Mary Gaitskill: Something that has been a little nerve-racking about it—and maybe why I ultimately can’t keep doing it—is that, because the response is so quick, it’s kind of jangling.
Robert Motherwell: It depends on the inner sensory discriminations and life of whoever is looking.
Gaitskill: Political events, social events.
Motherwell: Maybe. Nothing is ahistorical.
Gaitskill: You’re revealing your psyche.
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Motherwell: Most people can't see that, because they are not properly prepared.
Gaitskill: If people just dip in and out, I think that’s fantastic.
Motherwell: It is on an eight foot tall piece of Masonite, so the figure itself must be about six foot one, which I happen to be.
Gaitskill: Because we all have bodies, and that’s the heart of empathy, that we recognize each other as these creatures with bodies that can be hurt even if we’re very strong.
Motherwell: Yes, for instance, I am just reading a marvelous interview in the current Paris Review.
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Gaitskill: I’m getting a little far afield from your question. What was it?
Motherwell: (Long silence) Not everybody is an Olympic athlete, or a great cook, or a fine tailor, or a good automobile driver.
Gaitskill: Realism really can encompass so many things. I’ve been kind of wary of it.
Motherwell: You see, in a way you have a mental picture, an amorphous impulse.
Gaitskill: You could break them, and people broke them all the time.