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IDA APPLEBROOG: My name is Ida Applebroog.

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It used to be Applebaum, my maiden name,

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and then when I got married it was Horowitz,

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and I really did not want a name that came from

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either my father or from any other male member,

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and so I invented my own.

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Andrew, why don’t you line this...this girl.

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Line her up on the other end.

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ANDREW: Okay.

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APPLEBROOG: Try and connect the dots, Andrew.

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It’s the hand, the other hand.

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ANDREW: This is the other hand?

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APPLEBROOG: Yes. Can’t you tell?

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APPLEBROOG: It’s hard to [br]say what is your work about.

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But for me it’s really how power works,

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male over female, parents over children,

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governments over people, doctors over patients.

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Coming out of the ’50s, [br]women were pretty invisible.

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And it never occurred to me anything was [br]wrong, that’s just the way things were.

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I used to be very flattered [br]when a teacher would say to me

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oh you’re working is so interesting and good.

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It looks just like man’s.

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I have a real problem with feminism and art.

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I never liked the all women shows.

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It labels us, it ghettoizes us.

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I hate being labeled. I really hate being labeled.

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I came to New York in about ’74.

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And I didn’t know anyone in [br]New York. I was a New Yorker.

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I’d been away for a long, long time.

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So I came back and I really didn’t [br]know how to enter the art world again.

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I started to go back to my roots.

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Just doing drawings, and [br]drawing and drawing and drawing.

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And from these drawings I started making books.

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I took these books and I would mail [br]them out to people I did not know.

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I guess I was a nuisance.

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I use a lot of repetition.

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Then it becomes a filmic way of talking

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because as you put the same image after the other,

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even though it’s the exact, identical image,

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everyone sees something changing [br]from one image to the next.

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They’re just really bizarre [br]because I know what I’ve done,

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but they see actual gestures and they [br]see actual changes in the expression,

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which I’ve never put there.

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And that’s not the reason why I do repetitive,

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it’s just because it’s a performance

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and it’s sort of my way of animating [br]one image from one image to the next

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without the image actually changing.

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When I work with canvases I work [br]with three dimensional structures.

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And the structure was as important [br]as whatever it was I was painting.

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And I love the fragmentation,

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because my work has always [br]been about fragmentation.

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Even though the work is not comfortable work,

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I feel like the paint is absolutely beautiful,

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I love the coloration,

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and it’s almost like I’m creating [br]fly paper to sort of get you to…

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over to look at the kinds of brush strokes.

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It’s interesting looking enough [br]to draw the viewer into it.

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Then once they’re there,

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they’re sort of confronted with [br]material that they have to think about

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or just walk away from.

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I do a lot of work on murders and serial murders

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and rapes and ageism and sexism [br]and AIDS and child abuse.

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I live in this world, now this [br]is what’s going on around me.

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I can’t change that.

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The first time I ever did know I was an artist

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is when I was about five years-old.

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I wanted my father to draw something for me

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and what he drew for me was a stick figure.

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And I showed him what I can do

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and at that moment I knew I [br]was the artist and he wasn’t.

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And that was my first [br]recognition of being an artist,

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and in a way, that’s what these are.

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These are like the first recognition [br]of making marks with some material.

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And then you take whatever it is that you know

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and bring it down to its most simplistic level,

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and so it becomes a sort of [br]something that’s a part of you,

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that just pours out and pours out.

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Comes to the point where you [br]don’t even have to think about it.

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These things just make themselves.

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It’s a very calming activity to just sit [br]there and have the clay in your hands

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and just put out these things.

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They’re crude, they’re weird,

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but they’re wonderful to me.

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I’ve been in the art world for a long time.

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And yet when I do this,

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it brings me back to just the [br]basic way of how I might think,

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is who I am.

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—Andrew, you’re high on your side[br]if you can lower it to read his lip,

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that will be good enough.

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Someone once said this,

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with art it has to be either [br]too much or not enough.

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There’s so much coming out at one time for me,

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that even the sorting of them

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and trying to put it into order

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is something I’ve been unable to do.

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I like that. I like the feeling.

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I don’t consider myself a sculptor or a painter

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or a book artist or a conceptual artist.

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I just make art.

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These little pieces that seem [br]so ordinary and like nothing,

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little mounds of clay

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and if I place it suddenly on [br]my stage become monumental.

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And you photograph them any way you like,

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and you can zoom in on any [br]part of the body you like,

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and they become something totally different.

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Best part about these is I [br]really never know sort of

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what these things are going to morph into.

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I mean you become a hair dresser,

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a stylist, a photographer.

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So I’ll start with these little sculptures.

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I will have the single figure that I will [br]pose and place in front of the black curtain.

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Everything else has to happen [br]with the camera at that point.

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In terms of how many ways you can pose it.

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Every time you change something the [br]kind of portrait that I’m doing changes.

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This one is of the Venus de [br]Willendorf and we give her her hair,

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nice red curly hair.

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And we decided to change [br]the color of her hair where,

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much more of a grayish color.

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And we go closer.

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Looks like her tongue, sort of licking her lips.

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You know there are some that someone will look at

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and say I can’t stand looking at that.

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Makes me very uncomfortable.

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That’s good too.

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My work is not about beauty,

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and I know it does not hang [br]over a couch very well,

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matching the burgundy colors on the pillows.

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It’s not work one hangs over a couch in that way.

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But I make the work,

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and I make it because for me it’s necessary.

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Other people make work for them that’s [br]necessary in a whole different way.

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This is just my way.

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I was actually computer illiterate.

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There was no way I was going to [br]bother turning on a computer.

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I didn’t want emails,

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I didn’t want to have to deal with that.

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I was too old. And this was last year.

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So I start to go to the Apple workshop

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and took everything that they had [br]on the schedule in the calendar,

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and from that point on I found [br]someone who I’d known for a long time

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who was very good at working the computer.

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She started to work with me and [br]that’s how this all came about.

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SPEAKER: I added some yellow, both to [br]the black and then to the mid tones.

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APPLEBROOG: That’s very, very good.

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APPLEBROOG: So what we’re doing right now

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is we’re trying out the new paper to see [br]what it gives us in terms of the color.

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By trial and error we’ve [br]sort of come to this point.

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APPLEBROOG: Wow, so that’s the cream paper?

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SPEAKER: Right.

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APPLEBROOG: It makes quite a difference. [br]It’s like night and day here.

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SPEAKER: Yeah, I think it looks a lot richer.

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APPLEBROOG: It’s beautiful. It’s [br]like...it’s lit from inside.

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Uh, I’m going to...I need to [br]work on her braces right now.

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I will be doing some small editions

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but for the most part they will [br]be singling at eight pieces.

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I don’t feel that’s any [br]different from doing painting or

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sculpting or drawing or anything else.

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That’s just another way of making art,

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using the technology.

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For a while, because of aging and arthritis [br]and everything else that goes with it,

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I was very incapacitated.

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And that’s why doing these [br]sculptures was an incredible thing

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to happen to me at that point.

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So I ended up on this route.

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No matter what I see, no matter [br]what I do, it all feeds me.

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Anybody that creates, they’re [br]going to find a way to create.

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It doesn’t matter how.

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I can not believe there’s a reawakening [br]of every juice in my body at…

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at this point in my life, [br]which is incredible for me.