Painter Wayne Thiebaud (b. 1920) speaks here about Drink. Thiebaud has been at the forefront of American realist painting since his first show at the Allan Stone Gallery in 1961. He is best known for his paintings of everyday American objects like cakes, pies and deli counters. In 1994, President Bill Clinton presented him with the National Medal of Arts. He lives in California. – Rick Slater

THE BELIEVER: The subject matter of Drink is quite different – less tangible – from the cakes, yo-yos and deli counters you are famous for. Why did you decide to deal with such a different subject matter in this painting?

WAYNE THIEBAUD: I’m an old teacher. I’ve been teaching for 108 years or so [laughs] and I’m very committed to teaching because I’m also always trying to learn about my own self and my own works. This actually was a class project. On the one hand, it’s a rather simple project, and on the other, it has its complications. The students are asked to make a diorama with a flat plain in the back and a receding, diminishing plain in front, with a plastic glass of water under a single light source. The painting had to use all the colors of the rainbow, so it has to engage a spectral character; two yellows, two blues, two reds. It should be realistic, but still maintain itself as a painting. So that’s the real origin of it.

BLVR: Did you and the students paint this from memory? I’ve seen a million glasses of water and I have a good memory, but…

WT: I think artists, painters, have various issues with memory. To be able to hang onto a perceptual instant and be able to reproduce it is astounding, and a probably rare condition. While you often work from direct observation, you’re developing your memory so you are not only using direct observations, but using perceptual and conceptual attitudes about what painting is. Representation must include memory as well as perceptual nuances. This back-and-forth is what enriches painting and makes it a kind of small miracle of adjusted responses. 

BLVR: So memory is an intangible part of the painting, not just an element you use in the act of applying paint to a surface?

WT: Yes. 

BLVR: No matter what the subject matter is of your paintings, I think many if not most paintings are really about the way light plays off an object, but in Drink, more so than any other of your works, the light seems even more the subject than the object.

WT: That’s the thing....