WEBVTT

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ROTHENBERG:
If you don't know what you're doing

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out here in the Southwest
in this kind of isolation,

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if you don't understand that
you're supposed to have work

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and a purpose to every day,

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you're going to float off
into the stratosphere

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or move very quickly
back to an urban center.

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[ scraping ]

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The first year was a very hard
adjustment just to light--

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just to the amount
of light here.

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So I did make modifications
in my studio plan

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to cut out some light

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and to reproduce the New York
situation of floodlights.

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I love red.

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I use a lot of red.

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I use innumerable tubes
of white.

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Uh, I try to dirty down
most of the colors that I use

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rather than use them
in their pure form.

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You squeeze a tube of color
and you see this bright green

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and it's just frightening.

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You know, it's this pure color
that somebody mixed up

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and you just have to
immediately get after it

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[ laughs ]

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and, uh, make it, you know,
fight with orange or something.

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I tend to make all my paintings
looking down.

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It's just a point of view
that I've established

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since living here.

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I think you don't have that
in the city,

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but living on the hills
and ups and downs and stuff.

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And then being on a ladder
so much,

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I'm starting to have
this kind of natural way

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of not looking at something
but down on it.

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Say there was a dead cow
in the creek once--

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which there was--
mysteriously.

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Um, I saw the cow
from about 40 feet above.

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And that painting became
"Galisteo Creek."

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So I've taken
what I learned outside

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and brought it
into these interiors.

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And now that's pretty much
what I want to do with them.

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And the studio painting
became extremely green,

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but that was out of
the preceding body of work--

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the "Domino" paintings--

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where I felt free to take green
right out of a landscape context

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into any operation I cared to.

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Green became
a very exciting event.

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It felt fresh.

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Red-- red is just like
part of my internal palette

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a... a warm, warm tone.

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And then my other favorite deal
is dirty white,

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because...

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it would be
too bright and colorful.

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[ laughs ]

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And it's not my nature.

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There's got to be traces
of 15-year-old turpentine

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in those cans.

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Every painting carries through
the same brushes

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and the same moves
as the last painting.

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But again,
if I need a clear color

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and I don't see that any of
my cans are going to give me

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anything but, you know,
the dirty down,

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I'll start a new can

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and actually once in a while
wash a brush...

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so it will be free
of old colors.

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I was a very social kid up
through college, past college.

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And, uh, no, and I don't think
anybody that knew me

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in high school or college
would ever have thought that I

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would have been
successful at anything

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much less spending
80% of my life alone

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in a white room...

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[ laughs ]

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making work. It's... it's odd.

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It was a wonderful world
in the early '70s.

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Artists worked with dancers.

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It was very mixed up.

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It was very interdisciplinary.

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I performed with Joan Jonas,

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and that was so much fun.

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And I had studied painting. 
I was interested in painting.

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When I got a studio
and first started painting

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and then I started getting
a little attention for my work

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and I had a show
and I sold a painting.

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So then I started making
more paintings,

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trying to find out my identity.

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And when I stumbled
on the horse,

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I went, "Okay, this can be
my Jasper Johns Flag."

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This can be nothing to me,
because I don't like horses.

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I can draw a line through it
and make it flat.

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I can take all the things
that I've learned

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in the last couple years

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and negate painting 
as much as possible

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in terms of illusionism 
and shadow

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and composition
and stuff,

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and that was my run
from '73 or '74 to '80.

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And that's what I guess I made my reputation on, 
because they were acceptable

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as paintings and 
acceptable as, um...

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not going backwards.

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But most artists really wish
they had a series

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where one painting would lead
to the next painting,

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and it would be
a variation on it.

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And that's what happened
in my early career-- the horses.

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But the paintings
are more of a battle

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to satisfy myself with now and
I do not have a sense of series.

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This, as you see here,
these are two snake paintings.

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Two paintings that are about

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this idea I had called
"meaningless gestures."

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And two paintings
that are a reflection

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of my domestic situation
in the house there.

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And each of them,
the second painting

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seems to complete the series,

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which is weird,

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because I'd like to get
a hold of something

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and be on that idea
for a couple of years at least.

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But that's not happening
at the moment.

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I'm able to work through

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periods when there's no real

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important idea in my mind.

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I can draw;
I can learn to make a clay pot.

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At least I find some reason
to work just about every day.

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Because the block
is the terriblest.

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It's just terrible.

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It's terrible to have a couple
of months where you can't...

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You're disheartened, because
you think everything stinks.

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You just do.

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It happens.

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If you're not in your studio
physically most every day,

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you've denied the possibility
of anything happening.

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So even if you're reading
a detective novel,

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you should be there.

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And then sometimes you just

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throw your book
down on the floor,

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march off to a painting

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and say,

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"Ah, something's wrong
here and I'm, you know... " Pull the table over,

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throw my painting shirt on
and get going.

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And sometimes hours pass
that I'm working.

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But I almost always do something

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before I go in the house
to watch the news.

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I mean, even if I put

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a wrong stroke on something or change a contour,

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and that's
the only stroke I did, I do it

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just to have done
some work that day.

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[ bird cawing ]

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No, I think I'm remarkably lucky
to be on this piece of land.

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It's not that I think
any special thoughts.

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It's just...

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I walk usually
about 45 minutes.

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It's just completely
part of my pattern,

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you know, and sometimes I walk
fast with exercise in mind and sometimes I amble.

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It's a wonderful place to walk.

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There's three or four
different terrains to walk in.

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It's meditative.

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I'm always looking at the ground to 
look for a beador an arrowhead

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or what seems to be
two pieces of the same pot.

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If you see...

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I think that piece goes there.

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That one definitely goes there.

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So it's a small piece
of a

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11th- or 12th-century pot.

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I keep looking at this painting
and thinking, why can't I just nail it--

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just make it be whatever
it's supposed to be and move on?

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So it's constant reviewing

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and I can't say what
makes me say that's wrong,

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that stays, that goes,
this should be longer.

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It's, uh, it's sitting there
and looking,

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and going, "Uh-uh,

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I have to do something."

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And it had to be done
with color.

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One's been bugging me for--
it's been around the studio for

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four or five months
on and off, reworked.

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And I kept thinking,
"Oh, it's okay.

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I'm not interested any more
in doing this, so it's okay."

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But it simply... wasn't.

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It's closer I think now
to where I can leave it.

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It's very few paintings
that come fast and sharp,

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like the small snake painting in
there was two days, three days,

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and I don't want to touch it.

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It is what it is
and it's... it...

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It's, uh, I like it.

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I'm not really
a "less is more" person, but

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I figure...

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a hand on a table
suggests a human being.

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I don't want to get too literal
about things.

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I want the viewer to be able
to do the work, too.

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And I find a dragonfly beautiful

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and a snake beautiful.

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Yeah, and many things beautiful.

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But it's not a... a...

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a goal to try for it or expect to achieve it
in my own work.

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I'm trying for,
let's take truth...

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[ laughs ]

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some kind of truth
about some kind of thing.