WEBVTT 00:00:08.276 --> 00:00:09.640 WALTON FORD:​​ I started out just painting these things 00:00:09.640 --> 00:00:10.720 that looked like Audubons. 00:00:10.720 --> 00:00:12.120 They were like fake Audubons, 00:00:12.120 --> 00:00:15.080 but I twisted the subject matter a bit, 00:00:15.080 --> 00:00:17.520 and got inside his head and tried to paint it 00:00:17.520 --> 00:00:19.920 as if it was really his tortured soul, 00:00:19.920 --> 00:00:21.600 as if his hand betrayed him and he painted 00:00:21.600 --> 00:00:24.160 what he didn't want to expose about himself. 00:00:24.160 --> 00:00:25.600 So I did start doing those 00:00:25.600 --> 00:00:27.440 and it was very important to me then 00:00:27.440 --> 00:00:28.960 to make them look like Audubons, 00:00:28.960 --> 00:00:30.840 to make them look like they  were a hundred years old, 00:00:30.840 --> 00:00:32.800 to make them look like he painted them, 00:00:32.800 --> 00:00:34.920 but that they escaped out  of him without, you know, 00:00:34.920 --> 00:00:38.520 almost like a picture Dorian Gray, but you know, 00:00:38.520 --> 00:00:40.000 a natural history image. 00:00:42.920 --> 00:00:46.200 The whole print project seemed  like the natural fruition 00:00:46.200 --> 00:00:48.004 of all the other stuff that I do. 00:00:51.800 --> 00:00:52.440 Look at that. 00:00:52.440 --> 00:00:53.960 <v Peter>Yeah, it's good.</v> 00:00:53.960 --> 00:00:54.935 <v ->Beautious.</v> 00:00:56.240 --> 00:00:59.080 All the folios of natural history prints 00:00:59.080 --> 00:01:00.840 started out as watercolors that were done 00:01:00.840 --> 00:01:02.640 in the field or done from nature, 00:01:02.640 --> 00:01:04.000 and they ended up as prints 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:06.440 that were bound and sold by subscription, 00:01:06.440 --> 00:01:08.640 and it makes sense to make them the way 00:01:08.640 --> 00:01:10.260 that Peter and I make them. 00:01:10.847 --> 00:01:14.640 <v ->We've been working on these  prints for over five years, 00:01:14.640 --> 00:01:17.880 and the idea of doing the prints in this size 00:01:17.880 --> 00:01:19.840 was that we wanted as much as possible 00:01:19.840 --> 00:01:26.935 to mimic the Audubon Double  Folio Birds of America book. 00:01:29.680 --> 00:01:34.240 And we wanted to work in  some of those same techniques 00:01:34.240 --> 00:01:38.231 that Audubon would've used to make those prints. 00:01:41.440 --> 00:01:46.520 All of our prints are done  with six or seven plates, 00:01:46.520 --> 00:01:48.520 and separate colors on every plate 00:01:48.520 --> 00:01:51.480 and probably much more saturated color 00:01:51.480 --> 00:01:53.327 than Audubon would've ever used. 00:01:58.015 --> 00:01:58.735 (gears creaking) 00:02:00.560 --> 00:02:04.480 That's a part, I think, of  Walton's way of picking up 00:02:04.480 --> 00:02:07.960 what Audubon did, but also changing it 00:02:07.960 --> 00:02:09.400 and distorting it a little bit, 00:02:09.400 --> 00:02:12.907 kinda turning up the irony a little bit. (laughs) 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:15.800 <v Walton>Wow.</v> 00:02:15.800 --> 00:02:16.900 <v ->That was good.</v> 00:02:16.900 --> 00:02:18.760 <v ->Yeah, that's juicy!</v> 00:02:18.760 --> 00:02:19.851 Psychedelic. 00:02:20.438 --> 00:02:21.664 This looks cool. 00:02:24.160 --> 00:02:25.720 The registration looks pretty good. 00:02:25.720 --> 00:02:26.840 <v ->That's good.</v> 00:02:26.840 --> 00:02:28.560 Yeah, that's encouraging 'cause 00:02:29.920 --> 00:02:32.280 we're starting to get the feel of it, I think. 00:02:32.280 --> 00:02:35.193 <v ->It's a pretty nice print,  like generally just for. 00:02:36.640 --> 00:02:38.160 <v Peter>That blue is really</v> 00:02:38.160 --> 00:02:39.669 more intense, isn't it? 00:02:39.669 --> 00:02:40.504 Yeah, it's nice. 00:02:40.504 --> 00:02:41.120 (Peter laughing) Dig it! 00:02:41.120 --> 00:02:41.920 I like it. 00:02:41.920 --> 00:02:42.734 Yeah, it's in. 00:02:46.280 --> 00:02:48.560 When I was a kid I loved to draw. 00:02:48.560 --> 00:02:51.040 And I was a little kind of amateur naturalist, 00:02:51.040 --> 00:02:54.757 identifying birds and catching  snakes and keeping weird pets. 00:02:56.120 --> 00:02:58.009 This museum was like heaven to me. 00:02:59.120 --> 00:03:03.440 I think that the dioramas here are works of art. 00:03:03.440 --> 00:03:06.840 For an artist it was really great  that those animals didn't move. 00:03:06.840 --> 00:03:11.440 I could look at them in a way that  you can't look at animals in the zoo 00:03:11.440 --> 00:03:13.455 or animals on nature shows. 00:03:13.937 --> 00:03:16.257 I could really see how they were put together. 00:03:22.428 --> 00:03:25.991 Passenger pigeons were the most numerous bird on the planet Earth. 00:03:26.371 --> 00:03:28.748 A single flock could have 2 billion birds in it. 00:03:33.404 --> 00:03:35.000 There were such huge numbers of these birds 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:36.329 that it was frightening. 00:03:36.937 --> 00:03:38.493 When they land in forests, 00:03:38.493 --> 00:03:40.493 they break great trees in half. 00:03:42.301 --> 00:03:45.537 And the crap would fall like snow the whole time. 00:03:46.551 --> 00:03:48.802 And it was thought that they were inexhaustible, 00:03:48.802 --> 00:03:51.043 so they were hunted like mad. 00:03:57.534 --> 00:03:59.158 This is a series of photographs 00:03:59.158 --> 00:04:01.661 that was taken in 1898. 00:04:02.160 --> 00:04:04.160 I like doing these little research trips. 00:04:04.160 --> 00:04:06.840 It’s like play-acting for me  to pretend to be one of these 00:04:07.680 --> 00:04:11.845 English natural history guys that  are both heroes and villains. 00:04:12.831 --> 00:04:14.831 There's an image in here 00:04:14.831 --> 00:04:18.194 of a full grown male passenger pigeon 00:04:18.194 --> 00:04:22.354 very beautifully posed, very proud bird. 00:04:22.354 --> 00:04:25.000 I think it sort of foretells disaster. 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:27.282 It looks like because it's under lit, 00:04:27.282 --> 00:04:30.000 it's already a ghost or a monster or somehow 00:04:30.545 --> 00:04:32.545 There's some dark, dark undercurrent 00:04:32.545 --> 00:04:34.811 to this photo that's very beautiful. 00:04:35.881 --> 00:04:38.394 There's many insane kind of like narratives 00:04:38.394 --> 00:04:40.000 that have to do with the passenger pigeon. 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:42.524 They were so numerous that 00:04:42.524 --> 00:04:45.771 everyone who saw them was sort of blown away by them. 00:04:45.771 --> 00:04:47.334 And I have some quotes that I ended up 00:04:47.334 --> 00:04:48.334 putting on a painting. 00:04:48.981 --> 00:04:49.628 Here they are. 00:04:50.440 --> 00:04:53.811 This is one of the earliest descriptions from 1637. 00:04:54.272 --> 00:04:57.079 "Millions of turtle doves on green bows, 00:04:57.079 --> 00:05:00.358 "which sat pecking of the full right pleasant crepes 00:05:00.358 --> 00:05:02.568 "that were supported by the lusty trees, 00:05:02.568 --> 00:05:06.172 "whose fruitful load did cause the arms to bend." 00:05:08.760 --> 00:05:11.120 The big thing I’m always looking for in my work 00:05:11.120 --> 00:05:13.280 is a sort of attraction-repulsion, 00:05:13.280 --> 00:05:17.640 where the stuff is beautiful  to begin with until you notice 00:05:17.640 --> 00:05:20.880 that some sort of horrible  violence is about to happen 00:05:20.880 --> 00:05:22.720 or is in the middle of happening. 00:05:22.720 --> 00:05:25.020 The original impulse is to make a sort of like, 00:05:25.020 --> 00:05:28.040 nasty little underground  cartoon on a really large scale. 00:05:28.040 --> 00:05:30.680 I had a lot of fun sort of making these vignettes. 00:05:30.680 --> 00:05:32.240 They’re satisfying all their lusts 00:05:32.240 --> 00:05:34.800 and all their cravings and all their crazy desires 00:05:34.800 --> 00:05:36.240 like as they are going down, 00:05:36.240 --> 00:05:38.560 and to me there is just some  sort of black humor in that. 00:05:38.560 --> 00:05:41.160 There is like these guys - the eggs are coming out 00:05:41.160 --> 00:05:43.400 and as they are coming out they are being stolen. 00:05:43.400 --> 00:05:46.920 And then it's fun to have them void on each other 00:05:46.920 --> 00:05:48.786 and to have them murder each other. 00:05:49.520 --> 00:05:51.640 The little one is falling out of the nest. 00:05:51.640 --> 00:05:55.634 It’s a dark humor, but it  makes me chuckle when I'm doing it. 00:05:55.991 --> 00:05:57.893 There is this sort of Hudson River, 00:05:57.893 --> 00:06:00.165 kind of beautiful landscape. 00:06:00.165 --> 00:06:02.972 And then over here there's some indication 00:06:02.972 --> 00:06:05.783 of maybe previous destruction, 00:06:05.783 --> 00:06:07.757 branches that have broken down. 00:06:07.757 --> 00:06:10.828 And here come the huge flocks, you know. 00:06:10.828 --> 00:06:12.567 And this is the scary part, 00:06:12.567 --> 00:06:14.579 the sort of weather system moving in 00:06:14.579 --> 00:06:16.165 of these enormous flocks of birds. 00:06:16.857 --> 00:06:19.123 When I started doing sketches for this 00:06:19.123 --> 00:06:22.751 and I realized that the angle I was gonna paint it at, 00:06:22.751 --> 00:06:23.965 and the sort of way I was gonna paint it, 00:06:23.965 --> 00:06:25.878 it would almost seemed like it was just floating, 00:06:26.507 --> 00:06:29.381 like a sort of strange dream-like, 00:06:29.381 --> 00:06:31.581 slow-motion kind of falling. 00:06:31.581 --> 00:06:34.273 And that dream-like quality gave me all this room 00:06:34.273 --> 00:06:36.200 to pack it with all this narrative 00:06:36.200 --> 00:06:39.600 that seems to happen sort of independent of the fact 00:06:39.600 --> 00:06:41.258 that this thing is crashing down. 00:06:45.640 --> 00:06:47.593 The painting I’m working on now is uh, 00:06:47.593 --> 00:06:50.760 it’s a MONKEY BANQUET basically. 00:06:50.760 --> 00:06:53.320 And it’s part of a series that has to do with 00:06:53.320 --> 00:06:58.036 this mid-19th century  explorer, Sir Richard Burton. 00:06:58.560 --> 00:07:01.960 One of the stories that I was reading about him 00:07:01.960 --> 00:07:03.960 that stuck with me was this one about 00:07:03.960 --> 00:07:05.920 these monkeys he kept in his quarters 00:07:05.920 --> 00:07:08.240 when he was a young British officer 00:07:08.240 --> 00:07:10.000 and I’m gonna read a quote: 00:07:10.640 --> 00:07:13.520 “He gathered together forty  monkeys of various ages 00:07:13.520 --> 00:07:16.040 and species and installed them in his house 00:07:16.040 --> 00:07:20.519 in an attempt to compile a  vocabulary of monkey language. 00:07:21.840 --> 00:07:26.240 And one tiny one, very pretty,  small and silky looking monkey 00:07:26.240 --> 00:07:27.929 he used to call his wife.” 00:07:29.040 --> 00:07:31.520 I painted the wife individually, 00:07:31.520 --> 00:07:33.600 and I named it ‘The Forsaken.’ 00:07:33.600 --> 00:07:36.960 She sits in a tree and she  looks all heartbroken and bereft 00:07:36.960 --> 00:07:39.575 because she’s been abandoned by her lover. 00:07:42.280 --> 00:07:45.400 “They all sat down on chairs at mealtimes 00:07:45.400 --> 00:07:47.320 and the servants waited on them 00:07:47.320 --> 00:07:52.120 and each had its bowl and plate with  the food and drink proper for them. 00:07:52.120 --> 00:07:54.120 He sat at the head of the table 00:07:54.120 --> 00:07:58.600 and the pretty little monkey sat  by him in a baby’s high chair.” 00:07:58.600 --> 00:08:00.109 That’s just too good. 00:08:00.109 --> 00:08:03.548 "He had a list of about 60 words 00:08:03.548 --> 00:08:05.352 "before the experiment was concluded." 00:08:05.440 --> 00:08:09.000 And to me this, this is just what I’m looking for 00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:10.360 when I’m doing all this reading. 00:08:10.360 --> 00:08:15.120 I do a lot of research and this  thing has almost everything in it. 00:08:15.120 --> 00:08:19.160 There’s an erotic kind of fascination to it. 00:08:19.160 --> 00:08:21.400 There’s something that strikes me as humorous 00:08:21.400 --> 00:08:25.326 in a quintessentially super-eccentric British way. 00:08:30.464 --> 00:08:32.374 When these paintings leave my studio, 00:08:32.374 --> 00:08:34.917 a lot of times I don't ever get to see 'em again. 00:08:35.840 --> 00:08:38.734 I painted this picture about two years ago, 00:08:38.734 --> 00:08:41.677 and I was happy that I still liked it 00:08:41.677 --> 00:08:43.603 'cause a lot of times you come back to 00:08:43.603 --> 00:08:46.635 work you did a while ago and can't bear it. 00:08:46.840 --> 00:08:49.800 The drawing I did first is of this elephant, 00:08:49.800 --> 00:08:51.640 this glorious elephant. 00:08:51.640 --> 00:08:55.080 And then I divided it in  a sort of Mondrian fashion 00:08:55.080 --> 00:08:56.880 into all these different - 00:08:56.880 --> 00:09:02.440 into a very, what I thought an elegant,  abstract composition of rectangles. 00:09:02.440 --> 00:09:05.600 And in each rectangle I decided what to do. 00:09:05.600 --> 00:09:08.520 The idea of dividing it up  into bits had to do with 00:09:09.160 --> 00:09:12.040 the parable about the blind man and the elephant, 00:09:12.040 --> 00:09:15.520 where each blind man grabs a hold  of a different part of the elephant, 00:09:15.520 --> 00:09:17.040 and the one that grabs the tusk says, well, 00:09:17.040 --> 00:09:18.120 I know what an elephant is: 00:09:18.120 --> 00:09:21.680 he’s smooth, hard, kind of like polished wood. 00:09:21.680 --> 00:09:24.960 And then one grabs the leg  and says, no, no, no, it’s… 00:09:24.960 --> 00:09:28.080 an elephant is like a tree,  it’s like a tree trunk. 00:09:28.080 --> 00:09:32.400 And the tail, the guy says,  well, it’s like a paintbrush. 00:09:32.400 --> 00:09:36.080 And the guy who has the  nose says it’s like a snake. 00:09:36.080 --> 00:09:41.160 So I had this idea of having the  elephant divided up into bits 00:09:41.160 --> 00:09:45.600 that wouldn’t identify it as  an elephant all by itself, 00:09:45.600 --> 00:09:48.480 and have each one of those  things framed individually. 00:09:48.480 --> 00:09:52.120 And then have a different species  of bird inhabit that little frame, 00:09:52.120 --> 00:09:53.720 and do his thing within it. 00:09:53.720 --> 00:09:54.867 And it’s like he doesn’t, 00:09:54.867 --> 00:09:57.000 he doesn’t see any of the other elements 00:09:57.000 --> 00:09:59.440 so he can’t put the whole picture together. 00:09:59.440 --> 00:10:01.862 It’s too vast for one person to picture. 00:10:03.120 --> 00:10:06.416 I wanted to make sort of the  largest watercolors ever. 00:10:07.360 --> 00:10:10.440 Ultimately that becomes fun all by itself. 00:10:10.440 --> 00:10:12.602 It took about nine months to paint. 00:10:14.720 --> 00:10:18.680 All of this makes it sound  like I have this great kind of 00:10:18.680 --> 00:10:20.680 intellectual reason for making these things, 00:10:20.680 --> 00:10:23.920 but ultimately I want to paint a sexy monkey, 00:10:23.920 --> 00:10:28.600 and I want to paint a big, huge  you know elephant with an erection. 00:10:28.600 --> 00:10:29.271 Why? 00:10:29.271 --> 00:10:31.160 Why do I feel the need to make these things? 00:10:31.160 --> 00:10:34.000 Why is it that you want to make  them as disturbing as you can? 00:10:34.000 --> 00:10:37.157 Or make them as violent and  out of control as you can? 00:10:38.080 --> 00:10:41.760 I like kind of overwrought emotion, melodrama, 00:10:41.760 --> 00:10:44.080 very 19th-century modes of communicating. 00:10:44.080 --> 00:10:47.240 I’m not a minimalist, I’m a maximalist. 00:10:47.920 --> 00:10:50.640 The more you throw at it the better. 00:10:50.640 --> 00:10:52.760 It’s a sort of a wasteland out there. 00:10:52.760 --> 00:10:54.800 I want to do rich things, 00:10:54.800 --> 00:10:57.604 I want to make rich dishes and put them out there.