combinations, tweaking proportions of chemical
BRAMBLETT: You know it’s like a mantra, what’s
and pigment additives, on fifteen by nineteen
important about anything is everything you don’t
inch test panels of wood. These were not so much
know about it. Everything that you know doesn’t
painting studies as simple tests of a process.
matter. What matters is what you don’t know. So it’s
You can see my notes scribbled all over many of
the search and then the ultimate find, which is what
them. At one point, in 2000, I was going through
life is all about. That’s what I see painting as being
thousands of old family travel photographs looking
about. It’s not about the explanation, it’s not about
for a certain one. This had nothing to do with my
the theory. It’s about the search and the find and
art—it just so happened that my large worktables
the next search that follows.
were all shoved together in the middle of my studio and covered in a grid of thirty or forty of those test panels that had been hanging around for a couple of years. I used that as a surface and began scattering the photographs on top of the
ORTWEIN: I understand. Things are always
changing and your ideas are always developing. I remember a story you told me about a particular project with former students when you built a wall.
panels, searching for that one I needed. Instead, I
BRAMBLETT: Yes, two of my favorite students
started seeing some of the photos merging with
were Jonathan Allmaier and Maria Walker. They
the paintings they lay on.
were working for me that summer and were
I spent about two days going through every photograph I could find. I start narrowing down the photos, placing them directly on the panel with which they made the best connection. I ended up with anywhere from three to thirty photographs on top of each panel. I decided to have only one on each (two for larger studies), and began to move it around to find its place. Once I glued the right photographs to the right surface, the panel became a painting.
assigned to construct a stone wall. He wrote a piece about working on the stone wall at my house. The wall followed the path up to my studio. His writing really captured who I am because it talked about how I had my students pick the stones out of this huge pile, because we were using quarry stones that are irregular because there’s a lot of quartz in them. They’re cut like rhombus shapes. I had them lay the stones out on the grass and wash and scrub them so they could see the grain and the color. I wanted them
ORTWEIN: This illustrates the lack of intention that
to keep them damp while building the wall. I would
we were discussing earlier, as well as your desire
correct them, in my nice, critical way. I told them
to avoid a prescribed agenda. What’s the cut off in
to tear it down. They became—understandably—
terms of what you label as a painting?
exasperated and testy, and eventually began to
BRAMBLETT: I guess, if I say it’s a painting, it’s a
painting. If I say it’s a sculpture, it’s a sculpture.
squabble about placement and structure. Slowly, however, they reached a new way of thinking about the wall and about the process. Jonathan wrote,
ORTWEIN: So if you find more of them, are they
“We realized that the goal of the afternoon was
going to be paintings or are they going to be up for
not to build a wall.” He described how the project
grabs?
became instead a meditative experience. “We just
FRANK BRAMBLETT: NO INTENTION
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