Fun & Games with Jennifer Korsen

When I started doing these little Coronavirus interviews with artists back at the end of March, things were bad. We were all quarantining, losing jobs, losing loved ones. Everything was strange and scary. We were frozen in place. Unable to move. It was bad. Well, it's July now and everything is much worse! I sent Jennifer Korsen the interview questions in April, she answered them in May. Then inertia, depression and I have just sat on them since. So, think of the following as a snapshot, a time capsule or a mere curiosity. But having Jennifer as a friend during the apocalypse has been of some comfort to me. So, here's a disjointed conversation between a couple friends just trying to get through it.

How are you feeling?

I feel pretty good. I’m about 3 weeks late filling this out so now that the panic has subsided a little I'm finding routine and trying to figure out how to navigate life after this.

Were you able to quarantine in the studio? How long has it been?

I’m away from my studio but I have some art supplies. It’s actually been kinda nice to have limited access, forces creativity and eliminates me deciding between 50 mediums how I want to express something.

When did it hit you how serious this was?

March 21, driving down the 5 freeway with almost zero cars and seeing those signs on the freeway for the first time that said to wash your hands and stay home and all that. It was apocalyptic, Ill never forget that.

Have you had cancelled/postponed exhibitions as a result?

I have artwork currently locked in at La Luz De Jesus, The Hive, Echoes, Silverlake coffee, and I think one more place I can’t remember right now, lol. Had some live painting, speaking engagements, and a school mural project postponed or cancelled, I'm not even sure which at this point.

What have you been doing with the downtime? Are you able to make art right now?

I didn't do anything creative for the first 2 or 3 weeks, it just felt like one long weird, panicky day. An artist friend of mine (PS it’s you, Keith.) invited me to draw on zoom and it kind of stoked the fire back up. I've been painting and playing the Omnichord, doing yoga, going for walks, basically all the things that have been new year’s resolutions were actually pandemic resolutions and I’m currently killing it. Also interspersed with moments of dread and panic just to keep it interesting.

Are you finding any inspiration in this mess?

I actually am, I know this sounds weird, but I tend to be calm in moments of panic and chaos. It’s totally a PTSD response but it kind of feels like the world caught up to the way I feel a lot of the time. I’ve been doing a lot of art with no objective and getting into some abstracted stuff I call micro/macro. I'm also making some resin stuff with things I find on the beach, kind of sentimental weird stuff. I think a lady may have thought I needed help while I was combing through handfuls of sand to find tiny white rocks.  I feel like this time has been a good reset for me and in the long run, I will be grateful to have been forced to slow down. I also think (hope) I hit peak anxiety during this and I survived it so that's kind of nice as well. Really making an active effort to be mindful and focus on what I can control.

What has been the most challenging part of this for you?

Losing work, cancelled projects, uncertainty about the future, basically everything I didn’t mention above. I hate going to the grocery store, seeing lines and people in masks is really disturbing and makes it hit home. It feels like a movie.

What are some of your coping mechanisms?

Painting, walking, talking to friends, yoga, Omnichord.

What's the thing/place you wish you could do/go but can't right now?

I wish I could road trip up to Portland. I do almost every year. I also had plans to go to Colorado in September and I kind of doubt that will happen now.

Done any binge watching, book reading, game playing?

I’ve watched every offshoot of 90 Day Fiancé, lots of ghost and paranormal stuff, Tiger King, I’m Not Ok with This, mostly stuff i can have on in the background.

Favorite work of art in Los Angeles?

I feel like the entire city of LA is a collaborative work of art, like a performance piece.

What song is stuck in your head right now (commercial jingles totally count)

I didn’t have one until reading that and what popped up is commercial from the 80's that goes "hello mother, hello father, April freshness, not a bother, just one problem, it’s my laundry, oh dear mom and dad I think I’m in a quandary." I’ve had that in the back of my head for 30+ years.

Favorite brand of toilet paper and where do you find it?

Costco brand. Charmin if I’m feeling fancy.

If you could hoard one food item, what would it be?

Artichokes, Numero Uno pizza, matzah ball soup. I need 3 food items and some yuzu chili sauce from Trader Joes.

Do you know anyone personally who has contracted the virus?

A few people but they are ok. Some family members and friends of friends have passed, and it really blows my mind how some people think its fake and overblown or aren't willing to take precautions to protect others. It makes me really sad for all of us.

How do you think this all ends?

Maybe it goes away like a miracle, maybe we have a civil war, maybe we have a massive social and financial restructuring, maybe we learn compassion and realize we are all connected and do better moving forward. Or maybe it doesn’t, and we just live like this shutting down every few months forever. I will say though, I'm super grateful for Facebook memories right now, it makes me feel like, at least I did a lot of cool stuff before this and went after my dreams. As cheesy as that sounds, seeing it gives me confidence that I’ll be able to adapt moving forward, however it goes.

Koronanomics with Alex Schaefer

Alex Schaefer is a painter's painter, restlessly, relentlessly pushing paint around. The number of canvasses he's produced must number in the thousands. He's a teacher and a student.Often delving into color theory, tackling master copies and contemporizing classical themes. Recently he did a series of mosh pit/ mob scenes in which the flailing action of the bodies blurred into disparate tonal abstractions. One reminded me of an x-ray or if you could zoom out of a Rothenberg and see something other than a horse. Whenever I find myself blocked artistically, I think of Alex. Ya just gotta paint. I talked to him yesterday and, true to form, the pandemic hasn't slowed him down much.

How are you feeling, Alex?

In my personal life, very little has changed. I'm already living a "socially distanced" life. Ahahha.

Were you able to quarantine in the studio? How long has it been?

Yes, I'm here in the studio painting every day. I've been wearing a mask outdoors since the mayor issued the order, I can't remember when that was... a couple weeks now at least.

When did it hit you how serious this was?

I don't think it has yet, but I've been following the "social distancing" guidelines ever since the city ordered it.

*sigh* We haven’t been able to find masks anywhere.

Have you had cancelled/postponed exhibitions as a result?

Yes, the Hive Gallery anniversary show that was to be in April is postponed for now. Also, my art demo's in Santa Clarita and Escondido in March were both cancelled.

What have you been doing with the downtime? Are you able to make art right now?

Painting every day. finish past pieces, experimenting with new pieces. Very productive actually. Also working twitter, Instagram, and Saatchi Art like a smooth criminal and selling more prints and art in the past three weeks than I did the past 6 months!

So, you’re finding some inspiration in all this?

Yes.

What has been the most challenging part of this for you?

So far, it's not challenging at all.

What are some of your coping mechanisms?

My counselor and I have set up online therapy sessions since we can't meet at the clinic for the time being. That is nice.

What's the thing/place you wish you could do/go but can't right now?

Visit my mom. Teach at the senior center.

Done any binge watching, book reading, game playing?

Binge watching Tiger King. the Ted Kascinski doc. Your Mom's House. Useful Idiots.

Favorite work of art in Los Angeles?

The Flight into Egypt by Jacopo Bassano at the Norton Simon. It is so solidly painted I admire it every time I visit.

The Flight Into Egypt

What song is stuck in your head right now?

"California Uber Alles" by the Dead Kennedys.

Favorite brand of toilet paper and where do you find it?

Charmin at the CVS.

If you could hoard one food item, what would it be?

Peanut Butter.

Do you know anyone personally who has contracted the virus?

Not personally, but I know friends of friends.

How do you think this all ends?

We get over the virus, a lot of people will die, America will move one giant step closer to a Chinese style surveillance state, the economy takes a huge shit, The government and Fed try to run the same script as the last time that failed,  the public finally realizes how screwed over they've been the past 20 years which sparks major protests, then a great awakening but I'm not sure awakening to what yet.

I understand you've been donning PPE and venturing out to do good deeds like bringing groceries to friends. How often do you go outside?

Once a day, with a mask if it's on the street, or just to the roof I don't wear a mask. I have not done any plein air painting since the stay at home order.

On the day of this writing, Instacart workers are going on strike. We've seen the hoarders and the price gougers. We've seen people line-up for guns in Culver City. This is gonna get a lot uglier, right?

Yes, I believe so. The virus is one thing, the economic collapse is another. Both were inevitable. I think the powers that be that blew this new bubble just figured put the pedal to the metal until something like this comes along and then they just pull their parachutes as the car sails over the cliff with the American public locked inside.

On a scale of the Great Depression to the Black Death, how do you rank this?

As far as the economic side of this dual crisis, I'd says it's going to be "worse" than the Great Depression as far as a larger number of Americans losing even more of the lifestyle they've become acquainted to.. as far as comparing the COVID 19 epidemic to the Black Death it's a little too soon to tell but I think this illness we are experiencing now is a lot less grave of a concern than the plague was to the 15th century, but the changes we will see in our way of life and our relationship to government will be profound

Still feeling good about Bitcoin?

Absolutely! I've sold paintings for Bitcoin recently.

Thanks, Alex.

Alex Schaefer Feels Even Weirder (Part Two)

My initial conversation with Alex Schaefer got cut short by a heinous act of art terrorism. While the saga of "the last burning bank painting" rages on, I thought I would try to ease Alex's mind, and just talk about other things. How do you think that went?

So, how are you holding up, Alex?

Whatever, you know?! I'm just having fun with it, and when you get to a certain point, where you don't give a fuck...

Alright, let's not rehash all that right now. You told me you used to work on video games. What kind of work did you do?

Well, it was pretty early on in the video game thing, so it was still Sega Genesis, and Super NES stuff that I was doing in the beginning, for five years, and about four years for Disney. I contributed, basically, to every project that Disney worked on from "Little Mermaid" to "Pocahontas" and "The Lion King", all those movies. I also worked on a team that created a completely original Donald Duck game. After that I worked for Insomniac Games, on the team that came out with "Spyro the Dragon". Then, from about 2002 to probably 2008, I was just doing a lot of random stuff. NOT engaging in the art world. But I think a big influence on me was meeting John Kilduff and starting to hang out with him, to be on his show. He had such a different perspective on the art world. You know, he's always made a living as a painter, and he's got a house, and a mortgage.The guy has just never had another job his entire life.He's constantly sold paintings. He's got an eBay account from a month after eBay opened, you know? He had a YouTube account, that was so old...he had all these grandfathered in powers that they took away from people. So, he's always taken advantage of technology. He's got a whole painting booth set-up, with walls and counter weights, and he goes to every single plein air painting thing, up and down the coast, from San Diego to Laguna to Malibu to San Francisco, and sells his work. He does art fairs, all the time. The plein air is a little easier to sell then if you're just doing crazy, fine-arty stuff. It's easier to sell, just generally, to people. They understand it. To a lot of people, painting means representation. But the other thing that's hard to sell, and John's a great plein air painter...I'm good at it too. I've got a good color sense. People complement my colors and light. You know, I kind of get that really well. But the sloppy stuff, the painterly stuff, is always a harder sell. People think it's easy. It's just a different kind of hard. It's not Robert Williams butt-clenching, wrist-straining doodling, which has it's own pain in the ass suck factor.

People don't realize how easily that can go wrong. I find it really difficult to paint super loose.

Yeah...and you put it on, because you like that. You know, I read Matisse saying that it's always been the illusion of spontaneity. You just sort of play it, but it's happening. That's like when John gets on the treadmill, or he's painting on his bike, or whatever. It's a way of putting on that out of control-ness. I can see why certain artists get fucked up and paint, like de Kooning. I mean, I understand that. To me, it's like jazz. Painting is like jazz, and I'm into it like that. It's not like installation art.

I was going to ask you about music. You seem like a classical music guy.

Here's the truth about me and music, I grew up in a home where my parents just didn't listen to music. They had maybe five LPs. Half of them were Christmas carols, and maybe they had 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' and the best of Bread, a Neil Diamond album, and then they had a few eight tracks in the car. They might pop in Dionne Warwick, or Air Supply. My parents had cheesy taste in music, and they never listened to it. So, I didn't grow up with that habit. I kind of missed out. I'm glad that I have friends that are totally into music and music history. I have them come over and just type shit into Spotify. You should just type a list for me someday of rad bands. Because, you know, I had not a lot of exposure to music.

So, when you work in here, you just work in silence?

I do, often. Yeah. But I'm trying to learn to use the music, for the energy it creates, rather than just, I don't know, drink.

I assume you went to art school.

I did, yeah. I went to Art Center College of Design in Pasadena from '89 to '92. Art Center is an interesting place, because there's always a flow of teachers coming and going. There are only a handful of teachers, at least in the illustration department, that are just, around, you know? Then there's a lot of teachers that just come and go. I've taught there for about ten years, so I've been around for a while. But I've never been someone whose been engaged in the school life...I'm going off on a tangent. But I had some good teachers. There was some good timing that happened between me and some teachers that I came across. I was kind of late coming into the art game.I think I'm late just figuring out everything. I hope I live a long time. My grandma's 98, so...maybe I'll figure it out one day. But I came into the very notion that you could be an artist late. I had no idea what I was going to do when I was 17, and I graduated high school early...and I was clueless to life. I mean, I liked math and I thought I could go into science. But I was never really super into anything. I was good at a lot of things. I could sing well. I could harmonize. I could pick up music super easy. I could write well. But none of these things really caught fire for me. I had some kids I was in high school with, that were into movies, and then I kind of got into movie make-up, special effects, for a little bit. I volunteered to work as a P.A. on a couple student films, and that was just a nightmare. I was not cut out for that industry. I was just a mouse. I was a pipsqueak...and I didn't have any stories to tell. So, I started doing a comic strip. I saw in the newspaper that there were political cartoons and stuff, and they said to come on down to the journalism department, and we'll give you some pencils, and you can fucking draw a cartoon or something...and I GOT that somehow. I would get an article. I would read it. I would draw something. It was like, oh wow, illustration. That's what this is. Then I started taking classes and tried to put together a portfolio, and applied to Art Center and a bunch of other schools and got rejected completely. I just sucked. It was terrible. But I stuck with it for another year and a half., and I worked down in San Diego. Then I went to Mira Costa College and I took drawing classes. So, the second time I applied to Art Center, I got in. Then I was just into painting. I just loved it, and it came to me pretty naturally. The way that I understood music, color and light was easy to figure out...and that's what I teach now.

 So, you're still teaching there?

I do, yeah. Although I'm starting to put together some private classes. Like a six to eight student class at a place in the brewery that has the room. I want to start doing more of that. I feel guilty that Art Center costs as much as it costs. It's not just Art Center. I was talking to someone else last night at Blackstone about hoe their son is getting into debt, to the tune of  $48,000.00 a year, going to some college, getting a degree in something. I mean, my God, you're going to end up $150,000.00 in  debt, six percent interest rate?! That's a crime against the future! Fuck these vampires, man! The government should just come in and make it zero percent interest on these loans, and force the colleges to, across the board lower their tuition and force the loan amounts down and cram all that shit down to a reasonable level. Because it doesn't lend to a spirit of innovation and creativity that we need for a vibrant idea-based economy, if some kid graduates in all this student loan debt, and they just want any kind of job to start making money. It's...whatever. It's all part of the suck. 

Note: There will be a part three of this interview. However, I make no promises as to when that will happen. In the meantime, you can usually find Alex at either Blackstone Gallery or The Hive.