Interview With Kent Twitchell

MJ: Mr. Twitchell, thank you for joining us today.

KT: Thank you for having me.

MJ: Tell us about your job, what exactly is a muralist?

KT: A muralist is anyone who paints on a wall. It's a clean

definition, that's what a muralist is.

MJ: When exactly did you decide that you wanted to be, become this

muralist?

KT: Growing up on a farm in the midwest I had always had permission to

paint when I was a little boy on the walls in my bedroom, and on the barn,

in the garage, and so I just grew up painting the walls of .... a place

that was there for me, easy to paint on, so I came out to Los Angeles

during what is referred to now today as "the hippy days." Everyone was

painting everything, they were painting their pants, their shirts, their

cars, so I was just one of the people painting on walls and cars and

shirts. The only difference is I kept doing it.

MJ: Were you ever arrested for any of these activities?

KT: I was one of those who got permission.

MJ: Did you ever get in trouble for any of this painting on other

people's property?

KT: I always got permission before I painted anybody's property, unlike

the graffiti artists in the big cities today.

MJ: What exactly is the difference between a muralist and I guess they

like to be called graffiti artists, what is the difference?

KT: I think the difference is permission. If I were to go out and do

what I did and not get permission then I would be vandalizing.

MJ: You often paint murals on freeways and the sides of freeways.

Isn't this dangerous work?

KT: It is dangerous. In fact it's quite frightening. I've gotten

pretty close to the traffic on a couple of those projects. I probably will

never do it again. It was , it was dangerous plus also it was very very

noisy. And the noise after a period of a few days, and a few weeks, really

begins to take its toll on you psychologically, just day after day, the

ringing noise, and it never leaves your ears at night, you can't sleep

sometimes you've been out there too long. And the smog, right there, there

are thousands, literally thousands, of cars that go by. There could be a

hundred thousand cars that go by me in one day. It's not something that I

like to do, plus, for some reason the freeways are where the graffiti

people love to tag you because there are a lot of people that will see it.

So there's a lot of reasons for not painting on freeway walls.

MJ: Why did you decide that you wanted to paint on freeway walls?

KT: Actually in 1974, I painted a mural of an old woman on the freeway

with her Afghan granny square...Afghan flowing off into space, that became

the most famous mural in Los Angeles simply because it was a grandmother

and everyone loves grandmothers and it was on the freeway, it was the first

mural, supposedly, painted on a freeway in the United States and it was a

positive image and it got a lot of positive respect from people, got a lot

of respect from people, so I thought by doing that perhaps I should paint

right on the freeway, and then some of my classmates and I painted on the

freeway, on the Hollywood freeway a few years later but that was a little

bit different. Painting on a wall just off the freeway is so much nicer

than painting right on the freeway, at least in my opinion.

MJ: How many murals have you done over the years?

KT: I counted it up one time, I've done over a hundred public portraits

within my murals, but I think that I've only done - I've been painting

murals now for 25 years, public murals - I think that I've only done about

25 or 30 actual murals, but some of them, recently have become quite large

and time consuming.

MJ: Can you take us through the process of when, how you conceive an

idea, of who to muralize and what the next steps are after that until

completion?

KT: Well, I'll take the one I'm working on right now that I'm in the

beginning stages of which is my monument to Charlton Heston who's been a

hero of mine all my life. And what I did, essentially, is I announced

that I was going to paint Charlton Heston. I got his permission and met

with him. Then it got around, and the Los Angeles Times heard about it and

they wanted to do a story about it. Once that story was out, it was a very

nice story, then an organization contacted me, in this case, being

Hollywood Heritage. They wanted to be involved. So now suddenly we have a

committee of people that want to do this monument to Charlton Heston. And

right now I'm in the process of finding a wall, hopefully we'll find a wall

on Hollywood Boulevard. And then we'll go and try to get funding for it,

somebody's gonna be a big hero because they're going to fund the Charlton

Heston. Or perhaps 5 or 6 individuals... And there are a lot of wonderful

things that can happen ancillary to the mural by somebody funding it, and

we're in the process, almost, of going after the funding now. Once that's

done, I will... I've got a lot of photographs of Charlton Heston, I'd

probably photograph him again based on the structure of the wall that I'll

be painting him on, then I will go into my studio and begin doing sketches

and drawings, and then eventually paint or draw the mural full-size in my

studio in sections and then paint it full-size in my mural, in my studio in

sections, unlike the early days where I painted right on the wall, now I

have a much more scientific approach. And come to the wall, I will hire a

crew to help me install it, train them in a couple of days and then we'll

go and we'll put it up like wall paper, but I use the same material that

the mural is painted with to adhere it to the wall. And the material that

I paint the mural on is so absorbent that this acrylic goes right through

it. So it's essentially, I'm putting up sheets of pure acrylic onto the

wall with acrylic. The wall doesn't know the difference, physically, but

what I just painted on the wall. And so it's a very pure system that has

taken me years to develop. And then in a matter of... Probably, depending

on the size, I'd like to paint Charlton Heston about 10 stories high; that

would be my dream. It could be in a matter of a couple of months, it could

be finished.

MJ: What was the thought process behind choosing Charlton Heston?

KT: I like to paint people who are bigger than life, who are heroic.

I'm, this 25 year series of mine, is, I call it personally, monuments to

cultural heroes and people who have uplifted people, people who have stayed

the course and have not compromised in their lives, who are an inspiration

to many, and especially in America today there's a lot of anti-hero, has

been since the 50's, really. And I like to paint heroes. Charlton Heston

has lived his life in a way that I find laudable and as an artist is one

of the greatest film artists in the history of Hollywood cinema.

MJ: You recently have been working on a project of doing Michael

Jackson, a mural of Michael Jackson. Can you tell us about that?

KT: I was contacted in 1990 by the Hollywood arts counsel, a very

active arts counsel, one of the more active ones I've ever seen. And they

told me that they had a project in mind for me and it was a very very

prominent individual, would I consider doing it. I said I would as long as

the individual was someone that I would want to paint. I've been

approached 5 times in my career to paint people and I've refused each one

of them, not because they were not good people because I just didn't have

the affinity for that person and it takes a lot of work to do one of these.

So they said they'd get back to me in a couple of months. They got back

to me in a month. It had been all set up and they told me the person that

they wanted me to paint was Michael Jackson. I said immediately yes because

I've always liked Michael Jackson, he's extremely gifted; one of the few

people that can walk out onto a stage with just himself and entertain

people. He's got that much talent. And so yes I will paint Michael

Jackson. Consequently I met with Michael Jackson probably 5 times. One

time it was kind of interesting because he came out of the building and we

were waiting at his building in West Los Angeles and he came out with his

car. It was one of those like Land Cruiser-type cars with tinted windows

of course, got in, and we were going to show him the site. He and Bob

Jones, his assistant. And we drove into Hollywood, talking all the way,

getting to know him, we found out that we had a lot in common, the kind of

foods that we eat, and the kind of artists that we love, Michelangelo, we

love Tchaikovsky, we have a lot of the same tastes in that area. We were

getting to know each other, and then drove down Hollywood Boulevard and I

was looking down both sides of Hollywood Boulevard at all these people,

realizing if they had any idea of who was driving this car, we wouldn't

even be able to drive another foot because it'd be thousands of people

around, we showed him the site which is an incredible site , right across

from the Chinese Theater, the famous Chinese Theater where all the

footprints are in the... and, so anyway next time I met... the next time I

met with him was at his ranch. He invited me to his ranch, we spent all day

at his ranch, he showed me around everything all day. We just played with

the animals and rolled around in the grass with his chimps and just had a

great time. But recently, there has been a thing where I've been sort

of... I think he's been isolated because of the controversy that has been

involving him, where I had not been able to get to him anymore. At one

time he was calling all the time and I could get to him and we were doing

the project. I had painted in fact, it's been in storage now for a few

years; a hundred foot high, 10 story high, the most magnificent painting

I've ever done. He said, "Twitch, promise me this, if you're going to do

this thing make it the best thing you've ever done." I said, "I promise,

Michael, I'll do it, but you promise me one thing, you be there for me if I

ever need you." "I promise, Twitch." And so I painted the most incredible

thing. Every cent I got I put back into this piece. I had, at one time,

80 assistants around me, working on this project. I've got him standing

coming out of the smoke rising up pointing his finger with the band aids

around his finger, and we were going to put at one point laser's coming out

of his finger, at certain times of the day. We've got lighting, I think

the lighting is over a hundred thousand dollars. The lighting can make the

clouds actually move. It's definitely something that Hollywood Boulevard

needs, desperately, because Hollywood Boulevard is in need of excitement,

real excitement. Not the kind that they're getting too much of, but

after the controversy the lawyers began to put a barrier around him and I

couldn't get to him and consequently my project, although finished, has

been in storage for these, I guess over two years now.

MJ: Do you expect it to go up someday?

KT: I don't know, I really don't know what's going to happen. What I'm

trying, what I've been thinking about doing is just trying to, creatively

get to Michael Jackson himself because I found him to be a lovely person, a

very creative, but a very kind gentle person and I think if I could just

get to him again that we could iron it out.

MJ: Is it true that you paint from baby food jars?

KT: What I do is I mix, premix, because my paints are so large and I

want to keep control from the top to the bottom with the same colors. I

don't want my mood to change the colors on me. So I premix, usually in a

large piece, hundreds of colors and shades of colors, and I put them in

baby food jars. Gerber's baby food has become very important to me. And

so I've often thought about just buying, asking how much they'd sell the

baby food jars, little jars that people save, people that have children

they save their baby food jars. And I mix them up and I put numbers on

them. It might be a particular shade of blue and it will be from one to

thirty-five, one to forty, depending on how many shades of blue, yellow ,

green, and all the different shades. And everyone that is an assistant is

taught how to hold the jar with one hand and with their thumb and

forefinger lift the lid off, get down and put the colors on because it is

very fast drying paint.

MJ: What is the role of the muralist in society?

KT: Well, the role of the muralist has, gosh I'm not really... I think

a mural painter simply does something that is personal to himself this is

the way, I don't have a lot of talents, I don't have a lot of other

abilities and painting murals is the one thing that gives me satisfaction.

I'm not sure how I fit into society, I've never really thought about it.

I guess that society accommodates all of us who are, struggling along in

our own way and thank God that there's such thing as the art world where I

can sort of fit in somewhere otherwise I don't know because I would

probably be painting murals whether I fit in or not. ... and a lot of

muralists have a different philosophy from me. A lot of them are really

from a different philosophical viewpoint. , they're more into the notion

that the government should take care of the people. And a lot of murals

reflect that philosophy, that there should be more and more government

taking care of the people. I am really from the opposite philosophy. I'm

not sure if there are very many other muralists that believe that we should

take care of ourselves and the less government the better. , I just want

the government to kind of protect me with the police and so forth and

pretty much stay out of my way and let me be free to be all that I can be,

that's my philosophy.

MJ: So, is that philosophy reflected in your murals in that you

have.... often individuals, and how does that contrast to other murals

around this city?

KT: There are other muralists who have followed my work and, in terms

of my technique and my super realism and stuff, and a lot of times they

will paint similar individuals by studying my work and they've come to me

and talked to me about it and so forth. They don't necessarily share my

philosophy. Much as a lot of the abstract expressionists today do abstract

expression in college, but they don't really understand the philosophy of

the original abstract expressionists. Which is the philosophy that the

universe was not designed but it was a mad accident and that great things

can come out of accidents and to put it into a few words, that was the

philosophy and that art and music and nihilism and various philosophies

came out of that belief, but there are a lot of people that don't believe

that but are still doing abstract expressionism. And there are people that

are painting like me but don't really, necessarily adhere to my philosophy

of individuality, but yes, I paint lonely individuals and I paint them as

detailed as I can to show the design nature of the universe rather than the

accidental nature of the universe.

MJ: I'd like to ask you about some of the people you are currently, or

have painted, for instance, with Charlton Heston, what are you trying to

convey to the person who views your mural about Charlton Heston, what about

him are you trying to convey?

KT: In a way, I'm using Charlton Heston more for my own purposes rather

than trying to say something in particular about him. Charlton Heston is

such a major personality and such a major artist that, I know immediately

that when somebody looks up into the eyes of this man they are going to

immediately see Ben Hur Judah Ben Hur they're going to see Moses, they're

going to see Michelangelo, they're going to see Will Penney They're going

to see El Cid. They're going to see all of these incredible figures that

Charlton Heston has been through their lifetimes. They're going to see all

those things that will be subconscious. They'll be back, but they'll feel

those things and in the meantime I want him to be an American cowboy. I

want him to be that individualist who stood alone, stood against all odds

and carved a life out for him and for his family. That's the kind of a

spirit that means a lot to me and that I would like to see become more and

more prevalent in America, the kind that really is the spirit of the

immigrant who comes here and with the help of hard work and their family

sticking together carved out a life for themselves and then the next

generation goes to Harvard and Yale. That's the American way, and that's

why I'm in a sense using Charlton Heston. He's the greatest figure I could

use to say that about the potential that we have in life.

MJ: What about Steve McQueen? Your mural of Steve McQueen?

KT: Steve McQueen is my first mural and in many ways it what a very

naive mural. I simply loved Steve McQueen. I had loved him from the very

beginning. He was a , he wasn't part of the Hollywood establishment. He

was a lone wolf, He did things his way. He was controversial, but he was

an absolutely unique person and in every way an individualist, and I

painted him as an individualist.

MJ: And how about Michael Jackson's mural?

KT: Michael Jackson was extremely anti-drug, anti-satanic rock, anti

all the things that I felt was destroying music. And it was a way to say a

lot of things about what is positive in creativity in the music by painting

this man who did it the hard way. He worked to.. he still rehearses every

single day. He..., hard work and talent, and he drives himself, you know,

he's... it's so odd that what people can do that really work hard. Michael

Jackson has worked extremely hard to achieve what he's achieved.

MJ: What about your mural of Christ?

KT: I had been wanting to paint a painting of Christ for many reasons.

I suppose I have a Michelangelo complex, and the great artists of history

have painted monuments to the Bible, and be it the Sistine ceiling or The

Last Judgment, or the works of Tintoretto or the great Italian or North

European artists, and for years I had wanted to paint a Christ. And in a

lot of the paintings I did sort of underground pieces that have theological

basis but some of my dear friends Barry Krammes and Dan Callis here at

Biola University told me that they were going to try to pave the way for me

to paint my Christ figure here on the University. And so we, at first we

were going to paint it around the art department but the more we got into

the project, the more we realized what a grand project it could be and so

they got permission next to the cafeteria for me to paint it on the science

building, and I thought, "How marvelous! The science building!" because the

Bible states that Christ was the Creator of the universe, in several

places, and He is the Word so I decided to paint Him as the Word. I have

Him holding the Bible in His hand because the Bible is the Word, and Christ

is the personification of the Word. I have the pages in the Bible painted

the same shade of flesh as his face and hands. There's a lot of symbolism.

I have him holding the Bible as Moses would be holding the tablet of

stones as Charlton Heston in the Ten Commandments, and had him looking up

to God, giving the Word. He's leaving and He's giving the Word to the

people.

MJ: What about the mural of the musicians downtown?

KT: The musician mural is a dream come true. It's a fantasy, but I

used to be in the air force, and I was stationed in London, and I used to

go in at least once a week to see the greatest concert orchestras in the

world. And I used to sit in the front row and just get to know these

faces. I always thought what a marvelous thing it would be able to be

proficient in classical music. And Tachi Kiuchi who was the chairman of the

board of Mitsubishi Electric of America, sits on the board of the Los

Angeles Chamber Orchestra, which is one the finest chamber orchestras in

the world. These musicians are the concert musicians of the world. And I

know them well. They're an incredible group. I admire them. One of my

dearest friends, Les Weinstein, also sits on the board and is a dear friend

of Tachi Kiuchi this is another way how a project comes together. They're

bemoaning the fact that the people of Los Angeles don't really know that

they have this incredible orchestra, there are a few people that know about

it, and one person, I believe it was the president of the orchestra, the

executive director of the orchestra, made a crack, in the meeting, "Too bad

somebody doesn't know Kent Twitchell, we'd have him paint the orchestra and

everybody would know about it, and Les Weinstein said, "wait a minute, I

know Kent Twitchell very well, let's ask him," and Tachi Kiuchi says,

"Yes by all means." and as things progressed, Tachi Kiuchi sponsored the

mural. In fact, I was just at a function last night honoring Tachi Kiuchi

and I did a portrait and presented it to him and the Japanese consulate was

there presenting an award to Tachi Kiuchi, who has become one of the great

American heroes because of his interest in so many worthy things. I

painted him right in the middle, got his permission, the way they did in

the renaissance when the patrons would be involved in a project., quite

often they would be painted within the project if it was appropriate. If

it was able to be done, and so I brought him in and painted him in right in

the middle of the ensemble on the second wall which he's so proud of. He

was a little bit reluctant to have me do it big, but he is very proud of it

now.

MJ: Now you, obviously, have to make a living. How is that you earn

money? How do you earn your living from painting murals? Does the city

pay you or private foundations or, how does that work?

KT: I started off getting government grants. National Endowment For

The Arts.......California Arts Council....various other things. I began to

think that perhaps philosophically I wasn't in favor of the government

getting involved with contemporary art-I think that money should go to the

orchestras and to the museums. So I stopped applying for governments grants

and began going for corporate or private money. And right now I'm actually

working on a private enterprise project that I think within a year will

enable me to sponsor all my own public art projects. But in the meantime

I'm still using private money to do this which gives me a lot more freedom.

I make my money...I make enough money on the murals to live but I don't

live high on the hog-I don't have the kind of studios a lot of artists

have. I don't have a brand new car every couple of years. I have an old '68

Buick. I'm very happy and I put everything into my art. And I do make more

and more money actually on portraits which I love to do as my stature if

you will in the art community grows then the people that are collectors and

others that are happy to have me do their portrait as part of their

collection and I have been able to do several of those and that pays very

well also.

MJ: Why do you dislike receiving money from the government for grant money

for your projects?

KT: I think that there's been a lot of misuse of grant money in a

sense...and I've often found this especially in the academic world of my

college professor friends in the great arts departments. It's almost if you

will getting money from the government and then making sort of

anti-American statements with the money is almost like going to your

mother and begging for money to run away from home. If I'm going to make

anti-American statements let me at least fund it out of my own pocket. It's

almost an embarrassment to me. It's a humiliation to go to the government

to beg money to make anti-American statements. So it's just a way for me to

say that I'm an individualist I don't need the government to help me out

to do projects. I can raise the money myself.

MJ: You are in such close physical proximity to your works. And they're

enormous. Do you ever lose perspective being so close to it?

KT: I can't lose perspective because I map out every single color, every

single shade, every single shape that will go into the mural ahead of time

and I do it....in the early days in fact on the Ed Ruscha project my

original mural cartoon of the body was about this big maybe 3 feet. But as

the detail grew then consequently the mural cartoon would have to grow. So

the mural cartoon for the Jesus mural here at Biola University was about

seven feet high and the actual piece is about four times that big. So one

inch equals four inches. You can get pretty detailed if you do it that way.

But I would map out the colors map out everything and I would put them in

my mural cartoon you know like a paint by number system and then I would

blow them up on the section and put them on the wall and you'd simply paint

by the numbers. You look like a genius up there but everything's already

been figured out you can' t make a mistake.

MJ: Is there anybody that you are thinking about painting now or any future

projects that you can tell us about?

KT: I want to paint one of the greatest sopranos, a contralto by the name

of Marion Anderson who came out of North Philadelphia I want to paint a

monument to her in Philadelphia. And also the great tenor Mario Alonza who

also came...he came out of South Philadelphia. And I would like to

paint...now North and South Philadelphia do

not get along never have. I would love to paint...my dream is to paint

Mario Alonza and Marion Anderson on the same wall. These two great....the

greatest Americans who ever lived are these two and through music the

universal language...put them together on the same wall so that North and

South Philadelphia will be unified in the mural. That is my dream and I'm

trying to get some people....I've got all of the Marion Anderson people and

the Mario Alonza people very very excited about the project and some people

within the city of Philadelphia are excited, some people are not..we'll see

what happens. But that is my dream right now.

MJ: You are regarded in this city as probably the top muralist. Did you

ever think that would come about when you were a youngster and working on

your graffiti projects?

KT: Well, when I was a little boy on the farm I always felt that there was

something in me that I was going to do that was going to be big but I

didn't really know what it was . I felt that I was going to go out and do

something. It was just something there. But no, it's like I'm still a farm

kid out...you know...playing with the dog and milking the cows and

sometimes when people come up to me and they want my autograph or they tell

me that they've admired me since they were a little girl or a little boy or

something it's crazy. It doesn't seem possible.

MJ: Thank you for joining us today.

KT: Thank you