This interview took place January 12, 1986, and was published in the 1994 exhibition catalogue _Joan Mitchell_ (ISBN
2908901250;
Nantes : Musée des Beaux-arts de Nantes ; Paris : Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, c1994). The quote is on p. 25.
YM: Qu'est-ce qui te fait peindre?
JM: Quand j'étais malade, ils m'ont mise dans une chambre avec une
fenêtre et soudain, a travers la fenêtre, j'ai vu deux bouleaux dans un
parc, et le ciel gris, et la pluie grise si belle, et j'étais
heureuse. Cela avait a voir avec le fait d'être vivante. Je
pouvais voir les pins et je sentais que je pourrais peindre.
J'avais le sentiment que, si je pouvais les voir, je pourrais peindre
une peinture.
I would say that a bouleau is a birch tree, not a fir tree. (The
white bark of birches would be particularly striking on a gray
day.) Mitchell does mention pine trees later in the quote,
perhaps in the generic sense of coniferous trees, but the word for fir
trees, sapins, isn't there at all.
--K.A. Bayruns
Seattle, Washington
On 5/2/07, Richard Whittaker <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I am trying to find attribution information about the quote below
from an interview of Joan Mitchell by Yves Michaud.
The only information I have is that it is dated 1986.
By chance, does anyone happen to know where this might have been
published?
Yves Michaud: What inspires your work?
Joan Mitchell: When I was sick, they moved me to a room with a
window and suddenly through the window I saw two fir trees in a park,
and the gray sky, and the beautiful gray rain, and I was so happy. It
had something to do with being alive. —Interview, 1986
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