“I get excited to watch my work evolve over the years”: V. L. Cox, 49, painter, artist in North Little Rock, Arkansas
self-portrait
A series about Q.V.’s door
Born in 1962 in Shreveport, Lousiana, V. L. Cox was raised by her grandmother. Her father and great grandmother both were artists. She remembers a photograph of herself when she was three “painting circles, I still incorporate circles in my paintings”. With a lot of encouragement from her father and grand mother, she took her first art lesson when she was 14. Years later she started an Art Degree in college but quit. “I was not serious then” she smirks. After entering the work force for a few years, she came back and completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts and even made the Deans List. The widowed grandmother and her best friend, Q.V. (Queen Victoria) who was an African American woman that helped her out, encouraged Lynette to stay in arts.
One of her many interests is to create community based mural projects with young people. She sees so much difference painting can make. QV and her grand mother told her early on not to see color, not to judge people: “they taught me to do the right thing in life and try to be a good person and yet be proud to be a woman, and I respect them for that”.
Lynette during the interview
Lynette is not afraid of getting old. She looks into the future and sees much potential to improve her art techniques, she sees all the artists whose talents develop when they turn 60 or 70. “Artists never retire, I will paint till the day I die.” But for now “I can hardly wait to see what is when I am 80”. The artistic generation before her was smoking and not living that healthy, so Lynette tries to exercise and enjoy life but think of long term consequences, “our generation has different problems, obesity for example”. As matter of fact, Lynette thinks that artists’ age better, because of their personal and artistic development, they have more possibilities to learn and that helps them mature.
One of Lynette’s biggest goals is to leave a legacy and to inspire somebody else. In the last few years she has learned many new painting techniques and can’t get enough to try out more. And she has also learned to manage herself, to create and maintain her own website, do her own press releases and to communicate with the galleries. Lynette is a great networker show shares her ideas and information freely but she knows that this is not all usual within the artists groups.
Interviewed on: 18. 9. 2011
Lynette walking to her studio in North Little Rock