Above: Globby figurine, 2008
Do you skateboard? Do you feel any connection to skate culture? I still skate about once a month, when I feel the inspiration and have the time both at the same moment. All the cement parks here in Oregon are so effin’ nice. I grew up with skaters, and skate art was a lot of my early influence. Neil Blender and Mark Gonzales are definitely early influences, and I flipped out when I got to be in an art show with Blender and meet him some years back. I used to do boards for Dogtown back in the early ’90s. Those graphics really sucked ass, but I loved that I got to do them. Do you have any moral qualms with using your art to advertise a product? Not if I like the product. You definitely won’t see my interpretation of the new Hummer H4 crawling over the earth, or one of my characters smoking a Camel Light. But if I like the product then it’s fine. I love that Gary Baseman does all the Cranium art, and that Lloyd Dangle has his work on that Airborne nasal thing. When Charles Burns did the Levi ads that was rad, too.
What styles of music are you into? Does music play a role in your artistic process? With music, I am all over the board. It just has to be effin’ rad. I love Prefuse 73, Juana Molina, Brazilian Girls, Blackalicous, Dudley Perkins, St. Tropez, Slint, Pretenders, The Clash, Spoon, AC Newman. I love good, moody metal too: Mastodon, The Melvins, Pelican, and my all-time favorite Neurosis, who somehow keep getting better and better. The silly thing is that the more deep and oppressive it gets, the happier I feel when I listen. Lately, I have been listening to rainforest sounds for painting.
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