The Interview

Sebastien of the (chronically) awesome Chronically Sick, But Still Thinking I Think was kind enough to send me these great interview questions. I tried to answer them, and the aftermath follows the period at the end of this sentence.

1. How do you come up with ideas for your artwork? or is it spontaneous? or hard to explain?

Well, I think my ideas come from things I see. Any creativity in my drawings is the result of some horrendous mistake that I tried to clean up. For example: I’ll start drawing a guy in a suit and then not really want to draw his face, so I’ll put a gigantic beard that turns into a flowery bush thing instead of a face (I’m going to put that image up sometime soon hopefully). That technique works really well with all sorts of images. If I have a line that doesn’t look right, I’ll just turn it into some sort of plant. The only exception is when I draw birds, because I love birds so much I can’t mess with them. When I draw, things that I have been thinking about always work their way onto the page. It’s very therapeutic. So I would say above anything, my work is spontaneous.

2. You are supposed to run zigzags if a crocodile is chasing you. Do you think that's true? If not, what's your method for escaping a crocodile that's chasing you?

I saw an episode of Mythbusters about that, and I think they busted the myth that you’re supposed to run in zigzags. I know if I were running in a zigzag pattern, I would more likely fall down than successfully run away. At least is seems that way. But crocodiles really don’t seem that smart (I’m probably wrong about that though), so I would just act like a tree or something. I’m tall and skinny, so I think I could pull that off. If the crocodile didn’t fall for my tree act, I would try to make noises like a poacher (I hear they grunt a lot) and talk about how I wanted some new Sunday shoes.

3. Who are some artists that inspire you? Why?

There are so many artists who inspire me, too many to name them all. I took an art class in high school for which we had to basically write about an artist every day for two years, so I went through a whole slew of great artists. I started with one of my childhood favorites, William Heath Robinson who was an illustrator (he worked from WW1 to WW2). From him I moved onto Norman Rockwell onto American printmakers. Then I found the book “Stencil Graffiti” by Tristan Manco at the same time I found Wooster Collective. Of the many street artists that I found who still inspire me, a few of them are: Arofish, 108, Akay, Swoon, Blek, Borf, Tano, Dave Kinsey, Sam Flores, Evol, Pisa73, and Revs. Street art got me into silkscreen, seeing as I really don’t have the passion to go around doing real graffiti. A lot of my work now is influenced by graphic designers like Ben Cronin. I love simplicity, so many of the artists I admire have that quality to their work (like Rolf).

4. What celebrity do you find most attractive? Why?

Sufjan Stevens. Hands down. I mean, I have a great girlfriend but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s such a cutie. He can wear a set of butterfly wings while still maintaining his rugged good looks. If that doesn’t declare his attractiveness, something with the world is dreadfully wrong (but that leads me to your next question).

5. Do you think there is a duckbill platypus conspiracy to take over the world? Or is it just an elaborate hoax?

I only hear bits and pieces, but I think one is the mayor of Sarajevo. If you don’t know much about history: Sarajevo is the place where stuff went down, which resulted in World War One. If those platypuses control the powder keg of Europe, I don’t know what we should do. We could go wage war in Bosnia, but that’s kinda cliché. Even if we did try to stop platypuses, did you know the males have giant poisonous barbs on their underbellies? I don’t even want to mess with that.

If you would like to be an interviewee:

* Leave a comment at my blog saying, “Interview me.” Include your blog URL.

* I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.

* You will update your weblog with the answers to the questions.

* You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

* When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.