TribeLA Magazine Acrostic Interview.1 with Debbie Zeitman

Tagline: Give yourself and your work a tagline and tell us why.
In my heart, I’m a storyteller, a communicator, someone who wants to provoke thought and facilitate change.

Rest: How do you spend your time off?
I don’t know that the phrase ‘time off’ currently applies to my life. Back when I was a motion picture film editor, holed up in an editing room for months on end, time off meant hitting the road for a foreign exploration for as long as possible before the next job. Now that I’m fully in charge of my day, I slide in and out of time off seamlessly and invisibly, though travel is always on my mind and a goal, as well as eating good vegan food and daily runs with podcasts playing in my ears.

My camera and pen are my tools for sharing and examining my experience of living, my way of exploring my own curiosity of what it means to be here at this moment in time.

Ned Evans: “The amount of time spent in the studio to be an artist is immense.” By the time Ned got to college, he was disciplined and focused on making art. “After I got to [UC] Irvine, especially after the first year, I just jumped in and got hyper focused on painting.”

Ned has been drawing since around age 8. “You find things that are satisfying when you’re young. For me, it was watercolors and oil painting.” When he was 12, his mother was diagnosed with leukemia, and this soon overshadowed all else. “When you grow up with that experience, it kind of isolates you. My refuge became art and surfing.” All through junior high and high school, he was immersed in graphic art, painting, and photography.

Evident in much of Ned’s work is an architectural influence. “Ever since I was a kid, I was always drawing buildings.” As a companion to that he loves building, and this became a source of income to support his art career after college, along with a garden design business and a sportswear and T-shirt company.

But the building – working for other artists such as Ed Moses, Ed Ruscha, and Billy Al Bengston, helping with studio projects and home remodels, as well as working as an art preparator – was the most dominant. “Artists always have special projects beyond the regular work I assisted them with in the studios.” Since this work was project based, Ned was left with plenty of time to pursue his own art. “I’m primarily a painter, but I step off and do wall reliefs and other three-dimensional pieces.” Since the late 90s, he’s focused solely on his own art. Ned has two upcoming shows, one of a new series of graphite and charcoal oceanic drawings, and another of abstract paintings.

An LA native, Ned moved to Venice in 1973 after completing his masters degree. His first studio was on Sunset Ave., followed by a couple other studios and a stint downtown. In 1982, Ned moved into his current home, where he designed and built his home studio. “I’ve always loved living and working in a studio space.”