“What is your favorite color?”

  “ Black is my favorite color.  I have dozens of paintings that use black as the dominant color. An artist can use black to create a beautiful portrait of a lover, or to write an eviction notice for a tenant. Black expresses everything and nothing with absolute clarity. It can render an idea with great subtlety and sensitivity, or hammer the thought home with passion and brutality. Black is the color of anger and sleep, and can draft any subject with photographic realism. Black is a solid surface, deep space, the sky, ocean, oblivion, emptiness, void,  extinction, or the embrace of eternity. Our lives begin and end there. Black is so fundamental and necessary to our basic existence that even the colorblind  can see it.


“What motivates you to create / where do you find inspiration?”

  “My first creative activity involved wooden blocks. Before I was old enough for school, we rented an apartment on a big truck farm with migrant workers. We didn’t have much money then, and my major toy was a set of wooden blocks that my father had meticulously cut and sanded. I worked on those blocks with a seriousness so intense that other kids left their toys at home to come over and play with my blocks. There is very little actual difference between my use of the old blocks and my future painting, the head space is very much the same.

My next major toy was pencil and paper. Whereas the blocks allowed me to pretend that I could make something from nothing, with pencil and paper I really could create something from nothing. In fact, I began creating pictures that were so real and shockingly vivid that I soon learned that the really fun drawings could never be shared with adults without triggering outrage and even punishment.

We moved around the state, and I went to a number of schools – where I used my artistic talent to show off, make friends, and win prizes. When I learned that Kurt Vonnegut was a cousin, I Immediately noticed the awe (and even fear) that relatives had for him and his fame. His writing allowed him to escape Indiana, and I became inspired to look for a similar exit ramp out of the state. Around the same time, I noticed my next inspiration – comic Lenny Bruce. Every time he appeared on live tv, adults hovered around nervously, whispering tabloid gossip about him, making fun of his appearance, pretending they understood his jokes, and snidely commenting “oh, now he’s an artist,” or “he actually thinks his act is some kind of art.” All I knew was that I understood his jokes, and they made me laugh. I started wearing black like him, and saying “I’m going to be an artist like him when I grow up, and use drugs and marry a stripper!” People thought I was joking, or using words that I didn’t understand.

Now my every free moment is taken up by painting or drawing. I paint for hours after work, until I get too cocky and mess something up, then call it quits for the night. I go to bed thinking “Oh no, I just created a monument to my lack of talent, now everyone will know the truth about me.” Then I get up in the morning, spend 5 minutes repairing the mistake, then leave for work thinking “I am the best, nothing can stop me now.” And then the cycle repeats itself.


“How is art important to society?”

  “Artists routinely explore the architecture of trauma and dislocation, loss and contemporary existential anxiety, the triumph over fear of death, our poetic and metaphysical narrative, instability, transformation, the death of histories and feelings, and turn all of this into beauty.

The artist is a creator of handmade gestures, each unique like a leaf in nature, singular in time and place, holding thoughts and  feelings beyond death and eternal irrelevance. They document the ephemeral and temporary, perfect in its reflection of damage and impermanence.”


                                                                                              “What is your favorite color?”














                                                “What motivates you to create / where do you find inspiration?”    














                                                                                            

                                                                                









                                                              








                                                                                          “How is art important to society?”






















                                                                   







“ Black is my favorite color.  I have dozens of paintings that use black as the dominant color. An artist can use black to create a beautiful portrait of a lover, or to write an eviction notice for a tenant. Black expresses everything and nothing with absolute clarity. It can render an idea with great subtlety and sensitivity, or hammer the thought home with passion and brutality. Black is the color of anger and sleep, and can draft any subject with photographic realism. Black is a solid surface, deep space, the sky, ocean, oblivion, emptiness, void,  extinction, or the embrace of eternity. Our lives begin and end there. Black is so fundamental and necessary to our basic existence that even the colorblind  can see it.









“My first creative activity involved wooden blocks. Before I was old enough for school, we rented an apartment on a big truck farm with migrant workers. We didn’t have much money then, and my major toy was a set of wooden blocks that my father had meticulously cut and sanded. I worked on those blocks with a seriousness so intense that other kids left their toys at home to come over and play with my blocks. There is very little actual difference between my use of the old blocks and my future painting, the head space is very much the same.

My next major toy was pencil and paper. Whereas the blocks allowed me to pretend that I could make something from nothing, with pencil and paper I really could create something from nothing. In fact, I began creating pictures that were so real and shockingly vivid that I soon learned that the really fun drawings could never be shared with adults without triggering outrage and even punishment.

We moved around the state, and I went to a number of schools – where I used my artistic talent to show off, make friends, and win prizes. When I learned that Kurt Vonnegut was a cousin, I Immediately noticed the awe (and even fear) that relatives had for him and his fame. His writing allowed him to escape Indiana, and I became inspired to look for a similar exit ramp out of the state. Around the same time, I noticed my next inspiration – comic Lenny Bruce. Every time he appeared on live tv, adults hovered around nervously, whispering tabloid gossip about him, making fun of his appearance, pretending they understood his jokes, and snidely commenting “oh, now he’s an artist,” or “he actually thinks his act is some kind of art.” All I knew was that I understood his jokes, and they made me laugh. I started wearing black like him, and saying “I’m going to be an artist like him when I grow up, and use drugs and marry a stripper!” People thought I was joking, or using words that I didn’t understand.

Now my every free moment is taken up by painting or drawing. I paint for hours after work, until I get too cocky and mess something up, then call it quits for the night. I go to bed thinking “Oh no, I just created a monument to my lack of talent, now everyone will know the truth about me.” Then I get up in the morning, spend 5 minutes repairing the mistake, then leave for work thinking “I am the best, nothing can stop me now.” And then the cycle repeats itself.










“Artists routinely explore the architecture of trauma and dislocation, loss and contemporary existential anxiety, the triumph over fear of death, our poetic and metaphysical narrative, instability, transformation, the death of histories and feelings, and turn all of this into beauty.

The artist is a creator of handmade gestures, each unique like a leaf in nature, singular in time and place, holding thoughts and  feelings beyond death and eternal irrelevance. They document the ephemeral and temporary, perfect in its reflection of damage and impermanence.”