I make art primarily for myself and to show my friends so I guess it's important to make art that they can connect to.
I use dull colors in my drawings because I started out using a root beer base because it seemed like an interesting idea and when it turned out that it worked quite well as an ink I started using other colors that would compliment it.
The muted color scheme allows the occasional brighter yellow or red to pop out on the wall in a show, which I like.
After finishing art school I was applying to stores like Home Depot and Walmart. You know, places where you have to take a urine test before you get your minimum wage. Even those places wouldn't hire me. So I was lucky when I got included in a group show at the Richard Heller gallery that kind of started my art career.
The process of the body changing and making a whole human fascinates me.
I had always loved Joseph Cornell and wanted to do something with dioramas.
I've been very fortunate in my art career. It's something I would never have expected.
When I was a school kid I used to read lots of comics. This started me on drawing, I would make my own comics about my teddy bear whose name happened to be Ted.
Winnipeg has the largest collection of Inuit art in the world, I believe. They can be quite simple in a great way and often have sparse backgrounds and isolated characters. They often have a really great look to them.
My main influence are the other members of the Royal Art Lodge, we've drawn together enough that we can't help but influence each other.
I wouldn't consider myself an outsider artist because I have a university degree in painting.
I'm not a trained dancer in the slightest.
Yoko Ono is someone who's music I've discovered more recently. The current cd rereleases of her albums all had bonus tracks recorded just with a tape recorder and I'm really into these at the moment because they have a great intimate feel.
P.I.L. has been a favorite of mine since high school especially there metal box album. The guitarist Keith Levine gets some of the best sounds ever to come out of a guitar. The songs are really free form and experimental and have a heavy dub influence.
I like all kinds of music but some of my all time favorites are P.I.L., Yoko Ono, T-Rex, and Anton Karas.
My favorite artists from comics were early ones like Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko who had a real heavy ink style. Captain America, co created by Jack Kirby, was a favorite of mine and I sometimes use an altered version of his costume on some of my characters.
I made a tin man costume with tin foil and furnace parts because I thought it would help me be more heartless.
I actually prefer the silent black and white version of the Wizard Of Oz from the 20's.
I've been very influenced by Inuit art especially some drawings and watercolors I've seen.
I was always doing films, but the ceramics didn't come until later. I did take ceramics in university, which gave me an appetite for the medium, but I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do with it yet.
