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TIM EBNER
M. What happens when you work? What are you thinking about?
Oh, a lot of shit ... Sometimes about forlorn relationships ... good ones ... problems at school ... recreational activities (laughs) ... anger, feeling angry sometimes, being kind of pissed off at people, you know, other times just really immersed in like a technical problem with a painting ... Why isn't the color working right? Why does the painting seem wrong? What's wrong with it? Pragmatic pictorial problems.
See that area down there where the water's coming out of the trunk? I can't get that to work right. Not that I'm worried about the way the water's coming out of the trunk, that doesn't bother me. But the relationship of that ellipse to the wave at the top and then the ear and then the water coming out. I can't ... And then the relationship of the bottom of the trunk to the top of the trunk ... And I thought it looked a little bit better before you came over ... but now in this light it's not looking very good ... It's a weird problem ... But see, I like the relationship of that hat to the background. See the hat to the background? It's kind of bizarre, you know, like it doesn't quite work, you know? But it doesn't look that good in this light. You need that warm light on it, you know. You don't see that though, do you?
M. I understand about the hat. Because it's so solid. It's almost like something that came out of the background, into the foreground.
Yeah. Yeah, I like that.
M. Whereas the elephant itself is almost like it's still connected to the landscape, it's like a continuation of the ground.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh.
M. You know what's not clear? It's not clear that it's water.
Yeah!
M. It turns into almost a kind of foliage.
Yeah. Well, I had foliage there ... and I had a little bit of water, and then I just went nuts with it, like I can't handle this anymore, and I just started putting that paint on with my hand and it went right into the foliage and I said 'well that's water, just run it over foliage, that's okay', you know. I'm going to work on that area though, a little bit. I've got to get that down.
M. Going back to the Kuhlenschmidt period, the work was radically different. How did you get to this point? How did that come about? Did you think about that stuff the same way you think about this stuff?
Yeah. I think so. Yeah. There was something kind of perverse about that stuff that intrigued me. You know, like whereas those paintings were a little bit testy about the notion of what a painting could be. A little bit. These are more testy in the terms of 'Jesus, how goofy can the guy get?' I don't mean like bad or anything, but just goofy. And still be interesting. And still be involved with painting and not just be this kind of kitschy thing, still be sort of serious.
M. You talk about things like goofiness, about how goofy can it get and still be serious, that border area, and an interest in perversity that attracts you, holds your interest. You put a huge personal investment into that, over time. Why is that?
I don't know. That's a good question, but, I don't know. I don't know whether it's like a really great thing or whether I'm just a masochist, you know? That's like a great, maybe a philosophical, question. I can't come up with an answer to justify a question like that. You've gotta, you just find yourself doing something, and you're not necessarily really comfortable with it, but taken by it, you know. And when you look out and wonder about all the other alternatives, they don't really interest you and so you've sort of found yourself in this place that seems almost perpetual. It seems almost, it's like I've never really done anything else before.
What's interesting about Basquiat, the Schnabel movie, is like how Schnabel portrays himself as such a man of the world. Great house. Family man. Incredible social life. Makes movies. Lots of money. It's just like, what's he fucking talking about? I don't even know whether I would be capable of ... I was wondering am I missing some genes or something? (laughs)
M. Do you think he was ever an artist, in the first place?
Oh yeah, he's an artist. I like the movie, it's a great movie, and some of those paintings I like. Of course he's an artist. That gets into the area of whether or not I like him as an artist, or what kind of artist do you see him as, or whatever, you know. Yeah. Of course he's an artist. There's all different kinds of artists. All different kinds.
It's not like I'm committed to being an artist, you just are. You make paintings. You're an artist.
M. You don't see it as a commitment? It's not a conscious choice?
Yeah. Maybe that's nice. Maybe if it was a commitment then you wouldn't be an artist. If you consciously had to make a commitment, say 'I'm going to be an artist,' maybe you're not. It's too self-conscious then. It's just something you stumble into. It's not like you set out ... All of sudden you just kind of realize that this is your life and this is what you do and you've been doing it for awhile now and so I guess that is what I'll be doing.
And with a lot of people in our generation, I think we did a lot of things before we became artists. I didn't get out of high school and want to be an artist. I didn't even think about that. Really, I was just so dismal at everything else, you know. I ended up in art school. It's like the last reserve. Where do you go from there if you flunk out, you know. (laughs) It's pretty bad.
M. You're casting it in a funny light but I don't really buy it.
You think I'm making light of it?
M. Yeah. I think so. You're making it out as if "Oh, I wasn't any good at anything else", but ...
I think it's true, though.
M. You were too committed. You've been committed from day one. I saw it.
I know. Because someone started to take me seriously. And I loved it. And before that, you know, I had a hard time with that. Because either I wasn't any good at it or it was a job or a situation that wasn't that interesting to me. But like the first day, up at Cal Arts, it was like 'Wow, this place is great.' And they would just look at you and treat you like you were a professional right away, and it was hard and it was very serious ... and I loved it. I just ate it up ... To defend my casualness, (laughs) if I was to come on like 'Yes, it's a commitment all the way ...
M. No, I'm not saying that it's the marines ...
How would you come off? I don't think of it that way. Again, I think that we get into the area of someone playing the role of being a serious artist than actually being one.
M. I guess what I'm after is there's a thing where you can say 'I'm looking at the hat, I have a problem with this hat.' Can you imagine someone listening to this?
(laughs) Well, what's wrong with the hat? I think the hat's working pretty good
M. What we're looking at, what we're talking about, is so ...
Hey, we're specialists! We're nerds! You know. (laughs) Who else cares? I mean, we do. I do.
M. But the thing about the hat ...
I don't know if it's secret. But it is specific, it is specialized. I'll talk to anybody about my hat if they're nice to me.
