« INTRODUCING:
August 2, 2004
Profile: Steve
Hometown: San Mateo, California (20 miles south of SF)
Where do you now live?: San Francisco, but I'm moving in a month
Where would you most like to live?: A lot of different places - Havana, Australia, Kauai, Mexico, the Netherlands, Japan... but as much as I'd like to live elsewhere I have always lived in the SF Bay Area.
Who was your first "hero" in life?: Mr. Rogers. For so many reasons.
What is your favorite thing to do on your day off from work?: Work for me now is teaching and art-making, luckily. So why would I want to take a day off? When I do, I still work; cleaning my studio, researching, everything seems to be connected to my work. When I really get away I travel. But even then I do work on the road - taking pictures, reading, etc. I really enjoy my work, so...
What is your favorite color?: Who cares?
Who (or what) do you love?: My wife. My friends. My life. It's not ironic or funny, but what can I say, it's true.
Here's some - Authors: Stewart Ewen, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn. Music: Reggae, Soul, Afro Beat, Jazz, Country Western, etc. The Other Side: City Planners, Legislators, Politicians, Advertisers and Marketers - they influence my work a lot! Other stuff: teachings of the Buddha, motorcycling, the artists and friends that I surround myself with.
What other artists do you most admire?
Mmmm, they're all people I know to some extent or another. Rigo for the variety in his different works and the way his pieces involve the surroundings. I think Bre tt Cook-Dizney does very important work, and Harrell Fletcher also has amazing ways of including the public in his work. There's a lot of innovators in music who seem to bridge different cultures, the old and the new, etc. which I respect. Oh, and I guess I've been reading a lot of Dan Clowes and Adrian Tomine comics lately and the way they draw the backgrounds is amazing. And, really, I admire all who dedicate themselves to art.
Most people want some kind of quick, simple description like "I paint," or "I make 'street art'" or "I'm a photographer." However, my work centers mainly around a few ideas that are important to me that I want to communicate to others - like encouraging critical thinking about advertising, media, public space, and daily life and promoting integrity, understanding, communication, and democratic principles. So, my work stems out of a desire to communicate these concepts and I will do it in whatever way works best. If I thought I could make people understand the problems of media consolidation through a ceramic vase, i would make a ceramic vase. The materials and methods are secondary concerns. I've done everything from video, to screenprinting, to watercolor conveying these ideas. And what puts me in the street is not a desire to get-up, or deviance, or fame, or mystery. I just want to make site specific work that communicate to a non-art, non-gallery kind of audience. I want the thousands of random people that will encounter my work to hear what I have to say because it's important to me and because I believe things like critical thinking, media literacy, integrity, communication, peace, freedom, etc, are important to them. I want to reach people that aren't typically receptive to these ideas. For me, I feel a sense of responsibility with my work. I could never go out into the city and write my name or create some kind of personal iconography. It's an opportunity to say things that can mean so much more. It's an opportunity I can't let pass. So, what's it look like? Well....
What other talent would most like to have?
I dream of being a better writer. Words and music convey feeling so well sometimes it makes me wonder if visual art is a waste of time. (maybe that's why there's so much text in my work...) Along the same lines I dream of being a better speaker and teacher. Of course all these things relate to communication I'm trying to do through visual art. There's things I'm constantly working at, like listening, being more present and less preoccupied, learning.... I'm young, there's a lot of stuff I want to be better at.
What do you fear the most?
Harmful accidents to myself and people I know. Also, Bush being elected in November, thereby legitimizing everything he did in the last 4 years because it would be seen as approval by the US population - that scares me. Dying at an old age and feeling like the world is just as bad or worse as when I was born scares me. More war, more suffering, more death worldwide. (hate to be a bummer)
What is your greatest ambition?
To be happy and content with what I've accomplished between birth and death! What else is there?
Posted by marc at 7:11 AM in | Recommend this! |
|