mean, “Interesting Videos,” “Interesting Visuals.” And I thought it was a good name; it doesn’t spell out what it is.

RW:   I like it because of the metaphorical thing – “intravenous.”            

ES:   That was my main thought, but I thought it could also be these other things.

RW:  Okay. Let’s go with that main thought. What I get is “We’ve got a patient who is not well, and we’re trying to put some good medicine in there.” So is that a match for you?

ES:   Kind of. I mean, it was going to be direct. So what happened was… Do you know who Joe Reece is from Target Video? [no]. So he taught with me at the Academy of Art. He’s a neon sculptor and film/video maker. And the administrators at the Academy of Art where we taught were pigs.  

RW:   Pigs?

ES:   Pigs. They were just awful to everybody. They’d just fired Joan Brown and Gordon Cook, and the job came up. So I went to Gordon, because I didn’t want to step on any toes and he said, “Take the job. He’s already fired me.” So that was one of my first jobs after the Richmond Art Center. Anyway, Joe was teaching sculpture.

RW:   You were connected to the Richmond Art Center?

ES:   I taught classes there in the beginning - just a class here and there. That was like my first teaching. But this was my first job at a “college.” So Joe was a sculptor doing neon. Then he got into conceptual art with video and a port-a-pack. Like he slept for 40 days on the side of… He did all this stuff. Then he got into punk rock music and video, and told me I should get with the media program and make a film.

I said, “No. I’m a painter and print maker. I’m not going to do that.” And just at that time, my son was not interested in toilet training and someone sent me a book called, How to Toilet Train Your Child in Less Than a Day. I thought “Wow, how militaristic!”

So somehow I decided to call the Navy in San Diego, because I needed to see what a training film looked like if I was going to make one. I got some young kid and he sent me all these training films. I was teaching drawing and CCA had a 16-millimeter projector, so my students and I watched all the training films.

RW:   Oh my gosh. [laughs]

ES:   So then I wrote a script. I had a friend who was a nurse and she was going to play the mother. My neighbor’s daughter was already toilet trained—I didn’t want to traumatize anybody—she was going to play the child. So I went to the head of Film and I asked if I could borrow the equipment. He said, “Well, you don’t know how to use the equipment, so “no.” But if you put up a note and make it sound funny, students will help you. Then you can use the equipment. So I did.

I set up my whole kitchen, got everything ready. It was a Saturday morning. Two guys come with the equipment, look around my kitchen and say, “We gotta go, but here’s the equipment.”

My husband knew how to read a light meter, so we shot for three weekends. Then I put this film together and I showed it to David Heinz, who was the head of the department. He said, “You made a training film, not a satire.”

We talked and light bulbs went off and I’m like, “Oh. I get it.” Right?

RW:   Wow.

ES:  I didn’t know any rules of film making at all, but I went back and just chopped it up. I had flash frames and jump-cuts, and I made this film. I decided to have a showing at Mills. You could rent the theater there. So I got some other people I knew who made short films, and made a little program.

Meanwhile, I was getting disgusted with the art world. I didn’t like the begging, going to a gallery, and I made some mistakes. Anyway, I loved the idea that with film, people could pay ten bucks. It wasn’t a failure if they didn’t buy anything, because there was nothing to buy. And could show a film anywhere. You could promote it, and make it fun. Whereas if you had an art show, there’s a hierarchy. Having it in the coffee shop is way down there. A museum, up here. But in those days, with all the clubs, you could make your own film, promote it any way you wanted, and get a big audience.

Anyway, people laughed in the right parts of my film, and I was ecstatic. But I was still making art and I was always teaching. Then I had a second show of  artwork with a gallery in La Jolla, and it was an awful experience - start to finish, and I thought, “Okay, that’s it.”

I had kids. I was teaching and, to promote both art and film, was too much - this was pre-Internet. I didn’t show any art for two decades, I just made films.      

RW:   And you’ve made quite a few.

ES:   A lot. First I made a bunch of 16-millimeter shorts - maybe six. Then I got a video camera - a big old orange thing with a portapak - and started interviewing artists. It was mostly people who I felt were interested in communicating with the public, as opposed to making esoteric art that I liked, but the general public didn't get. So it wasn’t my wheelhouse.

RW:   By “esoteric” art you mean art that you needed to have an MFA to get?

ES:   I loved that art, too. But I want these artists, in a sense, to speak for me, speak my philosophy. It would be their philosophy, but it was also my philosophy. So, I picked artists more like that. Then I put together a video magazine. I did it for three years. It had interviews, quirky shorts that I made - and fake ads that I made.

RW:   That’s funny.

ES:   It was an hour, and was on VHS. But nobody had a VHS player yet. So the whole thing was very conceptual. There was a circuit for short films that you could sign up for and go around to colleges where they would show these on campus and the kids would come. I also had shows of my I.V. magazine. I was like the queen of the Midwest. They would send me from place to place, and I would show my films and answer questions.

RW:   What years are we talking about here?

ES:   Probably ’82, ’83, ’84, like that. Then I decided I should make a feature.

I can write a book on how not to make a feature. I found out later that Spike Lee’s first feature is not the one we see, and that Woody Allen used to redo a third of his film with new actors - all these things. So I was not so different from other people. But I was so freaked out by the whole experience that I decided I would only make shorts and documentaries after that. I would never make another feature film - and I didn’t.

The only thing that made me angry about it, is that I listened to other people and didn’t make the film I meant to make. It was a film in three parts, and everyone said you can’t do that. Of course, Jim Jarmusch did one right afterwards. So, I made an overarching thing on top of it that was supposed to bring it together, and it made no sense.

RW:   It’s how you learn things, right?

ES:   Exactly. And knowing that, I would have been able to make a much better one. The whole experience was so traumatic that I didn’t make any more feature films.  That was at the end of the ‘80s after my I.V. magazine.

You can see I like process, right? All my things – it’s never just one thing. So, when the computer came along, it made all these processes more possible and that’s when it finally worked.

RW:   Yes. Having a Mac Plus and a scanner made doing a magazine possible for me.

ES:   Right. I designed a class for artists to use the computer at CCA. That was a lot of fun. I made a whole bunch of things to show them what I was doing - using the computer with paint and drawing. And I went and got a gallery in San Francisco. This was during the dot.com.

RW:   Okay. What do you mean you “got a gallery?”

ES:   I went around and a galley took me on. It was Toomey Tourell at the time. Now it’s Nancy Toomey. I was with them for a few years.

RW:   Where are you today?

ES:   Well, I made a film called “Rituals of Remembrance” around 2017 with Maggie Simpson. “It was about “death positive.” And then I made a film about Bella Feldman. [Bella, Bella]
[ Bella Fedlman in her studio - from Bella, Bella ]

RW:   Yes. I think its premier was at the Berkeley Art Center. You and Bella and I had a conversation about it right afterwards. The place was standing room only. Wonderful. That film was what, 40 minutes?

ES:   Thirty minutes, like the film with Maggie Simpson. I made a lot of 30s because that was apparently a good length for colleges.

RW:   Would you say what that film “Rituals...” was for you?

ES:    Maggie had been my teaching assistant, and we made a short film called Stalls. She helped me with that. She shot part of a film I made about Penny Cooper, the criminal defense attorney. We were close. Unfortunately, she had a brain aneurysm and died last year just before turning 49. Two kids, a husband. She was a great person.

But anyway, we decided to make this film together. It was kind of going to be her journey, and we made it in three parts. The first part looked at how we don’t deal with death very well in the United States. We sweep it under the rug. People are afraid to talk about it and so on. But it hasn’t always been that way, and it’s not like that everywhere. So that was the premise.

[Maggie Simpson Adams]

The first part was about the Victorians. They were so into death. They wanted to know every detail. They had mourning jewelry—all kinds of stuff. So the first part was about that.

Then the middle part was about other parts of the world. But we didn’t have a lot of money, so we only went to Mexico for Dia de los Muertos. Then the third part was about artists today working with “death positive” pieces. Artists, visual artists.

So, Maggie had done a film for her Master’s, which she got later at CCA. Then we made a film called Stalls, I mentioned. It was a three-minute film: How to Get Into the Women’s Public Toilet in Three Easy Lessons, and it got into a million film festivals. We went to Berlin, and all over with this film, because it was short, funny and easy to program. Right?

RW:   Okay.

ES:   Then we decided to make this Rituals film. It was our film. Not my film - like her relative had been murdered in Mexico. So we had things about rituals that didn’t happen here, but happened in her little town in Mexico.

RW:   Is she Hispanic?

ES:   No. Her aunt just lived there. She went were down there. Then for her Master’s, she did this really fun piece - which I helped her set up in L.A. She made a Victorian room - she loved Victorian stuff -with plants, and wallpaper, and there was a coffin lined with beautiful quilted satin. And there was a video set-up, so that you could experience death. You could hold a lily and lie down in the coffin, and it would take a picture of you. You could have that, if you wanted, or you could just look at it and say, “I’m not doing that.”

RW:   Now where was this set up?

ES:   At CCA. It was her Master’s thesis and later at a gallery in L.A.

RW:   So it’s a Master’s exhibit and that’s for the degree?

ES:   Yes. George Kuchar came by. She knew him, and he loved it. So that piece is in our film Rituals of Remberence. Then Dr. Amalia Mesa-Bains - do you know who she is? [no] - anyway, we had her talking about it, and a couple of pieces that she’d done. She’s Chicano and amazing. We had various artists working with "death positive." So that was the third part, and it’s 30 minutes.

RW:   Okay. And you made that relatively recently?

ES:   Around 2017-18, something like that, and I haven’t made a film since then. Well, since I made Penny and Bella. It’s a big, big job. You know, John Waters, one of my heroes, isn’t making so many films anymore, either.

RW:   Did you ever meet him? [yes] He made Hairspray?

ES:   He made tons of films. It’s just because of the computer and how easy it is. Getting them out there is all different now. Anyway, I’ve been really focusing on art. But for this show, I made a silly three-minute video of me wandering around with a bag over my head, banging into things and falling down with cartoon music and sound effects.

RW:   So, what possessed you?

ES:   Well, it’s such a big tote bag [points]. I thought wouldn’t it be fun to get in it? And actually, in my feature length film, I had one of the stars carrying it around as her tote bag. But I’d always wanted to do something with it. It’s called, Just Another Weekend. It’s been shown in a couple of festivals. I’d always wanted to do that and thought well, since I’m having this rope show, I’ll make it now, and I have an editor I work with.

RW:   You’d always wanted to do the walking around and falling down? 
  

ES:   No. I always wanted to do something with me and the bag. Like, I thought maybe I could get in it. I just thought it’d be fun to play with it and thought well, now’s the time to make the little film to go with my ropes.

RW:   Before we started recording, you were showing me some of your rope drawings and earlier drawings and paintings, which are wonderful. Now, you made a comment that maybe there was something unconscious going on here, maybe something about being restricted or something. Do you remember your remark?

ES:   Yeah.

RW:   What do you think?

ES:   So, I was starting to expand out into the canvases from all of these. Then I just started making a whole other kinds of work for all those years, you know, not ropes. So going back to them, just like looking back—it happens at my age, a lot of people look back. So, I’m revisiting the ropes with a new rebounding feeling of even more, like whatever I want to do to them, I can do to them—that kind of freedom.

So the sense of freedom first came from the film making. Then I made all the different art I’ve made all these years. So now I’m looking back and taking that sense of freedom as I move forward. So the subtitle of this exhibit says it – “Navigating Forward Through the Lens of Reflection.” And that’s kind of what I’m doing. So, I’m referring to my earlier work and then redoing it in a now-way.

RW:   So this sense of freedom. How do you experience yourself today after this long art journey?

ES:   Well, I’m going to preface it by saying I found this wonderful article and gave to my students called, “When Artists Grow Old.” It was artists, about five of them – not necessarily Picassos  - but artists, men and women, who’d had some recognition, and were still doing their work. Some were in their eighties. They talked about how they were still driven to make art. and even though they might have less energy, they were much more focused and couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen in the studio that day.

That was basically what a lot of them were saying. Nobody was saying, “I’m miserable.”  They were all still making art, men and women. It was a great piece. My young students loved it, too. So, being older and having taught so many years - 40 in college - I’m very secure in who I am. I mean, as in the making art. When I’m here making art, I’m in it. I’m me. I’m set. And I’m happy that I’m still active and okay. You know? So looking back at this work has been a lot of fun because it’s the past and the present coming together. Not quite in a circle, but kind of.

Another project I’ve been doing this year that’s been really fun is doing a drawing a day. I started with this beautiful book of French paper that I found on Fourth Street.

Let me say, I’ve been to a bunch of residencies. My first one was in 2008. I couldn’t go before because I had little kids. I couldn’t go later because the video equipment was too bulky. Then finally I could go. I went every other year until the pandemic, and then I made one of my residencies at my house on the [Russian] river.

I would just go there. The idea was not to have a plan. Every day I would go to the little studio they gave me and make. It was so freeing. It was fabulous. I made smaller things, and sometimes I shot some video. Then, when I’d come home, I would put them all up on the wall. Some would turn into more evolved pieces. When I’d have a show, I’d also show a wall of these drawings. So this project has been like that.

RW:   That sounds like a journey towards wholeness.

ES:   It’s been really fun. I find it just freeing. I feel like a little kid. You know, they don’t say “Oh, this is a bad drawing!” Right? So the daily drawing project is like that.

RW:   Right.

ES:   I’ll show you. [retrieves] This is “Book Two.”  And I’ll have a nice box made for it. But I think it’s too hard to show it this way. Look at this great paper.

RW:   My gosh. Fabulous.

ES:   So sometimes they’re about my day.

RW:  [I look through several drawings] These are wonderful. So you’re really able to let it be what it wants to be. I mean, I can see that freedom here. Oh, look at that last one!

ES:   That was because we went traveling in Norway. That’s The Scream.

RW:   Yeah. I recognize it. They’re fun, and I can see the joy in it.

ES:   That’s great, because with a lot of my work - I kind of have an idea of where I’m going.

RW:   You’ve had a very rich life in the arts. And you’ve traveled a broad spectrum.

ES:   Which is bad.

RW:   You mean, from the professional packaging point of view?

ES:   Yeah, exactly. I work in series. So, I’ve had to find a way to talk about this, because like who are you? Some crazy person? Why does this work like this? That’s why I love Mercury 20 Gallery [Oakland]. You can do whatever you want. I decided the metaphor here is of a musician, because they can make different albums, all different styles. Linda Ronstadt did so many styles, but you can always tell it’s her. So, that’s what I think of me. I can do all these different series through my life, but you can always tell it’s me. ∆