by Ron Padgett
TD: George?
JB: Gracie and George, when they were playing. Old I Love Lucys I used to love, but not so much now. I used to love Candid Camera, it used to be terrific.
TD: Who’s your favorite male vocalist?
JB: If I had to pick, I guess I’d say Charlie Rich. Do you know that song “A Very Special Love Song”?
TD: No. Dare I ask, who’s your favorite female vocalist?
JB: I might say Judy Garland. In a way, I hate to say that, but there are a couple of songs—that one from Meet Me in St. Louis, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” totally tears me up. But on the other hand, I don’t want to say she’s my favorite female vocalist. I’m not really—I don’t think I’m all that much into music, ’cause it’s never been a big part of my life. I’ve always had just a radio, and I listen to the country-western stations. It’s comfortable, and that’s all I demand of music. If I’m at somebody’s house and they have a great set, I enjoy listening. But it really doesn’t fit into my life that much. I hope it will some day.
TD: What’s your favorite movie?
JB: Some Like It Hot, and the one I can never remember the title of, with Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor . . . something about the sun . . .
TD: A Place in the Sun.
JB: Yeah, A Place in the Sun. And How to Marry a Millionaire, Singing in the Rain . . .
TD: Who’s your favorite poet?
JB: That would be really hard, too . . .
TD: I know. That’s why I asked you. (Both laugh.)
JB: I’d say Frank O’Hara. And John Ashbery, too, though he’s, you know, over my head, though every now and then I can get into him, and he sweeps me away and I love it, although sometimes he’s impossible. My mind wanders off. And Ted [Berrigan], especially The Sonnets, but that’s probably because I know that whole period. They’re incredibly beautiful. And Ron [Padgett]. Of course Kenward [Elmslie] and a lot of people, too.
TD: We left your biography off at your signing the Timothy Leary Defense Committee . . .
JB: I don’t even remember signing it, but I’m sure I did, ’cause anything I got in the mail I’d sign. If all it takes is a signature, it seems the least one can do.
TD: How have you changed in the last ten years? You’re what now, 35 . . .
JB: Yeah. I’ve changed a lot, but I hadn’t any choice. It would be hard to go into, though; I’m afraid it would be very tedious and boring. I’m so much older, and I think I’m much more realistic about what to expect. It’s been a total freakout for the last two years for me.
TD: What, at the end of your youth or something?
JB: No, I like being 35. But I don’t like myself as much as I used to, and that makes it hard. And also I’m not as blindly ambitious as I used to be.
TD: Are you ambitious? You’re certainly successful, but part of your charm, I guess, is that you seem terribly modest, and modesty and ambition don’t seem to go together.
JB: I think I am a little modest. But it goes together. But it’s easy enough to be modest, because you never know what people think or you never know where you are—I mean, it’s hard for me to assume that if I go to an opening anyone’s going to know who I am. I still can’t do that. It’s always a surprise when someone says “I love your work,” just out of the blue. I think I’m aware there are people who do, but I can never quite accept it as a fact, so it’s still like starting all over every time. But I don’t believe it as much as I used to, which is not depressing, but it makes things a little harder.
TD: You don’t believe in your work as much as you used to?
JB: I don’t believe in things I want, like being famous and making money. All that stuff is—I’d like to do it, but I don’t believe in it as much as I used to. I don’t have that force, which, even though it may be a perverse force, it’s still a force, and it gets your shit together. But I already know it’s not going to make a damn bit of difference.
TD: What do you mean, ultimately?
JB: Yeah. I mean I know that however much money I make or how famous I get, it’s not going to change my life that much. I’m not going to be the same. It’s not going to be easy street. I can tell that ’cause I’ve gone from having no money at all to being relatively comfortable, and I’m not any more happy now than I was then. I don’t feel any more famous now than I was then, though maybe I’ve gotten used to it. So I don’t have that as an excuse anymore, which is probably a good thing, though sometimes I miss it. (Pause.) And the older you get, every now and then you get this feeling that you’re going to be alone all your life. At the same time, I’m not sure I could cope with the possibility of This Is It and nothing else. So I’m torn between those two alternatives. But then, I think everyone is. But the older you get, you realize you’re getting a little less chance. In my head I think what I’d love to do is fall madly in love with someone. I still think it might happen. I can still see it, you instantly set up house and it’s terrific. But I don’t know if it’s realistic or not. Plus I think I’m already too much into a certain way of life, that for me to change it would take someone to knock me over. I mean, I’d have to go really bananas. And I think the chances of meeting someone that you go bananas over like that are slim. So the odds are against you, though I’m sure it’s possible. And there are always places where, if you wanted to lead that lifestyle, you could find somebody in two seconds, and have a good life instead of holding out for this incredible ding-dong . . .
TD: Johnny Angel?
JB: Yeah.
TD: You’re very prolific. You do an enormous amount of work.
JB: Yes, I do. It sort of runs in my family. I’ve taken speed off and on too, and that makes you prolific. I don’t know how people can get—people who don’t work, I don’t know how they fill up the day. You can read, I guess . . . I’d hate to sit around and think all day.
TD: I want to do this thing as a realistic, Bockris-Wylie interview. Do you know those guys, Victor Bockris and Andrew Wylie? When I was in Philadelphia, they lived there, and they used to sit around in restaurants and tape-record their conversations with each other, then publish it as a magazine. They had a certain . . . quality . . . a certain spontaneity I always admired, although it was a little light on subject matter.
JB: They’re funny guys.
TD: How did it feel to be in People magazine?
JB: I really looked forward to it, I mean I couldn’t wait to get a copy. But you know how it is when it happens . . .
TD: Not on that level I don’t.
JB: I mean, if I had been anyone else I would have been pissed off. They made incredible goofs, and they said things that I didn’t say at all. The headline was, “Brainard Says, ‘Think Small.’” I was doing small works, but I didn’t say that. But I sort of expected that—I mean they have to find the story. But the whole line of the story was . . .
TD:“ . . . Miniaturist Joe Brainard . . . ”(Both laugh.)
JB: It isn’t my message at all.
TD: Do you have a message?
JB: I could probably think of one. It would be fun to pinpoint this point. There is one thing: I sort of have the feeling that most people don’t take seriously enough that we’re animals. That always bothers me. People tend to see things on such a grand scale, it always amazes me. And they take their lives so seriously. But that’s a common idea.
TD: Are you a religious man?
JB: I wouldn’t say so. That shocks me, too. Any religion shocks me. It all seems too transparent to me. I can see getting into it for the pleasure of it but I can’t see really believing it, in terms of something to base your life on. That seems completely fraudulent. I can see emotionally, as a pleasure or gratification, but not as a source.
TD: Do you base your life on anything?
JB: I suppose I base it on what I try to be, or want to be. But I wish I didn’t.
TD: Why?
JB: I’m not sure that’s the point. I suppose it is if it gives you pleasure. But I have a definite goal
which is totally unrealistic: I’d like to look like James Dean, I’d like to be a genius painter, be rich—I mean I really have this idea—I’d like to be charming and socially love everybody and have everybody love me. I sort of make small steps in an attempt to be that person . . .
TD: When you spend your summers in Calais, do you work there?
JB: Usually. Except two summers I haven’t. One summer I gave up smoking, and work, and everything. I slept a lot. I just wanted to do something positive, prove to myself I could do it.
TD: When did your mid-life crisis start?
JB: It sort of started when I was taking too much speed. I was working on the collage show and—it’s hard to describe why, but when you get into collages at the level I was at, to keep up with it I either had to cut it off or just go bananas. And I went bananas, in terms of work. In order to have that much material, in that much space, with that many possibilities—I mean, I was just living in a big mass of papers, and collages would form themselves all over the place, and I was keeping track of all this. And there was no way to do it except by taking speed or ups. And I kept that up for about a year, but that made me a little crazy—I mean the combination of all the work and the ups. I was feeling very tentative; I was really walking thin ice for a long time. Then I had dinner with Kenward one night and he said, “I don’t want to see you anymore.” And I hadn’t realized what a position I was in; I hadn’t realized I had nothing to hold onto, and I went bananas. I’ve never been possessive of Kenward; he has boyfriends and I have boyfriends. But at a weak point, he wanted to cut it off completely. I wouldn’t have thought it would be that much of a shock, but it was.
TD: So what happened?
JB: I begged, for a long time, to get back. I mean, it seemed to me that that was the only thing that meant shit, that was worth living for. I suddenly realized that he was the only person in the world that I knew that well, that I could relax with completely. We’d been going together for ten years; there’s nobody in the world I know that well. That’s a great, incredible thing, especially when you lose it, I realized. “Love” is such a dumb word; it’s certainly a grand aspect of it, although it isn’t the most appealing. But it was then. I worked to get it back together. But it changed me in a lot of ways. I’m not sure I know all the ways.
TD: What do you see yourself doing in ten years, twenty years, thirty years?
JB: I really don’t, much. I’m not outrageously optimistic. But I’m optimistic about there being possibilities. I’m just not that optimistic about being able to carry them out. I’m not as optimistic as I wish I was. I sort of recognize Fate . . .
An Interview with Joe Brainard
by Anne Waldman
AW: Do you think one has a choice about being an artist?
JB: Oh yes I think one always has a choice.
AW: When did you make that choice?
JB: I don’t think I ever made it but I think I have a choice. I think I could stop it now.
AW: Isn’t it too late to stop?
JB: No I don’t really think so, I think I could stop tomorrow, I really do.
AW: I don’t believe it.
JB: I’d do something else. I think I could. I’ve fantasized about being a novelist or I’ve fantasized about doing some kind of social work—give up everything and devote your life to making other people happy in some way or doing some good in a more direct way. I think I’d enjoy it. Except you have to work with other people which I don’t like doing.
AW: What jobs have you had in the past?
JB: Working for audits and surveys. Doing graphs for business presentations for quite a few months. Working at a snack bar.
AW: Where was that?
JB: In Tulsa. I’ve had a lot of jobs. I can’t even remember them all.
AW: You never felt anxious about getting home to your real work?
JB: Never. Most of the jobs I’ve had I’ve been able to work at night and on weekends. I don’t think I’d want to but I could do it again if I had to.
AW: What have been influences on your visual work?
JB: Everything that’s visual. Magazines or T.V. or landscape or paintings by other people. I’m influenced by everything because I’m so aware of everything visually. It would be hard to pinpoint one thing. I can go to a party and remember what everyone wore without being conscious of it, without thinking about it. On the other hand, I can read a book but forget it right away. I enjoy reading but that isn’t where my focus is. When I’m reading my focus is there, but my general focus isn’t at all with words. My brain doesn’t have compartments to make order of words or something.
AW: But it does with images?
JB: Yes, I’m sure it does with images ’cause I can see things and it all makes sense in my brain and I can recall things in an order that I could never do with words. It’s all scrambled with words.
AW: What do you think that’s due to?
JB: I think I was partly born with it. I know I was that way as a child but I don’t think I thought about it. I didn’t realize I was different from everyone else right away but then at a certain point I realized I was sort of lopsided.
AW: Can you give some examples of these compartments? I know when I’ve visited your loft when you’re working on collages you’ll have piles and piles of materials arranged according to images, color, texture . . .
JB: It even happens in my head. If I see a piece of paper I instantly think of another piece of paper in my mind or I can put together an instant collage in my head. It’s a real problem with collages at this point.
AW: Why?
JB: Well I don’t really need to do them and there’s not that much pleasure in doing them because it’s too much. I got into it too deeply. I mean this in terms of material so that it’s a flood that I can make sense of, but it completely takes over which turns out to be more of a nightmare than anything else. So that’s why I shy away now. I’d like to approach things with a much more empty head in terms of space, but it’s hard so I’ve been laying low in terms of work.
AW: Do you have a vivid dream life?
JB: I do sometimes, sometimes I don’t. Dreams to me are sort of a bonus. I see them as entertainment. I write them down and use them for source material in writing but not visually. Except when I was really heavy into collages I would do them in my dreams too. Which is frustrating because you do a great collage and then it’s not there.
AW: Some of your collages tell wonderful stories. I like to fantasize about the little red flamenco dancer on the red stage made from the book image on the cover of the Yellow Pages. She also makes me think of Gertrude Stein’s “Preciosilla.” Do you have ideas before you start these?
JB: I don’t ever have an idea. The material does it all. You have a figure and a flower and you add a cityscape and it makes the story. You have control if you want to take it but that’s something I never wanted to do much. I mean if a story came out I’d sort of follow it, but I never want to read or make a story deliberately. In fact I don’t think I could. It’s the same trouble I’d have if I wanted to write a novel. I know I could never plan a plot because the only kind of plot in any sense of the word in either writing or painting that I’ve ever been able to present has come of itself from one word to the next or one thing to the next. It’s probably unfortunate because I’d like to be able to plan out something and do it in a grand style.
AW: Do you think you would sustain a character for a hundred pages?
JB: I doubt it. It would have to come to me or I’d have to base it on a real person. By “come to me” I mean come from what I’m doing, not come from my head. Come from the involvement of writing. Like if you make a line on a piece of paper (draws a line) all sorts of ideas can come. You can make it that way (draws), you can extend it (extends it), curve it (curves it). I’d never have a vision in my head of a line that went this way and curved. It simply wouldn’t come to me, but it would come to me as a logical development from what I’d already done.
AW:
Would you talk about your relationship to writers—it seems closer than your relationship to other artists—and also your own writing?
JB: I think I’m closer to writers in terms of understanding, in terms of attitude. Painters are kind of straight ahead. They see in one direction—well that’s not always true, of course. And I think I write because I know a lot of writers.
AW: But you’re the one who’s influenced other writers. You certainly influenced my early little prose works—the ministories in No Hassles.
JB: That’s hard for me to believe. It seems like that form already existed.
AW: Well it’s more the attitude with the material. You’re very original. I Remember, for example.
JB: Well I Remember is not an original idea. What’s original perhaps is that I actually did it and hopefully I did it well and that counts for a lot.
AW: Also what you would remember is, admittedly, special, but also speaks to and about everyone at a particular time.
JB: But there was no idea to do it. I just started one day while lying out in the sun in Vermont. It was another attempt to let my head be free and see where it would take me and then I just did it for one day and I showed it to people and they liked it so then I just kept going. But I hadn’t planned to write a whole book.
AW: You don’t often illustrate your own writing, why?
JB: I think illustrations sometimes destroy writing. It makes it too specific. You want to make the visions in your own head. When I do illustrations for other people’s work I try to do it factually and not necessarily even relate directly to what it is but it’s just in the same vein, or with the same attitude.
AW: What about working collaboratively with other writers?
JB: It’s fun. It’s very arduous. You have to compromise a lot. You have to be willing to totally fail and not be embarrassed by it. That’s the main thing which is very good for you.