Interview with Chicago artist, Michael Robert Pollard

Batman and Robin, mixed media on canvas, 2008

Interview conducted via email with artist Michael Robert Pollard, Chicago, IL, Nov. 2008

KPB: You say in your 2008 artist statement that this year marks your 20th anniversary of becoming an artist. Was there a specific event that you mark as the beginning of Michael Robert Pollard, Artist? (Why) have you not always defined yourself as an artist? Would you ever NOT define yourself as an artist? What makes one an artist, anyway?

MRP: I'm pretty sure I've always thought of myself as an artist, even as a little kid. Comic books, cartoons, and album covers took a hold of me at an early age. I've been drawing since forever. My grandfather on my mother's side is a painter. He's very supportive now, although as a kid he was always pretty tough of on me and my incessant need to draw superheroes and space ship battles.
The 20th Anniversary statement refers to the day high school ended in 1988. There are two kinds of kids in high school art classes (maybe this has changed, I don't know): the ones who do everything perfect, who teachers love, and the mad doodlers, who the teachers hate. I was the second type. I used to cut art class and draw in my car senior year. It was significantly more rewarding.
My Aunt Rosie asked me what I wanted for my graduation present; I said, "Art supplies." She took me to Standard Brands, which was a paint store in the 80's and early 90's that had a really good selection of art supplies. She told me I could buy whatever I wanted. I filled a shopping cart. From there, I was off. Shortly after, my mom sent me to Utah to live with my Uncle Tom. He runs a ski lodge. I had a lot of little jobs, but for the most part I read comic books and started seriously painting.
I didn't really start community college 'til I was 20, when I made a deal with my parents that they would pay for art supplies (hence the impasto oil paintings I made from 1990-1995). I managed to turn that into a scholarship to SFAI. But once I got there I was on my own.
Regarding your question 'What makes an artist?', there are so many different answers to that question. Depends on whom you ask. My thought on what makes an artist in any discipline is someone who decides to stand up and be true to themselves and what drives them, whether it's visual art or poetry, music, or even sports. A focused individual...

KPB: I have known you for almost 10 years now, and I have been impressed that you have sustained an art practice along with a full-time job, a marriage, a child, and numerous illnesses in your extended family, all things that are part of life, but that can pull you away from the studio. What has motivated you/where have you found the discipline to keep making art, despite all these barriers?

MRP: It's nice of you to say that. While my art is everything, so is my family, especially my wife and daughter. It's always a struggle to get work done, whether you're an artist, a historian, or an accountant. Life just keeps us busy or distracted. The point of modern life is to distract us with gadgets and pointless media in order to keep us from paying attention to what's important. I'm no different from anyone else; I just try to make it work. Like most art folks I know, I do get cranky when I don't make work. I haven't had a true "studio" since Celeste was pregnant with Isabella, or a solo show since California; I made a decision to be a family guy, and I stick with it. I don't regret it. One makes decisions and sacrifices and lives and works with them. Looking back at the family illnesses, especially my father's, my art was only thing that kept me going. I made some great pieces, but I would trade it all to sit in the bleachers at a ballgame with my dad one more time.

Ruben Gomez, Full Size, mixed media on canvas, 2008

The studio... Sometimes a studio is essential. Space allows you to make bigger work, but more importantly it gives you solitude. I think that's what I miss the most. But that being said, I really enjoy working at home, being around my daughter. Sometimes one just needs a corner or just a place to sit, like a train or bus or a bed. I don't want to sound all high and mighty, because if someone offered me a free workspace (ideally close to my apartment), I would not turn it down. But sometimes artists put too much stock in our work spaces. I read recently that Louise Bourgeois' first studio was the roof of the building she lived in. She made work out of the wood scraps on the roof. Puts things in perspective, doesn't it?

detail, CTA portraits, drawn over 2 years riding the El. in Chicago 2006-08

KPB: Michael, one of the things that I love about your art is that it is very heartfelt and emotional in a way that seems to be rare these days. It's much more common for artists in our generation to be cool, clever, slick. They remove emotion from their art through tightly controlled linework, deferring to mass cultural signifiers as a language, or making work that viewers connect with on a cerebral, or superficial aesthetic, rather than visceral level. Your work has a great deal of pathos. Your figures are often ill, crazy, "losers", people fighting with each other or the world, or dealing with internal demons. I wonder if that makes some people uncomfortable. Can you talk about the decision to allow this energy and emotion to ride right up on the surface of your work?

MRP: Those are a lot of big words there, KCP [sic]. But you do raise some good points and observations. As far as the cool-slick factor... That's just not me. I'm more of a "from yer gut, expressive artist type." Loud fast loud... However, I'm mellowing out in my old age (38), taking a long look around before jumping in. I suppose one could define me as a "wear my heart on my sleeve" or "sensitive ponytail type" [interviewer's note: Michael does NOT, so far as I know, actually have a ponytail]. All that comes out in my work. I'm human. Life, sometimes it's pretty and beautiful, sometimes tragic, and sometimes, yes, it does reflect an ill figure. Reflections of myself, or my father, or some people I saw on the street or TV.

A Mom's Ground Zero, mixed media on paper, 2007

Believe or not, I've done a lot of silly and goofy stuff too. I think the work is just honest, it's what I know. If it scares people and makes them uncomfortable, that means I got a reaction. Isn't that why we got into this?
Recently I was adding some random doodles on a drawing I made with my daughter on the train to work, and the man next me asked me if I was crazy and If I was going to pull a gun out 'cause I was drawing some psychotic shit. So then I broke out the big sketchbook and really drew the psychotic shit... There are days when I wish I could paint happy trees or classical portraits and such, but it's just not me.

"Baby, You Know I'm Sexy", Or "Want Some?" - seen on the CTA 55, acrylic on paper, 2007

KPB: Related to this emotional quality I see in your work is your mark making. It is raw and gestural, and you are no friend to empty space. You use a lot of symbols (by this, I mean things like X, $, @, arrows, lightning bolts, speech bubbles that have faces in them). Where does all this come from as you are drawing? I guess I am asking about your process. How do you build an image, approach the space on the page as you are drawing?

MRP: The best drawings happen when I'm bored. This has been true since grade school. But seriously, a big part of the mark-making, rawness, and lack of empty space comes from some of my influences, both visual and musical, and of course, my personality and surroundings. I've always been driven by loud and fast music, from punk to be-bop. However I am mellowing out in my old age.
My earliest artistic influences were Pollock and Haring. Both were ready-set-go guys, creating art on the spot, fast paced and frantic. Direct and to the point. Like I said before, comic books and cartoons warped me at an early age. Everything from Underdog, to Loony Tunes, to the Batman. Especially the bat.
Even before Chicago, I've always liked walking and riding on trains and buses and all the visual candy you see, from signage, to graffiti, to advertising. I really started incorporating this into my work around '97, when I spent lots of time on the Amtrack back and forth from San Francisco to Davis to be with Celeste. I rarely leave the house without at least one sketchbook and a Sharpie. When drawing while walking or riding on the train or in line at the store, one has to work fast. Hence the symbols and marks. I improvise a lot, cut and paste, make a big mess, and do my dardnest do put it all together.

Oh, Brother! Mixed media on canvas, 2002

KPB: How do you choose your subjects? Do you know all the people you draw? If not, do you tell yourself stories about them?

MRP: Sometimes it's random. I do put in people I know, self portraits, friends, family, co-workers. I made a portrait of you come to think... Also, growing up, I was a costumed singing waiter in a resturant where each room was themed and filled with crazy sutff, all kinds of weird stuff. We sang songs, did skits, and were complete goofballs and got paid for it. I meet a lot of characters along the way; that influences my work quite a bit.

KPB: Do you have specific artists who have influenced you (teachers or inspirations), and do you have some favorite artists who are working today? What do you find compelling about these people's work?

MRP: Lots!
Bruce Conner: gave me the balls to do whatever I wanted
Guston: the late paintings are crucial
Beckmann: my bridge from crazy sketching to drawing portraits
De Kooning: the mad energy. When I first moved to Chicago, AIC had 2 heavy-weight paintings, side by side. Awesome. I sat for hours.
Richter: reminds me that I can do anything...
Kerry James Marshall: make sure I have a purpose
Rico 03: just cool
Elizabeth Murray: huge influence
Pollock, Haring: early heroes
Basquiat: early hero, freedom
Margeret Kilgallen: she had a quote I love. "I made it with my hand."
Barry Mcgee: old sf style
Sam Tchakalian: greatest art teacher ever
Van Gogh: the shit
Dubuffet: very nice
Joan Brown: badass
Raymond Pettibon: rock god
Chagall: dreamer
Duchamp: godfather
Roy Deforest: this bud's for you
Manuel Neri: freedom
Bob Arneson: good times

KPB: Thanks, Michael! Here are links to Mike's website and blog.