Ed Wintner Answers "4 Questions"
1. Your stories/memories are personal. What do you think about viewers
bringing their own interpretation to your paintings?
I welcome any interpretation that a viewer makes – I feel it is their prerogative as soon as they choose to take a look at my work. Being a landscape painter, I am usually trying to bring a particular sense of a moment that I experienced looking out at the scene that I painted, but if the viewer takes away something completely different than what I was feeling, that’s fine!
2. How do you overcome creative blocks?
So far in my 15 years as a full time artist, I am fortunate to have not experienced creative blocks – my blocks are always having too many demands on my time (mostly family-related) to complete as many works as I want to. I always have multiple projects lined up in my head that I want to start; knock on wood, for me there is no lack of creativity, just lack of time!
3. What is your biggest inspiration?
Definitely walks – on walks in nature I am constantly seeing a tree or a rock or a stream or an entire vista that inspires a thought for a painting. I used to have to bring along a good camera when I went out, but these days a phone is all I need to capture the images that I take back to my studio for inspiration.
4. How does your art affect other aspects of your life?
I think that everyone sees the world differently; the only unusual aspect of being an artist is that you are acutely aware of how differently you see the world, because you can visually articulate that view into your medium of choice. Most people don’t have that direct way of transmitting their worldview if they want to share it with someone else.
Because I am an artist, I’m always putting my world view on the canvas to greater or lesser extent, and from how others interpret my work I am constantly aware of how differently everyone sees and interprets the most “obvious” visual images.
So, to answer in one way, I would say that art affects every aspect of my life, because it’s essentially a representation of how I exist in the world. To be more specific though, my art is founded on perception of shapes and color, and I find myself taking great pleasure out of visual images (particularly in nature, but not exclusively), perhaps more so than most others. This tends to make me someone who can focus for hours on the present when I see things that are “beautiful” – I have no problem living “in the moment” – but it also sends me off into absent-minded daydreams when there is a lack of visual inspiration, such as waiting in a doctor’s office or listening to a speech or lecture.
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