B09 – Movement of Youth
..ond.
Here we are.
Q:
No one told you?
A mystery guest where not even the host knows who it is going to be?
I like that.
Q:
Yes.
Q:
He gave me this envelope to open after we sit down together. Let's see... two more envelopes.
There is one marked number one, it says “Please open and read this out loud.”
And the other one “Open at the end, thank you.”
Q:
Oh yes.
Q:
A... Right, it says here:
I am the former, at the time fairly well-known, painter J. Delane.
I lost a personal bet and was asked to do an interview with you.
Anything else will be explained later.
And then at the bottom, in small letters “Have Fun!”
Q:
Sure.
Q:
For as long as I can remember everyone always called me Julie, except my friend Franklin who when we met as kids looked at me with his head titled and said "Julie? You look like a Jules to me."
And then there were always people that mistakenly assumed my actual name is Juliette. Or even worse Juliet.
Q:
Yes, exactly.
Q:
It is not. It is Julienne. Although, I have to admit, I never particularly liked that name.
I asked my parents why they named me that.
My dad said he found it funny to name his daughter after a courtesan he had seen in the movies.
At the time I used to think that was essentially the same as an artisan and delighted with the information.
Q:
Yes, that one...
Q:
I know.
I love my dad, but he can be such an idiot sometimes.
Q:
My mother?
She once claimed I was named after one of her favourite actresses.
Her middle name is Juliet.
So that was about as helpful.
Maybe that was their way of telling me: “It is only a name - get over it.”
Q:
Always has been.
We were in kindergarten when my family moved to his neighborhood.
It was a love at first sight.
Not in the way of “oh, I want to spend the rest of my life with you and have a million babies.” It was more like “I feel very comfortable in your presence, and even though we are only kids, it seems we both understand that somehow.”
There always was a strong connection between us. I think it is what you would call more a spiritual connection. A kinship.
Q:
Yes, kindred spirit. Thank you.
Q:
No. Not really.
Q:
We thought about it. We talked about it when were teenagers.
Q:
Absolutely. They and everyone else kept saying we would make a great couple.
Q:
Oh yes. Definitely.
I have to say I was popular as a kid, at least for a while.
My parents had a large record collection. After school my friends would often come over to listen to music. The more exiting the music we listened to, the less friends were coming over.
Our family did not own a television set. That pastime was not available there for them either.
Q:
I am serious.
Not even a radio.
At least not during that time.
Q:
My father always insisted that if there is something out there you want to know about you have to find it yourself. Information, culture, you name it. If you rely on the public media to give you that, it's like playing the lottery; a slim chance to get anything of worth, and thus a waste of your time and money.
Q:
We had books, and comics, records and movies.
Q:
Yes, he did buy a TV at some point, thanks to the rise of cassette tapes, but it never got hooked up to display any regular programs.
Q:
I can not really remember.
My parents grew up with rock music. Music their parents did not like, but their kids did.
Q:
I remember there was one singer. The Foreigner I think he was called. Some of his records sleaves looked like the music was about witches and hexing. Of course, we were too young to understand the lyrics.
It sounded dark and mysterious to us. That was good enough.
Q:
I did not really care about who or what it was about. Franklin was usually in charge of the record player.
He was the resident DJ of family home.
Q:
No. No.
Not in that way.
His role was to carefully take the needle of the record. Move the arm away to the side. Slowly so the tiny little weights that are there to balance the arm will not shift.
Then he would take the record off the turntable, put it back into its sleeve. Sleave onto the shelf. And then he would select a new record to put on.
Sometimes Frank would say "this one you have to remember" and he would tell me a little story about the musician. Hoping that would help.
Over time he gave up on giving me the names and only gave me the anecdotes and the music.
There must have been hundreds of bands he showed me through all these years.
Q:
That was easy. He would play something and I would say "I like that" and when putting on another record he would say "The other day I played something by so-and-so. You liked one their albums. This one here etc. Etc.
He also used to make mixtapes. He still does on occasion.
With very specific titles like “Do you feel restless and have the urge to pace around the room” or “Are you angry and want to stay angry a little longer?”
Q:
I think he usually spent more time coming up with the names than he did compiling and recording the tapes.
Oh, “Everyone on here agrees: That person is an arsehole” was another one.
Q:
Of course.
They work very well.
Q:
No. I don't think they would work for anyone else. Certainly not for himself. Not for my husband.
He somehow just gets me in that way.
Q:
Indirectly. Maybe. I never thought about that.
I usually painted alone in a room, to complete silence.
Or I would go for a walk outside, maybe in the forest. And just listen to whatever noises there were to hear.
Q:
Mostly instrumental music. Or if it is a in a foreign language.
Q:
I often found instrumental music more conducive. It might be as simple as the lack of words or lyrics in such compositions. And it is the same thing with a language I do not understand.
But I would not say the music is the inspiration, but ...
How about this; 'the theme music of the behind-the-scenes of the painting'.
Q:
It was very stressful at times.
I found the exposure really difficult. And the questions I was asked.
My friends encouraged me to give answers such as “it is a painting you moron. Had I wanted to express how I felt with words, I would have written an essay instead.”
I personally found it rude to so.
Q:
I never understood that. I never agreed with it either. My friends used to joke around and say things like "we are young and stupid - please help us move" and they would lie around on the floor and on furniture in increasingly complex constellations. Holding items. Striking poses. And then they'd burst out with a line to break it all up into laughter.
What did they used to call it...
Oh, yes, that's it:
"Still life with a twist".
It was great for perspective.
Q:
I never understood the adjectives that were thrown around to describe my work.
But as a result of that my friends referred to me as their “Queen of post-neoromantic nihilonarcism.” The way the dealt with things, really helped me a lot.
Q:
No, that's not what I mean. It's just that you get tired of it. Maybe I more quickly so than others.
On the other hand, this also how I met another one of my best friends. Her name is Paola, she's a performance artist.
Q:
Heart of gold... I agree...
Q:
She was working as freelance journalist at the time and interviewed me for an article she worked on.
That was the last interview I had given, until this one now.
Q:
I never read it.
Some of my friends who did read it said it was very good.
Q:
He? I do not know, if he read it.
I mentioned it once, and all he said was “I like her a lot.”
Q:
I did not ask.
Q:
Because I knew him well enough not to. If he had anything else to say, he would have.
Q:
Oh yes. They met when I invited her to stay with us for a weekend.
Q:
My parents were very supportive of me. From an early age.
My teachers thought my drawings were a bit gloomy for a child, especially a girl.
Q:
All kinds of things.
Mostly landscapes inspired by the artwork from my parents record collections.
I was very interested in witchcraft for long time. Witches and black birds.
Q:
One teacher once took away my half-done drawing, tore into tiny little pieces and threw them to the ground.
She said that I will have to stay back after class and clean-up the mess I made.
Q:
Only at first.
My parents had taught me early on to not take everything so serious, so personal.
And even when telling this, my father followed it up with 'because if you don't, you might as well as start to nurse an addiction to rat poison. That would be a much healthier lifestyle choice.'
Q:
The teacher was really mad at the whole class.
We had been giving her hell.
Her act of retribution was a catalyst. It defused the whole situation.
She got the tiniest victory over us. And in an instant the room was quiet.
She was a very young and inexperienced teacher and things had got out of hand a number of times.
But on that day... Maybe it was one particular thing or simply the sum of it all...
Something made her fight back - and I simply happened to be in the line of fire, or an easy target.
Even if I had held on to the paper, we would have torn it sooner or later. So I let go.
After that she walked out.
Next time in class there was an unspoken pact. And as a class we somehow managed to finish out the year.
After that I only drew in my schoolbooks. Those the teachers could not tear up or confiscate.
Q:
Some of them yes. To this day we are friends. In their own way yes. Sometimes that was not always obvious. They encouraged me to pursue a career. Of course, they did.
But once I actually had a career, they were a lot less interested in it.
Q:
They simply treated it as my job. It did not matter who was a mechanic or a teacher or an artist. Sometimes we would talk about work. My work was not treated differently than theirs.
Q:
Do you think we could...?
Yes, thank y...
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