Maatstaf. Jaargang 28

[p. 16]

Portfolio Laurie Lipton
Door Ethel Portnoy

I won't try to discuss or describe the drawings on the following pages, because they speak for themselves. If I had to compare them with anything, I would refer to literature. The grotesque world they depict, the terror, grief and anxiety they evoke is like what one finds in the novels of Nathanael West.

What strikes me most in these drawings are the children. They look the way children really look - the helpless, frightened repositories of our dreams and hopes, moving and pitiful in their nylon snowsuits and their clumsy shoes. In Bodega Keyzer near the Concertgebouw I met Laurie Lipton. She is a small, slender girl with blue-grey eyes and very long, straight, light-brown hair. She struck me as modest, sober and sweet. She is the kind of girl you want to protect. And she was like all the good artists I have ever met: gentle, playful and unpretentious.

ep: Tell me something about yourself.

ll: Well, let's see... I was born in 1953 in New York. I went to Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh and majored in drawing. Part of the program was a study-year in Aix. I liked being in Europe so much that I came back after I graduated in 1975. That year I had an exhibition of theatre-posters in Hamburg. Then I spent a year in Rotterdam. Then four years in Amsterdam.

ep: What made you decide to go and live in Bruges?

ll: I never could find a proper place to work in Amsterdam. I found one in Bruges. At least there I can step back to look at my drawings without falling out the window. Actually, it's a gorgeous place. And Bruges is a beautiful town - like what Amsterdam must have been like in the 17th century.

ep: Do you ever work in any other medium than pencil?

ll: The book covers I do are in color. (She shows one.)

ep. The color adds nothing.

ll: I agree.

ep: How long does it take you to make a drawing like the ones in this portfolio?

ll: Each drawing takes me a week. I work sixteen hours a day.

ep: And for how much do they sell?

ll: Fourteen hundred guilders apiece. (Apologetically) They're very large.

ep: Let's see, at about a hundred hours per drawing, that means you earn about 14 guilders an hour. And how many such drawings do you do per year?

ll: I do about 40 drawings a year, then I exhibit about 22. I also do about five book-covers a year, for about fl. 850 apiece.

ep: At that rate, you will never get as rich as Andy Warhol.

ll: Did you know that Andy Warhol also went to Carnegie-Mellon? He got kicked out. While I graduated with honors. Actually, I shouldn't complain. I guess I'm luckier than most of my classmates. A lot of them have had to go into teaching, or commercial art.

ep: Like Andy Warhol.

ll: (laughs.)

ep: What kind of people do you mainly go around with?

ll: Mostly theatre people, because of my friend who's connected with the theatre.

ep: What sort of theatre people? There are all kinds.

ll: Well in Belgium for instance, Frans Marijnen, he's a director who worked with Grotowski. And in Amsterdam...

ep: Mickery types?

[p. 17]

[p. 18]

[p. 19]

[p. 20]

[p. 21]

[p. 22]

[p. 23]

[p. 24]

[p. 25]

ll: You might call it that... I go to the theatre a lot.

ep: Do you ever see a film?

ll: Less and less frequently. I haven't seen a film I like in ages. It's not worth it to me: I'd much rather be drawing.

ep: Didn't you like any film, ever?

ll: Well, I liked The Bicycle Thief. And I liked The Deer-Hunter - it had a lot of gut in it.

ep: Do you ever read a book?

ll: Book? Vat iss book? (we laugh.) I'm rereading The Brothers Karamazov for the fourth time. I like Melville. I like Balzac. I like Thomas Mann and Thomas Wolfe.

ep: Thomas Wolfe!

ll: I know, it's a bit adolescent, but I still love him.

ep: Don't you ever read any modern books?

ll: Well, I just read The World According to Garp. I like really juicy books, books you can get our teeth into. My favorite piece of prose is Ecclesiastes.

ep: Pardon?

ll: In the Bible. Ecclesiastes.

ep: What's a girl like you doing in a book like that?

ll: I like... well... I like the tone...

ep: Tell me about your parents.

ll: (vehemently) I love my parents!

ep: Do your parents like your drawings?

ll: Yes, they always encouraged me. Looking at the drawings, most people think there must be something strange in my relation to my parents, but it isn't so. We're very close. They're the most terrific people!

ep: What does your father do?

ll: He's a salesman.

ep: Of what?

ll: Construction materials. My mother used to be a teacher. I have one younger brother.

ep: What does he do?

ll: He's in international marketing.

ep: What's that?

ll: Well, he's with a diamond firm, studying supply and demand, buying and selling.

ep: Do you like jewelry yourself?

ll: No. (gestures) You can see...

ep: There's a lot that reminds me of childhood in your drawings. The way things look to a child. The terrors of childhood, memories...

ll: I guess I'm still pretty close to my childhood, chronologically as well as emotionally.

ep: These present drawings are very different from the ones you used to do. The ones in that earlier portfolio of yours in Maatstaf were far more - schematic. The content of these is certainly richer. Technically they are more interesting.

ll: Those others only took me a day each to do. Also, my work is growing: it grows with me. It's very personal, connected to my life and whatever kind of phase I'm going through.

ep: There are no animals in your drawings. Nothing of nature.

ll: No, I'm concerned only with humans.

ep: In what direction would you say your work is developing.

ll: Well... it's getting less ugly... more compassionate.

ep: Compassionate? About what?

ll: About people...