Artwork of Andy Howell
Following your work, we could say your art style brings endless versatility with seemingly no boundaries, what is the ultimate inspiration behind your pieces and how would you categorize your style?
Though I am mostly known for a graphic line that originated in graffiti and carried through early nineties skateboarding to now, I actually consider most things in life to be an art, and thus would say I am a conceptual artist with practical application. The inspiration behind everything I do is perception. I am always watching, evaluating, dismantling and reconstructing everything I see. There are extended alternate realities going on regularly. I just kind of gaze off into space and the entire story or image or idea continues and evolves in my mind. The rest of the time I am creating ways to manifest those ideas into the physical world. The medium, technique, surface, or final form is irrelevant, because I feel the integrity of the idea itself is the true art. The rest is semantics.
Working alongside Zazzle, you have developed a pretty awesome system of creating boards on demand. How did that vision come about?
As I mentioned earlier I am working with some of the most amazing minds I have ever met on all things Artsprojekt, and our creation of the patent-pending technology we are using to create the gyclee skate decks is a great example. It’s truly incredible to work with people who can engineer absolutely anything that we come up with. We started by adding some of my elements and relationships into the engineering mix, outlined a set of goals based around the creation of made to order high end skateboards, then we went through about 20 ways to do it that didn’t work before we finally connected one that did. Not only did it work, but it exceeded anything that had ever been done in the skateboard industry as far as I knew, which I wasn’t really expecting. When I started to share it with other industry heads, there was an overwhelming sense that this could be the future of skateboard graphics, which has been amazing. I’m honored to work with such an amazing group of people.
We want to thank you for your time Andy and wish you the best of luck with ARTSPROJEKT. Are there any last words or advice for aspiring artists looking to get recognized?
You’ll always be “aspiring” if you are a true artist, and that is the greatest thing. You are tapped in to the universal mind. Picture yourself exactly where you think you want to be and you will get there, but you will find as an ironic reality that by being an artist “where you want to be” will always be changing. That’s the natural flow. Challenge yourself to follow your inspiration and passion unconditionally, and the life of art will simply be the art of life. And if you slow your mind enough to be truly lucid and look into a child’s eyes when he is experiencing something for the first time (at least this go round), and you will see yourself at that exact age moving effortlessly in a perfect circle. Don’t worry, or you’ll create lack. It’s Carpe Diem, not Carpe Moneta.
Oh yeah, and *always leave your mark*.
Interview: Luis Ruano
