Editorial: El Artista Magazine

I believe that one of the most interesting text formats to get to know an artist and his or her work are interviews. I recall that many years ago when I read the book The Artists Voice on the North American art critique of Katherine Kub 19041994 published in 1962 I was able to understand much better the ideas and intentions of the 17 artists interviewed by the author including Georgia Okeeffe Alexander Calder and Marcel Duchamp. Reading the exposition of ideas and direct responses of creators helped me have a clear context of the movements in the mid20th Century which Katherine Kub covered with her questions. There is a closer and more human approach during an interview although we might be decades and continents apart from artists regarding the critical or purely academic nineteenth century text. Therefore when the magazines editor commended me to write a text on the work of three Guatemalan contemporaneous artists I decided to do an interview. And the process becomes fascinating since the very beginning for the relation between an authorinterviewer and the artist develops differently according to the personality of each interviewee. Some have the answer at the tip of their tongue while others take their time to reflect and respond. Some might be more willing to reveal details on their creative process while others prefer to go in more depth on their preferred technique. Some are shy and one has to find creative persuasion ways to get more information while others offer so much information that it is inevitable to proceed to edits.