Art is something that I will always do. I'll be somewhere senile and painting on the walls if they allow me. Creating and mixing colors, even supply shopping is an exciting part of being an artist because there's potential to it. Having something in your head and being able to bring it out into the world is just something super special that an artist gets to do and I can't imagine not being able to do that.

Well, this is gonna sound so dark, like, emo artist of me. But there is something that's real inside of me that needs to be fulfilled with being creative and I feel like it also drains very quickly so I need to constantly keep dumping creative production into it to kind of keep that fulfilled. It’s attached to my mental well being, where if I'm creating constantly I seem to be happier and if I hit a block or go a couple days without creating, my mood swings will definitely dictate that.

I think it's a survival mechanism for me. I'm the most myself when I'm creating. So for me, if I'm not painting, and I'm not making things, then what am I doing? It helps my mental health. So for me, I guess it's not so much a choice or having a drive to do it. It's like I have to do it in order to be myself and to be my happiest self.

Before that I had a lot of preconceived notions about the types of people who got tattoos and stuff. As a kid I thought, especially back in the 80’s and 90’s and stuff, that people who had tattoos were kind of scary. They were older, they seemed like bikers or convicts or something to me and I was like ehhh. But then my cousin got some work from Erik Payne, and he got a lot of work from him, and it was really cool.

I think it's a matter of sanity. I think I really will go crazy if I'm not creating. It's an outlet I need. It's a distraction when things get difficult. It is something that makes me feel alive.

I've been doing art since I was a kid. I couldn't stop making things. I always had to be using my hands to do something. I had to make stuff all the time and I wasn't really into drawing so much as I was into weaving and doing all kinds of different types of pottery. I just couldn't stop using my hands to make art. When I was a kid, I wasn't really encouraged in it. It was just something that was a hobby but I couldn't stop doing it. So as much as my parents probably didn't want me to go into the art field, I just couldn't stop myself.

When I first got into art, being dyslexic, it didn't make sense to me. But when I started studying art in the graphic world and I started seeing everything through layers it started to make sense to me. It was mind boggling. I would look at a painting and all of a sudden go (*boom*) and I would be like oh, that's the shading layer! And it was this ginormous epiphany for me in art. I'm still studying art every day between lighting, shading and coloring.

My main influence was definitely hip hop culture, hip hop music, underground stuff. Coming from Boise, that was weird because there wasn't a lot of that. And the little amount I did see I kind of picked up on from skateboarding. That was what sucked me into that culture. And then from there, it was like each day was a new page of learning stuff and doing research on the internet.

A lot of my motivation to sit down and paint comes from my clients. They're so happy to have a painting that is special and just for them. A lot of times they're gifts, so creating a truck portrait that is your grandfather's truck, who's passed away, for a Father's Day gift. It’s incredibly motivating to me to get that piece done for my client…

My mom said I popped out with a pencil in my hand. I was just sketching all the time, drawing comics, little anime characters like Dragonball Z stuff, just kind of the average stuff at first and then it kind of just moved on to graffiti. And graffiti was my main love for a solid five years or so, while I was going to college.

I think I've developed a kind of part of me where I just have to do something and create something and I don't always create what I want to create. Sometimes it's stuff that's for other folks. And, you know, I just enjoy the process of creating. So I think for me, my motivation just comes from whether I'm working with somebody and I am able to bounce ideas off them.

I think it's one of those things that can motivate people, it can push people to do things that they never thought they could do. But then I think it also can really set a mood and a tone with design and graphics and anything that you can do nowadays, it's pretty much endless, and it kind of controls the landscape of how people live and how they want to live.

Nature has been really inspiring lately. I've been going out and just sightseeing and looking at canyons and scenery. So I’ve really been into landscapes and I got to go out and finally do a little bit. There was a cliff that I was looking at and I did a charcoal drawing of it, which was nice. It's difficult trying to just pick one piece of nature and then trying to capture it. It's definitely a challenge but it's nice once you can kind of capture different aspects of the scenery.

This is gonna sound really corny, but when I was in fourth grade, I drew a perfect circle by freehand. I didn't understand the concept of drawing at that time because I just saw like Calvin and Hobbes, that was kind of my upbringing, and then comic books. I said, you know what, let's start with the basics. I drew a circle. And then that circle is always in my work.

I'm addicted to creating. I guess what excites me most is the unknown, and that's what keeps me going. It’s like, even when I've reached a certain height. I don’t get annoyed, I appreciate when people say Chris, you're doing it! You've made it, blah blah blah, I'm like, f*ck you, I've made it. I'll make it when I'm dead, you know, and even then, like, my energy is gonna be transferred somewhere else and just gonna continue along with everybody else.

Some of the first art that I really enjoyed was, you know, skateboard graphics. Whether it was Toy Machine, Blind, Zero, Baker. I was always drawn to that stuff. And I remember I used to draw over my binders, like the little Blind logo, or the Toy Machine devil logo. And then from there, I found out about the artists that made the boards like Ed Templeton, Margaret Kilgallen, Barry McGee and I think those are all artists that I grew up admiring and I definitely draw inspiration from those artists and I think that's got a lot to do with like the style that I work in very kind of bold, graphic. shapes and colors.

I was fortunate to go to a school that had a pretty robust arts program. And something about the process, I think drew me in at that point in time. We got to go on a visit to the local university and the printmaking studio was in the basement of this old building, it was dark, pretty dirty, all this heavy equipment and you know, chemical processes happening.

Ever since I was in school, I really loved soldering. Soldering for me is usually soldering hollow forms or some kind of form together. So it's a kind of an integral part of metalworking. But it's one of the stages that I really enjoy the most, because it's super precise. You have these little tiny solder chips that you have to very delicately balance on the edge of a little teeny wire or the edge of a sheet of metal. And the art of not getting them to bounce off while you're heating up the metal and it's getting ready to flow has been almost like a dance performance for me.