I have always liked to draw. I drew horses on all my papers at school, in ninth grade I made a life size paper mache horse. That was the first time I was called an artist. I was also asked by one of the students to make an editorial drawing for the school paper, that was my first job as an artist. But at that point I still wanted to be a veterinarian. But my math skills are bad, so the counselor told me getting into vet school would be very difficult unless I was making all A's I did not see that happening in math, so I dropped my physics class, and picked up an independent study art class in its place. I had planned to be an art teacher, then I saw a friend of mine who was at another art school in the illustration department, and I thought their classes were much more fun, so I changed schools and majors. From the College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland CA, to The Academy of Art University. in San Francisco. From Education to Illustration.
I always saw myself as an artist but the older I got, the more involved in my work I became, more I felt that being an artist is not only what I did but the core of who I am. There are milestones..when I got my MFA, my first show, when the biggest room in my home because my studio etc. Even as a kid it was what felt natural to me. I was one of those children who was always hanging around the art room in school and at camp and it just grew stronger.
I have been painting and drawing for many years. It is a necessary part of my life. However, even though I attracted positive attention, I only began to see myself as an artist when I uploaded my art for a much wider audience to see and decided to sell it. I made a commitment to be a professional artist.
In art school. The day you realize you ARE and have always been an artist....
It makes it all change. Your eyes open.
When my parents began telling me I was 'clever'.
I have always been an artist. I remember I wanted to be a dancer when I was two. Then I got polio at 4 and had to quit dance classes. I drew instead. Dad brought home all the envelopes from his office and slit them open for drawing paper for me.
I've always done art, but when somebody asked me what I did for a living, it wasn't until just a few years ago that I would say I was an artist. When I tell them that, I hand them a bookmark with my cover art on it. That explains it all. Having a business card, postcard or some other promo on you all the time is helpful to explain what you do.
I don't know... it just happened. It's all foggy whenever I try to remember something in my past (not very good with memory, I'm afraid). However, I do believe that learning how my grandfather was an artist moved me to learn more and do more than I used to do...
He used his medium - the simple method of watercoloring - masterfully. Even if he was struggling with six kids to feed and a job that never seemed to pay them well enough, he never stopped turning to his art at all. I don't know much about him, but that's what I believe. He was the one who taught my dad, and my dad taught me the basics. The rest- well I had to learn that myself. I think that I wanted to be better to honor his memory.
I have seen myself as an artist ever since I was a very small child.
About fourteen years ago when I began making my own handmade paper and creating designs within the paper.
When I was in school I used to enjoy art classes, I suppose my interest started then.
Slowly, sensibly and insensibly over several decades, I began to se emyself as an artist, an artist with words. I will answer this question as follows.-Ron
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DRIVING ON OUTSIDE THE MARKET
On "Arts Today," a national radio program in Australia, the work of Australian sculptor Robert Clipel was discussed. Clipel died in 2001 at the age of 81 and a retrospective exhibition was arranged to commemorate, to celebrate, to inform the community of his work. There are some similarities between his work, what drove him and his philosophy and my own. For this reason I write the poem below. He was a most inventive and self-directed individual, highly cerebral, highly intellectual. His creative drive sought expression in his work and was the most important aspect of his life over several decades. He was strongly drawn by the multitude of possibilities around him to give them expression in art, his art.
His central aim was to build up a language of forms, a language that was diverse, individualistic, new, self-critical, coherent and combined the technological with nature. His interest was in producing art not marketing it. He was unquestionably a man obsessed with his vision and his art. -Ron Price with thanks to "Arts Today," ABC Radio National, 10:05-11:00 am, 14 January 2002.
I came to my work much later, Robert.
I'll have to live to be a hundred to get in
my several decades of art. So, I'll just
have to take it a step-at-a-time.
Everything I heard today about you
animates me and my work even your
aim to synthesize the technological
and nature—but in a different way.
I'm into one big meta-synthesis, Robert.
and the possibilities around me just go
on and on and on as I link them to this
thrusting creative drive. Perhaps when
I'm gone there will be one great retro---
spective and someone can market all
of this, these thousands of poems, this
obsession, this vision, this art, this me—
but I can’t imagine people buying my
work—they can get it all here for free!
Ron Price
14 January 2002
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BREAKING THE SPELL OF WORDS
There were elements in the script of this television documentary, "Michelangelo: Self Portrait(1475-1564)(1989)" which were taken directly from Michelangelo’s diaries and other writings. These quoted pieces seemed to have a direct relevance to my own poetic work. Sculptured works, this great artist once wrote, are born in that cloudy region between idea and marble. Poetry, for me, is born in an equally cloudy, quite mysterious, region between idea and word, idea and words on a page. Michelangelo’s goal, he said, was to break the spell, the mystery, the enigma, the distance of marble; mine is to break the spell, the mystery, the cold flatness, the emptiness, the distance, of words. Just as Michelangelo painted with his mind not with his brush, I write with my mind not with my pen or keyboard.
Art, Michelangelo wrote, is the only thing which makes us recognize ourselves and find ourselves as whole beings. His path to God was made in stone. My path to God is made through poetry; as I say this I recognize that this is only partly the case. Part of my journey to my Lord is made through those many manifestations of my religion in my daily life over a lifetime. I see this journey as ‘all of a piece.’ Poetry is just one piece, an important one, a pleasurable one, but not all the pieces.
Michelangelo learned to carve with his feelings and so, too, do I write with my feelings. The following poem draws heavily on the ideas of this outstanding artist who was intimately aware of the importance of feelings in his writings. -Ron Price with thanks to "Michelangelo: Self Portrait," SBS TV, November 21 2001(1989), 9:30-10:30 pm.
This is not about passing the time,
but about exploring eternity1 in these
earliest days of my life, about the
process of thought and the excitement
of intelligence, the lonely impulse of delight2
with an endless stream of ideas which lure
me on and on returning day-after-day,
bringing with them an arduous deeply
satisfying joy. This is about writing for
myself: for I have no fame, station or rank;
I am not asked to sign petitions, join deputations,
address meetings, appear in the media,
I can simply continue working quietly, silently,
with the minimum of obligations, telling the truth
about the world and keeping an eye on
the greatest drama in the world’s spiritual history.3
1 J.B. Priestley, Literature and Western Man, 1960 in Braine, op.cit., p.141. This was Priestley’s view of the purpose of art and literature.
2 John Braine, J.B. Priestley, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1978. For much of this poem I am indebted to this biography and the words and thoughts of Priestley.
3 Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha’u’llah, Wilmette, 1974, p.26. 30/11/01   | | |
From a very young age I knew that I would pursue art as not only a career but a life endeavor. I believe I started taking it very seriously just before High School began.
When a friend told me to get my act together and start selling.
I have always been good at art from a young age. I never knew in what capacity I could use my artistic abilities but found myself becoming a makeup artist when I didn't want to go back to work as a secretary. I thought I could do something more then be a secretary. I always always have loved beauty. |
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