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A Very Special Interview With Artist
"Walter Paul Bebirian'
"Walter Paul Bebirian'
TNYO: Who is Walter Paul Bebirian
WPB: I am Walter Paul Bebirian - an American
Born - Armenian Business Owner - A Philanthropist - Artist - Photographer - Collector - Consultant and Investor
among other things all of which I perform with a unique creativity.
WPB: I am Walter Paul Bebirian - an American
Born - Armenian Business Owner - A Philanthropist - Artist - Photographer - Collector - Consultant and Investor
among other things all of which I perform with a unique creativity.
TNYO: At what age did you realize that you were an artist and that this is what you were going to do for the rest of your life -
WPB: In my world John - everything has been art and all about art for as long as I can remember
which means from about the age of 2 and I say that because
I can remember some things or events that took place in my life at that particular age -
And then perhaps even earlier or thereabout stories about certain things were told to me about events taking place
in my life that profoundly affected me as well -
The truth though is that I am not even sure if I have found the exact niche or type of art that I will continue on with for the entirety of the rest of my life -
So - drawing and painting did come first during my earliest years along with dreaming during the times that I played with various toys (at age 2) that I had and there was something else that was very interesting that had occurred when I was very young - the manner in which my toys were put away in the book cases that I had at home that were there to house them until I played with them again -
There must be something that I have to say about this sentence right before this one and it may sound strange but because the toys were pretty numerous they were more or less thrown together in that space of the book shelves rather than neatly placed there in any specific order and that type of environment which was always there when I was younger is more or less there now in my current life as it has been throughout my entire life previously and although all of my art is currently created in my computer no matter what style or manner of art that I create all of it is digital which to me is a constant drawing upon the actual nature of the world - the Universe and everything including life - in other words - I am working all of the time with pure energy - even thoughts - which are the seeds of whatever turns up in the world as new inventions and products and services - the thoughts are the beginnings of ideas which then are made in many cases into whatever we are surrounded with -
Even mathematics is an art - related to music and art images -
First of all - my first brother and I - (he was and still is about a year and one month younger than me) I am not sure if we had the same toys to play with that we shared or if we each had our own - but - I remember some type of play activity which would occur where we would be seated across from each other eating colored m&m’s - these colors were a very profound thing for me to be viewing - it always amazed me how even though we were just one grade apart from each other and had the same exact relatives - that there were so many friends that we had in school who were very different and unique from the ones that each of us had -
And then when my second and youngest brother arrived on the scene ten years later - he was a totally different kind of being and so very different from my first brother and myself and then again his friends and activities in his life were so unfathomably different from both me and my first brother but even though my first brother went on in life to become a doctor and my second brother has had many different professions and is now in the business of teaching people the use of firearms - but what I noticed in both my brothers is that they both have an artistic essence to them whether it is in collecting art - or in cooking or in teaching - and this led me to seek the artistic nature in most all people that I have met throughout my journey of life.
Besides my mom being an artist and a sales lady in her earlier years - my godmother was an artist also and during my earlier years - in the summer time I would be sent to her home in Connecticut to not only play with my cousins there but also to take art classes with my aunt as well - unlike my mom - my godmother lived in a spacious house in Connecticut with a small bit of land around it - and in her house she maintained an actual physical studio which was interesting to me since I do not remember my mom having such a space unless we consider the dining room table and then the rest of the house where everything eventually accumulated and grew in the same disorganized manner as the original bookcase that I mentioned where the toys were stored in a more or less unorganized manner - I suppose in reality the whole house where we moved to when I was around age ten - was her studio and that is why she always called it her house - meaning that this was her studio - taking up a much larger space than my godmother’s studio which was in essence only a mere small room in her house.
In relation to this there have been many different studios of artists that I have encountered over the years - but for me - well I perceive the entire world as my studio and to date I am still exploring every crack and crevice of this studio and what is profoundly interesting is that there is something in my studio at different periods of time that one time or another changes the amount of activity that I will or will not venture to any particular corner of that studio - In grammar school I remember making a collaborative painting with my friend’s sister - there was sort of my half and her half and that was great fun - but in the school there were various art projects along the way and many occasions where my mom took up doing the background scenes for the school plays (which I played the lead roles in as well) and then I started doing the backdrops and even looked forward to skipping all of my classes to take to working on these backdrops myself.
In Junior High School I rehearsed with the Queens Borough junior High School Orchestra every Saturday and then performed at Queens College Colden Auditorium at the end of the year and simultaneously rehearsed with the All City Junior High Orchestra during the rest of each Saturday and then we performed at Carnegie Hall at end of the year.
In High School there was a lot of playing music but also Free Hand Drawing as well as four years of various types of mechanical drawing - and plenty of playing music - whether the violin in the school orchestra with rehearsals during lunch - the rock band performances on Friday nights - Saturday nights and Sunday nights - the all city orchestra rehearsals on Saturday mornings which I performed in at Lincoln Center at the end of the year - private lessons after that on Saturday and then Rock Band rehearsals after that until we were ready to perform on Saturday night again.
Sunday afternoons were performances with the Queens Symphony Orchestra at Queens College Colden Auditorium - Mondays were rehearsals with an Armenian musical Group backing up an Armenian play which was performed at various locations in New York and in Philadelphia to raise money to build the St. Vartan’s Armenian Cathedral in Manhattan and Wednesday nights were rehearsals with the Queens Symphony Orchestra *(a semi -professional Orchestra)
For a time a this point I worked at a school photography studio and first was doing some assembly work of the photographs but then I spoke with the photographer and started going out to shoot the kids in the grammar schools and while doing that the mother’s started asking me to do baby pictures for their kids at home.
While in College I worked full time in the day at AT&T - ABC Records (bookkeeping) Atlantic Records London Records and Fawcett Publications - ABC Pictures Worldwide Sales and Distribution (Coop Advertising) all performing some type of accounting or administrative work to get to learn about the business world.
In College I had my photographs on display in the halls and did the centerfold for the literary magazine while also having my work on display at a local group of shops in one mini mall type of arena next to a wine and cheese cafe where I also performed singing and playing music - I also performed in various local cafes playing folk music on my own
Also - I began selling things in different flea markets and this was fantastic fun and
then when I completed College at night - I asked myself what do I want to do - I had been dreaming about working as a professional photographer so I started getting assignments on my own - doing assignments for different businesses - published in different newspapers and magazines and this morphed into doing assignments for individuals and then a great deal of portrait work for actors and real estate agents - as well as photographing a lot of art for artists who needed slides to present their work.
Of course this list goes on and on and yet there is always the feeling inside me that I am just beginning or that I have not done anything yet -
Am I an artist yet?
WPB: In my world John - everything has been art and all about art for as long as I can remember
which means from about the age of 2 and I say that because
I can remember some things or events that took place in my life at that particular age -
And then perhaps even earlier or thereabout stories about certain things were told to me about events taking place
in my life that profoundly affected me as well -
The truth though is that I am not even sure if I have found the exact niche or type of art that I will continue on with for the entirety of the rest of my life -
So - drawing and painting did come first during my earliest years along with dreaming during the times that I played with various toys (at age 2) that I had and there was something else that was very interesting that had occurred when I was very young - the manner in which my toys were put away in the book cases that I had at home that were there to house them until I played with them again -
There must be something that I have to say about this sentence right before this one and it may sound strange but because the toys were pretty numerous they were more or less thrown together in that space of the book shelves rather than neatly placed there in any specific order and that type of environment which was always there when I was younger is more or less there now in my current life as it has been throughout my entire life previously and although all of my art is currently created in my computer no matter what style or manner of art that I create all of it is digital which to me is a constant drawing upon the actual nature of the world - the Universe and everything including life - in other words - I am working all of the time with pure energy - even thoughts - which are the seeds of whatever turns up in the world as new inventions and products and services - the thoughts are the beginnings of ideas which then are made in many cases into whatever we are surrounded with -
Even mathematics is an art - related to music and art images -
First of all - my first brother and I - (he was and still is about a year and one month younger than me) I am not sure if we had the same toys to play with that we shared or if we each had our own - but - I remember some type of play activity which would occur where we would be seated across from each other eating colored m&m’s - these colors were a very profound thing for me to be viewing - it always amazed me how even though we were just one grade apart from each other and had the same exact relatives - that there were so many friends that we had in school who were very different and unique from the ones that each of us had -
And then when my second and youngest brother arrived on the scene ten years later - he was a totally different kind of being and so very different from my first brother and myself and then again his friends and activities in his life were so unfathomably different from both me and my first brother but even though my first brother went on in life to become a doctor and my second brother has had many different professions and is now in the business of teaching people the use of firearms - but what I noticed in both my brothers is that they both have an artistic essence to them whether it is in collecting art - or in cooking or in teaching - and this led me to seek the artistic nature in most all people that I have met throughout my journey of life.
Besides my mom being an artist and a sales lady in her earlier years - my godmother was an artist also and during my earlier years - in the summer time I would be sent to her home in Connecticut to not only play with my cousins there but also to take art classes with my aunt as well - unlike my mom - my godmother lived in a spacious house in Connecticut with a small bit of land around it - and in her house she maintained an actual physical studio which was interesting to me since I do not remember my mom having such a space unless we consider the dining room table and then the rest of the house where everything eventually accumulated and grew in the same disorganized manner as the original bookcase that I mentioned where the toys were stored in a more or less unorganized manner - I suppose in reality the whole house where we moved to when I was around age ten - was her studio and that is why she always called it her house - meaning that this was her studio - taking up a much larger space than my godmother’s studio which was in essence only a mere small room in her house.
In relation to this there have been many different studios of artists that I have encountered over the years - but for me - well I perceive the entire world as my studio and to date I am still exploring every crack and crevice of this studio and what is profoundly interesting is that there is something in my studio at different periods of time that one time or another changes the amount of activity that I will or will not venture to any particular corner of that studio - In grammar school I remember making a collaborative painting with my friend’s sister - there was sort of my half and her half and that was great fun - but in the school there were various art projects along the way and many occasions where my mom took up doing the background scenes for the school plays (which I played the lead roles in as well) and then I started doing the backdrops and even looked forward to skipping all of my classes to take to working on these backdrops myself.
In Junior High School I rehearsed with the Queens Borough junior High School Orchestra every Saturday and then performed at Queens College Colden Auditorium at the end of the year and simultaneously rehearsed with the All City Junior High Orchestra during the rest of each Saturday and then we performed at Carnegie Hall at end of the year.
In High School there was a lot of playing music but also Free Hand Drawing as well as four years of various types of mechanical drawing - and plenty of playing music - whether the violin in the school orchestra with rehearsals during lunch - the rock band performances on Friday nights - Saturday nights and Sunday nights - the all city orchestra rehearsals on Saturday mornings which I performed in at Lincoln Center at the end of the year - private lessons after that on Saturday and then Rock Band rehearsals after that until we were ready to perform on Saturday night again.
Sunday afternoons were performances with the Queens Symphony Orchestra at Queens College Colden Auditorium - Mondays were rehearsals with an Armenian musical Group backing up an Armenian play which was performed at various locations in New York and in Philadelphia to raise money to build the St. Vartan’s Armenian Cathedral in Manhattan and Wednesday nights were rehearsals with the Queens Symphony Orchestra *(a semi -professional Orchestra)
For a time a this point I worked at a school photography studio and first was doing some assembly work of the photographs but then I spoke with the photographer and started going out to shoot the kids in the grammar schools and while doing that the mother’s started asking me to do baby pictures for their kids at home.
While in College I worked full time in the day at AT&T - ABC Records (bookkeeping) Atlantic Records London Records and Fawcett Publications - ABC Pictures Worldwide Sales and Distribution (Coop Advertising) all performing some type of accounting or administrative work to get to learn about the business world.
In College I had my photographs on display in the halls and did the centerfold for the literary magazine while also having my work on display at a local group of shops in one mini mall type of arena next to a wine and cheese cafe where I also performed singing and playing music - I also performed in various local cafes playing folk music on my own
Also - I began selling things in different flea markets and this was fantastic fun and
then when I completed College at night - I asked myself what do I want to do - I had been dreaming about working as a professional photographer so I started getting assignments on my own - doing assignments for different businesses - published in different newspapers and magazines and this morphed into doing assignments for individuals and then a great deal of portrait work for actors and real estate agents - as well as photographing a lot of art for artists who needed slides to present their work.
Of course this list goes on and on and yet there is always the feeling inside me that I am just beginning or that I have not done anything yet -
Am I an artist yet?
TNYO: How important was your environment, family, friends, and interactions with others to the path
that you were on and how did each of these interactions inspire your life and work.
WPB: As I mentioned earlier in my answer to question #2 my mom was an artist during her earlier years and I would imagine that she remained an artist throughout her entire life although how this artistry manifested itself in her life later on was different - she took up founding the neighborhood Volunteer Ambulance Corp and remained working with them for 40 years.
I would imagine that inside me there is this acceptance and understanding that if there is a more valuable effort that comes to me in order to help mankind whether locally - nationally or globally - that I would take that up as a cause with the same or even greater intensity that you have seen me work on my art images - for the rest of my life.
But beyond that basic underlying thought - what I mentioned in the 2 answers to the #2 question previously - I would say that to a more or less varying degree - every single person that I have come in contact - communicated with heard about read about from the past - present and the future has - does and will always inspire me in whatever I have done - am doing and will do - this is not only material enough for a novel but for an entire encyclopedic effort if I am so inclined to place all of the thoughts down running through my mind at this very moment that may or may not be of any interest to anyone but perhaps the individual who has composed such a question to me - himself demanding such an encyclopedic effort for the vast number of efforts that I see that he has pursued and is in the process of pursuing during the brief span of twenty or so years that I have come in contact in various events and phone conversations with this person.
Here I will take brief break in order to gather some further thoughts on this matter and perhaps decide to go on or maybe end this answer here - for I am not sure that his enterprise for which he has begun this interview for - is sufficiently equipped and his current audience sufficiently interested in such a multi volume answer or perhaps the interest will actually grow over the years following this point in time -
OK - so I will continue for a little while - I have always liked to create the environment in which I work and live and now these two environments at this time of Corona Virus Covid 19 are one in the same as long as we - the general public are being asked or required to remain at home - most people unless their jobs are deemed necessary are not allowed to work but for me this problem does not exist since I work from my home and that is wonderful since there is little difference in this arrangement from when there is no Covid 19 in the air so to speak - I even made a video extolling the advantage to potential viewers and purchasers of my art referencing the advantages that my arrangement presents to the clients of my system:
https://vimeo.com/404825554
I suppose this is enough for the moment since it brings me up to this very moment where I am working and having tons of fun - I certainly don’t want to overload people with words to read that will keep them away from viewing my images - :-)
that you were on and how did each of these interactions inspire your life and work.
WPB: As I mentioned earlier in my answer to question #2 my mom was an artist during her earlier years and I would imagine that she remained an artist throughout her entire life although how this artistry manifested itself in her life later on was different - she took up founding the neighborhood Volunteer Ambulance Corp and remained working with them for 40 years.
I would imagine that inside me there is this acceptance and understanding that if there is a more valuable effort that comes to me in order to help mankind whether locally - nationally or globally - that I would take that up as a cause with the same or even greater intensity that you have seen me work on my art images - for the rest of my life.
But beyond that basic underlying thought - what I mentioned in the 2 answers to the #2 question previously - I would say that to a more or less varying degree - every single person that I have come in contact - communicated with heard about read about from the past - present and the future has - does and will always inspire me in whatever I have done - am doing and will do - this is not only material enough for a novel but for an entire encyclopedic effort if I am so inclined to place all of the thoughts down running through my mind at this very moment that may or may not be of any interest to anyone but perhaps the individual who has composed such a question to me - himself demanding such an encyclopedic effort for the vast number of efforts that I see that he has pursued and is in the process of pursuing during the brief span of twenty or so years that I have come in contact in various events and phone conversations with this person.
Here I will take brief break in order to gather some further thoughts on this matter and perhaps decide to go on or maybe end this answer here - for I am not sure that his enterprise for which he has begun this interview for - is sufficiently equipped and his current audience sufficiently interested in such a multi volume answer or perhaps the interest will actually grow over the years following this point in time -
OK - so I will continue for a little while - I have always liked to create the environment in which I work and live and now these two environments at this time of Corona Virus Covid 19 are one in the same as long as we - the general public are being asked or required to remain at home - most people unless their jobs are deemed necessary are not allowed to work but for me this problem does not exist since I work from my home and that is wonderful since there is little difference in this arrangement from when there is no Covid 19 in the air so to speak - I even made a video extolling the advantage to potential viewers and purchasers of my art referencing the advantages that my arrangement presents to the clients of my system:
https://vimeo.com/404825554
I suppose this is enough for the moment since it brings me up to this very moment where I am working and having tons of fun - I certainly don’t want to overload people with words to read that will keep them away from viewing my images - :-)
11-15-2056ka
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