A:        Then why do they talk so much about that crisis?

K:        If there is a crisis in art it may stem from cynicism.  Maybe people have become so cynical that they are afraid to embrace something that isn’t “hip”.  It is so much easier to negate or destroy something than to struggle to accomplish something beautiful and human.  As we in New York and you in Madrid have all experienced lately, it is so much easier to blow something up than to build it.  The important thing is to keep building.  I think the crisis, if there were one, is in people’s spirit.  I would grant you that we are in a tough time, but I believe we have to continue to be creative about life.

A:        What about art that isn’t painting?

K:        No problem.  I have an MFA in Intermedia from the University of Iowa where I worked with Hans Breder, and so I am extremely open to any kind of media as a means of expression and intellectual pursuit.  For instance, I think Matthew Barney is a brilliant artist, but the underlying spirit of negativity in his work bothers me.  On the other hand, I love the spirit and the work of Bill Viola.  And one of my very favorite artists is William Kentridge, whose drawings all become his animations.  He is socially critical, but not negative. 

A:        You attended graduate school and received an MA in Painting and the first degree of MFA in the United States in Intermedia so that you could teach?

K:        Yes, I am from a working class family and I needed a job in order to live.  Teaching college provided a job I enjoyed and time to do my art.

A:        While still only 26 years old and working as an instructor at Cornell College in Iowa, Karen Gunderson mounted her first solo exhibition in Racine, Wisconsin and later in Mt. Vernon, Iowa.  From 1970 to 1973, she taught at Ohio State in Columbus, Ohio, and in 1973 she moved to New York, where she taught at New York University in the School of the Arts for three years.  She has been living and working in New York ever since.”    Exactly when, how and where did you begin your first important pictorial period, the Clouds?