WEBVTT 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Elizabeth Murray: The whole thing is so scatological. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When you're painting, it's like so physical. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's really physical. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You're squeezing the paint out of the tube which is fun. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You're mixing up the paint. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's making something happen with a very sort of fluid material that is constantly 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 somewhat out of control, harnessing it somehow, harnessing that energy of the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 paint. I think that's the primary thing that painting is about. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 For a couple of years I've been working with cutting out shapes 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and kind of glomming them together. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You know, like basically making a zigzag shape and making a sort of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 rectangular shape and a circular bloopy fat cloudy shape and just putting them all 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 together and sort of letting the cards fall where they may. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I know the shapes are always referred to as cartoony. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And they are cartoony and bumpy and rounded 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and inflated and sort of wacky. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 All of these shapes are stuck on to each other in some kind of way. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Sort of like a weird fence or a weird lattice. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Another part of it for me is to use very intense color. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 With the color and with the shape and with the drawing inside of the shape 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 really it's just simply trying to make it work somehow. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There are so many different combinations of things. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's like being a safe breaker and you're listening to the- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 those movies where they've got their ear up against the safe and you are listening 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for the right click for the right cylinders to like drop down. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Sometimes it's felt really like that, like I'm just like painting 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and painting until the right thing happens. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I want there to be conflict and I 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 want there to be tension. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And yet somehow I want to make these very conflicting things live together, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and not just butt up against each other but really live together. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I do drawings inside the book. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And they're just kind of like warm-up to get my mind into it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You know like to give myself some, some place to start from, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that's really all they are. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It all starts with drawing. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think the thing I remember the most is, when I was little was, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the excitement of being able to draw something. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I loved to draw, and I did obsessively. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I guess I kind of realized that it was a skill that made me feel good about myself. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The Art Institute in Chicago totally changed my life. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There were people there, the likes of whom I'd never seen before, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in little Bloomington, Illinois. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I absolutely feel in love with that world. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But I think as much as I wanted to be an artist, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I wanted to be different the way they were different. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Because it felt like freedom. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Instead of being trapped in your little Pendleton skirt and your bobbysocks, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and your saddle shoes, you could wear big heavy black boots and put blue 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 makeup on and just, you know, say what you thought. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You didn't have to be a nice lady anymore. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But the teachers seemed to be there to teach you that you had no hopes 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and no prospects, and being an artist was one of the most impossible things in the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 world. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And you'd better realize that this was a life of suffering, struggle, and you 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 weren't going to be any good anyway. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I had to really find a way to believe in myself. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You know, I think I did it by looking at the paintings in the galleries in Chicago. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I would go everyday and I would look at 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 this particular DeKooning painting called Excavation, and I would almost like 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 do a dance with it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Like, oh, he went this way 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and oh he went that way, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and oh he smudged this and feeling 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like the depth of that painting. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When you look at it from a distance it 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 looks like this roiling boiling pot of paint kind of. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Except the order is in that paint. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And when you go up to it you begin to see 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like the layers of it, and I sort of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 deconstructed the painting 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I would go back down to my painting 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I would try to do it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I never got that good, but it made me 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 start to feel my body and my mind. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 My mind letting my arm make the decision. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And when you start to get the control then your feelings can start to flow. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And once that starts to happen, it's like you know, you get on 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the track and the trains starts moving. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I just realized this was going to be my life. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I really need time by myself, and I always have. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I think when I was a kid I actually liked to play by myself a lot. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And that's not saying I don't need people because I do. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I love the quiet of walking into my studio 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and looking at my work and then painting, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and it just feels like of a piece with my whole life in a way. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Having my kids has made me part of the world as an artist and as someone 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who works in a lot of isolation it's really made me deal with life in 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a way that I absolutely wouldn't have. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's made me have a life, and take my mind off myself. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That's what they've done for me. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They'll be more honest with me than anybody else will. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They'll tell me how they feel. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And not everybody does that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 DAISY: Which one do you want to talk about? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 MURRAY: What, honey? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 MURRAY: This one, yeah. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, what I want to know is, I'm trying to decide whether to put this in the show. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I want to know, just tell me exactly what you think of it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I just made some big changes in it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The drawings are different but this is what sort of comes out from the drawings. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 SOPHIE: I like it. And I think if you- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 MURRAY: Of course what I wanted you to say was it's great, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's good, don't touch it, put it in the show. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 DAISY: But Mom, even if you couldn't, even if you were going to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 leave everything the way it was you couldn't because it's not like 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 nothing except for that and the chair and the door, it's nothing, and the sun, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 none of it is done. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think, I think that it all just- it isn't a bad thing you just, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the surfaces aren't finished. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 SOPHIE: Are you bored with it? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 MURRAY: No, I'm very interested in it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 DAISY: Because you don't ever leave things like this. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 MURRAY: Yeah, no, I'm going to just keep working on it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 SOPHIE: But maybe that would be interesting not, just leaving it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 MURAY: No, I can't do that. Daisy's right. You're right, you're right, you're right. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 MURRAY: I think that what I have to do is take out the bloopy forms and re- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and just, maybe they will come back and maybe they won't, but- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 MURRAY: I think I got to take these out for awhile. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 SOPHIE: It might just be nice to see what it looks like when it is just, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you know, blank. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 DAISY: It might be that they are too much like the curves in the smoke. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 SOPHIE: Oh, yeah! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 MURRAY: Yeah but then, yeah. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 SOPHIE: I love the smoke. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think the smoke is my favorite thing. I think I like this red and the pink. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 MURRAY: But what about the marks inside the roof tops, the triangles. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It just feels like, it's very descriptive. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The triangle then becomes the roof, you know what I mean? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's a representation. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 SOPHIE: I mean that's what it is. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 MURRAY: Yeah, ah-hah. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 SOPHIE: That's the chimney, that's the smoke coming out of it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that's you know, the little people inside of it- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 MURRAY: Be quiet! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 SOPHIE: Of course there is room for interpretation I mean that's what your 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 work does, but you know there is the little people inside that are talking, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that is what they are saying inside are little speech bubbles. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 MURRAY: Cartoons, speech bubbles. Ohh, ok. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 DAISY: I thought it was a path. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 SOPHIE: You thought it was a path? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 DAISY: Hmm-mmm. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 SOPHIE: Oh, it could be a path. See Mom? We still don't know what it is! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 MURRAY: Ok, that's really good. That's really helpful. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think every artist has this, you leave it at night and you come back in 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the morning and it's gone, like it looks awful. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And that's sort of when I think, "Why did I go on this journey in the first place?" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 What am I doing this for? It's just, it's so painful." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And then you know, the next morning you're back at it bright-eyed and bushy-tailed 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like trying again. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 MURRAT (SOT): Ok, so let's move this painting over here. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 MURRAY (SOT): No, don't even hang it up. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 My fantasy is that I would get to a certain point where I would know 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 what I wanted to say, where you were either on this straight line or a road, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you would never swerve. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You would just do your work then. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And that's not the way it is at all. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You know, get off the path and then get back on again for a while 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and you trip along and suddenly you stumble and then you're back on again. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I don't think that process ever ends. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 MURRAY (SOT): And that height is good. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 More over to the right, center it on the wall. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 MURRAY (SOT): Let's switch this with this. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 MURRAY: When I really know certain things are working for me, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they make me laugh. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Like oh, this is really silly. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I just enjoy that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I think for myself it's part of what gets me through. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think it's really very similar to how a 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 kid plays. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You know, it's like you are in your playroom 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and you are just picking up these 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 different shapes and throwing them on the wall and then putting them together 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and seeing what kind of a game you can make out of them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think that's pretty explanatory of what it feels like to make them, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and very close to the kind of feeling that I want to get out of them, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I think I want you to get out of them too.