-It's a need. I have a great need to make art.
I can't explain it.
All I know is, is that desperate need.
♪♪
The painting can't give the viewer anything
unless the viewer has something to give the painting
and can emotionally connect with passion
and a kind of sophistication and a depth of knowledge
and hurt and love and passion and longing.
All those things are in each painting.
And if you haven't got anything in your little soul,
you're not going to get anything out of the paintings.
I'm not going to tell them what to think.
The paintings have to stand on their own
when I'm alive now and when I'm gone.
I make paintings because...
they're waiting for me.
♪♪
I'm not getting older.
[ Chuckles ]
I'm the best I've ever been.
I don't want to be a Northwest painter.
I don't want to be known as a Northwest artist.
The purples are fabulous.
And the blues are adequate.
Color has a voice and it's not an audible voice.
There's no words, but it talks to you, and it leads me.
I follow my nose. Oh, look at that there.
Off I go. This one is really gorgeous,
but it's really hard to make it work with anything else.
Colorist is a person that is very aware of color
and color doesn't baffle them.
It intrigues them, and they -- they hunt it down ruthlessly.
And they seek the relationships and what it will do.
The color really isn't a color
until it's next to another color.
-Oh, my God. Look. [ Gasps ]
This is gorgeous.
Look at the orange.
See. Look at that.
-These are two complementary colors.
I never wanted to admit I had a favorite
because I thought that was...
pretty mundane, but I have a favorite.
Oh, this is my favorite of the whole bunch
of all the colors in the whole world,
The whole bloody world, I'm afraid to admit.
that's my favorite one. That damn magenta.
My favorite machine in the world is a trolley on Capitol Hill.
And it's magenta.
It's a beautiful, smooth, magenta,
sleek, beautiful thing. And it moves down the street.
The first time I saw those trolleys,
I stopped in my tracks and said, "Oh, my God."
♪♪
Think of me this way.
Every time you see me, you think
that this is on my face.
Are these -- Are these fluorescents
or are they just strong color?
-There are some fluorescents there.
-Are there? -There are...
-Hot pink and yellow. -Yeah.
-Like a --
All the fluorescents are the bad boys of color.
I love them. I love them, love them.
They're the greasy,
the macho men in beautiful clothes.
They are mmm!
-That's anything that's fluorescent is --
will be like that. I think I like that.
-The reason I'm not painting on this video is because...
there's nothing they can learn
about the secrets of my art
when I'm painting because all the secrets of my art
are inside.
And you can't see inside of me.
♪♪
Yes. Yes.
All my pieces are sensual, not erotic,
but all of them are sensual. Everything I've ever done.
I trick the eye by visually putting one color
or one space in front of the other space.
And it's a thing I don't mean to do,
but I love it when it happens, and I know when it happens.
And so you see the space.
For example, you think this space way back here is deep
because dark is always for the vacuum.
We know that.
And then you have something lighter,
but then all of a sudden --
it's just a stupid piece of board, you guys --
and all of a sudden it's not flat.
It's -- it's got depth to it.
All of a sudden, you go way back in here
and then all of a sudden -- boing-oing-oing-oing-oing --
bring it right back up
front and center with that light color.
POW! There it is.
And then I can push you over the edge
and get you way back in there. I can drag you along.
I can make you come almost forward, but not quite.
And if, oh, God, look, it's transparent,
I'm going back into it. Ooh, I'm being sucked in.
Oh, no, I'm back.
No, I fallen back way deep into it again.
And now I've come up forward and,
oh, I'm out, I'm out, I'm free. Oh, I'm falling through again.
And then you're into the depth into the black
and you're in a space.
It's actual visual places in -- in -- in space.
But we all know it's just a stupid board.
Yes. Lovely. Oh, my God.
I want to make a great big one, you see.
-Oh, yeah. Huh. -Nice and huge.
-Yeah. Two exactly the same size
would be great. -Okay.
-Watch this.
The things that you don't know are the most intriguing.
Because then you can make up what you think it could be
or there's an unending joy in finding what it actually means
or what it could mean or what it never did mean and might.
You're getting a lot of information out of me
that I've never verbalized before
because painters don't have to.
They paint it. They say it that way.
See? Complicated as hell. Have a jelly bean.
Quit talking about it and have one.
♪♪
Find my pastels?
-Oh, yeah. -Good.
Whoo, my flowers.
We need to photograph those two big ones
and the two small -- three small ones.
I've always kind of been outspoken as a young woman.
That's forbidden, you know?
Young man, it's okay.
You can't live in the past because
you're living in the present thinking about the past.
And what good is that doing you?
It is my life, my breathing in and out right now.
That's what it is. It's all about that.
That's all there is.
That's all there is -- now.
I don't want it to stop.
I want it all to be as exhilarating
and as exciting and as colorful and as filthy, chalky,
messy as it can be.
Love it.
♪♪
It's remarkable to be alive.
[ Music stops ]
Breathing in and breathing out is remarkable.
[ Rock music plays ]
♪♪
-Catch Art Zone Friday nights at 8
and anytime online at SeattleChannel.org/ArtZone.
♪♪