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"Im trying to remember what I felt about a certain cypress tree and I feel if I remember it, it will last me quite a long life."
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Joan MitchellI might get an idea [for the start of a painting] sitting looking at t — Joan Mitchell
"I might get an idea [for the start of a painting] sitting looking at the river, or something, or a specific.. ..Yeess. Im sure, yes, Im sure it [the environment] influences me in terms of green and gray and color and.. .I mean, New York light is so different, and it always hits me when I come here [in New York], and it excites me to see great extremes of dark and light and no nuance - which I love. But there the Isle de France [round about Paris] has that, you know, filtered light that is that.. where even on a gray day, the green is very green, and the red is very red.. ..I think walking out barefoot and moving the paintings, being able to move them out of my studio [in Vetheuil] for transportation, things like that have had [influence].. .As well as the landscape. Lake Michigan was pretty important, you know."
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Joan Mitchell
Joan Mitchell
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Joan Mitchell was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artists in the 1950s. A native of Chicago, she is associated with the American abstract expressionist movement, even though she lived in France for much of her career.
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"[Mitchell wanted in her painting].. the feeling in a line of poetry which makes it different from, a line of prose.. .Sentimentality is self-pity, your own swamp. Weeping in your own beer is not a feeling. It lacks dignity and hasnt an outside reference."
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Joan MitchellQuote
"Light is something very special. It has nothing to do with white. Either you see it or you dont. [George] de la Tour doesnt have light; Monet hasnt any light. Matisse, Goya, Chardin, Van Gogh, Sam Francis, Kline have it. But it has nothing to do with being the best painter at all."
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Joan MitchellQuote
"Oh, early Kandinsky.. [stuck her early] .Well no, they had that at the Art Institute in Chicago, dont forget. See, everybody, to do modern art then [New York, mid-forties], seemed to me, when you were going modern [both chuckle], it was Picasso. I mean, everybody. But I avoided that like the plague. I thought.. .I loved Picasso, but it just wasnt for me.. .Well, I dont! I have some of those [early] paintings from LeLavandou - theyre in storage - and from Mexico. They were Expressionist landscapes, or boats on the beach or something like that, which I still do. Sort of going abstract, going towards.."
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Joan MitchellQuote
"And I came [to New York, 1945].. .It was just after the war and I thought it was a little early to get over there [to Europe]. So I spent the winter under the Brooklyn Bridge, on the Brooklyn side, living with Barney Rosset, and I came here [to New York] to study with Hofmann.. .And I went to Hofmanns class and I couldnt understand a word he said so I left, terrified. But he and I became friends later on. Friends, but I never studied with him.."
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Joan MitchellQuote
"I dont make drips [in her painting] purposely. This drip business is a pile of shit. If I see them, I take them out [of her painting] like cleaning the house."
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Joan Mitchell