Liberty Interview with Patti Friday
Patti Friday is an online cultural arts blogger based in Toronto, Canada
The Liberty Interview: Ben Junta
2011
Q: Tell us your definition of an ‘Artist’?
A: Anyone who chooses to see life with eyes and ears open, open to surprises, open to new ideas, willing to hear all sides of an issue, willing to think outside the box for solutions to everyday issues be they aesthetic, musical, business, or diplomacy, etc - and not desirous of simply following status quo for profit or to be liked or accepted…
Q: When did you know you were one?
A: I am still wondering… I guess I go back to an old quote I heard the artist Wayne Thibaud use – “please don’t call me an artist, for that is like calling a priest a saint”. I am just an everyday painter trying to search for unique ways of seeing the world…and for me, ultimately an attempt to search for beauty, even sometimes through the grotesque or the morbid, can be a route to an underlying beauty, for it may arouse thoughts or actions in a viewer to see the world in another way so as to ignite thought or action aiming towards a greater harmony or vibration to share with the world…
Q: You work in a variety of mediums. You can tell us. Which one is your absolute favorite?
A: I love so many, but if I had to pick one I simply have to go back to traditional oil paint…Hundreds of years have passed since the Renaissance, technology has added so many new “art mediums” and through it all, oil paint still allows mysterious happenings that, for me, feel more tangibly soulful than anything I’ve yet seen…
Q: How does your environment change your creativity?
A: Great question! Environment has the ability to re-inspire in new ways due to the influx of sensory information one is exposed to! For example, simply from relocating from Northern California to Southern California last year, I am daily exposed to different sights, sounds, colors, and types of diversity – all of which act to get me thinking about my art in new and inspiring ways.
Q: If there was another place or places in the world you would like to create, where would it be?
A: Three locations - a Greek island with surf (Brice Marden has been fortunate enough to do this for years), the Hawaiian Islands, preferably a more remote area over there, and lastly the Tuscan region of Italy.
Q: Do you welcome commissions?
A: Absolutely!
Q: What is your favorite piece of art by you?
A: It’s probably a small landscape pastel done over 20 years ago in the Algarve region of Southern Portugal. It hangs in my Mom’s house. The piece is symbolic in so many ways, among others because I think it gave me the gift of knowing I could follow this life path of creating art in a serious, dedicated way.
Q: What is your favorite piece of art by another artist?
A: Tough question…so many great pieces of art…although I am in love with certain pieces done by Cy Twombly, Richard Diebenkorn, and Frank Lobdell, I would have to say my favorite piece of art is “The Colossus”, originally attribute to Goya, but now believed to have been done by one of his apprentices. Regardless of the original intent, for me this painting has always been an unsolved mystery as to the power it holds over me. It depicts basically a village in the distance and a gathering/slaughter/rebellion (?) of people in a valley, and although scholars reference this piece to patriotism and war, it feels to me representative of the incredible mystery and power that even one man, one idea can have over a populace, and in so doing, it inspires me to know that each and every one of our voices can actually matter, if we believe…
Q: Have you ever collaborated or would you like to and with whom?
A: Yes, and I want to do more. It’s great to work off of the edges and ideas someone else has thrown down… I love the scene in the movie Basquiat in which Jean Michel Basquiat and Warhol are working on a painting together. If I could collaborate with anyone it would definitely be Julian Scnabel. I’d love to tweak stuff with him, maybe adding playing film to paintings, who knows???
Q: Where can collectors purchase your work?
A: There are many online resources, as well as with the Bryant Street Gallery and the Zask Gallery.
Q: How has social media affected your career?
A: I don’t think it has affected it so much actually. Like most artists today, I have a website, blog etc, but with so much content on the web, I find it quite a chore to get viewers to understand how to navigate to my specific web links…Viewers have an infinite number of viewing choices and that is a huge world to compete in. Although I do believe the world is going more and more in that direction…
Q: Do you have a website?
A: www.paintscapestudio.com and www.benjunta.com
Q: Where do you want to be in 5 years?
A: I want to have a strong gallery presence in Los Angeles, Santa Fe, and NYC, as well as perhaps in Italy or France. I want to be making works from multiple studios, one being in Los Angeles near the ocean, one being in Hawaii, and one being in a more remote area of the Rocky Mountains.
Q: Tell us about your studio?
A: Well, I made a trade off this time in this relocation to Los Angeles. I used to have the stereotypical big art loft that I lived and worked in in Northern California. I had 25 foot ceilings, skylights, industrial garage roll up doors, and about 1700 sq feet. It was wonderful. But my time in NorCal was coming to an end, and I sensed that. Not knowing LA all that well geographically, and wanting to play my cards a little close to my chest until I figured out the lay of the land better, I have opted, for now, for a small studio in Hermosa Beach that offers a wonderful location close to everything I need – art supplies, the ocean, the surf, great community, etc…at some point, once I have a better feel for life in this vast land of LA, I will probably move my studio inland a bit, but I tell ya I will miss the daily view I have of the Pacific Ocean. That view alone is so inspiring – the vastness of the ocean as well as the symbolism of how the ocean is our human lifeblood.
Q: Do you prefer to create alone or with others?
A: Most definitely alone, although I love to have the occasional friend or neighbor drop in to say hello and shoot the bull…
Q: What’s on your playlist?
A: These days, currently it’s a lot of old school rock n roll – preferably live shows with cuts from the likes of Springsteen, Van Halen, Journey, Santana, Dave Mathews Band, Seeger, etc… Throw in some Kenny Chesney, Eminem, Kid Rock, and some ballad influenced rap by Bones Thugs n Harmony. I also love Hawaiian slack key with Keola Beamer. Then there is Ray Lamontagne, Nina Simone, as well as mellow jazz by Stan Getz, Paul Desmond, Turrentine, Jimmy Smith, little Jimmy Scott…music is something I wish I had mastered…
Q: What do you wear when you work?
A: One of the best parts of painting with the ocean in sight is that I paint in shorts, sandals, and mostly no shirt unless it gets cold…
Q: If you weren’t an Artist, what would you be?
A: An architect, interior designer, or some sort of lawyer involved with international diplomacy. I’d also get a kick out of sampling the worlds of Wall Street High Finance, just to see what that ride would be like…
Q: What is your favorite colour?
A: Somewheres in the orange brown areas, although I don’t use much of it in my current art…it’s like those morroccan brown oranges that are so soothing and grounding to the soul…
Q: iPhone or Blackberry?
A: iPhone no doubt
Q: Who is/was the sexiest male and female Artist?
A: Sexiest Female: Cecily Brown, Delia Brown, and Betsy Eby
Sexiest Male Artist: Julian Schnabel, Johnny Depp
Q: If you could invite any 10 people to a dinner party, who would they be and why?
A:
1.)Tich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnames Buddhist Monk – for all is devotion to world peace
2.) Julian Schnabel – to hear his perspectives on film, surf, painting, and interior design
3.) John Favreau the actor and director – to hear his take on where film
is going and what he would ideally be making if it weren’t for big Hollywood stuff
4.) Stephen Tyler – need I say why about an icon?
5.) Matt Damon – the guy is for real both as an artist and a free thinker.
6.) Christian Fletcher – to hear his thoughts on surfing, art, society
7.) Micheal Meade – one of the most influential mythologists, storytellers, and wisdom keepers I know of.
8.) Laird Hamilton, artist, surfer and free soul
9.) My brother David Junta because I’d love to hear how his worldly travels and life learnings bounce off these other guys
10.) My Dad, Dale Junta, because (along with my Mom) he has given his sons the gift of thirsting for knowledge and an ability to want to inquire “why” – and because as a fairly traditional Harvard 50’s grad, I think he’d get a kick being mixed in with all these influential free spirits…It would mix it up, and the guy is so charismatic.
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Seeing as to how this list is all guys, I guess it would be a serious boys night out…I need a second party to mix in the women.
Q: Tell us 5 things about you that we don’t know yet?
A:
1) Early in college, I had fleeting dreams of thinking I might make it in the NFL.
2) Strange as it may sound, I’d like to know what the brotherhood of a biker gang really is like. What’s it feel like to ride side by side with 40 other guys on the highway?
3) I wish I could have been good friends with Hemingway – hunting, sporting, drinking, fishing, etc.
4) I once harbored dreams of running a back country helicopter ski company and climbing mountains in the summers…
5) I had (had being key word) one of the larger private book collections of anyone I know, including many many books on the Vietnam War, something I have always been somewhat obsessed with.
Q: What will your next body of work be?
A: Hopefully something worth writing about by the art mags, etc…I have ideas to mix landscape with spray paint, multi media collage, and some neo geo type stuff…
Thank You