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My Evolution As An Artist
Where Paint Goes is a captivating autobiography detailing your life as an artist. Why was this an important book for you to write?
After surviving over fifty years of living life as a creative or an artist and being told by numerous folks along the way, “you should write a book.” I thought it might be a good time to chronical my adventures, not so much to tell a story of my personal life, but to portray in parallel my personal life and my evolution as an artist or a creative.
Being intrigued by two statements I was familiar with, from studying art history:
- “Art imitates life,” Aristotle, around 300BC
- “Life imitates art,” Oscar Wilde, 1889
I found that I subscribed to both of these concepts, which gave me the foundation for writing the book and is why I subtitled the book “The art that affected my life and the life that affected my art.”
I appreciated the candid nature with which you told your story. What was the hardest thing for you to write about?
Being a novice author, I did not realize that to chronical my life in the written word, it would be necessary for me to intimately revisit the periods of my life I wished to depict in the story. Recalling certain parts of the story in this way proved to be highly difficult. Writing about the passing of my wife Kathy in 1989, I cried while I was writing about it and I cry today when reading the passages.
What do you hope is one thing readers take away from your book?
A bit of insight into what it is to live life as an artist, a creative.
Author Link: Website
Where Paint Goes
Where the Paint Goes by Larry Lewis, is an authentic and cleverly written autobiography of the life of Larry Lewis. Throughout his life, Lewis embraced the places he lived and the diversity of the people he met. Both played an important role in shaping his artistic growth. From an elementary student’s misrecognition of his work in an art competition, through adolescent gaffes, to an innovative sculptor and married man, the reader perceives each of Lewis’ life experiences and their effect on his art. Lewis vividly covered the topic of how his art, through his eyes, affected his life and how his life affected his art. Throughout the book, the reader experiences the delights and calamities of Lewis’ life, all as he paints a persistent balance between the style of art he is creating while growing as an artist. He wrote, “Sometimes, one’s vision can be as important, possibly more important, than the sum of knowledge gathered and synthesized in regards to that specific discipline.” (225)
The structure of Where The Paint Goes is focused on a casual, form-flowing style. Lewis begins the story in his childhood, moves on to confesses his teenage blunders, and matures into adulthood fluidly. All the while he shows how he’s grown from an insecure want-to-be painter to an accomplished artist. To add a bit of romance to the story, Lewis shares his clumsy adolescent encounters with girls and his fledgling artwork, to then meeting the woman with whom he wants to spend the rest of his life and his growth as an artist.
Where Paint Goes, The Art That Affected My Life, And The Life That Affected My Art is smoothly written, captures the reader’s attention from the beginning, and is a delight to read.
Pages: 238 | ISBN: 1637281161
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