美国国家公共电台 NPR Hard At Work At 84, Artist Sam Gilliam Has 'Never Felt Better'

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Sam Gilliam is on the art world's hot list these days. He has a one-man show in Switzerland, commissions, sales in the six figures - pretty cool for an artist who had his heyday¹ in the 1970s, when his unique draped paintings started heading into a major museum collections. Recently, NPR special correspondent Susan Stamberg found the 84-year-old African-American painter at his Washington, D.C., studio surrounded by yards of painted fabric² hung from a line with big alligator³ clips.

SUSAN STAMBERG, BYLINE⁴: Oh, can I step on this?

SAM GILLIAM: Sure.

STAMBERG: I can even touch it. The vividly-colored, silky polyester puddling to the floor so sheer you could lift yards of it with your pinky.

GILLIAM: It catches light.

STAMBERG: This is Sam Gilliam's signature - lengths - 75, 100 yards of gauzy fabrics⁵ that he paints in gorgeous acrylic colors. And then he drapes them from walls and ceilings. His inspiration - laundry hanging on clothes lines.

GILLIAM: The idea is to develop the idea of movement into shapes that go on the floor, some that go on the wall.

STAMBERG: Or hang from the wall.

JONATHAN BINSTOCK: His art is painting, but it's also not painting.

STAMBERG: Gilliam expert Jonathan Binstock directs the Memorial Art Gallery at the University of Rochester.

BINSTOCK: It's sculpture. It's also not sculpture. It's architectural. It's not architecture. He's really established himself in a unique way in the history of art through this form.

STAMBERG: Are you tired of talking about the draped work?

Gilliam's done other things since his first draping days - black paintings, collage⁶ pieces. But it's the 3-D draping that made his name then and now.

GILLIAM: It's to be revisited. It was something that I had a chance to do. It was in the air.

STAMBERG: Jackson Pollock and others had been dribbling⁷, spraying, pouring paint onto canvases spread on the floor. Then they picked up the works and framed them. Sam Gilliam's big idea was to eliminate the frame and hang his radiantly painted cloth in graceful⁸, free falls.

So when you take it down...

GILLIAM: You roll it up like a carpet and stir it.

STAMBERG: He likes that it will never be hung the same way twice. As the soft folds change, so does the painting. Gilliam also works with paper, pleating it.

GILLIAM: Holding the paper like a fan and then pouring color through. And then once it's open, you have a rhythm.

STAMBERG: Is it always a surprise when you unfold it?

GILLIAM: Yes, it is.

STAMBERG: Looks like multicolored Rorschach blots⁹. These are small pieces. They sell. And they let him make the big stuff - the yards of draping, a large public work at the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. At 84, he's had his health problems. On dialysis three times a week, he's doing well. These are pretty good times for Sam Gilliam.

GILLIAM: I've never felt better in my life. I stopped drinking. I stopped smoking. I live for this period of being in the studio and actually working and having a very exciting life.

STAMBERG: He keeps finding excitement in the work, seeing how it will turn out, moving colors around every day.

GILLIAM: Well, it's just an experiment.

STAMBERG: This is just an experiment? And you're satisfied?

GILLIAM: It's a very open process. You don't know that it's going to work. You just say one, two, three - pour (laughter). One, two, three - add silver and pour. And what you see is what you get.

STAMBERG: In his bright northwest Washington studio - years ago, it was a drive-through gas station - rambling¹⁰ a bit, his voice soft, an occasional twinkle in his eyes, Sam Gilliam says every work of art has a moment. This is clearly his.

I'm Susan Stamberg, NPR News, Washington.

(SOUNDBITE OF POPPY ACKROYD'S "QUAIL")