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The Artist as Cultural Force: |
Let me start with a confession.
More than anything, I want to be an artist.
But I can’t. Because I’m not.
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Earth Woman Nude, |
As I drive my car or walk my dog I often daydream of being an artist.
(This explains why my insurance is so high and I’m always stepping
in stuff that fills the treads of my sneakers.)
One of my daydreams is recurring. I’m standing before a god-like
battery of seven surgeons, all in scrubs and gloves and surgical masks.
They say nothing, just staring down at me, smug in their collective assumption
that they know that I am about to beg, to plead—as so many before
me have begged and pleaded—for them to perform a miracle of medical
technology. And I do. But I do not beg them to make me a woman, or flatten
my gut, or enlarge my penis. I plead, "Please make me an artist!"
And I see seven sets of eyebrows arch in unison.
Why on earth would I want to be an artist—in a society enthralled
by unearned wealth and television prostitution?
Because artists don't really live where the rest of us do. Sure, they
all keep a pied-à-terre here, but they really live somewhere else,
somwhere better, somewhere exciting and satisfying and wholly independent.
Somewhere I can only imagine. Somewhere called Right Now.
When I asked Dorothy Annette, "So, um... Why do you paint pictures of
teapots?" she tilted her head, causing her short dreadlocks to bounce.
She looked directly at me, smiled, and simply said, "I had a desire to."
See? Dorothy Annette is an artist.
Her studio is a high-ceiling, industrial space large enough to hold a
two-color printing press, hand and automated bindery equipment, Macintosh
computers, painting easels and tools, chairs on platforms for posing models,
her husband Jim’s tools to make hand-made and bound books—and
paintings, paintings paintings.
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One of the White Series paintings, by Dorothy Annette |
There are paintings on the walls, life-sized paintings leaned against
walls, smaller paintings propped on chairs, paintings of teapots and of
people, paintings stacked in corners, tiny paintings hung on the walls
in unlikely places but still, your eyes always see them first, as you
enter a room...
WM: When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew
up?
Dorothy: A doctor. Way back in junior high school, I was attracted
to the science of being a doctor, but the most I could afford was to become
a respiratory therapist. Art was not a practical career and never a consideration.
At best art was a hobby of painting ceramics.
WM: When did you know, really know, that you were an artist?
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Paintings by Dorothy Annette |
Dorothy: When I was laid off from my last job. I was happy about
it and I wasn’t scared. I put my severance pay on a studio loft in
the Candy Factory and started taking painting classes. It was the
leap of faith that confirmed it for me.
WM: When did you know that you had made it?
Dorothy: I haven’t "made it" yet. One day at a time, I get
by.
WM: About those teapots...
Dorothy: The desire to paint teapots was just so, a desire. Coming
out of a need to nurture my spirits, maybe. Since old enough to make my
own choices, tea has been my drink of choice and has at times escalated
to an addiction...hot tea and toast. Isn’t there a saying called Tea and Sympathy? Since color thrills me, and my boyfriend at the
time, Jim, had a small collection of antique teapots in many colors; it
was easy to paint my heart out.
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WM: You stopped publishing your art magazine, The Publication,
after the events of September 11, 2001. Why?
Dorothy: September 11th...that day... like so many, many people,
something changed in me...is still changing. I can’t describe it,
but I see it. Something became clear, but also...shifted. My personal
work turned toward the figurative, to portraits.
WM: So you began doing portraits?
Dorothy: I feel this need to celebrate humanity. Many of the portraits
I do are of elderly folks but certainly not all. The subjects are part
of a series I call the Urban Chieftain series. These are people
who would be chiefs—by my selection—if San Diego were a village.
WM: How else have the events of September 11th changed you?
Dorothy: I can’t really say, maybe I don’t even know.
I feel the change, the shift in me, and I see some differences, how I
need to paint people.
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Dorothy Annette's portrait of one of her daughters |
Also, I am a colorist and always have been. Lately, for a while now, I
have been on an exploration of the colors of white. I’ve done a few
successful paintings in this series but not enough to show yet.
Maybe I’m ready now to start The Publication again. I’d
like to get people back together. It’s really the only artist’s
magazine in San Diego. We’ve kept the website (http:thepublication.net)
going. And now I have some new writers, and I want to find more. Maybe
we're ready.
WM: You’ve always had a strong sense of community. In fact,
it seems you have a gift, or a need, for creating communities wherever
you go.
Dorothy: Jim and I were in the downtown area for a long time. For
years, we had these monthly dinners, and everyone, everyone was welcome.
It just got so big! We would have 70 people! The stories and connections,
people still tell us how much those dinners meant to them.
When we had to relocate the studio, I missed that. But also, it was a
rest for awhile. I kind of enjoyed that, too!
WM: But eventually you felt a need to build community here, in
the North Park area that you had come to?
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Dorothy Annette and Jim |
Dorothy: My gallery is on Ray Street and one thing lead to another.
I wanted a way for people to come together. An honest, easy way. Not just
to sell art, but to invite everyone to share the work so many talented
people were creating
WM: And this evolved into the Ray At Night open gallery
idea?
Dorothy: Yes, and it grew, it's still growing. I think because
it was something that people felt a part of. It was about people, about
art, about laughing and singing. We had some wonderful opera singers involved.
Children would be there. Even I could sing.
WM: You're a singer?
Dorothy: Not professionally. I study voice with Jack Lasher. My first
solo concert was in February at Galleria Del’Aria. I just
love to sing.
WM: You have some paintings of other artists in your studio.
Dorothy: I collect my friend’s work. Some are gifts, too.
I’ve started to collect teapots from regional artists.
WM: And you teach?
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Dorothy Annette with student |
Dorothy: Whenever I am asked. I teach in my studio, private and
small groups of people, of children. For many Friday afternoons, several
women have come and we all draw and paint. There are kids around. It’s
wonderful. I mentor as well for other organizations and I give talks in
the city schools.
WM: You were recently featured in a KPBS television series
of influential San Diegans.
Dorothy: It was all done live on camera. I painted a teapot for
the County Board of Education on camera, answering telephone and
studio audience questions while I painted. Everything seems a cakewalk
after that!
WM: Does watching television, or films, influence you and your
work?
Dorothy: As far as film, Jim and I are film addicts.
From 1993 until Sept 11, 2001 Jim and I watched only videos. We almost
never watched television. But, waking up to the news on that morning,
we were compelled to turn on the television and see what was happening.
Since then, I am a news hound and I’m re-united with Law and Order,
and Meet the Press on Sunday mornings. I am not sure how it is
effecting my work. Too soon to tell.
WM: You seem to work with an idea, or in a certain direction, for
a while, producing a series of paintings.
Dorothy: I don’t plan it that way. I still paint teapots once
in a while, but
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most happened in one period, like a Teapot series. I did what
I now call the Walk a Mile series, exploring shoes.
WM: What are some of your current projects, or directions?
Dorothy: Dresses have caught me, and the Dress series gives
me the opportunity to examine many wedding dresses.
I’m also working with the Family Justice Center to create
work that communicates how enormous the problem of domestic violence is
today. The first piece 1 n 3 was completed in October. Stairway
to Freedom is a mural in the planning stages.
While I’ve been exploring the color white for months now, I just
finished a portrait of the sculptor, Warren Blakely, but I was
as surprised as anyone that it started as a work in my white series, but
by the end, as you can see, it wasn’t. Maybe that is over, something
in me is changing.
WM: Do you know what’s coming?
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Dorothy Annette with her portrait of the sculptor Warren Blakely |
Dorothy: (laughing) I’ve no idea. I let things like that happen.
Or not happen.