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I named the show before I came up with what I really wanted to do with the theme
Once I started kinda rolling with it, I took about three months to paint the show and it
wasn't until about a month into really working on my paintings that I really formulated the
direction of the show and it was after watching this Basquiat documentary called "Radient
Child" and um, They were showin his portraits that he did
of people that he found significant in his own kind of, formulation.
And it just clicked .. Portraits. um, and ..
So I just started paintin' portraits. I started with Walt Whitman.
And um, Walt Whitman was the perfect example to me,
Ah, you know, he was a nurse in the civil war, and he decided to be a writer. And um,
he kinda gave up a lot of things in his life just to write.
Soon as your born, they make you feel small,
giving you no time, instead of it all. The pain is so big you feel nothing at all;
working class hero is somethin to be. A working class hero is something to be.
It hurts you at home, and they hit you at school;
They hate you if your clever and they despise a fool.
It's based of a John Lennon song, off of his
Plastic Ono Band album. Um, it was his first solo album that he did.
And uh, the song just had a huge affect on me, and I felt like it, uh kind of, kind of
gave me the feeling of how we're all united as humanity; we're all in this machine, and
the machine is oppressive and wants to stamp us out.
and um ah, get us to be a certain way, and to act and behave a certain way in the structured
society. And um, I think the song just kind of like, the lyrics in that song just kind
of like, kind of break that apart and kind of show the inhumane aspects of um, the American
dream, basically. Of like, fighting and climbing and trying
to get to the top of the heap, and like, you know, once you get to the top, what is there
actually?
A working class hero is something to be. There's room at the top, they are telling
you still, But first you must learn to smile as you kill.
If you wanna be like the folks on the hill, a working class hero is something to be.
A working class hero is something to be. If you wanna be a hero then just follow me;
If you wanna be a hero then just follow me.
ActuallyI did a big portrait of my older brother, and uh,
my older brother passed away in 1999. I always wanted do a portrait of him but I've
just never had the confidence. And after I flow of portraiture
going, it hit me. I have to paint my brother for
the show, it's really important to me. And um, you know, I have a lot of friends,
we had a lot of friends in common, I knew it would be an important painting to those
people and also to my family. Most importantly like, it was important to
me to actually paint it. And that was the hardest painting to paint for the show. It
took the most amount of time and .. um .. it was the most emotionally challenging. You
know, I cried for hours while painting it, and a real interesting experience kind of
happened while i was painting it, I felt like my brother was in the room. And my brother
was really one of the biggest teachers for me in how to paint. He taught me a lot about
painting and color theory, light source, and um, composition, things like that. So when
I painting him I really felt like he was teaching me how to paint him.
And he was being kind of hard nosed about it, and making me start over on parts of it.
Um, he just really made me work it out. Thoroughly. I think it ended up being one of the strongest
paintings in the show, first of all it looks like he painted it, which was interesting
to me. It doesn't look like I painted it, it looks like his style of painting.
How's it going?
I really wanted to look at, ah, you know,
who are working class people that became heroes, and who are just heroes of the working class.
To basically this ultimate show of a hundred pieces that like, I wanted to show our humanity.
I wanted to show who we are. I wanted to have aspects of death, I wanted to have aspects
of sex, I wanted to have aspects of the struggle of life and I wanted to have humor, and ah
... and love, and compassion, and passion. And uh, so I think with all the hundred pieces
of the show I think we, um, we really accomplished that.
And ah, and it really showed in the show, like when people showed up, you could just
feel the energy in the room. It wasn't just an art show, it was like a,
um, it was like a tribal gathering. You know. There was tons of laughter, and lots of people
giving each other hugs, and um, people who hadn't seen each other for a long time. People
meeting new people, and it was one of those experiences that was transcendent of just
a normal, "hey this as art show, come look at the art. No one really talk to each other.
Act like your really smart about what good art is and bad art is," and all that ***
wasn't there. And um, you know, that was like, that's what
I think I was most proud of. Was the fact that somehow the show stripped
down the *** of what the artworld is about, and just became a celebration of life
and love. It was a beautiful thing.
I swear to god, I told my girlfriend I want
em both!
It was cool to be really moved by making a
piece, and then like, you know, someone purchasing it, and putting it in their own home, and
uh .. being able to get what I put into it, they're getting out of it. And ah, I think
those kinda full circle experiences are really cool to have as an artist.
When you actually get to like, communicate with the person who purchases it, and they
let you know how it effects them, um .. ah. It kind of reconfirms your direction as an
artist. Um...