Jane Wilson, Visiting Artist Lecture 1984

Jane Wilson gives an artist lecture at Skowhegan talking about her painting practice. Wilson states how she is deeply attached to subject matter. This attachment has guided Wilson as she has continued to make shifts from abstract painting to figurative work, landscape and still life. Wilson also says that she is interested in unpacking ideas around culture. For Wilson, ideals around culture allows her to draw inspiration and a sense of direction in her work, drawing on the landscape as a way to think about this. Landscape is an important theme in Wilson’s work, due to the way it has shaped her experiences growing up in the midwest, particularly Iowa. Wilson uses landscape as a script and a type of writing, also drawing from autobiographical memories. Wilson tells the participants that it is so important for artists to doubt everything and take nothing for granted. Wilson then shifts and talks about her teaching practice. Teaching has taught Wilson how to make objects visible for her students. Being critical of her students has also helped Wilson as a teacher, because it allows her to get across many ideas to her students. Wilson tells the participants that it is okay to revisit ways of working or approaching painting if something has been done before, because it has not been done by them yet, so there is an opportunity to add to that history. Wilson ends her lecture stating that it is still life which has become one of the most profound parts of her painting practice.