Interviewing our Newton neighbor, Roberta Paul
BC:
How did you come to do artwork with your father?
RP:
I started collaboration with him about four years ago. My father was diagnosed with a neurological brain disorder and I was sitting with him one day and we were just hanging out. And I asked him to draw me a clock. And he did and it was the most beautiful and frightening thing I had ever seen. It was absolutely gorgeous. I had him start drawing a clock a day, because it was about memory, passage of time and just documenting things because when he started to get ill, time didn’t really mean anything. So I wanted to document what that process was about. So about six months later I was in my studio and I was working on a completely different body of work and somehow I used one of these clocks in it. I blew it up and I literally started copying his hand. And I joined with my father in this process and this act and the work took on it’s own life. And I’ve been doing that the last two-and-a-half years.
BC:
What does time mean to you?
RP:
To me? You’re going to have to ask my husband, he’s a psychologist. (laughs) What time means to me...well, i’ve never worn a watch. I always know what time it is within 15 minutes in reality. But personally, and I’ve learned this more from my father and watching him become very ill, that it’s the process of the moment. It really is the moment. So to describe time is really just to describe process of living.
BC:
How is it that you embrace the moment?
RP:
I do it through my work. A day passes and if you’re dealing with the concept of time and it kind of stands still...and you’re in the process of doing it, it kind of defines itself.
BC:
Were you and your dad close growing up?
RP:
Yeah, very close.
BC:
Did your dad share your view on time?
RP:
At the end of his life he imparted to me what time means. We never had a conversation about it. He was a lover of life. He really did embrace life. I think the idea of time standing still and moving very quickly at the same moment was something I learned from him. And what it meant to be -- people would look from the outside and see how ill he was and think, he would not want to live like this. But up until the end of my father’s life he really did love his life -- however one defines that.
BC:
Connecting to your dad through art was a different kind of connection, right?
RP:
Yes, I was very close with him when I was growing up. He was incredibly supportive of me doing my art work. But I never thought about doing a collaboration with him. When we started to do this, he was well enough to know what he was doing. He participated willingly, obviously. Then, later, he seemed to get bothered by it at some moments because he didn’t want to do it -- you know, just didn’t feel like it. But then I’d say dad, we’re doing this together and he’d refocus and get excited and start working.
BC:
Did you have a difficult time explaining to your dad the artistic process? Did it seem like a different language?
RP:
Well it was very interesting, the first clock that he did was on May 30, 1999. It happened to be my birthday and that was what started me to ask him to do it. Because we were sitting there and it was my birthday and I just said, hey dad, draw this clock for me. And the first clock was the most abstract one he did. That was the most frightening part. It was the most frightening because the numbers didn’t make sense. So then as we started working together the numbers actually got a little more recognizable. Then when he got much sicker it got much less recognizable. The piece behind me is all the numbers I took the circle off and just used the numbers because they were all about dancing. I mean they’re really about freedom.
BC:
Was your dad ever able to express what this creativity meant to him?
RP:
He would get really excited when I told him I was having this museum show. His eyes would light up. I never really, in all the things that were written about the work, I would read him parts of it but not the part about how ill he was. I didn’t think that was necessary. But he also always appreciated art. He had a good eye.
BC:
Did he resist the idea that he was an artist?
RP:
It’s interesting, it wasn’t that he was an artist it was that I was discovering something that I chose to work with him and turn into a statement, into a piece of art. When I started to ask him to draw other things there was a lot of resistance. He said, I can’t draw. And he couldn’t. The thing that I’m finding most amazing for myself is, as I’ve been working on this project for about four years, and I’m seeing that my work from 20 years ago which was about black line on white paper, lines like his clocks, even though I was drawing people, it’s the same line. And to find that you have the same expressive line as your father who’s very, very ill, I found quite fascinating. There’s a deep connection. I think when you trace...when I have worked in the past I have taken his images, made them very, very large and then sat there and traced his hand. Therefore, you’re passing through a generation while you’re doing it. but even aside from that, my own personal work, my own lines, look like his. And I find that the thing that people see a lot in his work, if they don’t understand it, they don’t know what it is, is there’s still a deep connection to it because there’s a sense of freedom in these lines. And a sense of beauty and a sense of life.
BC:
What did you think when you heard about our project?
RP:
I heard about this two days ago and I went online, because Maureen had told me what was going on, and as soon as I saw it I had a very emotional reaction to it and I went, “Wow, maybe I’ll have to tell this man about what I’m doing.” I felt that...I got very choked up, but, I also felt that you’re in a place now where you just have to enjoy your father and do what you’re doing, obviously you’re aware of this what’s why you’re doing it, and that the process, you should just allow it to teach you things. Because besides just going to finish your product, meaning going to see all the stadiums and going to see all these things that the process or the journey is really what it’s about. And I felt like wow, it’s wonderful that you have this with each other.
******** End Interview *********
Bob:
Niagara Falls, en route to Toronto, calls en la matinee.
Tres bien.
Park Number 10 (of 30) Fenway Park
Boston 7, Texas 0
WP: B. Arroyo (3-7) LP: J. Benoit (3-4)
A’s can’t lose to the Red Sox at least ‘cause they’re not playing them tonight -- thanks for small favors. But they are “kind enough” to share their misfortunes, losing to Cleveland 5-4.
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