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that has that look simi- lar to Mona Lisa. In the painting it’s not a smile but it’s a definite emo- tion that you captured so well. EA:Te thing of it is, is that it’s very personal to whomever views it. I don’t give away alot of the stories because that’s my experience. Same thing with music, same thing with anything. Once it’s out theret, it’s supposed to be digested; it’s supposed to be taken in by whoever is view- ing or listening.
MS: So you’re really giv- ing the viewer more than just simply an image, picture, or paint- ing. EA: I can’t imagine painting that way. I’ve tried and I would fall asleep. I have to create something out of it. And I know in a lot of ways that’s not the best way to go about it with all the art critics. Tey don’t neces- sarily like a story behind the work. Tey want emotional distance be- tween them and the art. But I say forget it. I work the way I do and all my favorite artists were very per- sonally involved with their stuff. So this movement towards the separa- tion of the two is something I’m not comfortable with. I’ll go for the personal every single time.
MS: I believe that’s why it’s so well received. You’re invited in and that’s a warmer approach. Let’s talk about the creation of this calendar. Mod- ern technology helped make the calendar, but you’re using the same technique that painters of different generations have used?
Woman With Espresso | painting by Eric Anfinsen
EA: Yes. You have your paints, your mediums, and your canvas, your subject. Tat hasn’t changed but the approach has. Art changed after photography. It just could not have not changed when you can have a still image versus the artist’s inter- pretation. Like in Jane Newhagen’s book, “Sand Dollar,” she brings in a subject about the death of a child. Tey would bring in a local artist to paint the dead child in the mother’s arms because that would be the only visible remem- brance of this child. Te immediacy of that I would never want. I’d be honored but I would stay away. But that was the technology that was available to them. Te ultrasounds,
baby pictures, and stuff like that now exist.
MS: In your calendar, January be- gins with “Te Keeper of the Light” which to me symbolizes a beacon of light to guide us through the year ahead. A young child holds a fish in June. Later in the year, a grand- mother is sitting on a bench with a stack of love letters neatly bundled up, and December has an image that to me doesn’t give passage to the end of the year but assures us that there will be another to look forward to. What is the story with the centerfold? EA: I do a lot of nudes but it’s not that kind of centerfold. For me it is
KONK Life 11
a process. I think art is a great tool to transform the garbage or the beauty or whatever it is that happens, called life, into something else. If you’re an artist, you transform it. Some of our favorite songs, fa- vorite paintings, favorite books are all based on so-called negative things. Tat’s what art does to me. It transforms life into something that makes sense or can be beautiful. MS: Especially this is- land that has such a di- versity of talented people in all of the arts. What’s next? EA: I’m not going to do a solo show this year, but I’ve been painting more than ever. Just building up the body of work. And the work that’s coming through is excit- ing. MS: You definitely have changed, grown, ma- tured. You have a richer
palette to draw from. You have an exhibit at Out East Gallery in New York and just spent time in Man- hattan. EA: Yes, it was the dual trip of per- fection of Montage who became a support to the show and then I got to spend a week in New York. I feel in love with the Big Apple, and I came back more affected by Matisse then I could have ever guessed. You can see a picture and like it, but to see it in person you can’t argue with it. I don’t think there is enough room in the world for all paintings. I love it. I feel very fortunate my walls aren’t all my space.
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