RENEE´A FOX: INTERVIEW

The well-rounded, multi-disciplined upbringing is a common trait of our Divas. How were you encouraged and enlightened as a child?

The women in my family are very talented creatively. My Mother is a dancer and musician. When I was seven, I asked her if I could be one of the dancers on the “Solid Gold” T.V. show. She said with conviction that I could be whatever I wanted to be. She consistently entered my childhood drawings into art competitions and children‚s magazines. I was published in Frog and Toad and won most of the competitions. I later watched her provide for us as a single mom and learned that anything was possible. My Grandma had paintings of mine from junior high up until she died last month. She used to tell me what an incredible painter her mom was. My Aunt spent years fighting and finally overcame a severe case of schizophrenia. She now writes children’s books. At age eleven, I watched my parents have an unsuccessful marriage and bitter divorce while I helped to take care of three younger brothers. I think that had a great deal to do with my early artistic development because drawing was an obsessive behavior that helped me to escape.

You traveled and studied all over the country while deciding on the perfect way to utilize your talents. How did you realize that painting was your calling?

My travels were entirely about exploration and experience. I was not my intention to find my calling. I wanted be free to do what I wanted to without answering to anyone. I had an incredible time. I partied and met many wonderful people. When I decided to stay in one place and go to school, I went to Catholic University, Washington DC, to study architecture. I was looking for a way to do what I loved and was best at doing; planning, making, drawing. After a year of confining and constantly discouraging atmosphere I decided to be a professional artist.

Tell me about your mentors.

The strong, independent women in my life have all been inspirational. Three people come to mind who taught me what I needed to know for my careers. I was a studio assistant for East coast artist Bill Newman. Craft and skill were essential in his paintings. He had M.S. and little use of his hands so I painted as he dictated and learned traditional oil painting techniques well. Nancy Jeffrey, artist, designer and muralist, continues to be a positive force in my life. She is a dear friend and a gifted, driven woman. I met Nancy in my first year at the Corcoran and have worked with her for nine years. She was and is a mentor as a healthy woman, an entrepreneur and a perfectionist of painter. I have worked as teaching assistant at Otis and am currently a part time studio assistant for LA artist Linda Burnham. Linda is extremely process oriented. Her studio functions efficiently and productively. She has been a wealth of information and a model of a successful woman artist.

You often work on murals. How does the large scale change the way you approach a piece?

Mural painting is very much about proper technique, strong composition and design sense, knowledge of how color works and efficiency with time. The large scale strengthens all of these.

Where could we see some of these large pieces?

Most of my large-scale mural work is in private residential collections. One, however, was painted last year in a historical building, Otis College’s previous administration building. I did not attend Otis when that campus was in use. I painted the mural to go with the 1930’s architecture and style, brick floors and hand carved wood trim and doors. You can see it if the building is open or just from looking into the front doorway.

I love that you say "the quality of light and types of plants" affected your work so dramatically upon moving to California. It really shows. What other transformations did your work go through as you headed west?

My life changed drastically when I moved to California. The dangers of living in Washington DC and seasonal depression were eliminated when I arrived in LA. I came to Otis College of Art & Design from Corcoran School of Art & Design. Corcoran was strong in teaching technique. Otis taught modern art history
and theory. These two curriculums resulted in a well rounded art education and informed my work as well.

Of course I immediately see Georgia O'Keefe's influence in the voluptuous organic shapes of your paintings. But they also have a scientific, almost textbook quality realism to them. Do you surround yourself with flowers and plants in your everyday life?

I do. I care for them, watch them grow. This is my favorite time of the year in California. You can smell fresh jasmine blooms in the air, datura bell flowers, roses and sage on the hills and mountains. My studio is in the middle of a beautiful garden. On sunny days, I open the French doors to the outside and work.

What's your favorite piece?

I don’t pick favorites. To me they are stages in a process, so it is hard to judge them all in the same way.

Okay, then, what are you working on now?

I have a large series of medium-to-small paintings on the walls in my studio. I just did a mural on ABC’s Extreme Makeover Home Edition and have some work to do for viewers and a trompe l’oeil mural piece of two alcoves with Flemish-like flower arrangements in urns. I am scheduled to begin reworking Kent Twitchell’s freeway mural of 4 runners in an underpass on the 101 near Western in June and in July, I will be flying to Jersey and Colorado to work with Nancy on some
incredible homes for one of my favorite clients.