Artist, Jack Whitten: There is a joy in what I do. I’m an artist who believes that when you go to the studio, if you’re not having fun, you shouldn’t go.
Narrator: When Whitten died in 2018 at the age of 78, this painting still hung on his studio wall. Here he is reflecting on his legacy.
Jack Whitten: I think I’ll go down in history as an innovative artist, you know, someone who’s expanded the possibility of abstract painting. I’m a child of the 60s, you know? Our motto was “keep on trucking.” Seriously, keep on trucking. That was the motto.
There is a sedimentary stone that I work with on Crete. Every time you take that chisel and cut that stone and opens it up, do you realize you are the first person that have seen something that took place 40, 50 million years ago, some cases 100 million years ago? You’re the first person to see it. Painting is that way. When you get to that point, and you know it’s complete, you realize, I’m the first motherfucker to have seen this. [Laughs] So there’s a fantastic joy to that.
Archival audio courtesy of The HistoryMakers Digital Archive