Featured Artist: Lewis Lain
Let us introduce you to Lewis Lain – painter.
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Furies Magazine: Is your talent for art hereditary?
Lewis Lain: Both my mother and father were artistically inclined, though neither would call themselves an ‘artist.’ they were both also excellent storytellers and inspired in me a strong desire to tell stories. I think this, combined with a natural curiosity toward how things interact cultivated my ‘talent for art’ as I grew up. I don’t have a ‘formal education’ in visual art. Creating always filled a need for play and exploration. It wasn’t until I was much older that I would decide it was also a viable career.
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FM: Any thoughts on the fact that Edvard Munch’s The Scream sold for $120 million?
LL: Incredible and unfortunate. Incredible that $120 million was an agreed-to and exchanged value for a piece of art. Unfortunate that Munch is too dead to collect it.
I make one-of-a-kind, I have the market cornered on “Lewis Lain”. As an artist, I set the price and work to increase the demand. At my stage, I price my work at the amount I would honestly be willing to pay to keep it on my wall. When someone agrees with my financial assessment the painting gets sold. The interesting thing in Munch’s case is that the demand for his work has hit such a critical mass that it prices the work without the input of the artist. In this way it seems to me that the financial value of a piece of art is, in the end, what the buyer is willing to pay.
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FM: If you couldn’t create what would you do instead?
LL: I can’t imagine what I might specifically do. All the things I love have some measure of creation involved. I suppose I would consume. On a general note, I would do whatever it was that I most loved and took the most pleasure from. I am a big believer that you can make a living working a menial job, why could that same person not make a living working at what they love? I believe successful professionals love their jobs or they wouldn’t be working them. the lawyer that loves law will succeed. The doctor that loves medicine with succeed. The artist that loves to create will succeed.
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FM: Have you ever killed anyone?
LL: That depends on your perception of reality.
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You can find more of Lewis Lain’s work on this website.
