WALTER KIERAN: That's a gift, it's a profession to a person - it ain't
everybody who can be an artist.

LEO GERMINO: Persons who have a knack for artist. You must go to school to
that too. Sometimes they test them all to see if they have a natural talent.

DAVID BREWER: The thing you draw.

ABE SURGECOFF: Livin' thought makes pictures. And ah, they make it up to
be sold, the artwork. Oh, let's see, oh yeah, and the artists have to buy
good materials to work on the canvas.

ED ROGERS: What is art? Oh, art is drawing, you're drawing a picture or
something, that's art, that's what it is, drawing a picture, somebody's
picture. That's what an artist is - drawing a picture or making designs.
There's quite a few artists, right? There's quite a few, I mean besides
Walt Disney, there's quite a few others.

FRANCIS MCELROY: That's a skill.

BILL LAGASSE: I don't know. I don't know art when I see it.

ERNIE BROOKINGS: Art is the natural skill of sketching all subjects.

BILL NIEMI: Well art is, ah, when people see different people and scenes -
mountain range areas and prairies, and ah, forest and woodlands, and
seashores and other waterfronts like lakes and ponds and so forth - the
concept in their mind, artists, what it looks like to be painted on paper
or canvas, according to what kind of painting they're going to do and what
they're going to call it.

ANDY LEGRICE: Art is you draw a picture, or a form of a picture. Like I'm
drawin' you, that's art - you're a picture! (LAUGHS)

EDGAR MAJOR: I'm dumbfounded - it's hard to explain art.

(from the Duplex Planet issue # 58)

SOPHIA KRASINSKI: My son, he knew of a man that was a painter, painting
portraits. And this man, he painted that portrait for my son for a bottle
of whiskey(laughs). My son wanted to pay him, he said, "No, just give me a
bottle of whiskey and I'll give you that portrait." Isn't that something?
My son had asked him to paint me that. The man said when he'd have time to
do it he'd paint a portrait for me. My son says, "My mother's kind of
religious and she ain't got a religious picture." (laughs) So for a bottle
of whiskey he painted that and that's why I'm keepin' it.
DBG: Is it okay though for a religious woman to have a painting that was
paid for with whiskey?
SOPHIA: (laughs) Yeah, I don't know. I don't care how I got it. (laughs)

(from the book Trees Breathe Out People Breathe In)

WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE ARTIST?

LEO GERMINO: The fellow who used to put down Maggie and Jiggs. I forget his
name, I don't think he's livin' now.

ABE SURGECOFF: You! (Laughs)

HARRY KATZ: Perry Como.

JOHN LOWTHERS: Moving pictures?
DBG: Paintings.
JOHN: Oh paintings, well, I don't go too big for the painting of it, so I
don't really know.

GEORGE TATE: Myself.

ED ROGERS: Oh, ah, Walt Disney, I'd say Walt Disney.

JACK MUDURIAN: Norman Rockwell. He's dead, he died Norman Rockwell. I
think he died, yeah, he did die, Norman Rockwell.

CHARLES SHEA: Michelangelo

ANDY LEGRICE: Eddie Clamp, he made Mutt and Jeff. He's in the Globe, he's
an old timer.

BILL SEARS: I ain't got any.

ERNIE BROOKINGS: ( Pointing to a cartoon in Yankee Magazine) Eno Nash.

PASQUALE TROIANO: Jerry Colano.

GEORGE STINGEL: I haven't seen any art in a long time. They took me to an
art gallery once, it was all nice pictures. I don't know who did 'em.

BILL NIEMI: His name is Robert Ayers - I think he's still living. He
painted the picture of Baltimore Bay, you know, where they raised that Star
Spangled Banner.

(from Duplex Planet issue #92)

WHAT FAMOUS ARTIST FROM ANY TIME IN HISTORY WOULD YOU WANT TO HAVE PAINT
YOUR PORTRAIT?

DAPHNE MATHEWS: Michelangelo, because he did the Sistine Chapel and I heard
it was fantastic!

ELMER WALLACH: Rembrandt.
ANN RAPP: You pick the best!
ELMER: Why not?!

DORA GURKEWITZ: Fred Fixel, my ex-son-in-law. He's got a big school in
California.

SOPHIE TERKEL: Picasso
ANN RAPP: Oh Jesus! You really got some guy there!
SOPHIE: You'll see me like this! (TWISTS HER ARMS AROUND HER HEAD AND MAKES
A FACE)

DOROTHY STEIN: Rembrandt.
DBG: He's already tied up with Elmer, he's booked.
DOROTHY: He's good enough for me, I'll wait.

ANN RAPP: Andrew Wyeth.

ELMER WALLACH: Incidentally, mine wouldn't be a nude, it would be a regular
portrait.

(from Duplex Planet issue # 92)

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