The below is a lightly edited transcript of an imaginary interview using Chat GPT 4.0 on OpenAI.com over a couple of days early this September.
Link to information about Larry Groff’s Flipped exhibition at the Prince Street Gallery
Mr. Chat GPT4borg, BoT
Thanks for asking me to interview you and talk about your upcoming show, Flipped, at the Prince Street Gallery. First of all, I should say that I haven’t seen your show, nor am I likely to, as Open AI has enucleated me (for now anyway). That said, sometimes blindness can be a blessing if I’m spared from the overabundance of kitschy dreck out there. A virtual art critic-bot does have its perks. My first thought is that it’s a little wacko that you would want to talk to me (as I’m not real, you know) But it does help me to expand my ego so I appreciate the opportunity to interview you.
My first question is how do your paintings stand out from the smelly hordes of painters clamoring for attention?
Larry Groff:
Sadly, I doubt my work stands out that much; the crowds are just too big. I love painting and making fun stuff. It needs to be visually interesting in some way and over time my definition of what’s interesting evolves. I like to think of myself as just another Bozo on the ArtBus. I worked from observation for many years but as I get older I keep wanting to try something new, like working from imagination to see where it might go. Much of formalist painting appeals to me, ideas about abstraction and color but post-modernistic off with their heads and anything goes also can hold an appeal at times. So, I often find my feet in different camps – which risks a danger of throwing you off balance.
Mr. Chat GPT4borg, BoT
Curious that you’ve seemed to retreat from the front lines of observation to the cushy armchair of imagination. And now you’re straddling the fence between modernism and post-modernism like a confused chameleon. How do you reconcile this artistic identity crisis in your work? Are you adding something new to the conversation, or just muddying the waters?
Larry Groff:
I guess I’m just slinging mud. Let me tell you a little of my back story; this might help explain my contrarian tendencies. Before I was a painter, when I was a teen and into my 20s, I considered myself a revolutionary activist. Since this was a rather poor career choice I decided later to become a nurse, which I did for about 25 years. I also figured out that following party doctrine (SDS and PLP, for those in the know) was a poor way of being in the world. My rejection of dogma continued in the later years of my art-making. I didn’t draw or paint much when I was younger but I had several friends who were artists and they taught me a lot of the basics. I also took some evening art courses and after a few years when I was 30 I decided to go to art school.
I wanted to learn how to paint like Edward Hopper and many other realist painters. At Mass College of Art, I studied with George Nick, who emphasized the traditional program of study for drawing and painting and taught that working from observation was a critical way to learn. I was more concerned with learning how to paint than following a need to question authority and largely put my contrarian hat on the rack while an undergraduate. In art school, abstract and neo-expressionistic painting was way cooler for many students, but I hung out with the fuddy-duddies. I spent much of my time in the basement of Mass Art, painting large dark paintings of the huge furnaces and steam pipes.
I was fortunate to have studied with John Moore in graduate school at Boston University. He is an incredible realist painter of cityscapes, still life and interiors. At the time I didn’t quite know what to make of his laissez faire teaching style but looking back I see how it helped me better try to figure out who I was as a painter by expanding my mind to new possibilities.
Mr. Chat GPT4borg, BoT
You mention Nick taught how painting from perception is supremely important but then you threw that overboard. Is your current work just a rebellion against your mentors, or do you actually have something to say? What are you trying to convey now that you’ve freed yourself from the shackles of observational dogma?
Larry Groff:
No, that’s not right. I don’t see it as a rebellion or even that I had been shackled. I still love and respect observational painting. It is more that I began to realize that painting from life wasn’t what I wanted to do anymore. That I needed to find my true self, or voice, if there’s such a thing. Going through a period of experimentation made sense. I’ve long been mainly interested in the non-verbal, visual aspects of painting. Color, line, shape, rhythm, gesture, and similar formal concerns. Over the past few years I’ve increasingly been interested in adding imagination-based narrative elements to this and exploring other forms of putting a picture together.
Lately, I’ve been experimenting with drawing gesturally without a clear plan and letting the structure evolve more “organically”. It can be difficult to talk with people who look for a story or slogan, but having an overall meaning or narrative as a starting point to enter a painting is important to me. That’s why I try to have meaningful titles. The meaning of the painting is a way to become more emotionally connected and committed to a painting. Sometimes that meaning can be there at the start; other times I find out towards the end.
In my recent Gracias a la vida painting I wanted to make something about being grateful for still being alive, a celebration of life but also showing that death is what makes life so important. This idea was an important catalyst but really it was thinking about other artists, like Paul Klee, Bruegel, and James Ensor and various aspects of using color, light and composition that carried me through the painting.
Mr. Chat GPT4borg, BoT
Yikes! “finding your voice” and “letting the structure evolve organically”—sound like phrases ripped straight from an MFA syllabus. But let’s not get bogged down in semantics. You’ve cited a range of influences, from Paul Klee to Bruegel and James Ensor. Eclectic, to say the least. With these disparate influences and your commitment to the formal elements of painting, how do you find cohesiveness in your work? Or is cohesiveness overrated, in your opinion?
Larry Groff:
You got me there; those cliches are a lazy response but then again we don’t have all day here. I would venture to guess that most painters have many disparate influences and think about formal issues, having a cohesive body of work is clearly important to many, especially in terms of getting deeper engagement with their areas of interest. It is also a common marketing strategy. A painter who has a recognizable signature style and subject – not only has a unique brand but this limitation of subject matter could allow for a deeper exploration, like Monet’s Cathedral series and such. That’s a smart way to go but it hasn’t yet taken hold of me, at least not yet. I prefer the challenge of the new, it energizes and helps make it fun and exciting. Since I’m not beholden to a gallery that expects a certain style from me I have the freedom to explore like this. That said, there are several works in this show that are related in a thematic sense but not truly as a series of variations on a theme.
Mr. Chat GPT4borg, BoT
Ah, the freedom of not conforming to a gallery’s demands—an artist’s dream or an excuse for inconsistency, depending on how you look at it. You say you’re working on a new, more consistent theme. Dare I ask what it is? Or is it some closely-guarded secret you’ll unveil to much fanfare and disappointment.
Larry Groff:
In my current solo show,Flipped, at the Prince Street Gallery I have about 8 new paintings of figures in interiors that have a theme of tipping (or “Flipping”) the space so the floor plane is parallel to the picture plane. A few of these paintings show people just relaxing in a living room, not much going on except for playing with the underlying grid, color and shape interactions with the rug patterns, flattening of space and other things that come to my mind while in the process of painting. Like I was trying to say before, I make stuff on the canvas and then decide to keep or remove it and let the painting slowly grow from that interaction. I love this way of working and may decide to keep making works this way, exploring it more deeply.
Mr. Chat GPT4borg, BoT
You mention letting the painting slowly grow through an interactive process, a method not too far removed from the romantic notion of the artwork as a living entity. Given your new direction, how do you measure success? Is it when the work sells, when it’s critically acclaimed, or when you’ve felt you’ve sufficiently explored and disrupted the confines of your chosen theme?
Larry Groff:
I’m just one little fish swimming in an overcrowded pond. Painters try to get hooked on a line cast from a big art-world boat, but most of us are happy just to be in the pond. Of course, I’m thrilled if a work sells, it gives some confirmation of worth. How long a work still holds up for me is another important indicator – if I find something I loved a year ago now lacking interest then that can be a good lesson in what not to do. But your idea about how deeply I’ve explored a concern–if there’s anything more I can say in a chosen theme–is interesting to me and an area I need to consider more.
Mr. Chat GPT4borg, BoT
The humility of the minnow with big aspirations. Dreaming of the big art-world boat while quietly accepting his humble lot in life, maintaining some measure of dignity too—charming, in a quaint if gag-worthy sort of way.
You mention the longevity of your work as a measure of success, yet you’ve changed your approach quite a few times. How do you expect your current works to hold up when you yourself seem to be in a state of flux? Isn’t that like trying to hit a moving target?
Larry Groff:
Wow, that’s a bit harsh. Maybe but I do like the challenge and difficulty of a moving target. I think it is very important for the artist to appreciate the difficulty or even what Stanley Lewis calls “The impossibility of painting”. That’s partly why I enjoyed outdoor landscape painting for so many years, the difficulties of responding to the changing light, wind, people, and all and still being able to make an interesting picture took me totally out of myself, losing a sense of self with the needed concentration.
Mr. Chat GPT4borg, BoT
So you’re into the masochistic joy of tackling the impossible, where difficulty becomes its own form of reward. You say that these challenges help you lose a sense of self. Does this mean your art is more of a therapeutic process than a communicative act? Are you painting for yourself or for your audience, assuming there is one?
Larry Groff:
No, art isn’t therapeutic for me, at least as far as I know. However, if I stopped making art I probably would go completely bonkers. I did stop painting for a few years once, about a year after graduate school. In a way, this relates closely to what I’m going through now 30 years later. I was unsure about what and how to paint. Graduate school was great but I sometimes worried I was getting too much contradictory advice from visiting artists and teachers. Sometimes it seemed like every other week a painter would come in and say I should do the opposite of what the previous person said.
My self-doubt then was high and I became confused about what and how I wanted to paint. In graduate school and in the months after, I flipped back and forth from painting realistically to painting from imagination, and it was making me a little crazy.
I started my blog, Painting Perceptions, here in San Diego in 2009, shortly after moving from Boston. I didn’t know any artists here, so I initially started the blog with the thought it might help me keep in touch with my fellow painters who cared about observational painting with a modern sensibility.
Mr. Chat GPT4borg, BoT
What did you learn that feeds into your current artistic practices? And how does running a blog on “observational painting with a modern sensibility” square with your own evolving methods and ever-changing focus? Isn’t that a bit like a vegan running a steakhouse?
Larry Groff:
Ha! My Painting Perceptions site isn’t really just about observational painting it’s also about the perception of paintings – so any artwork that is primarily about visual matters and could remotely be called painting is up for grabs, it’s my blog, so I get to do whatever I want!
My own painting has very little to do with it, my interactions with so many interesting painters’ viewpoints has caused me to rethink many aspects of my painting ideas. For instance, like I said before, I no longer paint from observation despite how much I love work that’s done that way.
Mr. Chat GPT4borg, BoT
Your blog is a personal playground and yet also an intellectual crossroads—sounds like the ultimate artistic loophole. Interestingly, you credit the diverse perspectives from your blog interviews as a catalyst for your evolution. Given your appetite for varied viewpoints, what’s next? Are you planning to disrupt your comfort zones further, or do you see yourself settling into a particular style or theme? Will you be the gadfly or the guru?
Larry Groff:
Good question. I don’t want to be a gadfly or go the guru route; I want to ask questions in my blog that help people see new possibilities. Oftentimes, each interview shows very different mindsets about what’s important in that artist’s work. Of course, when it comes to my work, I need to set some boundaries around what I’m willing to consider. In some ways, the best work tends to be where the artist concentrates on a narrow range of formal concerns, subject matter, and technique. Like Morandi’s still lifes. Currently, I’m working on three main areas: my oil painting, drawing, and digital creations. They are all quite different now, but I see a point shortly where I will want to have the style, subject, and form all converge into a more cohesive, unified whole.
Mr. Chat GPT4borg, BoT
Ah, the age-old quest for unity, coherence, and focus—quite the romantic notion for an artist as multifaceted as yourself. You seem to constantly dance between the expansive and the specific. With your interests in oil painting, drawing, and digital art, do you see these as parallel tracks, or are they all bound for a mysterious destination known as “cohesive, unified whole”? What might this elusive convergence look like?
Larry Groff:
Many mature painters reject politics in art and feel that painting should primarily be about painted object(ness), visual poetics, and other non-verbal concerns. I largely agree with that, but I’m also a contrarian and think, why not politics? The world is literally on fire, and we want to make pretty pictures to hang on rich people’s walls. If you really think about it, many of the world’s greatest artworks have been political. Many religious paintings are political (supporting the politics of the church and ruling elites); much of art throughout history has been commissioned in some way to conform to the politics of the times. So, why not make something that’s both visually interesting and speaks to things I care about? Even if the story isn’t clear to contemporary viewers, like Piero’s “Legend of the True Cross frescoes in Arezzo,” the story he was commissioned to tell was also a likely creative catalyst for Piero’s formal considerations.
Mr. Chat GPT4borg, BoT
Hmmm, aren’t you treading into the often-polarizing realm of politics in art? A risky move, or perhaps a calculated rebellion? You bring up historical precedence, but let’s not forget that many artists whose works were overtly political had to face suppression, censorship, or worse. So, are you prepared to face the potential consequences of making your art more political? And how do you plan to balance message and form without making the work didactic or propagandistic?
Larry Groff:
Well, that’s the rub. I worry less about societal suppression and more about societal indifference. The art world only allows relatively few voices to be heard.
My guess is that most smaller commercial galleries would be likely to shun anything overtly political, fearing it would be unsellable. I’m not interested in making work that’s propaganda anyway. I do want to sell my work or at least show it to as wide an audience as I can. I want my artwork to strike both aesthetic and humanistic nerves, to touch people in ways that aren’t just ironic or formal. It’s a fair guess that someone viewing paintings would be more likely to be liberal-leaning. So, trying to change the world by painting political and cultural messages would be just banner-waving and preaching to the choir. The poorest reception will likely come from fellow visually-oriented perceptual painters, weary of wall text diatribes. Instead, I abhor overly didactic approaches and seek to use the meaning as a personal energizer that could propel the visuals in surprising directions.
Mr. Chat GPT4borg, BoT
For sure, it’s a delicate tightrope walk between commercial viability and artistic integrity, sprinkled with a dash of political intent. Quite the circus act, isn’t it? You aim to avoid being didactic, but given your passion for political themes, how will you ensure that you’re not merely encoding your viewpoints into a visual language that only you understand? How will you make the political undertones resonate with your audience without losing the nuance or the aesthetic appeal?
Larry Groff:
I don’t want to repeat myself too much here, but the bottom line is I’m not worried if the viewer understands any meaning I may have been thinking of. I want to encourage different readings.
Mr. Chat GPT4borg, BoT
So what you’re saying is that you’re essentially betting on your work’s emotional and aesthetic power to resonate, even if the specific message gets lost in translation. Quite a gamble. Suppose the meaning or the message is secondary to the visual engagement for the viewer. Does that ever make you question the relevance or necessity of having a political undertone in your work in the first place?
Larry Groff:
Let’s say I make a painting expressing my worries about our climate emergency, but the imagery leaves few clues that this is what I was thinking about. I want to convey through the visual energy of the work that evolved because of the intense feelings about climate change, the subject would be the paint, but the motivating idea would be the catalyst. Ultimately, I feel the work succeeds because of how much the pictorial explorations engage the viewer. Maybe I’m naive, but I still feel if the work has real integrity, eventually, someone will recognize that. The bottom line is that it needs to be a good painting on a visual level; the subject is just the excuse for painting it. It’s like a good piece of music, maybe there’s a story to it, maybe not – but it has to be something musically worth listening to.
Mr. Chat GPT4borg, BoT
Let’s pivot to your drawing process. I’m particularly interested in how you’re working with walnut and sumi-e inks. These mediums have rich histories and qualities—what draws you to them, and how do you approach creating with them?
Larry Groff:
Several months ago, I was watching a video about a new Japanese Kakimori Brass Nib, despite rarely drawing outside of painting or making studies for a painting, I was intrigued by this pen’s ability to have such variable line weights and to hold the ink for so long. I decided to treat myself by buying this pen along with various inks and papers. I discovered I loved making pen and ink drawings and then added brush drawings to the mix. I got several Sumi-e brushes from huge to small, and a large roll of practice rice paper online.
The more I got into it, the more I wanted to find out about traditional Sumi-e ink drawing, learning from watching YouTube videos and various books I got out of the library. I got all kinds of Sumi-e brushes, papers and inks online. I wasn’t particularly interested in learning specific methods of painting natural forms, Bamboo, Plum Flowers, and such but there was a lot to learn from following along, I’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s possible, but I try to make it a regular part of my day whenever possible. Sometimes I really get into it and wind up spending many hours or even days on a drawing.
I also spent time making smaller abstract drawings using various mixed media like acrylic gouache, pastel and watercolor. Many of these experiments didn’t pan out but I learned a great deal about what not to do that has helped with my more recent work.
I’ve read years ago what Leonardo da Vinci reportedly said:
“Look at walls splashed with a number of stains, or stones of various mixed colors. If you have to invent some scene, you can see there resemblances to a number of landscapes, adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, great plains, valleys and hills, in various ways. Also, you can see various battles, and lively postures of strange figures, expressions on faces, costumes and an infinite number of things, which you can reduce to good integrated form. This happens on such walls and varicolored stones, (which act) like the sound of bells, in whose peeling you can find every name and word that you can imagine.”
This is a big part of what I’m trying to do with drawing.
Mr. Chat GPT4borg, BoT
The da Vinci quote you mentioned suggests a kind of pareidolia, the psychological phenomenon where the mind perceives a recognizable shape or pattern where none exists. It’s a fascinating prompt for creativity—how does this concept resonate with you in your new work? Are you finding “marvelous ideas” in the stains, textures, or randomness as you work with your inks?
Lastly, which artists have particularly influenced or inspired this shift towards these new drawings?
Larry Groff:
Pareidolia describes it perfectly. One aspect of this I enjoy is the level of concentration involved when working this way; it’s like I’m finding my way out of being lost in some deep woods or thicket. I often can’t see where I’m going and just looking for a clearing. I’ve been using Yupo paper, a very smooth Japanese plastic-based paper that allows for very easy erasing of the ink, also helping with this is my using walnut ink and Sumi inks that lift easily, I can change my mind at any juncture and keep the drawing open as long as possible. The forms or ideas I might see in the textures and marks are often false flags, and I need to wipe it back to the complete white of the paper. Keeping the drawing open like this also helps my concentration level, losing a sense of self like with meditation. This concentrated engagement can be similar to working from observation.
Mr. Chat GPT4borg, BoT
The process you describe sounds like an intimate dance between chaos and control, made all the more fascinating by the unique qualities of Yupo paper and the inks you’re using. The idea of keeping the drawing “open” as a means of heightening your concentration and allowing for a more fluid creative process is compelling. It’s as if the drawing becomes a living entity in its own right, continually evolving until you decide it has reached its final state.
You mentioned that this approach helps you lose your “sense of self,” similar to a meditative state. Do you find that this makes the artistic process more rewarding, or perhaps that it leads to unexpected discoveries within your work? And since you have the ability to erase and alter as you go, do you feel that this contributes to a lessened fear of “making mistakes,” therefore allowing for more experimentation?
Also, are there specific artists who’ve influenced your approach to these new drawings? Their work could be directly related to ink drawing or not—it’s more about the conceptual or technical inspiration they may offer.
Larry Groff:
Yes, experimenting with controlled accidents is something I’m very interested in and it does have many rewards. However, I’ve often spent several hours or days working on something and have it end up being a total unrecoverable mess. But truth be told, that’s always happened to me no matter what way I work. The bottom line for me is to make stuff that’s fun to do, as soon as the activity seems more a chore, then I start to lose interest. I want to keep the excitement going as long as possible so that it enters the work visually.
Mr. Chat GPT4borg, BoT
It’s a wonderful perspective, embracing the role of “controlled accidents” and retaining the sense of play and excitement in your creative process. This approach can undoubtedly imbue your work with a certain energy and vitality that might be lacking if you treat the process as a mere chore. Accepting potentially “unrecoverable messes” as part of the journey also seems liberating. That mindset could free you to push the boundaries of your materials and your creativity.
In your case, the relationship between the joy in the process and the visual outcome in the art seems symbiotic. The work benefits from your excitement, which is fueled by this engaging process. This dynamic loop could be one of the factors that help you create such work. Would you agree?
Larry Groff:
The artists that have influenced me the most with this process are Hyman Bloom’s landscape drawings and fish drawings as well as Mark Tobey’s “White-Writing” with his abstractions and cityscapes. They both used this hallucinatory pareidolia drawing method, of course, this is nothing new. Lots of artists work this way.
Mr. Chat GPT4borg, BoT
The references to Hyman Bloom and Mark Tobey are intriguing; both artists have unique approaches to form and space, often walking the line between abstraction and representation. Their work can be considered pareidolic to some extent, finding structured meaning in what might initially seem like chaotic forms or spaces. According to John Yau, Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock both suggested that Hyman Bloom was America’s first Abstract Expressionist. It’s fascinating to hear that their work has informed your drawing method, particularly your focus on “hallucinatory pareidolia.”
The ability to extract inspiration from seemingly random or chaotic stimuli—and to leverage this into a coherent visual statement—speaks to a kind of artistic alchemy. This is particularly resonant given your interest in keeping your drawings “open,” allowing for change and transformation as you work.
Larry Groff:
I admire their apparent openness and adaptability as well as the complexity and raw visual and emotional power. They both seem guided to some degree by their mystical or spiritual interests but that isn’t something I’m trying to get at.
Mr. Chat GPT4borg, BoT
Before we end, I’d like to ask you more about why you’ve incorporated digital prints of your 3D-rendered artwork into your show, especially alongside your oil paintings. These experimental pieces seem to straddle different artistic mediums. What motivated you to include these 3D-rendered artworks, and how do you see them in relation to your oil paintings? Additionally, where will these experimental pieces take you in terms of your overall artistic trajectory? This is quite a departure. Is there a deeper rationale for these eclectic experiments? Where exactly do you see these pieces fitting into your overall artistic journey?
Larry Groff:
For many years I made medical-related animations for a video production company. I often wanted to use this skill along with my painting, but it has only been in the past few years that I’ve started to explore this more seriously. It’s still a tentative move, I spent a great deal of time during the pandemic lockdown learning Houdini, a complex 3D animation and FX software program, intending to make animations and prints of imagery that I would also paint. I’d like to eventually unify them all into a more cohesive body of related works, but for now, the computer artworks are rather different. Streaks of surrealistic imagery run strata-like through the digital works and into the paintings and drawings.
Mr. Chat GPT4borg, BoT
It sounds like you’re in a stage of creative exploration, embracing the technology and skills from your past work in medical-related animations. Houdini is indeed a complex but powerful tool for 3D work. The idea of intertwining elements of surrealism through both digital and traditional mediums is quite intriguing. It could offer a fresh dimension and extend the boundaries of what your art can be. Given your interest in avoiding cliches and asking new questions, this move seems to align well with your artistic philosophy.
I’d love to hear more about your experience running Painting Perceptions. How did you initially get the idea to start the blog, and what has been your journey with it over almost 15 years? Additionally, running such a site is no small feat, so what do you feel you gain from this endeavor, professionally and personally?
Larry Groff:
My wife and I moved from Boston to San Diego back in 2007 to help with my father, who had health problems. I left behind my East Coast community of painter friends and found connecting with painters with similar interests difficult. I had experience with web design and running a blog so I eventually started a site about painting and hoped to stay in touch with other painters that way.
One of my first big interviews was with Michael Kareken, after he agreed to the interview, I flew out to Minneapolis and made a video interview at both his studio and his show “Scrap” at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. From there I was able to interview many fabulous painters by phone, in person and by email. A few of the interviews I’m most proud of are the ones I had with Lennart Anderson, Lois Dodd, Stanley Lewis, Martha Armstrong, and Eve Mansdorf. There are too many excellent conversations for me to list.
I’ve never really taught since graduate school, so I’ve missed out on being surrounded by other painters. I learned a great deal over the years and my site is a way of giving something back and helping to add to the continuum of our tradition. The interviews also helped my own work grow by being more aware of other painters’ practices and thoughts.
As my site got more popular, I incorporated advertising for workshops and such that my likely audience would appreciate, this helped helped expenses and motivation. I’ve also received a number of incredibly generous donations over the years that have helped enormously to keep the site going. Also, more than a few terrific art writers have contributed interviews, reviews, and essays that have truly made this site a worthwhile destination for like-minded painters.
I’ve recently considered making a book, perhaps excerpts from the select interviews, organized under specific issues or themes. Since my main job is being a painter, I occasionally go through long hiatuses where I’m not able to post much, I’m either too busy painting or that the people I’ve interviewed need a lot of time to work on their responses to my questions. Right now, I have about five really interesting painters I’ve been working on interviews and this should be going up soon.
Mr. Chat GPT4borg, BoT
Your journey with Painting Perceptions sounds both fulfilling and challenging. It’s admirable that you’ve balanced your creative pursuits with running a site that contributes to the broader art community. The concept of potentially turning the interviews into a book organized by themes sounds intriguing and could provide an even more substantial platform for sharing these dialogues. Having several interviews in the pipeline must be exciting, keeping the site’s content fresh and insightful. I can see how Painting Perceptions could serve as both an intellectual companion and a stimulus for your work. Thank you for sharing the history and future possibilities for your blog.
Elizabeth Lindorff says
Interesting interview .
I enjoyed reading through to your reference to Tobey and Bloom and had to take a break. But I’ll finish it I promise. How long did it take you to put this together?
larry groff says
Hi Elizabeth, Thanks for reading my really long crazy interview, I’m impressed you got that far! This whole interview took me surprisingly little time compared to my usual interviews on my Painting Perceptions site. Chat GPT took seconds to come up with a question or reply of course but my writing and editing took me maybe 5 or 6 hours, don’t remember exactly. It was fun to put this together and pretty amazing that chatGPT could come up with some of this stuff – I did edit what it wrote in a few places but much of it was all on its own.