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Susan Rothenberg: Emotions

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I think I care about beauty, but I don't go for it.

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I hope it sometimes might be in there.

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I think maybe more in terms of a beautiful moment than trying to figure out what beauty is.

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I hope that my paintings can be emotional moments for people.

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I just know that it takes a certain emotional lock in for me to commit to a painting.

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And a certain timidity at first, and then the second painting, and then I might go back to the first painting,

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And then force some more bravery on it,

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And say, "Oh, this is okay. You can handle this."

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I have given myself full range of the painting.

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I don't limit myself in anyway. I know I'm not a landscape painter. I know that. I know that's sombody else's job.

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And I don't think I'm a still life painter.

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But I would like to think that I can paint portraits, which I have not successfully done.

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I'd like to think that the whole thing is wide open and that I don't have to abide by any rules, anymore.

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But I was happy to when I was young, because it looked like a very radical world.

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And I really wanted to be part of it.

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We had to put that dog down, because she was in kidney failure.

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And I was holding her before the doctor did that, and I wanted to make a painting about it.

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How it felt, to remember her by.

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And I've had the arm... Everywhere you see this darker tone, I've had the arm there. [chuckles]

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I had it like this, like this, then I could not figure out where the feet should be,

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Then, I couldn't figure out where the arm might be coming of the body.

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And finally, I decided to stop worrying about it. All I wanted was that dog held there,

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And my sneakers grounding the bottom of the painting.

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I just felt so sad, and so... I felt the loss of this dog quite a lot. So I just try to recover her for a moment in the painting.

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It's completely personal.

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And I could see that the hand's not painted well enough... That one is, that one isn't.

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[WOMAN, OFF SCREEN] Which one?

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[ROTHENBERG] The left hand is just fine. It's doing what it needs to do.

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This one is blobby. [laughs]

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It needs some wristbones, and some fingernails, and some definition.

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In the paintings where it's there--the tenderness--I work for it.

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I'm not afraid of it. If I could put my bleeding fucking heart in there, I would. [chuckles]

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But as it is, it's her and my arms and my shoes.

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You know, in the most all-embracing kind of send off that I could give her.