Mary Heilmann: Abstract Painting | Art21 "Extended Play"

A couple of summers ago,

I was doing this painting called "Heaven."

It was a freely-painted,

gestural, non-objective painting.

I'm thinking it's my post-modern version
of abstract expressionism.

And I'm reading the biography of de Kooning,

about how poor de Kooning sat in a chair
for years,

trying to make a painting come out right.

And I'm painting on my fake abstract expressionist,

doing exactly the same thing:

Looking at it.

Going, poking around at it a little bit.

Sitting down.

And I'm reading the book and I'm thinking,

"Get a life, de Kooning!"

And then I'm thinking,

"Oh my gosh, this is hard to do!"

And I stopped at that point.

[LAUGHS]

When I started painting,

my painting was coming out of sculpture,

and I was using acrylic paint almost as a
sculptural material.

I would paint straight up and down

and then straight sideways,

covering up the brushstrokes.

Not sanding them out,

but just trying to make it
not expressionistic at all.

Then at a certain point

I put on my masking tape and
paint all over the place,

so that you'd have this hard-edge thing
and this gestural thing

going on at the same time.

That was a major breakthrough.

You get both.

You'd get it both ways.

You get Albers and de Kooning
in the same painting.