Oral history interview with William T. Wiley
odd: label: General
content: Originally recorded on 8 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 15 digital wav files. Duration is 7 hrs., 32 min.
name: label: Interviewee
content: Wiley, William T., 1937-2021
label: Interviewer
content: Karlstrom, Paul J.
label: Names
content: Nauman, Bruce, 1941-
topic: label: Topic
content: Painters -- California -- Interviews
label: Topic
content: Art, Modern -- 20th century -- California -- San Francisco Bay Area
label: Topic
content: Funk
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
creator: label: Interviewee
content: Wiley, William T., 1937-2021
label: Interviewer
content: Karlstrom, Paul J.
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: William T. Wiley (1937-2021) was a painter and helped found the funk art movement. He was also an educator at U.C. Davis. Wiley lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay area.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 221 Pages (Transcript)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1997 October 8-November 20
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.wiley97
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Pages
label: Type
content: Sound recordings
label: Type
content: Interviews
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Sound recordings
label: Genre/Form
content: Interviews
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: An interview of William T. Wiley conducted 1997 October 8-November 20, by Paul J. Karlstrom, for the Archives of American Art, in Woodacre, California.
label: Scope and Contents
content: Wiley discusses the importance of the rural setting of his Marin County studio/home and his corresponding lifestyle to his world view and its reflection in his art. He describes his itinerant youth and experience at the San Francisco Art Institute, and his teaching years at UC Davis, which had attracted a faculty that included Robert Arenson and Wayne Thiebaud. Among the graduate students was Bruce Nauman, who he discusses in length and credited with influencing some of his own ideas at the time. He also acknowledges the influence of the assemblage movement through relationships with George Herms and Bruce Conner. 

The final session addressed the communal nature of the Bay Area art scene and the differences between East and West Coast art worlds. The interview ends with a discussion of Wiley's iconography and motifs frequently encountered in his works and how their changing meaning are intended to encourage thoughts on visual and verbal complexities as reflections of shifting perception and experience.