Toys are us - artist Jarvis Rockwell's studio

ArtForum, Oct, 1997 by Laurie Simmons

LS: Did he ever propagandize against those guys? Because you did end up in art school.

JR: Oh, yeah. The first art school I went to was the Art Students League, and so I went into Frank J. Reilly's class. He was an illustrator, and he was really, truly awful. And then I went into George Grosz's class, which was altogether something else. There were a few old ladies and a couple of other guys, and it was dark, and it had the look of a Victorian living room, or something like that. And he was very kind, he was very sweet. And he didn't make anything of me being Norman Rockwell's son. I think he was also probably a little depressed. Because I know his work went down so bad when he got here, you know.

LS: But I wondered if at home there was propaganda against modem art from your dad.

JR: Oh, no, no, no. He was not that kind of person at all. You mean, just sort of angry and sulky or something? No.

LS: Did your family look like a classic Rockwell family? Was It picture-perfect?

JR: Well, he was hoping for a lot of that, and almost none of it worked. I mean, we didn't even mow lawns.

LS: Did you have big perfect shiny brown turkeys at Thanksgiving?

JR: Oh, yeah, we had all that stuff. That we enjoyed.

LS: Christmas trees and wreaths, Easter baskets, Fourth of July picnics?

JR: Yeah, but he really enjoyed it - I mean, he truly enjoyed it. So it wasn't something set up by Curtis Publishing Company, you know. He really believed it all. But he just wasn't Norman Rockwell the way a lot of people thought. He was a little more interesting.

LS: Your father's work was really involved in this kind of Americana, you know, a depiction of the myth of the American family. And you're really involved in another kind of Americana. Do you see a connection there?

JR: I think probably there is a connection, and I sort of tried to figure it out. And then I thought: Well, it's not important to figure it out. I mean, that, again, is something for, you know, art historians or psychiatrists to figure out. But I would say there obviously is a connection.

LS: I'm wondering about this kind of reluctance to call yourself an artist, when it comes right down to it. I'm wondering if that maybe was an inheritance from your dad.

JR: Oh, yeah - maybe.

LS: You definitely are uncomfortable with terms and definitons.

JR: Well, I think I'm an artist - I'm beginning to believe I'm an artist in the same sense as those outsider artists are.

LS: Do you see yourself as that?

JR: Well, I got interested in that, and I began to think that maybe this collection has something to do with that. I mean, I didn't finish high school, but, on the other hand, I've been an artist for a while - so, you know, I guess I'm educated and, I've done art.

LS: Well, let's talk about the artworks that are generated from the collection. Because one thing that occurred to me Is that there are thousands and thousands of objects. And yet when you make one of your little tableaux In a box, you choose such a minuscule portion of what's here. How do you make those choices?