Barbara Shikler:  You said your painting held up very weIl. That must have been very comforting to know.

Dorothea Tanning:  In fact, some of those early paintings still look healthy, you might say.  I'm kind of amazed, because I hadn't studied all those things about permanence and materials.  I just used what l had.  I remember one painting that I made.  You see…having never moved as a child… I somehow fulfilled my desire to move by moving a lot in New York.  And one of the places I went to live in was the filthiest – but the filthiest – sort of a loft you can imagine.  East 21st street, not far from 5th Avenue….it belonged to a sculptor.…And he worked in the back room, and probably thought it would be nice to rent out the big front room, and take in a little money.  So he rented it to me.  Well, I not only worked in it, I lived in it.  It was supposed to be my home.  And I put my bed in there, and a chest of drawers a couple of chairs.  That was it.  But it was so dirty, because somehow, in those days that was a manufacturing neighborhood and in the winter smoke and soot just floated in the air.  You could almost see it float down in this room, on everything.  I could not even walk on the floor.  I had to be very careful to put some slippers on before I touched the floor with my feet. 

Well, I set up a canvas on a chair.  I didn't have an easel.  I set a canvas up on the chair, and sat on the opposite chair, and painted an imaginary portrait….I think the thing that makes it so attractive – is the dirt.  Because the dirt is right in the painting...

BS:  A dirt glaze, you might say.

DT:  It just has a softness.

BS:  Oh, it's wonderful how these things happen – these accidents of fate.

DT:  I didn't stay there very long.  I guess about three weeks.

      — from “Oral History Interview with Dorothea Tanning, Conducted by Barbara Shikler, July 11-November 5, 1990.” Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1990, pp. 106-108.