Artist Spotlight • The Pizz

What was the last thing you saw in daily life that inspired you?

Went to a motorcycle party yesterday and there were umpteen works of Rolling American Works Of Mechanical Folk Art, gleaming in the sun, in various states of completeness and/or decay. Transportation as Art, Form Follows Function, Machine as Statement Of Personal Ideology, etc... Most people wouldn't really get it until they saw something about it on TV or maybe a coffee-table book... They need a narrator to explain stuff, the feed doesn't get past the filters...

Who are the most inspirational persons to you?

Ed "Big Daddy" Roth and Robert Williams...

Who has been the biggest influence on your work?

Early MAD magazine and Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, Zap Comix and Golden Era Warner Bros. cartoons... Anybody who's work shot from the hip, was irreverent and disinclined to respect for authority...

What type of art do you think you'd be making if you were making art 100 years ago?

"Fauvism" and early "Cubism"... Maybe cartoons lampooning the Robber Barons in "Punch"...

What type of art do you think you'd be making if you were making art 100 years from now?

Interactive Holographic Cartoons, X-rated...

If you were not an artist, what would you be doing?

I'd be likely doing Time in the Big House... Maybe writing more comix for low pay...

Would you say there was a definitive moment in your life where you realized you were an artist?

That happened before I was in kindergarten, which I entered knowing that was what I wanted to do. I think the defining moment was when my Moms was teaching me to write my name before she sent me to Catholic pre-school... The phone rang, she went to get it, and I just started doodling. That was it... I got my first art job while in high school, and dropped out shortly thereafter to pursue it full time...

What kind of odd jobs did you have before that?

Two week stint in an aircraft parts manufacturing plant, two week stint building a house in Lake Arrowhead. It's been just art ever since...

What is your favorite piece from your recent work?

The Faster Pussycat homage piece I did for a show in Palm Springs, which was used for a magazine cover in Detroit, and I saw it on every stand and restaurant, bar and liquor store when I went to Motor City for a visit... It was omnipresent in the city at that time, the week I was visiting. Most satisfying.

How often do you use studies or sketches from real life and models vs how much do you work directly from your imagination?

Used to make use of live models a lot in my early work, as a flimsy excuse to lure women over into my lair and get them to disrobe. It worked very well. Nowadays I might use a car model or a real gun if I need some authentic real-life detail, but 9/10ths of anything is just pure Id put down on paper as fast as possible. No computer-assist, no copying somebody else's work, no looking at the Internet or books... just pure velocity to keep the flow going.

What might someone miss when looking at your work for the first time?

That it's actually work put down, and not just something random. There's a lot more work in making something look simple than one would think...

What is the physical toll/strain from making art?

Feet hurt from standing at the end of the day. If it's over six feet long then one gets pretty tired...

What is satisfying about being an artist?

One gets to manifest reality from imagination... To take a vague image from the recesses of the mind and make it palpable in the material world, in order to convey an idea to other minds... That's kinda like playing God, isn't it...?

What are your top 5 favorite movies?

"Mulholland Drive", "Kill Bill", "Apocalypse Now", "Toot, Whistle, Thunk, Boom", "City Of Lost Children"

Do you still relate to prior friends or social groups?

Not over twenty years back... I'm rather iconoclastic... My tribe is pretty spread out...

Do you have any secret fantasies or obsessions?

Flying, unaided... Winning the Lottery...

What recent work by another artist has had an impact on you?

Todd Schorr's "King Kong" painting. Nothing else comes close. It dwarfs all other paintings, it is a genre unto itself.

What role do independent publishers play in promoting (underground) art?

If it wasn't for them, it wouldn't be out there, at all. Rizzolis and Taschen wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole...

What are you working on right now?

I'm working on a Flying Car painting, and just finished up a motorcycle tank for a Harley-sponsored show in New York, a carved tiki skatedeck for a show in Phoenix, and a toy Cootie bug for some collector in Santa Barbara... Plus I'm designing all this ceramic-ware swag for a chain of 40s-style diners called "Ruby's", like Cadillac shaped bowls and swingin' waitress fountain glasses. It's fun to design stuff for 3D that gets made in a factory and it goes all over the world...