Interview with Elizabeth Bauman

q)What is your earliest art-related memory?

a)Not perhaps my earliest but one that stands out is being part of a "group show" in high school. I was surprised to receive feedback about my work, that people actually responded to it (in a good way, thankfully).

q) Who has had the greatest influence on your work?

a) I cannot say there has been one single important influence for me. I tend to get excited by one artist or another and study their work intensely for awhile and then move on. There have certainly been a few I have gone back to several times including these historic artists: Gustav Klimt, Henri Matisse, and Edvard Munch.

q) What are the main tools of your craft?

a)Right now I am painting in oil paint on both canvas and wood panels. I've also worked in acrylic.

q) Is a formal education important?

a) Perhaps. I think finding your own artistic path is more important, though certainly a formal education can help with that.

q) What is the biggest misconception about art?

a)That buying original art is too expensive for most people. So many people do not realize there is some really affordable art out there and buying it helps support a living artist.

q) Which is more important in art - concept or execution?

a) For me it is the execution. The longer I do this, the more interested I am in the process. I like to see where the paint takes me. Lately, I have simply been exploring what happens on each painting without trying to plan or manipulate it at all. I simply lay out the paint and see where it takes me, find the narrative in the paint. I have found that for me getting too deep into what I want the painting to say before I even start tends to slow me down. Plus, if I have the entire painting already in mind/sketched out before I begin I tend to feel like I am just filling in the blanks, that the exciting part of the painting is already done. I end up with quite a few paintings I never finish this way because I became bored painting them.

q) What theme or aesthetic are you most drawn too?

a) People and narrative, somewhat abstract (not terribly representational).

q) What is your favorite piece of art in your home?

a) I can't pick just one. I have many beautiful pieces from family and friends plus I try to collect original work whenever I can. I hope to fill my house with art over time.

q) If you could collaborate with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?

a) I would love to be able to watch Edvard Munch paint.

q) Which emerging artist do you think more people should know about?

a)Some of my favorite emerging (and one or two are probably established) artists are Vivienne Strauss, Shannon Richardson, Amanda Blake, and Bonnie Hull.

q) What has been your greatest achievement to date?

a) I was accepted into a local, juried show in which my painting will hang at my city hall for a year.

q) What has been your biggest roadblock?

a) Finding time to work.

q) How do you define success?

a) Two things define success for me. First, getting the process and the final painting to be what I am truly happy with. Second, my art sustaining my life (financially, of course).

q) What will be the name of your autobiography?

a) Tripping down the winding path.

q)What is the best piece of (art-related) advice you’ve ever been given?

a)Keep painting.