What Sparked you to be an artist? 

I would say about four years old. I remember because I haven't been in kindergarten yet, and I was just playing with my friend in the backyard, and he had an older brother, and his older brother gave us some firecrackers. So were probably waiting for firecrackers, but were out there blowing up the firecrackers. And then actually, the police came out to the front, and my mom said with a nervous breakdown and yelling at me, and she locked me in my room and said, you have to stay in the room, like, for an hour. She showed me a clock, and for a little four year old, that's a long time. And so I sat down, and I had crayons, and I had a pile of paper that my dad had brought home. 

So I started drawing on the paper, and there was no change to get me after the hour, they refused to leave because I didn't care about fire factories anymore. I didn't care about anything except you remember what you thought? Probably like, robot monsters or whatever. 

What was the first art piece you’ve sold?

Okay, well, the first art piece I sold, I had an aunt who was an amateur artist, and she showed at the mall in central Illinois where we lived. And so she started taking my little paintings to the mall, and the first painting that she sold for me was St. Pazel's Cathedral. And she sold it to a college professor, and then the college professor would show it to her freshman class, and then the freshman class would say, well, we're just freshmen. Obviously, we can't think that good yet. You can't expect us to think that good yet. And then she would go, well, this artwork is made by an 8 year old. That's her little trick that she played on. 

What is your most meaningful art creation to date (December 2022)?

It was St. Basis Cathedral, Russia, st. Petersburg. I remember painting because I made other paints, and I didn't have the shade, and I was sitting at the kitchen table, and I actually kind of smeared it, and I was really p***** off. And then I was looking at it and then it hit me. It's like, wow, change the colors. Darker here. It starts popping out. For some reason, it didn't occur to me. 

What is your most meaningful art creation to date (December 2022)?

I think the most meaningful piece for me was a project called the Rabbits. So it was a way for me to bring together stuff for my whole lifetime and then have it all exist in the same space and complete it with music. And art and animation and sort of run everything together. When I was young, I went to see Pink Floyd The Wall in LA. Because they only had it in LA. After that I couldn't make art. I came back and I just couldn't make art for months because I just thought it was spectacular. I never made anything like that. It didn't occur to me that I was only like 17 and I thought that I'm not going to be able to make things like that. That was a lifetime of experience that changed a lot for me.

Kind of actually had it pink void. So now I'm in a position where, like, if you come down to Miami, I'm doing stuff that's like spectacular sculptural things that move and do things. And then all the music. I was able to bring all the music, and for me, that brought all the pictures to life. I'd say the delusional thing is my most important thing. 

Music, animation and everything, so I get to tell the whole story. Fine. Yorpo wants to put you like, in a box, which makes sense because we live in a consumerist capitalist society and you're supposed to make something that's easily recognizable. And the more easy you make it for your dealers and everybody else, the easier it is for you, the easier it is to sell. You probably got really sick of paying dots. You probably got all kinds of other ideas, like to try out to run his operation, because builder thing is the ego of the collector. So I want you to come into my house, go, oh my God, is that a real life royal lifted sign up and go, you bet. You have to be recognized. Like, my friend has a roy Lichenstein before he did the dots and nobody cares. 

It's like a painting of an Indian or something. It's royal sign. He painted it. His assistant's been painted. He really painted it. But nobody cares because it's not his gimmick. And I found, like, I wanted to get something more expensive than just having a simple gimmick. It was a harder road after.

How would you describe your experience working on the clock?

With the clock, I kind of played with the idea of, like, there's layers of the earth and each layer tells like, a different story. And so I kind of created a layer of the earth that's made up of toys that were basically made to be disposable. Some of them I made and some of them like things I've collected. But it's sort of the idea that these toys, like, preserve, like, a moment in time. In a moment. What were thinking, like, the dinosaur toys I had when I were a kid were inaccurate. They figured out since that they were more like birds, so they wouldn't make a dinosaur toy to look like that anymore. But that tells the story of that moment in time. 

And it's also, you know, my experience with the toy was very intense, and I like toys, and I think all kids did. It was more part of your imagination. You didn't set the toy, but you imagined, like, a whole world for the toy. And then it's, like, goes on and on. Either you lose that imagination or you're able to actually build that out into the universe. 

Okay, well, with this, I can sort of use it as a different opportunity to approach it differently because either I could paint on the sides or whatever substances or whatever, but it didn't seem that seemed like I kind of wanted this is something I wanted to do. And then I use this as an opportunity to do it where I create, like, a three dimensional collage out of objects. And it's kind of interesting because the first layer you do some really magical things. But to make the whole thing pop it and have depth. Yet sometimes you just have to completely go over something that you work really hard on. And that's kind of, like, one of the first things, I think, that people freak out about with making art. 

And sometimes you do something magical, but to make the overall piece work, you have to destroy that part. Same with music. They laid down a great guitar look, but it does not work with that song. It just doesn't end up in a mix. But to make it.