8
TIM EBNER
The whole damn thing is the odd thing out in this painting for me. It's like this hand with this train kind of creeping up its arm. I think the odd thing is the train seems like it's an insect to me. And I start to wonder what is that train, what's the deal with that train? And where the painting works and doesn't work for me, is that I just can't for the life of me figure out whether the train is a metaphor for the activity of art making, the labor, or the playfulness of it, or something like that. Or whether I just want it to be this absurd painting.
M. What makes a painting ultimately fail?
If it's too obvious.
M. But doesn't everything become obvious at a certain point?
No. No. Absolutely not. But I think there's this area where things just don't mesh up. And that's what I'm intrigued with. Not obviously that they don't mesh up, there's a possibility to it. But when you try to put the whole thing together, it just doesn't work. And I think that that is kind of what ties this work into what my older work was.
I was always frustrated by the fact that other artists could tell you exactly what the hell was going on with their work. Also they give you a great sense of, an interesting sense of what they're doing, make it interesting to you. I've never, for the life of me, been able to wrap things up like that for me. I can't quite make sense out of the whole damn occupation even though I'm like intrigued and it sort of has become my life. I'm married to it, but I just cannot for the life of me encapsulate it. It alludes me. And I don't mean that in a romantic way. But I've tried to make sense out of it.
M: What kind of work don't you understand?
I don't understand a lot of the work in magazines. I think I understand a lot of work, but a lot of times I just don't understand ... the presentation just sort off sets me off, because I get too overwhelmed by that. By the pretension of it. By the authority of it. And it intimidates me too much. So I think that the work that I don't understand the most, is the work that intimidates me the most. However form it takes on.
A lot of times I have a hard time with things that are real technical. It's not like I'm 'anti-', but that it does form like a little bit of a veneer over intentions. I become overwhelmed by the pyrotechnics of it. It can manifest itself in many different ways, not just technology.
I can't quite keep up. You walk into a gallery or museum, it's moving fast. You're just like ... whooosh ... meaning's just flying everywhere. I need to be in the slow, the far right lane. In fact I sort of love to ride on the far right shoulder there. I can't handle that left lane stuff. I'm a little bit slow I think when it comes to keeping up with what's on the course of events with art making. I have to see it for awhile, almost to the point where it has to be out. Then I finally get it.
If I was really on top of what is going on right now, I would be distracted. If I have too much on my mind, and I'm vulnerable, you know. I don't know if I'd be able to move. I don't know if I could make dorky paintings, and feel okay with them, or goofy, or doing what I'm doing right now, because I'd be too paranoid about whether or not I'm making the right move here. Because I am probably not ...
I'm so available to what I think other people's expectations are ... I need to kind of cut it out here if I want to get things done. You just have to say, 'I've got to make a decision here. Do you want to be a part of it, or not?' Some people can do well when they are a part of it, and I could not. I can not. I can't do it. It's just too hard.
I have a problem with the full figure. Never studied the figure, don't know anything about it. We came from Cal Arts. What do we know? I mean, What do we know? So you put a dress on it, or you cut them off and you put them on a stake. Out of those kinds of adjustments, out of adapting to your inadequacy and then exploiting it, you exploit it and then a whole series of meanings can come out of that. And it ties in with what we were saying earlier, that painting is a constant confrontation with your inadequacies and how do you deal with that? How do you adapt? How do you utilize it? How do you exploit it? You learn to exploit that, not to give it up because it's too hard.
Okay, I'm clumsy. I'm not an elegant painter. I have an elegance to me in certain areas, I have my moves and things. But I see a lot more painting going on that's a hell of a lot more facile than mine. I sort of plod along. It doesn't come really naturally to me. But then I think that that is a great thing because that clumsiness puts me into places where more unexpected things might happen.
There's just like a wonderful clumsiness to painting. I never thought that there was. I thought that it was way too hard. And it is way too hard. But then, I think ten years ago, I could not have handled how hard it is. I could not have handled all of the failures and gone off on that. You know what I mean? So you find ways to make art that is a little bit more consistent, or excuse me, more forgiving. Because painting is absolutely unforgiving. There's a lot of room to move in failure. It's all open territory. (laughs) Someone will just hand you failure and say it's all yours, all you have to do is just give them back your life.
This conversation was recorded on Sunday, September 21, 1996 at Tim Ebner's studio. The interviewer is Mitchell Syrop.