October 2023

Jeffry Mitchell interviews Christian Rogers

On the event of his solo exhibition “Heaven on Earth” at NOON Projects, Christian Rogers sits down with artist Jeffry Mitchell for a titillating conversation on process, growing up gay, inspirations, and finding the joy in your practice. We are honored to present the uncut interview between Christian and Jeffry.


Jeffry: I am really happy to see you. I'm really sad I wasn't there for your opening. I have so many questions. One thing I wanted to ask about is your art collection. I don't know where you want to start?

Christian: We could start there and just see where it takes us. I live with a lot of stuff. I wish I could take you on a tour around the house. But there's probably 200 pieces on the walls.

J: It seems you're very devoted to that part of your life. Is that part of your practice?

C: I feel like I'm a visual omnivore, and so much of when I first started getting into art making, like, in high school and in college, I always had this appetite to see more and more, you know, almost like to see as much as I can. It's like a form of entertainment for me in one way. But also I feel like I'm a treasure hunter. I don't really like going to big museums like the Broad to look at art because I don't want somebody to tell me what I should be looking at. So I prefer to go to places like art centers for adults with disabilities or any kind of local arts and craft fairs. The Tom of Finland erotic art fair is a great example of a place where you can go and see a wide range of people who make really high end stuff. And then there's also people who like drawing naked men for pure pleasure.

J: What is the Tom of Finland fair?

C: Every year they host an erotic art fair here in LA. It's a mixture of artists, photographers, graphic designers, illustrators. People have tables and booths. It's almost like a book fair, like a Printed Matted type book fair. It revolves around erotic work. I like art that has a lot of depth and thought behind it. But sometimes a drawing of a naked dude is just nice enough. It's nice to be able to engage with the work on an intellectual level, and then also be able to say, "Fuck it, I like it." Not everything has to be accompanied by a museum didactic.

J: No, I agree. When did you first see Tom of Finland’s work?

C: The first time I think I'd seen them was in porno mags or something. You could mail away and receive prints or something. But actually at the Portland Art Museum, they had acquired two drawings. This is in the year, maybe 2010. They had two sketches on display in the contemporary wing. I saw them and I thought I didn't know if they were art. I thought, "ah, that's interesting that these are on display" but it went against all the kinds of rigorous undergrad formalist education I had at Western Oregon. To see these kinds of sketches of beefy guys with their big bulges, well, I liked it. I didn't know if I necessarily thought that they were fine art. And even to this day, I still don't totally know if they are, but it was the first time that I saw clear erotic art within a museum type context. I thought about it for a long time, thinking like, "Oh, is it art? Is it not art? I still don't know. But I'm glad it was there. It was a weird way of seeing myself in a museum space. To see queer representation in that form but on display for straight people has also really stuck with me. The idea that maybe it felt just as foreign to me at that time in my life as it would with a straight person.

J: Formally there is a kind of softness, the sheen, the graphite, the transition, how value changes in those drawings reminds me of your drawings. The fineness of them and the continuous tone or whatever you want to call it. You really share something with him, I think.

C: Yeah, the quality of his drawing has a certain kind of care. He takes something as simple as an erotic drawing and really transcends it through the craft itself. That kind of care in the finish is really what elevates it to something beyond a smutty drawing.

J: Did you grow up with art in the house? Did you distinguish art from other objects in your house or your life?

C: I didn't grow up with art necessarily in the house but my dad for some of his adult life was an airbrush muralist at the Oregon Zoo. Back before graphic design did everything, he did a lot of painting on walls and food cards. He was really into comic books. I grew up with comic books and cartoons, and my dad was really into that too. It inspired a lot of the way he drew. My parents knew that I was artistically inclined. Sometimes I think it's a synonym for gay. Haha.

J: Yeah, yeah, it is actually.

C: My dad, while not being a successful artist in the fine art sense, still had this passion to make things. I think I have some of that same thing. Taste is a really funny thing that I'm still working at. It's always changing. John Waters said something about "trusting your own bad taste." They say two wrongs don't make a right. But you know, 100 wrongs at least makes a motif!
Many times in my life, I start out not liking someone's work, or whatever their pursuit is. And then by their sheer determination, and pushing through or just continuing to produce something, I changed my mind about it completely!

Being able to follow somebody's development, and their work is so exciting for me. When I go and see shows, I don't really make "good" and "bad" judgments. If it's great, I'll say it's great. But if it's bad, it's more of a question of "would I want to see another?" I love finding artists who have a sliver of something great. And nothing gets me more excited than to see artists who start off there, and then with each show, it gets slightly better. And you're like, "Oh, this is good, you're doing it!" I get excited for them because I know how fucking hard it is to stick with this shit. It's so difficult. At any moment, you can throw in the towel and just have a regular life, but to really persevere and push through things and to find your voice in your work is really exciting. When other people do that, I think it's really exciting.

There's a lot of people I've met here in LA over the last six years whose work maybe wasn't quite there, including my own. But it's great to see it develop over the years and that they are really kick ass artists now because they just stick with it. You know when they say you got to do something for 10,000 hours before you can master it, like paint? Making artists very similar.

J: Yeah, I think so too. Have you? Have you seen people whose path goes up and then down and then up and down again by your assessment?

C: Yeah, I enjoy when you go see a show and you can see that the artist is trying something. I hate when a painter finds their thing and they keep making the same thing. That's boring. Nobody wants to see that. When you can see an artist is taking risks, and maybe the risks aren't landing, but then by the next show, they figured it out, it's fucking amazing! Constantly looking, reflecting and shifting, is the way to keep making stuff. Otherwise your work gets really stale. You gotta keep pushing it and sometimes it goes to a bad spot, but you just back it up and move forward.

J: I feel like you in general trust artists. And I feel like sometimes I'm suspicious of other artists. I don't feel like I'm a competitive person but I do feel like sometimes looking at work makes me have a dark view or gives me a suspicious kind of feeling. But in general, my sense is that you trust them and unlike our habits, keep an open mind.

C: One of the things I'm always looking for in art is conviction. There's so much fake work out there.There's themes in contemporary work that people kind of jump on to. If it doesn't come from the inside out, but instead, from the outside in, you can tell. I can tell. What I'm looking for is earnesty and conviction. If the work has that conviction and is truly felt and experienced, even when the work is not necessarily good, it still feels honest. If you're faking it, if you're making work to appease something else, you can feel that struggle, and you can tell that it's not working. But I trust a lot of artists. And the ones that I don't trust, I don't talk about them.

J: How was making this show for you? Were you super stoked? Do you feel like this is a big high point in terms of production?

C: When Ryan came and visited me at my studio in Chinatown, just down from the gallery, I was really excited because not many people take chances with me or my work. May at Nationale in Portland is one of the few gallerists and galleries that's ever given me multiple opportunities. So when Ryan asked me to show, I was a little nervous. But I was also really excited. This is definitely the most ambitious body of work I've ever made. All of it was made in the last year and it was hard. This is also the first show where I built all the frames for the paintings.
Two of the paintings are like the biggest paintings I've ever made. I don't let bad things out of my studio. Not to toot my own horn, but I'm pretty pleased with everything. I have a pretty high bar for myself because I just don't want to be embarrassed. Embarrassment keeps me from letting bad things out of my studio.

It's hard for me to feel pride for myself, because I'm such a self critical person. I went by the gallery yesterday and it was hard to just sit and enjoy it because I'm picking it apart. Thinking, "oh, what am I going to change in the next body of work? What proportions are working? What's not working? It was hard to put this body of work together. I was working up until the very end. But overall, I'm pretty pleased. It feels like a new personal best for myself.

J: The level of craft and care and love and stuff is really high and consistent. I'm impressed with it. What do you want to talk about next? So there's some other things here that like the gay thing. I don't know if you want to talk about that. We were talking about generational things. What generation are you?

C: I'm a millennial. When I was younger, I grew up fairly closeted. Going to church on the weekends. And I think for much of my life, I was afraid of gay people, just because that's the upbringing I had.

J: Did you know you were gay, though?

C: Probably in second grade I had my first crush on my classmate. By middle school, I most definitely knew I was in trouble. I say trouble, but that's the way I saw it. As a kid I thought, "oh, this is bad." I didn't come out till I was 18. I was worried and I wanted to be out on my own. I wanted to make sure that my FAFSA paperwork would have been signed and stuff. But I'm in a very good spot now, especially with my family. It took a little bit to get there. But we're really great now, which is wonderful. Even when I came out, I had to just dip my toes in. I was scared. Especially of older gay men. There was something really intimidating about men in general because I think I was told that. Like, older gay men were like predators or monsters or something when I was younger. I grew up thinking that gay people were an abomination. A lot of the things that I heard growing up were always really negative, like AIDS being a curse from God. Or, when we were planning a trip to Disneyland, there were really specific conversations about avoiding the "gay days." And when Ellen DeGeneres kissed Laura Dern on TV, I remember specific conversations in my family saying that, "it's disgusting" and "we don't need to be seeing that." So from a young age, it was programmed in my head that being gay was bad. It was most definitely looked down upon. It took a lot to get through that. I'm at a really great place with my family now, which is really awesome. I love them, and they love me. It most definitely took a lot for me to start opening up this part of my life to them. To this day, making work that's so explicitly queer is really difficult. Putting yourself out there is difficult. When people come into the gallery, I still get a little bit nervous. I'm a pretty shy person on the inside. When people come into the gallery and I hear whispers or giggles, I immediately tense up a little.

When I was 18, in college, I started to make queer work about my personal relationships. I had my first boyfriend at the end of my undergrad. That was really, really tough to make work like that about myself and put it out there. That's when I first started making queer work, or things that were kind of overtly queer. Then there was a time in grad school, where a lot of my classmates said, "oh, you don't need to be so literal' or "you can get rid of the guys, your work is queer already." So I started to phase all the male figures out. It never crossed my mind that "maybe I'm not making work for this audience?" We often think that art is for everybody and everybody's supposed to “get it." But now, I most definitely think that it's not for some people. If you don't get it or if you don't like it, or don't want to get it, it's just not for you. And that's cool. Not everything's for you and not everything's for me. Using that logic, I can push the criticism aside that I don't find value in for myself. I want to make work for everybody to enjoy. I think that there are a lot of straight people out there who really enjoy my work and get it. It can be for everybody. And if it's not for you, that's fine. Go find something else you like! It's been really liberating to be able to keep making work that I want to make. Once I started adopting that attitude, the men started coming back into the paintings. I started liking them more again. I started liking my work again. For so long, especially in grad school, I didn't know who I was. I kept making work for other people. And then once I was out of grad school and never selling work, it was like I have to make work I want to live with and be with. That's when the men came back into my art. And I was like, "Oh, these are great! These are things that I want to live with and be with and be around." Now that I sense that, I think other people sense it too.

J: Was grad school a good experience?

C: It's so hard to look back and say, "oh ya, these things are worth it." But, I think it was. It was worth it. The experience was great. Being pushed and having the time to focus was great. I went to Hunter in New York. New York is an expensive place to live. I had to have a part time job, which kind of kept me away from my studio. It was hard to balance. I wish I could have focused more on my work but it just wasn't possible. You have insane rent to pay. But it was a good experience. The professor's I worked with were really helpful and critical in the right ways of pushing my work. It gave me a lot of tools I use now to look at work.

J: Cool to be in New York. There's a lot to see that you can't see anywhere else. Especially growing up in the woods. Was Portland limiting? LA seems like a great place for you to be now, like the richness of the artmaking world down there.

C: Yeah, I often joke that I was too hard for Portland, but too soft for New York. So LA is like the perfect place. Portland is awesome. The Northwest is really great. There's some really awesome artists who live and work there. It's just a different pace. It's like growing up in a small town that you never leave. I grew up in Portland and it feels really insulated, especially if it's all you know. I went to undergrad in Monmouth, OR which is a town of 10,000 people. Then I moved back to Portland for a few years before I went to grad school. It was limiting in the sense that as a young person making work, it was hard to find opportunities. I feel lucky that I found May at Natnale because she gave me all the opportunities I ever had in Portland. Then when I got to New York, I maybe felt too small. It's a city of like 9 million people. At that point, you dissolve and become just like another body in the city. It's hard in a different kind of way. Also, it cost too much money!

J: Can you talk about your paintings? How do you make your paintings?

C: I often work from sketches. The sketches then become drawings. And then after I have a bunch of ideas, I sculpt the surface. The forms are made with paper pulp that comes from blotters. I put them in a blender with water. I strain it. Then I blend it again. Then I mix that with gesso. Then I sculpt about two or three layers because it shrinks as it dries. Then I do a spackling layer with a thick white or black acrylic to fill in the holes. The process is kind of like a sculptor or maybe a ceramicist. There's something kind of Prometheus-like about it. The round forms become these butts or pecs that you're oiling. There's something kind of carnal about it. Once it's on there, it's stuck. And then I'm stuck with this puzzle.

J: It's on a panel and then you touch it, you push it, you mold it into shapes that correspond to this composition. You've predetermined?

C: Yeah, then I just paint it. Sometimes it sucks and it becomes a problem solving game. I actually view a lot of painting like a game. It feels like a game of 4d chess. I also paint like a printmaker. That's my background originally. I often paint in transparent layers. I'm often trying to envision how these layers are all going to sit on each other. Once it's sculpted, the composition is kind of stuck and I can only expand the forms. There's one painting in the show that has a green frame with a larger purple flower. That painting actually started off as a little flower. Over the course of two years, I worked on it, and it just kept on getting bigger and bigger until it touched all four sides. It was not what I ever intended. But I think it looks good now. So it's a process of planning and then also letting things emerge. You're just working on it.

I saw an interview with Elizabeth Murray once and she made a comment about having to break a painting before she can fix it. That feels especially true within this work that's in the show. I had to fuck it up in order to fix it. I could then come back in and paint it. The need to fuck it up in order to fix it. It’s part of the painting game.

J: Yeah, painting is particular in that way and distinct from printmaking. Or I mean, I was trained as a printmaker, too, so I mean, I love it. And I think I think that way, but I don't know that I could. So I should try painting?!

C: You don't have to be a real painter to paint. I think I've just recently started to be okay with the term painter, because I always felt like an impostor. I was a printmaker. And when I got into grad school, I got in as a printmaker, and I still made print-like paintings that were print based. So I clung to that printmaking title. But now I feel a little bit better about just saying, "I'm a painter," which is totally fine. Those things are sometimes pedantic and only art school nerds want to have that conversation.

J: Talk about Elizabeth Murray again. She was really popular when I was in grad school in the 80s. I didn't love them at that time. And now, I've seen them last five years here and there and I think they're amazing. I don't know if courageous is one word I want to say but like, they're fantastic works of art. Talk about her and or other people that are super inspiring to you? Whose works of art have you seen that just kind of blew your mind?

C: I didn't really think too much about her till I moved here to California and I started working for Gemini, which is a publication studio and gallery inWeHo. It has a long history of working with artists to make print editions. She's one of the artists they rep. I've spent a lot of time looking at her work there. What drew me most to it was the formalist elements. At the end of the day, my heart is with the modernist and formalist. I love good, smart compositions, beautiful painting and her work does that. But then there's a big chunk of it that is goofy like drooling dogs and googly eyed people. She makes these paintings or sculptures that are like a giant sweater coming unraveled. There's a whole series of prints that she made at Gemini where a dog has wing like ears and its tongue hanging out drooling. But it all swirls around to make this amazing composition. The idea that you can still stick with all this formalist beauty, but still be a little Winky about it is great.

A couple years ago, I had a really awesome experience at the Palm Springs Art Museum. There was an Agnes Pelton show and it was one of the most profound museum experiences I've ever had. Amazing painter. One of those careers where nobody gave a shit about her until long after she died. What was really phenomenal about that show was that all the paintings were amazing! None of them are gigantic. I really love smaller paintings. After being blown away by all these beautiful paintings that are so spiritual and connected to nature, I left the museum with my husband. It was sunset in the desert and it was like you were in one of her paintings. It was all around us. The sunset over the hills was lit up in neon lavender and pinks and oranges. It was like, "Wow!" Not only was she clearly inspired by nature, but to have that experience after looking at the work and then going outside and feeling like the neutrons in your body are leaving into the atmosphere. It felt so amazing. It was one of the most profound museum experiences I've ever had.

J: Luminosity and glowing things seems like that's your work?

C: Yeah! After that show, I think a lot about how palettes can radiate. Somebody recently described my paintings as "Georgia O'Keeffe on poppers" and I'm like, "oh yeah, I'm so glad you get that!" If you've ever done poppers, you understand that pulsing "wah wah" feeling you get from it. I want the paintings to sometimes do that and to feel like ecstasy. It is joy. It can also be sexy and excitement. It can be titillating. Sometimes people are not into fluorescence because they think they're tacky or something. I don't believe that. In the year 2023, everything is game. Right? After seeing Angus Pelton's show, I just thought it was one of the most amazing ways to see how color can affect your spirit and your emotional state. I try to do that.

J: Yeah, that's like physical. There was an eminence from them, that is wave particle. They do pulse. They have a vitality that's really incredible. I was thinking about Aboriginal paintings. And then and then Ryan was talking about Mexican pottery and outsider folk art, that kind of decorative arts. Do you want to comment on that?

C: In grad school I started to get into the Chicago Imagists. The Chicago imagists were heavily influenced by outsider artists, non artists, non traditional artists, folk artists. I don't totally know how to articulate it, but I believe that there are certain universal things about art. I think back to cave painting and a hand imprint of somebody's using pigment on a wall and the silhouette of a hand to say, "I exist." In a way it's like the brushstrokes we all make. At the end of the day, an Aboriginal painting can be as simple as taking a paintbrush and just making dots. Doing this meditative and repetitive thing that almost all cultures have a form of. I don't know if it has to do with your heartbeat or the blood pumping through your veins.

At the Portland Art Museum, there's this awesome stone of a carved head that they pulled out of the Willamette River. The didactic says that it's pre contact. It has almost like an emoji face with two eyes and this horizontal mouth. That understanding that two eyes and a line create a face, I think that there are certain universal things that just repeat throughout time and cultures. Even when it comes to mark making, rhythmic mark making, it's one of the most natural things that anybody can do. You see it in kids' art. They scribble back and forth and it creates its own kind of pattern. I think that people are naturally creative. Especially if you have time and patience. I do love Aboriginal art and I actually think about it often. When I make marks, I originally started making dots, like patterns to emulate skin follicles and pores. Then I started making lines as a way of drawing hair. And then slowly, I transitioned from making figures to floral motifs. The pores and the hairs just became the textures of the flowers. Even though they're flowers, they're physically a body, and they're still covered in pores and hairs. The paint is literally the skin of the body.

J: I feel like you work intuitively and analyze it intellectually. Can you relate your intuitive impulses to something in your early life?

C: The one thing that's carried on throughout all of my practice over the years, even as a kid, was my use of collage. I would collage things onto my wall. When I mentioned "artistic universal things" earlier, collage is one of those themes. The practice of taking some trash or some clippings or debris to beautifully aestheticize your living space. When I was in elementary school, I would tape pictures, objects, wrappers and things I liked and I would create these large collages with pictures of friends or things I thought were cool. The theme of collage has been in everything. Even, the piece that you got from my undergrad show. That layered Xerox is collage. Those prints are then torn up and then re-collaged and glued together. I still use a lot of collage in my work now. That's maybe like the most pervasive or universal thing that's kept with me. You know, when you get a show card from a gallery and you don't want to throw it away, because it's a beautiful picture? It's totally worthless. it's a postcard. But you think "oh, I want to keep this to look at it later." The desire to want to hold on to a picture is something I felt as a child. I grew up really poor. Like on Section Eight housing and food stamps. Maybe they were more dream boards than collages. But in some ways, I think these paintings are kind of like dream boards.

J: I feel like they are. But there is a sweetness and the way you use them sort of like fan art. There's a real, sweet loving quality to them.

C: I feel like porn in some ways now is so available and so broadly acknowledged. Where previously it was so private and kind of hidden. I don't know what my question is. But I do agree that there's a mood board or a dream board quality to collage.

The the porn aspect of my work shocks some people. I don't think I have a wildlife or anything, but in the year 2023, I'm pretty sure we all either know, some people, many people, or at least, tangentially know somebody who's working in some form of sex work. I have many friends who have only fans pages. I've even contemplated starting one!

When I looked at a porno mag way back in the day, it might have felt like something really taboo, especially if your mom found it or something, but in the world of Instagram, I open up my search page and it's nothing but half naked hunks flashing their asses at me. You have a different relationship with it and as queer people. I think our personal relationships are different too. Queer relationships are pluralistic in the way that somebody can be a friend, a lover or a friend's lover. Our relationships are much more nuanced and complex than they were decades ago, especially through heteronormative eyes. When I was young, I used to think love was on a spectrum. You loved somebody along this linear line. And at a certain point, you love somebody so much, you'll marry them. And instead, now that I'm older, I realized that love is like these puddles or many Venn diagrams where somebody who is a friend is also a lover. Or maybe it's a one time thing. Or maybe it's like something over many, many years.Or something starts as a friendship and then slowly a sexual relationship can develop. And it can go away, and then you just remain friends. How many people have you ever had a hookup with and later become really good friends? Isn't it so fun? I love the idea that you can have a hookup and then it turns out to be a really awesome friend for life.

J: I remember having the experience of just being in a bathhouse back in probably the 90s. Which was super secret. I still have private and public sort of distinctions. These are strong kind of habits in much of my own life, but just having sex with someone and then sitting and talking, and thinking what a shame people can't. The rest of the world can't have this opportunity to have an anonymous encounter that turns into something that's really kind of rich. Really rich.

C: This might be TMI, but I was at this, this sex party in New York, and then after everybody was done. We just hung out, lounged around naked, watched overboard and ordered pizza. It was really sweet. We enjoyed each other's company. It's a wonderful thing to be able to experience and not have any kind of guilt or shame. I'm so post-shame. I don't even know what that is anymore.

J: That's awesome. That's so liberated. So evolved.

Have people given you what you needed in terms of love and respect for this show? Do you feel a need that is either fulfilled or are not in making this stuff? You said, you're getting back to work, so that's a good sign. I feel like even if you're well adjusted, you can't help but feel some envy or disappointment.

C: I'm 37 now. I have a full time job that pays my bills. I try not to let that stuff creep into my mind. I'm on my own wavelength half the time when I'm making stuff. I think if I was a figurative painter in a sea of figurative painters, I would feel that weird competitiveness. To use a sports analogy - they're all playing football, and I'm playing bocce ball.

J: Yeah. And, like, ice skating!

C: It's hard to compare yourself. Knowing that I don't necessarily make art for everybody. You're not gonna see my work on a subway bus or Billboard. I know I'm a “sometimes food” for a lot of people. And that's okay. I sometimes describe myself in musical terms. Like, you can be Britney Spears or Metallica. I am most definitely like Tiny Tim. Fucking amazing. I know that some people don't get it. That's fine. I know some people do, and it's wonderful. The feedback I've gotten from the show has been great. I'm 37, I've been going this whole time doing my own thing. Only in the last six years have I found a place where I'm happy with myself and my work. So anytime anybody gives a shit about my work and says "Good job," I feel really good. I don't try to beat myself up too much. Most of my support comes from my artist community and people like you. That's what is really important to me. Getting validation from people I respect is worth more than somebody off the street buying a painting and then putting it in their storage unit. As a maker, I think some people just want to sell, sell, sell. I want to sell something that somebody wants to live with. The saddest thing to me is the idea that I put my heart and soul into a painting, especially one where I want the men to be living out in the world. I want the men depicted in the paintings to have a visible life. The idea that a painting would sell and just go into a closet makes me so sad. Right? I really value the people who do buy my work because they're typically passionate collectors or passionate people. It's work that you want to live with. I want you to hang it up in your house. Live with it through all the seasons. I put this nice thick gloss layer on it, so people can wipe it down. I want you to have sex under the painting. I want you to live with it and enjoy it and on your way out the door to your shitty job, you look back at it and say, "that's so great!" I hope people have that relationship with the work they collect. Because I certainly do. It's undefinable or unquantifiable, but it's definitely the real thing.

It's the difference between making pictures and then making art. In today's art world, a lot of people like to collect because they like looking at pictures, but they don't necessarily think about art having a capital A, and having that transcendental thing that Agnes Pelton has. Art isn't just a picture, it's a feeling. I don't like the word spiritual, necessarily, but it's something from within you, that affects your daily being. If more people collected based on those feelings, and less, "Oh, I like that picture," we'd have less art like Kaws and Banksy.

J: I wanted to say something about spirituality but I didn't want to say spiritual because it's kind of loaded. What is another word you would use to mean what you're paintings radiate or communicate or transmit or emit?

C: Spirituality is almost way too loaded. But often when I talk to other artists and they tell me that they're feeling stuck in their work, I often tell them that they should make a dream board. They don't have to be literal things. It can be things you like. It's the collaging of ideas that bring in you an emotional reaction. Since moving to California I've had amazing landlords who grow hundreds of cacti in our backyard. My paintings have become these mood boards of the things that I love. It's like a stew that I've been working on for two decades, has finally turned into something that I love. They're essentially a giant dream board for myself. I think of it like 10-D chess. On one hand, they're graphic images on flat surfaces of you know, XYZ, but then on the other hand, it's about relationships. It's about the beauty of nature. The beauty of our bodies. It's about light from within. It's about all sorts of things. And it's just like they've turned into mood boards. There is a lot of emotional investment over time in them, and I hope that people can feel that.

J: Yeah, they can. We can, we can. The desert flowers, just as a metaphor, are such a beautiful thing. And you take Polaroids of them. What about the Polaroids? Anything to say about those?

C: I started those in grad school. I was working with AK burns. I was a printmaker and for one semester I stopped and I was working on just these like double exposure Polaroids. AK was like, "You should keep going with this" and I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. The way that they're made is fairly easy in terms of the technique. But it took me a long time to get to a combination of images that made sense for me. Talking about the cactus blooms, a lot of people don't realize that a cactus doesn't bloom for a number of years. When they do, most of them will bloom for one a day and then it dies. It's a really ephemeral thing. Almost every morning before I go to work, I run around our garden and look to see if anything's blooming because I know that if I don't see it in the morning, it will be gone by the time I get home. Everything is a surprise up until the day it bursts open.

There's also an analogy with the cactus that I think about often. I encourage everybody to make art, everybody should fucking make whatever the fuck they want, all the time. You never know what you can make. A cactus is an awesome example of a plant that's very slow and dormant. And then within two weeks will sprout an appendage. And then for one night, it will burst open, and all sudden you're like, "Whoa! You didn't do shit for five years." People are like that. People are like little cactuses.

Anyway, to go back to the Polaroid thing. I try to take a picture of this really ephemeral event in the garden and a dick pick, another really ephemeral event and smash the two together into a Polaroid to create an object that is everlasting. I like the idea of trying to hold on to those two beautiful things. It's one of my favorite practices.

My paintings are for my long work days. My drawings are for my lunch breaks. And the Polaroid practices for me when I'm too tired to even get up from the couch or I don't want to leave bad. It's also a way to bring like my friends into my practice. Where the men and the paintings are of a different generation, the Polaroids allow me to bring younger men into the work. It's a way of injecting my own life back into the work. I can bring my own personal life into the images as well as bring older generations of men into the work. I want it to be like the back patio at the eagle where everybody's together. It's fun. I like making them too. Sometimes there's nothing better than a picture of a beautiful flower and a naked body. It's like my two favorite things.

J: Well, it is, it is kind of a classic, right? I mean, a standard. It happens over and over. And will continue.

C: I'm very skeptical of beauty in art. You can use it to lure people in. If my paintings were intentionally ugly, it would push a lot of people away. From outside the gallery, you might see my work and say, "Whoa! What is this kaleidoscopic circus of color happening?" And it pulls you in. I want to make beautiful work. A lot of people don't buy work that has naked men in it, especially gay naked men. Part of my desire is to make a painting so beautiful, and so attractive, you can't resist it. I want to make a painting that is so irresistibly beautiful that you'll say, "fine, fine, fine, give me the butt sex, I'll take it. I want to live with this painting." I want it to be an infectious and beautiful painting that people want to share and live with. Beauty in that regard is kind of part of my strategy. Creating an object that's irresistible.

J: That's beautiful. What a good way to spend your time, then life's energy and experience, you know?