Mary Carter

(United States)

SP: HOW DID YOU BECOME INTERESTED IN SURREALISM ?
MARY: When I was sixteen I purchased an art book on Bosch. I was immediately entranced by his work. The images just looked so "right" to me. It was the start of the opening of a certain mind's eye for me.

SP: WHAT MEDIUMS YOU PRESENTLY WORK IN?
MARY: Acrylic on canvas or board. I work very lean, watering down the pigments until they splash and run on the substrate. I also use a lot of transparent glazes which I make with pigment and acrylic mediums.

SP: WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW?
MARY: Talking about my current work is a topic I address on my painting web site/blog. I am very opinionated, in fact, on this topic. But for the sake of brevity, here is a short answer. For details see my posting entitled "Never, Ever, Talk About What You Are Working On" in the Blog II section of www.mary-carter.com.
Since 1996 I have been working on figurative images which fly, float or fall through atmospheric backgrounds. Many of my recent paintings include a goose girl figure, part bird, part human.

SP: DESCRIBE YOUR PAINTING PROCESS
MARY: I work every day. As a morning person, my day starts around 7:30 am. My work day is generally about 5 hours of painting and drawing, then lunch, then a couple of hours of just looking at the work in progress.
Images "pop" into my mind somewhat fully formed. Most of my paintings are very large format -- up to about seven feet in height. First I draw the figures on large pieces of paper. I draw and alter the drawings, cutting them apart, redrawing many times as the figures evolve in my process.
During the same period of time that I work on the figure drawing, I work on the canvas. Always, I work lean -- that is with thin washes and glazes. -- pouring, splashing and spilling paint, then blotting, scratching, or scumbling the watery paint to create a background that has a certain depth to it. In other words, I work the surface to create the illusion of space. After the splashing phase, I go back and completely rework the entire surface with soft round brushes, moving inch by inch over the entire surface, to enhance the illusory space. The backgrounds of my paintings are very complex and rich. Then I take the drawing and re-draw elements of it so that the figure moves in and out of the space of the painted background. I work standing at a waist-high table. Throughout the painting and drawing processes, I move around the image, sometimes working on it upside-down. As a result of this action, many of my paintings do not have an "up" direction. Many of them may be viewed with any edge uppermost.

SP: WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL HISTORY WITH ART?
MARY: I received a BA in Art, studying figure drawing, oil and watercolor painting, serigraphy, pottery, sculpture and art history. I attended Chouinard for one year of graduate work in painting and serigraphy.

SP: WHAT ARTISTS HAVE INFLUENCED YOU AND HOW?
MARY: Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington, Dorothea Tanning, Paula Rego.
Surrealists! Women! What a discovery!
What an inspiration!
Marc Chagall for his figural floatation.
John Singer Sargent for his painterly bravura.
Franz Hals for painting laughter.
Schiele, Ernst, Bacon, Tamayo for intensity and broken rules.

SP: HOW HAVE YOU HANDLED THE BUSINESS SIDE OF BEING AN ARTIST?
MARY: Since 1981 I have entered selected juried exhibitions where the juror or jurors were either from major galleries or museums or were artists I admired. I have sent out slides and portfolios to various galleries and have been included in some group shows that way. Now that I have a web site it is easier to make those presentations. Now all I have to do is send my URL and the work speaks for itself.
I also participate in my town's annual Open Studios event where I sell some of my smaller works.
I also wrote a book on copyrights in plain English for artists. My book: Electronic Highway Robbery, An Artist's Guide to Copyrights in the Digital Era was published by Peach pit Press in 1997. Writing about copyrights clarified the business side of my studio work especially on the Internet. Over the years I have also had my share of "day jobs" -- work unrelated to my painting, but which pays the bills!

SP: WHAT OTHER INTERESTS DO YOU HAVE OUTSIDE OF PAINTING?
MARY: Gardening and my animals. Cooking. I am a voracious reader. I love to go "junking" for furniture and objects. I love used book stores.

SP: WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO AN ARTIST STARTING OUT?
MARY: Show up. Just go into your room and do the work. Even if you're too tired, upset, distracted, sit with your materials and sooner or later you will make a mark.
Do not talk too much about your head and heart work. Do not talk about the secret wellsprings of your work. Talk of this type dilutes the energy required to actually DO the work. But, consider this: Do talk about process and technique with other artists. Learn stuff from them. Do look deeply at other artist's work.
Learn all the techniques and tricks of the trade of your chosen medium, become technically proficient, then UN-learn those constraints and fly blind.

SP: WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE QUESTION THAT YOU ARE ASKED AS AN ARTIST?
MARY: During open studios people who are not artists (I call them "civilians") will ask me, "How long did it take for you to paint this painting?" It just drives me nuts!

question from previously featured artist DANIEL CHIRIAC:
HOW IMPORTANT IS BEING APPRECIATED BY THE PUBLIC TO YOU?
MARY: Ah, great question. I think about this a lot. My work is very well loved by only a handful of people. Mostly my work is not well received by "civilians" (what I call people who are not artists), nor widely exhibited . . . and not for lack of trying on my part. For the few who really "get" it and can really "see" it, my work is very intensely loved. Oddly, my work sells well, once I get it into a gallery setting. For instance, my solo show at Arte Loca was almost a sellout!! But surrealism is not mainstream, never has been, and so there are limitations to its popularity, I believe. "Fame" is a topic I have considered several times on my web site. Check out the post dated February 27, 2007 "That Fame Thing Again" for more of my thoughts on the subject.

Mary Carter's website

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