Kristine Amodeo
Fine Artist
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
Professional Fine Artist
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An Exclusive Interview with
by David Cambridge
Vol. 1, No. 10. December, 2002
Kristine Amodeo
Fine Artist
Most of us in the West have taken a plane to some destination or other and have a good idea of how it feels to fly. But how would it feel if we had flown hundreds of times and spent part of our lives in an airplane travelling around the globe? If we were fine artists, wouldn't our art be influenced by the multitude of cultures visited? How would it feel to see the sun setting or rising over an English, Spanish, Italian, German or Swedish horizon?
         For Kristine Amodeo, fine artist, it is a given that, more than ever before, the world has shrunk into one big neighborhood. This has been made possible through the modern means of travel, such as flying. But despite such means, there are mental blocks still to overcome before this "neighborhood" becomes a reality.
          What prevents cultures from freely mixing and, thus, developing, says Kristine, is prejudice steeped in ignorance. If all peoples on this planet could get rid of their national and racial prejudices artists could intermingle and share each other's cultural wealth, Kristine believes. "There's a lot of artistic wealth in the world but it's locked in small cultural boxes because of people's attachment to traditional ways and beliefs." "The potential for great artistic masterpieces representing humanity as a whole is awesome," she says, "but people refuse to acknowledge reality and hide their heads in sand like ostriches!"
         Kristine has travelled the globe from north to south, west to east, and has spent time in Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Peru, Alaska, Canada...you name it, she's been there! All this was possible because her father was an airline pilot. But despite the fact that she loved to fly, eventually Kristine wanted to settle down and found her own home and family. She chose her native California where she obtained her degree from the University of California at Santa Cruz, and began teaching art. Her medium has no limits--from batik to ceramics, clay, watercolor, acrylic, and, most recently, oils. Today she studies the beauty of the landscape in the foothills of the Sierra-Nevada and produces oil paintings prolifically.
Kristine Amodeo painting off the Pacific Coast in Mendocino, California
Can you tell us a bit about your background? Where did you grow up?
         My parents belong to the Baha'i Faith and its followers travel the world sharing their beliefs. We call this "pioneering". So, because my parents were pioneers, I  grew up in different parts of the world. I lived in a small village on Kodiak Island in Alaska until i was 9, then we moved to the Bahama Islands. My Dad was an airline pilot and we did a lot of traveling every year  the Caribbean, the US, South America, Israel & Europe.

So you are a "world citizen," so to speak, not anchored to any particular culture. But wouldn't this rub off on your art and make it universally appealing?
          I think my connection with indigenous art comes from having lived and traveled all over the world. My mother collected art from before I was born and her collection now represents all corners of the earth.  I have absorbed the sights, colors and smells of so many different places that they all live inside of me and I'm only just now beginning to dig a bit deeper for these stored up images. Whether they will be universally appealing I really don't know, I would like to hope so.
Ocean of Light I, by Kristine Amodeo
Was anyone in your family an artist?
          No one was a painter, if that's what you mean. My dad was good at design and architectural drawings. He used to draw planes, trains, boats and cars for me for fun, and he was a good model for me to imitate and emulate. The way my dad flew a plane -- and very often I flew in the cockpit with him -- was very artistic!
          My Mom used to do those paint by number kits when I was really little, and she would hide them under her bed because the paint was toxic and messy.  She was good with fabric and made doll clothes for us, decorated our homes, etc. She could choose any fabric for a project and it always looked perfect.  I found a profound enjoyment in the beautiful colors, especially since the fabric of such cultures as Peru and Brazil, for example, were exceptionally bright and vivid. The weavings from my mother's Swedish relatives, from Haiti and Peru, too, were handmade with intricate and colorful motifs and as a child I couldn't help but to react to this beauty. So, in her own special way my mother was an artist and role model.
Ocean of Light II, by Kristine Amodeo
Diptich I, by Kristine Amodeo
What inspired you to become a painter? I mean, why not an airline pilot? What was so special about being a painter that you chose it as a career? But perhaps you didn't choose it. Perhaps it came accidentally?
          I was very attracted to flying actually, but I love creating more. My first love was colored pens and I did a lot of drawing and designing before high school. Then I discovered painting. I fell in love with oil painting when I was about 34. Just the smell of the paints reminded me of once when I was about 6 years old and discovered the hidden paint set. I opened them up and smelled them all! The colors were pretty boring looking but the picture looked good when it was all finished.
         Actually, my oil painting is probably a stage that I'm at. I would be creative with something even if you took all my art supplies away..it sort of oozes out. Once when I had very little money and very little art supplies I used an old telephone book, old cardboard and one packet of wall paper paste for a dollar to create little papier mache boxes, then painted them with some old decorative paints. It worked so well that I designed my own frame around a little mirror and painted that.
         My children were really young and I'd gotten out of touch with my creative side. This simply reminded me that it's always there inside of you.

How long have you been painting?
          Well, i remember painting at an easel in kindergarten....so age 5.  My first piece was a large orange pumpkin and when i painted the green stem it dribbled down into the pumpkin....my first art trauma!  But my mother says i used to draw in her books and she has a small drawing of an animal that i made at about 18 months. 
Did your parents encourage you to paint?
          Yes, in many ways. To mark my 11th birthday my parents gave me an entire set of acrylic paints which is embedded in my memory.

What fine arts educational institutes have you attended?
         When i was 15 my high school art teacher recommended i take the Advanced Level examinations from University of London two years ahead of schedule. ( I was in a British parochial school in Nassau and our final exams were all sent overseas to London before we matriculated). Once i was finished with all my exams i had to prepare for university in the United States as there were no colleges in the Islands at that time.  I was only 16 when i matriculated and my parents made me wait a year before leaving home.
         During the summer we visited the California Institute of the Arts and i was accepted on the spot after an interview with the Dean. But when i discovered that the average student age was 22, i couldn't bear the thought of moving 3,000 miles away from my family to go to school with people i considered to be "grownups"!  I ended up finding a small college closer to home (Eckerd College,  St. Petersburg, Florida) and spent two years doing every studio course i could fit into my schedule. After two years i was chosen to be one of 9 students to do a year long graphics course in Florence, Italy. I chose instead to spend a year in South America traveling and studying art in Peru and Brazil.
          While in Brazil I applied to the UofC at Santa Cruz, was accepted, and spent one year doing graphics and art history. A year later I got married and my husband and I moved to Ohio where I attended Ohio State University and studied art history. Within a year we moved to South Africa where we stayed ten years. Back in the United States I finally graduated from the University of California in Santa Cruz with a double degree in fine arts and literature.
Who are the artists that you think were a key to your artistic development?
          While visiting Sweden in my teens I discovered Carl Larson, the Swedish painter. Also at about the same age we walked into Nathan Galleries in New Orleans and I discovered a poster of an Israeli artist named Tobiasse. His work was bright and bold which led to an immediate love also of Marc Chagall. The work of Larson chronicled a long gone era, but these artists were so alive and full of dramatic color that they really spoke to me.  Next came the French Impressionists and, finally, I discovered California Impressionism.  I was never attracted to the Old Masters until an adult but am now enthralled with all those artists I thought were dull in my art history classes! 
          After moving to California I studied women artists such as Georgia O'Keeffe, and  got to know the artists in my own community of Sonora, Jamestown, Murphys, and other towns in Tuolumne and Calaveras Counties. I've painted en plain air with both Leslie Hurst & Chuck Waldman.  Leslie is a colorist and I was attracted to her work first thing. Chuck works in a more traditional style and I've done two workshops with him which has helped me ground myself in outdoor painting. Most recently I did a workshop with Robert Burridge and my love for bright, bold color was almost satiated!  I say that with a little tongue-in-cheek because I really love bright color.
Kristine went to a workshop given by Chuck Waldman.
Here Waldman critiques one of her paintings.
At a workshop in Murphys with Robert Burridge.
Burridge is a fascinating artist and his medium is acrylics. Chuck Waldman paints in oils, as does Leslie Hurst. Do you paint in oils or acrylics?
          Right now I'm painting in oils, but I also paint in acrylics. Burridge uses both oils and acrylics and watercolour as well. Sometimes he uses acrylics as an underpainting and then paints oils on top. A lot of his work is classified as Mixed Media. He is such a facile artist that he can switch easily from one medium to another without a problem. I'm beginning to do the same. I'll paint outdoors  (plein air) all morning and then back in my studio do a quick study for a still life in acrylics. Studies and underpaintings are great to do with acrylics because of the quick drying time.
Which of the two mediums is your preference, and why?
          I enjoy painting with just about anything, even food colouring on easter eggs are fun!  However, oil is my favourite medium. For me even making a chart of all the tubes of paint I use is fun just to handle the paint! The oils have a texture which cannot be mimicked by any other paint. Acrylic is plastic  bottom line, and I find that I spend a lot of time trying to get rid of the fake look. Oils have depth to them that causes a richness, a deep glow or luminescence. My biggest gripe about acrylics is that I will get lost in my painting and come back to find my blob of perfectly mixed colour dried up to a shiny mirror puddle. Then I have to try to remember how I mixed it in the beginning. Acrylics are lots of fun for working in mixed media, and I did an entire series of pieces using tissue and gesso with acrylic. I constantly felt pressured by the drying factor and the fast pace was a bit stressful. Maybe that is why I like oils so much, they are so forgiving. They wait for you! You can speed the drying time a bit with Cobalt Drier or an alkyd medium like Galkyd or Liquin if you prefer.
Who are some of your favorite artists?
          Well, I've said that I'm most affected by color, so it follows the Impressionists affect me greatly (Morisot, Monet, Renoir, & Cézanne particularly). Only recently have I begun to get a similar internal emotional response from the Byzantine or Medieval art period. Maybe one simply needs to mature a bit in understanding the purpose of art from that period of history. The Russian icons and gilded pieces rich with antiquity really speak to me now. The loving care that was taken through the centuries to keep these works restored has been impressive.
         As for my present infatuation with plein air painting, it started with an article I found on John Cosby (an artist in Laguna Beach, California). After reading the whole thing I copied down all the colors in his palette and ordered all the ones that I didn't already own. I figured that the first step to getting that dazzling color and light, was to get the same color palette. I discovered that there is just a bit more to it than that!
Star Shine, by Kristine Amodeo.
What might this "bit more" be, for example?
          Well, if you watch an experienced painter give a demonstration it usually looks so easy.  But when you are learning a technique for the first time, it's like learning a new recipe for bread. You need to follow every little detail the first few times until you get the hang of it, all the while trying to suppress the feeling of, "I know how to do this already." It's almost also like trying to brush your teeth with the opposite hand -- you want to just grab it in your dominant hand and get it done right! But to be fair to learning a new technique, you force yourself to stick with it through all the steps as taught by the demonstrator. In the case of Cosby's colour palette, all I had was the palette, and nothing really to go on for his technique. It was basically a hit and miss type of exercise. How does he use this terra rosa? I love the blue there in his sky, but did he start with cerulean or cobalt? That type of thing. 
Pomegranate, by Kristine Amodeo.
Do you do commissioned and custom work?
          Yes, I do. Such work has taught me that there's a lot more work involved than at first assumed. An artist has to really communicate with the patron from the very beginning and get it all in writing, for example. I've done murals and other commissioned and custom work and can say that sometimes it is pleasant and sometimes stressful, depending on the patron for whom you are working for.

Does popularity scare you at all?
         I don't really think about that. Does that mean that I don't think it possible to one day become a popular fine artist? Maybe. Essentially, that's not my goal. I view fame as an illusion:  here today gone tomorrow. Fame has no substance to it whatever. My goal is to keep working at becoming a better painter. I can see each stage as a stepping stone to not only better technique, but more meaningful images. I would like my art to touch people's hearts, not just be pretty decoration. I've had to learn that not every piece that I paint will have real impact or great meaning. Some of my pieces are based on spiritual ideas or quests of my own. For instance, one series I did was titled, "The Ocean of Light," and dealt with my visions of the next world [life after death]. I had lost my husband, my mother and 2 friends all in the period of 3 years, and this is one way that I delved into myself about death being the closure of one stage and the door to another plane of existence.
Do you have any doubts as to your career in the world as a painter?
          That's just a bit overwhelming for me to think about at this point. I don't expect to make much of an impact on the world as a whole. If it were to happen I would psyche myself up to getting used to the idea. I'd rather work on the daily aspect -- baby steps, as I call it.  Take care of the everyday, a little at a time. Before you know it, you're at a huge new step and because you've not been stressing over an "eventual", it is easier to just slide right in.

Does competition scare you?
          My first juried show of several years ago was a bit hair raising. I did worry about myself even being accepted.  Personality wise I tend to shy away from competition, but because it is a part of life as an artist, I just grit my teeth and go on with it. In the process I've learned that one acceptance, or one ribbon, is not the crowning glory on your work, nor is it guaranteed to win a ribbon at another show next month. It's totally arbitrarily up to the jury or group of judges doing the show, as to what catches their fancy at that moment! The biggest advantage to entering competitions and shows is that you get out and see what others are painting in your area, you meet other artists, find out about classes, new shows, and other art opportunities. I try to do every "opportunity" that opens up that is within my range.  Moderately speaking, of course.  It keeps you on your toes, gives you a challenge, nurtures your creativity.
Are you doing anything now that is helping you to establish yourself as an artist in the world?
          Well, one thing that I firmly believe in is sharing with others. This interview for example. Also, I teach. I've found a lot about myself simply by teaching others. There's no way to even quantify it. It gives me the greatest pleasure, and I always receive more back than I give. To be an artist in the public eye means to be able to give of one's time, knowledge and competence to that public. To the artist community, this means that a popular artist shares aspects of his painting techniques, his learned  marketing knowledge, and it also entails the responsibility of inspiring artists.
Men have always dominated the fine arts. Only in recent years has this changed, allowing women to take center stage, so to speak. Do you see this has actually happened?
          Yes, but we still have a long way to go to achieving a sort of equality between men and women in most areas, not just in the fine arts. The only difference between the sexes, really, is a physical one. An educated woman can achieve anything that an educated man can. There's no question about this, and it has been proven over and over.
          Historically, there have been many great women fine artists, but these women have not received proper recognition or proper treatment by the higher arts institutions, like museums, for example. Such institutions prefer to concentrate on men like Davinci and Van Gogh, for example, rather than giving due credit to such great women painters as Artimicia Gentileschi, a woman painter as good as any man painter of her time or in our time.
          Women make up half of the world population. Men who don't recognize our equal ability to contribute are simply depriving themselves because they live in a "half world" -- a world where they think they are the dominant figures.
          As a woman I would like to be respected as an artist. For so long I've been appreciated for mothering or just being a female, and not for my worldly accomplishments. I would like to be known as a fine artist of integrity, not some "flash in the pan" fad.
What are your immediate and future goals?
          My immediate goals are to continue painting in preparation for a show that's going up in a month or so. I also have to prepare for other shows coming up this spring, summer and fall in and around California.  In the back of my mind is the constant reminder that I will be starting a new body of work for these shows, and I want it to be very striking and unusual. I'd like to surprise everybody with something wonderful. I know not what it will be just yet.
          So, the immediate goal is to finish the paintings I've started and begin new ones. The future goals are to travel to Italy, do workshops there, paint the beautiful Italian landscapes, and to continue learning from life's experiences. One can never learn enough and it seems that life simply doesn't allow us to stop learning. That's what "growth" is all about.
This Interview of Kristine Amodeo is Copyright © 2002 - 2006 by David Cambridge.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced here with special permission from the author and The Fine Arts Magazine.
Phoenix Lake, by Kristine Amodeo.
Phoenix Lake II, by Kristine Amodeo.
Kris painting outdoors in Mendocino with Leslie Hurst.
California Hills, by Kristine Amodeo.
Painting outdoors in Northern California.