Abstract
Cleveland portrait artist Anna Arnold discusses her love of drawing and painting as a child, encouragement from her parents and teachers, and her ambitions to attend the Cleveland Institute of Art and become a "famous Cleveland artist." She found inspiration at the Cleveland Museum of Art, especially in the work of the Impressionists. Influential CIA teachers included Mo Brooker, Joseph Cintron, and Van Duser. Arnold discusses the importance of bright colors in her work, and the support of Cleveland Plain Dealer art critic Helen Cullinen, who promoted her work. Arnold mentions other CIA students she knew, Scott Miller, Catherine Butler, George Bows, and David Magana. She admired Andy Warhol and used him as a subject, along with 1960s movie stars. One career highlight was being commissioned to paint portraits of Progressive Insurance Co. founder Peter B. Lewis's family and friends. Other highlights are Guitar Mania, and the Globe at the Cleveland Public Library, which she did with local elementary students. She was always fearful of moving away, but is now attending graduate school Case Western Reserve University and would like to teach art in another country. She describes her work process, the pleasure of collaborative work, and the importance of promoting her art to the public. She explains that she gravitates to bright colors and Caribbean scenes as a reflection of her personality. She also talks about the struggle for female artists to be accepted.
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Interviewee
Arnold, Anna (interviewee)
Interviewer
Busta, William (interviewer)
Project
Cleveland Artists Foundation
Date
10-29-2008
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
37 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Anna Arnold Interview, 29 October 2008" (2008). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 901022.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/213
Transcript
William Busta [00:00:00] Okay, just start out by what is your name and where were you born?
Anna Arnold [00:00:03] Okay. My name is Anna Arnold, and I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1960.
William Busta [00:00:09] You lived here all your life?
Anna Arnold [00:00:10] All my life. I’ve lived here all of my life. I really. I had an idea, like, after I left the Institute, that was ’83, I thought, ooh, I think maybe I’ll go to New York. And I guess I was just too nervous for that. To go. I just, like, was so close to my family and my friends that I wanted to stay here. I used to go around and say to people, oh, I want to be a famous Cleveland artist. People were like, what? But no, I did. I mean, I really liked being here. I felt like it was so important for me to stay here and to do something here in Cleveland, to be a famous Cleveland artist.
William Busta [00:00:52] When did you first realize you had artistic ability?
Anna Arnold [00:00:56] Probably when I was about five years old, I knew I used to draw on my bedroom walls, and I did it in crayon. I remember it was purple crayon, and it was like, the green is sort of like in this room. And I started to draw. Nothing like Picasso or anything like that, but I just started to draw on my walls. And I remember drawing the Flintstones in the garage and my family that were like, oh, everybody has to come and see this. This is excellent. But I always, always loved drawing and painting. And I remember maybe when I was about seven or eight years old, I found my uncle’s box of. It was a cigar box, and it had these little glass enamel paints. And I remember being up in the attic, and I stayed there for hours, just hours. That was the first time I had really painted with anything like that. And I just thought I was like an artist up there by myself and yeah, just up there like an artist. I could see the water towers, and it was just like such an experience that I’ve always remembered. It was like a, like, almost like a turning point where I really felt like I was an artist.
William Busta [00:02:02] How old were you again?
Anna Arnold [00:02:03] I think I was, like, maybe 7 or 8 years old. And I would like to go off and be by myself. And I like to write and just anything that was creative, I love doing that. But that was just like a very vivid memory.
William Busta [00:02:17] And when you were in elementary school, did other people recognize this?
Anna Arnold [00:02:20] Yeah, I was like, I was the art. Yeah. The artist. I remember once I got a chance to work with the boys. Now we’re talking you know, back in the ’60s or might even been ’70s, we did this South American mural that we drew. I think we used pencils, and maybe we used crayons. And the boys didn’t want me to be on the project. Girls don’t draw. Girls don’t paint. But I was like, you know, the best artist. And so that was like, a really vivid memory, too, is that the boys didn’t want me there, and it was like we were in competition rather than working as a group together. But it came, I mean, it came out nice, but, you know, I had to struggle with that.
William Busta [00:03:03] And as you were in school, did anybody particularly encourage you as an artist or some. Was there anybody who was particular influential with the development of you in that way?
Anna Arnold [00:03:16] I think first it was my parents who recognized that there was some sort of talent. But my parents didn’t really know about the art museum art classes. This was probably. This was the early mid-’60s, so they didn’t really know about all of that. They encouraged me by bringing me crayons and you know, pencils, paper, that kind of thing. And then the teachers, all of my art teachers in school saw that from elementary school on up, they saw there was some sort of talent there, and they would always encourage me. They would try to push me a little more to do. I remember there was this one teacher, Mr. Green- Mr. Greenlee. And I was very stubborn with him. He wanted me to do something his way. And I was like, no, no, no, no. I’m a kid, but I’m like, no, I’m going to do it my way. He was like, well, go ahead and do it your way, then. And it had something to do about leaving the paper white. But I wanted to paint it white. I wanted the experience of that. And so he was like, all right, then, that’s enough then. Just do it your way. So I’ve always had teachers who saw that, and they always pushed me.
William Busta [00:04:28] You’re going to have to be careful about the.
Anna Arnold [00:04:30] Oh, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump. I’m killing you. Okay. I like to express. Okay.
William Busta [00:04:41] And when you were in high school, then, did you always know that you were going to go to art school?
Anna Arnold [00:04:48] When I was in high school, I wanted to be. It’s like, I always wanted to be, like, a famous artist. I was like, I could be like Picasso or something like that, but I always knew that I was going to go to art school. I went to the Cleveland Institute of Art, and, you know, I did whatever I could to get there. And my teachers saw that. They helped me take slides and photographs, and they brought. I remember bringing. They brought in Someone from the institute to tell us about, I think it was a registrar that came in to tell us about the different programs. I’m like, I’m going to that school. I’m going to get in. And my aunt said, like, oh, I don’t know. That school’s kind of hard to get in. Maybe you won’t. So, you know, don’t get your whole up too high. So I’m going to get in. And I did. But, you know, I always believed in that. Always believed that there was always that next step. And it may not always happen when I wanted to, but I always believed that.
William Busta [00:05:46] Your mother dressed you up in colorful.
Anna Arnold [00:05:49] She did. I remember red. Seeing pictures of red velvet dresses and bright yellows. And I remember I did this portrait called Sunshine on My Side. It’s a self portrait. And I named it that because my mother said, you were always my sunshine. I thought that was nice. I’m like, aw. But, yeah, she always did. I always had that sort of bright personality. And I guess she just saw that. Put the little baby- Put the little clothes on her. It’s bright.
William Busta [00:06:18] Still wear them.
Anna Arnold [00:06:19] Yes. I love it.
William Busta [00:06:21] Were there other artists around your family or people who were involved in similar careers?
Anna Arnold [00:06:27] There was no one. My father is a creative person, and he invents things, and he’s very restless in that way, and nd I think. I remember when I was younger, he was an independent contractor. He also worked a job at TRW, but he would paint houses. But what I saw from that is that he had a process. I liked the way he would get his supplies and he would set up his work area. He would put his ladders up. And I saw the way he just would go from this step to that to get to his project. And I would just sit and just watch him. He would scrape something down and he would paint this and fix that, and then it was done, and it was beautiful. And I was like, wow. And so I sort of always remembered the process and then doing that with my own art.
William Busta [00:07:22] And as you were growing up with their art, you must have gotten to the museum then for the first Cleveland Museum, then for the first time with class?
Anna Arnold [00:07:29] Yeah, classes. Right. And so that was just an amazing experience because I hadn’t been before. It was like, look at this, and nd I remember going into a gallery where there’s the Madonnas and they’re crying. And I remember looking at it and you could see the tears in their eyes. And I was. It scared me. It was so beautiful. To me, it was so good. I remember Just like me and this other girl, we looked at each other and we just like ran out of the gallery. But it was just like such an incredible experience for me to go. It wasn’t just like, oh, here we go, we have to walk around, we have to look at all the art. To me, it was, look at all this history and all of these beautiful things. And I always wanted to try to do something like that. And another thing that I remember, there was this album cover that my aunt and uncle had, and it was Johnny Mathis. It was heavenly. Do you remember that? And he was beautiful. He had this white outfit on and it was painted. It was so beautiful. I thought maybe one of these days I could learn how to paint like that. And, you know, when you’re young, you don’t notice all these stages and steps that you have to go through to get to that point. But I remember that, too. That was cool.
William Busta [00:08:43] So were there artists that you admired in high school or sort of like somebody said, well, geez, I would like to paint like that?
Anna Arnold [00:08:50] To paint like that, or I’m trying to think. I think it was mostly when I was in high school, junior high. It was probably the other artists in the class. There were, you know, maybe you were in competition. You know, it was like a good competition, though. So I think it was mostly that I didn’t really start to notice artists until I got to the Institute. And I remember Van Gogh and Gauguin and all of that, the impressionists. And that’s what made me, I think that’s what really pushed me to want to be an artist. I know it was an art school, but to actually go and say, you know, I’m really going to continue this and be an artist and show in galleries and museums. So yeah.
William Busta [00:09:37] You got to the Cleveland Institute. Where did you go to high school, by the way?
Anna Arnold [00:09:40] Shaker Heights High School.
William Busta [00:09:42] Did your parents always live in Shaker?
Anna Arnold [00:09:44] No, we lived in Cleveland first, and then the neighborhood started to change. And so my father was like, you know, we really have to, we have to go. I mean, they wanted to stay, but it was like, it’s changing. We really have to get these girls. If we have a sister, she’s right. So we went to Shaker in, I believe it was 70, 75, I think, when we moved to Shaker and stayed there for almost about 20 years.
William Busta [00:10:12] And did you have Malcolm Brown as a teacher?
Anna Arnold [00:10:16] No. Was he gone? He was there. I didn’t have him. I had Hoffman. Yes, I had Hoffman, and I can’t remember the other. Yeah, yeah, Jim, right Yes.
William Busta [00:10:28] And you got to the Institute of Art and it was. It’s certainly the high school is a certain type of cultural environment, but for the first time, artists always talk about. Sometimes it’s a culture shock when they get to art school, when they go from being the best artist to.
Anna Arnold [00:10:48] Okay, so I was still one of the better ones. But I don’t recall really being that intimidated. It was like I wanted to learn from the best artists. It’s like, what are they doing? What are the little techniques that they’re doing that I could add to my own? So I always sort of felt like it was like a collaboration or you could share ideas of what that’s good. I can add that to my own artwork. So I don’t really recall.
William Busta [00:11:20] And at the Institute, who was most influential with your work?
Anna Arnold [00:11:25] There’s Moe Brooker, José Cintron, [Clarence] Van Duzer, and then there was Cecilia Condit for- She was with video. Oh, who else? Oh, there’s someone else. But those were like the. The big influences there.
William Busta [00:11:44] I hadn’t thought about Mo Brooker in your work, but I can see that now that you mention it.
Anna Arnold [00:11:49] Yeah, I remember once he told me, he really got me to. He got me whipped into shape one time, because when I was there, it was, you know, I was like sort of party time. You know, I’m working, but I’m feeling my freedom. And I remember being really silly in his classroom, and he stopped the class and he said, oh, so you think this is funny, huh? You know, you’re always being so silly and everything. He said, you’re very talented and you can do much better than what you’re doing. It was kind of like. It just stopped me, like, oh, you know, because I’d really been sort of slacking off. And that was like a good moment because it made me really get into my artwork and really learn what I was supposed to do.
William Busta [00:12:31] When you? When did you start to paint in DayGlo colors?
Anna Arnold [00:12:38] I think it might have been- I think it was like ’81. I remember it was while you were- Yeah, while I was still at the Institute, and I think was probably looking at Gauguin and Van Gogh and all those gorgeous colors. And I’m thinking it’s too many colors just to work in, like, monochrome or, like black and white. And so I started to doing chalk, and then I went to acrylics and eventually oils. I had to understand that. But I think that’s. That’s around the time when that started. Like, all those colors, like, all this. It was like I have all this good feeling in me. It’s like I need to get that out into my artwork and all the colors.
William Busta [00:13:21] And did you ever use specifically DayGlo paint?
Anna Arnold [00:13:25] Yes, I did. Oh, yeah. I remember I got just about all kinds. It wasn’t bright enough for me. So I had to use it.
William Busta [00:13:36] Well, it’s certainly, you know, when you were in school and when you were just graduating, there was a lot of attention that you got from your work almost immediately. And how did that? Did you?
Anna Arnold [00:13:49] I loved it. I pursued it. I loved it. I really did. It was. Helen Cullinan, who was with the Plain Dealer, was one of the greatest champions. She saw that it was when I was in school, and she really pushed me, and she really did help me. She made people aware of my artwork, and I’ll always be grateful to her for that.
William Busta [00:14:14] That doesn’t happen anymore.
Anna Arnold [00:14:16] No, it doesn’t. It really doesn’t. I think that was the difference, is because she was there.
William Busta [00:14:21] Who were some of the other students at the Cleveland Institute of Art that you went with that were your good friends and that you admired their work?
Anna Arnold [00:14:30] Let’s see. Well, there was Scott Miller. We weren’t good friends, but I really remembered his artwork. I liked looking at it. Katherine Butler, George Bowles, David Magana, who is now in Spain. And I actually did some collaborations with him. I like doing those. I forgot about that. But I like seeing what another person can bring. You come together to make one piece of art. Some other people. I have to come back to that. Okay.
William Busta [00:15:11] Did your art education help you or hinder you?
Anna Arnold [00:15:15] I think I tell you what. My art education gave me an awareness that I didn’t know when I went started at the Institute. I just didn’t know about all these artists. I didn’t know. I wasn’t taught that really, even at Shaker. I don’t really recall being taught a lot about the different artists and the different periods in history. And so it made me aware of that. It made me aware of all the different cultures of people. Although at Shaker Heights, there’s a lot of that, but there’s, like, people from all over the world that were in University Circle. And so that was an excellent experience for that. I guess that’s all I could say about that right now. Okay.
William Busta [00:16:02] Were you at all influenced by Andy Warhol? I mean, Andy Warhol did Faces, and you do Faces and Bright Colors.
Anna Arnold [00:16:08] Yes, I was. And I wanted to meet him. I thought I’d go and meet him and Basquiat and hang out, you know, I mean, I had such a. I was such a fantasy, but I thought, oh, I’d love that, too. I think that’s probably around the time that I discovered more of the Andy Warhol. And it was Warhol this and that and all the bright colors and the Marilyns and Jackie O’s, so.
William Busta [00:16:34] Yes, but that’s not who you painted? He didn’t do the Marilyns and Jackie O’s?
Anna Arnold [00:16:38] No, that was his. I actually painted him. I liked him. I liked the way he looked. He was such a character. So I liked him.
William Busta [00:16:46] So who were your subjects?
Anna Arnold [00:16:49] Who are my subjects? A lot of self portraits. I remember a lot of Andy Warhol, and I did, like, a lot of the movie stars from the ’50s and ’60s. It was like a lot of the things that I remember growing up with, seeing. So I did a lot of those. And then probably Gauguin and Van Gogh, like all my favorite artists, and Frida Kahlo and those people.
William Busta [00:17:12] And you did projects like for Progressive, where you did a lot of employees?
Anna Arnold [00:17:17] Oh, yeah, I did. It’s like. It’s so many things that I’ve forgotten. There’s so many things that I’ve done. Yeah, Progressive and Peter B. Lewis and- Oh, I did do those portraits. They were all, like, his family and friends. It was for his birthday party. And so what I did was I got- Was Barbara Shalinsky, and she got me to do portraits from these photographs, and they were all, like, five by sevens. And I had my family helping me to, like, put frames on them. And I think it was about 152 portraits. And then I did them probably in about three months. It was like the first big project. And it was scary and it was exciting to be because I remember Peter B. Lewis. He came to my house. He had this limo that barely fit in my driveway. It was so funny. He came to my studio in the basement and looked at my art, and that was an excellent moment.
William Busta [00:18:18] And when you did all. Now, this was for his birthday party?
Anna Arnold [00:18:21] This is his birthday party in 1988.
William Busta [00:18:24] And when did you get to go to the party?
Anna Arnold [00:18:26] Yes, I did. Yeah, I got to go to the party and go around to the different tables and, you know, introduce myself and to. I remember all the paintings were up all together. There was an art show for two, but all the portraits were up on the wall. So when the people came for the party, this was his gift to them. So it was like his friends, his family, and his business associates. So when they came, they could pick out their portrait. And I’ve talked to people recently, and they said they still have them and they love them.
William Busta [00:18:59] That’s good. And so do you think of your work as the individual faces or the collective faces? Do you think of as an artist, is each piece distinct or is it? It’s important to be part of a body of things?
Anna Arnold [00:19:17] I think each piece is distinctive, and it has something to do with what I’m going through emotionally or in my life. So I can sort of say, well, 1999, this was what was going on in my life. And that portrait has something to do with that part of my life.
William Busta [00:19:36] And do you paint? Were you sad or happy or everything?
Anna Arnold [00:19:40] Everything. Usually now it’s more when I’m happy. But when I was younger and when I was in school, it was a lot of anger. And, you know, I was just trying to get a lot of things. I mean, I’m a bright person. But then there was that part of me, too, that came out in school.
William Busta [00:19:59] What were you angry about?
Anna Arnold [00:20:01] I don’t know. I don’t know why. It was just. I felt like I was confused, like I couldn’t move forward. I don’t. I really can’t say what that was about, but it was just a period. I don’t know. Some people say it’s just sometimes it’s just an artist thing. You know, you have to go through all the angst and all that to get to your true personality. So I don’t know what that was about.
William Busta [00:20:25] Has there been anything that you felt that really has been in your way of developing a career as an artist? Anything that has held you back or that you felt that?
Anna Arnold [00:20:37] Probably my own self. I think sometimes that my own fear of, like, moving away, maybe, like, moving away from the city has held me back. There have been. I remember there was an opportunity, probably not long after I graduated, where I could have done an internship at a museum in New York. And I was scared to go, and I didn’t go. And I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had done that. You know I don’t know. And so sometimes I think, you know, it’s me that’s in the way.
William Busta [00:21:12] So is this. You speak about the tie you have to Cleveland. Is this, then about how you feel, or is this, you don’t want to leave, or? I mean, certainly if you were living in New York, nobody would ask a question like this, don’t you want to leave? But no, you brought it up a couple times. How has being in Northeast Ohio affected your work? Does it reflect the community anyway, or not reflect it?
Anna Arnold [00:21:50] I Don’t think it does. I don’t think it has anything to do. I think if you looked at my artwork, you wouldn’t really know that I lived here in Cleveland. There’s nothing to say that there’s Cleveland in my artwork. In fact, some people think that I’m from the Caribbean or something like that. They’re not sure. So I don’t know. But now that I’m going to graduate school and things are opening up, you never know because they say maybe you want to go to China and teach, or maybe you want to go to Spain to teach. You don’t have to necessarily teach here in Northeast Ohio. So I don’t know.
William Busta [00:22:30] You’ve spoken to me of this before and I’ve always been a little bit surprised because you always seem so outgoing. You could go anywhere. What are you talking about? This reticence? But what are you in? You’re in graduate school now after a long career as an artist. Do you have some idea of what you want to do there?
Anna Arnold [00:22:52] Let’s see. After 25 years, I graduated from the institute in 1983. 25 years of teaching as a visiting artist and artist in residence, doing my own work in galleries and museums. An opportunity for me to go to graduate school at Case came up for me to get a master’s in art education. And I was like, I have to jump at this. This is excellent. And now that we’re starting to talk, I don’t know, I mean, I thought at first maybe I would just teach high school art and teach it in Northeast Ohio, but you never know. I mean, it’s a two year program. If something opens up in China or Spain or wherever, then I might be gone, I might go and do it.
William Busta [00:23:44] Things always change. Are there artists that you? That. That you are. That you sort of hang out with now and that, that sort of, you know, is there? Is there a community of ideas that you participate in now?
Anna Arnold [00:24:00] Not really. Especially since I’m going to school now. I’m really sort of. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The last few years, not. Not really was more after I got out of school and we were all still here. Right. The first few years, first five to 10 years, it was a lot of us still here from the Institute. We hung out, we went to parties and galleries and that sort of thing. But after a while, it was just me being sort of isolated with my work, which was not a. It wasn’t a bad thing. It gave me a chance to really, like, bring out all this emotion and put it into my artwork. So you can probably see that sort of isolation and sort of the close up of the portrait, you know, the face and the eyes. So not really. Have I been hanging out.
William Busta [00:24:48] Is your parents. Your parents from around northern Ohio or?
Anna Arnold [00:24:52] No, my parents are from the south, and they came here during the Great Migration, I believe it was. They probably came in the early 50s, probably late 40s. So, yeah, they’re not from here, not from there.
William Busta [00:25:08] And so they. So there’s no Caribbean in you?
Anna Arnold [00:25:12] No, no.
William Busta [00:25:16] But you identify that?
Anna Arnold [00:25:18] Yes, I do. Yes, I do.
William Busta [00:25:21] And how does that come about?
Anna Arnold [00:25:23] I think it’s because maybe sometimes when you’re looking at art books and slides and you go, hey, that’s a nice hat. Or, you know, that’s a nice. And I think I just sort of pick up on things like anything that’s colorful or I pick up on that. So I guess it’s just from looking at all different kinds of art and different kinds of cultures.
William Busta [00:25:45] What do you feel are some of the most important accomplishments that you’ve had as an artist?
Anna Arnold [00:25:50] Oh, my. Definitely the Peter B. Lewis portrait series. That was in 1988. There’s the globe at the Cleveland Public Library. That was done with George Bowles and Lanise Williams, who are both gone now. They left the city. And it was with working with over 200 children in the city of Cleveland and 10 different branch libraries. That was in 1995. And that was an incredible experience because I got a chance to work with other artists, and then there were other artists who helped us to bring this about. So it’s this huge globe and there ceramic tiles and glass and mosaic, and it’s on a steel base, and it’s at the Downtown library. And it’s in the historic library, not the Lewis Stokes one, right? Yeah, so that one. And then there’s Guitar Mania and what other things. And then I got a chance to show in New York and Los Angeles. That was probably in the late ’80s, early ’90s. And what other things? So I think those are probably like the biggest ones.
William Busta [00:27:07] Do you feel? Do you have. As an artist, do you feel you have to promote your work all the time?
Anna Arnold [00:27:13] Yes, because it’s like, you better not leave without your business cards, people, you know, Because I talked with one artist, Giorgio Sabino, and he said, you need to have. You need to. To give out 10,000 cards a year. And he said it has really worked for him. He said, not just to have them with you, but to actually get those cards into people’s hands. So I have to think about that.
William Busta [00:27:40] It’s true of every other business. It might as well be true of ours. People keep doing that all the time. Who do you think the audience for your work is? Do you think about audience at all or that you just paint for yourself and hope that somebody will buy it?
Anna Arnold [00:27:56] I paint for myself first, and there is an audience, and there are people who. They’re from all different walks of life and they respond to it emotionally. There are people who seem to be very emotional and very aware, and they’re the ones who really like my artwork. But they’re from everywhere, from children to wealthy people. I mean, from everybody.
William Busta [00:28:22] Has somebody? People followed your work through the years and bought a lot of it?
Anna Arnold [00:28:27] Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. And that hasn’t happened recently because I, you know, sort of fell off doing other things. But, yeah, there are people who are still buying my artwork. In fact, there was a woman who bought my artwork. She- You’ve heard of the Year of the Rat? You know, it’s like the year the dog. She bought the rat, and she hadn’t bought anything for a while, and then she saw this at a benefit, and so she bought it. But, yeah, there are people, they like to know what’s happening, like every series, and they want a little something.
William Busta [00:28:56] Do you have anything else you’d like to say? I don’t know where to lead you in talking about your work. Let’s talk. How about process? You’re going to do a portrait of somebody. How do you get started? Where do you.
Anna Arnold [00:29:09] Okay, if it’s a famous person, I’ll start with if- Is there a documentary about the person? Can I read about the person? Maybe I’ll write a little bit of something about the person. I like to know something about the person that I’m going to paint. And then I’ll get the supplies, I’ll get the materials that I need, and then I’ll just do, like, a quick sketch of something. I don’t really like to do a lot of pencil sketches. I like to do a really quick sketch, and then I work my way into it, like, layer by layer of what I can find out. Like, if I can look at pictures and I’m listening to a story about this person, I can do that while I’m painting. So that’s how I like to work is that step of knowing who the person is, and then I can go from there.
William Busta [00:29:58] And when you do a portrait, you can do commissions I know.
Anna Arnold [00:30:00] Yes, I do.
William Busta [00:30:01] And how does that. Do people sit for you or do you take photographs?
Anna Arnold [00:30:06] I’ve had both. Most People are very busy, so they, you know, they want the photograph. But I at least like to have a couple of meetings so I can look at them and, you know, and talk with them. But yeah, start with a photograph and then a couple of photographs and go from there.
William Busta [00:30:22] But, you know, your work is. I mean, your work isn’t realistic, but. So what do you try to convey in the portraits?
Anna Arnold [00:30:32] Okay, I try to get a sense of the person, of who they are, their humanity. That’s what I’m looking for. Who is this person, really? And if someone’s having a portrait done of someone, I’d like to sit with them and talk about what’s their favorite color, their favorite music, their favorite movie or anything like that. Just so I just know a little bit about something, a little bit about the person.
William Busta [00:30:59] And why portraits? Why not cars or landscapes?
Anna Arnold [00:31:05] I don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure that out myself. I’ve even read books. Why do artists do you paint other things? I’ve tried. It’s not interesting. I have to throw a person in there somewhere. If it’s a landscape, put a person in, which I rarely do a landscape. I don’t know, I just like to be able to do that portrait and have the eye contact and then I like the way people can respond to it. It’s like, I’ve been there. I understand that. I know that. I know that feeling.
William Busta [00:31:37] And do you find yourself so the way you talk about your work, it’s directed rather than. Though it’s with an awareness of art history, it’s directed from yourself. And do you ever think of your work as progressing or do you think of your work as just changing? Do you deliberately try to place challenges inside your work that cause you to do something different? Or is it some more of an inner exploration?
Anna Arnold [00:32:09] It’s more of an inner thing. It’s an inner exploration. And I haven’t drawn and painted in a while, so it’s like sort of building up now. It’s building up now, which is a good thing because sometimes I’ll have the tendency I want to do like the same thing. So usually what I’ll do is I’ll add like a three dimensional element to it. Like there’s this one piece that I have called paradise, and it’s these three faces. And so after a while I was like, oh, I’m sort of tired of doing like the flat, the two-dimensional faces. Now let’s see if we can build them up. And so eventually what I’d like to be able to do is maybe do like an environment of faces or figures. So I can just like really stretch.
William Busta [00:32:52] Out to the environment of Karamu that you do with signs on the post?
Anna Arnold [00:32:59] Right.
William Busta [00:33:02] Tell me a little bit- Tell us a little bit about that project.
Anna Arnold [00:33:05] Oh, let’s see. This was a project that was with an architect, a landscape architect, and it was Cleo Bell Ferguson over at Karamu, who was the gallery director. And it was. I think it was started from the Cleveland Public Art. And what they had was charrettes, where they got artists together as a team with the architects. And then we came up with an idea for a specific building or area. So we met like maybe once or twice a week in order to keep coming up with these ideas. I mean, we worked with clay, we drew together, and then we came up with that final idea and then installed it. And I remember my family helped me install those pieces on the wall, like the big face. And that was hilarious. I remember having it. I didn’t have video, but I have audio of that somewhere. It was hilarious. But my family, they’ve always been so supportive. It’s like any of the projects that I’ve done, they were there to help me, which is, you know, I think, very unusual.
William Busta [00:34:18] They’ve always been part of your work.
Anna Arnold [00:34:19] Yes, they have. Very supportive.
William Busta [00:34:22] Is there anything else you’d like to talk about with your work?
Anna Arnold [00:34:27] I don’t- I don’t think so. I think we did. We hit on it? We hit on everything.
William Busta [00:34:31] Okay.
Anna Arnold [00:34:31] Okay.
William Busta [00:34:32] Do you have any questions?
Matt Ferraton [00:34:35] You talked about, you know, as far as promotion, you talked about handing out cards. Is there any other way that you promise promote your art or your work or what do you find to be the most effective way?
Anna Arnold [00:34:46] The most effective way is to hand out cards and to actually be on hand to talk with people, talk with them one on one and ask them what they want to do. And most people will approach me because they’ve seen the art somewhere, they respond to it. I also have a website. I have a blog. What else do I do? I will paint envelopes. I’ve done that where you do a portrait or something, so that way you capture their attention. What is this? I’ve had people who told me that they keep these envelopes. It’s like, you better. I’ve painted these. But it’s something that they can actually keep and they can put it on their wall, they can frame it. So I’ve done things like that. That’s been very effective.
Matt Ferraton [00:35:35] You mentioned early in the interview.
Matt Ferraton [00:35:39] I got the impression that there was early on There seemed like there was some gender struggle going on where you mentioned that the boy says the girls shouldn’t?
Anna Arnold [00:35:46] Right.
Matt Ferraton [00:35:47] When was that?
Anna Arnold [00:35:49] I think that was in the probably the early ’70s. It was still that sort of thing, but it was like, why can’t I be? I remember telling the teacher, I was like, what’s the problem with me being on the project? So, yeah. Anyway, she made us work together.
William Busta [00:36:09] Have you felt that struggle since then?
Anna Arnold [00:36:12] I have, but it’s gotten better now. It’s more. Guys want to work more than collaboration. It’s more open now because, you know, I think we’re all even here. We’re all even here artistically, and we can pull this together. We can bring this together. Because. What have I worked on recently? I’ve worked with Jerome White from Cleveland Heights High. We worked on Mural My Neighborhood, which was part of the city of Cleveland, and the recreation center is the art program, and we work very well together. Very. It was complementary.
Matt Ferraton [00:36:51] From your perspective, what reasons do you think that that might have changed over time? Or was it just something that just.
Anna Arnold [00:36:57] Sort of happened in the art community with gender? Yeah, I think it was just that, you know, women demanded that we want equal time here. We want. We’re just as talented and we have every right of being here as you do. So I think it was just like we demanded that, and we just kept pushing, and it was like, you have to, have to be accepted.
Matt Ferraton [00:37:22] That’s all I heard.
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