COLOR INK MAGAZINE, JULY 2009

What are you working on right now?

I am painting a couple of new pieces for a show at the Contemporary Art Museum in Rome, Italy that will take place in November of this year. America is a defunct phantom limb on the global corpse so I’m trying to establish a new audience and find some collectors that pay with euros.

Have you ever gone back to your hometown?

Yes, I go back every few years. I grew up in Spring Branch, Texas, which back then was a little farm town outside of Houston. Now it’s considered “in the city” and almost every trace of its pioneer beginnings has been erased. In a small churchyard there is a mass grave from a yellow fever epidemic in 1854; I go there to smoke a spliff in memory of the dead.

Art school: your thoughts?

Art school is a debt production machine that hinders as many people as it helps. I was at a bar once and some dude bought me a beer so we began to talk. Turned out he was a data entry dweeb at some company but he had gone to the same art school that I had. The difference between us was that I dropped out once I sussed that I was going to owe 50K when I got out and he didn’t. I became a debt-free artist and he had to take a shit job to pay off his art education. The only good reason to go to art school is to get a degree so that teaching is an option.

Where’s the best place to grab a bight to eat?

I have been told that cannibals generally start with the back of the thigh; the meat there is apparently quite flavorful.

Is there a particular artist you are really digging right now?

Whenever I get burned out on the official art world I go visit a nearby mental institution where there is a gallery of art by the inmate/patients. There are some absolutely amazing paintings to be seen there.

What is the most influential music group in your option?

The master musicians of Jajouka in Morrocco.

Can art change the world?

When the aim of art is to change the world, it becomes propaganda; art itself is a useless weapon.

Could a giant squid defeat a great white shark?

Only with love.

Stallone, Over the Top or Cobra?

I met Stallone once and we didn’t get along well because I’m about twice as tall as he is. In front of the Philadelphia art museum there are some brass footprints set there because in the movie “Rocky” he stood in that spot. I’m supposed to give a shit?

Sandwich or Burrito?

I have gotten the shits from both; the sandwich had rotten spinach in it and the burrito contained bad brains. I would choose a sandwich over a burrito because you can deconstruct it and stick it on the ceiling whereas a burrito deconstructs into scraps.