Taped while walking around the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibition's "Tri-Annuale, Part 2, Amy Adler Curates Joni Mitchell". (and amazingly transcribed by Lindsay Moon)

Rene Ingle: In our conversation with Joni Mitchell, she said, "I paint my joy and I sing my sorrows." At the dawn of the 21st century, her 21st album is being released for Valentine's Day. On today's "Let's Do Lunch," we'll listen to songs from the new album "Both Sides, Now." You'll be surprised and delighted by what you hear. And walk through Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions to look at Joni Mitchell's paintings with the artist.

Rene: Of course, everyone knows you as a songwriter and singer and performer and may not be as familiar with the fact that you have been a visual artist really all your life, and you've always lent your visual art to the design of your recordings. The albums have always been, in each case, included some artwork of yours, and even more assertively, it seems in recent years.

Joni: Well, all but the "Blue" album which was -- which I didn't do. And I don't recall why now, but I think I ran away from home that year (laughs). I think I went to Europe or something, but, yeah, because I was -- I've always been a painter, and when I became a musician and was faced with the release of an album and this package, this space to be decorated, I just applied what I always, you know, intended to do.

Uh-huh. Where did you -- did you study actually?

I did briefly. I went to Alberta Institute of Art in Calgary. I didn't think much of the education at that time. It wasn't what I wanted. But because I wanted to be a figurative painter and the professors there were all pouring blue and green paint down incline planes. It was a pocket where traditional painting, classical education, had been kind of abandoned and actually there was a prejudice against anyone with hand-eye coordination and a rendering ability. They wanted you green and, you know, mainly with the impulse to be an artist rather than any chops, and although in the first year you were given marks and that aspect of your ability was evaluated and I did very well, I was in conflict with my profs all of the time mainly because they were Barnet Newman fanatics and I felt that he had failed both, you know, his political thrust was to make something too big for the Bourgeois to slip into their houses but instead they were ending up in General Motors lobbies and everything so, you know, as a "pinko" he'd kind of philosophically failed.

I don't know Newman's work. Will you tell us a little more about it?

Oh, he was kind of the king of the Minimalists, the big blue canvas with the white stripe. I mean after the -- you know, first the stroke was liberated, you know, probably starting with Rembrandt and Van Gogh and the Expressionists, and color was liberated, and then finally abstraction began, and the image, you know, was ruined and it was just a fresh look and then brush stroke was kind of eliminated by the Minimalists. And they earned their place in our history, but I didn't -- and they're great decorative pieces for large, modern structures. You know, they look good in museums and they look good in the lobby of General Motors, you know, but there isn't that much – and in the art mausoleums that people build these days for that kind of a modern collection. But, so -- but philosophically they were breaking down the window to another world, and there were a lot of the things that were the concepts of older painting which I still admired, and in a way it was kind of sad to find that your impulses belonged to another era and that you weren't going to be given the knowledge that you sought. So I was in conflict with them most of the time.

Something -- if I can -- if I can say this, that there seems something very rooted and traditional in your artwork.

Well, this is my 90s work. And in the 90s I decided, you know, just to do -- to follow my instinct, my initial impulses. I entered art school and teach myself what I wanted to learn. In the 80s I painted large and abstractly just to get rid of that prejudice, you know. And I learned a lot about brush style and texture and I enjoyed the journey. I still don't think that much -- I'm not a "Moderne," you know. I like Post-Modern because of its, you know, return to a certain amount of classicism, but, yeah, I live in an old house, for one thing, and I paint for myself for another. I'm not part of the art world or the game. It's not like it's a hobby, you know. It's truly an obsession that I've never lost. But -- but this type of art -- I can't afford (laughs), you know, I painted paintings that I wanted, like about subjects that I wanted to see on my wall so they're very personal subjects. You know, there's my cat. Well, that painting -- we could start with that. That was painted out of necessity. My cat, Nietzsche, peed all over a couple of chairs, and you can't snuggle him because he's part ocelot, so I said to him --and I love this cat. Look at his eyes. I mean he's such a romantic animal.

Let's walk over to the painting.

I said to him, if you're going to act like an animal, you're going to live like an animal, and I grabbed him by the stump of the tail and the nape of the neck, and I put him outside which I never do because we have coyotes that live at the end of the block. Well, he had the most hurt expression in his eyes and he disappeared for 18 days. Well, this cat and I have a ritual on the stairs between the bedroom and the downstairs of the house. We stop at the top, he stands on his hind legs, I swoop down, he takes my fingers in his mouth and he chews on them. Then we skip the next three steps, and he stands on his hind legs on the third [step]. Then we skip the next two [steps] and he stands up again and sometimes he stands up twice on each stair if he really loves me a lot that day. You know, like sometimes he just stands there if I did something, you know, and looks at the ground and doesn't look at me and doesn't stand up at all. But every time I go down the stairs, this cat goes with me. So with him absent the stairs became a painful place. I mean every time I went down them, there was hole in me. So the night he disappeared I went looking for pictures of him and found one when he was a kitten that was taken without outdoor film indoors. And his color is kind of lilac-y. He's like a puce color. So it was a kitten and his tail wasn't straight up; it didn't look like him. I thought, I'll never get him back from this. So I painted that the first night of his absence and I had to make the --grow him into adult from the picture, the source material I had, put his head straight up and remember the color that he was so that people could identify him. Then a friend of mine had them made up into laminates. And I distributed them with a phone number all through the neighborhood, you know, and this is how I got him back. Eighteen days later a gardener called up and said, he's in our yard. So I went down and he yelled at me. He was so skinny and had such a hurt look. And he yelled and he yelled and he yelled. And I yelled back and I noticed that he wanted to duck and belly up but then he changed his mind. No, he still had more madness to get out. So he yelled at me some more, but I softened my tone, you know, into a pleading tone, and finally he bellied up and I took him home with me. So that painting actually saved him from the wild because he was too proud to come home. I hurt his feelings so bad.

And you actually finished this painting in one night?

In one and a half, yes.

In one and a half?

All one night and the next afternoon we got it photographed on the second day, printed and back on the fourth or fifth, and distributed on the sixth and I got him back on the -- 18 days later.

Joni, you say that you paint for yourself.

Mm-hmm.

And there doesn't seem to be an intent of, like, point of origination that you don't paint for a particular exhibit.

No, I don't paint for galleries, I don't paint for museums.

Did Amy Adler actually call you --

I paint to go with my couch (laughs).

Now, that's the question, if you actually got some artwork from somebody else whether you're allowed to, like, paint over it if it doesn't match your couch. You wouldn't do that?

Oh, I've done that.

Oh, no Joni.

Well, not necessarily to match my old paintings and work on them, you know, like change the color for one reason or another but that's as good as any. I mean, after all, they're domestic decorations. You know, that's really what they are, they're domestic decorations.

Did Amy Adler actually contact you --

Yes.

-- about curating the show?

Yes, through Wayne Shorter. She --

Through the composer?

Yes. They were gathering up there, she and a couple of other girls, you know, spending time with Wayne, and she mentioned that she would like to curate this show.

And did she ask you -- did she say I want --I'd like to present X number of paintings or anything like that?

She said that there was a limited space and that it would probably require a certain amount -- she'd seen the work on album covers and, you know, even some curators won't take a print on an album cover. They want a certain kind of slide and so on, but I think because Amy already had translated her work into print, she's not so worried about the printed form. But, anyway, it sounded like a fun idea and most of my shows have been fly-by-nights. They've been, like, up one night and down the next, you know. So the idea that the public would be able to see them sounded intriguing.

Do you feel flattered about an opportunity to actually have an exhibit? This one's up -- it doesn't seem for us like a long time but up for three weeks until the -- just right at Christmastime.

I try not to feel flattered about anything (laughs) wherever possible.

If I tell you I have a favorite painting --

To me, flattery is like a form of insincerity. If somebody likes something, you know, I kind of get all -- you know, I like to please. You know, that's a little different. If something really -- if you enjoy edit, that would give me pleasure. But that's not flattery, is it?

Good. We'll redefine it.

Flattery is kind of like an ego stroke, isn't it?

I wouldn't think by intent. I certainly didn't think of flattery that way when I presented it.

Maybe I'm just weird though. But I mean like I received a lot of honors in recent years, and they -- they didn't seem like honors. I wasn't flattered. They were disturbing - most of them (laughs).

So as opposed to flattered you were embarrassed?

Yeah, I found it really embarrassing because they didn't seem to --nobody seemed to know the real virtue or value of what was being awarded. It just seemed like kind of like arbitrary so that I would say would be flattery, you know, like it looks good to others. Flattery is kind of a superficial kind of thing. It looks good to others. "You should be flattered!" - people are always saying that to me. Why? You know? Don't you know Aesop's Fables? (laughs) I was raised on Aesop's Fables, like, you know?

Give me the one that applies.

Okay. "The Fox and the Crow."

Okay.

The fox comes along is looking for something to eat and up in the tree there's a crow. And the crow has got a big piece of cheese in its beak, and the fox says, "mmm," he wants that cheese, so he says, "What a beautiful bird you are! What shiny black feathers! Why, if the voice you had were as beautiful as the color of your feathers, you would be the most beautiful bird for miles around!" So the crow opens his mouth and goes "SQUAWK" and drops the cheese (laughs).

And that is flattery.

That's flattery.

And that was manipulative too.

---

(Music up, "A Case of You" from "Both Sides, Now.")

Rene: We're with Joni Mitchell at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, "Tri-Annuale Part 2,Amy Adler Curates Joni Mitchell" runs through Thursday, December the 23rd,at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. And you can call for information at(323) 957-1777.

Did you feel, Joni, that you needed to scramble a little bit when Amy called you and asked you, or did you have all the work -- enough work ready to give her a choice of to present in this exhibition?

Well, she came and selected from, like I said, about 50 pieces of this particular period or whatever -- it's periods within itself, but --

It's all 1990s.

Yeah. This started in about '92 or '93, I forget. In the early '90s I decided to stop painting abstractly, and I'd abandoned the brush for rolling materials, and I decided to go back to the brush and personal subject matter. And she came and looked at a lot of pieces, and some of them that she selected I reworked in the time between she selected them. Like "The Little Bathers," I repainted that from top to bottom. I went to go in on one little detail and ended up redoing everything, and I think it improved. Sometimes you can lose the image completely. I mean, I could have destroyed it before the show.

These are young kids in "The Bathers" and you were actually --

These are my manager's children at my summer place in Canada. Yeah, so it's a documentary. We have the annual Middle Point Wiener Roast with the children and now that my children have come back to me and my grandchildren, you know, we've incorporated them so it's kind of a late summer gathering. It's a nice time. So that's a memory of August in Canada.

You touched a little bit when you talked about Newman?

Barnet Newman?

Yeah, about the political in artwork. Your work seems very personal.

Yeah.

Do you ever try to impart some --

No.

-- social perspective in your work?

No, no, because I feel that concern in my writing. If I did that in my painting I'd go cuckoo(laughs). This is an old farmer's trick, you know, like summer following. Once I -- I paint after I finish a record, generally, with the incentive of the decorating the package, but it gets -- so I go from big ear to big eye, you know, and your eye develops and once you get your chops up, your eyes start getting better. People start breaking down. You'll be having lunch with somebody and mentally you're mixing colors, you know, like on the side of their face. You know what I mean? You just get compulsively into doing that. So while it is oiled and working if I have time before I have to go into prep which is a whole other mentality -- that's more like politicking -- and even though I am somewhat of an ambivert now, like I have a balance I would say between the introspection that's necessary to be creative and the extroversion that's necessary to exploit yourself for performance. There were times in my life where those two were not in such good balance, either, because of the thrust of the industry that doesn't take into consideration the mental stability of the artist, and they'll say, "oh, artists are crazy," but if you look at the gauntlet that you have to run through, you know, as a recording artist, it's very unstabilizing. A lot of people die you know, one way or another.(laughs) They don't make it from one end to the other. And I think that the painting -- that the idea of crop rotation, since I come from wheat farmers, you know, giving part of it a rest. Even Winston Churchill knew that. Painting for him was a chance to shut off his intellect. It comes down to synapses, like (making electrical buzzing noises) red in the upper left hand corner, (making electrical buzzing noises) blue in the left, you know, I forget I have a body. I go into a normal -- I forget to eat. It's very obsessive, to me, the painting, but it's a great escape, and it's very good for mental equilibrium.

It seems in recent years that performing is rarer than it once was; does that afford you more time to paint?

No, it just means that the process is, you know, I've taken on more and more of the work myself. If you want things done right, you have to do it yourself. I do everything to fight against what I, you know --systematic mediocrity (laughs). I mean if I could dispense duties to others, I would, but until I find the proper team, you know, I'm constantly working. You go through the writing leg which takes its time. The last album that I made was two years in the making because I don't write music. I could read music when I was seven and eight, but I haven't used that so I've lost the ability. The best way, then, for me to write music is hands-on by layering in the studio, and the last album was two years in the making and then there was an exhausting period of prep output following that and then I did tour it. And, you know, I've had a lot of disease in my life, and I'm puny, basically. So all of these phases are very stressful. The painting is generally a de-stressing process for me. It's a celebration, you can see from the images, it's a matter of holding onto precious outings. Like, for instance, this painting here. This – Gilles and I come from -- he's deep in Saskatchewan, he's not from there, but he's working with the museum there and I come from this area. This is a town on the bleakest strip of road. Anybody locally will tell you, (voice characterization) '__________ from Prince Albert to North Battleford, eh?' You know, but -- and this was 40 below, and I'm telling you, it was the most -- I was enchanted with the colors of the blues, of the lilacs, and the shiny snow and the loose, drifty snow that I've never seen the local painters back home paint. Have you, Gilles? (Gilles' response inaudible) Winterscapes? Have you? Because you've seen more of the local work than I have, but anyway it wasn't an image that I'd seen, and I thought, you know, God, look at this, it's so beautiful. And so I took a lot of snapshots with a paper camera, and I tend to paint Canada a lot in L.

Is this the province that you're from?

Yes.

And you're from Saskatchewan?

Mm-hmm.

And can I in some way assume that there's a good bit of memory tha goes into this?

Oh, yes.

Escape as well --

Yeah.

-- and that this is a theme that you grew up with - that picture?

Yeah, you've lived with it and you, you know, you feel it. You feel it when that road was plowed in the morning and nobody drove down it all day and you get to get that tone it's just across the glassy ice that's underneath. You know, stuff like that is like sense memory. It's not that much in the -- the print was taken with a panoramic paper camera so also I didn't crop it. I let go of it like a rubber dollar bill so the vantage point, you're up with the birds. You'd have to be standing on top of the car to get that vantage point. Do you know what I mean, Gilles? You've elasticized the landscape. You've taken a cinemascopic image and compressed it in so the vantage point is up in the air like you're hovering above a car hood there.

You know, one of the other things that's very striking about the work is the way the work is framed, and it certainly -- I think shows each of the paintings in this exhibit and there's 16 in all --

_________________(laughs).

Is that how you --

These frames are expensive! (laughs)

I actually asked you at the opening reception, because we came by to see the show that night, whether you make the frames yourself, and you mentioned the frame maker that you engaged to create them.

Well, they're sort of antiques, a lot of them, because the work is of a bygone era in a certain way, but historically, they're incorrect. I never really liked the way the French Impressionists -- I don't like French frames of that period. (Inaudible portion.)

And that's a vase with yellow roses. Is that actually in your home?

It was a desperation. I finished this last album and now I was required to decorate the package. And I said, "what's my deadline?" And they said, "two weeks ago." I said, "come on, you know."

This is the album you're putting out for next year?

In order -- it's very romantic and in order to get a Valentine's Day release -- I said, "you mean you're not going to put it out for Valentine's Day? You've got to put it out for Valentine's Day! It's so romantic. You have to give me a realistic release to push on everybody so they gave me two weeks. "So I had two weeks and I had to, you know, first I did the front which is the self-portrait. And the reason I -- I didn't know what I was going to do, but they like you to put your picture on the cover. So, you know, okay, so I figure -- they said, put your picture on the cover, that's what people -- they know you're a fine artist, Joan, but put your picture on the cover. So I see this picture lying around, and my drummer, Brian Blade, said, "oh, I like that picture "I was in my early 30s. And I looked at it and the fold of the sleeve had a heart in it. The way it -- I went, heart on the sleeve, that's romantic, that'll do! So I grabbed it, and then I had to put jowls in it, you know, I had to age the face a little.

Let's come back to this painting, but let's go look at that self-portrait. This will be on the cover of the new album. Does the cover have a title already -- the album have a title?

"Both Sides, Now." Yeah. The album before it was recorded was conceptual. It's the arc of a romance, and the closing song is "Both Sides, Now." So we knew that much. We knew that the material was extraordinarily romantic. It's one of the most romantic albums in life that was ever made. Don't you think so? I mean it's 71 pieces and the most beautiful arrangements --

Like full orchestra?

-- lush.

Your arrangements?

No. Vince Mendoza. Very romantic.

And "Both Sides, Now" is an older song of yours. Have you written new songs for this album at all?

No. There's only two of my songs on it. It's all standards.

And the other song of yours besides "Both Sides, Now"?

"A Case of You."

"A Case of You." And other songs that you use on the album?

It starts with "You're My Thrill." And I don't know the authors on all the songs, I only know the artists that I know them from. Billie Holliday songs -- smitten, you get smitten, right? Then it goes to another James song, "At Last ..." -- you celebrate it -- "At Last, My Love Has Come Along." Then another more obscure Billie Holliday song nothing "Comes Love, Nothing Can be Done" which is sort of light and philosophical and a very Duke Ellington-ish, Big Band arrangement, 22-piece orchestra for that one. Then it goes to "You've Changed" (laughs) because immediately you get smitten, you celebrate it, and then there's a little bit of talk about comes love and nothing can be done, and then you've changed, and then(nose-dive noise) and then you take a quick toboggan to the pits, right? And then it kind of ends philosophically with "Both Sides, Now," I really don't know love at all, but it's a very romantic journey that everybody's taken and, you know, it's got a little humor, and the arrangements are just gorgeous and everybody played over-the-top well, you know, like, and I was in good voice and I took to the genre like, you know, I was raised on it and never had a chance -- it was gone by the time that I came to make my own music and besides I was trying to be progressive as we art students try, you know, like I mean -- no, I won't even say "trying." My natural direction was to make original music. But anyway.

This painting which is the first thing when one arrives at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions --

Is the cover of the new album.

Is the cover of the new album -- and what greets you at the entrance when you arrive at the gallery, and I wouldn't have noticed a heart on the sleeve.

Pretty subtle, but that's why I painted that image I was grabbing a thought, and then he said, well, what are you going to paint on the back? So I said, well, we'll paint it from behind, so that didn't make the exhibit because it was still in the framer's.

But that will be the back album of the cover of the album --

The back cover and the bottles and the No Smoking sign (laughs).

Is that a cigarette in your right hand?

It just grows there. It smolders there all the time. (laughs)

(Laughs) and you said that this was taken from a photo in your 30s?

Yes (inaudible).

So you aged yourself a little bit although you still look 30-ish.

Oh you're very sweet - I'm a grammy, you know (laughs).

(Music up "Comes Love")

So how many total of these paintings end up being used in this upcoming release?

Well, as many as I could do in two weeks. So I did this one and then, you know, they said, okay, what are you going to do on the back? Okay, I'll paint it from behind. Okay, so they went out and they got -- I said, just go out and get me a picture of a bar with a green glass shelf. I want a green glass shelf and a lot of bottles. So they got a model, a big, fat guy with an old hat, right, who was my stand-in. So I had nothing to do the back of my head from so I had to do it by tactile feeling the back of my head, you know, and I did it by ink-blotting it. I put the canvas next to this and copied that shape, you know, like over here and just by copying your negative space like that and then put the other edge on the other side and copy the negative space. And then I filled it in from instinct, right.

And on the cover of the album, will it be presented in a frame?

No.

No, the frame is just here. Who was this person --

It depends on which package now. The Valentine's Day release is going to be very special, and it will come out first. It comes out in a grosgrain -- like a chocolate box, like a round taffeta box in kind of an aubergine, like a purplish(inaudible) gray and it'll have the four images in there framed, printed, and all the cards _________ it's a sassy little package. But on the CD because it's a square you've got to bleed to the square this time rather than the continuity of the last two projects which were framed because this is a little different. (Inaudible.)

Okay, and did you have this frame made specifically for this?

Yes, I picked it.

And who is the frame maker that you mentioned to me?

Jerry Cohen(?). He fought me on this one. He said, "no no, no." He wanted to put the same one as on Donald over there. I said, "no, it's too butch, you know." He said, "oh but this is too Mafioso." (laughs) But, anyway, I ended up going with it. Does it make you want to order a pizza?(laughs) Or shoot somebody? (laughs) Take out a contract? (laughs.)

No, I actually have a very different feeling about it. I'm curious asto what's in the glass, and it makes me want just to have an aperitif.

Actually it's cranberry juice.

And it may actually compel me to start smoking too. You never know. There's a certain glamour to smoking.

Isn't there? I've spent my whole life looking at the world through all of that pattern going around in front of my eyes. (laughs)

Let's go back to the vase with the roses that's across the room.

Well, let me tell you them in order. First there was that one, then there was the idea to do the back. What are you going to do on the back? Well, I'll do it from behind. But then I thought, well, there's got to be something romantic. Well, so it would have to be a kiss. So I didn't really want to put myself in the plot of this romantic art since I didn't write the songs, and I wanted people to see themselves in it, and I thought by casting my kiss into the plot, it throws it back on me whereas these songs are not -- you know, I'm singing them as if they're my own, but maybe that's not a good idea. So I looked at a lot of 40's kisses, but they're all very pose-y and kind of censored, you know, like maybe a little on the twin-bed side.

This is not a 40's kiss.

This is not a 40's kiss, you know, but also the landscape because in the old songs, emotions are described by clouds coming and going, you know, "hmmm, the sky is blue, the sky is gray," "Stormy Weather" -- so much of the old songs -- I mean even Clouds, "Both Sides, Now," which was one of my first songs begins with clouds because, as a young songwriter, I thought you have to deal with clouds in songs. They always stick a cloud in or take it out. So I thought, let's get the clouds of the way in the first stanza. So, anyway, this has got a lot of assorted clouds. You've got the dark cloud and then you've got, like, these little Budgie birds, these little innocent pink birds kind of flirting with each other up there, and then the sky is opening out and, God forbid, there's a hippie rainbow coming down (laughs).

This is definitely earlier in the middle of the relationship.

"Shame on her! She's put a rainbow in the thing." But, anyway, there's a kiss in the front which is really good-natured and a lot of fun so that represents the celebratory beginning of this record which is two songs long and the rest of it, you're dealing with the relationship for (laughs)is the way it goes.

You could liken this to the honeymoon?

Yes, like this is the honeymoon, right. And then Klein, my husband, my ex-husband, said, "Joan-Joan," you know, like, because he's very liberal about me using the boyfriend as a model here, but he said, "you're going to -- I like to think this album is about us, you know, like you're going to limit peoples' vision by putting a leading man in there." I said, "look, okay, I'll get you in there some way." So then it was my birthday. And this bouquet of yellow flowers came only they were very formal, very French with -- very even and then with a rose head shorter length around the bottom of the pot and it was three days after my birthday and I still didn't have a clear image and I thought oh - roses are romantic. I'll do the roses. And I pulled them out and I put them in kind of a wild bouquet and I finished the painting but where the picture frame is in the lower left it looked like a weeping elephant. You can still see one eye here, you know, like here's the eye and the tear and then there was a kind of a nose that went over there and it was bothering me so -- and then Klein levied this criticism and I said, "look if I have two -- what if I put the picture of you with your tongue hanging out from our first Christmas together with my Christmas socks up around his ears, right? Then there's no -- it's not about one guy, you know, it's just about, you know, the beginning of romance." So I did that for the musical director and got rid of the weeping elephant at the same time (laughs).

Would you acknowledge certain artists that you feel you draw on for inspiration or as models as painters?

Well, in this particular one, I got out -- Manet did a striking bouquet of mixed flowers but with a yellow rose. So I laid it out. It's in a glass cylinder, and the (inaudible) in the glass, a beautiful thing about that painting. While I was painting it, these flowers -- I worked 18 hours on this painting. All but the picture with Klein in it was done in a straight 18-hour stint because the flowers were dying as I worked. I did the broad brush first, and then I, you know -- this is not answering your question, but I'll get back to you just before I forget this -- when I looked up I started with the flowers and I worked my way down and did the scarf and the candle and everything, and when I looked up, all the flowers were dead and the Monet --or the Manet -- book was, like, lying on the floor with all his flowers were kind of perky, and I thought in this way you preserve a bouquet, you know. I mean, to watch them wilt in the course of working with them was really kind of something, you know. And again as a symbol of romantic love, the rose is perfect, you know, (laughs) because it just doesn't last very long, you know?

This "Tri-Annuale, Part Two, Amy Adler Curates Joni Mitchell," is through the 23rd of December. The gallery is open Wednesday through Saturdays and it opens at 12 noon until six P.M. and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibits is located at 6522 Hollywood Boulevard, and the phone number for information or directions is (323) 957-1777. And you promised that you would get back to this about more of your influences as far as painting goes.

Well, I'm still synthesizing them, I think. It's this period just as the brush stroke was liberated and color was liberated that I like, but I like smoked-down colors, you know, like to wear. Kind of stony gray and everything, so they're not as vivid, although we did kind of pick these as beads to set one another off in terms of color. Color for the collection was part of the consideration during the curating stages.

Did you have a hand also in the placement --

Yes, oh yes.

-- of the painting?

Oh, yeah. Not in the -- and I told them to hang them high because I tend to draw a crowd and I was afraid when a lot of people got in here, you wouldn't be able to see them because Gilles picked up, they're hung a little higher than the traditional hanging height, and I thought, why -- oh yeah, I remember I'd given a cue, just hang them just a little high. It was a squash here, you know, that night -

And you populate your paintings to a fairly high degree. I'm actually quite taken with this painting.

Mm-hmm!

-- that has you face-to-face with a deer with some people in the background.

Run in the middle and tell me what you think is unusual about this painting. I wonder if you'll pick up on it.

The deer actually --

Look a little closer. There's a sweet spot on it kind of like an echo, right about there.

I get the sense that the deer is not in the same plane that you're in. I don't know if that's part of it.

The thing that Gilles and I were talking about that interests me about looking at this, because a painting should make you want to look at it again and again, and the thing that makes me look at it again and again is that you have two eyes but they don't belong to the same creature. One eye belongs to the deer; one eye belongs to the person, which is me in this case. You know, my eye is looking -- he's standing in the middle of the painting in the normal viewing position. My eye is looking past you on your left at something. The deer is looking --

-- looking at you.

-- is looking towards me so something is happening behind you to your left. Both of the animals -- me animal and deer animal here -- are calm, but there's a suspension of, you know, like an impending kind of feeling. He's going to take his cue from me and so instead of the movement taking place only on the flat surface of the painting, it seems to have a volume that sticks out that I don't recall seeing in another image, because the two eyes belong to two different creatures. I think that --

That's very interesting and I do as I look at it a little more my first reaction as well is some how confirmed both by looking at it and by how you describe it and the deer in looking to you for a cue does seem to be a little behind you in my -- in the way I sort of see the perspective.

He's forward, I'm back, but, yeah, he's -- he's forward and then – I have no depth perception.

Well (laughs)?

I'm one-eyed (laughs).

You're closer to me.

Both the creatures are one-eyed. (laughs) You know, so any depth that you get in these is the way I see the world which is in terms of flat theatrical things set back anyway.

Does this come, by the way, from your imagination, or was this actually a chance encounter with a deer -- or not so chance?

This is in Japan an hour before I had to go on stage, and standing behind me are Wayne Shorter and Miles Davis' last girlfriend, who was a French girl, who is a philosophy teacher, and Wayne and a herd of little deer that bowed to you. We were so intrigued you'd walk up to deer and they'd bow to you and the people actually were the crowd that was lining up for our concert all along the edge of the lake and they were thick. I eliminated a lot of figures. So this was a composite of several different things and then there's a lot of the magic -- you throw away your source material at a certain point anyway. It's only used as a preliminary sketch and then you're going for a painting, you know, like otherwise, it's just an exercise. It's got to do something to compel you to look at it that a snap shot doesn't. You can get a certain amount from a snapshot, but a painting's got to be more than a snapshot, you know. But, for me, because it's personal it reminds me -- over across the lake is this enormous Golden Buddha, and they hadn't had a festival of music on these grounds -- this was a Buddhist garden for over a thousand years. At that time they invited their enemy, the Chinese, to perform at the foot of the Golden Buddha. This was an international show with Japanese artists, and British artists, Bob Dylan, and myself, and Wayne Shorter, and their "Miles Davis" and, you know, the far-out pink horn, electric-horn guy, that only knew one English word, the F-word (laughs), you know, so it's -- I did two paintings from this, one of Ana Shorter, who is really behind me with deer all around her all dressed in white. Ana was, unfortunately, lost --

In that airplane accident --

-- in that airplane accident, so that's the last day that I spent with her and Ana's is quite a beautiful -- to me -- I have that one in my dining room so this is a documentary. It's another piece of memorabilia for me.

And I have two more paintings that I want to spend some time with. They're two that I had my strongest reaction to. Is this you crouched here --

Mm-hmm.

-- in this painting, and will you tell us a little about it?

This is Edmonton, Alberta. Most of my relatives live there. In the distance you see a skyline. The Edmonton skyline came up late and fast because of oil money and is mostly glass buildings, so from a distance the pink glass or blue glass, it's quite an Oz-looking place. And in the bend in the river there is a foot bridge or a bicycle bridge, and there's a bicycle path that comes along this side, again, right at that point that stands out at the left-hand side. The following day I gave a concert. So this is the day before the concert and very close to the concert site but this is the North Saskatchewan River. The figure in the foreground is my boyfriend who's from my hometown. Donald and I grew up playing on the banks of the South Saskatchewan River, and one of the reasons that a lot of these images of he and I -- well, they're not all here -- they take place -- we have a Saskatoon, Saskatchewan thing about walking in parks. I don't know, it's just something locals do, you know. So we always end up in every city that we are renting bicycles whether it's in Rome and riding our bikes through parks and a lot of the images that I track home with me to paint come from those public spaces.

And the other one that I -- I have, I think, have my strongest reaction to is this, and it's also outdoors.

That's a park in London.

Okay, a park in London. And here the people that inhabit the painting are absolutely elusive because there are no faces. There's really image of hand on knee. And I think this is quite a striking painting. I was really moved by it. Could you tell us maybe a little bit more about it, Joni?

Well, first of all, let me tell that you after the earthquake I began painting this way. I guess with Nietzsche first. First, I would smother the canvas in, you know, avocado green oil paint because there was a period of painting where they painted photographically in terra verde and then they glazed over it, right? So I thought, well why don't I just smother the canvas in olive green because it's got a transparent gold thing to it and see what happens. Well, what happens is you get these very rich kind of old-world, tapestry colors. So it was kind of a successful color experiment for me. Right after the earthquake I had an insurance adjuster. She was a German woman and I was working on this painting. This one was complete and this one was one day old and I get the whole image up on the first day but then I bring the surface up and the detail up. She looked at this and she says, (in German accent), why would you want to paint a painting like that? I said, you know, "what's wrong with it?" And she said, "brown!" She looked at this one and she said, "brown! after the bombing of Dresden every hack in Germany was conscripted to do brown propaganda painting. Why would you want to do a painting like that?" And I thought about ____________ Rembrandt's black and that whole era and going black paintings, black paintings, black paintings until I got to the Impressionists and I was in heaven with all the color. So this was the beginning of a kind of _____exploration. That's why this gray, this seagull, this is a Dutch-style frame from the Rembrandt era, you know. Which would still be in use in the time of Van Gogh, that type of frame, had he framed his paintings in Holland. But instead he was older and cramped and they put all of that floofy-floofy, you know ,stuff on it. But I tend to like that style of frame for these kind of light experiments and with these tapestry colors, you know, ___________. But the thing -- this snapshot was taken from Donald's perspective I do believe, although I could have taken it randomly by holding it up. We don't remember really which one of us took it, but I suspect it was Donald. I find it very tender. But, some of the people here, a couple of men, found it disturbing, you know. There is an element of -- while it's very warm and friendly and the female form is basically just a lap and a knee, the male form is just a hand on that knee and the boot on that foot that's not even a full foot. A lot of it's on the margin because of the angle, and you're looking down at the ground which has a lot of autumn leaves. But, yeah, I find it very romantic, but I guess because of the color, this one fellow found it male-dominant. I said, "well, you know, what's wrong with a little male domination? A little in the right places -- it's a good thing"(laughs).

Joni, this is an absolute treat to be able to get a little glimpse into your life as a painter because it's something very few of us have a chance to have access to beyond the packaging on album covers. So thank you for spending this time with us.

Sure.

Thanks for coming down and walking through the gallery today with us.

Okay.

[Interviewer 2 - believed to be Gilles Hebert who is associated with the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon]: Where in your physical space do you like to paint? Describe that area to us.

Oh, wow. Okay. I recently removed my recording studio from my[house] and converted it over. Prior to that I ended up as I did as a child, anywhere. I just squatted on the floor. Sometimes I'd set up on the couch with a mirror like so I could see the TV backwards anywhere. And I paint for that in some kind of a surface __________ because I'd wake up in the morning and I painted in very, very low domestic night light and exaggerated all the colors to get that relief. It looked terrific in that light, but in daylight it was a bitch. So then I'd tone it all down, but then I'd look at it again that night under the domestic light and it would look flat. So then I'd correct it again so it went through all these processes and sometimes it damaged the surface, although I like a little bit of surface on a painting, sometimes it made a kind of a clumsy thing because mistakes were being made by wrong light, you know. So now I have a studio with access to a dimmer, a rheostat, so I can dial up any kind of light I like – synthetic daylight and good daylight during daylight hours so now I have a proper studio. In the '80s when I worked large and abstractly, I had a studio down at -- what's his name? The museum designer. (Frank) Geary's place. Until he put some aluminum facade on the building and doubled the rent. So I got out of there (laughs). But, you know, there I needed -- the paintings were large and gestural and sloppy, you know, and there was a French curator that came to visit me, walked through my house, and my house was kind of Santa Fe style at that time, and she was saying to her son in French, "pink and blue." She was kind of tittering, you know, and everything was really neat and to be an Abstract Expressionist, you have to be drunk and messy. So when we got down to the studio, she couldn't believe it. It was like the world's biggest ashtray, right? I mean, it was like completely schizophrenic, butts from one end to the other and things slopped around. She had to kind of take are assessment. But the pieces were big and very physical and messy then. But now I could do it in white gloves. Now I'm a Bourgeois painter, you know, like Matisse. You know, I live in a nice decor and I don't make messes.(laughs).

Do you listen to music when you paint and if so what do you like to listen to?

I haven't in the past. No, I've had silence because in my youth and... over the better part of my career I've had a lot of stalkers, you know, so I'm the night watchman. So I have a tendency -- not in a paranoid way, not to mask the night sounds -- people up on the roof and, you know, but recently I have taken to listening to things. Duke Ellington, Chopin Nocturnes. Let's see, what else? I've got KCRW in the dining room now set on --

Rene: You better put KCSN on your radio, you have to put KCSN on your radio(laughs).

(Inaudible joking about putting a special antenna on her roof so she can pick up the interview.) Okay.

Gilles: Just a couple of quick last thoughts. Most people are very subjective in the way they see themselves, and I think you paint yourself in a very objective way. Your paintings look like you. When you look at your paintings with you in them, do you see yourself in them?

Yeah. I mean people ask whether (inaudible). I mean, there was even a period it was hard to paint your beloved. I think they criticized Rembrandt for that. He was always painting his beloved.

Rene: I thought this would be hard to do. It's a painting of you rowing, and you're full face onto the canvas.

See that's done from a mirror. This is done from a photograph. This is done from a photograph. That was done from a mirror and then the background was all invented. And this one is one of the first ones that Idid in acrylics. It was right when I started painting this way, and I wanted to get to a point of invention too.________ but it was better likeness than that, a little more flattering. And my hired man came over and -- it was painted in the same region as "The Bathers"_______, and he was sucking on his pipe. And you shouldn't really have anybody in the room until you're done because they can influence you without saying anything. Georgia O'Keefe said the same thing. After it's done, it runs off your back, but during the process it's very delicate. And he pulled on his pipe and went, "Mm-hmm," or something like that and after he left, it looked like a Chevy Chase poster to me. Do you know what I mean? It was kind of like over _________. So I took it apart and then it just went into psycho dwarfland. The nose went way up, and the face just was contorted, and the next day he came back and he went, "OH, GEE!, like (laughs) and it took a while to wrestle the countenance back and something got lost. But what I captured in the recapturing of it was the intensity and the resolution to get it back. So it's very stern-looking because it was done from a mirror, and I lost control of it and I had to gain it back. So the jaw is very firmly set and the eyes are wall-eyed which is a thing that happens during the latter part of painting processes, and when that occurs an amazing perspective takes place where your brushes are suspended in air and you can see, you know, behind them. I mean it's kind of the same process when you look at those pointillistic things that have numbers and hidden images ,it's that. When you hit that point in the painting where your eyes open up, you know exactly where to go. I mean it's almost worth it pushing yourself for 14 hours to hit a pocket of fatigue just to hit that state and you can sustain it then. And that's captured in the eyes in that, you know, the long labor it took to save the poor face from -- (laughs) -- this hideous thing that happened to it.
Joni, this is, I think, incredibly insightful and somewhat courageous. I'm surprised at how much you were willing to share with us about what goes into painting and making the paintings and everything.

Mmm.

So thank you. And I strongly urge you to come and check out" Tri-Annuale, Part 2, Amy Adler Curates Joni Mitchell" through the 23rd of December, that's the Thursday before Christmas, at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, 6522 Hollywood Boulevard. The phone number for information is (323) 957-1777, and you can also head up to the Worldwide Web if you have internet access and go to www.artleak -- a-r-t-l-e-a-k -- .com.

Thank you, Joni Mitchell.