Yes, especially now that art is my career. I have to make money. This makes having fun more difficult and more important. Everyone assumes that making art for a living everyday is always fun. Some days are just as stressful or boring as any other day job.
I have to find ways to have fun to find balance. Even if my work needs to sell to pay the bills, I’m still discovering ways to make it fun and enjoyable.

 

This has been a successful project. I’m not sure if I’ll do more projects like it. I’ve made every single facet of every one of the 20 hand-made ‘Vita Vera’ editions. I cut all the cards. I drew the illustrations. I assembled the game board. I sculpted the game pieces. I cast the game pieces to make multiples. It’s been a TON of work! It wouldn’t be the same if I had these manufactured in China. I wouldn’t want to make just another board game the way everyone else does. But it’s so labor-intensive to make them myself. Hmm. Combined with other peoples’ positive responses, your enthusiasm is irresistible. I have to think about it. Maybe a life-size ‘Vita Vera’?

 

Most of these people are under-represented by the media. No news outlet spends any substantial time on coverage of the arts. If I’m making figures of celebrities, it’s usually a satire. I need to make fun of pop culture. These people dominate lame media outlets and the tabloids. At one point I set up this dichotomy as “The Art Army” vs. “The MAN”. “The MAN” was composed of people like Britney Spears and Martha Stewart. I want to represent how these forces relate to each other in ‘pop’ and underground culture.

 

I did have good experiences in my early career. I also had bad ones. I started with large installations, performance art, and other conceptual art. These early works were quite effective. Some are the best things I’ve ever made. They also lead me down a dark road. I thought I was having fun with big, experiential environments and objects. In the context of society, I was only making academic art that no one cared about. This made me feel isolated, even from many of my own friends and family. This lead to depression. My escape from this cave was a return to the basics. About the time I finished college, I re-discovered my ability to do traditional, representational painting and sculpture. My first real project coming out of college was my series of trading cards. These were incredibly fun. I made some money, I brought them to parties, I sold them on the street. Ever since then, I’ve been revisiting this space between academic conceptual art and more traditional (‘old master’), representational art.

 

I’m only able to do this because I make it an absolute priority. I’m too self-conscious of the fact that my professional field caters to the rich elite. This being the case, I find it undeniably urgent. Art must be affordable in order to reach the mass audiences who have rightfully left the art world in the dust. I have to make some economic compromises. I can’t always charge the price I’d like. Sometimes things that take many hours of labor do not make enough money. ‘Vita Vera’ is one example. It’s become more of a political statement than a money-making project.

Uh, too much. I’m a sucker for all things pop culture. I’m a glutton for it. Give me the ‘80’s! It’s become a vehicle to simultaneously indulge my nostalgia while also examining the consumer culture I was spoon-fed throughout my childhood. “The Art Army” spawned from this conundrum. I’m also currently in the process of re-collecting all the vintage GI Joe and Star Wars I had when I was a kid. I’m obsessed. Comics and video games… not so much anymore. Both of those things take too much time!

The basic concepts are simple. Art is losing to TV, music and movies. This a problem. TV, music and movies need to be more artistic. Art needs to be more Populist. The other basic concept in that statement is what technology is doing to society. It’s not all bad. For example, much of the success of my career has been built on the internet and social networking. I’m grateful for technology in this respect. However, the myth of connectivity is problematic. Physicality is losing to convenience. Niches are empowering themselves in chat rooms. This a double-edged sword. My art niche has found light on the internet. Terrorist networks have also found light. The internet is the new planet of niches.

 

 

 

I’ve had no direct interaction with him yet. Apparently he and his wife live in my neighborhood. They bought a piece from me from a show here in Seattle. They broke it when they got it home. (They must party hard!) I repaired it and I’ve been trying to re-deliver it to them. Hopefully an interesting interaction will result. We’ll see!

 

It’s no coincidence that Pearl Jam has been an inspiration for most of my life, not necessarily just the music but their politics and such. Bjork, Radiohead, The Roots, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Arcade Fire, The Flaming Lips, Beck, TV on the Radio are others. These are all the ones who I love enough to have seen live. And every single one blew my mind in concert. It can’t just be the recordings. A band can only truly inspire me if they rock out live and do things outside the industry conventions.

 

I can’t so too much! The projects I’m working on now are so important that I’m sworn to secrecy. I’m working on very exciting projects with several different toy and product design companies from New York and Seattle, to China and Moscow. My favorite prospect is with Jailbreak Toys. I’m amped about this series of Leavitt products to be released on a wide scale in late 2011 and 2012. I’m very interested in the results of these experiments. Hopefully my work will be delivered to a broader, mainstream audience outside the art world. The art world is so boring!