Kevin Hooyman Interview

Grasshopper

Interview with Kevin Hooyman, Questions by Bill Donovan

Kevin Hooyman is the author and illustrator of "The Language Change," and "The Themes of the Day." He makes drawings and paintings and recently was in a show in Brooklyn at Cinders gallery.



BD: Kevin I find your books to be entertaining, and really hilarious, but they also address the more serious topics I have been interested in for the past few years. For instance you seem to grapple with the question "What are humans, and what is our relationship to the planet and other creatures?"


KH: Thanks Bill. I like humor and think that it can be one of the best ways to engage people but you are right, I am trying to talk about some things that you might call part of the 'big picture'. Sometimes I feel kind of cheesy for always talking about things like time or space or the nature of the human creature but I can't help it. I was the kind of kid who lay awake at night completely freaking out about this stuff. When I started to become aware of what life apparently WAS I could not believe that everyone was going about their lives acting like the world made perfect sense when they didn't have answers for questions like 'what happens after you die?' 'WHAT!? Are you kidding?!' (I would think, ) 'How can you just cruise through life and not really be concerned about this?!' So I had my little adolescent existential crisis and (maybe this was about seventh grade) was sort of obsessed with the revelation that there was no clear reason for anything going on. There is no shortage of material for the preteen mind to muck around with and this is a pretty common story but I guess it is all stilling banging around in my head.
Have I never grown up?! Parts of me have grown up only a little I guess. Its not like the questions have changed and, when I stop to think about it, I still a bit surprised by how perfectly well most people seem to function in a world to which there is apparently no purpose. I guess you just start to get used to life and, of course, there is no other choice. People, for the most part, have always kept going. Sometimes they have used religion to sort of clear everything up but I chose to place my faith in science and that can be equally amazing. Science can't tell you there is a heaven waiting for you to come chill out in but there is still an amazing thing that is going on!


BD: The mixture of figures, both human and animal, in a funky, linear, slightly trippy, disorienting, symmetrical space makes me consider the relationship between people and the space we occupy, and the systems/religions we use to contextualize the world. Is that something you are interested in conveying?


KH: Yes. I think it is crazy the way people have come to live. As a science-minded man, I see humans as animals whose level of intelligence has reached a point where it has become necessary that we invent cultures to deal with the feelings we are bound to have about life. Throughout history, humans have done this but they have also let their cultures wander and be driven by different needs and sometimes when this happens, we become distressed animals.
Some of how we contextualize the world today helps us deal with our distress, but so much of our cultures/myths/systems are now designed around money. Economics is the new ruling science in capitalist culture. It sometimes seems like even our religions are designed to protect the illusion that some humans have more of a right to the earth than others. We have built elaborate systems of selfishness to legitimize our greed. It is all really awful and depressing but it is absolutely clear. It makes me feel like we are disgusting creatures, that when left to ourselves, this is what we do. We are greedy little chimps who can't control our impulse to grab things. I wouldn't say that there shouldn't be any system to help us deal with our selfish impulse. It may, in fact, be a real feeling in our hearts, and science seems to confirm this. But maybe the systems we design shouldn't give this particular feeling priority above all else.
In other parts of our systems, when we talk about 'good' and 'evil', we consider greed a sin. So why would we so embrace it? Is its force just too powerful? Have we made our greed abstract enough that it looks like something else. It looks like truth. When we see a rich man living in his mansion and making the poor do all of his work, we don't say he is so greedy that he takes so much from all the people around him. This is the true fact of what is happening. But we have invented other facts. We say that it is a true fact that he 'owns' the mansion. We say that he 'owns' money and that he is trading it for the labor of the poor. These are invented ideas that our culture tells us to accept as fact. Somehow we have managed to make it all abstract enough that we can all accept these ideas without anger or guilt even when these ideas let people die of starvation.
There are many other cultural elements that have fallen out of line with real human needs but I think the great challenge to humanity is this struggle with greed and that, as we approach the overpopulation of our planet, it is this struggle that will determine our fate. Can we overcome this selfish drive within us? Can we tap into a drive to help others? Can we work as a team? I actually think so. This is the other faith I have, (outside of science). I believe in a certain idea that it will be a good thing if humans can manage to survive. Believe me, this is a major leap of faith, but I am also a humanist. I believe in the value of human life. Mostly because, by default, I feel like I am on that team.


BD: You embrace and critique stereotypes and archetypes in your books. Are you trying to suggest a different moral conscience needs to be thought about, especially for a consumer society?
For instantce I feel characters that accept the mystery of existence, or promote profound relationships are lionized, while things which express confusion or greed are ridiculed or are put in the books to illustrate a problem.


KH: That is right on. I guess I'm not being too subtle but you basically nailed it. I see my job as an artist to fill the void of the much needed coping mechanisms. I am a straight up trying to provide new myth and denounce the ones I think cause the most harm.


BD: How did you grow up? (i.e. where, and anything else you want to say about it)

KH: I grew up in Seattle, WA. My parents were both social workers so we were all hyper-concious of 'feelings' etc. For instance, my dad would give us letters for Christmas instead of presents. He would say that the most important gift he could give is to tell us how much we meant to him. At the time, it was easy to sort of scoff at, but this kind of thinking was a real gift now that I look back on it and I would say that I had a very happy childhood. I lived with the luxury to worry about things like the nature of the universe instead of whether or not anyone was going to scream at me or if I was going to eat that night. The natural world that surrounded us out there in the great northwest was pretty spectacular and I spent a lot of my time trekking around the mountains or coast. My high school friends and I were kind of non-stop outdoorsmen. We were always surfing or climbing or kayaking or skiing. These were great activities for that age. We were all becoming men (and women) together, through our very real adventures in this spectacular world around us.
When I was 23, my little brother, Chris, died in a climbing accident on Mt. McKinley. He was a 21 year-old guide for a mountaineering company and was blown off a ridge while trying to rescue a fallen client. Within a year my parents split up and I was soon taking care of my father who had moved to a very isolated cabin in the forest to die of colon cancer. This was all tough and is still one of the more important experiences of my life. I had just graduated from college and was full of that young man's excitement, feeling like the world was mine and then it was like I was shot out of the sky. It all really rocked me. For better of for worse, I don't know if I will ever again believe so thoroughly that life is good. There are bad things in life and they are REAL. There is nothing good about the people you love dying. Not a thing. All I could think was that I was lucky to have them while they were here. That was, and still is, my positive note. Everything else was just sorrow.
I didn't really make work for a few years, or rather, just made work for myself. When I started again to put work into the world, I tried to keep it relatively optimistic. I didn't think people needed anything in their lives to tell them that the world is a tragic place. We all learn this whether we want to or not and for many of us, the world can be overwhelmingly tragic. There are so many drag-downs in life that no one needs to spend time making more. If my work ever feels sorrowful, I hope that it also offers some sense of hope or joy.
Today I am 33 and doing pretty well.


BD: A lot of new art is pseudo/faux religious, and creating new myths for a culture that never existed seems to be a popular contemporary theme that has at its heart a sense of alienation from our culture. You seem to be above the "create a culture" fray, and I think that is because you express things in a voice that is reasonable, and also seems to come from experience rather than fantasy. What do you think this hunger for something to connect to says about artists and other sensitive folks?


KH: I love that. "Artists and other sensitive folks!" As I said earlier, I think contemporary culture is way off track. It doesn't surprise me at all that people feel alienated. Where is there community? Watching television? Shopping? Talking to someone in a formalized interaction that is designed to maintain personal distance, to never reveal ones self? I can't really speak for other artists (or sensitive people) but I don't find the culture around us to be very supportive of a realistic world-view. I definitely feel alienated and there is some relief in talking about these things through books; in finding people who see what you are seeing. Changing the world would be cool, but I sell about 1000 books with each release. I suppose my reward is more along the lines of getting a nice email.


BD: "The Language Change" is organized (mostly) around relationships, some chapters are: "The Animals Speak Amongst Themselves," "The People Speak to each Other," and "People Speak with Animals." I am, and I think other people will be, interested to read about what made you come up with something that seems fresh and also archaic, something about the simplicity and straightforwardness of your titles reminds of the chapter titles from Voltaire's Candide ( Chapter 16. What Happened to Our Two Travelers with Two Girls, Two Monkeys, and the Savages, Called Oreillons ). So what made you think of writing in a simple but straightforward style?


KH: Did I mention my early obsession with Vonnegutt? In my adolescent existential crisis, I promptly read everything that he ever wrote and, since this was his thing too, and I probably DID pick up on it. Simple and straightforward revelation about the complications of our lives. You don't need to be smart or even sound smart to have insight that is interesting or transformative. Just apply logical thought and try to see through the mess.
I think I have been a bit reactive to the 'art world' too. I always saw art as a form of communication and have been really bothered by how much the 'art world' has forgotten that. It's all riddles and tricks and exclusivity. I wanted to go in the other direction. So if the reader doesn't understand me, it isn't because I am so smart and tricky that they can't keep up. If the reader doesn't 'get it' I would consider myself a failed communicator, not a great artist. I actually have things to say so I am trying my best to SAY them. How about that for a concept? (I don't mean to take a bitter tone in talking about the art world but, with all of its self importance, I think it deserves it.)


BD: Do you live in the woods? Do you feel a connection to the place where you do live?


KH: My strategy to brace myself for this life of financial strain that most artists are now acquainted with was to buy an old farm in upstate New York where the economy had been so depressed and I could actually afford to buy land and live. I was trying to escape from the cycle of working double-time for my landlord and the consumer culture overload that NY has to offer so, yes, I am in the woods. The place had been abandoned for the past 50 years so I am doing a major restoration. It is kind of sad and funny. Bit by bit things are getting better but being poor is no way to fix up an old farm. I think I may lose a barn this winter. There is just too much rot and it is on the edge of collapse. I live in a little chicken coop that I turned into a small cabin. In the summers I have a huge barn studio that I fixed up last summer. So little dreams are coming true! I love it here and I try to take a woods walk at least once a day, usually around sunset. It reminds me of what the world really is. The winter is a bit of a dead time but watching nature work her magic the rest of the year is amazing and inspirational. I can't say I feel a great connection with the people who live here but its not too bad. I was becoming a hermit in the city anyhow and I still get down there pretty often to spend time with my girlfriend.


BD: What is your relationship with the band !!! ?


KH: Old buddies now. I have no perspective on their music or what they represent culturally but I've known those guys for years and sometimes things are as simple as 'hey we are making music and you draw so draw us an album cover.' They are all cool guys.


BD: How much time do you generally spend drawing and writing a day?


KH: A lot. I really love it and sometimes feel like I am wasting time if I am doing anything else. The writing is more taxing but some of the drawing I do is sort of 'filler-work' so there are different ways of spending time at a desk. I still have to take other jobs to pay the bills and in the summers I spend about 6 hours per day working on the place, but otherwise, I draw all the time.


BD: Do you identify strongly with any groups or movements?


KH: I wish. I haven't really been looking though. I said I was a humanist, which actually is a movement, or several movements, but I am more of a hermit. I follow the news and politics and definitely take sides in my mind and in my work. Pro-peace. Pro-helping the poor. You know how it is. But I don't feel part of a 'movement'. Maybe someday, far in the future, I will look back and think that I was part of something larger. I would love that.


BD: The last seven years have been particularly hopeless and hateful, and I think many artists and sensitive people are demoralized by the meanness and destruction happening around the world. In your books there seems to be a thoughtful and measured connection to the world, and I think in particular artists will enjoy and perceive that connection. It is so much more cheerful than they binary choice offered by popular culture of alienation or assimilation.
When my friends have read your books they have all responded with a lively and passionate enthusiasm. I think that is because your books offer something hopeful, and seem to come from someone smart, grounded, and connected to the world in a way that many people would like to be connected. Sort of a non-ironic version of R. Crumb's Mr. Natural. How do you feel about this position, and do you feel like that is an accurate description of what your books represent?


KH: Yes. Thanks for that. That is great to hear. Hope is definitely important to me. And trying to be happy about life, to be appreciative of the world. Yes there is A LOT wrong with the world and I agree with you that the direction of the last seven years has been unbelievably disastrous, but life is still an amazing thing. It is still an incredible gift to have been given time on this earth. There are feelings within us that are as real as anything and they are sometimes beautiful. This is what we have.
I mentioned earlier that I am pro-survival of the human species and I suppose I want to play my role in helping direct us towards a coopperative state. But I also want to help people deal with the personal distress of our condition. Just living today doesn't always feel like the easiest thing. Like how do you reconcile that your existence is harmful to the world you live in? This is a new scientific reality that we are intelligent enough to recognize, but emotionally, how do you deal with this? How are we supposed to feel about our lives? As a human myself, I feel semi-equipped to deal with questions like this. I try to tap into my own feelings about life and the world we live in and if I can think about them with clarity and logic, and if I can speak honestly, I hope that just maybe I can find things that can help.

Careful Man

Kevin Hooyman's website.

You can buy his books from his website. If you live in NYC Printed Matter usually has copies too, its on 10th avenue between 22nd and 21st.