ArtiFact: What is the significance of the term “ToolShedArts”?

Eric-Scott Bloom: It's an identifier. For years now, I have named my concept of art and creativity ‘EpiGothic.’ Like a company name. So when I moved from my hometown of Massachusetts in 1993, and went to Arizona, I was living with my boy's mother, in her home, and we made a painting studio behind the house, in a literal toolshed, which was no bigger than a closet. And although it had its limitations, this toolshed is where I spent the next six years, working obsessively on my painting. Yes, it was a mouse-hole. Yes it was claustrophobic. It was 120° all summer, every summer. And the paint fumes from the oils damn near gave me a brain tumor. Yet I cherish my time in that room, because it was, in a sense, a proving ground. I logged terrific hours in there. And it was a place with little distraction. Paint, canvas, and a radio––day and night, for years. I told everybody who mattered that I was going to paint to live. Make it my living. A livelihood. There was no escaping that fact in that room. For this reason, of having to confront my ambitions daily, it often seemed like a kind of exile. Yet, as it turned out, it was a self-imposed sequester I will always be grateful for. I really practiced in there. Became so much more familiar with my own God-given tools.

AF: You're thirty-eight today. When did you decide your Life's Work was going to be Art? When and why?

EB: Some answers seem to necessitate the tried and true cliches. You've no doubt heard “it's in my blood?” This reasoning comes as close to my own personal truth about my choice of career as any. I honestly can't even imagine myself seriously involved in any other way of life. (laughs) Even the way my damn beard grows has necessitated my being a free-spirited, self-employed ‘bohemian,’ if you'll indulge the term.

AF: The way your beard grows?? I'm not sure what you mean.

EB: I know–it's weird! Well, there are certain jobs, or professions in society, which are not ‘artists,’ per se'––in the sense we're talking about. At least not the kind of fine artist I've set myself up to be. I'm referring to these men who really need to dress rather impeccably, and they seem to always be perfectly, immaculately clean-shaven. They come into work in the morning with alabaster complexions, and leave work at day's end with alabaster complexions. No sign of a whisker anywhere, anyhow. Their eyes are crystal-clear, always! It has alot to do with their race. You have these men who are beautifully geared for high-level business meetings. Now me? I have this viscious growth of beard that is heavy like a rug, and black, like an Arab's. I shave, and almost immediately I've got a Fred Flintstone shadow bit going––but formidably. I can't shave every day either, or I would certainly hemorrhage to death. I was destined to be in a constant state of requiring a shave. If I would attempt to groom my hair, I become this geek; but I mean in the classic sense. This......non–person I can't tolerate nor fathom. My hair shan't be tamed, and my facial hair won't be managed. I always look like the rapist on the loose––the town child molester; and of course, I am none of these things. I'm about the kindest, friendliest person you'd ever want to meet. But if I were to try to go corporate, I'd surely be villified before I could ever prove myself. Unless of course I managed an inheritance, like the money, or the firm––then I could show up in my usual Beat uniform, and everyone else could go designer, with an abundance of matching styles and colors in attendance. Of course, if they worked for me, they might all look like me. I'm not sure. I might actually get a kick out of seeing all my employees looking GQ and Harper's Bizarre, while I did the eccentric CEO routine. Very interesting.....but anyhow; I am the artist, and a noticeably uncompromising one, at that. I look the part, but due more to biological necessity than preconceived notion.

AF: So, back to when. Exactly when and why?

EB: Well, beside it being in my blood; an aspect of my heritage––I have to go back to the story I always fall back on, which is about my Great Uncle Leon's closet.
As a small boy––about five, six, seven––I would visit the apartment of Sam and Molly Goldberg––my Great Grandparents; Polish Jewish immigrants who lived on the third floor in a functional one-bedroom in Brookline, Massachusetts. My mother's parents would almost always take me and my little sister there for Molly's old–world–Jewish–Saturday dinners. Their son, my Great Uncle Leon, lived with them for many years. Slept on the couch. He helped take care of them, and they helped take care of him. Well, Uncle Leon, my Great Uncle, had this little hall closet where he kept an archive of personal belongings. Boxes of documents. Clothing. His cane and Olivetti typewriter missing the F key. And among these items were alot of very beautiful books. This closet was to me, an extremely mysterious little place. To the rest of the family, it was a closet. For me, it became an inner sanctum. A dark grotto wherein I'd proudly snoop each and every Saturday. Uncle Leon never objected. And so I discovered these complicated yet strangely alluring books in there. Pristine, hardcover editions of Dali, Picasso, and Chagall. Aromatic paperbacks by Huxley, Henry Miller, Kenneth Patchen, and Albert Camus, which I read as ‘Cam-iss.’ (smiling) The Journal of Albion Moonlight for God's sake! Even a completely sinister collection of essays by that veritable life o’ the party, Antonin Artaud, who would later profoundly resurface during my triumphant re-discovery of Jim Morrison and The Doors. Can you just imagine what was going through that ever–racing, turbulently searching, seven–year–old head full of mush as I wandered, dreaming, through these kind of ideas and images??? I was a pretty precocious kid anyhow, so I wasn't completely lost on this stuff. But still, the initial impact must have hit the future artist like a pubescent male's first full minute of intercourse. Possibly even involving a girl! The fact that my family showed little or no inclination to censor, let alone examine my new–found literary interests, reveals much about the cultural climate of my formative years. And for this generally prevailing attitude amongst my immediate family, I have always considered myself duly blessed. While I was in the closet, becoming mentally intoxicated, doing reconnaisance on Salvador Dali's hyper––fixation with the brutally obvious relationship between the female breast and a colossal loaf of French bread, my elders remained faithfully in the next room, feeding, chain–smoking, slurping black coffee, and alternating between paroxysms of hysterical group laughter, and cacophanous salvos of laser-guided invective, often unbefitting opposing gang–members. And so I crouched in The Closet, swooning on the profoundly bizarre and the wildly esoteric, and sensing deeply that I had found a Holy Grail. Now you have to assume that any number of children in that same position would display little or no interest whatsoever in those books. Zero inclination to persue further. And thank God, you know. That's why we have professional plumbers and chimney sweeps, and auto–mechanics.

AF: Are you saying that a plumber doesn't have the capacity to be moved by modern art or feel deeply about a great symphony?

EB: Ah, no. I would never say that. It's so preposterous. I guess I'm thinking that there are probably few plumbers who make it a point to invest their time off attending fine art exhibitions, or delving into Richard Avedon. And I'm saying that maybe that's of benefit to the way the world goes ’round. I don't know. Do we really want fine art to have the same kind of popular appeal as Major League Baseball? It certainly would be one hell of a change of pace, but I personally would not interpret it as a culturally positive development. God, am I thinking like an elitist snob? That's not at all where I'm coming from. But anyway, my Uncle... my Uncle became aware of how I was reacting to these things, and encouraged me greatly. He often gave me these books. Sent me home with books I knew were very expensive, and books I knew he cherished for his own. He was, at heart, a very radical man; an original beatnick who in many ways had to succumb to the pressures of his ultra-traditional father, who expected him to conform and work for him at very manual tasks in order to have a place to call home. They were like a Father & Son organization. Sam provided money and discipline and a steady job, and Leon provided energy and cunning and an intimate knowledge of the American way. It was classic co-dependance. Symbiosis. In later years, I began to feel that Leon saw in me the chance to vicariously experience that bohemian life he was never quite able to fully attain. He definately, consciously fed my childhood intrigue with the unconventional. He would always send me birthday cards that encouraged my natural tendency towards experimentation and intellectual adventure. And even at an early age I sensed his frustration at not having followed the muse of his youth, into middle age. His few poems and drawings were genuine, yet remained for years tucked away in that closet, hidden underneath a shaving kit some briefcases. So I was mentored. Purposefully––or casually––ushered into Bohemia. I soon began to combine my natural love of unorthodoxy with an insatiable apetite for the dramatic arts. I loved devouring art books, often lingering on one or two paintings until my eyes crossed. I reveled in film, morphing into the main characters for weeks at a time. I would have once sold my soul to the Devil to have been transformed into Peter Seller's Inspector Clouseau, from the original The Pink Panther. I didn't emulate or imitate––I became Dustin Hoffman's Ben from The Graduate. I became all the actors and artists and comedians and athletes and authors I revered. Often I would myself disappear for weeks at a time, dragged kicking and screaming back into reality by the confines of school and public decorum. This battle went on unabated, until I came to the strict realization that the only lifestyle I could seriously persue into adulthood without suffocating to death inside a mental institution, was that of Artist. I was writing semi–original poetry and prose as early as the Summer of Love [at five], and drawing Mad Magazine–inspired cartoons by the trunkload. Soon I received a Kodak Pocket Instamatic, which I proceeded to use to document my family with Arbus-like precision. I was at best a psuedo–artist back then, but possessed an obvious sincerity and sometimes obsessive desire to be taken as genuine. It was in high­school where I filtered my volcanic hormonal dilemmas through serious attempts at poetry, song-lyrics and painting. In my school, there were minimum requirements for the torturous mathematics, science, and history courses. So my senior year was spent entirely in art and literature classes. I was delving to be sure, but still too distracted by sex, drugs, and rock music to make any career-oriented moves towards fine art; which is something I now really regret. I often tell my close friends that, had I invested the same kind of time and energy persuing a valid career in the arts from seventeen to twenty-five, that I did relentlessly chasing after pussy, I'd probably be hanging on the walls of the MOMA now. Hell, I might be curating those walls! And I'm not kidding! The precious moments wasted drifting from party to party; blonde to brunette; red-head to raven! In some respects, in order not to suffocate under the dark veil of regret, I have to believe that everything I now put into my art derives from an amalgam of all my experiences––youthful indiscretions or not. Directly art-related, or having only to do with determining how many beers I could ingest before I'd be unable to avoid throwing up New–England clam chowder and King Crab–stuffed quohoggs onto my mother's mink stole. But knock me out––the incalcuable man-hours spent going absolutely nowhere at breakneck speed!
But, uh, to answer your original question, I believe the highly professional, scientifically formulated and finely honed fucking off came to a somewhat abrupt end sometime in 1986. I was writing and playing alot of music––doing alot of messy gigs in claustrophobic bars; barely eaking out a living with my photography, and wondering what exactly the next few years held in store. Up to that point I had maybe painted ten oils on canvas. And I was sitting in my parents' basement, looking at some glorious book of delicious post-modern paintings, and like a bolt of lightning striking my synapses from on high, it suddenly occured to me that I could be a great painter. I became overwhelmed with this all-encompassing realization––a revelation of maybe biblical proportions, that I should have already been painting seriously for many years. And I sat for the next several hours, wondering why I hadn't yet become the important painter I knew I had been born to be. The very next morning I was at the art supply store with whatever money I had to my name, and I bought several good-size canvases, paint, and brushes, and rushed back home, and began to paint like a madman obsessed. I painted like a man stranded on Death Row for decades, who suddenly learns he's been vindicated for the crime he knew all along he didn't commit. For the next fifteen years I proceeded to paint, make photographs, and still persue all my other artistic passions. I eventually became conscious of the fact that I was making art at a fever pitch, and working in more media, styles, and subjet matter than anyone I knew of. No matter what my situation, selfishly or not, I refused to take any job that didn't have direct bearing on my work as a fine artist, even if it meant having little or no money, and living with my parents; who, may it always be known, understood and graciously accepted this highly unconventional lifestyle, while supporting my difficult ambitions to the fullest. And to this very day, I am on the Internet with a website promoting the fact that I am working in the truest, purest tradition of the “Renaissance Man.” And you know countless well–meaning individuals have told me–ha!––warned me––that I must abandon all but one of my creative objectives, in order to achieve any kind of tangible, commercial success. By God, on more than a couple of occasions, I've been told by my employers that I'm “too talented––too prolific”!! You simply cannot do it all Eric! It can't be done! Well, my dear friends, I intend to unequivocally prove you wrong. And not out of spite or revenge, but truthfully because I get such an all–fired kick out of all the different forms of artistic self-expression bestowed us, that I couldn't be at all fulfilled, as an artist, or a human being, agreeing to be held to working in just one Discipline! Not this kid! Impossible! If I become well-known, or reach any level of critical acclaim, it will be because no other artist on the scene today has developed so many varied and contrasting bodies of work to the extent and originality I have. And I feel I'm so very nearly there now; I just have to critically focus, and completely open myself up to the recognition factor. I think of the old Jackie Mason album; I'm The Greatest Comedian In The World, Only Nobody Knows It Yet!

AF: How much Truth is there in that sentiment? In other words; do you really consider yourself to be a ‘great’ artist? Could you think of yourself as even perhaps the ‘greatest’ artist working today?

EB: That's a really excellent question. I mean that really probes to the depths of the artist's quintessential personality. At least it's something that I find myself grappling with quite often. I think of some of the artists who have deeply influenced not only my work, but the way I think; the manner in which I interact with my fellow artists, and people in general. Lets take the obvious–Picasso for example. Based on all the documentation, it's a very good bet that not only did he consider himself to be THE GREATEST creative mind of his time, but that he had these kind of feelings of superiority even as a child! You can point to many statements of his that portray a man of tremendous...ego, yes, but moreso, a person of enormous confidence in his abilities. Being human, of course he experienced times of great self-doubt, but in fact seemed to be able to channel this negative energy into positive. Like an alchemist of energies, he let nothing drag him down, not even a notch. I so love his theory of style and originality. He spoke of the beauty of trying to literally plagiarize other artists––that this was perfectly acceptable, even admirable; but that you would eventually have to fail, because no one is capable of truly copying another's work, and in that failing, one would discover one's own quintessential originality. Is that not beauteous? To take such a thing a plagiarism, and view it from such an angle of power and triumph. He was such a monumental contradiction. And in much of this dichotomy, I sense, and fully understand his view of himself as a undeniable creative genius. He could make a statement about himself or his work, and within that one statement, display incredible bravado in conjunction with intense modesty. He would describe his weakness and ambivilance as the foundation for his immense self-awareness and unflappable conviction. The man exuded a dynamic power, even into venerable old age. Another one of my mentors on that level is Bob Dylan. Again, this ever–present set of contradictory manifestations. Off-stage he was often relentless in his presenting a figure larger than life, and believed it, knowing both his champions and detractors did too. Handling his associates like a matador, often satisfied with nothing less than total victory. And moments later, appearing on–stage, a waifish silhouette, laying bare his soul before thousands; breaking his heart in song for applause. So many of the artists and performers I admire make it fairly obvious that they operate under the belief that they are the best at what they do. It seems they could not do what they do, the way they do it, unless they performed within these self-styled parameters. It is no coinidence my list of favorites. Picasso, Dylan (who many have dubbed the “Picasso of singer-songwriters”), Ali, Brando. John Lennon, in one of his characteristic moments of brutal honesty said “I don't know if there's such a thing as a genius, but if there is, then I am one!” These are the kind of individuals who have never failed to move me to great heights of creative inspiration and Self–Awareness. All have moved me to tears with their work. It is practically inevitable that I would come to perceive myself in such terms, artistically anyway. In fact, true to Picasso's theory of willfull mimicry, I spent my formative years learning to make art and perform by desperately trying to be my heroes. So much and so often that eventually I had nowhere to go but to myself. If one is any kind of valid artist, then one will eventually transform outright imitation into natural distinction. In the case of Dylan––he began doing an eerily perfect imitation of Woody Guthrie, and ended up being our most original musical composer and performer, bar none. I've been living this contradiction on a daily basis for many years now. When I am in a mindset of self-doubt and feel my work to be lacking in tangible meaning, no one is more down. But when I'm on, and creating in a manner I know I'm capable of, I'm well aware I can give off vibes of near incorrigable self-assuredness. My ongoing philosophy, which I feel has gotten me as far as I've come so far, is that if I don't believe that I am the best at what I do, then why on earth should I expect anybody else to believe it? And why would anyone go into his or her life's work without seeking the highest peek? It seems silly to the point of absurdity to strive for second best. So, to be quite candid, I do consider my work to be the most original and my talent to be the most diverse. It is part Faith, but it's also part aspiration. To be considered the best by anybody would not offend or embarrass me the least, at this point.

AF: What are your feelings about achieving commercial success? I get the feeling you are wary of it, or may possibly even disdain the idea...

EB: Hmmmm. Well. I tend to complicate simplicity sometimes; I know that. This could be taken as a very simple question with an equally simple answer, but I don't think that's going to happen, mainly because I am probably hung up about the whole concept.
You see, to alot of artists, and at many times in my life, I view commerciality, or commercialism, as a dirty word. In my clearest, Zen moments, I would likely admit that it isn't a dirty word, and that there's nothing inherently wrong or bad about having commercial success. I look at it I guess like money. Money itself is not bad. Generally I would probably rate it a pretty good thing. It becomes bad when it's in the hands of bad people who do bad things with it. Same with commercialism. Often it's commercialism that brings high culture to people who thirst for it, and require several forms of access. And then there's one of my very favorite music groups; The Doors. Here is a group of some of the most creatively uncompromising artists the industry has ever seen. Everything about them; their sound, their arrangements, their dress, their attitude, their stage persona––it all permeated a heavy odor of pure artistry. Not watered–down. An almost ‘art-for-art's-sake’ kind of aura. But if you look at the entire picture as realistically as possible, you about have to sum them up, to some extent, as a commercial entity. The way they were promoted; the way in which their music, or ‘product,’ was distributed. The machinery that brought this beautiful sound–art to as large an audience as possible. Essentially a working commercialism––a pure form of capitalism. But the artistic integrity of their work was maintained at a an extremely high level, even to this day! In somewhat stark contrast, The Beatles. I can say all the same things about this group and their art as I said about The Doors, but we can ad to the mix a juggernaut of commercialism the likes of which may never be seen again in popular music. These guys were merchandised not unlike Barbie dolls. I don't really believe it affected their music to any great extent, but there's no denying that they themselves, as individuals, and as a group, were sold to the adoring fans like so much confetti. It became so big, so quick, so fast, like an industry in itself, that they never had any control of it, and may not have even been aware of it on a philosophical level, at least early on. This is one of the major factors which drove Lennon to such intense distraction, and ultimately, professional depression. He felt he had sacrificed dignity and integrity for popularity and money. May have seemed like an o.k idea when he was just coming into adulthood, and the big, fat checks were sailing in. Eventually, his artistic maturity and Self-awareness became the guiding factor. Myself––I have yet to experience what it's like to have the big, fat check sail in. I have no idea at all how that event will affect my own personal philosophies regarding art–making, business, fame, and wealth. It would be foolish to predict. I do know that it takes a real kind of courage to take the stand like Morrison took when Buick wanted to use Light My Fire for their car commercials. Not only did he object, but the concept so deeply offended his artistic sensibilities, that, it is said, he turned violent when he learned of the others’ plan to accept the big, fat check. Not many people, when faced with that type of financial gain, would have the guts to so emphatically walk away. Another curious legend is how John & Yoko determined the most effective method for achieving world peace was to literally make commercials for peace. They had no qualms whatever about doing it that way, and talking about it blatantly, and boasting of its efficacy. Some would say it was pure [marketing] genius to use the media in such an obvious, in–yo’–face manner. John: “An ad–ver–tisement fo’ peace!!!”
The best I can do right now is say that I'm ambivalent about any sort of obvious commercial success. I would just about rather have my work's particular appeal be somewhat less than mass, because a part of me honestly believes that to produce something which engenders such enormous popularity––the type many artists enjoy today––is to, on some level, agree to forsake one's intrinsically meaningful creative qualities for the very shaky and brittle mantle of Popularity. Is it possible to have both? Mass appeal and that creative/artistic edge which made you want to create in the first place? That edge that comes about when you are making your art directly from your most raw, artistic visions? Possible. Anything's possible. I guess I'm a bit jaded, because based on my own experiences, whenever I've been offered even a modicum of commercial success, it seems to have always been guaranteed at the expense of some quality or aspect of my work which I knew in my heart to be irreplaceable––completely essential to what my work is, and who I am––but which is curiously deemed expendable to the party offering me the “trophy.” I guess I'm working towards that instance when I'm offered some real financial gain, without having to alter the tenor and approach of my work one iota. What a major celebration that will inspire!