David Lynch: The Art Life Page #2

I got in with a bad bunch

and got into a lot of trouble,

but I... I was really

living in hell.

I had to live two different lives,

and I always felt

that she thought...

And I don't know why she thought this,

and I don't know where this thing came in,

but I had the feeling

she thought

I had something really good in me,

you know, like a high potential.

So the reason that she would say

she was disappointed in me

is when she didn't see that thing.

Not as an artist,

but like just some kind of thing.

I don't know where she latched onto that,

but I kept kind of letting her down.

I never studied.

I never did anything.

I hated it so much.

I hated it, like, with powerful hate.

The only thing that was important

is what happened outside of school,

and that had huge impact on me.

People and relationships,

slow-dancing parties,

big, big love

and dreams.

Dark, fantastic dreams.

Incredible time.

I had a girlfriend named Linda Styles.

And one night...

And it was about 9:30 or 10:00.

Somehow I was on the front lawn

of Linda Styles' house

and I'm meeting this kid, Toby Keeler,

who didn't go to Hammond High School.

He went to private school.

And Toby told me his father was a painter,

and that, you know, kind of realization

that you could be a painter

popped... You know...

blew all the wiring.

And that's what I wanted to do

from that second.

So I begged him to take me

to his father's studio.

And at that time, Bushnell Keeler

had a studio in Georgetown.

And I only actually saw it once,

that next weekend.

I went... Toby took me,

introduced me to his father.

And I saw his studio.

And it was the classic studio.

I mean, it was so beautiful.

Bushnell could really set up a studio.

Um, many areas set up

for, like, drawing and for painting

and for different kind of experiments.

And, uh, it was just

what you would call, you know,

the art life,

you know, right before your eyes.

I don't know when I started

using the term 'The art life',

but one of the things Bushnell did

besides, uh, just being a painter

and living it...

Living life as a painter.

He gave me the Robert Henri book,

The Art Spirit.

And I loved that book.

I can't remember much of it now,

but I... we used to carry it around

and The Art Spirit

sort of became the art life

and I had this idea that you drink coffee,

you smoke cigarettes and you paint.

And that's it.

Maybe girls come into a little bit

but basically,

it's the incredible happiness

of working and living that life.

The reason we moved to Virginia

in the first place

is my dad got, uh, promoted,

um, basically to a desk job

in Washington, DC.

So we lived in Alexandria, Virginia,

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