“I think I make things to try to talk about how much I love everything (and everyone).”

Interview by Brooke Hailey Hoffert

Could you tell us a bit about yourself and your background? Where did you study?

I grew up in suburban Connecticut, a commuter town an hour by train from Grand Central, and spent my summers in Rhode Island in a small, private beach community. My mother was a lawyer (divorce and criminal defense), and my father spent most of his life working for IBM, in positions that I’m sure to make some sense from within the company, but remain fairly mysterious to me. I have an older sister, and we are slowly learning how to get along, but we mostly don’t make much effort since it’s been so long not quite understood one another. She was completing a law degree in North Carolina when I graduated from the Royal College of Art. I have been drawing and painting since I was very small, and I remember the first drawing I really made a great deal of effort to make true to “life” was a pencil drawing of rubber toy Bugs Bunny from a happy meal. I spent a lot of time alone as a child, watching cartoons and reading everything I could get my hands on, and this remains true today. Particularly reading and drawing, as well as guitar playing and songwriting, which began at 13 years of age.

My youth was spent in after school art lessons, theater club, and immersive French language summer camp. Crushing on boys, drawing in margins, wondering about why people so often hated one another, or were just hateful and selfish and greedy— and all while having the paradise of Earth at their fingertips. A lot of the books I read were about the holocaust, about race relations in the USA, about all the animals on the planet and how we humans were making them rapidly go extinct. I thought a lot more about that in 2020 when I started making devotional artwork. Vishvarupa, the cosmic form of Lord Vishnu, is made of all the creatures— everything, but there are particular rules to follow according to the ancient texts for what *must* be included if it is to count as a vishvarupa, because, obviously, you can’t draw everything, you must include at least a few of the features— like a warthog has to be there, as it is one of the avatars. The warthog that holds up the world.

You have a lot of humour in your work, could you tell us the role humour has in your paintings? 

There has to be a drive in making art (as well as music) that comes from outside the self. Outside the presentation of self, anyway. What was fame to Kurt Cobain, you know? He hated it, and it does a number on everyone it touches, so that alone can’t be any kind of reason to make stuff. Fame isn’t love, money isn't either, and everybody is aware, artmaking is mostly a bad way to get to either one... I think I make things to try to talk about how much I love everything (and everyone). It’s super cheesy, and I promise I’m not really a hippie, but this planet is beautiful and human beings are a difficult species, but we’ve had some excellent ambassadors over the years. I think of Nina Simone a lot, Leo Tolstoy, Bill Hicks… There are a lot of people, call them gurus if you like, who present the ideals of living well—eudaemonia—who gift the human race with beauty and art-- and present a mirror to us, and this art would be cyanide, a real poison pill, if it weren’t occasionally laced with laughter. 

Can you tell us about the process of creating your work? What is your artistic routine when working?

Usually, I’m up at dawn playing the MS Subbulakshmi version of the Vishnu Sahasranamam (1000 names of lord Vishnu) and waving a stick of frankincense in the air, doing tree pose and feeling the electrostatic charge of my soul rising through my crown chakra until around, maybe 7/7:30? Then drink an absolutely shocking amount of coffee with some lion’s mane mushroom or reishi powder in it, start drawing or painting something that I drew on a previous day, or Googling creatures to draw. (During 2020 I was doing this and freaking out that all the creatures I wanted to draw were either extinct or on the endangered species list. And the earth was on fire, and Covid started, etc) Then, I eat a mango. Or a bowl of granola and half a carton of blueberries on top with some kind of not-milk. Then I go take a really long walk. Like, a really really long spoiled dog walk— to commune with the earth and take in some prana. (Prana is air, my dudes, the Egyptian God Amun is the spirit of the air, or more specifically the *b r e a t h*- Brahman/Vishnu, in the ancient Vedic Hindu teachings is also the breath, Ra/Re is the radiance of the sun- get your vitamin D. No, not that one.) And, as I mentioned before, also pick up litter. Lots of it. People are gross and careless. Forgive them. 

Usually, I’m reading like 2-5 books at once. Esoteric/occult subject matter, Sun Ra’s reading list (you can his recommendations in the lectures he gave at Berkley on YouTube or in his biography on him). But also have a meme and Reddit addiction I’m trying to break. Listen to a staggering amount of music and have lots of playlists on Spotify if anyone’s looking. I used to do a radio show that I might start up again called The Lotus Drip, on Resonance Fm’s Clear Spot. Paintings and drawings get made to long format Sanskrit and seed-syllable mantras, they are very hypnotic and go for over an hour at a time, or longer- it’s nice to have a consistent mood and tempo to work with- very soothing and energizing at the same time. Also, stare at pictures by Rembrandt and Fra Angelico and anonymous Nepalese cave painters until I feel like a telekinetic child about to set their mean stepsister on fire over a bowl of Brussels sprouts.

What is the biggest thing you want people to take away from viewing your art?

*It’s good.* I mean, this is a pretty facetious answer, but, for real and true, this is what every painter wants to some degree, for their work to be recognized as somehow very very good, and not necessarily in a “skillful” kind of way, either. The poet Eileen Myles (who bought me a drink once, btw, thanks Eileen!) referred to another author as being “skillful” or “skilled”, I won’t say who it was because I can’t remember, but it came off as being the most brutal insult you ever heard in your life. Like, “ah yes, the person who stacks the blocks according to size and shape and colour, they truly understand the forms that art can take— in the most dry academic sense possible— I am quite pleased with their contribution of a small piece of granite to the pile of shiny pebbles shaking about in my brain.” 

Another answer that I’ve been considering to this question will probably get me stoned to death. So, I’ll leave it at that. If anyone wants to know, they can get in touch.

How do you go about naming your work?

Naming work is really fun and natural for me. While I was in the womb, oftentimes, my mom would stay warm at the office by leaning her bump against a microfiche projector. So, I learned a lot about Connecticut criminal defense law. I write a lot of songs and play them out every now and again under the name Dusty Miller, and this is something I’ve done from very small. Words are always jangling around. Once upon a time in 2020, everything I said rhymed for around 48 hours straight. That was wild.

Is there anything new and exciting in the pipeline you would like to tell us about?

This interview right now is pretty good. Happy to have been invited to do it. Currently in talks with some people about putting shows on in New York City and London before the new year, but two shows just happened at the same time in the UK at Cambridge University and in Todmorden at a place my friends run called Nan Moors, so I am just building up new work at the moment and doing the occasional odd job helping other artists with clearing up their dusty studios, or maybe singalongs about sharing for little kids. Have been working with a dealer going by Blackbird Rook who I like, and is good at the side of the business that I only want to care about as long as it’s fair enough and the buyers are decent humans— one of the paintings went to Gillian Anderson, so that’s pretty dope. Heyo! Thanks!

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All images are courtesy of the artist
Date of publication: 03/11/22