Roberta’s flat is filled with her own art, her books, all the accoutrements of the artistic life. She also collects indigenous pottery and textiles, rare shells, coral, and sea fans from her travels.  She is, to put it mildly, exactly what one thinks of when one thinks of an artist or an author.  Roberta is both, and perhaps there really is no difference.   It is for that reason that I think you will enjoy this interview:

Roberta:  I am a conceptual artist. This is not easy to explain or describe. I use images (mostly photos at this point) combined with words to challenge conventional notions. I present my own interpretations, which are as true as those normally accepted as true. When I began my conceptual art in 1971, I created small drawings with lines I called “pointless arrows”. The caption on a drawing might read, for example, “30 pointless arrows, 15 lines.” The pointless arrows and the lines would be presented in a grid structure. Of course, it was impossible to tell the difference between pointless arrows and lines since they looked alike. There is humor in this, but more to the “point”, I was exploring the meaning of signs. My captions thwart the viewer’s expectations and I hope they expand his or her perceptual awareness. My work took many forms--drawings, photo-based works, artist books, and large-scale site-specific installations with “ascending and descending arrows” on museum and gallery floors both here and in Europe. One of these works was almost as large as a football field.

Carolyn: Your work is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Bibliotheque du France in Paris.  Because most of us are more likely to be able to visit your work at the Met, would you describe your work there, tell us where we might find it once we enter those hallowed halls?

Roberta: The Met owns a large drawing, which was part of an exhibition I did at John Weber Gallery in New York in 1979, called “Ascending and Descending Arrows: A Floor Installation”. To my knowledge, the work has never been exhibited. The Met has a huge collection. Most of it is in storage. My works are in many other museum collections as well.

Carolyn: How and when did you become a writer?

Roberta: At the opening of my 19th solo exhibition in Rome in 1981, I had the realization that what I really wanted to do most was write. I had already written two stories that were instantly published in an anthology with John Ashbury, Walter Abish, and Russell Banks. It seemed like a propitious beginning. Since my art always used language, this was not such a great leap. But I think I was fortunate in not going to college. I didn’t have to “unlearn” anything. My writing was a very spontaneous process.

Carolyn:  A couple of your books have been influenced by travel: The Traveling Woman and Amazon Dream. Travel is one of my great loves, so I must ask you about that.

Roberta:  I lived in Amsterdam and Athens and Berlin in the mid to late 60s. I did my first exhibitions of paintings in Amsterdam in 1967. “Place” is very important to me. But when I think of Europe, I am reminded mostly of work, since I made so much art there and did so many exhibitions during the 70s and early 80s. The places that are most important to me, however, are the places where I have traveled alone like the Peruvian Amazon, for example. That was one of the great experiences of my life. I wrote about that trip in my memoir, AMAZON DREAM. I have traveled to many places, among them, Indonesia, Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Egypt, Turkey, Australia, and so on. Most recently, I visited a very wet and remote part of Panama, where seven Indian tribes still live relatively undisturbed in the rainforest. One day when I was swimming, I was stung by a medusa--a jellyfish.  That was rather scary. I had huge red welts on my legs and didn’t know what they were at first...

Carolyn:  You live in New York City. That is one of the world's great publishing hubs.  Does it figure in any of your books?  How do you think that city has influenced any or your arts, including writing?

Roberta: I have not written many stories that take place in New York. Most of my writing takes place in the countries where I’ve traveled. I was born and raised in Manhattan. Maybe for that reason, it never seemed special to me. It is a great place to work. I can totally divorce myself from the outside world. But I’m glad that world is there when I want it. I think it’s important to have writer and artist friends. I like to share my work with them. I like the energy of the city. That energy is very important I think. But I also like to leave it.

Carolyn:  Many MyShelf.com readers are writers.  You have written a novella called The Daughter. Why did you choose a novella? What do you think the future is for that kind of book?

Roberta: I never chose to write a novella. My novella is not a conventional book. THE DAUGHTER, the book you are speaking about, is composed of linked short short stories that alternate between the past and present of an unnamed woman, who is traveling in Latin America. I like short books. I like to write them and I like to read them. I don’t really think about whether they are called “novels” or “novellas”.

Carolyn:  Because my collection of short creative nonfiction, Harkening, was released in November, I am particularly interested in your two collections of stories, The Traveling Woman and Certain People.  Did you find your audience for the collections was similar to that for your novel and novella?  Why did you choose to put short stories together?

Roberta: I think of THE TRAVELING WOMAN as a novel. Each story is separate but part of the whole. Each story is a little chapter. It took me a year to find the sequence of stories. It was like putting together a book of poems. These stories are like narrative prose poems. THE TRAVELING WOMAN, THE DAUGHTER, CERTAIN PEOPLE, and THE DREAMING GIRL are all fiction--and not conventional fiction. My fiction uses autobiographical incidents but still the works are fiction. Only AMAZON DREAM is nonfiction. And of course, my writing guides, FAST FICTION and THE PLAYFUL WAY TO SERIOUS WRITING, An-Anything-Can-Happen Workbook to Inspire and Delight, which have a different audience than the audience for my fiction. In the past, there hasn’t been any crossover, which is unfortunate I think. My next book, THE PLAYFUL WAY TO KNOWING YOURSELF, is also nonfiction, but in a completely different category altogether.

Carolyn: I tutor Asian students and one of my Korean students fell in love with my review copy of The Playful Way to Serious Writing.  I know that you teach at New School University and have taught in the writing program at Columbia University.  Did you write knowing that it would be a wonderful aid for teachers or did it just turn out that way?

Roberta: I did this book because it seemed like it would be a lot of fun to do and it was. I loved being able to use my photography and drawing in a writing book. I was sort of using my conceptual art in a new, much broader context. I wanted not just teachers but experienced writers and anyone who has ever wanted to write or perform to feel as free doing the exercises as I felt creating them. I wanted the book itself--not just the exercises--to be an example of my “ENERGY METHOD”.

The most important lesson I have learned from my students is that energy is far more important than skill. The craft of writing can be learned, but that energy -- the force behind the words, the power deep inside that drives you--must be tapped in order to do any real writing--by real, I mean writing that is alive, writing that sings. Without that energy, writing is dead.

In creating this method, I tried to parallel my own writing process. I never had a problem tapping in to my own creative energy, but I wanted to find a way that others, especially those who found writing difficult, could use to tap in to their energy with the same ease I did. The visual and verbal prompts I use instantly redirect the writer’s focus while the timer, by creating pressure, forces energy to the surface. The writer doesn’t have time to pay attention to all those thoughts--”I can’t do this,” “I should have called my mother”, “This is no good”, and so on--that stop him or her from writing.

Carolyn: Dennis Palumbo, who has himself written a book about writing, says that your book "recognizes the serious creative benefits of being playful."  I think that the artistic cum fun quality of Playful Way is what most appealed to me.  It looks playful and the practical exercises are playful. Can you share one of your favorites?

Roberta: The “Eavesdropping” exercise comes to mind. Because I’m so visually oriented, I normally don’t listen to what’s going on around me. Creating this exercise, in which I ask the writer to write down each day for a week a line or two she overhears, made me listen to what people say. And people do say really extraordinary things that you can use as triggers for stories or essays or whatever. “Moments” is another that comes to mind, because it makes you become “present” to your own feelings, to the ”here” and “now” of things.

Carolyn: The photographic prompts you use for creativity in your book are evocative.  Did you take them with your writing exercises in mind or did you simply search your files of negatives?  The photos are so lovely they almost speak.  What is the process you use for taking them?

Roberta: Thank you Carolyn. Most of the photos I took on trips. But some, like the diving girl near the beginning, I took recently. I never knew beforehand, however, if I would use them or how I would use them. They were just pictures I wanted to take.

Carolyn: I understand you are writing another book.  Is it too early to share with us what that might be?

Roberta:  Oh no, Houghton Mifflin is publishing this March THE PLAYFUL WAY TO KNOWING YOURSELF: A Creative Workbook to Inspire Self Knowledge. It’s a personal growth workbook that can certainly be used by writers. In this book, I use a combination of my photos and captions to question how we really feel, what we really think about ourselves. This book also uses the ENERGY METHOD to instantly tap in to those places inside that we might not otherwise go, and bypass the inner critic that might stop us. When we allow ourselves to follow that energy, surprising insights occur. The ENERGY METHOD is not just a writing method but a way to live life. It means going with what excites you, what interests you, what makes you feel alive. This is how I’ve lived--always following my impulse to create or travel no matter where it takes me--even under the worst conditions. I lived a hand-to-mouth existence for many years, but I never let that stop me from writing, making art, or traveling. I am at work now on a memoir about my father, who was a gambler, and the greatest influence on my life. That will be my ninth book.

Carolyn:  Roberta, reviewing your book and interviewing you has been an adventure. Even in your book, you recommend a timer for exercises.  Our time is up.  Do you have anything else you'd like to share with MyShelf.com readers?

Roberta: I think it is important to know that inspiration is not something outside ourselves. Inspiration is that energy inside us that is often locked inside a shell of fear.  Whenever I travel to remote places, and I travel to these places partly because I am afraid, I break that shell. When that shell is broken, energy bursts forth. Those are the moments I live for and write about--when I feel fully alive. Feeling fully alive is not always feeling good. Feeling fully alive is allowing yourself to feel whatever you are feeling. The more real you are to yourself the more real you are in your writing.