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Interview: Kate Yorke August 31, 2005
1. How long have you been a resident in Siskiyou County?
Since 1971.
What brought you here?
I came up to visit a friend of mine. I met Anne and Bill Kinkade and they invited me to come and stay in their cabin with them. So, I moved up here and lived in their little cabin in 1971.
2. Can you give a short explanation of your specialty or your artistic medium?
I have tried all sorts of mediums, but the ones I use most now are oils and watercolor. when I was working on my Master's degree, I had to pick a subject matter. I had just came back from Hawaii and had a bunch of photographs. So I started painting the tropics in the 1980's. I began living in Costa Rica and painting there because that was what was around me and it was very attractive to me.
The things that I think about when I paint are the play of light, the patterns that are created on the subject, and animals that I experience recently in the tropics. Also, I am really into the negative space and making the negative space work in an image.
3. How long have you been making art (professionally and unprofessionally)?
Since I was a little girl. As a shy little girl, my art became my way of communication because words didn't work for me. When I was in sixth grade I had a teacher who recognized my artistic talent. She called my parents and told them to pay attention to it. I so much appreciate her to this day. My folks then gave me private lessons and classes. It grew from there and I was an art major all the way through school. In terms of profession work, I moved to Santa Cruz in 1988 and was very involved in the arts scene down there, including the Santa Cruz art league and participating in open studios. I sold quite a few paintings and cards during that time. I started selling laser prints in the 1990's.
4. How have you learned your art? Have you had any formal art education? If so, where, when and for how long?
I got my Bachelor's degree from University of California, Santa Barbara in 1970 in printmaking thinking it would be a profitable art form. Ironically enough, I have never done another print since then. I got my Master's degree in art at California State Unversity, Chico.
7. Have you had any special mentors that have influenced you and your style?
Anne Kinkade has been quite an inspiration to me. Ironically enough, when I lived with her in the early 1970's she took her inspiration from me because she had never been a painter. Now I want to be like her. She is absolutely an incredible woman and painter.
5. Can you talk a little about your experience as an artist in Siskiyou County? (In other words, what is unique about being an artist in this area?) (Pros and Cons) (economic, cultural, physical/geographic)
Needless to say it is absolutely gorgeous here so it is an inspiring place to live and a comfortable place to be. It also has it's challenges because it the current economic state in that people don't spend a lot of money on art. I imagine it is even more difficult for me because I tend to paint the tropics and Mt. Shasta is the in the mountains. People don't buy big paintings of the tropics when they live in the mountains.
6. If you had to describe your style in a few words how would you do this? First 5 words that come to mind?…
Full of life, colorful, detailed, beautiful, sensual and strong.
7. What is it about making art and the creative process that you find most interesting or are most passionate about?
I love to watch a painting unfold. I start with a concept or photograph and work from there but it changes so many times along the way. In oil painting especially, each layer builds upon the previous layer and is changing all the time with each layer. Some areas deepening and some brightening. As the postive space begins to cut into the negative space and each starts to define the other, I just love watching and making that happen.
8. Do you teach art in anyway or are you interested in being a teacher?
I have taught art on and off since I moved to Siskiyou County. I taught at The Recreaction and Parks Project and at Weed high school for the college. The kids recieved a unit of college credit. When I was in Santa Cruz, I taught for schools who had no money for arts programs through monies via the Califonia Arts Council.
9. Do you have one particularly interesting story about your adventures as an artist? The most unusual work you've done, the hardest work, the most interesting commission, celebrities you’ve worked with, your biggest success story or biggest failure, or your earliest memory of making art.One of my most recent paintings, the Jaguar at Sunset, is quite a powerful painting to me. I had been painting jaguars for thee years. At the end of the third year, I painted a mask with a jaguar in it. I painted every little hair on the jaguar's mouth as it was roaring, and the spots and the eyes in great detail. Not too long after I finished that mask I went for a walk up in the hills where I was living in Costa Rica. It was very, very early in the morning because it gets hot and humid and I wanted to get my excercise out of the way. When I do this particular walk I am in a walking meditation, I am off in my own world but totally aware of the world around me at the same time. It was before the sun had come up and I was on my way back down from my walk and I see a dark shape coming towards me. I thought, 'Whose dog is that!' Then I realized, it is not walking like a dog. It's walking more like a cat. I stopped dead in my tracks and it keeps coming towards me. All I see at that point was a dark shape. The animal keeps coming towards me and gets about 15 or 20 feet from me and turns off onto a side dirt road and is lost from my sight. But as he turns the light hits him differently and I see his spots. I think to myself, 'Oh my god it is a jaguar!' I feel so honored that the jaguar showed himself to me and blessed that he did so. It was only after those thoughts that I asked myself if I should have been afraid. I know that jaguar had to have either seen or smelt me, but he did not react to me at all. Anyway, I became obsessed with the idea of the jaguar and I knew that when I went back to Costa Rica the following year that I wanted to do another Jaguar. I had gotten some information from the book Animals Speak which said that if a jaguar presents itself to you it is speaking to regaining lost power. This is very much what was happening to me at that time. I did a lot of writing about it before I started the painting. That Jaguar painting says a whole bunch to me. I see a Yin Yang in that painting with the shoulder part being blurred and abstracted where as the face is very detailed and realistic. I see that as the contrast. I also did the painting in orange and purple which are opposite each other on the color wheel. There is also a piece wrapped up in there about regaining my power and speaking my voice which at the time was something I needed to do. So, it is a very powerful painting for me.
10. Is there any way you would like to see your county arts organization better assist you?
Maybe involving artists as a group in far reaching arenas. Because Siskiyou County is so small, if we could just do a group project that goes on tour or something like that. Something that would broaden our perspective and broaden other people's perspective of us.
11. Because of current trends in funding for art programs, all SAC involvement is done through volunteers. Is there anything that the SAC is doing that interests you and that you would like to help us with in the future? Some options: art walk volunteer, teaching program, becoming a member…
I love the idea of painting a mural on the ArtsBus.