Conversations with Alison Van Pelt

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alison Van Pelt.

Hi Alison, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I started young. When I was little, we lived on a walk-up street in Venice. I would spend all day drawing. My parents would ask, “don’t you want to go outside and play?” But I was entranced, in my own world, drawing girls, trees, birds, and horses (incidentally the subject matter of my last show) When I took up violin, my parents were more encouraging about my art. I would start to practice and they’d say, “don’t you want to draw?” I learned yoga when I was little, too. In class one day at Ganga White’s Center for Yoga on Larchmont (later the first Yoga Works), the teacher didn’t show up. I was 13 at the time and the director of the Center said, Alison, you know it. You teach the class. I kept teaching for the next 20 years until I could make a living painting full-time. Right out of high school, I was in classes at UCLA, deciding between science and law. I dropped out, went to Maui and fell in love. My boyfriend’s father was an artist. His life looked like a fantasy to me. A giant state-of-the-art studio overlooking the ocean shows in New York, London, Tokyo,… I had never been exposed to an artist living like this outside of fiction. Seeing this was a paradigm shift that galvanized my return to school. While waiting for classes to start at Art Center, Pasadena, I took my first painting class at the little neighborhood school, the Brentwood Art Center. A big collector bought my first oil painting. Obviously, this was going to be easy. (Just kidding)

After Art Center, I went to Otis. Later I studied at the Florence Academy of Art in Italy. But the most pivotal moment in my development as a painter happened on a trip to Paris after I’d been painting almost two years. I’d been experimenting, emulating Hopper to Hockney, O’Keeffe to Degas… I tried everything. But nothing stuck. And then I found Bacon. I stumbled into a small room at the Pompidou Centre with three Francis Bacon paintings. I was so jealous that I hadn’t painted them. Tears filled my eyes. I got a book. Bacon said. “I move the paint around till it takes on a life of its own. “ I was set! I started painting like him. I did 20 paintings. And… they looked nothing like his. They were just a bunch of blurry paintings. I was crushed. But people kept making the same remark about these sad blurry paintings: everyone said they looked like holograms. When I eventually let go of my previous expectations I was able to see them for what they were instead of what they weren’t. (a great life lesson in acceptance!) This set me on a path that I’m still on four decades later! I veer off into a minimalistic version of white on white blurry paintings, and I branch out to hyper-realistic portraits (still blurry) and I make other forays, always blurry, always a consistent development of my original vision.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Despite being as fortunate as I was to have found my life’s work before I was 20, I have spent my share of time impersonating Sisyphus, pushing that boulder up the hill. Like most people, my family has been a generous source of pain and anguish. I’ve worked through all kinds of issues, including depression and anxiety. I’ve tried countless treatments and healing modalities. While meditation, yoga, acupuncture, a vegan diet, etc have been effective, nothing really came close to the relief I found with medication. I was really lucky that something worked so well for me.

There are always obstacles, especially if you’re pushing yourself. But if you know quitting is not an option, if you are unwavering, persistent and patient, it doesn’t matter. Nothing will stop you. If you decide that you have a goal and are determined to reach it, that devotion and your will can get you through anything. Within reason, of course. After leaving academia, there was a moment I faced a choice between art and dance. Choosing art, I could peak at 80. With dance, it might be 18. So, within the parameters of my fate and my choices, nothing has deterred me. Quitting has never an option. Once I had decided that this was my plan, whether I made money or not, if I were financially successful or if I lived in a shack, nothing and no one could get in my way. Things and people have definitely slowed me down but nothing is going to stop me.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am an artist. I am a painter, specifically. My paintings are blurry. All of them. I am proud that I have been consistent and have developed an idea and kept it new and fresh for myself. I’ve been true to myself in the sense that while I do commissions, I haven’t painted anything I didn’t want to. I’ve made work that I’m proud of. I’ve challenged myself and pushed through many difficult projects and I’ve never given up. My process forces me to work for 24 – 48 hours straight. Sometimes more! And I never give up. And if I do a painting I’m not proud of I try again until I get it right. I paint all the time and I try to do better and work smarter. I challenge myself to make something with more depth, beauty and magic.

What matters most to you?
My work is central to everything. It invigorates, calms, and empowers me. It gives me a sense of security and enables me to take care of my family, my friends and myself. Work is my refuge. It’s the key to everything. It’s exciting to manifest something where there was nothing. And the practice of painting is a soothing ritual essential to my well-being. Conversely, when it’s not going well, I can feel lost. The business side has ups and downs, and I can roll with that. But sometimes ideas don’t translate to the canvas because of inadequacy in my ability, a failure of imagination or a rigid need to control.

Drawing and painting are practical skills that you can depend on, for the most part; and that can be worked through. But there’s something more: there is an ineffable magic, an alchemy that occurs when oil paints blend together with intention. Too much control and it’s lifeless. Too much surrender and it’s a mess that doesn’t hold together. The apotheosis, the high point, of the work is when a painting becomes a force majeure – an uncontrollable event. The key is to achieve a balance between intention and surrender. I’m heavy on intention. I want to allow more surrender. Some artists can attack a painting loosely from the start. I don’t know if I’ll ever achieve that. As a perfectionist the best I can hope for maybe the willingness to attack what’s been painted already. To deconstruct something that’s been carefully painted is exhilarating, as long as the essential part of the painting survives. If it’s destroyed entirely, that’s depressing. For me, the more I relinquish control, the more my painting comes to life. It’s the key to everything.

Contact Info:

• Website: alisonvanpelt.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/alisonvanpelt
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alison.vanpelt?mibextid=LQQJ4d

Image Credits
Ralph Starkweather Kim Keever Cari Bagdonas Jeff Cohen Jennifer Howard