Artist Wayne Thiebaud In Conversation With Art Critic Kenneth Baker At The UCD Alumni Center

Wayne Thiebaud is an iconic painter and part of the esteemed faculty at UC Davis. Regarded as a master painter, he is one the few who succeeds in expressing what Kenneth Baker, art critic for The San Francisco Chronicle, describes as the purpose of painting which “…summarizes inexpressible feelings of experience”. In front of a maximum capacity audience with more waiting in the wings watching on monitors, the two engaged in a witty and informative conversation that I will not soon forget. The conversation the two shared at the UC Davis Alumni Center on November 18, 2010 was a privileged insight into the thoughts of Wayne Thiebaud and his perspective on painting, its purpose, form, content, and context. Thiebaud begins by asserting that choosing to be a painter is “a clear vocational disaster” and that painters should “be prepared for the worst and hope for the best”. The remarks draw laughter but speaks to the competitive and anonymous world of the artist (or designer). Thiebaud is the exception. His reputation may precede him but he is phenomenally down to Earth and displays a self-realized understanding of his fortunate career. There is a calmness and sincerity in him that remind me of his paintings. He went on critiquing paintings of other artists and his remarks were like a raw edition of a textbook coming to life. His knowledge and perception detailed the paintings and enabled the audience to see them through his eyes. His keen observations are a rare glimpse into the mind of a master artist and a unique chance to learn how to look and evaluate a work. For one painting of a figure he instructed the audience to raise their hands to cover the head of the figure and look at the body. Without the head the arms became unrecognizable forms and he explained how the head gave context to them enabling us to recognize them as arms. When referencing a landscape painting he emphasized proportion and scale and detailed how the spectrum of focuses employed created space and atmosphere. Out of every subject touched upon, I found his introspective comments the most useful and profound. Like when he said “I do a lot of painting…and a lot of bad painting” it was comforting to know that even the most prominent aren’t perfect and that it is “not a sin to use accidents”. He gave advice on originality and finding your own voice in the art world as he had done so successfully and rationalized that it doesn’t need to be extraordinary, just different or as he stated, a “new visual species”. When asked how he became a realist painter he quickly replied that “it comes to you as much as you go to it” which resonated with me in my quest for identity in a sea of artists and designers.
His answers, as well as his demeanor, are quick and concise and reminded me of Charles Eames in Design Q & A in the way he is confident in his ideas and perceptions of not only the world, but art, design and himself.

Image courtesy of NGA Classrom