Norman Elder
Painter
Bio: Norman has been a painter for 60 years, and shown in numerous galleries, including Seattle’s Woodside/Braseth Gallery, Davidson Galleries, Tacoma Art Museum, Seattle Art Museum, and Klein Art Works in Chicago. He currently paints large scale acrylics deeply influenced by his home on Tiger Mountain.
On getting unstuck: “I begin. I just begin painting. Sometimes I throw paint just to see what there is there.”
On originality: “When I finish a painting, I turn it to the wall, because I have a fear of copying myself. I see artists, they copy themselves, and they lose that joy, that spontaneity.”
On painting the ephemeral: “I like to capture that light, and the wind going through the trees, and I like to capture that haze, that morning fog, and I like to capture the sounds, if you could paint sound—and you can. Painting happens all around me; I’m as surprised as anyone is—even more, perhaps.”
On trees: “I’ve found solace in the forest. I’ve gotten to where I can say that I see the forest more clearly in the last ten years than I ever did.”
On obscurity: “I hungered for anonymity, and I got it.”
On life as art, and vice-versa: “I have been an artist for six decades, from grade school to present. My professional career began in my junior year in college with a one-man show at Woodside Gallery in Seattle. A year later, I received a BFA from the University of Washington. The years since have included many shows and galleries, raising kids, building houses, coaching soccer, and umpiring Little League baseball. It's all art to me.”
Favorite place near Issaquah: “Right here—Mirrormont is my favorite place. I like the seclusion. Mirrormont has been the inspiration of all of the paintings since I moved here.”
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