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streaming on Hulu. This

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is Fresh Air. I'm Terri Gross. Today,

0:21

we remember the artist Frank Stella,

0:23

whose work was regarded as revolutionary.

0:27

He died of lymphoma Saturday. He was 87. His

0:29

New York Times obituary describes him as, quote, a

0:33

dominant figure in post-war American art, a restless,

0:36

relentless innovator whose explorations of color

0:39

and form made

0:41

him an outsized presence, endlessly

0:43

discussed, and constantly on

0:45

exhibit, unquote. Stella

0:47

is considered one of the fathers of the minimalist

0:49

art of the 1960s. His

0:52

early revolutionary work in the late 50s was

0:54

a series of black paintings, black

0:57

stripes separated with thin stripes

1:00

of blank white canvas. The

1:02

austerity of those paintings contrasted with

1:04

the bold brushstrokes and

1:07

drips of abstract expressionism. Art

1:10

critic Peter Shelldahl describes Stella's

1:12

impact on abstract expressionism as,

1:14

quote, something like Dylan's

1:16

on music and Warhol's on more or

1:19

less everything, unquote. In

1:21

the 60s, Stella moved on to geometrical

1:23

paintings in vivid, contrasting

1:25

colors. His work continued

1:28

to evolve with paintings and abstract

1:30

sculptures on a large scale. He

1:33

sometimes used computer technology to generate images

1:35

that he incorporated into his work. Stella

1:38

was also admired for his ideas about art.

1:41

In the mid-80s, he gave the

1:43

prestigious Norton Lectures at Harvard University.

1:46

Later we'll hear an interview I recorded with Frank

1:48

Stella in 2000. Let's

1:51

start with our first interview from 1985. In

1:54

the first answer, he refers to Emil

1:56

di Antonio, who made the 1972 documentary,

1:58

Painters. The

2:02

Black Paintings were very controversial. Emil D'Antonio,

2:04

who had one of your early Black

2:06

Paintings, tells the story of how a

2:11

couple of friends came over, saw the Black

2:13

Painting, and one of them threw some recently

2:15

acquired ether on it, and the other poured

2:17

her drink over it because they thought it

2:20

was some kind of joke or something. Well, you're on

2:22

a front, yes. That

2:25

happened. I mean, I

2:27

guess they struck some people as being

2:29

aggressively simple. I think that

2:32

it's possible to see them, or it

2:34

was possible then, and maybe even now,

2:36

to see them as childlike or maybe

2:38

even naïve. But to tell you the truth,

2:42

when I look at them, I

2:44

don't see them that way. You have to

2:46

really force it to see them. They seem

2:48

pretty straightforward paintings. It's not so

2:50

clear to me that if you didn't know what

2:53

the paintings were about and who did them,

2:56

and I include myself in this, that you

2:58

could tell that they were either from someone's

3:00

early work or later work or who or

3:02

when they were made. I mean, it's not

3:04

manifestly clear looking at those paintings that those

3:07

are the paintings of a young man, be

3:10

he good or bad. When you

3:12

were doing the Black Paintings, were you uninterested in color at

3:14

the time? Well,

3:17

I was really learning how to paint, and I

3:19

was really beginning. So I didn't have any particular

3:21

stake in color one way or the other. To

3:24

me, the Black Paintings were obviously

3:26

exciting, and they were colorful.

3:29

They were plenty colorful enough to me. It

3:31

really was a question of dealing with

3:33

what I had. I had

3:36

arrived at the Black Paintings, obviously,

3:38

by painting black over what I

3:40

had been working on, but it

3:42

seemed to provide something

3:45

special, and it was quite colorful to

3:47

me. I didn't think of

3:49

it as a particularly negative statement about

3:52

color. When did you know

3:54

that you wanted to start working with really

3:56

brash colors? Well,

3:58

my father said to me, me, you know, people,

4:01

you need color in order to sell

4:03

paint. And when he said

4:05

that, I started thinking about, you know, you can't,

4:08

first I had made black paintings and aluminum and

4:10

then copper. And then I started to

4:12

think about color. And the only, as soon as

4:14

he said that, the idea popped into my head

4:16

that I could make paintings pretty much stripe paintings,

4:18

pretty much the same way I was making them.

4:20

And I, instead of using color, I'd use something

4:23

as nearly as neutral as color, which would

4:25

be just use it as it came out of the

4:27

can. Like I thought of

4:30

red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and

4:32

violet, and just using those colors.

4:34

What kind of paints have you used

4:37

for your color paintings? Well,

4:39

I've used all kinds, but I mean,

4:41

I find it very hard to restrict

4:44

myself to what are called

4:46

artist colors. I mean, I use a lot

4:48

of commercial paint and

4:51

maybe it's just a habit from that I

4:53

picked up from working as

4:55

a house painter or I'm not sure

4:58

exactly why, but I like commercial paints

5:01

largely because they make, they combine

5:03

sort of easily and it changes the quality

5:06

of the color when you, fine

5:09

art pigments are more intense in terms of

5:11

color because they actually have more color

5:14

in them, more pigment, they have less, uh,

5:16

in or matter in them. And, but they,

5:18

it's nice to find, see a cheap red

5:20

because you sense something cheap about it when

5:22

you see it. I like

5:24

to play a cheap red off against an

5:27

expensive red. Somehow it always sort of is

5:29

interesting, at least to me anyway. So

5:32

you must mix your colors like people in paint

5:34

stores do. You take big cans and you shake

5:36

them up a lot, right? It's not like working

5:38

on a palette, which is a traditional old one.

5:41

Right, right. Well, I, yeah, I mean, Bob Rauschenberger

5:43

said the whole world is his palette, but I

5:45

used my whole studio floor as the palette, but

5:47

basically, yeah, it's a big palette. You go from

5:49

can to can, bucket to bucket. I

5:51

mean, I'm fairly loose with the paint and

5:54

I don't mind if I sort of, you know, waste

5:56

a lot of paint. Tell

6:00

us how you started getting interested

6:02

in geometric form as the

6:04

subject matter for your paintings. You

6:07

know, I never thought about that very much. I mean,

6:09

when I was in school,

6:11

particularly at Phillips Academy, I mean, we

6:13

had a studio course and we studied

6:15

art history. And I mean, when

6:17

I saw Mondrian and then when I

6:19

saw some abstract painting in the gallery,

6:21

in the Addison Gallery, the

6:24

idea appealed to me immensely. I mean,

6:26

it was a tremendous relief to

6:28

think of the square as subject matter. I

6:31

mean, it just seemed to me wonderful that

6:34

I could paint squares while the guy next to

6:36

me was painting a figure. I mean, when he

6:38

was painting his sister, I could be painting another

6:41

square. I mean, it was easy to paint a

6:43

square. And I liked doing it besides. I

6:45

mean, it just seemed the biggest

6:47

advantage was that I would be

6:49

able to work sort of really

6:51

directly on pictorial

6:53

problems without worrying about

6:56

figurative technique. I mean,

6:58

I simply didn't have to worry about those kind

7:01

of problems. I could really worry about getting a

7:03

whole picture, making the painting work

7:05

in sort of general terms, and

7:08

which I think are still the most important terms, the

7:11

sense I could deal right away with this

7:13

sense of wholeness and a sense of accomplishment.

7:15

I mean, maybe the paintings weren't great, but

7:17

they were accomplished paintings in the sense that

7:19

they were coherent and whole right from the

7:21

beginning. The same thing

7:23

sometimes becomes decoration when it's purchased

7:26

to put on your wall in the living room. What do

7:28

you think of painting as decoration? I know it's a thought

7:30

that upsets a lot of artists

7:32

and that other artists find perfectly pleasing. Well,

7:36

I mean, the aim of art is to

7:38

be more than decoration. I mean, if it's

7:40

used decoratively, what

7:43

can you say? I mean, if somebody likes something,

7:45

you can't stop them from buying it. And if

7:47

they decide that they really bought your purple picture

7:49

because they want to hang it on their green

7:51

wall, you've had it. I mean, it's going to

7:53

hang on their green wall for a while. But

7:56

I don't think that that's a really serious

7:58

problem. I mean, if the painting... will

8:00

find its way to its home one way or

8:02

the other eventually and you

8:04

know if it's a good enough painting it'll live through its

8:06

life on the green wall come

8:08

to rise above it you've never

8:10

been a a realist painter could

8:14

you do a a realist rendering if you want

8:16

to do you have been no clearly if i

8:18

had to draw a picture now mickey mouse i would

8:20

fail did that

8:22

ever upset you when you want to become an artist everything

8:24

that someone was gonna come in and test you and say

8:27

hey we love your work to prove to us that uh...

8:30

that you can really you know do a rendering

8:32

no it never crossed my mind and

8:34

i never could keep and i never had

8:36

i don't it's to this day i don't

8:38

understand what illustration have to do with making

8:40

art uh... it

8:43

just you know they don't

8:45

seem to be any point to it for me i mean

8:49

and if i you know i'm sure that if

8:51

i had to have people in

8:53

my paintings i'd figure out a way to put

8:55

them in modern

8:57

art has uh... thought

8:59

after originality to try something new to

9:02

have a breakthrough concept or something you

9:05

think that we put too much of a premium on

9:07

originality in art how valuable do you think that is

9:10

i mean if it's really original uh...

9:12

it's great you know the the

9:15

big thing in the critical literature to make

9:17

a distinction between novelty and originality it's hard

9:19

to know what's original i don't think that

9:21

you can find too many

9:24

examples of originality i mean usually

9:27

what we mean in art by

9:29

originality is uh... doing something first and

9:31

in a sense because it was certainly

9:33

a very original painter if he wasn't

9:36

the first to make cuba's pictures i

9:38

mean he was certainly the first to

9:40

make open sculpture and i mean

9:42

so he was a contributor on a lot of levels

9:44

on a lot of ideas that he did

9:47

were certainly around the work necessarily

9:49

absolutely his original ideas but he

9:51

gave them formed the first form

9:54

that really sprung loose in the

9:56

world and so there

9:58

are original people like that original people

10:00

who do that kind of original work.

10:02

And I think that that kind of

10:04

work is rightly prized because it is

10:06

relatively rare. There's an image of

10:08

the artist as being heroic and

10:11

romantic. And I think it's an image

10:13

that was especially expressed through the work

10:15

of the abstract expressionist and through the

10:17

way some of them live their lives.

10:20

What do you think of that notion of the

10:22

artist as the hero of the romantic? I

10:24

don't have much interest in that. I mean, I don't

10:26

feel that artistic. I mean, I

10:28

feel like a painter when I'm working on the problem of

10:31

making a painting. But, you

10:33

know, it's not, I mean, I

10:35

don't really, I guess I have a

10:38

slightly or quite a strong anti-romantic

10:40

bias, I guess. Why do you think you have that? Well,

10:43

I mean, I don't like to, I mean, I find

10:45

it offensive to think of myself as an artist. I

10:49

mean, there are an artistic personality. I mean, if

10:51

someone said, well, you have some kind

10:54

of sensitivity that other people don't have,

10:56

it seems to be manifestly untrue. I

10:59

mean, the only thing that I have

11:01

is the will to make, you know,

11:04

make paintings. I mean, that's why I want to use

11:06

what I know to make paintings or what I'm able

11:08

to understand to make

11:10

paintings. Frank

11:12

Stella recorded in 1985. He

11:15

died Saturday. I spoke with him again

11:17

in 2000. We'll hear that

11:19

interview after a break. This is

11:21

fresh air. The following

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today to get started. Let's

12:07

get back to our remembrance of Frank Stella.

12:10

The second time I spoke with him

12:12

was in 2000. At the time he

12:14

was creating large, vividly colored sculptures that

12:16

sharply contrasted with the black canvases that

12:19

made him famous and controversial in the

12:21

50s. Your work has changed

12:23

so much since the late 50s when when

12:26

the public became aware of your work and you first became

12:29

known for your black striped paintings and

12:31

these are paintings that helped launch the

12:33

minimalist movement. Then you

12:35

did color paintings that often use very

12:37

geometrical forms and then eventually

12:39

your work became like wildly colored with

12:41

drips and brushstrokes and your work became

12:44

more sculptural with a lot of like edges and

12:46

you started working with hard materials like like metal.

12:48

Do you feel that

12:50

by starting with all black and

12:52

then by adding color and then

12:55

adding more kind of wild elements to it

12:57

that you strip things down to a basic

13:00

vocabulary of yours and then kind

13:02

of added things to that vocabulary and built things

13:04

up again? I suppose

13:06

I mean you can imagine it I guess

13:09

a life story any way you want. I

13:11

mean it starts with a lot of youthful

13:13

enthusiasm and ends with mature

13:15

wisdom which is a simplification of

13:18

everything happens or you can

13:20

start out as a sort of aggressive

13:22

hard-nosed kind of arrogant and

13:24

pare everything down and dare everybody to say

13:26

that you can't know that

13:28

you can't get it all before you even know what it's

13:31

all about. Did you feel like your

13:33

early black canvases were a dare? They

13:36

were yes I think they were I mean they

13:38

were pretty aggressive yet but I mean I was

13:40

but I felt very confident about them.

13:43

What did you think were some of the most

13:45

interesting on-track and off-track pieces

13:48

of our criticism about your early work? Well

13:52

I had a hard time with criticism because

13:56

you know I really liked what I did and I was

13:58

interested in painting and I had a kind of critical

14:00

attitude towards painting. But the writing about

14:03

it was really a little bit beyond

14:05

me. I mean I was a relatively

14:07

unsophisticated person in that way. I mean

14:11

I really wasn't interested in philosophy

14:13

or in you know in

14:16

the notion that you could appeal

14:18

to smart people by saying smart things

14:20

about painting. I just wanted

14:23

to make paintings that I liked. I didn't

14:25

care if smart people liked them actually, unfortunately.

14:27

But you know to me criticism is like

14:30

I don't know a sport or entertainment

14:32

or something. It's not unfortunately really serious

14:35

for me. Artist

14:37

Frank Stella is my guest. What

14:39

was the impact on you to become

14:41

famous and controversial when you're in your 20s

14:44

and just starting off as a painter? Actually

14:47

the thing about being famous and never... I wasn't

14:50

worried about it because the art

14:52

world was a much smaller place and I

14:54

had no not much interest

14:56

in fame. I liked other artists who were famous

14:59

and I like but I really wanted more than

15:01

anything to make art that was as good as

15:03

the good artists were making. I wanted to make

15:05

art that someday and I didn't expect it to

15:07

be that way right away, that it would be

15:09

as good as de Kooning or Klein or Newman

15:11

or Pollock or Rothko. They were my

15:13

heroes and I wanted to make art that was as

15:15

good as that. All I cared about was

15:18

whether if you put one of my paintings next

15:20

to a Rothko it looked okay. That's

15:22

what I wanted. Actually I don't know what

15:27

fame is really but I mean that was what I

15:29

was interested in. When you

15:31

were in your 20s in the 1950s

15:34

it was a period when some of the very famous artists

15:36

like Pollock were famous not only for their work but for

15:38

their lifestyle. What kind of a

15:40

lifestyle? A lot of drinking and everything.

15:44

Some people in their attempt to be

15:47

artists would emulate the lifestyle as

15:49

well. Did that lifestyle mean anything to

15:51

you? No it didn't mean much

15:53

largely because I was so young and it

15:55

was just very hard to keep

15:58

yourself together. I mean to keep working. to

16:00

get money to do whatever you have to do. I mean I

16:02

didn't really actually have that much time

16:04

to get drunk. You

16:07

grew up in a pretty middle-class

16:09

family. Yes. Father was a doctor,

16:11

a gynecologist, and apparently he

16:13

worked as a house painter during the Depression to

16:16

put himself through college, and from

16:18

whatever it sounds like occasionally he'd like

16:20

repaint the house you lived in and you'd

16:22

help him paint. I was in paint all my life. Did

16:25

you enjoy the feel of house paint or the

16:27

colors of house paint? Yes, I did. I liked it.

16:29

I mean I always liked paint, the physicality of it.

16:33

It was never a problem for me. My mother

16:35

was an artist too and she painted with oil

16:37

and my father painted with house paint

16:39

so I had paint pretty well covered.

16:41

When I first saw de Kooning and

16:43

Klein say for example and even Pollock,

16:45

I knew right away how it was

16:47

done. I mean it didn't, it

16:49

wasn't a problem for me about how to make those

16:51

kind of paintings. And did you know that more

16:54

from house paint than anything else? Yes, yeah, yeah,

16:56

yeah. And I knew it from painting houses and

16:58

I mean even at the time that Pollock was

17:00

doing, I mean there's a tradition for decorating and

17:02

dripping paint on floors and on furniture and stuff.

17:05

So I mean it's been around. I

17:08

mean it just hadn't been in the art world. So

17:11

what connection did you see between you know

17:13

the house painting and the Pollock's? Well

17:16

I thought you know painting a wall is a big

17:18

physical experience. You do it and I could see most

17:20

of the time that if you stopped halfway through or

17:22

you're painting your wall it would be a lot more

17:24

interesting but you know no one's gonna let you stop.

17:26

But it was beautiful and so I like

17:31

doing it and I could easily see that you could

17:33

make paintings like that. How did

17:35

you get from you know painting

17:37

walls to actually painting canvases? Well

17:40

I mean I painted all my way through

17:42

school. I mean I went to Phillips Academy

17:44

in Andover and I took art classes and

17:47

then when I was at Princeton we had art

17:49

teachers you know sort of not and

17:52

I took classes there and

17:54

I just you know I was around the studios as

17:56

it were. Yeah the impression

17:58

I get from reading interviews. with you

18:00

is that you never study the technique of

18:02

representational art. That's true. When

18:04

I was at Phillips

18:07

Academy, there was

18:09

an introductory course which consisted of, to

18:11

the arts, to fine art, and that

18:13

consisted of an art history course and

18:15

a studio course. It was a combination.

18:18

So you went to art

18:21

history lectures and then you went to the

18:23

studio and you made paintings. In one of

18:25

the prerequisites in the painting course, the

18:27

first thing was a kind of motif.

18:30

So you had to make a

18:33

painting of a

18:35

still life. There was something set up and that

18:38

was a requirement. And

18:40

then you went on from there. And

18:43

so I didn't

18:45

really like it and everything. We

18:47

had a class and they've

18:50

started showing us about Sarah

18:52

and neo-impressionism and things like that.

18:55

And then I said to myself,

18:57

oh, that's kind

18:59

of obvious. I ran downstairs to do my

19:01

painting and I just made it all splotches.

19:04

So I made a table with splotches,

19:06

a cylinder with splotches, some ivy with

19:08

splotches. And it all held together. It

19:10

looked sort of like a painting and everyone else was

19:13

doing the modeling and the light and shadow and

19:15

having a wonderful time doing what they were doing.

19:17

But I was done and I

19:19

showed it to Pat Morgan and he

19:21

said, all right, all right. And

19:23

he let me go. And from there on, I

19:26

just did whatever I wanted. I didn't have to

19:28

do any more representational art. So how much did

19:30

you actually do before abandoning it? Well,

19:32

I did about 20 minutes. How

19:38

old were you? I was

19:40

probably 15. And I'm

19:43

surprised that your teacher just kind of allowed

19:46

you to dismiss the technique like that.

19:49

Look, I was a wise guy, but you know, a lot

19:51

of teachers have to deal with kids who are wise

19:53

guys. I mean, but if you know what you're doing,

19:55

I mean, it's like, you know, what are

19:58

you going to do? You're the tennis coach. the

20:00

kid comes in and he hits the ball 90, 80, 90

20:03

miles an hour and no matter what you

20:05

do he hits it back. You can

20:07

say, well that's not exactly the right way to do it and you

20:09

can talk to him, but you're not going to tell him to forget

20:11

it. You

20:13

can hit the ball or you can't. What

20:16

was it that made you realize that

20:18

you just weren't about representational art? Was

20:21

it a technical problem or just like an

20:23

aesthetic lack of interest? I had representational art

20:25

on my window. My mother painted Santa Claus

20:27

on there and she was always

20:29

making paintings. I saw a representational art all

20:31

the time. I wasn't very moved by it,

20:33

but when I saw magazine

20:36

reproductions of Franz Kline and

20:39

when I saw the Pollock

20:41

paintings and Hans Hofmann paintings

20:44

in Patrick Morgan's house

20:46

and in the gallery

20:48

at the Addison Gallery, I was overwhelmed

20:50

by that. I just loved them and

20:52

I wanted to make paintings like that and I

20:55

just wasn't going to let anything keep me from

20:57

making paintings like that right away. I wasn't going

20:59

to wait 10 years

21:02

and then make an abstract

21:04

painting. Was there ever a point in

21:06

your life where you said yourself, I wish

21:08

that I had studied representational technique

21:11

and that I had more of that technique

21:13

available to me? I

21:18

didn't understand representational painting very much

21:20

and I probably wouldn't understand representational

21:22

technique up to a point. Maybe

21:27

30 years later, when I

21:29

saw in the Capitoline Museum Caravaggio,

21:31

St. John the Baptist, it really

21:35

knocked me out and I really liked it

21:37

and it was very real. The

21:41

realist technique, I should have said, oh my God,

21:43

but I can't do this and I should have

21:45

been very worried about it. Actually

21:47

the effect was the opposite. It was

21:49

a kind of incredible euphoria about saying,

21:53

actually that's it. That's

21:55

what painting is about. I realized that

21:58

Caravaggio's success... and what

22:00

made this painting beautiful, which was its sense

22:02

of being very real, being very physically present,

22:05

had to do with the fact,

22:07

not, had actually nothing to do

22:09

with the technique, but with the fact that

22:12

Caravaggio worked very hard at painting and

22:14

that he had wanted to make a painting. And

22:16

once I realized that, you know, the

22:19

goal is what counts, what you intend

22:21

to do, what you want to make, making

22:24

things pictorial is what's important. The

22:26

technique you use to make the

22:29

pictoriality manifest and make

22:31

it successful is that it doesn't really

22:33

matter. You know, you get the job

22:35

done, whichever way you can. They never

22:37

had a problem in the caves in

22:39

Alaska or wherever, Altamira,

22:41

they got the job done. When

22:44

you were a student, were you ever afraid that a

22:47

teacher would think or fellow students would think

22:49

that you were a fraud or something because

22:51

you had skipped that whole step

22:53

in the evolution of

22:56

mastering representational techniques? Fortunately, I wasn't

22:58

a particularly successful student. So all of

23:00

the other students were more successful

23:02

or seemed better at it. But

23:04

I wasn't worried. I mean, the issue of

23:06

being a fraud, you know, that

23:09

just never came up because I

23:11

mean, I worked, you know, I

23:13

was in the studio every day. I was

23:15

there two or three hours a day. All the other

23:17

students were better and had this kind of technique. I

23:19

never saw them there. I mean, they came for one

23:21

or two hours a week. I was there nine or

23:24

10 hours a week. So, you

23:26

know, I mean, I know who's there and

23:28

who's not. Doesn't matter what

23:30

the technique is. It's what the effort is that goes into

23:32

making art. Have you ever

23:34

been through a period where you felt that

23:36

you were at an artistic dead end and

23:38

you knew that a series you were working on

23:40

or a direction you were exploring was finished

23:42

and you didn't know where you were heading

23:44

at? A couple of times.

23:47

Yeah. What did you do during that? That

23:49

interim where you weren't sure what was next, but you

23:52

knew what you had been doing was finished. I

23:54

pretended it wasn't a problem. Why?

23:57

Why pretend? Was that for your own benefit? around

24:00

you wouldn't lose confidence. Right, for everybody.

24:02

Yeah, yeah. Art is a

24:04

little bit like a performing art

24:07

and if performers, athletes

24:10

or singers or performers, whatever

24:12

it is, if you

24:14

communicate to those

24:16

around you or outside of you a lack of

24:19

confidence you might just as well be dead.

24:22

They thrive on your confidence. So

24:25

you got to keep that to yourself if there's any

24:28

doubt? Yes, it's better. One thing I

24:30

learned early on was never to, no matter how

24:32

bad my painting was, or it was never to

24:34

say anything bad about my own work. How'd you

24:36

learn that? Because

24:39

you say and make a casual remark to a

24:41

friend about you don't like this part of your

24:43

painting some little trivial thing and then you, you

24:45

know, a couple of weeks later

24:47

you'll hear it from a museum director that that painting

24:49

is a complete failure. Well

24:52

there's also a real stock market factor in

24:55

the art, in arts, you know, where like

24:57

somebody's stock, the actual price

24:59

of their paintings fluctuates, goes up and

25:01

down over the course of the career

25:03

depending, depending on I guess

25:05

a lot of different variables. Has

25:08

that been something that's kind of that you

25:10

found more amusing or disturbing? That

25:12

kind of stock market fluctuation? No, it's just a

25:14

reality and it's a struggle. I mean I've been up

25:16

and down and up and down and it's still the

25:18

same. It hasn't actually really changed very much for me.

25:21

It's still very hard to keep it all together.

25:24

You know, I could blame myself I suppose, you

25:27

know, if I didn't blow so much money or

25:29

if I didn't spend so much money making art.

25:31

But in order to do what I want to

25:33

do, which is basically make art, it's a struggle

25:35

to raise the money really to pay to pay

25:37

my own way. Without

25:39

a patron it's quite hard. I want to know

25:41

if it's okay with you to ask you about your finger. Uh-huh,

25:44

yeah it's okay. You have one finger that... Yeah

25:46

I have a crushed left hand. I

25:49

have one finger is half and a couple

25:51

of the other fingers are damaged. It's a crush

25:53

injury from when I was 10 years old. What

25:56

happened? The

25:58

concrete urn in the yard. I

26:00

was toppled over onto my hand, that's all. It

26:02

was a crush injury. And

26:06

were the parts of your finger amputated on the

26:08

spot? Or was that the picture that you had to wear?

26:11

Well, when it's crushed, it turns black. I mean, eventually they

26:13

had to cut it off. Yeah, I went to the hospital,

26:15

yeah. And you

26:18

work, you do a lot of physical work. It's

26:21

never interfered with it? Yeah, but I'm right-handed, so it's not a problem.

26:23

And it's your left hand that was crushed. So

26:26

you're okay with that? It's not

26:28

a problem. And I think,

26:30

did that get you out of the military? Actually,

26:32

indirectly it did, yeah. And I

26:34

wasn't thinking about it, but it

26:36

was a turning point in my artistic

26:39

career because when I left school, when

26:42

I graduated from Princeton, I went to New York

26:44

and took a loft and started painting. And

26:47

I wasn't really that aggressive about

26:49

being a painter or being an artist, but I

26:52

did it because I had to go in

26:55

that September to go home to Boston

26:57

to take a physical examination. We still

27:00

had for

27:02

the draft. And

27:04

I expected to be drafted, so I thought, well,

27:06

this is just dead time. I'll paint for a

27:08

while and then go in the Army. And

27:10

then I'll worry about my career when I get out

27:12

after I do my military service. And

27:14

that really was the only thought that I

27:17

had. I mean, it wasn't complicated and I

27:19

wasn't conflicted or anything. I mean, I was

27:21

just painting and living in New York with

27:23

my friends, meeting people and making paintings. And

27:26

then I went to take my physical examination.

27:29

And I didn't really

27:31

wanna go in the Army, so I did all the things.

27:33

I wet my bed, I sucked my thumb. They

27:36

just laughed at me and they stamped all my papers.

27:39

And then the last guy, there were three doctors

27:41

in a row on the table and the guy looked

27:44

at me and he said, let me see your left

27:46

hand. And I said, yes, sir. And

27:48

he picked up an envelope and he

27:51

held out the envelope to me. He said, put this between

27:53

your thumb and your index finger. And I said, yes, sir.

27:56

Your third finger, your fourth finger, your little

27:58

finger. And I said, yes, sir. He

28:00

said, you know, son, you have faulty opposition.

28:03

And I said, yes, sir. And he

28:05

said, you don't want to go in the army, do you?

28:07

And I said, no, sir, which I think is not exactly

28:09

what I should have said. He said, you know, he said,

28:11

you went to Princeton, didn't you? And I said, yes, sir.

28:13

He said, I don't think you'd make a very good soldier

28:15

anyway. And he picked up the other thing and he stamped

28:17

it and I was out. How'd

28:19

you feel? Well, I felt weird,

28:21

actually. I mean, I was happy not to be in

28:24

the army. And then I suddenly realized that I was

28:27

going to go back to New York, to my studio. I

28:30

didn't have a career ahead of me in the army.

28:32

They kept telling me my tour of duty would be

28:34

in West Germany or Korea. And

28:37

I wasn't sure which fabulous place I wanted to

28:39

go to, but I had these fantasies of going

28:41

on tour. I mean, the army tour is a

28:43

little bit different than my idea of touring. But

28:46

anyway, I called up my father and I said,

28:48

gee, I'm sorry, dad, I have bad news. I

28:50

failed my physical examination. I won't be able to

28:52

go in the army. And he said, too

28:55

bad, it would have made a man of you. And I said,

28:57

well, I'm just going to go back to my studio. And

29:00

that was it. Were there things you had to face

29:02

in the studio that you didn't feel ready to face yet because

29:04

you thought you were putting all that

29:06

off till after your tour of duty? You

29:10

know, no, I don't know. I mean, I didn't. It

29:12

wasn't a problem. I don't know why I just went

29:14

back to my studio and kept on painting. You

29:19

know, life at that age was a

29:21

nice, you know, New York was sort

29:24

of relatively gentle there. I

29:27

mean, there were artists around and you could sort of bum around and

29:29

it was OK. You could manage. Do

29:35

a lot of young artists want advice from you? I

29:38

don't see too many young artists. They don't know. I

29:41

haven't had anyone ask me for advice, actually. I don't

29:43

think anyone has ever asked me for advice. How

29:47

do you keep yourself isolated from that? I

29:50

don't know. Maybe I just don't attract the kind

29:52

of people that need advice. I hope. I'm

29:54

not sure. Well,

29:56

Frank, so I want to thank you so much for talking with us.

30:00

Thank you, it was fun. Frank Stella

30:02

recorded on Fresh Air in 2000. He

30:05

died of lymphoma Saturday. He was 87.

30:09

We have another remembrance coming up. Dwayne

30:12

Eddy, one of the most influential early

30:14

rock and roll guitarist, died last week.

30:17

We'll feature a 1988 interview with him

30:19

after a break. This is

30:21

Fresh Air. There are a lot

30:23

of issues on voters' minds right now. Six

30:25

big ones could help decide the election.

30:29

Guns, reproductive rights, immigration,

30:31

the economy, healthcare, and the

30:34

wars overseas. On the

30:36

Consider This podcast from NPR, we will

30:38

unpack the debates on these issues, and what's

30:40

at stake. You can listen

30:42

to NPR's Consider This wherever you get

30:44

your podcasts. Moms know the ups and

30:46

downs of life. It's what makes them

30:48

great subjects for books. This is one

30:51

of the things that fiction can do, right? It can

30:53

give us a window into battles

30:55

that each person is waging or facing,

30:57

but it doesn't mean that we condone

30:59

her actions. This week

31:02

on NPR's Book of the Day podcast, we are

31:04

discussing books centering mothers. So

31:06

call your mom, then tune into the Book of

31:08

the Day podcast from NPR. This

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31:48

One of the most influential guitarists in

31:51

early rock and roll, Dwayne Eddy, died

31:53

last week. He was 86. He

31:55

was one of the first instrumentalists to become

31:58

a rock and roll star. times

32:00

obituary describes him as quote having

32:02

played a major role in establishing

32:05

electric guitar as the predominant musical

32:07

instrument in rock and roll. His

32:10

hits included Ramrod and 40 Miles

32:12

of Bad Road. His first top

32:14

ten hit was this one Rebel Rouser.

32:31

I felt with

32:34

Dwayne Eddy in

32:37

1988. His hits

32:40

from the 50s and 60s had been reissued

32:45

on CD and he'd just released

32:47

his first new album in a decade. When

32:50

he was a teenager in Phoenix, Arizona,

32:52

Dwayne Eddy was playing country music at

32:55

local clubs. But in 1955 when

32:58

Elvis Presley's music hit Phoenix, it

33:00

was easy to switch over to rock

33:02

and roll. I always said most

33:04

rock and roll is country music with

33:07

drums and you

33:09

had a drummer and maybe a

33:11

saxophone player too in those days and

33:14

you were doing rock and roll. I

33:16

read somewhere that some of your early records were cut

33:18

in a studio that didn't have an echo chamber so

33:20

that you faked one. Well

33:23

no actually didn't fake it. What we did was

33:25

we went out and bought a big several

33:28

thousand gallon water tank

33:31

and put a speaker in one end and a mic in the

33:33

other and that was our echo. And used

33:36

to sit outside the studio and we'd have to go

33:38

out and chase the birds off of it in the

33:40

morning. It was great fun and if

33:42

a fire engine came by while we were in the middle

33:44

of a take that was it for that take. I mean

33:46

it was it reverberate around

33:49

through the tank. You

34:31

have hit records of

34:34

the themes from Peter Gunn and

34:36

from Paladin. Was it your

34:38

idea to record those? Not

34:41

Peter Gunn, that was the sax players, Steve Douglas. He

34:43

came in one day and wanted to do it in

34:45

an album. We were in the

34:48

midst of our second album and he

34:51

had this idea, he'd worked it out on sax that he

34:53

could do it and I wasn't all

34:55

that anxious to do it. There wasn't much for me

34:57

to do at the time, but I

34:59

did work out an intro and the middle

35:03

part and everything, so we did it for the album. Then

35:08

Australia released it as a single and

35:10

it went to number three there, so

35:13

Great Britain decided to release it as

35:15

a single a few months later and

35:17

it went to their top ten, so finally America

35:20

decided to release it and it became a hit

35:22

here as well. You

35:26

recently re-recorded the Peter Gunn theme. Why

35:29

did you decide to do that and did you do

35:31

anything differently on it that you would have

35:34

liked to do the first time around but couldn't? No,

35:37

this was an entirely different approach, an entirely different

35:39

record. This was with a group called the Art

35:41

of Noise and they're

35:45

an English group and

35:47

very avant guard and a very

35:50

big hit with the dance crowd these

35:52

days and they

35:56

contacted me and I

35:59

fell idea. I thought it was great

36:01

because the art of noise has

36:05

their own sound. I know it's very strange

36:07

and unusual to some ears but it

36:10

is very distinctive and

36:12

I figured it might work.

36:56

Why did you retire from music and when did

36:58

you first retire from music? Well,

37:05

when my record stopped selling I

37:07

sort of retired. It was mandatory

37:09

retirement, although in 1970

37:11

I tried a record called Freight

37:13

Train with Jimmy Bowen producing and it got in

37:15

the top ten of the

37:17

easy listening charts, which

37:21

kind of seems strange to

37:23

me from a short

37:26

space of a few years I'd gone from

37:29

being rock and roll and

37:31

hard rock and all that to easy

37:33

listening. But things had changed so much

37:35

in the intervening years that that's what

37:38

it was determined as

37:40

being. Your new album

37:42

is your first album in America in a long

37:44

time. A couple of the songs on the new

37:46

album are in a

37:49

minor key and have this mysterious

37:53

sound to them that really almost

37:55

reminds me of certain TV themes,

37:58

Westerns or spy shows. you

38:00

feel that way too? Yeah I

38:02

think most everything on the album could fit

38:04

as a theme for some TV show or

38:06

movie. We called it

38:08

one song Jeff Lynn wrote called the

38:10

theme for something really important because

38:16

we couldn't come up

38:18

with a title. We thought of

38:20

all these grand titles and thought it was

38:22

a bit too pompous sounding so we just

38:24

decided to instead of title it to

38:27

describe it. You

39:02

must have over the years

39:04

heard many guitarist who

39:06

obviously patterned their sound on

39:08

your and I

39:10

wonder what you think about when you

39:12

hear that. I'm really knocked out when I hear

39:14

that. That got

39:18

me through a lot of lean years when I thought

39:20

everybody had forgotten about me and things

39:22

weren't going very well and all that sort of

39:26

thing that happens to people and it happened

39:28

to me and then all of a sudden

39:30

I turn on the radio and hear somebody

39:32

doing my sound and I thought hey great

39:34

this is wonderful haven't been forgotten and

39:37

so it was

39:39

a great source of happiness

39:42

to me. I wish you

39:44

the best with your new album and I thank you very much for

39:46

talking with us. Well thank you. My

39:50

interview with Dwayne Eddy was recorded in 1988. He died last

39:52

week he was 86. After we take a

39:57

short break Marine Carrigan will review Calm

39:59

Toba new novel, Long Island,

40:01

a sequel to his best-selling novel,

40:03

Brooklyn. This is fresh air. On

40:07

this week's Wild Card, we talk with

40:09

Issa Rae about those moments where our

40:11

lives could have gone another direction. Definitely

40:13

wasn't supposed to be like that at all. At

40:16

all. But I still think about it. I'm

40:18

Rachel Martin. Issa Rae tells us how

40:20

to make peace with the path not taken.

40:22

That's on the Wild Card podcast from

40:24

NPR, the game where karts

40:26

control the conversation. The

40:30

economy right now is bewildering,

40:33

impenetrable, inconceivable. Not when you have

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40:38

your ears. In under 10 minutes

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every day, we simplify the complicated

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40:49

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40:51

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40:54

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40:59

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41:01

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41:03

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41:05

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41:07

each candidate's goals for a second term.

41:09

Listen to the NPR Politics podcast every

41:11

weekday. We

41:27

keep it fun and it comes straight to your inbox once a week. The

41:57

sequel to Brooklyn. boroughs

42:00

of New York City to Long

42:02

Island. Such was the

42:04

exodus route of many, mostly white

42:06

working and middle class New Yorkers

42:08

during the late 1960s and 70s

42:10

when the city was

42:14

perceived to be in decline. So

42:17

it makes historical sense for

42:19

Colm Tobin's sequel to his

42:22

2009 bestseller, Brooklyn, to be

42:24

called Long Island. Where

42:27

else would Tobin's heroine, Eilish

42:29

Lacy, an Irish immigrant

42:32

who married Italian-American plumber

42:34

Tony Fiorello, be likely

42:36

to end up? But

42:38

as anyone who's read Brooklyn or seen the

42:40

2015 film starring

42:43

Cyr Sherronin knows, Eilish

42:45

is a restless soul.

42:48

The opening shocker on the

42:50

second page of Long Island

42:52

is that the easygoing Tony,

42:54

her husband of now 20

42:56

years, has been getting restless

42:59

himself. Before

43:01

I go further, a quick word

43:03

about sequels. I don't usually

43:06

review them because not everyone has

43:08

read the first book or seen

43:10

the movie, but in this

43:12

case it would be worth your time to

43:14

catch up. Long Island,

43:16

together with Brooklyn, is a

43:18

devastating diptych about a woman in

43:21

two different seasons of her life,

43:24

thrashing against the constraints of

43:26

fate. Tobin, whose

43:28

novels have animated Greek myths,

43:30

as well as the subtle

43:33

minds of masters and magicians

43:35

like Henry James and Thomas

43:37

Mann, also invests

43:39

even these routine lives

43:42

with tragic dignity. Long

43:45

Island opens in 1976 when a strange man appears

43:50

at Eilish's door and

43:52

bluntly announces that Tony

43:54

has impregnated his wife.

43:57

The humdrum stasis of Eilish's soul is

43:59

a suburban world shatters

44:02

as if Zeus himself had struck the

44:04

house with a thunderbolt. The

44:07

man also informs Eilish that when

44:09

the baby is born, it will

44:11

be deposited on her doorstep.

44:15

What ensues for the remainder

44:17

of Part 1 of this

44:19

novel is a fraught pantomime

44:21

of silence and secrets. Eilish

44:25

and Tony's house stands in

44:27

a cul-de-sac where all the

44:29

other houses are filled with

44:32

Tony's extended family, his parents,

44:34

two of his brothers, their

44:36

wives, and lots of kids.

44:39

The Fiorello Enclave, which Eilish

44:42

thinks of as the Great

44:44

Family Net, is as

44:46

watchful and stifling as the

44:49

town of Enniscorthy in Ireland,

44:51

where Eilish grew up. When

44:54

she learns that she's one of

44:56

the last family members to find

44:59

out about Tony's infidelity, and that

45:01

her mother-in-law, who lives next door,

45:03

has already agreed to adopt

45:06

the baby, Eilish realizes she

45:08

has no one to turn to.

45:12

If she told someone about it,

45:14

Eilish thinks, then she might know

45:16

how to feel, what she should do.

45:20

She had never confided in her mother,

45:22

who was, in any case, in

45:24

Ireland, with no telephone in her

45:26

house. Her two

45:28

sisters-in-law, Lena and Clara, were

45:31

both from Italian families, and

45:33

close to each other, but

45:35

not to Eilish. Given

45:38

that the situation at home

45:40

is unbearable, Eilish decides to

45:42

visit her 80-year-old mother back

45:44

in Ireland, a place

45:46

she hasn't returned to in almost

45:49

two decades, with good reason. There

45:52

she'll discover, much as another

45:55

Long Islander named Jay Gatsby

45:57

once did, that you can't

45:59

repeat the past. Tobin

46:02

floats with ease between time periods

46:05

in the space of a sentence,

46:07

but it's Tobin's omissions and

46:10

restraint, the words he doesn't write,

46:12

that make him such an

46:15

astute chronicler of this working-class,

46:17

Catholic, pre-therapeutic world

46:19

where people never speak

46:22

directly about anything, especially

46:24

feelings. Here's

46:26

the conclusion of a scene

46:29

where Eilish and her

46:31

mother-in-law, Francesca, have been

46:33

sitting in Eilish's kitchen

46:35

having a halting, evasive,

46:37

non-conversation about the baby.

46:40

Francesca stood and waited for

46:42

Eilish to stand up too

46:44

and accompany her out, but

46:47

Eilish remained seated. Francesca

46:50

left the room and made her way

46:52

alone to the front door. Since

46:55

her mother-in-law was a stickler for

46:57

form, Eilish knew this studied

46:59

insult would not be forgotten.

47:02

It would create a chasm between them

47:04

that would not be easily bridged,

47:07

and that made Eilish feel

47:09

satisfied that something at least

47:11

had been achieved. There

47:15

are no innocence in Tobin's

47:17

world. Every character has

47:19

at least a slim streak of

47:21

malice in them. Indeed,

47:24

the bitter pleasure of the

47:26

Ireland section, which composes the bulk

47:28

of the novel, lies

47:31

in witnessing how characters

47:33

Eilish underestimated years before

47:36

exact their own long-delayed

47:38

retribution. Silently,

47:40

of course. Nobody

47:43

in this world would ever dare

47:45

say a word. Maureen

47:48

Corrigan is a professor of literature

47:50

at Georgetown University. She reviewed

47:52

Long Island by Colm Tobin. Myers,

48:00

Roberto Shorrock, Henry Baudinato, Sam

48:02

Briggert, Lauren Krenzel, Theresa Madden,

48:04

Susan Yacundi, and Joel Wolfram.

48:07

Our digital media producer is Molly

48:09

C.V. Nesbirn. They are challengers directed

48:12

today's show. Our co-host is Tanya

48:14

Mosley. I'm Tari Gross. Tanya Mosley

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