The Process

The Process is completely intuitive. In the beginning there was a picture that I was starting from but now it’s just motion, texture, color and music. 

The song to start with is either something in my head or something that is obvious when I open my computer. Sometimes the song is something that was mentioned somewhere else or something that I feel gives the painting an intention. 

It’s usually autoplay from there.

The bottom layer of the painting is often lyrics scribbled over and then gesso to the music. 

The music makes the foundation—the texture, how the lines move, where the pictures come from. 

I usually have a few colors in mind to start with. The colors can get chaotic and gross and then hopefully refined by the end. 

Once the bottom layer is formed, for the next few layers I observe what is trying to come through and accentuate those places. When I see clues—faces, figures, or other clear images, I call them artifacts—I tape over them to save them from the next layer. I respond to what is there. Sometimes what is there is beauty and magic, sometimes it’s so ugly—I just go with it. There’s no plan and no expectation. 

I only work on what wants to be worked on. 

Some paintings can sit for months or years, taped up and untouched, and then one day they come out and find new life. 

I stare through them and illusions are non-stop. I’m like the reverse Mr. Pitt—I see countless illusions and I wonder if there is anyone else who can see them too. 

On subsequent layers I play the canvas like a percussion instrument, same with paint pens and mixing tools. Many layers come directly from rhythm. When I hear myself saying things like “I choose a brush for how it sounds on the canvas,” I feel like I should be taking up residence in Portlandia and Fred Armisen is going to pop out and say “it’s ok, you can just clap your hands or something.” The same goes for fingerprinting. 

Paint is never wasted. When there is wet paint left on the parchment I find a canvas to stamp it on and that will always become part of the story of that panel. I started doing that because of Rick Rubin’s book: The Creative Act: A Way of Being.

There is a lot of collaboration with music and then there is a lot of staring intensely at the canvas and outlining or dusting off what is coming through the layers. 

Scenes emerge and I try to make sense of where they fit in the full story. The artifacts usually look abrupt in terms of composition, they are windows into older layers and pieces of the whole puzzle. I try to make up for the abruptness by creating pieces of negative space in places I can stand to let go. 

Almost everything eventually gets painted over and just a few artifacts and scenes will remain in the final picture—at least I think so, there are so few paintings that have ever been finished. 

The canvas becomes a writing prompt and I try to write as much as I see but when I’m in it I don’t like to come out for fear of losing it, so I only record what I can. The rest is present in the layers.