 Yeah, I want to be the guy who took the blob as far as it could go. I'm taking blobs of paint and I'm just taking it as far as it can go over the next 10 years. I'm gonna do a blob cube. That's the big thing, an 8 by 8 by 8 cube. You walk around and it's just been blobbed all the way around, so, yeah. Without Holt and Rohr, there's no blobs. Really? It's that simple. I had been developing my own techniques without trying to emulate other people for 15 years. And then I think I just hit a point where I was like, you know what? It's not going where I want to go. And so I just literally made these Holt and Rohr-esque type pieces with his technique and his paint. It didn't work out with his paint because it was flat. He uses latex, so it flattened out. Then I tried it with my paint in different spots. It was so-so, and then I hit on the blobs and letting them dry and then building them up and I was like, this is it. I hit it. But so I'm gonna send him a painting because I'm like... It's not too often you can say without a certain artist, your work wouldn't exist. Most people draw from several sources, you know? I drew entirely from him inspired by his work. It makes it interesting that you can't quite label it or put it in a box. I want to be known as the guy who makes blob paintings. So Jackson Pollock was like the- He's the dripper and I'm the blobber. You're the blobber. Mike's the blobber. That's it. And somebody was saying, that's such a horrible name come up with a better name for this series. It's like no way. But it's true, like when I look at your paintings... They're blobs of paint. Blobs of paint. What is it? It's not a glob, it's not a drip. It's a blob. But there's something that like you- it's really enjoyable to look at. A blob is like a pretty shape. Right. I think. Actually, maybe in a way, I mean in truth, maybe these are not blobs because blobs are supposed to be kind of like not circular, right? They're kind of like... Little more organic-y? Yeah, so I mean in a way, technically, maybe these aren't really blobs. They're like pancakes. You're the pancake guy. They're like pancakes, but I just call them blobs because they, I don't know. As people love circles, but I didn't want to call them circle paintings, right? Who, that's- Yeah, they're not circle paintings. Circle is a lot of different things, but a blob is very specific. I guess it's a blob because you know what? Also makes a blob. Blob because it's not flat. There's a flat blob, but thick. You think of blob being kind of thick. Yeah. Like the blob. Yeah. Wasn't that a movie, right? Where it's this big, amorphous thing. Walking around or whatever, the blob. Well, we analyzed that to death. Yeah, I didn't know. So, okay, so for you, your Mike Cameron, the blob guy. Yes. You seem to, maybe from my perspective, you seem to randomly just been picking paint off the shelf and just going for it. Are you randomly picking paint off the shelf? Do you have a color palette in your head that you've already worked out? Do you have a mock-at somewhere where you've already done something like this? Or is it really just chance? I just kind of go from color to color and I look around and I guess I'm looking for almost like a wallpapery, even presentation of it. A uniformity. Yeah, I'm not looking to design, for example. With the blobs, I could be designing with them, right? I mean, I could be doing circles and lines with the blobs and I don't want to get into that. I guess that's my interest in the early guys, like Pollock, right? And early abstract expressionists who are just concerned with the whole field of it. So it's a bit like a restrained randomness? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The big thing is I don't want it to look like anything. Like I don't want you to say, oh yeah, it's a face, it's a sunset, it's a this, it's a that. No, it's abstract, it's just colors. The funny thing is people are commenting on something though, like my work responds to the structures of ideological societies and I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? You're like really hard to set fun. I think people, you know, this is the, I have to say it's been hard not going to art school because I don't fit in, I completely feel like an outsider. But I think in many ways you go to art school and you're trained to think that you have to present your art attached to some idea. Otherwise nobody will look at you. But you have ideas, like these are, you have a lot of ideas. Non-conceptual ideas, non-ideological ideas. Purely visual ideas, purely aesthetic ideas. People think that in addition to aesthetic, you've got to have some kind of attachment to some political, ideological, societal, societal is a big one. All the artist statements I read, some part of society, they've latched onto something that they're presenting. Not every art needs to be a political comment or, you know, a comment on society or... Or comment, period. How do you know when a blob painting is good? Or how do you know when a blob painting still needs more work? Yeah. Because right now, like this, I think it's pretty right now. Yeah, I tend to overwork things. I have an issue with not leaving too much showing, which I don't know if it's just I'm not confident enough with less, or because my life is so full and my brain is so full and I'm just filling it up like my brain fills up. Like I have a rule I tell my students that every piece or good pieces go through three phases. One is it's the beginning and it's spare and it's excellent. So this in about 10, 15 minutes will be spare and excellent, but it's not done. And then you wreck it and you kind of take it and you take it. It's not wrecked, but in the sense that it's like lost that initial pristine beauty. And then you have to save it. It's like a movie. Every good artwork is like this movie where... Conflict. You lost that initial beauty and then you're like, okay, well, I have to work through that and that's the problem solving. And that's why I tell my students, you know, this whole idea of art being just pure inspiration and not requiring problem solving like math. For example, I teach math too and people say, well, how does it go together? It's ridiculous because you're solving problems all the time. Absolutely. You're looking at it and you're saying, well, what does it need? And your brain just tells you, oh, yeah, it needs this. You have to ask and then you follow through and then you save it. This looks so candy perfect right now. Like it looks like... That's it. This is the point where you start and it looks perfect. Yes. And you could stop. Yes. There's a lot of artists out there who don't make their own work. They're just the idea. They present the idea and somebody else makes it. And why not? The architect doesn't lay a brick. Gets all the accolades. Doesn't lay a brick. Nothing. The idea. It's the idea. And it's their name tied to it because it was their idea. Completely, completely. They got it to go, you know, so, yeah. So there's lots of artists who do that. I think that's part of the difference what I was telling about the conceptual world is that there's the handmade and the technique as being valued in and of itself. And then there's the idea and then if you can marry those two that's where you get these artists who are kind of on another sphere and achieving fantastic things because they've not only managed the technique but they have something fully original and some very cool idea they're presenting in a way nobody's presented before. I think that's the thing in the high-up art world the people that I look at it's just what it says here. It's better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. That's the hard part, right? Because it's so easy to go safe. I think for me the biggest thing for me that I'm finding that I struggle with is that I want each piece to kind of have its own feel. And I don't want the blob pieces to look all the same because that defeats the purpose. Yes, exactly. Yeah and art is supposed to be tapping that spirit and that's why they say that's more crappy. You'll have artists who are fantastic and they still are repeating something. Yes. Every artist kind of repeats something. Well you draw on what you've, your experience. You've drawn on the work. And you also have a series or a style and that has some form of repetition but the trick becomes is each new creation a new creation? Yes. Or are you just trying to recreate? Yes. That's I think the only thing that really concerns me now. Yes. I think the tricky thing with art really the big problem is that is how do you keep it free? How do you keep it free? Meaning? How do you not respond to fear? How do you not play it safe? Right. How do you take that balance between on one hand not playing it too safe and so if you want to try something new you feel constrained because will it sell? Will people like it? So that's a problem to go in that direction and respond to that. But on the other hand. Correct. Yeah. Exactly. On the other hand there's this with me one of my problems is I'm too free. I try everything and I just can't stay in one vein and there's that flow. From going with the flow, from going with the feeling as opposed to a fear. Although to be honest sometimes I've, I definitely have made works just to sell because I need money for the paint. Yeah. This is a song by Cage the Elfant. Got so much to lose. Got so much to prove. God don't let me lose my mind. I think that's it. You know it's like you, you're always evaluating I've come so far if I do this I'm going to lose everything or I want to prove something. At the end of the day the only solution to that in my mind is just keep painting. Oh there's one lady when I first started she looked at my work and said well I like it. I would buy it but the purple don't like the purple and I believed her and I didn't paint with purple for a year. Yeah it's just horrible just because I was just starting I think it was my second year of painting and I was so but it's like how can you not paint with purple? Purple is red and blue together right? It's like without painting with red and blue. Yeah. And pink I love pink. I'm so not like I don't see pink as a girly color. Yeah. Pink is just pink it's light red by the way pink is just light red right or light magenta so you know I always tell the story when I was a kid I had this idea in my head that each color had a shape that went with it. Oh. And like square was blue. Oh interesting. Circle was red rectangle was brown beyond that I forget but one way or the other color and shape is enough for me as a kid and I think that's why I do this. Some people meaning is more important they've had experiences in their lives or they're really interested in certain ideas for me that's been irrelevant. I think that art which is based fundamentally on like real the real basics color and shape. Yes. It's good art. Right. Yes well that's the fundamentals of it. Yes. Yes that's right. I mean it is visual art. Yeah it's real art. Absolutely. The end right. What do your kids say is your job? I'm a teacher. Daddy makes paintings I don't know. Yeah. Yeah they know I'm they know I make art. What do they say? I don't think they say they just want to come here and make paintings themselves. Yeah. Yeah. Are you like a big inspiration to them you think? Probably not. I don't know. I mean