In Her Own Words,
an Interview with the Artist
By Maria Cocchiarelli

MC: You touch on something that you’re interested in? humanists who do extraordinary things. In a similar way you mentioned in an earlier conversation that you’re interested in creating art that is uplifting, that doesn’t remind us of?maybe?I’m paraphrasing and maybe you’ll correct me?that perhaps it may elevate our spirits but it also reminds us that there are things going on in the world that aren’t tasteful, that are distasteful, and your work is meant to remind people that there is a way, there are moments in life, even though the world isn’t perfect, that may be perfect visually, where you synchronize the moment, you create the extreme effect of light and shadow and your color system works with your composition and underlying geometry. Are you hoping to provide the viewer a glimpse into a world that may project something that not everyone may experience in his or her lifetime?

CM: Well it might, I think be to accentuate the affirmative rather than the negative, and to use its simplistic?you know that phrase, “if you’re handed lemons, you make lemonade”?but you have always a side to look at anything that happens. There are some things that happen that are terrifically bad, I mean it’s needless to say, and we all realize where that is. But at the same time you don’t have to show it as a paragon of virtue, you don’t have to keep reminding and hitting people over the head with it because there is so much good that we could be showing and hopefully if we do enough of that, that people will start thinking in that way themselves, instead of thinking the other way?promoting the good rather than the bad, the negative. I noticed in your work that you have the children working (here Constance is referring to the public murals and gardens I have created over the last 20 years, nationally) I think that’s the best thing. The kids, when they’re putting out their stuff, you can see what they’re really all about, and it’s wonderful working with them too because they’re very open, they absorb a great deal, and they’ll remember much more than you think. Years from now when they think about it, they’re going to remember what they did with you and with themselves at that time.

MC: Thank you for noting that, and yes I agree it is important. The other interesting thing concerning childhood is so many other artists of stature?Paul Klee, Picasso, Miro, just to name a few?were interested in that?and Dubuffet?that interest of that spirit of the child. That’s an important thing with your work too because you have children around you and you have that model of seeing their wonder. The interesting thing about your work is that it’s remained constant, the flow of creativity continues? maybe that’s why your name is Constance?that there is a consistency in it while you remain interested in your own internal growth. So the newer work, which I’m very interested in, even though I’m not discounting what came before, promotes the spirit of adventure that is continued throughout all of your series. Each series begins with this extreme sense of wonder, like a child’s experience, and I think that’s why you’re so vital and why you’re still working because you experience this.


CM: You can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again. I think you get bored with it. Then you’ve learned something and now you want to use that and go to the next and see what else you can do to make it even more interesting. You mentioned the fact that the triptych with Pat with the strays, the dogs, was flat. Well, it works because the action was with the foreground. She wanted the character of the dogs to come out, which was quite a challenge. I don’t know her dogs as well as she does. So I really had to spend time with the dogs and find out what kind of personalities they had and portray those personalities in the canvas and I couldn’t do that if I put her and the five dogs in the same canvas. It would have been trying to squeeze them all in. And then I would have had to make them all in ratio and size. So, how could you have a small poodle and a large husky dog without minimizing the value of that poodle because he’s squished on the side and this big dog is here and then you have the shepherd over there. It just wouldn’t work. And of course I wanted Pat in it, too. So that’s why I started thinking in terms of separate canvases, putting them together and making a triptych?actually it’s a quintych?because its five pieces. A centerpiece with Pat and the poodle, then there are two dogs on the left and two dogs on the right, so that’s how I got the five dogs all in together. They’re all in the foreground so that you can see them sitting on the same eye level, you see their ratio in size, and you can see one has a bad leg. The dog arrived that way. The way that Pat would take care of that dog was remarkable. One leg always jutted out so I sat him on the extreme right and his leg was extended so that it reached into the next painting, which tied those two paintings together. Then the other dog was sitting and looking at Pat with his food bowl in front of him. There, I used the food bowl to extend from his painting into the next painting, so that if you put one next to the other it has the appearance of being one unified painting. And the leash, I like the idea of the leash because little Brooklyn, who I told you was my favorite because she is a little rascal. If you had a leash on one dog, she would pick up the other end of the leash and want to walk the dog, and that was her little thing. She enjoyed walking the other dog. So I had the leash lying on the floor next to Brooklyn and it extended into Pat’s painting with her poodle, who has epilepsy. Pat has to hold that dog practically all the time because it’s “attached at the hip.” They’re very affectionate animals and she loves them all, so that is something that I had to show, all that and that’s why I kept the background simple. You have a lot going on in there and if you put too much background, you lose it.


MC: This brings up another point for me. I mentioned another artist?Pat Steir. In a similar fashion she painted a mural in which she incorporated children at play, people who she knew because she was also promoting a humanist spirit, during the politically tumultuous time?I think the Vietnam War was happening and yet she still expressed that there were many positive things going on in daily life. Her work has been reviewed by critics in a very positive light because of her political sensitivity at the time. And on the other hand, your work has been left out of the discourse due to your political stance. As you have noted in the Discovery Series, attempting to show the positive aspects of the people who were the discoverers (Columbus, Marco Polo, etc.) was at a time when it was politically incorrect to bring them up in conversation. In a way, that’s a little like being a revolutionary because you were going against the grain and yet the critics picked up the negative part of that and spoke about the work in a disapproving way. Similarly, you mentioned another article that came out concerning your politics. During the time you were doing the American Women series?there was mention of you in the political sphere, which negated your humanistic spirit. Because of your political views you have been excluded from the art arena. Can you say anything about that?

CM: That’s difficult because I think people are too concerned with labels. I’m a conservative, I’ve never been ashamed to say it, but I’m also kind of a rebel in that cause because I was a conservative when it was not popular to be conservative. The whole point is I always had very strong feelings of right and wrong. I didn’t like people who were on the dole that tried to get something for nothing. I’ve always felt that if you wanted something, you should work for it. I was brought up that way, and I believe that’s the best way to do it. You don’t wait for someone to hand you something, if you want it you work for it. And at that time, I guess I have ways of expressing myself that seem to be intolerant, and that’s why I get labeled. Because as you know, when Rudy Giuliani was mayor there was a Brooklyn Museum display of the Virgin Mary that was done in what I would consider a lousy way, it was certainly not artistic, not to my view, and it had condoms hanging from it and they threw all kind of filth over it?dung as a matter of fact?and they were getting public funds. And I was at that time very involved with the Queens Council on the Arts because I was their President. It is with public funds that these different exhibits are presented. This was done during a time when it was supposed to be Black Awareness Month, it was in February I believe, and you’re supposed to promote tolerance, that’s the whole idea. And then to show a piece of art that is completely intolerant being funded by public funds, to me seemed to be out of sync. If you wanted to display this work, do it in your own gallery, put it in any gallery?I don’t object to that. If people want to see it, let them see it and make their own judgment. But to accept money from public organizations that have a lot of Catholics and Christians who would certainly take offense to this, they go to the museum with their children to show them tolerance month and they find this kind of display there, what kind of tolerance does this project?