Interview by Jimon

1.  Where do you call home currently?  South Florida

2.  How long have you been making art and what lead you to start? I’ve been making art as long as I can remember. My mother believed in exposing my sister and I to everything. The Young People’s Concerts at Lincoln Center, sports camp every summer, lots of museums, model rocket building class at the local college. My rocket was the only one that didn’t take off, and I’m not very good at sports, but everything artistic stuck. Mom was a really great watercolor painter.

3.  Did you study art or is it inherent? I’ve studied art history and I graduated from art school, but I think everyone is inherently artistic to some degree.

4.  How should an artist measure his or her success?  They shouldn’t. But in my opinion, if you’re happy doing it, you’re a success.

5.  Do you first draw a mock-up? I used to. But final pieces never turned out the way I planned.

6.  Best advice you ever received in regards to your career as an artist?  Do it for yourself.

7.  What is the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing at night?  In the morning, nothing happens without coffee. Before I go to bed, I watch Dr. Pimple Popper on YouTube. It’s seriously addictive.

8.  Do you listen to music while creating? If yes, what genre? I hit shuffle on my iPhone. It has everything except country music and ballads. I find them distracting because they try to tell you a story. I’m not big on lyrics. I like to make up my own and sing them over the real ones.

9.  What advice would you give putative collectors?  Two things: 1. If you love it, buy it.  2. It shouldn’t match the sofa.

10.  How would you like to be seen as an artist years from now? Old, I want to live an unusually long time. Like 200 years.

11.  Do you have a place/person/thing that you visit for inspiration?  I try to find out-of-the-way museums in other countries. If it’s difficult getting there, it will have less people and an eager staff, willing to talk about the collections.

12.  If you could have dinner with 3 artists living/dead who would be at your table?  I’ll pick dead ones, since I might dine with my living choices one day.  David Bowie and Vincent Van Gogh. I saw a video of Andy Warhol eating a hamburger once, so I’d invite him, for the spectacle of it.

13.  Three things you can’t live without in your studio? Electric tape, thick paper, privacy.