Interview by Jimon

1-Where do you reside and work currently?  I’ve lived in Manhattan on Houston Street since 1975 and work in a studio on the riverfront in Brooklyn.

2-How long have you been making art and how did it all start?  I’ve been painting since I was very young. It’s all I ever wanted to do. My grandfather painted as a hobby and would send us paintings all the time.  I just bonded with it all. My father was a naval officer and we moved around a lot. I had a very tough time with it, so I totally absorbed myself in art. Art is always what I needed to do.

3-Did you study art or is it inherent?   It’s a combination I feel. My surroundings have, to this day, compelled me to create. Everything I paint is very much an extension of me and, I guess, inherent. That said, I do believe studying artists and their methods, not only as an education and respect for the greats that have come before, but also to refine a level of skill.  So yes, I did study art at several renowned places—including the Skowhegan School of Painting in Maine — and that was very important to my development and ended up bringing me to New York.  I also studied painting abroad in Mexico and Nicaragua at various moments in my education, and the exposure to these other cultures left a permanent impact on me and my artwork — I continue to draw inspiration.

4-What is your least favorite part of the process in what you do?  Washing brushes.

5-Which artists working today do you admire?  Well, I admire some for work and some for career. I admire Jeff Koons for his career, and Damien Hirst, who has broken new ground and levels that artists can earn and achieve in the world, which is not an easy feat. It’s kind of an art form all by itself. I’ve always liked Francesco Clement.  I tend to like expressionist painters, like Donald Baechler’s work.  I like countless people that are working today.   Rainer Fetting, Salome. I have admired and had interaction with Alex Katz. And from the past I like Marsden Hartley, Arthur Dove.

6-I have heard you have many birds. How many, and did you save them or just bought them?  My bird collection has been 90% given to me, I started out with huge collections of what are called soft-billed birds like finches, but they don’t live so long, maybe 20 years? And now I have mostly parrots, and they can live to 100 and many of mine are quite elderly. One of which I have had for forty years. People get tired of keeping birds and want to send them to a great new home. The success in that for me has been adopting birds that have been isolated for 20 years of their life and suddenly they come to my world and bond with another bird. They form this wonderful happy relationship and then are constantly together. I tend not to buy birds, but I have on occasion.

7-Have you read any good books lately?  The most recent book I read was on the muses of Marcel Proust — Proust’s Duchess by Caroline Weber, and I loved that. Whoopi Goldberg gave me a book called The Black Count, which is fascinating. I’m always reading biographies. Monique Von Vooren tends to give me books to read after she’s through. My eyes are so troubled from painting all day, that it’s sometimes hard for me to read, though I do try to keep one big book going all the time.

8-Do you follow a routine on a daily basis?  Absolutely. I hail a cab to my studio every morning after I’ve meditated and done some writing, which is kind of nice. When I get to the studio, I come upstairs and start painting and don’t put my brush down until I leave. I will work as late as I am able, though it depends on what I have going on each night. I tend to work on big and small paintings every day. And of course, a few rabbits every day. I meet with people — clients, curators, journalists. I also travel to restore myself. I go away on the weekends to some of my houses and come home with ideas and inspiration.

9-If you had a working time machine, which time period would you choose?  If you had means to live well, I’d probably say the 19^th or 18th century — Each age has had a lot of problems, wars, plagues, inequality. Maybe the ancient world. I don’t know.

10-You have a passion project in saving historic buildings. What is the attraction and why?  Well I like to describe them from a book title called “Vestiges of Grandeur” by Richard Sexton about remains of another lifestyle of yore. I’m very attracted to the architecture and scale of older buildings. I love refurbishing them and saving them. I consider them installations and extensions of my art. To me they are portals for time travel, uniting different worlds through decor and color, and saving these great relics of other times. Don’t know where this passion came from — I think maybe from my great grandfather’s house in Tennessee, which was torn down six months before I was born. I’ve only heard about it, I’ve never seen pictures of it, but it was quite large from what I’ve heard. It was from 1850 and it became the first hospital for African-Americans in Tennessee.  I just always fantasized about that house that I never knew.

11-Do you consider yourself a pop artist?  I have links to pop art in my use of repetition, though my reasons are more spiritual than a statement about consumerism. My source is different, it’s not about consumer culture, but repetition in nature — these eternal forms. I’m telling everyone to take a last look at nature, which is disappearing before us at a rapid rate.  But I am fascinated by the 100-year period when mass produced things led to advertising and advertising led to art. That interests me.

12-You create in different platforms, painting, sculpture, etc. Do you have a favorite?   I am passionately a painter. Its an obsession or something akin to that.

13-Do you remember the first piece of art that captured your imagination?  My mother took us to museums a lot. I remember going to the Corcoran Museum of Art in Washington D.C., to the Johnson Wax collection, and it was such a powerful awakening for me at that time. The work that resonated with me the most was a Lee Bontecou piece. Another painting that has deeply spoken to me and left a lasting impact has been “The City Rises” by Umberto Boccioni, located at the MoMA in New York City. It speaks to me deeply about the divine plan and workings of civilization.

14-Is there any reality behind your paintings, or are they purely fantasy?   They’re based on truths and observations and memory. I’ve certainly lived at or looked at most of my life 90% of what I paint. I like the idea of the veil, that kind of separates reality from the unseen. That’s why I like making my marks into the paintings, it creates the illusion that you’re looking into something from another place. I think there are many levels of reality.

15-What do you dream about?  Everything under the sun. I had a dream last night about orchids — the most gorgeous orchids I had ever seen, in full color! And I was at a grower and they were just amazing colors — and I don’t always dream in such vivid color. I just woke up feeling great about it. Very auspicious. Orchids and birds come from another realm. I dream about things I paint. Sometimes I dream about famous people past and present, for reasons I have no idea why. Perhaps they are symbols.

16-How do you define success?  My belief is if you have an idea of what you want to do in life and you are able to do it somehow, that’s success. My goals have never really changed, I’ve never not wanted to paint. I’m content doing what I’m doing. My refuge is my work — totally! And I’m very grateful to the universe for that. I get great satisfaction from what I do, and I hear I bring joy to others. I get a lot of feedback from people that is positive — which is a perk — but even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t stop what I’m doing.

17-Do you have a person/place/thing that you visit for inspiration?  Well, I just came back from Arizona and I visited some bird breeder friends, and I was completely inspired by what I saw — varieties of birds I had never seen or known, varieties that are very rare in captivity. They were like candy to the eyes. I just think nature is wildly exciting at its height. I feel like there’s this vibration of rare life forms that is so uplifting — seeing thousands of butterflies perched on a stream, drinking water in Central America. It’s just the most exciting experience for me.

18-If you could have dinner with three artists living or dead, who would be at your table?  It’s hard to say, because I’d rather admire peoples work than have dinner with them, put probably Warhol, Picasso maybe Ingres.

19-Name three things you can’t live without in your studio:  Electricity, heat and breathable air.

20-If you were me, what question would you ask and answer?  Well the most frequently asked question is how do I make marks — I think I’m one of the few artists to use both sides of the brush — I paint with the front, and I carve with the back. People think I use a rake or some tool to do it. But it’s actually just the brush. I don’t know if that’s interesting, but people seem to be curious about it.