Norman Lewis: When you asked me for this interview, you know, I said Jesus Christ, I don't have anything to say. And I don't know what I am going to do.
Magdalene Odundo: I tend to look at how people are interacting with whatever they are doing, even if they are just sitting and looking into space.
Lewis: Nobody hears of these people and yet everybody exploits what they have done.
Odundo: Then there are also the classical Greco-Roman pieces that allow depiction, you can draw on them and tell a story.
Lewis: Yes. [Laughs] That there is no heaven, you know, there is no ceiling up there, there is just infinite space.
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Odundo: Without that icing, the cake isn't perfect.
Lewis: Oh, of course, yes. Obviously. You are back in America.
Odundo: But I think it's crucial, particularly for the oxidized, terracotta red pieces.
Lewis: You know, some guy goes off in the desert and he spends his life just looking at all the plant life that grows here.
Odundo: Once you’ve got that object there, it also allows you to embellish more by adding, subtracting or extracting.
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Lewis: It is just if you are a two-dollar bettor, you are a two-dollar bettor and to bet ten frightens you to death and that if you continue to bet, say as I would bet like five and ten and not feel afraid to lose or picking a horse or stuff like that, or betting in a game.
Odundo: It’s very sculptural but it’s also that notion, that idea that you are the wheel.
Lewis: And this is true, you know, but we don't realize it.
Odundo: Then you touch the neck and open the rim so that it becomes more human and animated.
Lewis: And buy all the things I felt necessary to encourage me to go on and now I have a library of books that I want.