Interview with Robert Francis Carter

q)So, can you tell me a little about yourself? Full name, age, some background info, etc?

a)My full name is Robert Francis Carter. I was born in St. Albans England 1973, however I was only 2 years old when my parents moved our family to the fairly frosty realm of Ontario Canada, where I have lived ever since. I hate shaving, I love cooking and I’m somewhat of an introvert.


q)How did you get started making art?

a)My father is an amazing artist although he was never one by trade. Also my three other brothers are incredibly talented. I guess it runs in the family. So really I began my journey into the world of art right from the get go. I was constantly doodling on anything and everything growing up. Eventually I got bored of doodles alone and so enrolled in the Sheridan College School of Art and Design in 2000. I’ve been a full time freelance illustrator for 4 years now.


q)How would you describe your art?

a)Well for the most part the work I create are illustrations either for editorial magazines, books, advertising etc. So I’m creating images within the restrictions of the clients needs and wants. At times it can be frustrating but it’s also very rewarding and offers different challenges than when I do work on my own personal paintings. In any case almost all the work I do incorporates and revolves around the human figure. I love painting faces and the myriad of moods and expressions they offer. Another aspect of my work is texture. I’ve always been drawn to textured surfaces. I try to emulate a certain ‘roughness’ I guess you could say in the way I apply paint. My work varies from being quite conceptual to straightforward portraits with subjects ranging from realistic to the surreal.

q)Where do you get the inspiration for your art?

a)Inspiration is everywhere but I love insects and how when viewed under a magnifying glass they transform from annoying spots and specs to magnificent complex creatures full of amazing colour and detail. People especially their faces, and dreams.


5) What are you working on now?

I’m working on an unusual portrait of Tenacious D (Jack Black and Kyle Gass comedic musical duo) for the cover illustration of Synthesis magazine. An Art, Music and Culture publication in the States.


q)Are there some web sites that you would like to recommend? Artists, art communities,...!?

a)www.heatherhorton.com My girlfriend and an incredible painter
www.artdorks.com Art community
www.drawn.ca Wealth of art links and reviews.


q)What’s your favorite medium to work in, and why?

a)Oil because it’s so versatile. I also still really enjoy the first medium I ever used… The good old pencil!

q)What advice would you give to younger up and coming artist?

a)Not to give up! I've seen so many friends and former classmates try illustrating or selling fineart for a year or so and finally say to hell with this because they weren't getting much work and call it quits. If you truly know that being an artist is what you want to do, then keep working at it! Continually refine your skills and push your talent. Recognize and admit your weaknesses then work on solving them. Also know your strengths and play to them. If you have faith in yourself and your abilities and work hard on bettering your skills, success is sure to follow.


q)What is your personal definition of life and art and everything else in between?

a)It’s all one and the same. Enjoy it, learn from it and try to leave a little mark of your own once you’re gone.

q)If your persona were immortalized as a cartoon character, who would it be?

a)Probably something like Kenny from South Park.


q)What are your artistic influences?

a)As far as my artistic influences are concerned I have many, which I continually add to as I discover (or re-discover) great artists. Some of which include terrific painters like John Singer Sargent, Egon Schiele, Norman Rockwell, Lucian Freud, Steve Huston and Heather Horton. Also amazing illustrators like Kent Williams, Ray Caesar, Phil Hale, Sterling Hundley, James Jean and Joe Morse. I could go on.


q)How are the reactions on your work in general?

a)Very positive thankfully. Which helps to keep me going. However there are a few political pieces I’ve done which sparked some criticism from those who didn’t agree with my particular statement. Which is totally fine, in fact it’s kind of what I was after. I always find it interesting how people can get so worked up over the fact that someone doesn’t share the same opinion as him or herself.


q)What are you doing when you are not creating art?

a)Movies, reading, hanging out with friends. The usual.


q)Tell us about a recent dream you had.

a)Well, the last dream I can really remember was a crazy one (As most dreams tend to be I guess) I was at some outdoor function where there were many people in attendance. Nothing strange about that, until I realized everyone was walking on their hands… including myself! It was as if this were the natural way of doing things. The way in which all mankind have operated since the beginning of life on earth! It dawned on me within the dream that existence would be so much easier if we just used our feet to walk on instead of our hands. So I turned myself around and demonstrated to the crowd how much better and easier this was thinking I would be dubbed genius! But the crowd turned on me. It was as if what I was doing was seen as some heinous crime against humanity. The crowd became an angry mob! They started yelling at me throwing insults and garbage and anything else they could manage to toss my way despite balancing on sore swollen palms. Then I heard “KILL HIM!!” So I ran for it, I ran for my life! But not on tired arms but with strong fast legs! There was no way they could catch me! They should have listened to me.

q)What is freedom to you as an artist?

a)Being able to create art for a living is all the freedom I need.


q)Are there any particular works you’ve done that stand out as your favorites?

a)An Illustration I did not long ago called ‘What A Waste’ which was intended to be the cover for American Prospect magazine got pulled at the last minute due to it being too controversial. It makes a strong statement on an important issue, which I believe strongly in. Also my Johnny Cash portrait which has been very successful for me. It was also one of the very first painting done in what I call my monotone style, a style of illustrating which I’m becoming known for.


q)Last Books you read?

a)Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke


q)Last records you bought?

a)Well the last actual vinyl record I bought was probably the Breakdance 2: Electric boogaloo sound track record in the 80’s. But the last album I purchased via itunes was, Blockhead: Downtown Science

q)Who are your favourite artists & your favourite galleries?

a)Steve Huston & Heather Horton.
The Eleanor Ettinger gallery

q)Which do you think make good art good? Originality, or style? And, why?

a)It makes no difference to me. Good art, as I see it, is something that moves you or inspires you. Something that makes you want to look it and remember it. It doesn’t matter what it’s born from; originality, style or whatever else.


q)Your contacts….E-mail…Links

a)You can view my online portfolio website at www.crackedhat.com and reach me via email at rob@crackedhat.com

Interview with Leylagoor

Q)So, can you tell me a little about yourself? Full name, age, some background info, etc?

A)Leylagoor- my name is a mix of my hybridation; half iranian, half french/belgish. I'm born between the lake and the mountains, in Geneva in 1976 where I let grow my irresistible attraction for primary material like paper and pencil, supporting by a family of artists and great art lovers. But at the age of 20, I was turning around like a lion in a too small cage, so I left for France where I did the Artdecorative school of Strasbourg in illustration..I experienced most of exciting things out of school; puppets theater, installations, exhibitions, edition, art competition, art residency...

Q)How did you get started making art?

A) Naturally, as I first open an eye on my hand, and have enough force to take a pen.

Q)How would you describe your art?

A)The Artwork build the world and that world is made of migrations, movements, transformations. In that proliferation of forms the eye must capture the detail which is the mark of the prodigious invention of life.

Q)Where do you get the inspiration for your art?

A)Some images or sounds meet in dreams or between two white pages. I let it flow as I can, my hand follows. The fate makes well things, conduct me through its marvellous path...

Q)What are you working on now?

A)Apparition-Disparition of portraits on white textile..and drawings for a first solo exhibition in 2007 in Paris normally..

Q)Are there some web sites that you would like to recomend? Artists, art communities, xxx,...!?

A)The great guide art constellations www.lewub.com and others sites on my links page http://www.leylagoor.com/-liens

Q)What's your favorite medium to work in, and why?

A)The pencil, for it spontaneous reaction on surface and a rollerball for the soft slide sensation and sharpness

Q)What advice would you give to younger up and coming artist?

A)Just trust your instinct, it will never deceive you

Q)What is your personal definition of life and art and everything else in between?

A)Art is my food, everything in between participate to intensify the taste

Q)Take us inside your process a little bit. How do you begin a piece? What inspires the concept?

A) I have no « protocole ». A medium as a dream surface has its own attraction power. A trace on a paper can countain an image. That's my current way to begin...Human Faces are a source of inspiration; place of the bottomless mystery of the Human being..

Q)What are your artistic influences?

A)The flemish primitive paintings and the Italian ones, the surrealism, the figurative painting in general, and many underground artist of our time

Q)How are the reactions on your work in general?

A) In general, people do a zoom movement with there bodies or eyes when they face my drawing. They seem to be trying to penetrate that particular detail in the croudy images, that sometimes makes them smile.That point that is strange and always remember themselves trhough faces..They choose to take time to enter the details, or just embrace quickly the surface, as they want, but most of the time they are curious..

Q)What are you doing when you are not creating art?

A)Playing music, dancing, and living as I can..

Q)What are some of the greatest challenges that you think artists face today?

A)Continuing to follow they own way in spite of the difficulty of being an artist in that crazy capitalist society. Try to conjugate life anf artist life. Be supporting from galleries more than one commercial time, and keep the integrity till the end.

Q)What is freedom to you as an artist?

A)Freedom is fragile and must be preserve, so try to keep integrity and if you have concessions to do, not sacrifice the part of art, the best that you can do.To act according to its instinct.

Q)Are there any particular works you've done that stand out as your favorites?

A)My first oil painting portrait of a friend

Q)Last Books you read?

A)« Ratures » from Stephane Blanquet www.blanquet.com a little treasure!« Eloge du visible » by Jean Clair,« Oviri, écrits d'un sauvage » by Paul Gauguin and many books that wait half opened on my night table..

Q)Last records you bought?

A)last year, « cLouddead » from Dose one

Q)Who are your favourite artists & Your favourite galleries?

A)Titien, Hans Memling, Rembrandt, Mi Youren, Le Caravage, Jacques Callot, De Chiricco, Francis Bacon, Roland Topor, Chris Hipkiss, Lukas Liederer, Stéphane Blanquet, Rineke Dijkstra, Bill Viola, Javier Perez, the list is too long to continue..

Q)Which do you think make good art good? originality, or style? And, why?

A) The power of evocation of a subject and the harmony of the composition. The particular and original point of view that surprises you, the impact left on the retina, the breath of life that stimulate certain artworks, the manner they are inserted in the space, the part given to dreams.. The artists who dare completely, who take the life entirely.. where beauty inspires..

Q)Do you get emotionally attached to your work and do you miss your work when it is sold?

A)Sometimes I get attached to some paintings, because they ask for a particular attention, and take time to finish, but I am not often confronted to that because I'm not still in a rythm of sale for to speak about it. But I'll see..

Q)Your contacts….E-mail…links

A)my website is www.leylagoor.com, where you can see the drawings. You can find my contact in it.

Interview with Andrew Ek

Q)So, can you tell me a little about yourself? Full name, age, some background info, etc?

A)Well, let's see here, my name is Andrew Ek. I was born in Evanston, Illinois in 1975. Encouraged by my mother, I began drawing at an early age, mostly dinosaurs and animals. Then in the autumn of 1982, after my father took his own life, my drawings became a bit darker and I became obsessed with horror movies, literature and comics. This led to my interest in special effects and I enrolled in the Industrial Design Technology program at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh after graduating high school. I learned a little bit of everything from beauty & gore makeup effects to life casts & molds to designing spaceships! Somewhat disappointed in the structure of the classes and recieving news of yet more traumatic family matters, I dropped out of the program and began focusing on developing my oil painting techniques.

Q)How did you get started making art?

A) It was probably my mother who got me started. But, my older brother, Mike, was also drawing these cartoonish human figures with animal heads and I had some close friends who were also pretty creative. I became seriously addicted to painting shortly after art school.

Q) How would you describe your art?

A) Magic realism.

Q)Where do you get the inspiration for your art?

A) Sometimes I use friends as models and photograph them. I'm also a magazine junky. I pour over magazines and certain images inspire me. I drive around a lot and take photos of places. The Hines VA Hospital series was inspired by some horrible contract work I was doing at the hospital over a period of 2 weeks. The building is located here in the Chicago suburbs and is approximately 1/2 mile long and standing at one end and gazing down the hallway, it appeared to be endless, which was intriguing to me. The place was rather deserted, except for random janitors and ghostly nurses pushing gurnees around, vanishing behind mazes of hallways.

Q)What are you working on now?

A) Right now I'm working on a new color cover for a pen & ink horror comic I illustrated 3 years ago called, "the Hand of Glory" -- a 22 page tour de force chronicling the misadventures of 2 witches. I hope to have it re-released sometime this year. I'm also working on a portrait of a mother and child. It's kind of funny to see the 2 paintings next to each other being such contrast in subject matter!

Q)Are there some web sites that you would like to recomend? Artists, art communities, xxx,...!?

A) http://www.headmagazine.co.uk

http://www.davidlynch.com

Q)What's your favorite medium to work in, and why?

A) Oils. I like the consistency and the fact that they dry very slowly. My original vision for a piece is altered over time as the oils dry.

Q)What advice would you give to younger up and coming artist?

A) Try to keep a positive attitude and be persistent! The art world is quite possibly the most bizarre market ever. They don't teach the business aspect in art school for some reason.

Q)What is your personal definition of life and art and everything else in between?

A) Life should be lived to the fullest because you never know what will happen tomorrow.

Q)Take us inside your process a little bit. How do you begin a piece? What inspires the concept?

A) Hmmm... My process varies a little bit from piece to piece, but generally it begins with an image or a place that strikes me in a profound way. A vision develops in my mind and I try to translate it onto the canvas.

Q)What are your artistic influences?

A) I am a sponge.

Q)How are the reactions on your work in general?

A) People seem to enjoy them and that makes me happy.

Q)What are you doing when you are not creating art?

A) Driving in my car, spending time with friends, dreaming up new ideas.

Q)What are some of the greatest challenges that you think artists face today?

A) There's fierce competition these days so, staying focused, finding enough money for supplies, balancing work and relationships can be difficult. Luckily, slides are being phased out.

Q)What is freedom to you as an artist?

A) The perfect harmony of being able to

paint when and what I want and live off it.

Q)Are there any particular works you've done that stand out as your favorites?

A) "Waiting for the House to Burn Down" is a good one.

Q)Last Books you read?

A) "Towelhead", by Alicia Erian

Q)Last records you bought?

A) "Ghost Plants", by Thuja

Q)Who are your favourite artists & Your favourite galleries?

A) Edward Hopper, Tamara de Lempicka, Pre-Raphaelites, Eric Fischl, to name a few. I'm not sure I have a favourite gallery but, I was in Detroit a couple days ago and saw a great exhibit at CPOP Gallery. In Chicago, Razor's Edge Boutique has some beautiful work!

Q)Which do you think make good art good? originality, or style? And, why?

A) Well, probably a little of both but, I would lean a little more to style. Style is a signature. It's what separates you from the pack.

Q)Do you get emotionally attached to your work and do you miss your work when it is sold?

A) I refer to my paintings as my children and, yes, some I like better than others, but really, it's better if they leave the nest, go out into the world and be productive citizens of Earth! Maybe some of them will make it and be able to support me when I'm old and withered!

Q)Your contacts….E-mail…links

A)email: ek_images@yahoo.com
URL: http://www.andrewek.com

Interview with Fay Ku

Q)So, can you tell me a little about yourself? Full name, age, somebackground info, etc?

A)My full but very short name is Fay Ku. I am 32 years old. I was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and lived with my grandmother until I was three years old and joined my parents who were already in America. My family was small, just me and my parents, until my brother was born when I was seven. We moved to a suburban neighbourhood in Maryland with a pretty substantial Chinese-American population by my teen years, however, before then, we moved alot and because my parents were shy and felt awkward in a mostly white population of Oklahoma, Texas, etc, we kept to ourselves. We also didn't have any family nearby. It was a fairly isolated childhood, so I think my upbringing was something not typically American or even typically Chinese-American; instead it was its own unique hermetic world.

Q)How did you get started making art?

A)Because I was an only child for so long, and because of the relative social isolation of my family, I had to learn to amuse myself from an early age. I became good at things that I could do alone, including painting and drawing. As a child of immigrants who pushed me to become a doctor or engineer, etc., I didn't realize that becoming an artist could be a legitimate (albeit difficult) career choice until high school when I signed up for an arts magnate program.

Q)How would you describe your art?

A)Psychological, narrative, figurative. There is a term in psychoanalysis that I find very apt: "the unthought known."

Q)Where do you get the inspiration for your art?

A)Imagination, stories I have heard, myths and folklore -- and often just by looking around. I like the instant when I am looking at something or hearing something and it hits me on a deep intuitive or emotional level, but without realizing intellectually why, or even the meaning. The art then is the working out of why that story or event we saw or heard has resonance.


Q)What are you working on now?

A)I like to have a couple to a few things going simultaneously, in case I get stuck on one thing. Right now I am working on a series inspired by East Asian screen and hand scroll paintings. The images are related to the idea of war - of people at war with one another, the elements, even animals. I wanted to create one series made up of individual large pieces: each piece is its own independent work, yet area also part of a larger context. Right now there is about several "panels" or episodes, and I imagine I could go one and make a total of a dozen or so. I'll attach the first few so you can see. I am also trying to work very small, create little jewel-like miniatures. Finally, I have started to think about creating a large, three-dimensional paper scupltures.

Q)Are there some web sites that you would like to recomend? Artists, art communities, xxx,...!?

A)Alas, ironically, since I used to work in the Internet industry, I know little about art websites. I could recommend a really great local artist community of great, inspiring group of artists. Their website is http://www.open-ground.org. Also, a few years ago, I co-founded a women's art group, The Exhibitionists. I left the group when I started graduate school in 2003, but I think there is still a core group who are continuing the group, though I don't think the website has been updated in a while: http://www.exhibitionists-nyc.com/

Q) What's your favorite medium to work in, and why?

A)Well, paper is the most familiar and the most intimate, because it has a memory -- much more so than any other support. Conceptually, it serves my own work best, at least for now. But really, I like everything, actually. I would like to eventually have the luxury of being able to explore other mediums more fully.

Q) What advice would you give to younger up and coming artist?

A)Ha ha, I thought I was a younger, up and coming artist. However, let me try to answer anyways.

First, if you really do not have to be (and I mean HAVE to be) an artist, don't.

Second, if you find that this is really what you must do, then focus on your work. Focus on finding your own arena, your own vision. Do not think about exhibiting until you are ready. There is too much of an emphasis, at least in America, on the young, emerging superstar. That should not be why you are making art.

Third, learn all you can about the world. Whether you consciously decide, everything will go into your art. So the more you know and think about, the richer your work will become.

Q) What is your personal definition of life and art and everything else in between?

A)I like what Rainer Maria Rilke said, and I take the liberty of paraphrasing him: leave the world a little better than you found it, whether it be by a poem, a child or a garden. I suppose that is not exactly a definition, but I do hold it as a kind of mantra. Let me try again... I am an atheist, and I have a very non-anthropomorphic (which is actually very Eastern though I do not ascribe particularly to any Asian religion or philosophy) view of the universe as something inscrutable. Therefore, I don't see the point to having any sort of meaning or definition. Other than that, I find it valuable and necessary for myself to pursue an experience (not meaning) of life.

Q) Take us inside your process a little bit. How do you begin a piece?What inspires the concept?

A)Certain experiences stick uneasily long after they happen, because some part of it has not been yet reconciled. I call this quality "having residue." I usually have little mental notes of these "residues," though, it may take a while before I find the proper visual component. Usually the problem is "solved" for me by looking around or reading or watching film.

Q) What are your artistic influences?

A)Goodness, I'm pretty omnivorous -- we artists like to "steal" from everybody. Let me try to narrow it down ... I love alot of folk art. Henry Darger, of course, comes to mind. I love the intensity of concentration, despite the lack of skill or training. I love the will behind much of that art. Although I am Chinese, and have much affinity with their tendency towards the symbolic and the refined, sinuous line, I actually prefer the wildness Japanese art, as well as their refinement. I love the encapsulated world of the Indian and Persian miniatures, and the almost whimsical, schematic drawings of native Pacific Northwest art and Native American drawings of around the 19th century. I love the generalized, simple forms of La Tour, and the icy strangeness of Bronzino.

Q) How are the reactions on your work in general?

A)I don't know! I laugh because I don't think there are that many people familiar with my work yet. In any case, I only get to hear the nice compliments. No one has emailed me or come up to me during my opening and told me that they hated my work -- though I would be very interested in hearing what criticism he/she could give me. The truth is, there hasn't been that much writing on my work, so I don't know.

Q) What are you doing when you are not creating art?

A)I have to admit that I am pretty obsessed; I am constantly thinking about what I am working on, how to make it better, what will I do next. That takes up a lot of time.But I do like to read, though probably I don't dedicate enough time to that. I have a boyfriend who lives in Connecticut, a couple hours away. Though we don't see each other every weekend, still quite a lot of my spare time has been spent maintaining this long-distance relationship, being on the phone, etc. Mostly, I find myself alone often. I love walking around the city, going to museums, book stores - I've dreamt of living in New York since I was five years old, and even after living here over ten years, I am still very much in love with the city. I take African dance class a couple times a week, and I try to make it to yoga once a week. One thing I don't do enough is spending time with good friends. I love having dinner or drinks and good conversation.

Q)What are some of the greatest challenges that you think artistsface today?

A)Commercialization.

Q) What is freedom to you as an artist?

A)I don't think I like the way this question is phrased ... because artists do experience freedom, in our studios. At least, that's how it should be -- if you don't feel free, then something's not right. For me, everything else, how financially precarious I am living, how lonely and alone I have to be, everything else is the price paid for this very unique and privileged freedom that I have to be completely myself, and to follow as far as I can my own vision. I don't think many others can say they have this.

Q) Are there any particular works you've done that stand out as yourfavorites?

A)Yes, She's Out to Get You was the very first of my mature body of work. Kiss (2004) Part-Reptile (2005), the preparatory sketch for Parade (2005), and Tiger Girls (2005). And I always think, though not necessarily in hindsight, that whatever I am working on presently may be the bests. However, I think, though it may be too early to tell, that the current War Series may be the strongest so far.

Q) Last Books you read?

A)I am currently in the middle of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain. I had been reading Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, but had to take a break. Before that, I think it was Iris Murdoch's The Nice and the Good. Also, I just finished my Master's thesis (my second, in Art History - I have another in Studio Arts), so I had to do quite a lot of academic reading on Chinese history, religion and traditional paintings.

Q) Last records you bought?

A)I am not an avid music person; I cannot remember the last time I bought music. In fact, I don't like listening to music while working. I listen to either NPR or baseball. However, I do know I want to buy the latest Ali Farka Toure's album that just came out. Also, I want to find some good Mongolian or Central Asian traditional music.

Q) Who are your favourite artists & Your favourite galleries?

A)I adore Amy Cutler's work, and I know that our work is very similar. It was a bit of a shock to discover her. She's represented by Leslie Tonkanow + Projects, which is my favorite Chelsea gallery in terms of the artists being represented. Another interesting gallery is The Proposition, which represents my friend Shinique Smith, who is amazing, as well as Kyoung Jeon whom I've met before. I also love Cai Guo Qiang, Wangechi Mutu, Sarah Sze. and fifty other artists whom I cannot think of right this moment.

Q) Which do you think make good art good? originality, or style? And,why?

A)I don't feel comfortable with such general qualifications. Neither alone, definitely. What I look for is that the person really wants to say something, and something real, and then a certain vulnerability and intensity in the way he/she says it. Usually, both originality and a certain style will come out of this concentrated and personal effort.

Q) Do you get emotionally attached to your work and do you miss yourwork when it is sold?

A)I have to be ready to part with the work, but usually, I tend to be pretty ruthless. As a "starving" artist, I need to sell work for practical reasons.

Q)Your contacts..E-mail.links

A)I don't mind giving out my cell phone , which is 917.701.3782, but I will not pick up unless I recognize the number. Also, I don't have the ability to call internationally. So email is best: fayku@hotmail.com

http://www.fayku.com/

Interview with Dame Darcy

Q)So, can you tell me a little about yourself? Full name, age, some background info, etc?

A)I'm 97 years old and originally from Idaho Falls, Idaho. I majored in film at the San Francisco Art Institute where I studied animation. Then I got published by Fantagraphics and started working as a freelance illustrator and animator in NY. I had a premonition that NY would get bombed. I moved to Los Angeles in 2001. I started getting my novels published while in LA.

Q)How did you get started making art?

A)I always drew sequential stories and images as a kid; comics, fairy tales, ghost stories.

Q)How would you describe your art?

A)I'm officially in the genre of "dark fantasy", which is a lot like my real life.

Q)Where do you get the inspiration for your art?

A)Dadaism, Surrealism, Victorian fashion and architecture, Pre-Raphaelite imagery and also growing up in a really cold, dark, desolate place with beautiful nature.

Q)What are you working on now?

A)Right now we're booking a tour for the Halloween season posted in the event section of http://damedarcy.com. Also I'm promoting my latest graphic novel JANE EYRE, published by Putnam Penguin. I'm performing in both the US east and west coasts with my darkwave band DEATH BY DOLL with Aaron Detroit and Christopher Hydinger. I'm also promoting DOLLERIUM, a book and DVD produced by Presspop based in Tokyo.

Q)Are there some web sites that you would like to recommend? Artists, art communities, xxx,...!?

A)I really love http://livedigital.com, http://postpunkjunk.com, http://davidlynch.com, and http://postsecret.blogspot.com

Q)What's your favorite medium to work in, and why?

A)Animation because it's alchemy, you can make anything come to life.

Q)What advice would you give to younger up and coming artists?

A)Don't wait to get exactly what you want, do what you can with what's around you and build up to what you ultimately really want.

Q)What is your personal definition of life and art and everything else in between?

A)Life is art. Love is freedom. The man is the devil.

Q)If your persona were immortalized as a cartoon character, who would it be?

A)Richard Dirt from Meatcake! Duh!

Q)What are your artistic influences?

A)Gibson girls, everything out of the Sears Roebuck catalogue from 1899, silent films, Jan Svankmajer, Art Noveau, Erte, Edward Gorey, and King Ludwig of Bavaria.

Q)How are the reactions on your work in general?

A)Most people who get in touch with me really like it, but if people don't like it I never really know. I don't get hate mail or bad reviews anything, as far as I know.

Q)What are you doing when you are not creating art?

A)Running my business, marketing it, hanging out with cute girls, and surfing.

Q)Tell us about a recent dream you had.

A)Here's a recent one: My friend who just died and I were doing a cabaret show and our mutual friends were there looking all embarrassed because she was rifling through all the costumes and props and she looked like herself but she was clearly dead. She didn't know she was dead or that her skin was gray and that she looked frightening. In life she had a tattoo which covered her entire back which was a demon with a skull splitting open and more demons spilling out but in the dream it was a different tattoo of craggy black mountains and a river that looked like the Styx river. I said, "You changed your tattoo". She said, "Yeah I tattooed over that old thing, this is a picture of the afterlife." But I thought there really was no difference.

Q)What is freedom to you as an artist?

A)To be respected and have the business end running smoothly and organized enough that there's money coming in and that I don't have to do anything besides be an artist, which, by the way, I haven't reached that place. However things are much easier now.

Q)Are there any particular works you've done that stand out as your favorites?

A)I really like Frightful Fairytales and my new Jane Eyre book. I love Meatcake #5 a lot for some reason. I like my painting THE DARK KISS a lot, too and my animation GOLDEN SHOES.

Q)Last Books you read?

A)Anne Sexton's TRANSFORMATIONS

Q)Last records you bought?

A)The Skidoo soundtrack, Walter Carlos' adaptations of Bach, and Glass Candy.


Q)Who are your favourite artists & Your favourite galleries?

A)Artists: Camille Rose Garcia, Liz McGrath, Rita Ackerman, Clayton Bros., and Matthew Barney. Galleries: Wacko in LA, Milk in NYC, Deitch in NYC, Copro Nason in LA and Track 16 in LA.

Q)Which do you think make good art good? originality, or style? And, why?

A)I think whether someone's trained or not, if the soul comes through, it's really great. I love classically trained artists like Klimt and Dali but I really love folk and naïve art too. The best naïve art I ever saw was this quilt made by a black slave woman from the South. It was all black, with crucifixes and burning scenes. The best goth stuff ever, but she clearly wasn't a trained artist.

Q)Your contacts..E-mail.Links

A) http://Damedarcy.com ! For all your Dame Darcy needs!

Interview with Stuart Semple

Q)So, can you tell me a little about yourself? Full name, age, some background info, etc?

A)I’m Stuart Semple, I’m old enough to know better and I prefer foregrounds to backgrounds.

Q)How did you get started making art?

A)I’ve made things for as long as I can remember. When I was a very young child my grandmother gave me some oil paints, I used ot make paintings of Van Gogh and Monet with those paints and a stick. In 1999 I became very ill and nearly died. It was art that saved me because I realized it was one of the only things worth living for, since then I have made art my life, sort of like trying to repay a debt to it.

Q)How would you describe your art?

A)I’m useless at describing it. They are visual things and written language doesn’t translate to them that well. Vaguely, they are figurative paintings, often with bright colours and words on them. It’s best to look at them, to get an idea really.

Q)Where do you get the inspiration for your art?

A)Magazines, internet, music videos, pop songs, over heard conversations. But I group those fragments acording to my emotions at the time, so it all starts with a feeling.

Q)What are you working on now?

A)Well I’m just putting the finishing touches on some paintings for an exhibition during the Sao Paulo Biennial in Brazil. This one’s a piece called ‘is anybody out there’. These are all to do with my feeling of being alone, like a painting’s out there to communicate. Like I’m always speaking out but very rarely is there a reply that comes back. A bit like tipping paint into a void.

Q)Are there some web sites that you would like to recommend? Artists, art communities, xxx,...!?

A)That’s so vast. I don’t tend to spend too long online looking at art. This is a chance to plug some guys who’s works I really like. www.micallef.co.uk , www.slowlydownward.com , www.dontmagazine.com, www.ayce.tv , www.thisheartsonfire.com , www.grahamdolphin.co.uk I find that lot inspiring maybe some of your readers will too.

Q)What's your favorite medium to work in, and why?

A)Paint, spraypaint, charcoal. Actually you know charcoal is something I love. It’s the one things that you can get so much out of. One little stick contains every tone you need. It’s weird because I’ve used it forever but it keeps opening up to me. Just yesterday I found something new to do with it. If I was stuck on a dessert island, a stick of charcoal would do the trick for me.


Q)What advice would you give to younger up and coming artist?

A)If you love making things, make them. If you’re after a career don’t expect art to do it. If you want to be an art star leave art school and do a marketing degree, read about finance. Generally though, if you’re expecing some sort of lifestyle there are much easier ways to get it than this.

Q)What is your personal definition of life and art and everything else in between?

A)Life is being alive, breathing and moving and being able to do stuff. It’s the flip side to death. Art is something that I have no real clue how to define. I don’t know what that is. I’ll have a go though... an object or idea that has no other direct useful function, that may entertain or perhaps provoke or induce an aesthetic experience. That it’s creator or it’s observer has assigned the category of ‘art’ to. However due to it’s inherent subjective nature it could just as well be something that transcends my previous description. Everything else in between, well that’s just the bits between bits, random detritus, objects, silence and death.

Q)If your persona were immortalized as a cartoon character, who would it be?

A)Who knows, if I would be a super hero I’d like to be Clark Kent, then I could be all smart and businesslike during the day and at night save the world. That’s not a cartoon character though. Lets have Christopher Robin from Winnie the Pooh.

Q)What are your artistic influences?

A)I honestly try not to refer to other artists, I think that just causes a continual art loop. I’m bored of art that’s about art. I prefer to look to life and the things that are around me. I’m aware of the history and what other artists do. There are artists I admire, but there are also musicians and filmmakers I admire a lot more. I’m going to say Thom Yorke from Radiohead. I’m going to say Warhol, Jack Kerouak, Gus Van Sant. But there’s hundreds of things that flow in and out it changes almost hourly.



Q)How are the reactions on your work in general?

A)I realized that people are always looking at places I’ve been. They are watching the past. I’ve already made the stuff that they react to. I don’t listen to reaction because it’s only an opinion on where I’ve already gone. It’s irrelevant how people react because it’s already made.

Q)What are you doing when you are not creating art?

A)Thinking about creating art.

Q) Tell us about a recent dream you had.

A)I can’t. They are too elaborate. I’d seriously be here all day. They are always really vivid and so close to real life situations that they are believable.


Q)What is freedom to you as an artist?

A)The ability to make what I want when I want without the pressure to have to do it for demand.


Q)Are there any particular works you've done that stand out as your favorites?

A)Hard to say really, because my mind is already way ahead of them by the time they are complete. I’m never totally satisfied with them. I made one recently called ‘Monster’ it was huge. I guess that’s one that I like quite a lot of at the moment.

Q)Last Books you read?

A)I’ve been reading a book called ‘Tipping Point’. Penny Broadhurst’s book of poetry. The Damien Hirst ‘on my way to work’ for like the 10th time. I have lots of books on the go actually.

Q)Last records you bought?

A)I buy so many but the last GREAT one I bought was Thom Yorke’s ‘Eraser’. It’s brilliant.


Q)Who are your favorite artists & Your favorite galleries?

A)There’s so many.... I could write pages. Galleries that help artists to make things they couldn’t do otherwise. And artists who keep moving, Jake and Dinos, Graham Dolphin, Stanley Donwood, Anthony Micallef. Galleries like Bischoff Weiss, Victoria Miro, the photographers gallery in London. Rosy Wilde.

Q)Which do you think make good art good? originality, or style? And, why?

A)Neither. People get caught by style, it’s a trap for artists. And people strive so hard to be original that they forget what it is to express who they are. I don’t see what the big deal about having to be the first to do something new is, I prefer people who refine things. And stylishness well it’s often forced. I think genuine style is a fluid thing.

Q)Your contacts…E-mail…Links

A) studio@stuartsemple.com
www.stuartsemple.com

Interview with Jonathan WAY$HAK

Q)So, can you tell me a little about yourself? Full name, age, some background info, etc?

A)JonathanWAY$HAK. I'm from a small burb, Milpitas, California in the US. Grew up watching cartoons, and I ended up twisting them into the drawings and paintings that you see on my website.

Q)How did you get started making art?

A)It was just something I enjoyed doing. I wasn't really good at it when I was young. No natural talent at all. I just was too stupid to quit, and I ended up getting somewhat OK in it.

Q)How would you describe your art?

A)It's me....or maybe more appropriately...my Id.

Q)Where do you get the inspiration for your art?

A)It's kind of a way to deal with all the constant disappointment that surrounds my life.

Q)What are you working on now?

A)My comic TONER III along with a new solo comic...plus some paintings. I'm always busy with something.

Q)Are there some web sites that you would like to recomend? Artists, art communities,xxx,...!?

A)You should check out this interview with Wrest, sole person responsible for the San Francisco black metal project, Leviathan and Lurker of Chalice - http://www.maelstrom.nu/ezine/interview_iss5_61.php

Q)What's your favorite medium to work in, and why?

A)Ink...it's just what I love. It is very strong, direct. Scratching at the paper with a steel pen nib just feels good.

Q)What advice would you give to younger up and coming artist?

A)Make sure your drawing and painting skills are solid. Don't follow the current trends. Just do solid work...and stay off of photoshop during this learning process...you can get into that bullshit later on, when you need to make money.

Q)What is your personal definition of life and art and everything else in between?

A)Shit, I don't know...I'm kind of tired right now. So far, life just seems to be a big fuckin scam that rewards all of the liars and cheats. The funny thing is, the worst people truly believe that they are honest, good people. Ask me this later when I'm more awake.

Q)If your persona were immortalized as a cartoon character, who would it be?

A)Probably Conroy for the starblazers cartoon. I'd want to be a pilot.

Q)What are your artistic influences?

A)A lot of music. That mainly does it. Also artists like Barron Storey and Joseph Clement Coll and Francis Bacon. Cartoons for sure. Learned to draw fr watching Transformers the movie in slow motion. At the moment I'm really inspired by the fine films of Kaiya Lynn and the music of Varg Vikernes.

Q)How are the reactions on your work in general?

A)Not really sure...I don't really pay attention. Sometimes people compliment it, but it's more like small talk...being polite and all that shit.

Q)What are you doing when you are not creating art?

A)Watching cartoons...watching the paint dry on my paintings.

Q)Tell us about a recent dream you had.

A)Something to do with my friend's sister humping a leather saddle. It wasn't erotic...just bizarre. It's all hazy...that's about all I remember.

Q)What is freedom to you as an artist?

A)Being isolated from the rest of the world.

Q)Are there any particular works you've done that stand out as your favorites?

A)They are all disappointments. I don't think about my work that much.

Q)Last Books you read?

A)Read SNOW CRASH by Neal Stephenson. Everyone's telling me it's better than Neuromancer, and it is very good, one of the best books I've read in a long time, but it's no Neuromancer. Right now I'm reading The Exterminator by William S Burroghs, For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway, and Star Trek Movie Memoirs by William Shatner.

Q)Last records you bought?

A)Burzum – Filosofem and Comets on Fire – Avatar and Weakling – Dead as Dreams.

Q)Who are your favourite artists & Your favourite galleries?

A)Artists....Barron Storey, Todd McFarlane, Charles Schultz, Francis Bacon, Degas, Rembrandt, and way more.

Q)Which do you think make good art good? originality, or style? And, why?

A)If it speaks to the person in one way or another I guess. What do i know about this shit.


Q)Your contacts….E-mail…Links

A)www.scrapbookmanifesto.com

Interview with Bjørn Bjarre

Q) First of all, can you present yourself?

A)I was born in Oslo, Norway – where I still live and work. In my childhood I spent much time making strange science fiction inspired drawings, and building big architectural fantasies in Lego bricks – mostly spaceships inspired by Star Wars. I was a lonely child because, for inexplicable reasons, I began stuttering at school, which made me quite shy and withdrawn in social situations. Very early on I got interested in art, music and film. Even though there was little cultural influences from my family, the exception being my father who used to take me to the movies a lot, I think that I got interested in art because it was the best way I could express myself.


Q) Do you think of yourself as an artist?

A)Yes, I guess that is the best way to describe what I do. Even though calling yourself an artist doesn´t tell much about what you do, since art can be virtually anything. When I was a teenager I thought that artists where kind of like Gods, but with time I have realized that everyone is an artist. I think Joseph Beuys said that, and I guess he was right.

Q) What is creativity?

A)It is for me connected to play. When I manage to forget myself and everything around me, when I am concentrated on what I am doing and discover connections and associations in the work I am doing, when I am able to realize new possibilities by accident, when my mind is making unexpected leaps and turns. It is a feeling of freedom accelerated by chance and change in the physical and psychological union between mind and matter.


Q) Does your environment influence your art, either in style/format or interference?

A)My environment is not only the city in which I live, but also the people, the music and everything else. I am influenced by what you could call a global urbanism. I do not feel very norwegian, although I think that I have a nordic melancholy sensibility.


Q) What are some of your influences and inspirations?

A)The most important influence in my art is popular culture (and unpopular culture!) which then again very much influence my dreams, my subconscious and my memories, which again is the main inspiration for the work. Very often I find it difficult to trace the development of an idea or a work of art, and often I discover what I thought was my own ideas in other artist´s work. But I think this is a kind of natural synchronicity. I can try to give an example: The sculpture “Abstract Feeling no. 31” (1996) was first a drawing I made after an all-night introspective discussion with my ex-girlfriend. We were not only talking shit, but we were also getting rid of a lot of shit. Years before that I had made a drawing of an abdomen with a nose in place of the genitals. Then later I saw the sculptures made by Jake and Dinos Chapman with the genitals replacing the mouth and nose. Then later again I heard Frank Zappa read from William Burroughs Naked Lunch, about the talking asshole. And then I learned that David Cronenberg (another important influence) had made a film of Burroughs book. All this is what I call synchronicities. Similar ideas that somehow is a result of a common culture and similar sensibilities. It do actually happen that the influence comes after the work is made.

Q) What’s your favourite mediums?

A)I should say plastecine, which is this soft plastic stuff that never hardens, that´s the material I have mostly used for my sculptures, but now I´m pretty tired of it. I´m trying to quit too, but it´s hard. It´s like I have become addicted. I started using this material because I found it childish and impure, almost comical. The first couple of sculptures had also Lego bricks and hair in them, which I thought was a pretty surrealistic combination of materials, but with a very distinct meaning for me. I have actually discovered several new meanings in these materials over the 10 years I have been working on this “Abstract Feeling” series, which now consists of approximately 100 sculptures (even though most of them are not realized, they exist as drawings or just as a thought). First was bringing these materials together an almost intellectual exercise, but when I started working with them, they took on a life of their own, and the shapes that appeared were totally unexpected. At first I wanted the sculptures to communicate the duality of existence. Bringing these opposite materials together, the geometric, masculin quality of the Lego and the organic, feminine quality of the plastecine, was supposed to speak of the utopian desire of unity in the face of this feeling of duality. An old man I met once told me he got a strange sensation when he saw these abstract sculptures; they brought back a childhood memory of physical contact with the hard skin of his father and the soft skin of his mother. And the hair is this dark unruly animal part of us which is both dead and alive at the same time.


Q) Who are some of your favourite artists?

A)Robert Gober, Philip Guston, Carrol Dunham, Bjarne Melgaard, Francis Bacon, Salvador Dali, Frida Kahlo, Edvard Munch, Pushwagner, Henry Darger, Odilon Redon, Balthus, Adolf Wölfli, Marcel Duchamp, Tom Friedman, Eva Hesse, H.R. Giger, Robert Crumb, Charles M. Schulz, Andie Kaufman, The Marx Brothers, Louise Bourgeois, Kiki Smith, Charles Ray and more…


Q) How long does it normally take you to complete a piece of your artwork?

A)It can take five minutes to do a drawing, when I am jotting down an idea, or it can take months for a big sculpture. But the longest stretches of time is when ideas are forming in my mind. I can contemplate an idea for years before realizing it, or throw it in the dust-bin.


Q) What else are you interested in besides visual arts?

A)Sex and death.

Q)How would you describe your art to someone who could not see it?

A)Unreal, dreamy, bizarre, fantastic, surrealistic, irrational, degenerate, fetishistic, polymorphously perverse, funny and sad.


Q) What other talent would you like to have?

A)I wish I could play the piano, and I wish I could fly.


Q) Favourite books?

A)JRR Tolkien – Lord of the Rings
Jack London – Martin Eden
Haruki Murakami – South of the Border West of the Sun
Georges Bataille – Story of The Eye
Neal Stephenson – Snow Crash
Douglas Adams – The Hitchhiker Trilogy


Q) Favourite films?

A)Ridley Scott - Bladerunner
Stanley Kubrick - 2001
Andrej Tarkovski - Solaris
David Lynch - Mulholland Drive
David Cronenberg - Videodrome

Q) What kind of music do you like…And is the music important for your art…?

A)Music is very important not just for my art but also in my life. What would life be without music? It´s impossible to imagine. I think that music, maybe more than any other art, because of it´s formless immateriality, is what keeps us connected to eachother and to the cosmos. Music is very important also because listening is like travelling to alternative worlds, and while working the music transports me to a different state of mind. I listen to a lot of stuff, too much to mention. In my late teens my favourites was Captain Beefheart, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, Velvet Underground and a lot of other stuff. In the last couple of years my favourites have been, among others; Aphex Twin, Brian Eno, Can, Boards of Canada, Charles Mingus, Frank Zappa, John Coltrane… etc. Just now recently I am beginning to tune into Sun Ra and the electronic works of Karlheinz Stockhausen and György Ligeti. I have a deep fascination with electronic music, because the electronic sounds are so artificial. In the same way the plastic materials in my sculptures remind me of the artificiality of our modern life.


Q) Any advice you have for artists?

A)Only do it if you don´t have any choice.


Q)Your contacts….E-mail….links

A)bjarre@gmail.com
http://www.bjarre.org/

Interview with Lance Sells

Q)So, can you tell me a little about yourself? Full name, age, some background info, etc?

A)Lance Sells.31.Living in NYC with girlfriend & son

Q)How did you get started making art?

A)From as far back as I can remember I’ve been drawing. I’m pretty sure everyone makes art as a child it’s just that most people stop and those that don’t become illustrators, artists, designers.

Q)How would you describe your art?

A)Autobiographical but with time travel as a metaphor.

Q)Where do you get the inspiration for your art?

A)From pretty much everything. The street, what I read, film, television, personal experiences.

Q)What are you working on now?

A)I’m working toward a huge video that I’m going to release on DVD. It’s been going on for about a year or so and I’m nowhere finished so who knows if/when it’ll ever be finished.

Q)Are there some web sites that you would like to recomend? Artists, art communities,xxx,...!?

A)All I can say is [0-0]

Q)What programs / materials / tools do you use to create your pieces?

A)Pastels and graphite on paper for the most part. I would paint more but I find it hard to make time. Drawing is so much more immediate.

Q)What advice would you give to younger up and coming artist?

A)Practice, practice, practice… Don’t become one of Tim Burton’s children and don’t be afraid.

Q)What is your personal definition of life and art and everything else in between?

A)I don’t really have a personal definition that I can explain in words. At least not so anyone can understand it. Art is really personal and important to me but I’m not a romantic that’s convinced it’s changing the world or anything. Definitely not in this day and age.

Q)Do you think that art is a universal language - transcending all the different languages, cultures and religions etc?

A)It can be.

Q)What are your artistic influences?

A)Growing up it was American comic book artists. Now I look a little more to the past to surrealists, dadists & cubists.

Q)How are the reactions on your work in general?

A)“Are you ever going to do work in your old style? I like your old stuff better.” That would be the main consensus I get from people. It’s too bad because looking at my older work I always cringe and think how I’ve moved light years ahead of it. There’s a certain aggressiveness that I’ve removed from my work which might explain it.

Q)Do you have many connections in the underground scene?

A)Not that I know of…

Q)Tell us about a recent dream you had.

A)I usually can’t remember past the first couple hours of waking up so I’ve got nothing for you.

Q)What is freedom to you as an artist?

A)Doing work only to please yourself. I consider myself lucky in the regard that I don’t live off of my artwork so there is no pressure for me. I could be the only person to like my work and it wouldn’t make a difference.

Q)Are there any particular works you've done that stand out as your favorites?

A)“Perifidiousness in Arms” . That was the first time I ever worked in motion so it’s defined my professional work in the last 3 or 4 years and has made me move into working more of my artwork in that direction.

Q)Last Books you read?

A)“Everyman” by Philip Roth. “Transmigration of Timothy Archer” by Philip K. Dick. “Starless Night” by R.a. Salvatore .

Q)Last records you bought?

A)“Idlewild” – Outkast, “Amputechture” – The Mars Volta

Q)Who are your favourite artists & Your favourite galleries?

A)Enrico Baj, Roger Ballen, Francis Bacon, S. Dali. Galleries are always changing with each new exhibit so that’s tough to say but for Museums I would say SF MOMA and the MOMA in NYC.

Q)Your contacts….E-mail…Links

A) lance@normalnatural.net
www.normalnatural.net
www.motherland.us

Interview with Terri Saul

Q) So, can you tell me a little about yourself? Full name, age, some background info, etc?

A)Terri Saul. 35 years old. I live in Berkeley, CA. I'm the granddaughter of Chief Terry Saul, a Choctaw painter. Both of my parents are artists. I studied painting at UC Berkeley, in California. Berkeley was a good school academically and, for me, artistically. I had the chance to practice film-making, delve into art history, study poetry writing with Ishmael Reed, play in the Javanese gamelan, study anthropology, archaeology, and Native American literature.

Q) How did you get started making art?

A)I used to draw on the underside of the kitchen table with crayons while my mother was cooking dinner.

Q) How would you describe your art?

A)My work has been described as gestural, narrative, having a “Donnie Darko” twist. I like to think of it as comic, expressive, materials-based story telling, or story boarding for a film strip in my head. Although I read heavily, and enjoy conceptual art, and am aware of the complexity of modern art criticism, my work comes from elements any luddite can grasp -- line, color, poetry. They are simply pictures, and closer to American Naïve art, or Native American decorative art than to something academic or highbrow. I’d like it to be raw, radical, enigmatic and shameless, and yet restrained enough to float in a state of awareness of the world and crucial details of everyday experience and the painfulness of life.

Q)Where do you get the inspiration for your art?

A)My father Bill Saul worked as a news photographer for the Associated Press and also studied art photography with Edmund Teske. Complementing him, my mother Sue Saul, gave me some of her studio space, a portable radio, Chinese paper cut-outs, and the abstract expressionists. Growing up, my family frequented museums, bookstores and photo studios. I was encouraged to carry a dictionary with me along with my backpack of books, papers, homemade journals, and crayons.
Many other things contributed to my artistic development. Years spent traveling with my brother’s Greco Roman wrestling team distracted me from the ongoing threat of nuclear war. Free xerox art, street art, comic books, and zines were scattered throughout Los Angeles on the counters of espresso bars. Shows of expressive paintings by such greats as Philip Guston, James Ensor, Emil Nolde, Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, Stanley Spencer, Frida Kahlo, Kathe Kollwitz, Louise Bourgeois, Georg Baselitz, and various Pacific Northwest, Inuit, Native American, Mexican and Latin American artists have all been sources of inspiration. Growing up in Los Angeles was both alienating, and invigorating. Image makers were everywhere.

Q)What are you working on now?

A)I’m currently developing my bicycling series, various figures on bicycles in real and imagined settings

Q)Are there some web sites that you would like to recommend? Artists, art communities, xxx,...!?

A)http://mugiko.com/ Mugi Takei, artist
http://men-in-tights.blogspot.com/ Men in Tights, cycling blog
http://www.martinmcmurray.com/ Martin McMurray, artist
http://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/vplanet.html Earth and Moon Viewer
http://esposito.typepad.com/ Conversational Reading, literature blog
http://www.wordlab.com/ Wordlab, naming and branding site
http://www.edrants.com/ Return of the Reluctant, literature blog
http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/ Google Maps Mania
http://www.thismodernworld.com/ Tom Tomorrow


Q) What programs / materials / tools do you use to create your pieces?

A)I use acrylic on wood, pencil, ink and goache on paper.

Q) What advice would you give to younger up and coming artist?

A)Don’t throw away your worst work. You might like it later-on.

Q) What is your personal definition of life and art and everything else in between?

A)I don’t have one. Peace and awareness are good places to start. I'd like all fundamentalists to go to hell. We need to learn to live with each other, everywhere, peacefully. Murder is wrong in any language. Reverence for life should be more important than reverence for afterlife.

Q) Do you think that art is a universal language - transcending all the different languages, cultures and religions etc?

A)No. I think that context matters. But, the best work will cross many boundaries. So, sometimes this is true.

Q) What are your artistic influences?

A)See question #4.

Q) How are the reactions on your work in general?

A)Each person brings their own personal experience with them when they view the work. Almost everyone finds something that strikes them as being expressive, or strange.

Q) Do you have many connections in the underground scene?

A)I’m not sure if there is truly an underground scene. I know a number of artists who are working in obscurity, and some who are showing in museums.

Q) Tell us about a recent dream you had.

A)I was attempting to rescue my ex-husband from a tidal wave by making loud guttural sounds, while hopping about on islands of permafrost, with a kayak full of bundled items and our daughter, who was being kept warm by being swaddled in layers of fleece. It was post apocalyptic, and full of the after affects of divorce and global climate change. I woke up thinking about Joseph Beuys and his coyote performance.

Q) What is freedom to you as an artist?

A)Listening to the squeals of Tule Elk gathering around a sunset in Point Reyes while being stalked by a wild fox. The most important prerequisite for freedom of any kind is a healthy ecosystem.

Q) Are there any particular works you've done that stand out as your favorites?

A)Yes, the Chrome Eater Healer http://www.terrisaul.com/images/chromeeaterhealerofscabbedknees.jpg
And Northwestern Piano Mover http://www.terrisaul.com/images/northwesternpianomover.jpg

I’m also fond of Mountain Climber http://www.terrisaul.com/images/mntclimber2.jpg
And Ireland Dawned on Berkeley, http://www.terrisaul.com/images/0774.jpg

Q) Last Books you read?

A)I’m reading Proust, Swann’s Way, the Lydia Davis translation in English. I recently finished Europe Central by William T. Vollmann. The Dutchess of Nothing by Heather McGowan and Television, and Making Love by Toussaint are recent reads I enjoyed and would recommend.

Q) Last records you bought?

A)Return to Cookie Mountain by TV on the Radio
Opal Book Club by E Blake Davis and the Opal Book Club

Q) Who are your favourite artists & Your favourite galleries?

A)Besides the artists in question 4, more favorites would be Edward Hopper, Goya, Peter Doig, Luc Tuymans, Jiusepe de Ribera, Velasquez, illustrators and comic artists like Edward Gorey, or Adrienne Tomine. Bucheon Gallery in Hayes Valley is my current gallery of choice. LoBot Gallery in Oakland is great for underground art. I love the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Louvre in Paris, as far as museums go.

Q)Your contacts….E-mail…Links

A)lagunagloria@yahoo.com
http://www.terrisaul.com
http://www.sister-rye.blogspot.com