Photo courtesy of Nicole D'Amore Gisele Friedman stands with an acrylic painting titled "The Path Seeker."

                                                         In one way or another, art has always played an important role in Gisele Friedman's life: from drawing as a child, to designing and sewing clothing, to remodeling houses, to sculpting, painting and writing poetry.

"It is a state of mind," the perky 85-year-old said of art. "I believe in reincarnation " I have probably spent many previous lives as an artist."

Friedman often exhibits her abstract paintings locally and is
currently participating in the Arts Council of the Conejo Valley "Board
and Others" show running through June at the Galleria in the Hillcrest
Center for the Arts, 403 W. Hillcrest Drive, Thousand Oaks.

A reception is from 4 to 6 p.m. Saturday.

Friedman's paintings come from within.

"Psychology was always of great interest to me " the desire to understand what makes people behave the way they do," she said. "I always somehow met very interesting people " I learned a lot."

She grew up in the Burgundy region of southern France, the only child of a broken marriage. She spent more time with her grandmother than with either parent and went to public, Catholic and boarding schools.

"I never stayed very long in a particular surrounding," she said. "It was very painful for me, but I realized I had a very large family. All those things are conducive to expression through artwork."

"As a very little child, I always was drawing," she said. "At school I was always the artiste."

By the age of 15, she'd had enough of school, and her father found her a job sewing and cooking, skills that would serve her well. She married and had a son while she was still a teenager. During the German occupation, she supported herself and her son by making clothing for area farmers in exchange for food. After the war, divorced, she got into the fashion business in Paris.

"Haute couture is another form of art," she said. "I learned how to do every aspect of couture: sewing, designing, selling. If a customer wanted to see some of the collection, I would model it. I had to have knowledge of all the fabrics, color and design."

She came to the United States in 1950 and changed her focus from clothing to architecture. In the 50-plus years she has been married to Len Friedman, she has modified their houses in Palos Verdes, Malibu, La Canada and Westlake Village. What started as tract houses became custom designs.

"Westlake Village was my major remodeling â?" I gutted the whole house," she said proudly. "Most people see the skin of things. I go beyond." The Friedmans recently moved into University Village in Thousand Oaks, where she doesn't plan to change anything.

In addition to remodeling houses during those years, Friedman pursued art. She studied sculpture as well as painting at Harbor College, Marymount, UCLA and Santa Monica.

Her abstract paintings are always an evolution, she said.

"It starts with meditation, the inner search," she said. "I don't have any preconceived idea. It's going to be intuitive."

She starts by putting white paint on white canvas.

"My inspiration comes from the difference between the two whites," she said. "It's symbolic of an open field.

"What I am going to talk to depends on my experience, a book I'm reading, what I am thinking about, the personal trip I am going through at any given time," she said. "It goes back to what has been imprinted on my consciousness. I am more interested in the process than the outcome."

Painting is a dialog with the medium, Friedman says.

"You don't just attack the medium, you make friends with it," she said.

She never mixes colors.

"I respect the integrity of a particular color; I respect the association of another color," she said. "For some, mixing is the best way to express, but not for me. I use color on color but don't mix. They are going to lay among themselves.

"The color is going to be based on mood and structure of intellectual form," she said. "You have two elements that try to interact. The real goal is to find the unification."

People see different things in her paintings.

"It doesn't dictate this is a person, this is a landscape," she said. "It's going to be unique, but everybody is going to see something different. It all depends on your self-made world."

Friedman often writes poetry to accompany her paintings.

"It's another expression in a different form," she said.

"I am ageless," she said. "Time is of no consequence. When I enter this particular domain, I don't care about anything else."

Friedman is a signature member of the National Watercolor Society. She has won numerous awards.

To recommend an artist to be profiled in this section, contact Nicole D'Amore at ArtProfiles@roadrunner.com or 405-0364.

To return to home page click homepage