That’s an interesting question that I’ve never been asked. Actually, the writing and the painting have constantly influenced each other. Early on, I couldn’t figure out how to make a living so I started writing art criticism for ARTS Magazine. I interviewed everyone from Bob Rauschenberg to Roy Lichtenstein. How did your success as a writer impact your visual arts practice? It is quite a talent to be so successful visually and through language. Your incredible life story is captured in your memoir, Walking Through Walls -the true story of growing up with a father who discovers he has supernatural powers. It was this experience of metaphysics that eventually became paramount in my work. I witnessed so many events that I still can’t explain. Overnight, our house became like Lourdes with my father performing miraculous cures on people that the medical profession said there was no hope and were left to die. Talking spirits and inexplicable cures were part of my daily life. I had an unusual upbringing. Back in the sixties, my father, a designer and artist, suddenly discovered that he could talk to the dead and heal the sick. Many of the PICTURES artists seemed focused on contemporary culture, film, television, irony, and social concerns. Your work became increasingly concerned with metaphysical issues as opposed to irony.
On many levels, we were engaged in dissecting fundamental notions about our culture. We felt there more to the culture than what was being shown to this. However, we felt that there was meaning behind the meaning that no one was seeing. It was Douglas Crimp’s genius that he saw a new form of art on the horizon. Don’t forget this was pre-digital so images from television, magazines, and movies were immutable. Image-based work was nowhere to be found. None of the galleries were showing work like ours. Minimalism and conceptualism were the reigning art movements of the day. Philip Smith: Even though we were all so young, I think we all felt we were creating something important that needed to be seen. Can you tell us a bit about that important moment in time? Chana Budgazad Sheldon: As a young artist, your first New York exhibition was the PICTURES show curated by Douglas Crimp along with artists Robert Longo, Sherrie Levine, Troy Brauntuch, and Jack Goldstein.
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