Twenty Questions with Trine

Well it's 18 questions actually...

Art blogger Claudio Parentela recently interviewed Otis alum Trine Wejp-Olsen ('94) about her studio practice, her path to art school and what advice she would share with the next generation of artists.

Some of my favorite responses include:

(as to why she wanted to become an artist)-
"My Dad is a cartoonist (Werner Wejp-Olsen), and as he had his studio at home, growing up I watched him do his cartoons, and I guess the idea of becoming an artist for a living never seemed difficult or daunting…Being naive sometimes is a good thing."

(describing her first year at Otis)-
"The school has a bit of a boot camp first year, where they load a lot of work on you, and in as many disciplines as possible. I discovered within this first year that what I meant to do was to express my voice through imagery. I found it to be too limiting to be hired by someone else as an illustrator to express his or her point of view or need. And therefore I ended up in the fine art department concentrating on painting instead."

(the materials she uses when making work)-
"I work with oil on canvas + watercolor, color pencil and sometimes milk paint on paper. For sculpture work I use all kinds of materials, fabrics, plaster, and my last sculpture was a bronze."

(what she would tell a young artist)-
"There is no right or wrong in art, so don’t be afraid of mistakes, they often turns out as successes."

The complete interview is available at Parentela's blog- Elvis in Hawaii

image- Blue Monkey, 2007 oil on canvas 16" x 20" from the Trine Wejp-Olsen website