Julie Pegan - Full Text Artist Sit Down

What is your primary medium?

I'm mostly an illustrator. So I will draw on just about anything. Paint, sketchbooks, right now I'm really big into drawing on clothes. So my main medium is anything to get the weird pictures out of my head. 

How did you get into creating art?

I've always been doing art and it sort of became a thing that I mapped my life around in high school, when I had to choose things to do. Art was the thing that I kind of hid in and did by myself.

Did you go to school for art? 

I did. I went to Boise State University for a Bachelor's in illustration and did that for five years and came out, decided I didn't have anything to illustrate out in the real world. So I went back for a graphic design degree.

What inspires you to create?

I am a giant nerd. So I will find inspiration in weird science things. I'm really into space and I love comic books. Anything superhero, zombie or vampire. Yeah, I've got a ton of different wells that I sort of find. Color is a big thing that I really love to play with as well. So anything that sort of catches my eye and makes me think a little is where I get inspired.

What gets you out of bed and creating?

It's generally just having something in my head and knowing that I have a story to tell and I need to communicate it through an image. So that's the main thing that that puts me in my studio is if I've got something that's sort of like a bee in my bonnet that I need to express visually. That's the main thing that I'm always trying to express in my work. 

Why do you think art is important? 

Art is important because it allows people to express an emotion or a feeling that I don't think a certain section of us can do otherwise. It's the sort of expression that helps people find themselves and express it to the world. And that's, that's kind of been what gets me going and gets me excited to see new art and to do new art and find others that express themselves in similar ways. 

Do you sell your art?

I do. I need to be better about it. I'm not a great marketing person, so what I do is I generally just create stuff that I enjoy, and post it on social media and find people that are interested in that. And, I mean, I used to be a part of the Swell Artist Collective and that was a good way to at least get my name out in the community and I did sell a few things through that, but it's been an unusual year. Less people are buying at the moment.

Has the pandemic changed the way you work?

It's not really doing a whole lot for me because I'm such a solitary worker when it comes to the arts. It's changed the ability to do things communally. I do miss that. I was a big component in the Freak Alley Gallery Downtown and I've missed being able to do that with people, going and painting murals and communicating with my art friends. It's a bit like artist summer camp down there and we don't get to do that when there's a pandemic happening.

How important is having a space for you to work?

It's huge. I moved into this house with the idea that I was going to turn this third room into a studio and I was super excited about that because I was living in a little bitty apartment and anytime I wanted to create something, I had to move things out of the way. Then once I was done I had to figure out how to collect it and keep it from mucking up the rest of the space. So it's been a huge, huge part. Being able to set work aside, come back to it later and having an inspiring space is super important for me.

Are there any Boise specific opportunities you've had?

I think so. I think the fact that it is such a small close knit community, I've been able to make connections with artists that I probably wouldn't have been able to in a larger space, or would have felt like I wasn't up to caliber in a larger city. So it's been nice to be able to at least know that there are people out there that support me and are rooting me on and we can all swap ideas. That's also allowed me to connect with smaller businesses and get to design things that are more ad based and graphic design based, which is cool too. I don't think I would have had that opportunity in a larger city.

Are you able to flex your artistic muscles in your day job?

Definitely, the job that I have is in the creative sphere, which is very cool. I haven't had that in a while. So being able to do a 9 to 5 job that keeps me creative is really helpful. I'm allowed to just kind of daydream things up, which is a space that I'm still getting used to. But it also allows me to kind of keep in a creative space so that when I do leave my 9 to 5, I can come home and still have that creative mindset for my own stuff. 

Do you do commissions?

I do, yeah. Several of the jackets that I've designed I've sold. They are a little harder because people have to bring me jackets. And again, pandemic, so it's tough to swap clothing during this time of the world. I've done a couple kids books. I worked with the Western Idaho fair and designed their 2018 and 2019 ad works, so I was the character designer for all of the odd little farmyard characters that were on billboards all over the valley. So that was a fun sort of commission and I'm hoping that I can continue finding things like that here.

How can the Boise art scene be improved?

I think as Boise is growing and as the art scene is growing, we've gotten more unique people into town. The people that already live here are coming up with really creative ways to display art, or to get art out into the community and I feel like the Visual Artist Collective is one of those places and we're all kind of rallying around them, trying to make sure they stay open. Freak Alley was my sort of intro into it and I really want both of those spaces to maintain and continue so that other artists and other people can experience the creatives in the community. But yeah, I think everyone's kind of working as hard as they can to keep spaces that are here present. And hopefully, when the world comes back online, we can all sort of open new spaces and find creative ways to kind of gather and view art again.

How has the community changed over the last year?

Well, the pandemic makes it a lot harder to communicate and, sadly, it was the reason that the Swell Artists Collective closed. I really do miss being able to get together with all of the creatives that were a part of that. All of them were super inspiring and going to what felt like a show a month was super. It was the greatest thing to gain ideas and swap techniques and it's just not there at the moment. I mean, social media is kind of there and I still talk to people that way, but it's different. I mean, I’m just trying to make it through, and hopefully just art myself into sanity.

Do you think art is something you will ever stop doing?

Never. 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. So I will always be constantly creating.

Kelly Knopp - Full Text Artist Sit Down

What is your primary medium?

My primary medium now is digital for sure. It's evolved a little bit and I guess digital and traditional pen and ink are probably the two I jump between.

What got you interested in art?

You know, the first pivotal moment I remember thinking that art could be something really important to me was probably in sixth grade. I had this teacher, he was old, unfortunately I'm sure he's not alive today, but he always smelled of cigarettes and cigars and he was a big fly fisherman. One day he had us tie flies and they ran out of the equipment to do it so I decided I would just sketch one. He noticed it and was like, “Wow, you're really good at art.” I think it was the first time that anyone had ever even recognized that maybe there was a talent there or a or a passion. For some reason it just stuck in my head. I think it's the first time I realized it's something I like to do.

What gets you out of bed in the morning to create something?

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.

Where do you get your inspiration?

Inspiration wise, I grew up watching a lot of cartoons, kind of as my babysitter. I remember watching Ninja Turtles or Fred Flintstone and then trying to draw those eyes, or, this is how a turtle shell looks. That sort of evolved into Ren and Stimpy, which I think is one of my favorite inspirations along with like Garbage Pail Kids. So I would take a lot of images that they would create and then try to recreate it and even sort of Frankenstein them together to make my own artwork.

What has it been like for you to support yourself with art?

I mean, I don't take it for granted. Making art for a living and being able to have a decent lifestyle is something that first off, takes a ton of work. But it also takes a little bit of luck I think. I've had a lot of great mentors in my life. I've had a lot of great opportunities. But even with all that stuff, you have to deliver. I feel like being able to do art for a living and consistently for a long time, I think you have to be consistent yourself as a business person and making sure that you're running yourself like a business. You're giving accurate quotes, you're hitting these deadlines, your relationship with the client is good and professional. I think that's the only way I've been able to do it is by maintaining good relationships and professional ones.

Are there opportunities you've had in Boise you might not have had other places?

To be an artist here, I feel really, I guess lucky, in a sense. I think we're still in that medium-sized town stage, which 10 years ago, I would have said small, but we're growing pretty rapidly. So to have roots here creatively from being a kid and making those relationships and sort of getting in on these cultural things that Boise has, you know, I remember doing art for the Boise River Festival, which a lot of people probably don't even remember, whether it's the Hyde Park Street Fair, or, I've sort of embedded myself in the community and the culture that surrounds it. So I do think there's opportunity in Boise and I kind of take issue with people saying that Boise's art scene is broken or that there's no buyers, there's no one that supports artists. I mean, the internet's available. You know what I mean? I love doing art for people here locally, but that only probably accounts for 60% of the work I do. A lot of it is from out of state or even without boundaries through the internet. It's people that have found my Instagram, or social media, or word of mouth that travels through those avenues.

Did you go to school for art or are you self taught?

Self taught for sure. I had a really great high school teacher, Miss Shanafelt. And one of the things that stood out with Miss Shanafelt was, you know, I kind of phoned in my art stuff in high school. I would slack off in class, I wouldn't do a great job, the end. I was a horrible student so I really needed art and PE to help my GPA, because in all my other classes I was near failing. I remember going up to the front of the class and her letting me know that she was going to give me a C on my report card. It was sort of devastating because I was like, come on, I need this grade. That was the first person I respected in the art world that looked at me and said, “You're better than this. If you take this seriously and work to your potential, you can get better grades.” So that was another teacher that kind of helped me pivot and guide myself in the right direction.

How long have you been doing art professionally?

I think professionally is the debatable word there. I feel like I've been doing art for as long as I can remember. Art for people that are specifically asking, like, I need this logo, I need this illustration, I would say seriously for maybe 15 years. The longer I do it, the more I think I like it. There's a certain challenge to doing art someone needs from you within certain parameters. I can do art all day long for myself and it is very fulfilling. But I feel like at that point you're just trying to impress yourself. I think there's a bigger challenge to say, here's someone coming from an industry that you don't even understand, they're trying to tell you they need this thing and then you have to take the responsibility of being like, I'm gonna take your money and your ideas and I'm gonna give you back something that's going to further your mission, or your company.

Is it easier for you to create for yourself or for a client?

Oh, that's a hard question. I think the last time I had a body of work that was purely for myself and for no reason at all, was a show at the VAC I did. God it even seems like last week, but I think it was something like 15 years ago. It was me and Rick Walter and this was all work that I had in a closet that I'd been doing for years for no reason. It was all stuff that I was dealing with through depression, or through some life event. I went to thrift stores and bought a bunch of old frames and spray painted them black and that was my art show. I think there were close to 60 or 80 pieces of work in that show. It was so cool to show in a gallery setting, but it did something to me where after I sold a bunch of pieces, something changed. I felt like from then on I was making art to sell. And it's kind of this weird teeter-totter with me because I know that it's such a shitty thing for an artist to say “I'm making art to make money” and it's kind of frowned upon. So I battle myself with that. But I don't think I've created art just for straight up, no one's ever gonna see this, this is me mentally dumping creatively since then. I feel like I've got a style that people recognize where I can insert a lot of personal creativity into a logo or an illustration or an event poster where I can get that creative outlet. But I don't remember the last time I made a piece that was purely for just myself.

Why is art important?

Art to me, is everything. If I can't make art work, then I have to seriously rearrange some things in my life. I mean, I've sort of put all of my eggs in this art basket and I don't know what I would do without it. That's like the personal answer for it. I don't know how art isn't important. I mean, even if it pisses you off, or if it makes you feel at peace, or whatever it is. I go back and forth so often on things like, what is art? And I don't think it's for anyone to say. I think if there's certain things that other people call art, where I look at it, I'm like “I don't get it, that's not art to me” but because someone else thinks it is I can't take that away from them. It's like someone's music preference. You know, when you show someone a song and you're like, isn't this the best song ever? And they're like, ehhh. I mean, It's so wild and I don't like when people claim that they know what art is or like, why it is. Because I think it's very personal.

Can you tell me a little about the books you’ve been making?

A While Ago in Idaho is a book series that I'm working on with an Idaho historian. I had this idea that really goes back to elementary school where, again, I was a horrible student, and these teachers would dump so much information on you in a way where, at least for my learning style, it would just go right over my head. I don't know if it wasn't interesting or if it didn't entertain me that second but it just didn't resonate. I didn't hold on to the information. I started working with Amber Bierele, and she'll correct me on this later, but she's somewhat of a manager or director of Idaho historical sites. She's brilliant and every time I hang out with her I ask her, what's going on with this building? Or what happened with this person? And she knows the answer to it. So I pitched the idea of like, “What if we made an Idaho history book, but it was really weird stuff, the stuff that you're not gonna learn in school.” I mean the stuff you learn in school, Oregon Trail, or like those Idaho facts, they're important, they're very important. But for a kid like me, I needed something a little more exciting to get me going down that road, to almost trick me into learning something. So we set out to find all these really weird stories and historical facts about Idaho and made a book out of it. We're trying to expand that into interactive maps and teaching guides, and give Idaho kids a new source or something that will excite them a little easier than what's been done. And I'm not bashing on any teachers or their history curriculum, I just think there's a more fun way to teach it.

You just came out with the second book?

Yeah. So we just came out with tour #2, we call them tours. It's 12 new Idaho locations. It'll tell you where it happened in Idaho, when, and what that fact is. There's alien stuff in there that can be confirmed historically. There's Idaho myths, there's a lot of ties to World War One and World War Two. Parachuting beavers, dinosaurs, I mean, when you start digging into the weird stuff that happened here, it gets pretty bizarre. It's pretty awesome.

How far do you plan to take the books?

What we found out from searching for really weird facts about Idaho is that there are a tonof them. We have to play in the parameters of, it needs to be kid friendly. If we went adult friendly, there'd be a million books, but it's very inappropriate and probably history that Idaho doesn't want to repeat for sure. But as far as kid history goes and just like fun, Idaho history for adults, we have plans to do the third one. We're starting that in about a month. We're partnering with the Idaho association of museums and basically what we're gonna do is find 24 museums throughout Idaho and they're going to tell us the weirdest thing they have in their collection. So this one will be a little bit of a detour but it'll still be like, if you want to go to northern Idaho to this museum, you can find this really crazy thing that they have in there.

How important is having a space to create in?

I didn't know how important it was before going freelance. I worked at an agency and I was in an office downtown and didn't realize how important it is to leave your personal home space to go to a professional workspace until I left that agency job, came home, tried to work inside the house and realized you almost need a space that that helps you think creatively and somewhere where you can sit for eight or 12 or 14 hours on a project and not be antsy or distracted. So having a studio space that's mine and that people know, especially my family, when I'm in here, I'm on air, Do Not Disturb, is I think paramount for sure.

Is there anything you’d like to talk about I haven't touched on?

Well, you know, there is something I've been thinking about recently. Sue Latta, she's a local artist and she's amazing. I don't know if you've heard of her, but she teaches a class at Boise State University which I think should have been taught a long time ago. It's Art and Entrepreneurship and she'll bring in local artists and have them sort of chat about things like, what do you think about making money on art or how you do it? I take questions from these students, and they're like, “I've always wanted to do a label for a beer”, “I've always wanted to do a snowboard graphic”, “I've always wanted to do…” and they're grasping for these certain milestone things to design or to do art around. I remember being there, but I think the other question they need to be asking themselves is, what CAN’T I make really cool? I do contract work for a vertical agency that only does stuff for car washes. For anyone creative they're like, the last place I want to end up doing creative stuff for would be a carwash. Some of the coolest and I think most fun work I've done is for car washes. Some of them are in Florida, East Coast, California. We're taking an industry that doesn't really focus on creative stuff and being creative forward. We're introducing that to them and it's been awesome. I feel like everyone thinks they need to end up at an agency. I need to work for Nike, I need to work for whatever it is. These grandiose companies. Take a step back and realize that almost everything in every industry needs something that's more creative, more engaging to customers, more engaging to the industry itself.

One of the biggest complaints I hear from people who went to art school is that you don't learn how to market yourself and network. You come out of school with artistic skills but the business side of education tends to be lacking.

I think that's an interesting point. I've almost flipped it to where I focus first on “How do I run a business the way I want to run a business” and then “How do I make the art for it?” Now I consider myself a commercial artist and illustrator or designer, and less an artist. I put it in the category of like, I am making great art for no particular end to it. I'm not making it for someone, no one sent me this idea, it's not a commissioned piece. So for me, acting like the best business person I can and making sure people can find me online, that people can contact me if they need to. That I allow them into my creative process. That's how I'm living off of this, you know, if you're this artist locked in a closet and you're so dark and so deep and no one can get a hold of you to do art, the chances of you making a living on that are pretty slim. So I do tend to try to follow some really good business practices.

Do you think art is something you will ever stop doing?

I don't think I can stop. I think it's part of my mental health. My wife lives in a different world where she has a very corporate job and it's very interesting for me to watch and compare and to realize that I just couldn't handle that. I just can't. I mean, the simple answer is I could never stop doing this as long as my hands and my eyes work and even if they didn't, I'd probably find a different outlet you know, make some really ugly pottery or something. No, I just, there's no way I could stop. It's like a really good piano player, or a really good guitar player. People say, “Oh, it must be so great, you're so lucky to have these talents” like, those people work on that stuff every day. It becomes like part of them. The number of days I have not created something or thought about creating something since I was a kid, I could probably count on two hands. I just have to. My wife makes me sometimes. She’s like, “Go in your shed and make something” because I'm being an asshole. That's kind of how it goes.

Megan Sharratt - Full Text Artist Sit Down

What is your primary medium?

I don't really have one. I call myself a painter. But I'm a painter and a drawer because in every single piece I use charcoal, acrylic, paint pens, spray paint. So I'm kind of a mixed media artist, but I refer to myself as a painter.

How long have you been doing art?

I've been doing art my entire life. I was always that kid who was drawing in the art contests in school and stuff like that. But I really started diving in pretty seriously when I was 14. So the summer before high school, both my parents worked, I have significantly younger siblings, they were babies. I was home all summer babysitting them and I just started painting literally every single day and fell in love. Even though I was already really artsy, that's when I really started painting and now it's my entire life.

Where does your motivation to work come from?

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.

How has having space changed your ability to create?

I work really big so having a large space to be able to spread out has really been a game changer for me. I was working out of a bedroom. I had switched around my entire apartment so that my bedroom was just my art studio and most of that space was just storage for paintings. Now, having an entire series spread out so I can look at every single piece as I’m working on it, and work on them piece by piece has really been a game changer. I feel like this space hasn't even reached its full potential yet so I'm really excited to have a space and excited for the future of this space.

Where do you get your inspiration for your work?

My inspiration for my work comes from my life really, and what's going on in the world. It might look like it's just a beautiful piece of art but really there's deeper meaning behind every single piece. I also find a lot of inspiration from music. Music is a huge part of my life, especially hip hop music, which is actually how I kind of got started within the art scene, was creating hip hop portraits and is still something I do today.

Did you go to school?

I went to Boise State. I just have an associate's degree. I was doing art through them but I became increasingly frustrated with the art program and felt really stifled creatively while I was in school. I felt like I was putting my heart and soul into these assignments and then I'd show up and I would have these amazing pieces of work but I wasn't getting any feedback from other students. I created really great relationships with my teachers, but ultimately I didn't feel like I was getting what I needed and I was so stressed out and my mental health was terrible. I ended up leaving school and started working part time but then I started pursuing art full time. My parents were really supportive of it because they were like, “Alright, if this is what you want to do, then then do it.” So I'm really, really lucky that my parents supported my decision to not stay in school and to do art, which is kind of crazy. Sometimes I think about going back and finishing my degree because maybe I'm more mature and I might see the value in it now, but I wouldn't be where I am and I wouldn't have the art that I have if I had stayed in school. But I did learn a lot while I was there.

Are you able to support yourself with your art?

No, not currently, I have at different times of my life just done art full time. Within the last year I moved back to Boise and I've just kind of been pursuing more serious pieces and more high quality pieces. I can create a piece of art and sell it. That's not hard for me to do. But creating a piece of art that means something and that says something and that's going to be impactful, that takes time. I kind of took away the financial element for myself where I was like, I'm not going to put the pressure on this, I'm not going to tell myself “You have to make money with this right now. What you need to do is to make good art and the money will come.” So that has been my focus for the last year and a half.

So why is art important?

Art is so important because it connects us. It's a universal language. You can say so much by not saying anything at all. By showing somebody your favorite song or sharing your favorite book, or showing a painting. For me, how I communicate is through art. So that's why it's important.

Has COVID changed the way you work?

You know, honestly, COVID has changed a little bit how I work. It's brought me back to what's important. I think as an artist you kind of get caught up in your head about, I'm so isolated. I was already having to isolate myself and tell people, “I can't go out”, “I can't do things because I need to paint” or “I need to create” and there was always that pressure. With COVID it kind of took that pressure off me so I've been able to focus more on my art and honestly, I've been able to focus on what's important and what I'm trying to say in terms of my art. So I think in that way, it's been good for me.I haven't felt so alone through COVID because I've had my art. So COVID has impacted the way I create, but it's been more positive I think for me personally, just because I've been able to isolate and I've been able to focus on my work, rather than worry about if I'm missing out on anything.

Are there opportunities you've had in Boise you haven't had elsewhere?

I had a really great opportunity to show art at the Capitol building a few years back. I also got to speak on the importance of mental health and asking for help and how art has saved my life, whether it's music or painting. How my mental health has been directly impacted by art and how it saved me. So I think that was a really great opportunity I got in Boise that I don't think I ever could have gotten anywhere else because I was a Boise native and I was speaking about art and I was on a grand platform and I was able to make a difference, because I'm such a huge advocate for mental health. So I think for me, that's probably the best opportunity I've ever had.

Do you think art is something you'll ever stop doing?

I don't think art is something that I can ever stop doing. I think about it almost weekly where I'm like, oh, should I even be doing this? What am I doing? Is it worth it? And the answer is, yes, of course it's worth it. This is what this is what makes you, you. This is what keeps you alive. So I don't think I'll ever stop making art because I can't. It's everything I am and it's who I am.

Darcy Nutt - Full Text Artist Sit Down

What is your primary medium?

Tattooing. Definitely. I also paint, but I spend a lot more time tattooing.

What got you interested in art?

I was just born that way. My dad was a really great artist and so as soon as I could hold a pencil or a crayon I wanted to do what he did. So, I've always drawn. I've dabbled in a lot of different mediums but it was only when I started tattooing that I was like, “This is it”, you know?

What drew you into tattooing?

Getting my first tattoo, definitely. Because 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. So when I was a teenager, he was showing me all this stuff that Erik Payne had tattooed on him and I was like, “Oh, I had no idea that tattoos could be that cool and big and artistic and different.” So then I got a tattoo just kind of on a whim and I was like, “Yes”, this is it, this is the right medium.

Where do you get your inspiration?

Mostly from older artists, not tattooers, per se. Some of my favorite references for inspiration are Hokusai, who's a Japanese painter. James Audubon did a lot of nature illustrations, stuff like that. They're probably my two most referenced artists. But you know, there's so many good tattooers in the world now and you just, I try not to ever bite anybody's style, but as far as inspiration, there's tons of it out there, you know?

What drives you to get out and create art?

Who knows? You know, that is just, that's a magical thing, isn't it? Who knows? Why are we driven to do anything? For me, I just have to make things. It doesn't matter what it is. I have to make things. Like, right now I'm really focused on remodeling my house. It doesn't really matter what it is. I really have to create stuff. I also make music. Sometimes it's time to paint, sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's time to tattoo for 12 hours a day. Sometimes it's not. But as long as I'm making something, that's the only drive. Because without it, without making stuff, it's really hard for me to keep a good attitude. But if I make things I always have a good attitude, you know?

Are there opportunities you've had in Boise you might not have had elsewhere?

Absolutely. People here love tattoos. Oh my gosh, like, seriously. I mean don't tell all the other tattooers in the world, but it is a wonderful place. People want big cool tattoos and they want lots of them. We're a very heavily tattooed community per capita, and I travel a lot. I haven't seen very many cities that are as heavily tattooed per capita as Boise Idaho. It's like a well kept secret but it's a great place for tattooing. So you know, could I have a wonderful experience tattooing in a bigger city, for sure. But I don't know that it would be as good as it is here. Again, I've traveled a lot and it's cool and everything, but when I visit another city to tattoo, I'll have an influx of people that want something by me but I'm only there for a week or two, you know what I mean? So it's hard to kind of assess what it's like to work there on a day to day basis. But here, it's just been wonderful. I have such good clients and the enthusiasm is strong.

What's it like for you to be a well known tattoo artist?

I'm very grateful for it. You know, it literally means that I can tattoo anywhere. I could put all my tools and inks and things into a suitcase and go anywhere in the world and do this job. So I try to take advantage of that to a degree. Maybe someday I'll actually bounce around from country to country and do it. I don't know. But it's pretty cool.

What's it like to be able to support yourself with your art?

I'm just super grateful. I mean, I didn't go to college as an art major. I did go to college initially, but I did not go as an art major, because I couldn't think of a job that I wanted that would involve art. I didn't want to be a graphic designer, I didn't want to be a starving artist either. So when I went to college it was like, I don't know, I'll figure it out I guess. And then I got my first tattoo. And then I stopped going to college because I was like, I want to be a tattoo artist. But I'm just super grateful because I realize it's difficult as an artist to make a living doing what you do and yeah, I just try and make sure that I'm worthy of it, you know, work hard to try and maintain that and keep the good work comin.

Can you tell me about your book?

It's a collection of my drawings from like the past 20 years almost and a lot of them have been tattooed but they're more like the raw sketches of those tattoos and a lot of them haven't been tattooed at all. Some are just doodles but they're just like, really raw line drawings. It was fun because I've been thinking about putting this book together for several years and it was only because of Coronavirus that I actually had the time to put a book together, it’s very time consuming even though almost all of the drawings were already drawn. I did draw a few just for the book. But to assemble a book like that is mind blowingly time consuming. So I'm pretty proud of it. It's kind of cool to say hey, this is like two decades worth of drawings and to kind of close that door and work on new drawings. Does that make sense? It's a little bit ceremonious for me to do that.

Was this your first time trying to put a book together?

Yeah, I never wanted to before but this book is, it's put together like a reference book for artists. So if you there's like five chapters to it. There's flowers and people and animals and birds and then random miscellaneous things like skulls and hearts and sail ships and things like that. But anything that you would like to look at is grouped together so you can reference it.

Are books something you utilize a lot?

Yeah, because when I started tattooing we didn't have the internet. Anything you wanted to reference had to be referenced from books or magazines, but that was all you had. I don't know how many tattooers actually use books now, but it is a cool tradition and definitely helps you to find some more hidden gems for reference and inspiration. Like, if you Google search something you can rest assured that 100,000 other tattooers across the world are all looking at those same search results. We're all drawing our tattoos, but what you're looking at to get an idea of what you're drawing has a pretty heavy influence on how you draw it, right? The angle that it's from, the artist's interpretation, whether it's a photograph or an artist rendering, it's going to influence how you draw it and if everybody's drawing the same stuff it kind of makes it hard for you to stand out, you know? So books are good.

What's it like to have people show up for your style of tattoos, rather than just saying, “Hey, can you tattoo X on me?”

Gosh, that happened a long time ago. I mean, I remember being a young tattooer and thinking, “Oh, I wish I had a style of my own.” Looking at older tattooers and being like, gosh, their style is just so, so them, you know, I wish I had a style. It just comes with time and eventually you do enough tattoos that your understanding of what makes a good tattoo becomes more and more set in stone and that in and of itself is what kind of develops one’s style. So after a while, it's unavoidable. Now I'm like, “Man, I wish I could draw a tattoo that didn't look like a Darcy tattoo”, you know (*laughs*). It's inescapable because my beliefs about how to make a good tattoo are so firm because of trial and error and seeing the results. Trying this, trying that and seeing how it heals, how it ages, how it settles in, what colors have more longevity, how dense linework should be whatnot, all this kind of nerdy stuff. The more you do it, the more you become firm in those beliefs and your style just blooms. So yeah, it happened and then people liked it and I'm glad they do. I keep trying to stay fresh, though, you know, I don't want to become stale. So even though I kind of do have my own style, I'm always seeking to evolve it.

How important is having your own space?

I don't mind working at other studios, especially as a guest artist. It's really fun to see how other people put their shops together and whatnot. I mean, it's been such a long time since I've worked at another shop but as far as my workspace, I love this shop. It's got so much space and I like the lighting and the colors and stuff to look at. I'm pretty particular about the space I work in, I like to have a lot of it. The shop is set up the way I like it and luckily, I think all the guys here like it too.

How has it been for you to be an artist employing other artists?

Man, that's challenging, right? Being the boss. But I try not to really be a boss, we all do the same thing so I've learned to just try and hire people that like the same work environment that I like and then that way we just all chill under one roof doing the same thing and it's great. I love walking around and seeing what the other guys are doing because they're so good at what they do and it inspires me to kind of step up my game. I think that we all kind of do that for each other and it's a friendly competition. That's really the reason why we have tattoo shops. These days there's a lot of options for tattoo artists. A lot of tattooers tattoo out of their house, you could have a private studio, you could do all these things that kind of isolate you from other people but personally, as long as we have plenty of space to work in, I prefer to work with a lot of people because it keeps the energy and the inspiration up and that friendly competitiveness, man, it's it's how you get good. I'm convinced that it takes the right attitude and the right personality and then the right group of people around you and you just kind of feed off each other and it's a good atmosphere and I think our clients enjoy it too because they're not just alone in their experience with their good artist here. It's all around them and that's a cool feeling when you look over and you're like, “Wow, that's cool.” You know?

Do you think art is something you'll ever stop doing?

No, that would be sad wouldn't it? It would be very sad. No, I think about that a lot though, actually because tattooing is a small motor skill kind of art, right? I think about people with the little eye loop that paint the little miniatures, that takes very precise motor skills and so does tattooing. Those machines are kind of heavy and you gotta have really good eyesight and not only do your hands have to be precise, but your arms and your posture and everything is very precise. So at some point, it's going to go, it's just true. You don't see a lot of tattooers tattooing past the age of like 65. So after that I hope to become more of a painter. Then I would have a lot more time to paint. Maybe sculpting. I don't know. I always actually wanted to do stop motion animation as my secret alternate dream job because I think that's super cool. Like moving art is really, really, really cool. But I look forward to when the day comes that I shouldn't be holding a tattoo machine anymore. I'll be doing something else. Like I said, I have to make things so I have no doubt, no doubt, that I'll always be making things to the extent that my body will let me.

Jim Daniels - Full Text Artist Sit Down

What is your primary medium?

Three dimensional for sure. I think I have a pretty good mind for three dimensional structure and I'm also fascinated by animals and proportions. I am fascinated by light and how it goes through mediums. So yea, three dimensional sculpture.

How long have you been creating sculptures?

Not that long? About five years?

What got you interested in doing art?

There was a challenge that a friend of mine posted online A few years ago, the challenge was simply to make something out of paper. I had a hanging lamp in the entryway and I really did not like the cover. It had a very cheap cover on it. So I decided to make one out of paper. It was just a geometric pattern, simple printer paper folded over, but I really liked how it turned out and so that's what got me started. I put some colored lights in it and it just looked good.

Did you ever play around with lights as a kid?

Not that much. I think Christmas tree lights like any kid does. But no, not that much.

Have you always felt artistic or is this something that came later?

It has come later. I've always felt driven by creative projects though. I tried creative writing at one point. I've done some backyard metal casting of simple things like vegetables, simple patterns, mushrooms cast up very well. I've done some drawing lately and a little bit of painting within the last couple years.

Where do you get your inspiration?

That's hard to say. Inspiration is really something you can't search for very easily. It has to come to you. Nature is an inspiration. Animals of all sorts, really. The proportions and how those proportions can be transformed into a work of art through sculpture. Something like that.

What makes you feel like you need to create?

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.

Are there opportunities you've had in Boise you might not have had elsewhere?

Absolutely. I've been to Burning Man a couple times and the only reason I was involved in that was because of people that I've met since I moved to Boise about 20 years ago. There is a great artistic community here in Boise. I think Boise is particularly accessible for amateur artists, up and coming artists. I think there's a lot of opportunities here. I mean, here at JUMP they've got events throughout the year. They're always looking for collaborators and that's how I first got started here a couple years ago. I saw a posting they did online talking about their Illumibrate Festival and I shot an email back and said, Hey, I've been working on this large light up paper fish and asked if they were interested. They said no. The deadline was already too close, which was probably for the best since I don't think I would have made that deadline. It was still a work in progress. But they were interested in something for the following year. So the following year I volunteered and it was great to be able to have space to show off something. There was a time when I was thinking about not moving to Boise, but possibly some other cities. And I don't know that I ever would have discovered art at all if I had ended up somewhere else.

Is art something you're able to make a living off of?

It is not, I am comfortable with that. I have made some money doing it. But at this point, I think it's really something that I want to do. I really want to be able to do projects that feel right to me, so to be able to do that as a hobby is fine with me. I am happy with my day job. So I just do it for fun.

Do you think art is something you'll ever stop doing?

I don't think so, no. I might change the types of art that I'll be doing, but one way or another I do feel I have to be creative.

Do you prefer working with paper or quilt batting?

They both come with their challenges. I think I like paper a little more. There's a real art to being able to layer paper in a way that the light goes through it nicely and doesn't show framing behind it or the structure underneath. Also with layers of paper and how the layers can be staggered you can get some very nice effects with how the light goes through it. The challenge with paper though is it's not the most sturdy material and has to be handled very carefully, especially with large pieces. I have damaged them, but yeah, I think the effect, especially for something like a large hanging lamp, I don't think you can beat paper.

What’s it been like for you to see the giraffes come to life and be enjoyed by people?

Oh, I love it. I love it especially that these particular pieces were done on a very short timeline. It was a little over two months from when we first came up with the idea and started fabrication to the event where they were shown. It was a marathon run to get them done. I'm happy that they came out pretty well. Happy that people got to see them. And I'm happy that they are still here and I can continue working on them and refining them a little more so that they can be out for other events in the future.

Is there anything that I haven't asked you about?

Maybe some about the process. Really, my background is not in art, I have no formal education in art. My background is actually in engineering. When I first moved to Boise I was working at Micron as a semiconductor engineer. That isn't a background that I think translates well to art. You wouldn't think so, but engineering does have some benefits when it comes to shape and proportion. I don't have the artistic sensibility to say, take a lump of clay and shape it into something that looks like a giraffe. However, I can take measurements off of pictures, I can build up an Excel spreadsheet that has different measurements all over it, and I can use that as a stepping stone to start shaping out the structure of something so it ends up looking organic and natural and properly shaped.

Do you think your background has influenced what you choose to create?

It has in the sense that it's influenced what I'm able to create. Because my mind often thinks in numbers, I'll think of how to build something from a structural standpoint, from an idea of measurement and based on proportions from that. I think it also helps in the sense of how to build something fairly large, like these giraffes, that can be structurally stable. Though, really, I think it comes down to just being able to process the math. It influences me to try to push the limits. To create projects that reach the limits of what I think can be done from that standpoint. I do think sometimes that I should have gone to art school instead. That it would have enriched my art more. And I'm sure it would have. I think if I had though, I would be doing different projects, and I don't know if that would be good or bad. But if it wasn't for an engineering background, I would not be doing projects like this. I don't think.

Do you think your future works are going to include lights?

Likely, yes. In particular because it's a medium I'm attracted to and also because I want to collaborate with JUMP in the future. Their Illumibrate light festival is going to happen again and I would like to make more pieces for it.

Delia Dante - Full Text Artist Sit Down

What is your primary medium?

My primary medium is enameling. Yeah, so I enamel and weld.

How did you get into that?

Quite by accident, actually. I was taking a class at Boise State University during my master's degree with John Killmaster and he wheeled in a kiln one day in painting class and I couldn't take my eyes off of what he was doing, it just enamored me. It was like magic. I begged him to teach me how to do one piece and that absolutely changed the whole course of my life.

How long have you been doing art?

Well, you know, 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. But as far as being an artist, the first time I sold a piece was when I was like 30 or 31. I became an art teacher because that's what you do when you don't think you can do art for a living.

What made you want to be an art teacher?

I graduated from Lewis and Clark College in Portland and really was lost as a person. I didn't really have a direction forward in my career and went up to Seattle and thought maybe I should go into the medical field, but that chemistry class just wasn't for me. I kind of had to figure out what I wanted to do. I was working in a framing shop for about five years and loved working with my hands again and working retail. I just really like being around people, I love helping people and being in that sort of industry. I was able to transfer down to Boise and come back home to live with my parents and try to reassess my life, as you do sometimes when you're in your early 20’s and just don't know what to do with yourself. I had a lot of debt from school, and I figured why not just add on more debt. So I took an interest test at Boise State University in the summer, and an interest test, really?!? You're like, I have to do that to figure out what I'm going to do with my life at 22 or something? And so the first thing it said was “florist”, which was not going to happen because I'm really bad with plants. So the second one was “art teacher” and I was like, really. I just didn't think art teachers got a lot of respect in general. They didn't get paid well, but it intrigued me enough to sign up for art education at Boise State. And actually, it was a natural fit, it was the best fit. I absolutely loved writing curriculum and learning about all different kinds of art mediums that you can teach and it was a great fit. I got my master's degree at the same time, so when I applied to Boise Schools I got a job right out of college at Hillside Junior High and that was that. For 12 years I was a junior high school art teacher here in Boise.

When did you start Fire Fusion Studio?

I started it in 2009. I decided to take a sabbatical after 12 years to see if I wanted to do art for a full time gig. I didn't even know what it would be like to be home all the time making art, I had the summers off and I thought, “I just can't stop doing this.” I'd been running home after school  and being a teacher is really demanding if you want to be good, so I was really pulled in two different directions. I thought it was time for me to really take a leap out and see if I'm meant to be an artist full time and then welding started to kind of come into picture. I had a welding shop set up, a really small, little oxy-acetylene set up in my garage and I was really into it. I was starting to really love getting back into this welding idea and so I stepped out of the classroom that year, I bought a TIG welder to weld copper and I got the job for Barbacoa and that was that. It totally changed my life.

What drew you into working with metal?

You wouldn't have ever thought I'd be a welder or work with metal, but the enameling, just the idea of being able to do forms in glass. I was like wow, that's gonna blow me out of the water. I mean doing flat panel work was really exciting, but I've always done ceramics. I've always been weaving 3D stuff. I was always really wanting to make things with my hands and I just had a natural rapport with copper. Working the metal just seemed really intrinsic to me. It just seemed like a natural fit and I thought it was the most beautiful thing to see the metal melt and move like liquid gold, I could move it wherever I wanted. It was just so exciting to see that I could create these three dimensional forms and then fuse glass to them. I hadn't really seen too many people in enamelling actually welding. They were soldering more and I saw kind of an untapped part of the medium. I found it very exciting because you don't see many areas in mediums that you can kind of move into and change or open up a new path forward in the medium. It's really hard to set yourself apart and yeah, the metal was just that was a game changer in the welding, totally. That's what got me into electroplating and now 3D printing. Yeah, I don't know, you would've never thought, welder, really?!?

Would you say art is important?

Well, it gets me out of every bad decision. I've made some bad choices in my life and I'll tell you when those days are hard and it's really tough, art always seems to... It's therapy. It’s beauty and it's a conversation between people. I don't know why I have to be a maker and I ask myself that question often because I don't understand why I have to make objects. It doesn't literally make sense to me. Why would I want to be a maker? What is it about this that I can't get enough of, because it's such a hard business to be in and it's just so hard to make a living at it that I could do a lot of other things. But I can't stop. There's just something to it that helps me in my day. It helps me relate to other people. I absolutely love collaborating with other artists. I love learning. Never gonna get tired of trying something new and exploring and always moving forward. I don't know what it is. I've asked myself that it's a great question. Why do you have to make things? Barbacoa was a big change for me, I'd never made anything public before where I could see the response in such a grand way. When we opened Barbacoa, I sat in the back and just kind of wanted to see the response to the Medusa sculpture, negative or positive. I think that a big part of making art is just having people ask the question, and creating conversation. Maybe also helping people, inspiring people to do something new or try something new. If I can leave something behind when I die, I really hope I leave the legacy that I helped. I helped people, and especially, especially kids.

Where do you get your inspiration?

Everywhere. That's one thing my professors would always say; “Can you just pick something and go with it? The best way to make money at art and to really set yourself aside is to pick one thing and just be the best at it. 30 years in and they'll be able to pick out your art.” I look at my art and I don't know that you'd even know it was done by the same artist. I think that might be good and bad. I love everything. I love modern art. I love contemporary. I really like realism. I can do a Medusa sculpture, but then I really like to do mid-modern stuff. I love nature. I'm really just inspired by everything I see and people I'm around. Not so much the environment. Mostly my life experiences. Other artists inspire me greatly. I get a lot of inspiration from what other people are up to, especially living in Idaho where we don't get a lot of influences. It's not like going to San Francisco where you’re just, mind blown when you see it or LA where it’s like, Oh My God, I'm going to take that home! I have to be on the internet and go to conferences. I go to a lot of workshops and try to see what the enamelists society and the culture is up to. So that's really inspiring for me.

What gets you out of bed in the morning and thinking, “I need to make something today.”

That's a great question. I don't know. I just want to see what it does. I'm always excited to see what's next. This medium is so exciting because it's never the same for me. I get excited by what other things I can try or push the envelope with. The electroplating has been so exciting for me, I can't wait to see what my tanks come up with every morning. Like, that's my morning. What are they? What are they doing in there? How's the plating going? And then, what am I going to do with what I plated? What am I going to weld to that? I also want to say something. I get excited about having a message or meaning or showing that there's just so much out there to experiment with. So I think experimenting is really fun for me, I get really jazzed. I don't really always have a path forward and I think that's the exciting part. I don't know the journey. I don't know the end result. I just know that I'm going somewhere and where it's taking me is the exciting part. I mean, I have an idea in my head, but then it can't go anywhere and I think that's what gets me up. There's just not gonna be enough life in me to do everything that I want to try and I think I get annoyed by the fact that time is running out the older I get. I'm like, come on, I need more time for all the stuff I want to do.

Are there opportunities you’ve had here in Boise you might not have had elsewhere?

Oh, yeah. I mean, that's why I stay. It's economically feasible. I mean, I could buy a house here, I had a stable job. I had a lot of stability to live here. And I don't think I could have ever purchased a building as an artist in a city anywhere else, you know, I can't believe I got away with it. To be able to do that, it's pretty impressive. I think that's the testament to Boise being affordable and giving opportunities to artists. I don't think I could have had this life if I stayed in California as a child and I don't know that I would have gotten into welding without the ruggedness of the environment here. It's a different environment growing up here. The wilderness and camping, all of that really does frame you for being outside and yeah, it's really great.

What has it been like for you to earn a living through your art?

The hardest thing I've ever tried to do in my life. There were times when I didn't think I could do it, but I put the stakes pretty high. I mean, I think if I had stayed at home and just been a studio artist at home, it would have been a lot easier. The minute that I decided to go into retail and own a building and get employees, that's when it started to get really, really hard and almost overwhelming to where you're crying in the parking lot not thinking you're going to be able to make payroll that month. I don't wish that on many people; hundred hour work weeks, and just trying to keep the doors open is really really stressful. It causes you as an artist to make decisions you don't want to make. Basically, making things for people that aren't necessarily in your framework of where you want to go as an artist. You have to do a lot of production work. That for me is sometimes challenging. I would really rather do my sculpture and make what I want to make. But when you go to that level, you have to make it happen, and you're gonna survive or you're not. You're gonna make some hard choices, you're going to really just do whatever. You're gonna scrap, you're gonna scrape. I'll sell Idaho pendants at the market to make the money come in so that I can pay all the bills. You may not be able to pay yourself and that's really what it comes down to. You have to be okay with that. It's not a starving artist, but sometimes it's pretty damn close to it. I didn't have kids, I was single, those things are possible. I think when you get more obligations and more bills and you have less flexibility in your choices, it becomes much harder. I would encourage anybody that wants to go into retail and have a storefront to really have business sense, some freedom, and have some extra cash.

Do you find it easier to make original or commissioned work?

I've done quite a few commission pieces. And if the client and you have a really good rapport, I love making their dream happen, absolutely I do if it's a fine art piece. I'm starting this new building with my own art because I really do like that part of the business. Sometimes production work is where it gets tedious. So what's wonderful is that I have some great employees that can help me on that side of the business so that I'm not always having to do that or to teach constantly to keep the business running. It's just exhausting and you use up all that energy and those kinds of things take you away from what I call the dreaming part of making art. You have to have space around the dreaming to make new things. That's true for doing custom orders even if somebody has an idea, they really need help to make it come to be reality so you have to have space in your mind for that and time. I'm hoping with this new building I will have more time for my own personal art and my wonderful employees can do some of the other work for me and also help with customers.

How important is it to have a space to come and be around your art?

It's probably the most important, I mean, you have to make your space comfortable for you to be creative. You also have to make it organized so that you're efficient. For me, I'm efficient. I like to know where those tools are and to get them fast. My medium just takes a lot of space. There's a lot of powders, a lot of equipment, it's welding so I need a lot of room. I've had all sorts of different studios, from porches to dirt floor garages, I'll work in anything, I'll make it happen. It does help to have to have your space set up and that's why this new building is an absolute dream come true. I'm going to have light and beauty. It's going to be like walking into a cathedral. Yeah, I'm so excited about it.

Has it been beneficial for you to have other creatives around to bounce ideas off of?

Oh yeah, absolutely. I hope that this helps me be more collaborative with Boise artists. I've been a member of BOSCO for maybe 14 years. I absolutely love BOSCO and it's because it's an educational avenue. We can teach the public what we do and kind of get them to be inspired by us and learn from the mediums and I will take that because my basis is as a teacher. I mean, I have been a teacher most of my life, I'm a caregiver and this new building will make it happen more. I really want to help local artists have a venue for showing their work and I really want a place for them to be inspired and to talk and for me to help them. If I can help people, in this medium especially, I'm going to learn from them, try new things and bring their stuff in. I think that's really going to be the exciting part of making more of a cultural center. It's not a competitive situation for me ever. I try to really not have an ego in what I do. It's really about the journey and the learning and sharing.

Do you think art is something you'll ever stop doing?

I think for any artist you ever talk to, retirement is not an option. We don't retire from this. We may get tired of doing what we're doing. But no, I mean, I'm hopeful that my business will continue in the hands of maybe someone else, but there will never be a day when I'm not going to make art. I'll be welding when I'm 70 or 80 years old if I can keep this body together.

Montgomery Weight - Full Text Artist Sit Down

What's your primary medium?

My primary focus is digital art. 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. Then I had this other moment where I really love tattoos. In fact, tattoo therapy is what I considered it. One day I was having this moment where I was like “I really love tattoos. How can I get into that medium?” That's where I am now. I'm a tattoo padawan working with skin and coming from a digital art background.

How long have you been doing art?

I've been doing art for about 15 years but it was kind of an on and off situation. I went to school for graphic art and design/computer science and realized I didn't want to move to Seattle and live that way so I ended up disregarding art for a long time. It wasn't until about two years ago, you know, you hit that deep depression and you end up going through this moment of change and all of a sudden, you're up at 3am still doing art and you don't even realize you're doing it. But you know, all the feelings and all that energy is put into that piece and then you're just like well, that's where I'm at right now, I'm pouring my energy into the creation of something from nothing.

Why is art important?

Art is important because depending on what is going on in your world, or the world or politics or however you want to view it, this energy ends up stored within yourself and sometimes you're not able to relieve it in other ways. So I feel like artists find this way to put it into some type of form, whether it's paint or digital work and then all those feelings and emotions and energy get poured into that piece. And it can be some of the best political work, or the most touching piece of art that somebody has ever seen. And, you know, you've spent a whole month on it and then to get that feedback, it’s amazing to have somebody feel what you felt through that piece. It's like cooking for somebody. It's the gratitude without it really having to be said and it's just a beautiful situation.

Where do you get your inspiration?

A lot of my inspiration is actually drawn from my friends around the world and local artists. My friend Justin White, my friend Ashley, Megan-The Naked Neighbor. It's these influences by other people that creates this community of artists that are just supporting each other and driving each other. Like, I love what you're doing, let's keep this going. It's not ever cutthroat. If somebody wants a giant portrait of something, I would direct them to some of my favorite painting artists. If they need some type of digital work or anything like that, they would direct it to me. So it's a huge community helping each other without creating roadblocks or specifications or anything like that. It's just very beautiful to see the Boise art scene grow and to be able to push each other toward the forefront and talk about how amazing it actually is for Boise art.

What drives you to create?

Oh my gosh, what drives me to create. It's the idea that gets me out of bed. For me, I always appreciate being able to draw something from nothing. I have to visually see it completely in my brain. Then, when it's visually in my brain, no matter where I am or what time it is, I need to get up and start making it because I see it so vividly and I need to start making it. That was part of the reason why I really love the digital aspect. It’s like, no matter where I'm at, I just pull out my iPad, and scribble an idea. Then I take that scribbled idea and then I perfect it into a cleaner, more perfect image of what was, or what is rolling around in my brain.

Are there opportunities you feel you've had in Boise you might not have had elsewhere?

Yes, because we are such a close knit community and in this moment of growing we're all so supportive and loving and directional in that aspect. You know, how can we help each other grow? Whether you're a musician, or a person that makes jewelry, or a painter or digital artist. I feel because of our community being so small, it has this huge potential for growth and to give back as it expands. I think over the years more and more artists are going to come in and that sense of community, I'm really hoping, will stay. Because of that wonderful growth that is happening right now, like, you can't walk around downtown nowadays without noticing some of the most amazing artists that you would have never seen years ago because people would have considered it graffiti or distasteful. But now when Treefort hits it's like the whole town is gorgeous. It's like this musical, artistic parade and that's another thing that I feel grew from the whole art community. Like how can we come together with musicians and artists and food and beer and celebrate each other? I think that's a key to Boise right now, the community of artists.

Is art something you'll ever stop?

Absolutely not. I had a moment where I realized art was driving me and it was my passion. At the end of the day, who cares about the day job when you have this passion you're pouring every single minute into and someday it could show fruition of something beautiful. One of my favorite accomplishments is that I got to work with a friend named Daniel for Paddles Up Poké, and you can go downtown and you can go check out one of my pieces that he has displayed on his restaurant. That same piece is now in over 700 copies of magazines throughout resorts of Idaho and that right there is a huge hit to my heart. It feels like an accomplishment and it wouldn't have been done without the community of Boise driving each other to be better and boosting each other up. And that right there is why I still do it.

What's it like to create a commission piece?

I've worked with a handful of amazing people. I’ve worked with Waffle Me Up, Guru Donuts, Paddles Up, The Kula Connection. It's really amazing because a lot of the time you don't think you can make it in the world as an artist, but when you start taking it into your own hands and connecting with these people and you believe in their idea, they'll start believing in your idea. And at that point, they're coming to you and being like, “I have an idea. Can you make this happen?” And you know, that right there is an amazing thing. To be able to take someone's idea, come back, and they're just like “You made this better than I could have ever imagined!” That's one of the things that keeps you driving for art because art nowadays is different. Even how you access it has changed.

Is it easier for you to work on an original piece or commission?

Doing an original piece of course. You are the most free when you're doing a piece for yourself because really it's just a thought that's going in and out of a flow. Whereas I feel like when you're working on a commission for a person it's sometimes very specific, but that's okay because if you're able to take someone's idea that they've made out of very specific stuff and if you're able to create it as an art piece, that's absolutely incredible.

Mawk One - Artist Sit Down Full Text Interview

How long have you been doing art?

I was a pretty creative kid growing up. That was always something I found interesting, drawing and painting. I got into aerosol spray type artwork when I was 13 or 14, kind of when I got into hip hop music too.

What would you say is your primary medium?

I definitely work with spray paint, and I work with acrylics, and a combination of those two. A lot of the designs are ideas that are digitized and then executed on a wall or canvas with spray paint and acrylic stuff.

What got you into doing graffiti?

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, you know, because no one at the time was really doing graf whole lot. There were some writers here in town, but you didn't see a lot of graffiti at all, you saw it more in skate videos and skate magazines and I thought it was a really cool way to capture the culture. If you have a skateboarder going down some stairs or ledge or something and you see the graf in the background, it just adds a nice touch to the piece. I don't know stuff like that got me influenced. So it's been a long journey. Yeah, probably 15 years-ish, and add another 5 on there of just straight fucking up (laughs). Taking it more seriously, yeah, in that range. I've been painting full time for over 9 years and painting more of the realism stuff so it's been a big chunk of what I'm trying to learn how to do better. Yeah, always evolving.

Why is art important to you?

To me, it's important to express yourself. And that I feel is where I gravitate towards mural work or painting my name on something, you know, it just adds a touch to something that might not be there. There might be some boring gray blank wall, you know, but if I can find a way to flip it, I will. So Yeah, that's what I strive for.

What's it like being able to earn a living off of your art?

It's surreal, for sure, because of my background, you know? I went to Boise State out of high school for three semesters trying to study art. I had some inspiring moments in those three semesters. In high school, my art teacher was pretty influential in what I was trying to do, but it's pretty crazy to think, back then I would not have thought I would be where I am now by any means. Because after a few semesters at Boise State, I had a kid, I started plumbing, went to plumbing school for some years, got into the whole trades thing and just thought that was where I wanted to roll. Always at the same time in the background, man, I was painting stuff and getting little commission projects on the side and I was like, okay, this is cool, a little bit of extra dough. And then it just kind of just became an obsession. Like, alright, I don't want to fucking plumb houses anymore or deliver beer anymore, because I was doing that for a long time, and it was moments like those where I knew my value was more important to me than it was to someone else. There is that liberating moment where I quit my job and just basically hit reset and then started to do art full time. At that moment, I had a pretty decent amount of projects lined up. And I'd say that lasted for six months, and then I had to get a job again, which was humbling. But I knew what I had to do to fine tune the approach next time and so I did that and I've been coasting on it for over eight years. It's been a wild journey, like super crazy, taking projects to make ends meet and you have to sacrifice a lot of your artistic freedoms to pay bills sometimes. But I'd rather do that than have to go back to plumb houses, you know, crawl in crawl spaces and get sawdust all over your face when you're drilling holes and stuff. That's not fun to me. But I learned a lot in tradesman school. And that kind of stuff applies to building my own canvases and panels and understanding the logistics of how to execute a project that's in a good size space, you know. But yeah, it's been a whole melting pot of experiences to get me to where I'm at right now.

Where do you get your inspiration?

I would say I get a lot of my inspiration from hip hop music and definitely my family, my fiancé, my two daughters, my friends as well, like all of those things influence me. My parents are a huge influence as well. My mom and dad have always really supported what I've done. And it may not have been what they wanted me to do when I got out of high school, but I like to take the unorthodox path, basically something that is less traveled. I feel like when you're putting in all that work, you get to where you want as a goal and you look back and you're like, Alright, give yourself a pat on the back and then set the next goal.

What's it like creating art for someone else’s vision?

It's like the more I think about where I'm at now, the more I wish I would have said no to projects, but I couldn't because of the financial assistance I needed from those projects. You have to humble yourself and really just do the best that you can for those people because they can't execute it themselves, you know, so if someone wants a logo painted, I'll do it if the price is right, but it's not what I want to do. If I can talk them out of doing a logo by influencing them more towards artwork, or a mural, or a cool concept that might be related to what they do for a business, who their clients are, how to appeal to them, then I will. That to me is being an artist as well. Trying to hustle what you do in a positive way. It's been a crazy journey trying to fine tune all that stuff and make it work.

What's it like translating an image from a piece of paper to a wall?

It's become natural now. I think it mainly started when I was trying to paint my name on a wall and make it look balanced. It's really difficult to go from a sketchbook, in graffiti, you should start in a sketchbook, develop your style, and then figure out color schemes that you like and appeal to other people and then paint those but you learn scaling is the hardest part because you're going from an 8 ½ x 11 sheet of paper to a wall and you want your letters to all be balanced and the symmetry is there. For me, it's geometry and angles and stuff. That's how I scale stuff on a piece of paper to a wall is really just checking the angles and it's a weird process. Artwork wise, I haven't had to tap into using a projector quite yet. I just hold the reference up to the wall, make sure it fits in the corners, and then just find points to plot and start going to town. There's crazy ways to do that. Some people use a grid, some people use projectors, some people chalk the design on. I mean, there's all sorts of approaches, and in my opinion, there's no wrong way to do it. But what works for me and what I take pride in is being able to show up to a space if I have an image I want to work on and just doing it. That to me is what I learned in graffiti too, is just doing it, whether that's legal or illegal, you can figure out how to paint your name on that space and make it look tasteful. It's like okay, this is just gonna be positioned here. You want to create balance too. Putting those designs onto bigger walls, it’s almost easier to paint bigger really because you aren't trying to focus so much detail on something small. If you can magnify something small to where it's literally just this big huge area, the amount of detail you have to put in that space isn't as much as if you're trying to shrink down work on a small small scale. So yeah, I guess my approach is pretty freestyle-ish.

Do people give you a hard time for painting “graffiti”?.

Not so much in Boise. I know that is the case in some other bigger cities where the presence of graffiti and the scene is way more dense and it's something to the community. Here it's a very clean city. There's not a lot of people that are coming up and saying “yo that's not graf” because I don't claim what I do is graffiti. I mean, what I do is mural work and graffiti is, to me, something that you do at night when no one's watching. But that's different. I guess to classify it, some people might call what we do street art, but I don't like to call it that. Just because it's done with a certain medium doesn't mean its street art. Street art is still to me, like illegal shit. You're doing wheat paste, you're doing stencils, stickers tags, marker stuff. Graffiti is like straight up bombing with paint and putting your name somewhere in a certain style and in a certain fashion. So yeah, I mean, if people talk shit, I think that's totally fine. It doesn't ever bother me. Try to build a thicker skin so when people critique your work it's totally fine. If they have something to say I'll be like well then you can try it if you want and see what your take is and then they might realize it's not as easy as it looks. There is something to be said about using spray paint, the cool thing is it dries fast, but you have to know angles, you have to know tips, different nozzles and how to blend colors and how to paint to where you aren't leaving a bunch of shaky stroke cans unless you're trying to go for that effect. Whatever they’ve got to say about it, say your peace.

Is art something you'll ever stop doing?

I don't plan on it. I just hope I don't get burned out on it. I've been doing this full time for a long time now and it's like when I first started doing it, I loved it so much, but you know, now where I'm at, I'm like, okay this is great, but how can I paint what I want to paint and get paid for it? How do I transition from doing all these commissioned projects to make ends meet to being more of an “art” artist and people coming to me for my work, because it's a specific style. I've gotten good at a lot of everything with murals and stuff like text and painting logos to landscapes and portraits and stuff. If I had it my way, it'd be cool to just travel around and get paid to do realism and portrait work, you know, or just cool still life’s and stuff like that. Stuff that's tasteful. I feel like in bigger cities, the street art scenes are so saturated. There's a lot of it everywhere and there's a lot of bad ugly stuff that's whack. Who am I to say that that's whack, it's not my place, I think that they're expressing themselves. It's just my style, what I find attractive in my eyes. You can tell that they just started, they may have YouTube'd some videos earlier that day, and were like, oh, I'm gonna go do a stencil. I experienced that in Los Angeles last year too. I was helping my homegirl with a project while Hawk and I were down there for a mural jam type thing. It's the hip thing to do to make art on canvases and sell them on the sidewalk, and then you get 20,000 followers and you're just doing like, the most basic shit ever with a spray can and people love it. Oftentimes people come up to me when I'm working on a wall and they're like, “this is cool man, but have you seen those people in Vegas on the corner?” You see those universe landscapes they do with newspaper I'm like, that shit’s whack. I can paint that on a huge wall with none of those tools, no tape, nothing like that and it looks more realistic than it does in some super quick five minute piece. I don't know, man. It's crazy out there. I think the game is watered down. I’m trying to preserve it.

Are there opportunities you've had here in Boise you might not have had elsewhere?

I think 100% of that is being in Boise. It's not like I'm trying to invite people here to share the wealth. Yes, do that, but you gotta put in the legwork. I feel lucky to come from Boise, yes, but when I first started, I was bummed out because I had no one to talk to, to learn how to do it, to ask questions. There were a couple writers that had shared a little bit of knowledge, but it was just enough to take it and be like, “alright, you guys are on your own, figure it out.” so that helped. Having Elms and a few other homies to bounce our styles off of for what we did, graffiti, or whatever you want to call it. That was a way to advance, you know, and then as the internet became more powerful, and social media came out, you had more access to see what and how it was going down. You didn't use YouTube to teach you how to paint. It was like, “okay, painting my name is dope but how can I further my style?” How can I make what I do a little more flexible? Stretch my letters out? I do think coming from Boise has everything to do with where I am in my career. When I started and Hawk and I were getting our first commissioned works and stuff there were no other people doing it in that style like what we were trying to do and push, so to see it evolve to where it is now, it makes sense, but I sometimes wish I was in a bigger city and had a little bit more resistance to getting to where I am now. You know what I mean? It has been hard work, don't get me wrong, it has been hard as shit, but yeah, it would have been cool to be in crews and have mentors that show you what's up, and then you're able to do that rather than trial and error. Everything is trial and error, but you want to minimize your shitty experiences. Those are what make you who you are and where there is good there's bad and vice versa. Yeah, shout out to Boise for sure.

Is there anything you want to talk about that I haven't asked you about? 

I don't know man. I think that everything is going to keep evolving with art, with anything. Here in Boise, I think they nurture the creatives, they give those people a platform as best as they can. If you're an artist that's just learning how to do what you want to do and if you want to put it in front of people's eyes, you gotta embrace failure because it'll happen for sure. And when that does occur to you as an artist, take that as a golden token, you know, like you've earned a stripe almost and figure out how to reinvent that situation to where it can get you further next time. Don't be discouraged because that is what happens and that's what will straight-up wipe artists' motivation from their heads, and then they just will go "I tried that". But you’ve got to be persistent and expect failure to happen so that way when it does happen, you aren't caught off guard. So yeah, I mean, that's some advice, I guess. I'm hoping to do more of this style work [mural in the video]. And yeah, man, stay healthy too. That's all I've got to say.

Kaegan Cusenbary - Artist Sit Down Full Interview

What is your primary medium?

My primary medium is oil paint on canvas and then my secondary medium is watercolor and ink on watercolor paper.

How long have you been doing art?

I guess every child is handed a crayon at some point. So I've been doing art since I was a child and could hold a crayon. I would say I fell in love with doing art when I was 15 and my mom made me do an art class in high school, keyword being “made”. I actually wanted to sign up for a drama class, but I had a fantastic art teacher named Mrs. Sepulvida. We're friends on Facebook, and I kind of fell in love with the whole process of making art and kind of haven't looked back since then.

Where do you get your inspiration from?

So inspiration for my oil paintings come a lot from the human body. I love figurative work. I absolutely love the idea of expressing tension, connection, kind of a push and pull through something as simple as a hand gesture or the pressure of fingers on skin or a look. And then I'd say for my watercolor work, I get a lot of it actually from architecture. I used to work at an architecture library, and I kind of fell in love with buildings and lines and different planes and it has kind of blossomed from there. And then I have other work that's just inspired by my daily life. I'm a mom and my son is in my next oil painting because he's around and he's cute and I wanted to paint him. So I kind of get it from all over.

Why is art important to you?

Art is important to me because it's a way to connect with other people. My love other than art is actually reading, and one of the great things about reading is sometimes you'll find a character that does something that you thought only you did, something that's unique to you and you recognize that and you connect with that person. And I think art for me does the same thing. I can put out an idea or concept or painting and have somebody look at that and connect to it in a way that maybe they thought was unique to them. And I think that my favorite thing about art is being able to express a lot of things that maybe we don't talk about.

Are you able to make a living off of your art?

So right now, yes. Yes and no. I am currently doing my watercolor illustrations. How I think about it is my oil paintings, I paint for me and my watercolors I paint to make other people happy. There's actually a ton of joy in both of those things. I make most of my money off of my custom illustrations and watercolor. And weirdly enough, my biggest consumers are other moms. I talk to other moms on Facebook groups and kind of network through them. I found that offering custom illustrations of things that are near and dear to their hearts has actually brought in a surprising amount of revenue and I'm getting more and more success with that part.

How long have you been in Boise?

It'll be three years in October.

Have you applied for any of the grants or public art opportunities that are around here?

I have not. Most of my days I spend running around chasing after my 14 month old son. I'm a stay at home mom, so most of what I squeeze in for art is during nap times or after bedtime and I haven't really pursued art in the public sector. For me, it's still a very small and personal thing but it's something that I'd be interested in. I suppose that I just haven't really pursued it as of yet.

Where do you find the motivation to sit down and paint?

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 and then on the other hand, it is nice to kind of turn my brain off of mom mode, because it gets stuck there. And art is one of those ways that I can actually relax and be me.

Would you say art is a worthwhile pursuit?

Absolutely, and I'm not saying that everyone will make money at it, so I think you have to realize what your motivations are for art. For me, I do it because I love it and I think if you love it, why wouldn't you pursue it? You don't have to be good at it either to get something out of it. I think that art is for everybody. Absolutely.

What's your favorite technique to do with oil paints?

So for oil paintings, I do a layering technique. I start with really thin washes, and each layer of oil paint I built up with thicker and thicker paint. It's called fat over lean is the terminology. And what I love about oil paints is that it takes a really long time for them to dry, even when you add other mediums or drying agents. So I can actually go back and rework an area that I've been fiddling with. I can walk away and have a cup of coffee and come back to it and continue on that work and to kind of get the depth of realism that I like in my paintings. That's my favorite technique.

Do you find it difficult to work on commissioned work?

I actually find it easier to work on commission work because they provide structure and deadlines. It's harder for me to take the time for my own personal paintings. Also, watercolor is a much faster medium and something that I've been exploring more and more and I really enjoy the process of even just mark making, if that makes sense. I can kind of zone out working on commission in a way that I can't necessarily do on oil paints. A lot of times I'll just plug in an audio book, put in my earbuds and just kind of paint and I lose track of time.

Do you think art is something you'll continue to pursue?

Yes. I have taken breaks from art, I don't think it's something that you have to do every day. It's not something that you have to dedicate your life to in some type of structured way. I've taken two years where I didn't paint anything. And that's okay. Like there's seasons of life and I think that for me, right now I'm painting every day. But who knows, life is crazy. I might, you know, pursue some other creative endeavor, and maybe it's not painting and that's okay too. I think that I'll always be doing something creative. That might be gluing macaroni with my son to cardboard paper, but I will always be pursuing art in some form.

Is there anything you wanted to talk about that I haven't asked?

I think something that is not addressed enough is your own personal expectations and what art means to you. I know for me that I used to have a definition of what makes a successful artist and I did not measure up to that. I think as I've gotten older and more mature, I've realized that you get to define what your success is as an artist and you get to define what your career as an artist looks like. Whether it's a hobby, whether you want to make money from it, what you want to get out of art is extremely personal and you shouldn't ever let somebody else dictate what success means to you. I think that for me, my original idea of success was being represented in a gallery, having my original oil paintings sell, having the type of prestige of a gallery artist and I realized through doing these little commissions, watercolor illustrations for local moms, that didn't bring me joy, that actually wasn't the success I craved. And really, just don't be afraid to define what success is to you, and what art is and what you want to get out of it. Because for me, if I complete a painting and I'm happy, and I think I made something beautiful, then I've succeeded and I want other people to know that and not put unrealistic expectations on themselves, because that's how you don't paint. And everyone should be painting.

Eddie Ramirez - Artist Sit Down Full Interview

What is your primary medium?

My primary medium would be tattooing on skin. Other than that, you know, it all started on a piece of paper and kind of just evolved into tattooing.

How long have you been creating art?

Well, since I was two years old, that's as long as I can remember. 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.

What did you go to college for?

Well, I was trying to be a graphic designer. At first I was trying to make an urban street wear clothing brand kind of like LRG or The Hundreds or something like that. And at the time, I had just had my first daughter, and I think my mom just let me go because she knew that it would eat away at me if I didn't get to do that. I went for about six months to the Seattle Art Institute and it was a great experience, but I knew I had to come home and take care of my daughter because I didn't feel right about it. You know, it was too quick to make it, especially in Seattle it kind of takes like a decade to really get your name out and get business, especially as an artist, like there's so much competition there. So I came home after that about six months.

Are you from around here originally?

Yes, I grew up in Nampa, born and raised. Well I was born in Caldwell, grew up in Nampa. Been here my whole life. At first I tried to escape because I grew up in a rural area where there wasn't much to do so, kind of naturally, boredom became creativity and I started to draw and paint, you know, whatever to pass the time, but I realized Boise is actually really cool, like it's growing. It's a place where you can build something at this point and I'm loving it so far. So I'm gonna stick around, I don't see myself moving.

Do you think there are opportunities you've had here that you wouldn't have in Seattle?

I don't think so man, like, I think that it all has to do with how hard you work and like how much heart you have. Opportunities, they come and go, you just have to be present and prepared to execute on them and that's something I had to learn the hard way because there were plenty of opportunities that could've gotten me to a higher level or whatever but I just kind of let it go. I think there's plenty of opportunity here, definitely with tattooing there's a big scene and whatever it is that you want to do it’s possible.

What gets you out of bed and wanting to create?

What gets me out of bed, I would have to say, is the will to show my daughters and my friends and family that you can become something bigger than where you are from. Nampa is a small town, Boise is a small town, but it's growing and I want to show my daughters that you could just focus on whatever it is that you love. Make sure you love it, because if if you don't love it, it's gonna be tough. There's a lot of hurdles you gotta get through with whatever it is you're going for. And what makes me wake up to try and kill it is just to like, inspire my kids and whoever it is that wants to be inspired, you know, I just want to be an inspiration if I can.

Where do you get your inspiration for your designs?

All the inspiration and influence comes from other artists. Mike Giant was a big influence on me coming up as a graffiti writer. His designs were so solid and clean and well thought out that it showed me another level of draftsmanship. The ability to create with your bare hands and people like Mike Giant, people like Grimey. So Grimey, he's my favorite tattooer. He’s from San Francisco, he pretty much combined four or five different styles and created his own thing. And what he's doing is kind of what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to take influences from my favorite artists in the art that I've grown up looking at, and kind of make my own thing. It's a tough thing though, to do your own style, because every tattoo is a job and I want to make my clients happy so I end up doing a whole bunch of different styles. But at the same time, it's all kind of feeding the possibilities of creating my own thing at the end of the day.

What is it like to design art for other people?

It's cool. Honestly, it takes the edge off sometimes because it's not easy to read someone's mind, especially if they say “do whatever you want.” Like, it's really tough to read their mind and figure out, what is this guy gonna want, or what is this girl gonna want? Does she like bright colors? Does she like muted tones? Like, it's a tough gig to try and figure that out. But what I do is just ask them questions, you know, like, what is the background story to it? Because each tattoo has its own kind of story and individual characteristics so I'll just ask them, “what made you want to get this” sometimes and that helps a lot.

Do you think art is something you'll ever stop doing?

Probably never, no. I don't think that I'll ever stop doing art. It's honestly something that is part of me. It's kind of like a medication man, like when it comes down to it, if I'm not creating art, I get depressed. Like, no joke. I don't feel good. I’m not a good person to be around if I haven't painted something or drawn something for myself or somebody else that I'm kind of excited to make for them. So I don't see myself ever stopping. If anything, I see myself kind of studying something really intensely, like right now I'm getting into oil painting and it's been really fun to learn the techniques and apply them. Also very frustrating. Sometimes you don't get what you want, probably most of the time, but I just watch a lot of YouTube tutorials and find out what to buy. There's so many little products that you can get to make your work look a certain way and I like to figure out what those products are. Like, for instance, Liquin and Galkyd makes the oil dry quicker and you can glaze with it. And there's little things that I find out and it kind of makes my life more interesting, you know? So I don't think I'll ever stop. 

Do you think you’ll ever stop tattooing? 

No, man. Honestly, I can't say I'll ever stop tattooing because it's become a part of me. Tattooing is such a satisfying medium, especially one shot tattoos when you start and finish them. You get to see the process of kind of messy, not scratches, but like a messy beginning and that ultimately manifests as a finished piece that the person can wear for the rest of their life. It's one of the best ways to create, there's a lot of preparation that goes into it, and it makes it that much more satisfying. Once you finish a tattoo and you get to look at it, and you put hard work into it, it's such a satisfying feeling. Maybe not immediately, because sometimes I'm dead tired and I can't appreciate it as much, but later on I see them in person or look at the picture I took and it's like, “damn, that's cool” I actually followed through with that, you know?

Why is art important?

Well, I believe art is a way of communication between an artist and their community, whether it be a tattoo or graffiti or a mural somewhere, it's a great way to communicate and express yourself. A lot of times people have the same types of feelings when they look at a piece of art and it's a nice way to escape from whatever thought that you might have had. Whether it’s negative or troubling, when you look at a piece of art, you're gonna wonder what it took to get to the finished product and it's always a journey. One brushstroke leads to another and the last brushstroke of the painting is very unique to that painting. I think art is gonna stay around for sure as far as my life.

Is there anything you’d like to talk about that we haven’t touched on?

I want to talk a little bit more about what each artist has to offer. Like, if you're looking for someone, whether it be for a painting or a tattoo, you should really ask them what they love to paint, or what they love to tattoo because a lot of times some of the famous painters, they get really famous because they focus on one thing, or a few things. Whether it be roses or floral stuff, that rose is going to be badass if it's somebody who's specifically painting roses all the time, you're going to get probably the best rose you can get, you know. I don't see people seeking out specific artists for specific things. Maybe they are and I'm just not noticing it, but another way I wanted to say that is, I've been studying traditional Americana and traditional Japanese stuff and I think it'd be cool if I could just do that. So, if I can just like, kind of focus on two styles maybe, or one, which should ultimately be the best thing. I feel like I could sharpen my blade to where it's like unbeatable, impeccable, you know, and I'm having a hard time with it right now. I feel like I do too many styles and it kind of creates a problem where I have to switch my mindset all the time. I get used to black and gray realism and I'm like, yeah, I gotta do smooth shading and then the next day, it's a traditional piece and I’ve got to punch in saturation super quick and it's like totally opposite. So, I mean, it's tough, but that's the that's the gig though. You have to be flexible. You’ve got to be versatile.

So you think people should be looking for artists who specialize in a style they want? 

Yeah, I think so. At the same time, any older tattooer is going to tell you to do every style because at the end of the day, you never know if that's going to be obsolete, or you need to just make money for the shop. You can't just do one thing, you can’t be a one trick pony. But in this day and age, tattooing is evolving and there's so many people tattooing, that you kind of have to specify what you do so people will know you want to focus on this so that way you don't get lost. I think that the best way to stand out is to sharpen your blade at a couple things. For me, it's timeless stuff. I really love timeless tattooing.

Have you been able to develop a clientele that knows what you do?

Yeah, I do get those people and I'm very grateful for them. I also have like a ton of family here that want specific things that I'm kind of trying to move out of. But every time I do the tattoo that I didn't want to do, I kind of feel like damn, maybe I should do this, you know, because it was fun and I actually got into it, you know, it turned out really good. So it's just something that I'm wrestling with in my mind right now. It's just like, should I specify what I do or just do everything and be happy that I'm even making a living through art.

What's it like for you to make a living through art?

It's satisfying man. Like, throughout the pandemic I had a couple of jobs. I'm very grateful for my friend Brian who asked me to do a mural in his garage and that paid the rent for one month. That was graffiti, it's very tough to have that can control, especially if you're not doing it all the time but after I finished that I felt great man. I was like hell yeah all this stuff I did as a kid kind of paid off you know, because I'm able to do different things and not have to worry too much. And it was art that paid the bills, even though I had to specifically do what he requested. But still, there's a lot of freedom in it.

Bobby Gaytan - Artist Sit Down Full Interview

What is your primary medium?

I have a day job where I do graphic design and then I do painting with spray paint, airbrush and then I just draw a lot. I'm always drawing in my sketchbooks and I do a lot of markers and pens, but I’ve probably dabbled in a lot more than that. I'd say my main focus when I do my art is acrylic and spray paint.

How long have you been doing art?

I think I got introduced to art in my early teens. I was exposed to graffiti and just kind of the whole tag movement. The whole tagging aspect of the graffiti world was just you know tagging your name in these little areas in Texas where I grew up. After that I kind of just picked up on the next step to tagging which is graffiti and the letters and characters and colors and just kind of grew from that.

How long have you been in the Boise area?

I am originally from Mountain Home and I grew up kind of in that area, Elmore county, Mountain Home, Glenns Ferry. I moved to Boise for college, Boise State in 98-99 and I've kind of been in the Ada county areas ever since. I live in Meridian now and I think I've been here at least 13-14 years.

What motivates you to create art?

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. And then I use my creativity to kind of make something unique. But I think for my inspiration, it just comes from all over. I mean, I have a family. I have three girls and you know, they keep me on my toes and with social media and television, you get exposed to different things. Nature, you know, you go out. The other part about me, I think I get inspired by emotions and feelings. So if I'm feeling a certain way, I tend to choose a topic or a subject that to me represents what I'm feeling and that starts off with, you know, an idea and then a sketch and then I figure out how I want to execute it. Because like I said, I kind of work with different mediums. So you know, if it's an idea that I feel needs to become a painting or sketch or digital drawing, I kind of let that be part of the process. So I let that idea just kind of dictate wherever that goes, I mean, if it's something that I'm doing for myself, it’s different if it's something for a client or a customer, you know.

What's it like to create work for clients?

I went to school for graphic design. So by nature you have to work with clients, and you have to listen. I enjoy that process as far as talking to and working with folks and trying to figure out what the best way to get that idea of theirs out. So, you know, it's a process, it's one of those things where I like to just listen, I like to ask questions, I like to try to get as much out of what they're looking for and then I do my research and my process. Then I try to always sketch out my ideas and it usually starts off with like a doodle or some kind of basic idea sketch and then it just grows and I do multiple versions. A lot of folks forget how much goes on behind the scenes and into creating something that may not even look and seem like it. It's a big deal. But, you know, as a graphic designer, I think there's a lot of that process that folks don't realize, and I enjoy it. I mean, I enjoy working with folks and trying to come up with the best solution for what they're looking for.

How important is it for you to have space to go and create?

I think it’s important. As an artist, I always carry my sketchbook around and, you know, I usually jot down my ideas wherever I'm at and if I don't have a sketchbook I start with the idea maybe on my phone or just to kind of remember it. But as far as actual physical space, I think it's important to have that space to create and kind of get into the process and then create. Something about just being around all your supplies and materials and all these other things that go into it. I used to have an actual studio in downtown Boise called Blakbook for eight years so I know what it means to have that space and having your customers come in and seeing the work and seeing the process and having the space to actually create anything. Eight years I was there and now I operate out of my garage. So I turned my garage into a studio.

What was it like for you having a studio and gallery?

Man, it was great having a space and a gallery and you know. I named it Blakbook, and it kind of originated with the idea of this community based concept where I wanted to showcase other artists. I called it Blakbook based on my experiences with graffiti art and carrying around black books and having other graffiti artists partake and basically hit up your black book with their art, and it would be passed around. So I took that concept and turned it into this magazine called Blakbook Pages and then I just kind of got busy making this local magazine and I knew I needed space. I looked around and found a studio and then the studio became kind of a gallery. Then I was able to showcase some of these same artists featured in the magazine. I started showcasing them in my gallery, Blakbook Gallery, downtown Boise. And yeah, it was one of those experiences that to this day I really enjoyed and learned a lot from. Just learned from all the folks I dealt with and I worked with and just a lot of learning.

Are there Boise specific opportunities you’ve taken advantage of?

Yeah, I feel like there is, you know, Boise's art scene has been growing since I've been here, it seems like it is always fresh. Fresh artists coming in, fresh art, different things. The city of Boise I know has different opportunities. I know I participated in some public art academies, which led to things. Freak Alley Outdoor Gallery, downtown Boise. I've participated in the traffic boxes that they have in the city of Boise. I think I learned a lot during the public art academy that they offered. It was a six week or eight week course. I think I was in one of the first classes and it's just one of those things. As a public artist you want to be in the know, you’ve got to be proactive. You’ve got to be out there looking for these opportunities. And there's a lot you know, if you're good at what you do, then that leads to a job or an opportunity that I think for me has always helped with word of mouth. Word of mouth has led to a lot of different folks reaching out to me and kind of wanting to see how I can help them out.

What is it like making a living by designing and doing art?

I'm a full time graphic designer for the Bureau of Reclamation. I've been there 19 years. Right out of college I was able to score a student position that led to a permanent position and I've been there ever since. I have a small team where I do in house work for the Bureau, and working for the Bureau is a kind of job that I don't think I would have ever imagined while going to school. They don't really teach you about these kinds of gigs, but I love where I work. I love the people I work with. I learn so much because you deal with different technical, scientific things that are not normally considered creative, but, you know, when you talk about what we do out there at the agency, it's about managing water, so they deal with the dams and they deal with rivers and deal with lakes and so there's a lot of different folks in the region, or where we work at that do different things, so those are all my clients. When I'm working with engineers, or scientists, or biologists or geologists and they're doing their projects, I get to learn what they're doing and it's pretty fun. You know, it's not your typical design job or marketing job where you're dealing with corporations, you know, I feel like I'm a public servant. I work for the public and that's pretty gratifying. It's a pretty cool gig knowing that you're contributing to something good. It's just pretty neat that you learn so much out of it. And yeah, that that's kind of what pays the bills. The Bureau of Reclamation is a great agency. I've enjoyed the whole time I've been there but I do find a balance. I have to find a balance. My creative balance is, you know, there's this graphic design job for technical but I come from this background of graffiti in the streets and that's always been part of me. I have to find that outside of my job so you'll see some work that I do and you might see kind of where that comes from now, based on some of that history, I guess.

Why do you keep creating?

I think I create because I have to. It's just one of those things that early on I knew was what made me get lost, or I don't want to say get lost, but I would just get into this zone that was about creating, it was about making, you know, it was about turning nothing into something and I have always enjoyed the process and finding the solution to a problem and that's probably why I like graphic design. I chose to be a graphic designer by trade because to me it's a career that's about solutions, you know, finding solutions to a problem. I think with art and creativity in general, for me, I think everyone has creativity within them and I think by nature we all create. I just happen to continue with it and stick with it and I've enjoyed the process of it, so I feel really good about it. When I create I don't have to do it for anyone, I just do it because I love to do it and I've always enjoyed that. I don't think most artists feel that way. I think most artists feel like if they could create for themselves, you know, that would be the ideal gig and maybe that's the goal at the end, but I think for now, I just follow my passion, follow what I love to do, and whatever pays the bills at this point, you know.

Is there anything I haven't asked you about that you want to talk about?

I'm an artist, I think just by nature and I've done many different kinds of art. I'm always experimenting, you know, I'm always trying to push myself. One of the things nowadays I do is, because a lot of my time is occupied with my day job and I want to stay creative and do creative stuff, I try to push myself to learn and grow as an artist and that takes time. My time is stretched thin because I'm involved in lots of different things in my day to day life. I have a family. I have a day job. I'm involved in the nonprofit community where we help a lot of the local youth. I try to be involved in positive things in my community. All that takes time, and so when you want to sharpen your skills as an artist, you know, that takes time. So what I've been doing is focusing more on that. For me, it's important to grow as an artist, so I push myself and if I'm doing a portrait, if I'm doing a landscape, or if I'm doing whatever subject, I try to push myself to make it the best that I can and that means putting in the time, and that means making time, and if you love something that you do, then you gotta make time for it.

Justin White - Artist Sit Down Full Interview

What is your primary medium?

Primary medium would definitely be pencil, ink and paper. Just kind of doodles that turn into anything. Either I'll bring it into another medium or that's usually kind of the basis of anything I start. So just kind of spur of the moment ideas, or on a cocktail napkin with friends, or just kind of sitting at home, listening to some good music and you just want to, you know, doodle just make something. So works out pretty good eventually.

How long have you been creating art?

I would say I've actually been doing it for a really long time. I would say like, professional wise, probably not that long, but I did try to go to school. It didn't really work out too well and I just didn't know if I wanted to pursue that and kind of figured just putting my nose to the grindstone and kind of continuing it, and just keep moving, making anything you can. But yeah, I did it as a little kid and just found a love for art and creativity and just kind of pushing as much as I can with it in any way I could.

Are you able to support yourself with your art?

I would say, probably last year, I definitely got some good foundations laid and I think it’s kind of weird how it works here in Boise. It kind of seems like you get a project, and then it kind of spurs into something else and the wheel keeps turning, people keep recognizing, and it just kind of slowly builds. But overall, I'd say, I've gotten to where I can, I wouldn't say live comfortably, but it's definitely something that, you know, puts money in the pocket or towards future projects. That helps out a lot. That's even just meeting new people or, you know, it's a trade where I help them out and they help me out somehow. And it just, it works out. I think that's more where I feel that I can live off of it, knowing that it's good work, and it's good pay, but it's not really always just about the money on the table. It comes down to making new relationships and really kind of building that core group of followers that want to keep up with your work or really be interested in what you have to offer.

What motivates you to get up and start drawing? 

Probably one of my biggest motivators is music. Like it's just, I've always wished I could play music. I did when I was younger. I played piano and keyboard and did that in junior high, but I just never kept it up. But it's always like, finding a new song, or finding something and just seeing how they experiment with that and then that kind of bleeds into, I don't know, just a weird idea or abstract thought and it just kind of comes out on the paper. It's even just, you know, putting in some earbuds and just listening to something, or even just go for a walk just kind of seeing what's around. And people, I definitely think people watching is great too. I think that always just sparks instant ideas and makes me want to like, pull out or grab any paper I can and just kind of make a note or a mental note or just kind of draw something simple. Then I can kind of go off of that later on and it just kind of builds up. I have like, all these little ideas, and then I can just kind of go and just keep it going.

Why is art important?

I would say it's what keeps us human. 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. So I think art is really important and I kind of wish there were, you know, more opportunities here, but I think it's definitely growing on a consistent basis and it’s just blossoming into something that is gonna be something very soon. I can see it, finally.

Are you from here originally?

I was born in California, but I definitely am not a Californian. I know that's kind of a touchy subject. But yeah, I moved here when I was like, probably younger than one. And I grew up here. I lived on the Bench and then moved out to Meridian. I've lived in Nampa and have kind of lived all over the area. So I've kind of seen the growth slowly just progress and get bigger and bigger. So it's really nice to see finally, that it's something different.

Do you think there are opportunities you've had in Boise that you wouldn't have gotten elsewhere?

I would say yeah. I kind of made a list of things I wanted to do and it was like, you know, design a skateboard deck or do this, and it's just like little art milestones you want to hit and I feel like in one year, I just kind of crossed the whole thing off. It was just knowing certain people and finding out they do this and that and it was, you know, Treefort Music Festival, that was great. Knowing a lot of people over at the Maven shop, which is a really cool shop. sad to see it go, but it was really awesome, what they did for a lot of the people here. And yeah, it was just kind of eye opening. It was just meeting another person and they like led me to this. And yeah, I designed a beer label with Payette. It's crazy to see things you never thought you could do, but it's just like, it just happens and you just don't really sit back and realize it until after it's over that I've done all this and it's kind of nice to see. So I just kind of keep progressing.

Were you able to design a deck with Prestige or another store here?

Well right now I talked a little bit with them but I haven't… Like we're kind of back and forth right now of course in the email world. So hopefully. That's kind of my dream because I remember that shop when it first opened. And I remember Newton Harold's which isn't there anymore, and like Boardroom, and it's just like seeing those guys there and what they've created for Prestige. It's kind of the pinnacle that I would definitely like to have, to design their shop deck and be able to see kids skateboarding on it. I think that's amazing.

Where do you get your inspiration?

Mostly just, I have a love of just good design. I just love fashion stuff. I like sneakers, I like even just textiles. Just like touching fabric that is cool and looks cool. It's just kind of walking around and kind of keeping your eyes open, your ears open and just kind of bringing it all in. Even after having a really good meal you can just be inspired to just draw something. I think it's kind of my daily life, just kind of soaking it all in and just kind of letting it ooze out onto the page and see what happens.

Do you think that art is something you will ever stop doing?

I don't think I could ever stop doing it. It's just one of those things that are just, I've gotten to the point now where if I don't have it, I can definitely tell there's a difference in how I react and how I act in my daily life. It's something I have to have. I think I'll always be, you know, walking around and carrying like a little sketchbook or notepad or something just to keep it going. Because I feel like it's a muscle that you just have to keep training, just to get either better or to have fun with, and you just have to keep using it, and I feel like if you don't it kind of either slows down or it just turns off, let's say, probably the fun creative side in your head where you're just like, I just need to get this out. Like, you have an idea and you have the ability to put it out on paper. You might as well just use it and keep it going.

Do you have any projects in the works right now?

Yeah, nothing too crazy right now at the moment. With everything shut down everyone's kind of up in the air about what they're doing. But I actually just had some friends that moved into a house and I'm working on a surprise piece for them. So that'll be cool for them and their family. And then I also just have like, a couple little sticker designs. I did have an art show coming up that I was somewhat working on that was supposed to be at Maven, they still wanted to do it, but I just said, I don't want to, you know, put this stuff up. I'd rather people kind of come in and see it a little bit more up close. I just wanted to make sure that they can kind of have more time to kind of clean out and be able to do what they need to do and not worry too much about adding to their plate. But yeah, right now I'm just kind of trying to work into some new mediums and I've been painting a little bit more, playing around with watercolors. Just trying to see what else I can kind of come out with overall.

Have you found a lack of gallery space to be a problem?

I would say for upcoming artists, I think younger voices don't really have a lot of places to show work. I would say it's more of the fine art kind of style that they look for and it's, you know, graduates or people that have massive names or portfolios that can kind of come through. But yeah, I think getting some more gallery space would be great. I know there's a couple new spaces that have opened up but it's very hit and miss if you can kind of get in and usually it fills up really fast. So that's the problem, but yeah, I think if we could get another two or three just gallery spaces to show in that not just go for, you know, paintings, but you know, sculptures and things like that. And I think, you know, having Treefort is a really good opportunity too that people can do, or you know, some of the grants and opportunities that people can get with like, the James Castle house and some of those other areas that you can kind of go down. I think that's where it'll kind of permeate a little bit more in Boise and I think people will start realizing like, okay, we can create usable spaces for other things, but also do gallery showings or, you know, I can put up a show in my store or just kind of keep it interesting and change it up every now and again, keep it fresh.

Ben Sanchez - Artist Sit Down Full Interview

What is your primary medium?

Primarily tattooing, or it was before the COVID but I enjoy basically all mediums. Charcoal is probably one of my favorites. Drawing, painting, watercolor, acrylics. I mean, I like it all.

How long have you been creating art?

All my life. Since I can remember, like, drawing superheroes and coloring and drawing cartoons when I was a kid. Just drawing things as I saw them when and then just creating my own superheroes and yeah, since I can remember holding crayons I've been making art.

When did you decide you wanted to tattoo?

I thought about it a few times, like right after high school. I tried it. I went to a guy's house and he had everything set up and I ended up doing a tattoo on a friend and it did not come out good and I kind of didn't want to come back to it for a few years. I don't know, I just always have liked tattoos. I went to school for digital design and cosmetology. I couldn't see making it as a painter. Like I would love to make a living being a painter, but it's just really difficult. And I don't know, about like 11-12 years ago is when I really started thinking about tattooing. This month I've been tattooing for, it's my 11 year anniversary. So yeah, kind of just dove into it.

Are you able to get your creativity out through tattooing or do you need other outlets?

My dream job would be being a muralist. Just painting murals for a living. I don't know, I like painting big. Just something about the arm movements and stepping back and looking at it. Tattooing is kind of tedious and it can be kind of backbreaking being in one position, hunched over looking at something for hours. It's worth it in the end, but I think a little bit of both. Tattooing, there's a lot more limitations sometimes. Sometimes people are kind of specific to what they want, and it's understandable because it's going to be on their body. So my number one priority is making sure that they're going to be okay with what they're getting and like it. But I definitely have like, finally gotten to a group of clientele that have seen enough of my work and they allow me a lot of freedom with what I do. So they'll basically give me a concept or they'll tell me one thing that they want or a couple or whatever, but it's really nice to be given freedom because they know what I can do and my abilities, so I'm definitely given a lot more creative freedom with tattooing now than I used to be in the beginning. With painting it's nice because there's like no control that anybody's really given me like, they'll tell me to paint one thing maybe if it's a commissioned piece and I'll run with it. It's nice to be able to figure out what other elements I'll implement into it or like, I've just been really experimental lately with what I'm doing and trying new things and that's been really nice. It's a lot easier to be experimental painting versus with tattooing. I can experiment with tattooing, but it's just got to be like little baby steps. I’ve got to like, try things and see how they look and make sure it's going in the direction that I want. But still like even before experimenting with tattooing, I will experiment on paper, like on the iPad or tablet, whatever, to make sure that it's going to be a good choice.

Has your time at home with this pandemic affected your ability to create stuff?

It's been good. It's been really good. I've created like, I just posted up some of the stuff that I've made. A lot of it is really weird and experimental and it's not perfect by any means. I've been trying to just basically create without being too conscious of what I'm making, like, I guess what I mean by that is I'm almost like channeling maybe, but not really. I don't know, it's difficult to explain my process like, I'll kind of scribble sometimes and start to see things and then roll with it or get another vision of something else that I'm wanting to do with it. I've definitely started way more projects than I’ve finished and it feels kind of good because I almost feel like I get these bursts of inspiration to start something new and then I get it again and again and again. So I have a lot more work that's started than finished, but I think that's okay because sometimes it's hard to even start a piece. So once I have a vast amount of pieces started I can basically go and just work with what I'm pulled towards. Sometimes I'm just not into something I was into yesterday.

Where do you get your inspiration?

I pull my inspirations from everything. 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. So yeah, landscapes have been one thing that's been inspiring me. Sunsets, my kids, my girlfriend. Just trying to make art that they might like or appreciate. Also people that appreciate my art, like there's so much art. I look at artists every day and get inspired. Somebody I didn't know, I'll flip through a magazine or scroll past a picture just like stop and intake what they're doing and just see all the little details. I look at older stuff that inspires me. Architecture is one thing that I think is really beautiful. I love linear stuff, so straight lines and structured symmetry. Also, just geometry in nature is really cool. Weird thoughts, or inspiring thoughts that pop into my head that don't make sense. I love making art, like making a painting where I don't even know what it's gonna be in the beginning where it's just kind of like winging it and, I know something will come out of it the more time I put into it, it's gonna just keep pulling something out and I don't know exactly where it's coming from. I feel like a lot of creativity and art is being pulled from the same place, especially with visionary art. It's kind of something I've always been into as far as just different perspectives of landscapes kind of compiled on top of each other with like, different worlds cutting through and dimensions and I've been trying to just build a new world basically, or like bring more of my world through visually so that maybe it could change this world in some way.

What gives you the motivation to put pen to paper?

What I found is like, sometimes the motivation, it’s not always there. You have to make your own motivation. You just have to push yourself basically. I've started multiple things where I didn't feel like doing it, but I knew I needed to do it or like there was something in me that told me that I needed to do it I guess. So basically once I can work on something for an hour or more, I can eventually get immersed in it and once I start to see something coming through, then at that point it gets exciting knowing that something is going to be coming from this process that I'm doing. And even though it's maybe not something I want to do, it's always a good practice. Right now, since I haven't been working, I've been trying to make art that I can sell, but there's certain pieces that I've put, you know, like 40 to 50 hours into and it's, it's not a painting that I'm gonna let go for real cheap, but I think it's gonna be a little difficult to sell that higher art. It's how you market it and whatnot and I'm not really pushy, I don't have a website.

Are you from Boise originally?

No, I'm from New Mexico. I've been in Boise about 12 years, 12-13. My kid’s mom moved here. Well, her parents moved up and then we moved up. I was living in Gallup, New Mexico. It's a small town and just as far as like, potentially like making an art career there seemed really difficult to do. I was bartending at Applebee's for three years. I really wasn't taking art seriously at the time. I did a little bit of art, but before tattooing, I was a graffiti artist. So I did a lot of things like painting on trains and just painting. Like, I just love to express myself in different ways, but something about painting trains, it was a nice rush.

Are there opportunities you’ve had here in Boise you might not have had elsewhere?

Yeah, definitely. As far as the tattoo shops there, like, I didn't really even want to get tattooed because of the quality work. I wanted a tattoo but I was really picky on what I was going to put on my body. I actually tried to apprentice in Gallop. I had a friend Rudy who was tattooing at the time and I just went and hung out at the shop. I was working at Applebee's and I would just kind of come and hang out there. That was only like a few times and then I moved here. Once I moved here, I was working at a call center, and then I did door to door sales, and then I just got tired. I've worked a lot of bullshit jobs, just jobs that have not been fun. A lot of labor and restaurant work. There's definitely more people here and the demographic is a little bit different from New Mexico. I feel like with the art that I do, people are a little more receptive here. Gallop was a small town like I said, there's a lot of artists there that are really good that are still struggling to make art and sell paintings and jewelry. I feel like there's definitely opportunity in Boise and I like living here because I think it's a good place to raise my kids. The scenery is like pristine nature, mountains. Everything about living here is beautiful. I mean, the sunsets are definitely a lot more beautiful in Gallup, they're nice here too, but like something about the sky. Like Arizona sky too, it's just, I don't know what it is down there, but it's just beautiful.

What’s it like being able to support yourself with your art and creativity?

I feel really lucky, blessed and thankful that I can do art as a career. It wasn't easy. It was a lot, a lot of work to get to where I'm at. A lot of sacrifice. Tattooing till 2-3 in the morning, later sometimes. I didn't especially like the beginning of tattooing. I didn't have a clientele. I’m not from here, so building a clientele was a really difficult thing to do. It took, I don't know, 7-8 years I would say to build a nice solid clientele. I definitely always dreamt about it. I just kept working and putting in the time and there were multiple times I wanted to quit tattooing. I was really harsh looking at my own work, thinking like why am I tattooing? You know, just trying to figure things out as well, and just learning, and a lot of repetition. It's definitely one of the hardest things to get good at, I think but I'm glad that I stuck with it. And just knowing all the crap that I had to go through to get to where I'm at, I feel good. I feel like nothing was given to me. Like I definitely put in the hours and put in the time and broke my back basically getting to where I'm at. But I'm still like, always thankful for where I'm at and try to stay humble and everything. I never talk down on anybody's work basically, or judge other people's art and I just kind of focus on what I'm doing and get inspired and try to get other people to be inspired as well. I love to try to get people to be involved with art. And I think that everybody can be an artist, even people that say they can only draw stick figures. It's just like, it's what you find passion about. Some people just aren't passionate about art so there's nothing I can do to change that. But I definitely love to try to inspire people to create, especially my kids and friends and people that haven't really experienced things with creating things.

Why do you think art is important?

I think art is important because it's a way of self expression. And I think art is a way of telling stories, or creating messages that will be passed down through like, lineages. I also think art is a way of decompressing. Sometimes, just being stuck in your world can be stressful and a way to escape it, at least for me, is to do art where I kind of like step outside of what's going on around me. And it's a way of mindfulness I think, just kind of being in the moment with what you're doing and creating. Sometimes it's not even about the outcome, just the process of going through the steps to create something that's, you know, going to be beautiful or it's just practice. It's just a good practice. And it's a way of meditating, I think and it's therapeutic.

Do you think art is something that you'll ever step away from?

No, no way. I have so many ideas and like things built up. I don't have enough time to get everything out that I want to. It's difficult to try to decide what I want to work on because there's so many projects, so many things that I want to do. I don't think I'll ever have enough time to get to everything that I'd like to. But art’s always going to be part of my life. It's something that I was born to create, and I can't ever stop doing that. It's just, I find it really fun and I'm obsessed with it. All I think about is art 24/7 besides like kids and stuff, but it's just constantly on my mind. Things that I want to work on and do and yeah, it's just, it's gonna be with me forever.

Is there anything I missed asking you, or you are dying to say that I didn't ask you about?

Art is, I guess sometimes it's kind of an escape in a way. My mother passed away when I was 12. So I had to go through a lot of therapy and counseling and talking with people. So one thing I remember with all that is it was really difficult for me to deal with emotions then. So I did a lot of art and that was kind of a way for me to deal with those emotions, or to be able to express myself or even just sit and talk with somebody. Like if I was drawing, it was easier for me to talk about things and kind of like, get in touch with those emotions because I had that thing that I was, I don't know, I was kind of in two places at once, almost, versus just dealing with my emotions, so I was able to kind of spread that through both if that makes any sense. I wish that I took art more seriously when I was younger. I mean, I thought that I was going to go to college for art. I got accepted to go to an art school, but I didn't, because I had a girlfriend that I stayed back for, and she ended up breaking up with me shortly after. I mean, I don't regret anything from my past because it's all led me to where I'm at now. So who knows, if I would have gone to art school, maybe I would have been designing. I always wonder what it's like to do another career in art as far as like, being an illustrator or graphic designer. I'm sure it's fun but I feel like the work, like it's a little more strict, and there's a lot of work you’ve got to put into it, and I don't know. With tattooing I am so like, I can't see myself doing anything else really, besides like creating art and selling it. But I think it's maybe more because of the structure factor of doing other work, like keeping up with the demand of art and like I think you need a team of people that can help. Like right now I'm trying to get a website and like, I don't have a team of people. I'm doing everything myself, so I need to build a website, I need to take pictures and upload things and there's a lot of things that I've been trying to get to but I've just been pulled to make art lately. Like, I know that eventually I'll get back to work and get caught up on things.

Migel Delgado - Artist Sit Down - Full Interview

What's your primary medium?

My primary medium, whoo, man, this is gonna sound really weird. I like aerosol cans. Because the vibrancy of the color is easier to control because I do a lot of masking tape. So every layer of color that is on my current works, or the bigger works, is two to three cans of paint. There's something that's, I guess it's more like a meditation when I do my work. So that, and it smells kind of sweet.

How did you get into doing art?

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 started to emulate drawing comic books, like Marvel Comics. I had a couple friends in junior high, we had our own quirky little group, and one of those friends of mine, Jose, was able to look at an artist's style in a comic book and imitate it. I was just like, how the hell do you do that? You know, now later I can see how you do that, you just have to have an eye for it. But I just started art from a young age. My parents basically let me paint on the walls in my room. A giant Sonic the Hedgehog, you know, or make t-shirts, creating my own characters that were emulating Bill Watterson illustrations. So I created a couple different little characters from that and that's where I guess my genesis for art started.

Where do you get your inspiration from?

Oh man, that's so hard. Mostly I just follow a couple artists on Instagram. I'm gonna hack a name here, Olafur Eliasson. He's from I guess, Sweden maybe? And James Turrell. He's got the crater over in Flagstaff and I guess Kanye West has donated like $30 million to his work to continue creating. But I like any artist that is willing to create, I guess optical effect or just in minimal ways. So any artist that is minimal, creating these optical effects are the ones that I'm always attracted to. Dwaine Carver was like one of my inspirations in school. I mean, I took his class and I was just like, this is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I did one class at the graduate level and it was three hours of non-stop note taking, non-stop. But I just, I appreciate the fact that he had so much knowledge, and I had really no background in architecture. But at that point, and through my buddy Lupe, I found that with architecture you can actually have a conversation with art, buildings, things like music, and everything else. They can all communicate with each other. I would just like for Dwaine to give a discussion on the grant process, if he would ever do that, it'd be awesome. I mean, through Karen Bubb, I got a lot of information there, but someone who's actually practicing who has their hands on multiple things. You know, how does one do that? Because as artists, I think we're already doing that in our heads, but we just need to figure out how to make that tangible.

What keeps you motivated to create art?

That's called the burden of life, you know? My best friend Lupe is an artist, so we always have these dialogues back and forth. I have another friend who's now in Texas, Jesus Gonzalez who's a photographer, and so the three of us would always communicate. I found a mirror to that because one of my great-great-great-uncles was in a group in Mexico, called Los Tres Grandes, so, Siqueiros, Rivera, and my great-great-great-uncle is Orozco. And so, I've always felt like I need to continue on that lineage of artistry that he created back then but for today.

Does your heritage play into your art?

It definitely has found a way to get back into my artwork. In undergrad at Boise State University,  I had a minor in Mesoamerican studies and I consumed so much knowledge. I had no idea about my own heritage except for the stereotypical things that I was watching, like lowrider culture, some of the movies that my dad would watch while I grew up like Westerns, of course, but yeah.

How would you describe what you create?,

I think you'd probably just call it hybridization. I've had this word in my mind since college called “liminality”, it's the state of being betwixt and between two worlds. And so what I'm trying to do, as I scale up my artwork, is create a place where people will look at work, but they won't really feel like they're part of it, but displaced by looking at it and that's where the optical effects come into play because I'm trying to get them to engage with it and at the same time for it to disengage them in a way.

Why is art important to you?

I think that art defines time. From like the beginning, the Caves of Lascaux, right? And then from what I was talking about  with my heritage, the muralists of Mexico. And then you got Banksy, right? He's making all these works right now that are social commentary. I think art defines the time, and right now, there's gonna be whole new sets of artists that are coming out of this Coronavirus, and this inequality that's happening, or that has been happening before Coronavirus, and you know, Banksy's talking about that a lot too. But we define time, and it's very important that we never lose our voice. In America, we don't get enough funding, but in the rest of the world, they get plenty of funding. Maybe we'll get there shortly, I don't know.

Has the Coronavirus inspired you to create anything yet?

No, not really. Ironically, I look back to the old paintings and I see precursors to what could be visual... I guess quotes to what's going on right now. So I don't know. I don't think linearly. That's my biggest, I don't wanna say it's an issue, it's just how I function. I don't think in terms of linearity, but I can always come back to something again. So Coronavirus may not be something that's in my work right now, maybe I've seen it in the works of the past, or maybe it'll just pop up later. It's all intuitive for me. I like the subconscious to have a little bit more play in this than the conscious part in making decisions in art.

Do you think that having a space to create in is important for an artist?

Oh, definitely. We all know about the rents and the amount of money it costs to even have a home in Boise anymore. So as an artist, you know, even where I work, I can barely meet the median to get my own place. I was fortunate enough to find this place in such a short period of time, and that he's willing to let me do my work, regardless if he's even seen it or not. Yeah, I think having a space or even a community space is ideal. I mean, I know down in Garden City there's tons of little spots that a lot of artists are renting, they’re just converted RV garages I guess, but yeah it's important.

Could you tell me about the artist group you’re a part of?

I've always been a part of some group or another. Some Latino groups in town. So like Bobby Gaytan, he was one of the kids that I went to school with in the beginning and so I got to see his development. Lupe Galvan, who's a landscape artist, a portrait artist, he went to New York Academy. A lot of us had these little small network groups where we were trying to do things where we worked with, say, the Cultural Center out in Nampa, or we would do some altars for the history museum down in downtown Boise, and eventually we all just had to go our own ways because you know, we all have families and paths in life, and then eventually I became part of  Los Dos. It was me and Pablo, who was basically kind of like the quiet partner. He's an older gentleman who spent time in the wars, Desert Storm, so we kind of influenced each other through dialogue back in undergrad school, and then we just decided hey, let's just try to make something happen. Bobby had Blackbook Gallery, that was probably like 11 years ago. So we would meet there as a small little group, and then that disbanded. Now it's Kyle who's trying to make something happen again, but then the Coronavirus did this so…

Boise is a small place, the art community seems fairly intertwined.

Yeah. It's kind of weird though because, we'll just say that the Latino art community is a smaller group, right? We're kind of here, and then, I don't want to create dichotomies, but everybody else, are this other circle of artists. Boise, for me, seems more like illustrator/illustrative and then painting, right? And then as you look at graffiti, then you get this interconnecting now of the small Latino group, it's just good to have diversity in Boise finally. I'm still trying to find, I guess, normalcy with the demographic of Boise, right, like I'm still trying to adjust to what it is to be a person from Boise, or from Idaho that's a Boisean. For me, my background was like my dad was a military guy. He was very much traditional Mexican. So all my background was like that, and then I went to college with all the liberal stuff going on there. So there’s this conflict of ideas and I haven't been able to sit down and say, okay, who are you? You're in Boise, you’re a Mexican, right? But you know, you're a stand out in Boise. So what do you do about that? I don't know. It's like one of those dialogues I've been having in my head for a long time.

Are there opportunities you've been afforded by being in Boise you might not have had elsewhere?

So hard man cause, you know, I haven't really done much networking and that's the other part of being a father and working full time is I don't have time to do the networking and find out where I would fit in. Staying in Idaho, I have to just fit in but I've put myself out to galleries in LA and said please give me a little feedback. I've had some good feedback there but I can't afford to go to LA and set up there. Then with my friend in Arizona, my aesthetic probably would fit better there than it would here, but at the same time, there are some changes going on with laws that may incorporate my artwork to kind of be present here when the time comes. 

Have you ever been able to support yourself with art?

No, I've never tried. It's so hard to just take a leap of faith and say, I can do it. Whereas I have the comfort of, you know, 401k, health care, all this other stuff. I thought about it to the effect that when my kid is on his own, would I be willing to take a risk and do that? At the point of trying to support myself, I think it's more like creating a business, maybe selling designs, doing some t-shirts or something like that. That's something I've talked about with other artists. There are those that already do it, you know? It's just getting out of the matrix. You kinda have these moral conversations with yourself.

Do you think art conveys a message?

Yeah, you know, I see art like poetry. I really didn't get into poetry until I took a hybrid class in grad school. It was a Lit and Art class, they sandwich together. So I didn't really understand how words and art worked together or influenced each other. I see poetics in objects, I see poetics in  work, and that's where I really respect minimal works where they speak so much more with so little. That's not what I do, obviously, but specifically to my work. I'm not really making a comment on social things going on right now. I'm just trying to create a space to maybe get lost in, to be distracted by work versus being influenced by it, by some social conversation, right? I mean if someone finds something within the work that they identify with related to politics, you know, or whatever, that's them. That's the beauty of art.

Have I missed asking anything about your art?

I think that it's just trying to create a voice in art in Boise that would welcome people into Latin culture, right. And so, I'm visually trying to do that, with the colors, right? Colors, everybody loves colors, and people love design. So those are the two things that I would like to focus on in my works. Regardless of if they can identify with the cultural aspects too, it's not really that important. The important part is that when they look at the work, they see that there is an experience to be had. There's this whole 20th century, end of the 20th century idea that you have eight seconds with art, right? And then it's gone. Whereas I'm trying to find a way to encourage people to spend time with the work again, to be lost in the work. And that's why I'm trying to scale up so they can be lost. And that's where that whole liminality thing comes in. It's like let's get them lost. Why not? That's where meditation can happen, and where it begins, when you look at art. There was a female artist who came in from New York, she had everybody meditate. And the work, I don't know, for me didn't seem to relate to the act of meditation, but it meant that she had the audience, right? At that moment, she had the audience do something together as a group. I'm just trying to find ways to negotiate how to get the viewer back into the art. Growing up, I didn't really identify with my own culture as much. I mean, I grew up in Florida. I had Puerto Ricans, Cubans and African Americans. Coming to Idaho, I was, you know, thrown into the LDS community and I was like, what is this about? So it wasn't until I got to college and I went past the surface reading. I went down to the cultural aspect of reading and I wanted to know the nuts and bolts of what our culture is, and why certain things are the way they are. Like, you know, the version of Guadalupe, where the hell did that come from? I get symbolism, I get metaphor, but where the hell did that come from? And then I found out. I was like, oh shit, it was the church, so the church created this ok, let's say mythology, where this guy I can't remember his name it's like Diego or something was walking around in the valley on these mountains, right and so past cultures like the Aztec culture had always worshipped a mound because there was a God that would be atop that mound. They have thousands of like gods, right, so when the Catholic Church wanted to convert everybody to Christianity, they started learning about the mythology of that culture, and they found ways to implant their religion into the culture and so they created the myth of this woman figure, the feminine figure, right. There was already a different figure before that and a different name, but it just so happened with that figure they were able to consolidate power through an image. And it's crazy how that works for cultures and religions.

Is there anything else you'd like to touch on?

No, I think that for the most part, I'm pretty much like a soft spoken background kind of guy when it comes to art, you know, I've always wanted to be that forward person. Like with these groups that I join, they'll kind of say “your work needs to stand out more to the forefront instead of the background”, but I'm always like, no, my work is gonna stand out regardless if it's in the foreground or background. So I'm always trying to mediate and be a diplomat. For me, it's I don't, I don't feel comfortable being the forefront of things. Things like having dialogue and talking about art, I get scared when I have to talk to people who are art up here at that conceptual level of thought, because for me, I think differently. It's like, for example, when I read Nietzsche for the first time, I had to read it for four years before I could almost understand it because I was so trapped in my own thoughts. So that's just the nature of who I am. Like, I'm not ready to respond immediately if it's something I'm not comfortable with at that point because I guess I care too much about what other people think. Maybe if I was one of those people who said, I don't care what you think, then I would just say something.

Chris Fonseca - Artist Sit Down - Full Interview

What would you say is your primary medium?

Right now? Probably aerosol cans. Yeah, just like mural work, acrylic. Yeah, mainly like murals and stuff.

Is that something that you've worked in all your life or recently started working in?

I started seven years ago. And it's just, it's just been a wild ride. You know, it's been really fun just like discovering Okay, like, wow, I'm actually kind of good at this. You know, let's see how far we can push this whole discipline and see where it takes me. I knew it wasn't the thing I'd be doing when I'm 80, I know that, but it is something that still piques my interest. It's still relatively fun. But I'm getting into all these other mediums and stuff. And I've always been like a mixed media kind of guy. I started with pencil when I was a kid, like everybody else, you know, pencils and crayons and stuff. I think the only difference is I didn't stop. I think that's probably like the biggest strength is just, I guess being too dumb to quit, you know? But yeah, so I started with pencils, started getting into painting and stuff and just different things. Then I landed on just aerosol cans, mostly for efficiency. I was painting with airbrushes, rollers, paint brushes, like anything and everything that you could mark a wall with, I was using. And then I was like, Damn, if I'm starting to travel and stuff, I don't see how I can bring all this stuff on every trip. I hate hauling it around. You have to clean, like, you know, 15 different things as opposed to just throwing away a plastic spray cap from an aerosol can. So it just became like more of an efficiency thing than anything else. But yeah, I think that's where I landed as far as a medium.

Have you been doing this professionally for the past seven years?

Yes, yes. Murals seven years. This stuff probably I don't know, like two to three years. What I mean by this stuff is, I’ve got a CNC machine, I have a 3d printer. I have basically all the tools that you would use for creating something and really like, imagination first projects. So it's like, okay, let's not be limited by what these machines can do, let's just throw off limits. What do you want? You know, a guy asked me for an agave necklace with like diamonds in it and I'm like, I'm not a jewelry maker. I don't know the first thing about like, anything as far as jewelry goes, but I'll figure it out, we'll figure it out. I think that now, along with the medium or whatever, It's just that. It's figuring stuff out. I think that's probably like my most favorite thing, because that means it forces me to learn. Sometimes people are paying me, you know, not a cheap sum of money to figure something out. I make the joke, I'm kind of like a doctor, you pay me to practice. Whether it be on your wall, or whether it be you know, an agave piece of jewelry. I've done 3D lit signs, you know, like channel lit signs and box letter stuff, you know, any of the vinyl stuff that you see. That's all stuff that we can do as well. And I really just, I want to serve customers in a way where, if they had an idea, just to be like, yeah, we can do that, you know? And it's just, it's served me pretty well so far. I mean, we just got this shop maybe a month and a half ago (February). And we're just starting to occupy it with all the tools, occupy it with thoughts. And, you know, people that I wouldn't normally talk to in my basement where I was working, now we have kind of a storefront and a place where people can walk in the door and feel welcome. I think that a lot of the times you know, if you walk into a sign shop, if you walk into a place with a bunch of 3D printers, it’s sterile as hell, you know. They're just like, what are you doing here? Like, do you have business here? Just kind of like, hey, right out of the gate, we don't want you here. I don't want people to feel that when they walk in these doors, you know, I want them to feel like, holy crap, they’ve got a 3d printer, how does that work? Oh, let me show you. Come back on Monday, we actually have meetings specifically to show people all the cool stuff that we're doing and how you can do it. If you have a business idea, or if you have a project that you're working on, like, let's figure it out together, because it's awesome to learn. And it's awesome to figure stuff out together. You know, you're a camera guy, and a photographer and whatever else you are, you know, I don't want to put you in a box, but like, you have a set of skills. I think everybody has a set of skills that they can share with the world, but we haven't been given permission to practice these things and fail and fail loud you know, and do all the shit that, you know, we're told not to do and stay within the lines. I just say like, you know, Why? Why haven't you been able to fail? You know, who said you should not fail? Was that your parents? I'm sorry, that's not the reality of life. We mess up all the time and we learn, you know and I think that's the biggest thing is just learning from your mistakes and stuff.

Where do you get your inspiration from?

Usually It comes from a lot of places. Obviously if I'm serving a client, it's like our baby. I wouldn't come up with the idea without them, they wouldn't come up with the idea without me. So it's this interaction of two ideas that are coming into like, this cute little baby that is gonna make me money, it’s gonna make them money down the road because it'll be a marketing piece or whatever it is for them. Individual ideas are usually of either the business sort, or like I have this visual concept that I really kind of obsess over for a little while. It always just comes out in the projects that clients asked me to do anyway, like, I've been obsessed with mountains. Have you played like Death Stranding? They totally took this concept, and it's not my idea, it's just out there, but, I feel like I grabbed on to like, just the idea of things on Earth having a strand attaching them to heaven or whatever is above. And what's really cool about the game is you don't see what's above, you just see the strand going into nothing, or like into this fog. I think that's such a powerful concept because basically, at least for me, it illustrates that everything you see has like a tie to heaven. I don't say that as a religious term, you know, I believe in God and Jesus and everything, but like, a lot of people don't connect with that because they have their biases and I want to make sure that these concepts are accessible to the world because the world needs awesome things, you know, things that need to exist for people to enjoy. With this concept, it's very powerful to see a visual representation of something on Earth that's inhabiting the ground, but it also has a tie to the sky. I think it's just so cool. So I'm just obsessed with mountains, and this lady asked me to do a nursery piece for their unborn child, and I thought, both concepts are really cool because they asked for mountains, but also they're bringing this thing that didn't exist into existence. So you have that heavenly strand, you know, attaching these mountains and these streams to heaven, to this unformed energy. And so I thought it was a cool concept. I threw it at them, and they're like, oh my gosh, this is so great, we love it, when can we give you a deposit so you can start on the job! And like, that excitement is what I live for I think because like, yes, I have ideas as an artist that need to exist and I will bring them about no matter what, but it's just so much more rich when you can actually serve with those ideas. Because then you're connecting somebody to, I guess, like infinite possibility. Because if you're constantly accustomed to just grabbing onto ideas, and just like letting them exist in your palm without really holding them too tight, then they're available for somebody to walk into those doors and receive this eternal gift, you know. And it's not something that I'm like, oh, you need me to give you this gift, no, I'm just, I'm just some dumb asshole who's keeping an open mind about things and I'm willing to receive those things, and then I'm willing to give them away. I think everybody has that power, they're just not aware of it. And for the people that are aware, sometimes they just hold on to artistic concepts a little too tightly and who knows, I'm not judging them for it, but I just think that like, at least for me, those things are meant to be shared, you know? So my inspiration I think just comes from being receptive to today, and just figuring out okay, what are we gonna do today?

What keeps you motivated?

I think just the fact that, like, 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. What keeps me going is just the fact that I can keep going, that there is no limit, you know? And that excites me because when I think like this is the last job like this is, stamp, I've made it you know, I already know that's not true. The logical part of me is like, Chris, you need to finish this job because you've been on it way too long. That's like me hiring the artist to do a good job and I'm like, okay, you need to finish this job so we get paid because you know, the lights don't keep themselves on, you got to pay for electricity. It's just like, the pursuit, you know.

Do you enjoy trying out new things?

Yeah, I don't know how to use that laser cutter back there. I haven't hooked it up yet, I'm trying to get somebody to come and hook it up for free and then tell me how to use it. I structure this whole business, weird thing, that I have going on as pay to play. So I pay my dues, I get rid of those work orders that I have on the wall, so that I can pay for the monetary things, but then like, also buy back time. And what I do with that time is I learn how to use these pieces of equipment and I just explore the possibilities. And it really is just playing, you know, kids are good at it and somewhere along the way we lose the sense of how we play. But it's in playing that you learn the most, you know? So if you stop playing, you're gonna stop learning up to the potential level that you could be learning. We all learn by repetition, you know, one plus one equals two, all that shit, and that's just learned by repetition. But if you're excited about a project or excited about a subject, you're playing with it, you're figuring out what works and what doesn't and it's like this mix between science and art. Playing and not taking yourself too seriously, but just being so laser focused, and being so serious about your play, that you learn stuff just exponentially, way better than you would any other way. In a classroom setting, some parts are just like drudgery, you know. Like invoices used to be drudgery until I just put the idea of, I'm printing money right now, as soon as I hand this over, I'm gonna get money for it. That's exciting, you know? So I don't know, I just enjoy playing you know, figuring it out.

Are there any opportunities you think you’ve been afforded by being in the Boise area?

Absolutely Yeah. I always tell people Nampa, the Boise area, we're still dormant. There's still plenty of shoulder room for people with ambition, you know? And for the people that don't have ambition, they just get out of the way, they're not making a decision. People think, I'm gonna make a decision and everybody else will wait for me. Like, literally, that's how driving is around here too, which is funny because you can kind of get that sense, but that's a microcosm of the bigger picture, which is that the city is waiting for people to take ambition to take things into their own hands and to create work, if you can't find work, make it. There's so much opportunity here, you know, and the growth and what's happening like, I'm just super excited about it. Bring on the Californian's because they bring the money, and that's what puts food on my table, you know? I'm a creative, so if one thing doesn't work, I'll figure out what will work and what they will buy or whatever. And it's not all about the business, it's not all about the dollar, but there's plenty of opportunity for that. You can get paid well, you can create well, you can do a lot of cool stuff and there's room for it. So yeah, it's exciting.

Are people seeking you out for work or do you still have to find it?

Even though there's limitless opportunity everywhere, I'm a firm believer in that, you still have to pay your dues man. If you're young in the art or whatever it is that you're pursuing, if you're trying to start a painting business or just wherever the hell you're doing, you’ve got to pay your dues. What I mean by that is, you’ve got to get used to finding and recognizing the opportunities that are right in front of you, that are right in front of everybody, but you're capitalizing on the opportunities that pertain to your talent, your value, whatever is your passion. Now my hustle is in a specific direction, and people are coming to me for mural work, they're coming to me for creative stuff and that's cool. I feel like I've paid my dues. I'm kind of hitting that tipping point where now it's kind of an easy ride down. But once it becomes easy, it becomes boring. So now I'm like, okay, how can we move this momentum that we already have? How can we steer it in a way where I'm actually doing more of the idea work, where I'm encouraging others to pursue their passions, and creating opportunities for artists that are green and don't have any business sense, and getting them experience and helping them figure out how to do an invoice. The boring shit that everybody's like, I don't want to do that, I just want to get out there and paint. It's like, yeah, but what happens when you fall in love and you have a kid with that person and that person needs for you to grow up a little bit, you know? And it's not growing up and letting go of your dreams, it's growing up and figuring out how the world works and seeing how you can employ the world's resources to fulfill your dream. 

They don't teach you the business part in school.

No, you know, they wouldn't, and I don't get that because it would be good business to teach people how to do good business. You know what I mean? And let's be honest, the school system is a business. So be honest about it and teach people the skills that you are exercising on them to get them into your schools, like how is that going to hurt you? They teach you how to work for somebody else and it's like, what happens if you get fired? What happens if you really hate your job? It's doing what you love but they just took all the love out of it, you know? I love music. I still love writing music, but as soon as I started to learn how to actually write the notes and stuff and figure all this stuff out, it just became daunting and I'm like, you guys are taking all the fun out of music. I love listening to it, I love enjoying it, and I don't hear any music. All I hear is rustling of sheet music, you know? And for the people that love that stuff and their brains work in a way where they can connect and express and experience flow while they're looking at a piece of sheet music, God bless you. But for me, that's not the case. I have to hear it. I have to feel it, you know. Consumer mindset, like people get bored with with certain stuff and then they gravitate towards what's easy to digest, so the easier it is to digest for somebody who's making the content, or writing the music or just doing whatever, the easier it is to teach somebody, you know, we're like the upper crust. This is how we learn and this is how we do it and it's like, kids are learning how to use computers, like without any formal training, just throwing a group of Third World kids in front of a computer, and they literally figure it out within hours. Boomers and stuff, God bless them, but like, they can't do that. It's because of that mental dexterity they lost that somewhere, along the assembly line and it's sad. It's a breakdown of the human spirit and we're having an awakening where people are starting to get wise and people are getting smarter. The regular consumer is getting uber smart with their purchasing decisions. Still not there yet, but we're getting better, you know, we're getting better at making our own decisions.

What does art mean to you?

I think art is important because it is the most beautiful love child of all the disciplines. I always tell people it's a fast track if you want to learn something in an exciting way. I don't know shit about welding. In high school, I had this art project that involved welding. So they're like, whoa, we’ve got to get you into the welding class so you can finish your project. I'm like, hell yeah, let's do this. I get in the welding class, I look over and there's a bunch of kids through this window, they're all doing paperwork. I asked one of the other welding students, what are they doing over there? They're like, oh, they're in welding class. What? They're doing paperwork. Yeah, you have to do like a month or two months worth of paperwork before you can even touch a welder. I didn't do any of that shit. Fast track baby, you know? I lit myself on fire, I made all the mistakes that you could do, the worst welder you will ever see. But I got my hands on a welder before any of those assholes. And that to me was just like a perfect lesson. That’s why art is important. Because when you have a project, or you have an idea, you have something that you're working on, you cut through so many disciplines in order to like, paint that portrait of a person with water running down their face. And like, there's so many things that you have to take account for. The trigonometry of the light hitting that person's face just regularly without water, but then you add water and it's a whole nother element because, you know, it almost looks like their skin is bubbling but it's actually the water refracting the light and it's pulling that image out, away from their face, which is like, so weird, you know, when you actually stop and think about it. You could just draw like different graphs and there's so much science in just painting a portrait like that. There's so much science in just the anatomys of the subjects that you are wanting to paint, or like, close your eyes and I'm just gonna paint an abstract piece that just comes straight from my head. You're still pulling out references and you're still like, what is your mood that day? what'd you eat, all that shit. There's so many variables that go into a piece of art that it is literally like an expression of all these different disciplines. So I think that's the most important thing about art is that we just understand it's involved with everything and it involves everything. It takes all of you to express yourself artistically, you know? What other discipline does that, where it takes all the disciplines you know, it's like it has like the monopoly on all disciplines. I mean, look around, everything that you see was designed first on a piece of scratch paper and was just an idea. And whether or not people say oh, that's commercial art or oh, that's not really art and blah blah blah like, whatever man, whatever works for you like, I just see art in everything, even in the creation where no man has touched, you know? And we still pull so many inferences from the reality that we're surrounded by where it's like, we're just we're surrounded by art. Art is everything, you know? So there's this great design that's just like happening and, you know, some people were just too blind to see it and it's sad, but they'll get it.

How did you do the forced perspective mural at Vertical View?

That technique, I've never done before. So they paid me to practice, but basically, what I did is, I had a tripod set up with my iPhone that was like, looking at the piece. Right? And then I had a TV with an Apple TV on it. So basically I was piping the feed into that. And then it was monitoring right there. And then I was right there working on the piece. And instead of going back to the vantage point every time I had to get a reference, all I had to do is just look over at the TV. Then I had my iPad as like, you know, the reference that I was using. So I'm basically comparing references. And so yeah, I looked it up, and I really have to do a more in depth YouTube video on it, but basically, like, I YouTubed that whole technique or whatever, and I couldn't find anything. I don't know if it's like a really well kept secret, or if people just don't like sharing or just whatever. I'm just like, dude, again, it's good business to share your tricks and to share your tips and stuff. The more content that you give out for free I think, the more attention you'll get, the more clout you'll get, because people will be coming to you and they'll be like, how do you do this? I saw the video, but still, can you explain it? And to me, I'm just like, oh, I gave you the video, what more do you want? But I know what they want. They actually want a friendship, they want a connection, like a human connection with somebody who kind of knows something about something, you know, and they want to feel important. So I don't mind taking the extra time to help them out and just show them hey, this is how you do it. And I could be repeating everything in the video. You could sell 100 courses, and people are still gonna want that time, you know? But, yeah, that was the process and it was really fun and like I said, I want to share it a little bit more completely in a YouTube video. Just so people know, and who knows maybe it goes viral and then we get more money for this facility and stuff. That's where all the money is going, it's not going to where I can buy like a Lexus. I don't need that shit. I don't need status. I need people to understand that you can create at the same level that I'm creating, you're just gonna have to pay your dues. That's it. It's a small price to pay, you know, especially for what you get out of it, you get an endless life of more creating and more learning and it just works for itself. It's just really cool that I have this opportunity. And that I know I'll be given more opportunity and I'll use it right. I'm not gonna get rich without other people getting rich by my side, you know? I just think that's a better economic model than hoarding everything and just trying to maximize your profit at the cost of your customers or the quality of the product. There's so many things that fall by the wayside when people get greedy. So that's the aim, really.

Is there anything you want to talk about that we haven't talked about yet?

I guess this could be just like a shameless plug. But like, if you're starting a business, if you are curious about where to take an invention, basically like an idea. If you have the rough workings of an idea and you just don't know the next step, come to us. We don't have all the answers and we're not going to give you all the answers. But we can examine it together and we can question it, poke holes in it, and give it a full scientific analysis and figure out how we can give you guys the next step on your idea. That's what we're passionate about. Along with all the work that we're doing and everything else, that's really where we want our niche. Just helping creatives figure out what the next step is in their creative endeavor. Whether it be your art, music, really just making it profitable so you can do that full time. Basically making your passion profitable and making sure that you have enough resources to do your dream and do it 100% you know?

Miguel Almeida - Artist Sit Down - Full Interview

Miguel’s Website - https://www.miguelalmeidaillustration.com/

What is your primary medium?

I bounce between traditional painting using stuff like posca pens, markers, stuff like that and digital. So usually it kind of just depends on what I'm doing. I definitely like painting a lot, but I also like working on my computer and Photoshop with my Wacom tablet.

What motivates you to start creating?

I just think I've always loved creating art since I was a little kid. I've always enjoyed making my own little flipbook animations. I remember stealing my parents little post it notes and doing like Dragonball Z, you know, like little stick figure animations. And I guess I just never kind of grew out of it. So it's always been something that I do. I love creating imagery, especially very more kind of like graphic colors, shapes and pretty much anything that comes to my head.

Where do you get your inspiration for your designs?

Lately, it's been a lot of my upbringing. My parents are both from Mexico. They immigrated here, I would say, probably over 30 years ago. So I definitely grew up in a community where I saw a lot of the people that were immigrating here and the jobs they did. It's been kind of nice, in a way it's almost like honoring the people that sit on the side of the street and sell corn. You know, or the guy that pushes the ice cream cart for hours in the summer. I think it's kind of cool to honor that. I think it pushes me to follow my dreams and that, just seeing how hard these people work. I think lately that's been inspiring my art a lot.

What else has inspired your art?

As far as inspiration, growing up skateboarding. I started skating when I was 12. 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.

Has being Part of the skateboard community helped you?

I think so. I think if it wasn't for skateboarding, my life would definitely be a lot different. I don't think I'd probably be creating the same art I create now. I might be touching on the same subjects. But I think the way I create it is very influenced by the skate videos. I watched the posters I had in my room, the graphics on the boards. I think all that definitely has influenced my art and like my life all together.

How important is having a set aside art space for you? 

Oh man, it's so nice to be able to like, do your work in one room. And then when you're done, go into another room and sleep and not be surrounded by it all the time. Because it definitely I think it is nice to be able to step away from it. Go into a different room in your house or wherever you are and kind of just like separate yourself from it and take a break. Because for me, it's always better to step away from a painting, and look at it with fresh eyes. You know, be able to come back and see if I see anything versus just like always looking at it and always being in there. It's kind of nice

Do you think you create more now with a dedicated space for art?

Yeah, I think so. Especially because, you see I have like paints everywhere, kind of paint brushes everywhere. I don't have to set up and clean up too much. So it gives me more time to be able to just sit down, doodle an idea out, even if it's just for like an hour and not have to worry about setting it up and taking it down and doing all that.

Are you able to make a living off of your art in Boise?

I'm moving towards making it kind of more my main income. Right now. It's like 50/50. I work at the Boise Co-Op as a cashier four days a week and then on my three days off, I'm doing art jobs. So commission work, or doing personal work that I sell prints or stickers of, and T shirts and totes.

Is it hard to find commision work here in Boise?

At first it kind of did seem hard. Like I just didn't know what I was doing. There was kind of no guidance. I was just like, just kind of floating there and I would get commissions here and there. I think it was after I got a few bigger ones like, Prestige Skate Shop had me design a board for them, which led to another job helping JD's Bodega design some of their logo work and some of the stuff that's printed on their merch. And then it just kind of kept growing and growing. And one thing kind of led to another.

So you were involved in the JD's Bodega sign?

Yeah, I think Prestige Skate Shop told Josh Davis, like, hey, check out Miguel, he's got some cool stuff. And then from there, me and him started talking and we ended up working together and it actually turned out to be a rad project.

So did you design the mascot guy they've got?

Yeah, so the main logo, like basically the main logos that they have. So I helped him kind of develop the signage for the front and then the logo where I think they have two different ones, a more detailed one, and then a little more basic one.

Does your upbringing reflect in the artwork you create?

Yeah, more in my personal work. Commissioned work I kind of make it more about the brand that I'm designing for. So I do use a lot of the same kind of detailed work. I do a lot of the same illustration style, but a lot of that is just more based on what the brand wants. But my work is definitely inspired by a lot of the stuff I grew up seeing when I would go visit Mexico, a lot of the colors I would see, a lot of the colors you still see in the architecture. Lots of teals, bright pinks, yellows,

Did you go to school at all for this?

Kind of, I went to University of Idaho and I did their virtual technology and design program. That was more based around 3d animation, 3d modeling and stuff like that. When I graduated high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was like, I don't know, I didn't know anybody who was an artist who was making a living as an artist. So in my head, I was like, how do I get paid by someone, but also get to be creative. So it was like 3d animation, 3d modeling all seemed new to me. And that's what I went to school for. I did learn how to do digital art in that program, which is probably what I use the most and I took some art classes in school as well. But most of that was based around 3d modeling and animating.

Are there opportunities you've had in Boise you wouldn't have gotten elsewhere? 

I think so. At first, I was kind of like, I don't know, I saw Boise as a small community. And I guess I just never really knew many artists. But I can definitely say now that it's offered a lot to me just, you know, from Prestige Skate Shop, growing up knowing those guys, doing work with them. And I think in the smaller community word gets around like, you do one project for somebody, they recommend you to somebody else. Or like the project I'm working on right now for Bite Me. It's a new hand dipped ice cream shop that's going to open up in the village. They found out about my work through Push and Pour, because I did some work for them.

What's your favorite thing to do? Do you have a favorite practice?

I would say probably painting. Screen printing is still pretty new to me. So it can be frustrating but I think if I just had more proper equipment to do screen printing, it wouldn't be as frustrating or stressful when I'm doing it. But it is satisfying to be able to have control over what the shirt looks like, you know, instead of waiting to see when the shirts are printed, and just to be in control of the quality I think is something I've always liked.

What's it like doing commissioned work and having to create something that's not your original idea?

I think it's been pretty nice lately. Most of the people that have reached out to me like the style that I work in, they are reaching out to me because they like my work. So they give me a lot of creative freedom. I think through my college experience, and what I learned there, it was based more on designing for somebody. So it's really easy for me when I'm designing for a client to be able to get in their head and start doing stuff for them and kind of detach it from myself.

Is there anywhere you’d like to see your art grow?

Whoo, that is a good question. I mean, I think the ultimate goal for me is to be able to do this as a living, to be able to just survive and be able to buy a house one day, be able to do all that stuff just from creating art. I think it's something that I've realized, I don't want to live any life that is less than a creative life, you know, even if it means working at a grocery store and then doing my art stuff on the side. I think to me, that's more satisfying than maybe you know, getting a job that I don't like, but pays me well. Starving artist's life.

Why is art important to you?

I think the reason it's so important is because people can learn a lot from it. You can reach a much bigger audience with a message through your artwork, especially right now since I've been touching on a lot of subjects of growing up as a first generation Mexican-American. When I do a show I'll have people that grew up like me come up and their stoked on what I'm doing. It kind of excites them to see that, you know, like these people that work so hard are getting kind of you know, they're getting honored, which I feel like in Idaho, you don't see a whole lot of at the moment. I could be wrong, but just as far as public art goes, you don't see a whole lot of those stories being told.

Do you think art is something you'll ever step away from?

I don't think so. Even if one day I realized I couldn't do this for forever. I think it's something I'll always still do. Always still paint, always still doodle. I've done it since I was a little kid, and I definitely don't see it stopping anytime soon.

Noel B. Weber - Artist Sit Down - Full Interview

Noel’s Website - https://noelbweber.com/

Would you say that pencil sketches are your primary medium?

Well that's what I'm doing mostly now. But what I used to do is design things by pencil, and then we would convert those to either glass work or three dimensional signage. But all our work starts with a pencil sketch.

What got you into working with letters?

When I was in high school and growing up in the Chicago area, you know, you either went to college or you became a tradesman. And so, most of my friends are tradesmen today, if they're not retired, but you know, they went into carpentry, bricklayers, tile, you know, who knows what. But it was about getting into a trade, getting into something that you could make a living at. I was always artistic, and I felt that if there was a way that I could be artistic and be independent and make a living, that's what I wanted to do. I went to art school in Chicago after I got out of the service. With the VA bill, I was able to go to art school for two or three years. It was an art school focused on lettering, design and layout. So I learned letter structure, I learned layout and composition, very early in my career, and my love of letters was probably formed in those two or three years.

What motivates you to come out and work on these designs?

I love to draw. I love to draw letters. Letters are my anatomy, and words are my landscape. I just love putting letters together. I love seeing letters dance together, you know, and it's always really important to me that if letters are together, that you can read them. It's not just drawing things that are so abstract that you can't read. Because I'm in the sign industry, it has to read, it has to work as a sign. But you know, just putting letters together and putting ornamentation around them, that's the art of it to me.

Where do you get your inspiration for your designs?

Well, most of my designs are period. I like to think that they're timeless, but most of them are kind of vintage type. So I refer to a lot of the historic books that were printed in the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s and that's what has influenced me the most. So it's just old design and sign books. And, you know, I'm a constant study of type. 

How else do you share your skills?

We've taught workshops over the years. I started teaching gold leaf on glass workshops in the 80’s and we continue to do those. And then also we have a group we call the Letterheads, which was a really strong foundation for learning and teaching.

What has it been like to make your living as an artist?

Well, being an artist, being a tradesman, being a designer, and then being able to draw something and knowing while I'm drawing it, that I can make it, there's nothing better than that. Seeing something start from a pencil sketch, and then see it grow into something 3d. It's magical.

What's your favorite design that you've made so far?

The next one.

What opportunities have you been afforded by Boise you might not have in a larger area?

Well, when we first moved to Boise, there were so many mom and pop stores downtown, and we were able to work with a lot of individual store owners. We had so much freedom of design and the clients trusted us to do the work that fit in with their storefronts. When we design things, we like to design it to make it look like it's always been there. It was really important to us, especially with dimensional signage, glass signage. When we're doing sign work, we want it not to have an impact, but just to embrace you as you're walking by so that when you see our signage, you want to go into that store because you're influenced by the graphics on the window or the graphics on the sign. And it's a first impression.

What is it like to take a walk through Boise and see so many things you've touched?

It's a walking portfolio to be able to see things. We've had a lot of successes, and we've learned from our failures. There are products that hold up and some that don't, but, you know, we've learned from all of that. To be able to walk through and still see some of these things, materials that were chosen correctly and are still looking good, it's great, that's a great feeling.

How important a role has your wife played in your art?

My wife has been a support from the day we got together you know. She's always had a love for me and it goes right back to her, but the support has been that she's let me do what I wanted to do. She’s always been appreciative of what I do, and she raised our kids. I could not have done this without her. Without her support, this wouldn't happen. Because she's been such a wonderful, wonderful mate and wonderful, wonderful part of the process. Yeah, there's probably a lot more to that, but I’d probably start crying.

What is it like being able to work with your son?

To be able to draw something and then watch my son take that sketch and turn it into something three dimensional, there's no better feeling than that, you know? To watch him build is great, and then to watch him interpret the sketch and put his own little nuances into it and then just  continue to elevate it into something that is even more beautiful than I thought it was going to be.

Did you ever suspect that your kids would follow in artistic pursuits when they were growing up?

They always worked with us from an early age because it was a family business. But I didn't think that they would follow as closely as they have. But you know, they're really individuals and they have their own style of doing things. But it really is a joy to have them pick up on what we have started and helped establish. And they're just great to work with.

How has your studio practice evolved as Boise has grown?

Well, you know, we started here. I started working out of this garage in 1979. And our business kept growing because we were doing a lot of stores and storefronts, and we started accumulating equipment to help produce some of those things. We ended up having to move into a bigger space so we moved down at 6th and Myrtle and then started hiring employees. The business grew to where at one point we had 15 employees and it evolved into a lot more management and, you know, I was spending probably three days a week designing things so that people could build them. Then computers came in and that kind of was a game changer. We got into using computers because it was our introduction to technology. But today, I still start everything with a pencil.

How much of your design is done on a computer? 

Whenever I design I always start with a pencil, but at some point it gets into the computer. It's either scanned in and vectorized or it goes into the computer because we have a CNC router, and machinery that helps produce dimensional things. But still, the computer is a really really good tool for us and it has eliminated a lot of the mundane work that we used to have to do by hand.

When you're sketching for fun do you still focus on letters?

I am a lettering artist so my focus is lettering and in other elements that will embrace the lettering. So you know scrolls, or shapes, or panels, or things like that. Yeah, but I am basically a lettering artist.

Can you tell me about the process for making your book?

About five years ago, I got a Frank Lloyd Wright book from my daughter, and it was on all his pencil sketches. And in the book, there was a little note that said, Dad, you know, you really do nice pencil sketches you should think about doing a book. And that was the basic influence for us to start thinking about even producing a book. And then we did a retrospective at Ming studios and I had a bunch of pencil sketches hanging on the wall and she pulled me aside, she said, see dad, see what I'm talking about? So I think that was a big influence. She was a big influence on me. And then my son-in-law helped put the book together and enabled us to at least start a couple of basic roughs and it just grew from there.

What kind of content do you have in your book?

There's a little history of who we are, what we are, and then pencil sketches. A lot of these sketches are in that book. We also talk about the design process and you know, how our sketches start from a single rough layout into a finished sketch.

How has the reception been from people that have read your book?

We did our first printing a little over a year ago, and it's going into the second printing now. We've sold close to 2,000 books so far in the States and also in Europe. It’s been an international success.

What is your process like then when you sit down to design?

I usually start with a really really rough sketch and then I'll look at that rough sketch and sometimes I've already got the design in my head, you know, I get a lot of the basic stuff put inside my head and see how I want the letters to start forming together. Then I'll start drawing and that's when the real art of the lettering, and the spacing, and of course, I always make sure it's spelled right, and then I'll do overlays. Overlays and overlays and overlays, and usually a typical sketch will take four to six hours. That's probably at least four overlays working on a light table. And you know, when I'm drawing like this, I just lose time. I don't look at anything that I draw as a waste of time, I just look at it as an exercise.

Why would you say it's important to have art in life?

I look at what I do as... it gives me joy and I really, really appreciate the fact that I can still do this at my age. I still feel like I'm learning and growing, you know, I feel like the art itself is timeless. I like looking at these drawings after I'm done with them and going oh that's really nice, or you know, I can improve on this, or make some changes on that to make It really, really nice.

Do you think you'll ever stop doing this in a commercial capacity?

No, I don't think so. I like drawing and designing things that will get made and will get reproduced. I'd be happy designing birdhouses or, you know, anything as long as I’ve got a pencil in my hand and I’m designing. I'm a builder, I'm a maker, you know, I love putting designs together that will end up in a project that can be shared or looked at or whatever.

Is there anything you want to talk about I haven't asked you?

I would encourage anybody that feels that they want to have a life in art that they should find their niche and then go for it. And then, if you really want to do this and you really love doing it, do it. And you know, just dedicate yourself to it. And if you can't do it full time, do it part time, but do it because it really brings joy to your life. I earned my living working with my hands. We built a business with our creativity. And I still have a wife and kids that love me. Does it get any better than that?

Karl LeClair - Artist Sit Down - Full Interview

Karl’s Website - https://karlleclair.com/home.html

What is your primary medium?

I primarily work in printmaking. And printmaking is a really sort of vast field within visual arts, it incorporates a lot of different techniques. And so within printmaking, as an overarching umbrella, I tend to focus on monotypes, intaglio process and relief. And each one has its own specific tools and techniques and materials associated with it. I think that's why I think I'm interested in printmaking, it's within those sort of boundaries there's a lot of different possibilities, a lot of different options, in how you get to creating a final image. And a lot of it's really process heavy. So like the materials, I like the process. It's almost like, there's definitely some science involved. It's kind of almost like a pseudo science maybe. So it's, it's this interesting intersection between materials, image making, alchemy maybe sometimes. Printmaking I think really kind of originated with the desire to make and print and distribute information through books. And, and so it was kind of born out of bookmaking kind of born out of metal smithing, actually, with artisans who are working in metal smithing trying to share the intricate designs that were being made in armor making or creating different motifs in metal and trying to disperse designs throughout different different towns or throughout different maker communities. And those kind of relate to different aspects of printmaking, so the metal smithing, that kind of led to the development of intaglio process, which is traditionally working on metal plates, creating an image on a metal plate and then pulling the image out of the metal plate through ink and paper. And then bookmaking was I think, really started out more in the relief area, which is traditionally wood carving. And today, you know, carving a low relief image into a  piece of material, making the surface of it and then taking the image off the surface of that plate. And then monotypes are maybe a more painterly process. So the former are definitely more graphic, more graphic processes. Monotypes offer a little more flexibility in how you're developing your image and maybe a little bit more loose in the handling of the material and the rendering of the image. So in each of these ink is involved, paper is involved. So ultimately we're making works on paper and using primarily ink to create the imagery. So monotypes nowadays use a piece of acrylic, a piece of Plexiglas essentially, and you essentially apply ink to the surface of the plate, and you can take multiple impressions off the plate, traditionally, you get one full-print and then one ghost print. So that's after the full inked surface has been printed, you typically print another one and get a ghosted image. And that can provide just different variety of the way that the image is presented. In relief printing, that kind of came from wood cuts. So you're carving away areas that you don't want the ink to lay on the surface of a block and you get that really bold graphic imagery. And then within intaglio, I primarily focus on dry points and engraving, and that's working with copper plates. In dry point you're using a stylus or like a diamond point stylus. And you're inscribing lines by hand into the surface of the copper. And in that process, you're just essentially shifting where the copper sits on the surface of the plate. And so you're creating burs, where the ink can sit in those lines and engraving you're using a burin and the burin is actually removing pieces of the copper from the plate and so you're creating a very well defined line and both of them are a dry process. I also do a little bit of etching which is using an acid or a chemical process to actually inscribe the lines as opposed to physically doing it by hand.

What got you interested in doing printmaking?

I had one class in high school that was a printmaking class. 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. So again, I come back to kind of the intersection of the arts and sciences, materials, process heavy. It's something about the process that I think really ultimately drew me in. When I went to school, I just kind of immediately gravitated towards that. I was at the time doing design, graphic design and photography. And somehow printmaking really kind of sits at the intersection there almost. It can be used as a tool for designers. It's very similar in certain elements of the process of photography. But I think it opens up for, for me, it opened me up to having more flexibility and expressing myself creatively than necessarily photography or anything else.

Where do you get your inspiration for your different designs?

I don’t know. That's good question. I think a lot of it comes from, for me, trying to describe ideas or feelings or thoughts or observations that I have about life. Things that might be difficult to express through words or through language. Maybe it's trying to express things that don't have language assigned to them, certain experiences, certain feelings. So I think it's definitely an emotional process, an intellectual process, trying to interrogate my own thoughts and ideas, trying to interrogate my own experiences in the world. I would definitely say I grew up in New England, and I've lived out west now for about just over 10 years. And so the landscape was something that I hadn't really focused on before but after spending so much time in the landscape and in the vast open landscapes of the West. I think that's definitely a pretty big impact on my work recently. I think inevitably, being immersed in space for a period of time, it inevitably sort of seeps into your consciousness, seeps into how you were evaluating your experience and the type of work and making.

What motivates you to come out here and have a space to create in?

Printmaking I think out of most of the visual arts is the most community oriented in that printmakers typically are working in a communal space, sharing ideas about process, sharing ideas about how you got from one thing to another, new materials, or making adjustments. But I think for the most part, and that's a bit challenging here, is that we have one small community print shop, and the university has a print shop, but there's not a lot of spaces for print makers to come together here. And so I think, most recently, I've fallen into a very solitary practice, which is also something that I need, work is very demanding socially and I wouldn't necessarily consider myself a very social person so the ability to come into this space and have the space for myself, as selfish as that seems. It helps me feel successful and healthy in the other areas of my life to be able to have quiet time to be with myself I guess. That's part of it. I think the other part is continuing to grow and explore and learn. So some of my work is research based, some of its research based on thoughts or feelings that I have tried to figure out where those ideas come from or learn more about certain things and explore, you know, that research through a visual application. I don't know, community too, I think it's about, you know, as artists, it's a different way I think. I think it's a different way of looking at the world through the lens of being a visual artist. Noticing things, creating commentary, bringing those things into dialogue with other people. And of course, like sharing, you know, sharing my creative endeavors with people. Whatever happens in here, hopefully, at some point is shared out. But I'm not, I can tell you the things I'm not motivated by. Like, fortunately I don't have to make a living through making my work. So I do have, you know, sort of the pleasure to be able to explore the things that I want to do, versus doing things that I know will make money. So it's not really a huge motivator for me is making work to sell or even making work that's consumable. I'm really, my practice is rooted in doing this for me and doing what I want to do.

What kind of opportunities do you think that you've been afforded by being in Boise?

Boise’s been really good to me. I mean, coming out here, I came out and I didn't know anybody  when I went to Boise State, and I just started showing up to things, you know, all the art openings that my professors were having, that friends were having, that other older students in the program were having, just showing up and talking to people. And I think it's one of the best things you can do within any arts community is to show up and support other artists. And I think eventually that support will come back to you. People will show up for you when you need them there. And so, yeah, I think I've grown, I have a really good sort of inner circle of friends that support me and I support them and we share ideas and share a desire to have a practice, share a desire to see Boise be more supportive. I think that's, you know, in the job that I do is definitely, you know, working to support the arts community, support artists here to advocate for the arts. And so I do that both in my professional life and in my personal life. So I think, you know, just even Boise State having a program, that was an opportunity for me to be here to learn. The city having the program to support the artists, that makes being an artist here more manageable, because there is support on the municipal level like that. Very early on, I was a member of and on the board of Treasure Valley Artists Alliance, so just understanding how an arts business works like that, that was a great opportunity. Working with Surel’s Place artists in residence program, serving on their board, but also, you know, continuing to learn how sort of the nonprofit structure works, how community based programming happens. Right when I graduated from Boise State, I was accepted into the 2017, Idaho triennial at the Boise Art Museum. That was a great sort of validating experience to just be coming out of school and be selected for a pretty prestigious exhibition. So that was a great motivational point. I just got accepted again to the 2020 Idaho triennial at the Boise Art Museum. So again, that's another great point of validation in terms of motivation to come to the studio. So like I said, I'm not explicitly making work for that type of validation, but when you do receive that type of recognition or that validation, it's really meaningful to say, you know, my time here is well spent that I am creating works that are communicating something of value to other people. So I think those types of opportunities, having opportunities to show your work and be appreciated for it is always nice. And, you know, opportunities to work, and work with other artists and have that community.

Why is art important?

Art is extremely important to me. You know, not just in my day to day life being in studio making. I've dedicated my professional life to working in the arts. You know, whenever I travel, I always go to the art museum, the galleries, try to see what's happening in whatever community I'm going to. So it really has become really integral to everything that I do in my life. And I think it's so important because well personally, being able to have the freedom to express yourself in whatever manner, whatever way, through whatever means, I think is an extremely important part of being a human being. Being able to let other people know what your experience is like, how you're dealing with life, what your thoughts are. So I think that's, maybe it's cathartic to be able to get some of these things out of your head, to be able to put these things out into the world, to create dialogue. I think that's probably the most powerful thing that art can do, is bringing people together, to talk about ideas, to share ideas, to share emotions. I think art will always have that place. Because I do think that, you know, certainly there's art that's motivated by money, but in a large part, our art's not motivated by anything else other than that individual maker’s vision to say something, whatever that may be. And I think that space to express those kinds of ideas, to express those emotions, to have those conversations, it's going to be extremely important as history unfolds, or as the future comes. We need to be able to protect that space.

Rachel Reichert - Artist Sit Down - Full Interview

Rachel’s Website - https://www.studioreichert.com/

What's your primary medium? 

My inclination is to say that I'm a metalsmith because that was where my formal education lies. But I see community engagement and social practice work is sort of also a secondary or like tertiary medium for me. So we're in my metal studio, but I do quite a bit of other things. Writing sculptural works, photography, community work. Yeah. So I guess metals and then a lot of other things from there.

What keeps you going with art?

I couldn't basically live without this. It's such a form of my being that it's sort of just inherent to who I am and what I do. I feel like everything that I'm doing right now, whether it's running the Atlanta school or cultural sites at the city of Boise or writing for various arts magazines or working in my studio, like they're kind of one in the same and it's sort of all in which my life is made up of. And so I do it because I can't not do it. I would say that I don't just sit down and say I'm going to be creative. It's just sort of like always spinning and always working in my brain, you know, all these different ideas are kind of all happening at the same time. And so I think the myth of like an artist going into their studio and having this like blissful, beautiful, quiet, you know, moment where they're putting paint on a canvas or whatever, that's not necessarily what I'm doing. It's just sort of like every second, I'm moving through my day, ideas are happening or I'm processing through something. And my studio is really a place where I can be quiet with those ideas and be experimental and, and work through all the things that are happening outside of the doors of my studio. So I guess for me, whatever is happening in here is like a tangible or physical Way to like process, everything that's happening elsewhere in my life. And so it's nice because I have a private studio, I don't have to share this space with anybody. And it's like right off my house. So I can come out here and do work whenever I want to or have the space I need when I have the time. But then with that said, I really do love collaborations and sharing space with other artists as well. I just think the luxury that I have right now of having this space to myself really has given me a lot of freedom to kind of explore things that I may not otherwise when I'm in a shared space.

Has having a studio impacted your ability to create?

Space for an artist or creative person I feel like is part of the deal, at least from my experience. I've lived in spaces where there is not enough room to have this type of workshop space or this type of experimental space. And it is really difficult to do the work and to, you know, kind of explore the ideas you need to explore. So I feel like without a dedicated space, whether that's shared or solo, it's pretty close to impossible to really do the work that you need to do, even if it's just carving out like a small amount of room in your living room. For me, though, primarily, I work with equipment and tools and acetylene gas and chemicals. And so I just sort of inherently needed A bit more space than a corner in the living room or in previous houses that I've lived in, you know, a bedroom. So, you know, my studio has ventilation and some areas that are dedicated to messy work and some areas that are more dedicated to cleaner work. And then I just have like an insane amount of tools that have to go somewhere. And so yeah, so I think without space, I personally, I don't think I could be doing what I'm doing, I'd have to probably make different work, smaller work, work that maybe works on paper or something. But having this space or a space of this size, which is probably a 400 square foot studio has just allowed me to do the work that I'm doing with that said though, I also wish that I had a bigger space because I'd love to be making bigger work.

What made you decide to work with metal, wood and power tools?

I feel like there are 2d people and 3d people and when I began my studies at the Oregon College of Art and Craft and I was accepted under a printmaking program. And right before I set off to go to school, I changed my major kind of completely. The medium of metalwork was unknown to me, and I had no idea what it was. I had a little internship in high school, working in a mechanic shop and I really loved just the materiality of being in this shop and like getting messy and being able to kind of just experiment with torches and you know all these different hand tools. I was rebuilding starters and for like a fleet of trucks that would come into this mechanic shop and so there was something about just the ability to like shape metal that was really interesting to me or to work with such a hard material. And so when I went to the Oregon College of Art and Craft, I thought actually, I was 17 when I started college, I thought I was starting a larger metals program like a sculptural kind of steel based program and it ended up being jewelry work. And so it was completely by accident, I got into the metals program and started doing small scale work mainly in silver and copper and new gold and learning to set stones and make you know adornment and start thinking more about how my work fits on a body or engages with a body and completely not the larger scale work but I actually fell in love with it. And it was Something I've just stuck with ever since. So it really has just sort of become a part of my process.

Where do you get the inspiration for the art that you create?

The work that I'm making right now. It’s metals based, it's mostly silver and new gold, new gold is an alloy of brass. It's sort of a material that looks a little bit more like gold. Without the price tag of gold. It's a harder metal. And I've been really interested in exploring architecture and history and sort of ancient artifacts in my own practice. And it's really pulling from the content of my other lives. So from Atlanta from the James castle house or other sites that I'm managing. And so, the work that I'm doing is, on the surface, very architecturally driven, it's exploring forms and shapes that you would see in some of the spaces that I'm occupying outside of my studio. But it's also looking at sort of the psychology of architecture and how we occupy space and memory, and our memories of spaces. And so the work that I just completed, that's a combination of metalwork, photography and sculptural work is really looking at architecture from my past experiences that go beyond just the immediate spaces that I'm occupying, whether it's you went to school or the James castle house. My process though is to photo document these spaces and then pull from the photography these shapes and forms and then abstract these shapes and forms, transfer them into some kind of two dimensional form and then apply that to three dimensional form. And then eventually they become some kind of wearable object that can both be worn on on the body or kind of stand on its own in some kind of environment.

Are there any opportunities you think you've had in Boise that wouldn't have been available to you in other places?

Oh, my God, yes. So the opportunities that Boise, and particularly like Idaho at large, but mainly Boise has given me has been the whole, I think, impetus for where I'm at right now. I mean, it's such a safe environment to experiment, to be kind of weird or try new things. And ultimately, it's a super supportive place, super supportive community. The stakes are a little bit lower. And we also have some organizations that are funding the arts that are very instrumental in supporting and sustaining artists. Like the arts and history grant and Surel’s place, not through grant but through residency. The Idaho Commission on the arts, the Alexa Rose, all of which are really specific to supporting Idaho based or in some instances more local based artists. But I think it's just the environment in which you can be experimental or grassroots and it comes with open and welcome arms.

What do you get the most joy out of doing with your medium?

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. I mean, it's really just like identifying the stages of how the metal heats up and where, there's a material called flux that you cover your metal in when you're soldering to protect it from oxidation. So you watch how the flux evolves as you're heating it up, and it gets to a certain point and then you can narrow your torch in, and solder something. I guess I really love that metal is typically so hard and so cold and so challenging to work with. But when you get with a torch, it really makes working with metal seem more fluid, and more. I don't know, just I guess, easier to work with and just kind of hand tools.

Can you tell me a little about the Atlanta School?

I moved to Asheville, North Carolina about probably 15 years ago and at the time I really wanted to explore what a craft school looked like. You know, I'd studied at Boise State University and had more of a formal liberal arts background in a fine arts degree. But I was really interested in these small scale craft schools that exist sort of all over but particularly quite a few in the south. And so I went to Penland which is an art school or craft school right outside of Asheville and had just this incredible experience and wanted to come back to Idaho and and bring this experience that I had there here. And so had this moment where my partner in the Atlanta school, Amy O'Brian and our friend, Seth Ogilvie, we went up to Atlanta, and we were just sort of hanging out as friends. And we all just decided one night after a beautiful meal, and it's completely off the grid, so there's no electricity. So this meal was by candlelight. And, you know, I kind of like threw out this idea of running some kind of arts related program that supported other artists and created opportunity here in Idaho up there. And the stages in life that we all three were in seemed like the right moment for all of us to start this kind of wild little project. And our first year we ended up hiring some local artists to do some workshops with us. We had some writing workshops, poetry workshop, and a painting workshop and a few other little funky workshops like corn cob pipe making, and aluminum casting. We had pretty good turnout and we saw that people were really responding to what we were doing up there. It's also in my mind, beyond supporting artists and creating space for artwork and art activity to happen in sort of a low tech, you know, non electrified or Wi Fi space. But it's also an act of preservation of the town itself. So the town has 19 full time residents, that's full time year round, it swells in the summer months. But it's a really incredible historical town that, you know, every so often we lose another building, because they haven't been fully stabilized. And so over time, places like Atlanta lose their history kind of through the loss of the built environment. And so we wanted to sort of find a way for artists to support artists, but also have artists bring life back to this town, and sort of be in conversation with each other. So the town really informs what we're doing through our workshops and the work that people are kind of exploring out there, and the artists sort of do that back for the town. So we're in our seventh year, and it's entirely a project. It's not a business even though it is a business, but it's really not about monetary gain. It's more about community gain. And so it Something we all do, and are able to carve time out of our other lives to make it happen. Mainly because we find it to be such a privilege to be with artists in that kind of intense, quiet, close environment.

Instead of being hindered by being so remote, the distance is the whole point?

Totally yeah, I mean, it's so easy to be distracted in your daily life. There's stuff to do, there's cleaning, there's school work, whatever you know, just life in general. When you're up in Atlanta, there's none of that. A lot of people actually struggle with the lack of technology up there, it does take a minute for some people, but eventually everybody sort of settles and gets into this really beautiful rhythm that happens to be sort of in concert with the sun. We all kind of end up getting up when the sun comes and then tend to end our day when it gets a little darker. It's a quiet place that really doesn't exist in the city or in more metropolitan areas. A lot of people come up by themselves, so they don't have family, or like, roles that they bring with them. They're just sort of there and they're an artist or a preservationist, or a writer or performer or whatever we're doing at the time, and they can just sort of reconnect with themselves and their own creativity, and I don't know. It's a beautiful, quiet place.

Is there anything that you wanted to say that I haven't asked you about?

Let's see. I don't know. Just like you I'm super interested in artists and their studio spaces and how they build their lives, and what makes a sustainable art practice. Both in my own world and in the people that I know’s worlds and elsewhere. So I feel like kind of going back to this full spectrum of work that I do, there is sort of a uniformed space/place narrative that I'm really interested in. And so one of the things I'm working on right now is a study of metalsmiths all over the world. I've been interviewing jewelers and metalsmiths, and everybody has a different title, because we're all we all have complicated feelings about how we call this weird little practice that we all have. And so I've been able to interview all these different artists who are working all over the world in this material, and really try to get a sense of how they build their practice or shape their lives. You know, what are the things that they need to have in place to be able to do what they're doing? Whether it's a significant other that supports them financially, or five jobs that makes their studio work happen, or the galleries they work with, or whatever they're able to find to make all this work. And I guess what I've come to realize, and it's not really a big surprise, but that there isn't sort of a formula for success. I think that it's been for me, and I'm far from it. But for me, it's just a bunch of hard work and trying and failing a million times. And from what I'm gathering from the artists that I'm interviewing and documenting sort of the same thing, identifying, you know, areas of issue within sort of their broader life and then trying to find ways to work around that or to kind of problem solve. So I don't know I guess. I find that really interesting.

Elms One - Artist Sit Down - Full Interview

Sector Seventeen Website - https://www.sector-seventeen.com/elms-one

What is your primary form of art?

My primary medium is spray paint, aerosol mixed with latex paints. Sometimes it depends on the job or the project but my first love is spray paint. 

What got you interested in it? 

Mainly just from graffiti just growing up you know as a teenager playing around with spray paint doing letter forms that kind of stuff and that introduced me to basically art in general.

How long have you been creating?

Basically since I was in high school. I started painting with spray paint and that was really my first introduction to a real passion in the arts.

Where do you find the motivation to go out and create?

My motivation comes from just a pure buildup of ideas you know that I can't stop really getting the ideas and if I don't act on them it almost hurts me. So you know, I get inspiration from the people I paint with, my crew, all sorts of people I've met, and other artists in the Boise area and nationally, globally. All sorts of inspirations in my house my lady, my daughter. You know it kind of comes from everywhere and all those factors just make me want to go and do something cooler, better, newer and I just got to act on it. 

Where do you get the inspiration for your designs?

Most of my designs are following a path of ideas that have been developed over the years. I work on some projects with a buddy of mine Mawk One and we come up with those collaboratively and then my individual work I kind of just bring whatever influences I'm feeling that day into it and try to work it out on the wall. 

What's it like to paint on a large non-movable object like a wall? 

I love painting on walls especially large walls because it's something that is a fixture and especially if it's in a public place you know anybody can walk by and have their own interaction with it at any given time. I like painting on a large scale like that because if it's larger than you the work will envelop you and draw you into it in a way that you can't really achieve that easily with a smaller piece or a canvas. So that aspect of it always always makes me excited.

What’s it been like being a working professional artist here in Boise?

Boise’s been pretty good. I'm a native Boisean and I'm like third generation so I know this place well and when I was growing up and just starting into it wasn't very developed in the kind of art that I do and so now being able to work at it full-time it's a pretty cool way to sculpt and mold the city in an image that I see it deserves. It can be hard because there's not as many big people or you know it's not the same as a different bigger city but we're growing a lot and it's a cool opportunity to be part of that growth.

Have you faced any kind of challenges doing graffiti style art?

There's been some interesting situations over the years. Especially Boise being a pretty clean city and not having a whole lot of history of graffiti or graffiti art. You know when I first started there was not as much demand for that kind of thing and people have seen it over the years become more prevalent in pop culture and just in culture in general and being more acquainted with it I think kind of alleviates some of that tension that they have with what their perception of graffiti is to the common person. I think that what I do in the portraiture and realism stems directly from graffiti that I did so without that there wouldn't have been this style that I work in now so I try to relate that to people and at least open people’s minds a little bit to that as a stepping stone or as a you know integral part of what a lot of these big murals you see where they come from and how they're created. There's been some funny interactions painting legal pieces but that are in a graffiti style and people's reactions to those on the street or neighboring people’s is a little bit different sometimes. We've had some interactions with the police about that and I've actually been in arguments with police officers about the definition of graffiti and if it's legal, but if it's on a legal space, but it's still in the graffiti form what does that make it? You know there's been some funny things but over the years I think it's like I said been developed into a little bit more acceptable way to work.

What keeps you going and what’s on your horizon?

I’ve been working as a full-time artist for six or seven years now and doing a lot of commercial work, doing a lot of really custom tailored pieces that you know reflect a individual or a business's ideas or aesthetic, which is good it's been really good practice for me and get me into waters where I may not have tread otherwise. Right now my focus is really developing the concepts that I want to be heard and want to see in our city and in the world and making that more of a priority in my life and in my art expression you know. It's a way to to do something more fulfilling I feel like in the long run and at some point there's that transition where a lot of artists feel that push and I feel like I'm there.

What makes art important?

It's just a really direct way to talk to people to speak to people on your terms and on their terms. There's a lot to be said for learning through school and universities and a lot of people get their information from social media or news outlets obviously but I think art is just one of the rare places where you can communicate with somebody very directly. If it's in a public space like Freak Alley or other places you know in a populated area those people are gonna interact with that and whatever goes through their mind when they're looking at that is a conversation you're having with them directly through the art and that to me is an opportunity that shouldn't be taken lightly.

What’s it like browsing Instagram and seeing one of your paintings pop up?

It’s cool, I like it because it means that conversation is happening you know on some level. Even if it's just a pretty picture that people like and makes their brain light up in some sort of way that you know makes some level of enjoyment happen I'm cool with that if it makes them think a little bit deeper about something I'm cool with that too it's nice to be recognized in the real world and the fake world of Instagram.

Has it been a difficult journey to be able to live off your art?

For me it's just been a lot of dedication to things that aren't just painting you know. You have to be your own manager, you have to be your own publicist, you have to be in meetings and talking to people and analyzing things and a lot of people may or may not be prepared to do all that extra work and applications and the things that go along with not being as creative. As well as taking jobs that aren't 100% their brainchild or you know right up their alley so there's a lot of give-and-take when you're trying to live off of art, especially in a place like Boise and especially when you're not a famous name. But like I said it's taught me a lot of things along the way and I think I'm probably better off for it in the long run so there's multiple ways to go about it. I know really really talented artists here that have a day job or a night job and they keep their art separate from their main method of making money and it works for them so I mean you just have to figure out where you're comfortable and where you're trying to go, but it is possible.

Is art something you would ever quit doing?

I don't see stopping ever. I think it can mutate and morph into all sorts of different manifestations. I like to sketch too, I like to do digital drawings. I like to paint occasionally. I don't see why those things can't all interact in some way that keeps me interested and there's a puzzle that'll never be solved or you know, you never get to the end of being creative so I think it's something that'll keep me stimulated forever.

Anything else you’d like to say?

I'm just thankful for the people that are in Boise, both the artists and just the residents who have kind of made it a priority to include these things in the city and its life. And the Art & History department for being on the front lines of that, and everybody who is coming up trying to make something happen for themselves.