1. Did your parents lock you in a closet when you were a kid?

No


2. Why are your paintings and drawings and sometimes photographs so scary?

I don’t know, it just comes out that way. There are things inside of me that are maybe inside of everybody and this is my mind trying to make sense of things that don’t.


3. Is the character in your paintings a boy or a girl?

Neither.


4. Do you ever paint mountains and oceans and boats and flowers?

No.


5. What do you use in your paintings?

Different things. House paint. Wood Stain. Bleach. Black Ink. Matte medium transfers. Toilet cleaner. Iodine. Pencil. Spray Paint. Foam brushes. Q-tips. Whatever I happen to find around my apartment, hence the household cleaners. I usually just wonder what would happen if I combined x, y, and z, so I do. Most recently, I have thought to spray oven cleaner on wet latex paint to see what/if anything happens. I’ll keep you posted.


6. Where did you go to college?

Oklahoma Christian University.


7. Why?

My parents wanted all of us to go there and would only pay for us to go there. They wanted us to find suitable mates. Plus, I didn’t really care where I went and thought of college as an extended part of high school.


8. Didn’t you hate it?

Sometimes yes. I learned a lot about life and people more than anything.


9. You studied advertising and design at a christian college? Didn’t that suck? Did you have to make ads for Jesus all day?

Yes. No. No.


10. Would you tell us, in the longest way possible, what the program was like?

Sure. Looking back, it’s the only way I would have chosen to learn. The main teacher, who was sometimes our teacher for two different classes in a given semester, was tougher than anyone I had seen before or since. He expected ridiculous amounts of work in ridiculous amounts of time and impeccable craft. If your work wasn’t up to par, it would get thrown to the ground, and if you didn’t have your work, you better not even show up. Everything was wrong. Everything could be better. There were no rules. There were no boundaries. The assignments were uninterpretable and more like a series of really bad clues. He didn’t know the computer, so we didn’t know the computer. It didn’t matter how beautiful the execution was if there was no idea behind it. There were no excuses. He’d lock the door on you if you were late.

Contrary to popular belief, it’s easier to make something when there are concrete rules than it is to create with no rules at all. Beginnings and ends were make-believe. Pick a place and start. Nothing was shocking. Nothing was off-limits. It was a bubble in the center of a very conservative school and we were the lepers. At the time, I mostly disliked that teacher and I made his life a living hell, but I’ve got nothing but gratitude and respect for him all these years later. Everything has seemed easy since.


11. Didn’t it suck to live in Oklahoma?

Not really. I don’t require much in the way of formal entertainment, so I was always comfortable. It’s a love it or hate it kind of place.


12. Who was your favorite teacher?

I had a few favorites:

* Mrs. Muery in 5th grade gave us lessons on manners and encouraged debates on corporal punishment.

* Mrs. Sivek, my English teacher in 10th grade, treated us like adults and dug deeper into stories.

* Mrs. Smith, my English teacher in 11th grade, tolerated zero amount of crap and called you out for slacking

* Mrs. Martin, my English teacher in 12th grade, built a very big fence rather than putting me on a lead.


13. What’s your favorite color?

Right now I’m partial to black, brown, orange, and bright green.


14. If your apartment were on fire, what would you save?

My laptop.


15. Do you find it easy to organize your thoughts when you write, or do they just come out in big paragraphs like you write on your blog?

I can’t organize for crap.


16. How long does it take you to do your hair?

At least thirty minutes. Sometimes shorter. Sometimes longer.
I’m pretty obsessive about my hair.


17. Would you trade your family for a more “normal” one?

No way. I actually feel sorry for people with normal families. I think I would be bored.


18. Why don’t you eat healthier?

I never cared about what I ate, so I always ate what I felt like eating. If it happens to be ham and cheese sandwiches and cheetos puffs every meal for three months, then it does.


19. Where do you see yourself in five years?

I have a problem with my perception of the future. In my mind, I never age or have limitations or prerequisites. Every day I do what it occurs to me to do.


20. Are you scared of ending up alone?

No. I spend 85% of my time all by myself and it’s great. I think it’s hereditary. My granny has never cared if she sees or talks to anyone all day long. Sometimes people worry that she might get lonely being so isolated, but I think she’s got the greatest life ever.


21. How long does it take you to complete a painting?

I try not to have drying stages, but sometimes it’s necessary. Usually I do a series in one sitting. Three or five at a time. It’s usually four or five hours before I’m finished with all of them. I work fast, don’t second guess anything, and don’t correct would-be mistakes.


22. Do you believe in hell?

Yes.


23. Why aren’t you married with kids?

I don’t know. It wasn’t a conscious choice one way or the other, it’s just never been on my agenda of things to get done.


24. Where did you get your sense of humor?

I have sick parents and a sick family. Sometimes people don’t think we’re very funny, but we are.


25. Do you really like living in New York?

We have a love/hate relationship. A friend of mine told me this when I first moved here and it’s proven to be true almost daily–he said, “New York is like an abusive boyfriend. He beats you up and then brings you flowers.”


26. Why would you give up living in Texas, the greatest state in the nation, for dirty, rat-infested, New York?

I ask myself that same question all the time.


27. Why don’t you talk like a Texan?

Sometimes I do, it just depends on the day and the subject matter. “Y’all” and “fixing to” will always be part of my vocabulary.


28. Where do your ideas come from?

I don’t know. There are no rules of right and wrong or first and last in my head. Things come and go like a bad houseguest and my work is a recording of how they look at the time. I don’t edit myself and I don’t erase and I don’t consider mistakes to be mistakes.


29. What is your first memory of being creative?

I don’t remember a defining moment. I was always obsessive about drawing. Making five point stars and drawing the alphabet in perfect block letters. I hated the letter N because it took me so many tries to not make it backwards. And cubes or any kind of three-dimensional objects? Forget it. Late in high school, I learned the connect-two-squares cube drawing shortcut trick and it was as if I had discovered the cure for AIDS. I drew cubes over and over and over again. Not because they were so awesome, but because i couldn’t believe I could really do it.

I was constantly teaching myself how to make something. Learning by trial and error, but mostly error.


30. Can we see any of your old work?

You could, but I don’t keep things. If it’s not been given away, it’s been thrown away. Once I think something isn’t good anymore, I toss it, without thinking twice.


31. Did you take art classes as a kid?

Just the mandatory ones in school. I’ve never been taught anything about how to paint or even how to use brushes. Nobody taught me to draw or color. I made up everything as I went along, using whatever I happened to have around. I don’t use much of anything from an art supply store, except ink and matte medium.