Saturday in the Studio – Andy Friedlander

• 1961 – I learned how to play the guitar and was part of the folk/bluegrass explosion in New York City.  I had the chance to play with some great players in some exciting venues even though I couldn’t read music – I played by ear and still do – for the past 22 years with the Prozac Mtn. Boys, a bluegrass band out of Bellingham.
• 1967 – I graduated from Earlham College with a degree in fine arts – the study of painting, music and theatre.  Part of my studies required me to direct 3 plays and I discovered that, with very little training, I WAS a director.  I received my professional training at the Yale School of Drama and had a 40 year career in the professional and educational theatre.
• 2010 – I retired from the theatre and began to paint in earnest.  While at Earlham I had taken a one year intensive course in painting taught by Mitsuo Kakutani, a Japanese abstract painter and garden designer.  I began from what he had taught me, enlisted the help of a wonderful teacher in Bellingham, Colleen Hoffenbacker, to fill in the gaps in my technique and have been working in my home studio ever since.I continue to work in all 3 mediums.

• I don’t know.  I have been involved in the creative process for 59 of my 74 years.  It is an integral part of my personality – an inseparable part of my identity.

• I have two – spontaneity and discipline.  Discipline in preparation and spontaneity in execution.

• Music.  I may not always listen to music when I work but I believe that I think ‘musically’ when I paint.  This is less true when I am printing – possibly due to technical aspects of the printing process.

• Ending

What is your favorite part?

• Beginning

2021 Winter Juried Exhibit

Andy currently has work in our Winter Juried Exhibit! Click this link to see his artwork among many others in our virtual galleries.