Q: When and how do you get interested in creating your art?
Q1. I have drawings of Transformers and Venom and Bionicles and original characters from when I was practically a baby. In high school I took an introductory class on animating in Adobe Flash/Animate and it really sparked something in me. I was also starting to apply for colleges and searching for degrees and majors I was passionate about. Most schools have a general fine arts, illustration, or graphic design major, and I wasn't satisfied by those options. So I became really interested in animation, which inspired other offshoot tertiary mediums.
Q: Why do you feel that at 19, you became immersed in Hermeticism, magic, mythology, and comparative religion? And how old are you now?
Q2. Probably taking a lot of mushrooms, haha. I used to identify as an "Christmas-Easter Christian," I didn't think about religion a lot and I was pretty materialistic. I'm not here condoning drug use at all, I don't do any kind of drugs anymore, but that was probably it. I took mushrooms seven times in around a year, taking stronger doses each time. After the first or second time something clicked and I started researching Tarot. I found Liber Null & Psychonaut by Peter Carroll, Advanced Magic for Beginners by Alan Chapman, 78 Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel Pollack, started meditating. I'm going to be 22 next month.
Q: When is something classified as occult literature, and do you have a specific way of choosing which books you would like to study? What rituals from the occult books have you participated in, and what have you learned from them? Along with what are the factors is that determine the quality of the books.
Q3. I would describe it as covering esoteric teachings, techniques, or philosophies. Esoteric as looking inward, spiritually and mentally, versus Exoteric, which would be looking outward materialistically. Some occult literature is really overtly occult and other stuff is more commonly accepted, therefore less "occult." Platonic and Neo-Platonic philosophical texts, the Bagavad Ghita, the Kama Sutra, the Quran, and the Bible are pretty popular "occult" literature. These texts are usually taken literally or physically, carrying exoteric messages of community, war, love, law, etc. But they also have an occult/esoteric layer to their teachings. Examples of purely occult texts would be literature by Manly P. Hall, Aleister Crowley, H.P. Blavatsky, Lon Milo DuQuette, Gerald Gardner, Dion Fortune, and the few I listed above. Many revised, or even first-edition, occult books reference others or recommend others. So it's easy to go down a spiritual rabbit-hole in certain topics. It's easy to avoid money-grubby occult books, "self help" stuff, and "spell books," by sticking with acclaimed authors and modern writers. I've read a lot of Lon Milo DuQuette and Aleister Crowley. I focused on "Chaos Magic" and Tarot when I first started, and have been reading more about Hermeticism and practicing the Qabalah the past year. I'm working through LMD's "Son of Chicken Qabalah" right now (and almost done). Overall my life, mentally and physically, has dramatically improved. That's about all I can say that will make sense. If you're curious try something for just a week or two consistently, I guarantee you'll kinda get it.
Q: How do you research Hermetic magic and comparative mythology? Why do you feel drawn to the arcane? What have you learned about yourself from studying them? Which texts have you read, and what points from them intrigued you?
Q4. I research and learn by reading a lot. Most great books can be found free online as pdfs on Creative Commons sites, Public Domain, Internet Archive, a bunch of places. I've learned a lot about how I handle stress, anger, isolation, relationships, finding peace with myself, being inspired creatively. I haven't had any sort of "artist's block" since working with this stuff. I have an abundance of ideas, concepts, characters, worlds. Sometimes it's even overwhelming. Besides the books I've already mentioned I'd recommend "The Chicken Qabalh of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford." It's excellent. As is "The Mystical Qabalah" by Dion Fortune. Although she's pretty racist at the beginning. It's important to understand who writes what so you can evaluate when they may be presenting bias or bigotry. Occult authors don't know everything, everybody has weaknesses and faults and it's impossible to be absolutely perfect. I wouldn't recommend "The Mystical Qabalah" if it wasn't the best, though. It's the best at what it does. For such a popular occult topic nobody has really tried to write an expanded or alternate book to compete with Fortune's.
Q: What does it take to become skilled at a field? Where do you feel people go wrong when learning?
Q5. Just a lot of practice. Boring answer, but it's true. I animate constantly and I'm always learning even when I'm not trying to. Doing something over and over helps someone learn shortcuts, tricks, and techniques all on your own. You don't need to go to school. Youtube is awesome. But also trust your instinct and intuition.
Q: What was it like studying 2D and stop motion animation at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and how did it feel when you graduated with a BFA in 2D Animation and Digital Art in 2024?
Q6. I loved studying at Pratt! But I loved connecting with such a cool community even more. I'll always be friends and collaborators with members of my graduating class, as well as the classes before and after me. It's inspiring to be in an environment where everyone is so excited to learn and critique, and where everyone is constantly creating.
Q: How would you describe the feedback you've received on your work? Do you feel it has helped you, and if so, in what way? What aspects of that feedback were particularly helpful or unhelpful to you?
Q7. I think the feedback has been very helpful because it helps me become aware of my strengths, sometimes my weaknesses, as well as how to describe my work. Selfishly I create art that I'm super excited about and I don't reeeaaally care if people "get it" or like it (although it's awesome when they do!), so it's nice to visually and verbally see how people describe my stuff. OK maybe I'm lying to myself, I love when other people watch my stuff, but visual comprehension is not a priority. I think specifics are helpful, and I also think references are helpful. Many artists don't like being compared, but usually when somebody references something they're pointing out a specific thing that an artist did successfully as simply and quickly as possible.
Q: What do you look for in media, and what are the elements that resonate with you? Why do you feel they resonate? Are there pieces of media that you feel don't resonate with you, and why do you think that is? What does it take to be on “Phallic Don Inspirational Required Viewing”
I look for entertainment and I look for depth. I think an excellent example is Adventure Time. It's silly and fun and full of adventure -- but because there are seasoned indie comics writers of their staff -- it's also full of heartbreak, philosophizing, morality, and myth. I like to "get something" out of great media as much as I'm entertained by it. This isn't always the case, but that's usually the kind of stuff I resonate with. It's like a see-saw between both ideals. If something is pure entertainment I can find it lacking, as well as if it's so thematic that it sucks the entertainment out of the piece entirely. Aesthetics are also pretty important. I like pretty, colorful, often cartoony stuff. This criteria, as well as being "mystical" in some way is what it takes to make it on to my preparatory required viewing, haha. It's not actually required, just what I was telling people. I'm not at that level of pretentious yet, hahaha.
Q: When did you realize that your animation and senior capstone film "Phallic Don Is Dead" became an allegory for the forces of creation?
I was doing some daily spiritual practice which led to journaling which led to this crazy revelatory rambling micro-essay about life and death and sex and Phallic Don and Megafucker and Hermetic creation myths. It was pretty psychotic. But also pretty cool and connected a lot of dots I had left unconnected. I can't remember the date, but it was during this past Fall.
Q: What is your view and experience with the 12 principles of animation?
It's whatever, haha. I don't focus on it. I don't even own a copy of the Animator's Survival Kit, which is a heretical animator sin. It's not a checklist for me. I just try to edit and alter my drawings and poses until everything is satisfyingly snappy. I don't go for realism, I go for a kind of cartoon-comic logic of movement. If it looks cool, it is cool.
Q: Why do you feel you don't typically talk about the symbolism of what you make? And why would you describe it as revenge comedy? Yes, I think it's a thing because you made it!
Hahaha, thank you. I don't really talk about it because it's not for everyone. Some people want a trippy, surreal, experimental animated comedy with violence and light philosophy. Some people simply want to laugh. Or look at the motion design. Very few care about the underlying philosophy or message. Which is totally OK with me! I'd rather someone think about it and figure it out on their own, or create their own interpretation of it. I don't think "my symbolism" is the ultimate symbolism. Someone once said the author of the art knows the least about it. As for the revenge comedy, Phallic Don started because I was searching for genre's I loved and could replicate as an easy start. My favorite film of all time, Mandy (2018), is a revenge-horror-thriller-romance with light comedic and fantasy elements, and my stuff is always going to be funny. It's hard for me to be too serious.
Q: What is Holy G Thy Angel?
Holy G Thy Angel is my next film. It's a sequel to Phallic Don Is Dead and the second film in what I'm guessing will be a four-film anthology. I'll post the trailer here soon. I'm hoping to have the trailer done in a week, maybe. I'm trying to finish the whole thing by or during September. It's very ambitious, but I'm pushing myself and learned a lot by finishing Phallic Don Is Dead. The logline is: "God, after creating the world, is trapped within a dream of being a baby. Holy G, the planet's guardian angel, struggles to recover God's degenerating form." I have some background art and stuff on my portfolio website and I'm posting all the progress on my Patreon, which has free and paid tiers.
Q: What are your views on philosophy?
I think it's useful, but ultimately pointless if it's your only focus. It's good to return to philosophy, live life, return, live, return, until you comfortably and satisfyingly live. It's good to return. Many people never engage with philosophy, or engage with it once through religion and never return.
Q: Would you describe a painting as therapeutic?
I think so, both in the act and viewing. Art and any creative outlet can be a kind of therapy.
Q: Do you feel sculpting has improved your observation skills?
Oh yes, definitely. I started doing it to help with my character turnarounds. At first it was almost a trick and replacement, but it ended up helping me understand 3D space much more effectively and how forms rotate in space. 3D space is probably still one of my weaker skills, but you should've seen what I was making before.
Q: How did you become interested in game design?
I took a class in game design using Gamemaker when I was really young at a cool program at a museum in Portland called OMSI. I was making games for awhile after that, but it corrupted my old computer at the time which dissuaded and physically stopped me from pursuing any further. Later I was volunteering at David Daniels STRATAGANZA event at Pratt, and Mason Lindroth, the creator of Hylics, was presenting. I ended up picking up a few of his tricks and being really inspired to make something. I was also getting really into the RPGMaker community and watching every available play through of Fear & Hunger and Space Funeral on Youtube.
Q: How do you feel you are affected by moving location?
I mostly grew up in Portland, OR, so it's not something brand new. I was born in Seattle and moved to Brooklyn for school and loved there for three years. I was around the Happy Valley area before in high school, which is practically Suburbia. Now I'm living closer into the city in bonafide Portland with my partner. We left a lot of our closest friends that stayed in Brooklyn which was and is crazy sad, but we of course keep in touch. I'll visit and they'll visit. But it was definitely time to leave Brooklyn. I just felt it. It feels right here.
Q: How would you describe your experiences of painting with acrylic paint? Do you set specific rules for yourself when creating your acrylic paintings to explore the world of "Phallic Don"?
I didn't buy anything myself. I just use stuff my partner doesn't need or can share. They're a fine artist, drawer, watercolor painter. All I had were pre-stretched canvasses and yellow, blue, red, and white paint. Probably sounds blasphemous to a professional painter, but it was fun and good practice. A good experience! It's good to be tactile when I'm drawing digitally a good 70% of the time. No rules, really. Some stuff in the paintings are still canon, some aren't. It helped establish a color scheme and a shape language for when I would later create all my backgrounds out of clay for Phallic Don Is Dead.
Q: What was it like working with RPGMaker for your game Holy Election, Jesus Slice! And how would you describe your process for making your game?
It's so simple and cheap! Not sponsored at all, but if you're interested in art and game design within the general structure of an RPG then check it out. It goes on sale like every week or so for 50% off or more, so wait for that!
@jackimojackimo's experience with Halloween
A weird story to stick to the theme of weird-silly-spooky-stuff: on Halloween eve a couple years ago I told my friends aloud that I “had a creepy feeling about tomorrow.” The next day (Halloween) my roommate tells me he had an intense case of sleep paralysis that night. Everything in our little townhouse felt off. We saw a shadow slowly pass behind the curtains of our back door. Four of us living there crowded around the back kitchen window to get a glimpse of, what we thought was, a would-be intruder. However, it was a gray old woman standing still on the path, facing away from us just a few feet away. We don’t think she saw us, but we also never saw her face. Eventually she slowly walked out of view. I took a really shitty, shaky video of her while trying to be sneaky and immediately empathized with all those corny UFO/Bigfoot videographers who are doing the same. I recall other weird shit happening that day, too, but all of that happened right in the morning and I can’t remember anything else.
Q: Nice! That's a really cool story! Would you say that the experience has affected your interest in horror?
Oh yeah, I love horror. One of my favorite genre's to search through and choose a random movie to watch from. I was in a somewhat-conspiratorial-paranoid stage of getting into the occult when it happened, so I assigned a lot more importance and meaning and fear into the experience. Now I think it was just a lot of crazy stuff happening somewhat coincidentally, haha.
Q: You love to make things. In what ways would one of your friends playfully make fun of that fact?
It was mores that fact that I just love stuff. He said "You're a lover. You love to love things." He's somewhat cynical himself -- not often, but oddly serious about certain inconsequential stuff -- so I think it was a playful realization that contrasted with his own views.
Q: What are the movies and shows you have hyped up? Why do you feel others aren't as passionate about them? What awesome elements from these movies and shows have you incorporated into your work?
Mostly a bunch of semi-dumb stuff that is a lot better on first viewing than second, hahaha. When Bullet Train first came out I was obsessed. I watch dit again and was like, "Yeah, I really like this, but it isn't as life-changing as I was hyping it up before." Same with a lot of pulpy, corny Sword & Sorcery movies. When I've watched something I really like I tend to really passionately recommend it as "excellent," "so fun," "you gotta see it," "you'll probably love it," etc.
Q: Do you feel it is dangerous when artists are creating something that they are not enjoying?
Yes, 100%. I think it can kill the passion, which kills the skill. Example after example of artists going "corporate," quitting their independent work, their passion projects, only doing their paid "work" work, and at the end of the day becoming incredibly unsatisfied with their practice. In almost everything I do I try to be passionate and enjoy it. It's a privilege but it's also a skill. It's important, though, because if I love all the work I make and people want to hire me to make more then I'll love doing that work, too.
Q: What do you do when you get frustrated, especially with compositing problems or bureaucratic file management? What is bureaucratic file management? It's good to hear that 95% of the time, creating brings joy and love. Loving the process is a superpower, and I know for a fact that I love your art!
Thank you! That seriously means so much to me. It's good to take a break. Sleep 5 hours instead of sleepily problem-solving for the same amount of time and making shitty work. Sleep. Get 8 hours, ideally. I would stay up until 3 or 4am working on Phallic Don, but I always made sure to either sleep in or rest or nap the next day. Your health is always more important than your art, so you can keep creating. File management is just keeping everything organized and it can be hell.
Q: Which pieces of advice has helped you the most?
For filmmaking and storytelling, the Party Rule: arrive late, and get out of there early.
For art practice, make note of: 1. Who do you want to like it? 2. Who do you want to dislike? 3. Who doesn't matter or won't care.
Thank you!
