In his Reith lectures Grayson Perry called artists “Pilgrims on the Road to Meaning”. At New Blood Art we wanted to gain insight into our artists personal roads to meaning so we asked them 3 questions:
The moment when you are at a party (for example) and someone asks; “What do you do?” You think about how to answer and then you summon up the courage to say, “I’m an artist.” Can you remember when that moment happened for you and tell us about it?
Apart from the fact that I can be loud and insane I am also humble, and with the guys like Basquiat, Picasso or Modigliani staring at you from the history of art book it can be tough to just say ‘I am an artist’… it’s weird and surreal. You wont hear Keith Richards saying ‘I am a rockstar’ right? Saying this depends on my mood, if I am happy and satisfied with my work I will say ‘I am an artist’, but when the days of doubt are creeping around I rather think ‘I’m gonna say this while lying on the couch in my New York loft, when I’m older’..
Do you have any rituals or routines to help the creative process?
Creative process starts deep in my head automatically every few days, then I just have to sit down put some music on, hip hop or punk – something aggressive and squeeze the juices out of all ideas and reflections. I go back in time to when I was very young, I gather collage of memories, things I’ve done – good and bad, people I miss or people I wish I’d never met and maybe part of fairytale from when I was little and the feeling of the sickness when you miss good old times, when you miss home..
What was the best piece of advice you were given?
I was given a few and I treasure them.
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