07.06.2011
Q&A Session: Part 3
What music (if any) do you listen to when you create art?
It depends on my mood at the time. The music doesn’t really effect the art directly; I have made some of my darkest work listening to techno or something light. I would say some consistant albums on my playlist while working on art are:
- Stars – The Five Ghosts
- Stars – Up in our Bedroom, After the War
- Stars – Heart
- Stars – Set Yourself on Fire
- Los Campesinos! – We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed
- Los Campesinos! – Romance is Boring
- Broken Bells – Broken Bells
- David Bowie – Low
- David Bowie – Heathen
- David Bowie – Reality
- David Bowie – Earthling
- David Bowie – Hours
What inspires you the most for your art? movies? books? advertisements? people?
I would say the majority of my inspiration comes from my life. I think a lot of my art is me expressing emotions that I need to get out; whether positive or negative.
However out of the above, I would say people/art as a combination. More specifically: music. I hardly ever look at art work; in fact, I intentionally try to avoid it. I want my ideas to be 100% my own without question so I try not to look at other art. I do enjoy a few artists though… Sagmeister, Ranum, etc.
Would you ever do an artwork focused around a dragon? that’d be awesome!
Probably not, honestly. The “fantasy” genre of artwork doesn’t interest me much. Dragons, faeries, vampires, etc. are incredibly one dimensional to me. I have made a few vampire pieces, usually as a request. The closest thing I will likely come to this type of art is the Alice in Wonderland pics I did.
However… who knows what the future holds…
How much planning goes into your work? Do you tend to fly by the seat of your pants, think everything through in detail, or something in between?
I try not to plan anything. Planning a piece always leads to disappointment for me. It’s never as good as I wanted it to be. I typically wake up, get some breakfast and coffee and then sit down and focus on a single emotion. This emotion could be powered by a recent event in my life and then once I have the emotion, I focus on how that makes me feel and I start working. When I am firing on all cylinders with a single emotion, things will talk to me. A certain picture will stand out to me. I could have seen it 500 times before and ignored it but this time, it’s the one. Emotion changes the human perception greatly so I let it fuel my art.
Do you answer the questions or just collect them?
What do you think?
When did you decide you wanted to be an artist?
I’m not sure I ever conciously decided to be an artist. I know at one point when I was around 17, I became much more interested in using photoshop as a tool for self expression. At some point I decided to make that my living, but I’m not sure I, at any point, decided to be an artist.
As a kid I wanted to be an animator at Disney. Perhaps it’s something that has always been with me. However as most people know, I think the term “artist” is bullshit and meaningless…
Where did you grow up at?
I grew up in Niceville, Florida. Bluewater Bay to be specific. Back then there was absolutely nothing in Bluewater Bay, so my friend Clayton and I would spend every day finding new ways to tear the world apart.