Interview by John Freeborn
How did your art journey begin?
I started taking art classes after school in 5th grade. I always thought my mom had signed me up to keep me busy, but she later told me that I had asked to do it. I still have the work we did somewhere, some great lessons about perspective and color temperatures, but most importantly, I remember that the teacher served ice cream during class, so I was stoked.
Tell me a little bit about your work, and how you go about making it.
I’ve been more of a studio artist in recent years; I used to work on location a lot more. I still go outdoors often, but lately, I have been spending more time drawing in my sketchbook and gathering ideas to take back to the studio. This started to come about with some of the skate spots and other places where it just wouldn’t work to set up an easel (middle of a road, etc.), although I will if I can: I started the Pink Motel fishbowl on location and finished indoors. In the studio, I enlarge the drawing onto a canvas panel and develop it from there. I spend a lot of time working out the interplay of shapes and colors, two-dimensional vs. three-dimensional elements, but ultimately, I just want to make something that I find really interesting to look at, whether it’s a skatepark, somewhere in the desert, or a still life.
What are your creative influences?
Cézanne is the big one for me. I encountered him early on at The Barnes Foundation when I was at art school in Philly. A little later on, Diebenkorn, Georgia O’Keeffe, Pierre Bonnard, Agnes Pelton–generally, anyone who uses shapes and colors in a unique and personal way.
In skateboarding, there are tricks and style. Is there a parallel in art?
Tricks could maybe be equated to levels of difficulty or skill, like painting a simple cube compared to a human face or a rock n roll vs. kickflipping Wallenberg. Things are seen on a sliding scale as easier or more difficult. But style makes it more individual, more recognizable, more malleable. Like Gonz or Danny Way: both of those guys do some heavy stuff, but you recognize them in their creativity in how they approach the trick. That’s what I think makes it art, imprinting it with yourself. Anyone can paint a mountain, but the way Georgia O’Keeffe or Cézanne painted a mountain is uniquely their own channel. When Matisse paints a portrait, he upends the format of that genre, but it’s controlled chaos because he’s balancing all that color and design – it’s like watching Rodney Mullen do darkslides. What on earth? Rad. The style and simplicity of Ray Barbee or Tommy Guerrero cruising streets still make me want to go skate more than anything.
When you aren’t painting, what are you doing?
That’s a good question, as I spend most of my time painting or doing something that supports that. There’s the whole business side to art, to survival, that’s pretty unseen but necessary. I suppose camping and hiking—I like exploring remote parts of the California desert, and there are miles of it out there.
