Floridation
A podcast about Florida culture hosted by Will and Jon and recorded at Cork Arts District in Jacksonville FL.
Season 2 features interviews with local artists and culture-makers in North Florida.
Season 1 focused on Florida politics in 2025.
Started as an excuse to get drunk on a weeknight and record the evidence, Floridation has since become the single most important podcast in American history. Theme music by the late Brian Jerin.
Floridation
Overstreet Ducasse - Visual Storytelling from the School of Wu-Tang
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Visual artist Overstreet Ducasse is not like other artists. His paintings are of perfectly crafted representational characters that are symbols loaded with so much symbolism and metaphor, they make Dali seem shallow.
Chapter 1 - School of Wu-Tang
Overstreet's work is inspired by music. A graduate of the "School of Wu-Tang", his influences range from the 5th Dimension to Steely Dan, REM to Wu-Tang.
His origins, finding his voice as he comes of age in Miami, sharpening his craft by exploring characters and moving into storytelling as he travels the US.
Chapter 2 - Age of Aquarius
Whereas most artists sketch, he writes. Finding connections between subject matter, bringing those connections into the work, layering language, wordplay, concepts, and parallels across time and space to weave narratives and make stitches in time.
What started as friends geeking out over Wu-Tang became Overstreet's process for exploring and digging deeper into the characters and concepts he found in the narrative imaginations and cast of the Wu-Tang Clan, finding religions, languages and cultures living deep in the Wu-Tang lore.
While traveling around the country as a boilermaker at nuclear power plants, Overstreet was inspired by the song The Age of Aquarius by the 5th Dimension and the ideas and symbols he saw in that cosmic work.
Chapter 3 - Connecting Cultural Codes
Overstreet's work sometimes needs key or decoder ring that only Overstreet himself can really provide.
Finding conceptual pathways from McCarthyism to Reagan to the Jan 6 rioters through the REM song Exhuming McCarthy (which revised to X-zooming McCarthy, listen to the episode for the full story) and from there going down hundreds if not thousands of cultural rabbit holes. The "red scare" references redlining, communism, Russia, China, and MAGA. The "black list" references racism, segregation, and Colin Kaepernick. The humanized targets and hands and bodies and even the sneakers featured in his work each have layers of meaning nested in the paint. These symbols are born in the work, research from one piece leaks into the next, because all of these cultural narratives are connected.
We discuss the pure irrational joy of being surprised by your own creation. Exploring pattern-breaking, disruptive concepts, the meaning of materials and mediums, and the giant fabric hypercube from the MoCA show.
Chapter 4 - Pretzel Logic
The Deepressionists and rebirth pangs. Jacksonville's cultural renaissance 2 decades and still waiting.
The Steely Dan and MF Doom songs are making their way into his current work. He has work on the wall, but he's still letting the ideas gestate and ferment. The art of knowing when the art is done. When he can't work the message into one piece, it goes into a backlog to hopefully emerge in a future series or exploration.
Chapter 5 - Process: Throw a Dart
Overstreet doesn't struggle with inspiration or the need for cultural reset. He finds his solace in his home, his studio, and in his work. He immerses himself in the stories he has to tell until they come forward enough to be ready to paint. If he is at a loss, he has an infinite wealth of explorations in his notebooks and his headphones.
Upcoming show: January at Unicat
References:
https://overstreetducasse.com/
https://canvasrebel.com/meet-overstreet-ducasse/
https://starehouse.com/2012/11/23/american-arcanum/
Season 2 of Floridation discusses art and culture in Northeast Florida with a different artist or culture maker each episode.
Young Buck Coffee locally roasts coffee fresh every week and delivers it to your door. Order today at youngbuckcoffee.com
For more check out The Floridation Papers at Floridation.substack.com. Thanks for putting a little a Florida in you. Y'all come back now, hear?
Where most artists probably get their inspiration from other artists. Definitely. Yeah. You know, I get my inspiration from music. You know, so I a self-proclaimed, you know, I went to the school of Wu Tang.
SPEAKER_01Thanks so much for being with us on the podcast today over Street DuCoss.
SPEAKER_00Thank you.
SPEAKER_01I'm really looking forward to getting to know more about your work and where it comes from. So I really appreciate you stopping in today and hanging out with us. Thanks. So we a couple weeks ago, after we did Chip's show, we like walked around and we got to see some of your work that's up in the gallery here. I've been somewhat familiar with your work over the years and when you've shown, and and I'll talk later about when I like first found out about you and interesting about your reaction to that. But like we noticed, you know, that there's a lot of like meaning and heavy imagery
Origin story - From Haiti to Miami to traveling the US
SPEAKER_01that like tells a lot of story, there's a lot of message nested in all of these images. So I'm really interested in kind of like finding out about that. And I wonder, for the sake of our listeners, just like how would you describe your work?
SPEAKER_03Probably the art of storytelling.
SPEAKER_01Okay, yeah. Tell me more about that.
SPEAKER_03Well, I mean, how it I believe how it really, really started was where most artists probably got their inspiration from other artists. Definitely. You know, I um I get my inspiration from music. You know, so I a self-proclaimed, you know, I went to the school of Wu Tang. Okay. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. So really, yeah, that's pretty much how it started. I think when I first, you know, started drawing. I remember way back in like high school, I was in a class. It was like, I guess an AP art class or so, I think for the 10th, 11th. Where was that? Was that here or no? It was in Miami. Okay. Miami Jackson Senior High class of 95. Of course, named after Andrew Jackson. Right. Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Did they have some awful mascot like the Indian Killers or something? Was the school?
SPEAKER_03Uh probably, but I don't remember.
SPEAKER_02Okay, good. I don't remember. It probably hopefully they changed whatever it was.
SPEAKER_01And you were you were born not in Miami. You were born in Haiti?
SPEAKER_03Yes, I was born in Haiti, came to the United States when I was six years old. Okay. So I was here, you know, yeah, pretty much all my life.
SPEAKER_01And then you went to Miami from there, and kind of like your childhood from then on was Miami till high school.
SPEAKER_03Yep, and then yeah, all the way up to high school. And then after high school, I moved around a little bit. Like I spent like five years in Tallahassee. I think about maybe a year and a half in California.
SPEAKER_01Where in California?
SPEAKER_03It was Oceanside First and uh Los Angeles. Okay. Oh yeah. And then for about maybe two or so years, I did a lot of traveling. Right. Working for, you know, as a boilermaker and laborer for the union. Yeah. So I was traveling like from South Florida all the way to California. You know. Did you enjoy the travel at least? Not really. I don't really like to drive that much, but it was a good job though.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. Lots of contemplation time on highways and byways.
SPEAKER_03You know what? I think the thing that I liked about it, I think I it allowed me to, even though like we were working like in certain outages. Yeah. Because it's like one outage after another, and you get to choose. That's what I liked about it. Yeah. You have to choose where you want to go. Okay. They're all over the United States. Whenever they're having like a re uh refueling, a steam generator change out or all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01This is a highly technical job. You said boilermakers? Yes. What does that mean? I don't even I don't think I thought that was a cocktail.
SPEAKER_03Uh it's like uh dude, I did that thing for so long ago. They mainly work in the condensers.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So, you know, they work with tubes and pipes and fixing condensers and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01In like power stations, like industrial environments?
SPEAKER_03In the nuclear power plants.
SPEAKER_01Oh shit. I'm sorry, I must have missed that when you said it. And okay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So I was at the time I was, I guess, a sub-journeyman. Okay. So I was uh, you know, studying to become a journeyman as a boilermaker.
SPEAKER_02Right. Yeah. Wow. Were you producing art at any level during those years?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, actually, that was the thing that I found very interesting. Is like uh there were certain outages that like it was a lot of work. I mean, well, I wouldn't say a lot of work. You had to physically be there. Right. You know what I'm saying? Right, right. It's a union job. Because realistically, I was thinking, oh my God. Like I worked with my father, he did construction. Okay. You know, he built homes, fix houses, but he built homes from like everything. The only thing that he didn't do was electrical work. Right. So from the foundation to the end of the house, like we built homes. Yeah. So he plums it, he foundation, all that everything.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03So from me working with him, and we're talking about you know, early 90s and stuff.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You know, we didn't have the heavy machinery and all that stuff. So, I mean, I was doing some real hard labor work in building homes. So when I joined the union, I was like, oh my God, this is like this is nothing. Like we're getting paid for nothing. Yeah. And uh, you know, it's like they can't make you, and you know, from having like horrible jobs prior to that, yeah. You know, like let's say if you work at a restaurant, if your job is to cook and it's slow, you know, they want you to go broom this place, go sweep this place. Nope, not with the union. Yeah, it's like if there's not something for you, it's not my job. It's not your job. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Are you still pro-union?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'm still pro-union.
SPEAKER_02When I did the primary vote recently, I just went and saw who endorsed which candidates. And that was one of the things. My my dad was an electrical union, so yeah, I know how important it is.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but as far as like doing artwork, I find it very interesting that even though like there were certain outages, yeah, that you know, let's say because we were traveling, so and the nuclear plant can't be in the residential area, right? So, you know, we have to get a hotel. So sometimes the hotel was about 45 minutes away from the job, so that's an hour and a half back and forth. And you know, you used to work 12 hours, sometimes seven days a week. And even within that amount of work every day, seven days a week, traveling back and forth, I still created a good amount of artwork.
SPEAKER_01Wow. And what were were you were you painting? Were you doing drawing? What uh painting. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Mostly.
SPEAKER_01What kind of stuff were you painting? Were you painting the things you're seeing or are you painting ideas?
SPEAKER_03Like what uh I remembered one of the series that I started working on and prior to the targets, this was I uh did a series on the age of Aquarius. Okay. And as I said, I'm inspired by music. And the reason for that was, you know, I liked that that song by the fifth dimension called The Donnie of Aquarius. Yeah. So I ended up doing at least a good
The Age of Aquarius - Inspiration from 5th Dimension to Wu-Tang Clan
SPEAKER_0330 piece series on that. At least a good 30-piece series on that subject or that song. Awesome. Basically, we didn't have internet back then. So it was I was interpreting it based on whatever knowledge and the limited research that I had. So I created pieces basically describing what they were talking about. And from what I understood is that they were talking about astrology when the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligned with Mars. This was is the downing of the age of Aquarius. So, from based on my understanding of astrology, you know, I was like showing one of the paintings, it was called meditation. So it was a portrait of myself when I used to have actually long locks. Okay. And I was meditating in water, and my hair were 12 different strands that was taking the shape of clock. And each tip uh at the end of each tip had a different sign, you know, and then on one tip, uh, it was the clock because 12.
SPEAKER_01Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, because of 12, and then on one tip it was the moon, and then the the which represent the seventh house, and then Jupiter and Mars uh were aligning. Also, the sign of Aries and Sagittarius was aligning. Pisces was going back into the water because that was the end of Pisces.
SPEAKER_01Did it look kind of ancient? Like, did it come out looking sort of like a symbol that had been around for a long time and you were reinterpreting, even though you invented it? What do you mean? Like, did it look like uh like if I looked at the piece, would it like remind me of like uh Hindu? Like I was about to say, like a mini arms or you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_03Like so maybe, maybe something like maybe something like Earth, Wind and Fire album without all the intricate details. Right, right. Yeah, and you did how many times? But it looked at more. I I think at that time a lot of people were comparing it more to Dolly.
SPEAKER_01Okay, yeah, okay, so some surrealism in there and okay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And yeah, I did uh at least a good 30 pieces with that series.
SPEAKER_02Did any of your co-workers or bosses or any did they know you were painting during this? Were you like considered a weirdo being a boilermaker and a painter?
SPEAKER_03Well, I'm sure I was considered a weirdo because for like I went to inner city school in Miami. So, you know, there were totally was mostly black and Hispanic.
SPEAKER_02So was it a tough school?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I would say yeah, it was a tough school. So I'd never heard about the union. So when we started going traveling, it was just me, and I found out about this from a friend of mine's who I've known since elementary school. So it was just me, him, and maybe one other Haitian dude. Yeah, all three of us, and we were young too. Yeah, so when we go out traveling, we're like we're practically the only black people there with some of the people from Tennessee and with their fathers and they uncles and like they've known about this for years, they're generational, yeah. So of course, uh and I had long locks, you know. So I was and I was Haitian, so yeah, yeah, of course, I it that the art didn't need to stand out, you know what I'm saying? So there's a lot of other things going on.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so when someone finds out you're an artist, they like that tracks, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Uh no, I didn't really, I don't recall really communicating with people like that. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, if we were like somebody that really, really knew me, then you know because you're sort of in a nomadic phase, right? You're just when I was there, yeah. When I was there, and this is probably why I created so many artwork when I was there, because I was in such a strange place that I really didn't need to be. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? You're having like stranger in a strange lane strictly for the money, yeah. You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_02So are you glad you experienced all that though? Just to have it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'm glad that I experienced it, you know, to be able to make money and to be able to travel. And at the same time, I didn't have to work all year round. So I can go to work and I can chill for a few months, create some artwork, go right back to work, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, so it was it. I felt like it was, even though I didn't like the job, I think it was a very good balance in as far as being an artist. And I come from a very hard-working background, so I have no problem working and creating art.
SPEAKER_01Yes. That's great. You'd like take that ethic, but like turn the energy towards your work, your the work that you have heart for, uh, and not just be like, I'm gonna waste all my energy killing myself.
SPEAKER_03I mean, uh unfortunately though, the I would say the plant didn't produce any artwork. Like, as far as I was not inspired to create anything, although I do have some ideas in my head that I probably will do in the future.
SPEAKER_01You know, sure, it still shapes you, you can't help it.
SPEAKER_03Right. Oh, one of the inspirations that I might one of the artwork that I might create was when you go there, you realize like even like the uh I don't know how it is now, but or different places. But the trades are so segregated. Yep. And it's weird because even the hats that they the hard hats that they wear seems like it's segregated also. Oh my god, the personalities of how people work, you could see segregation. Yeah, there's like boss hats. Absolutely, and then there's not and then guess what the boss's hats are? Of course they're white, right? Guess what the the the so-called lowest, you know, I wouldn't say they are the lowest, but considered the one that considered the men most of the lowest, yeah. The lowest trade is a laborer, okay, right? And from when I was there, yeah, all the laborers were black. Black. I was about to say, don't say black, man. And then the uh the painters were Spanish, wow, and then you had the pipe fitters and the interest, you know, the electricians, and yeah, it was like, and then they used to treat the laborers badly, of course. Everyone treated me. Because the laborer was like almost like uh what you know, we would call Duke Boy. Right. Basically, they sleep with somebody with a with uh uh with an electrician or or let's say uh carpenter. Yeah, uh like carpenter mostly builds scaffolds and stuff like that. And you know, it's like, hey, labor, go fetch me out, whatever. Right. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, they do.
SPEAKER_02Not even a name, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03The little bit of uh and then you know, like the laborers, you know, they're like they're like, oh my god, there goes a white hat.
SPEAKER_02You know, right, yes, in upstream.
SPEAKER_01So let me take us on a little bit of a journey between well, so I'll start with like I think I told you this once before when we saw each other at like Mocha on the fly. But when I worked for Fogle, Lee Fogle at Fogle Fine Arts Gallery many years ago, I was just like a marketing person for her or whatever. And she told me that she that I think that you had come by or she had run into you, she found out about you somehow, and she showed me this piece that was like I think I thought it was pencil, it might have been pen and ink. And she told me you had done it in high school and it was of one of your teachers or something. But when I first saw it, I was kind of far away, and she was talking, and I turned and looked at it, and I in my mind thought it was a photograph. And then as I got closer to it, I realized that it was a drawing, and I was like, holy shit. And that was so intimate and representational, but still felt like it had expression and everything in it that it was fascinating to me, especially because you were a high schooler, I guess, when you did that. Do you remember that piece? I didn't make that. Oh, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_03Okay, yeah, yeah. It was it was a piece that I did in high school actually for during the APR class, we had these projects, it was called the concentration projects, where we had to come up with a theme and come up with like seven pieces, and then at the end of the year, it was I think it was sent to Savannah to be judged, and you would get a score from like one through five or so. And at the time, like I felt like my mind wasn't developed yet as far as telling stories. So the way that I would express myself was through the characters itself. So, you know, older people with wrinkles and stuff have deep character, you know what I'm saying? So that I think that was probably what that was what that was about basically. Me trying to find like some kind of way of expressing or telling a story, but not fully developed yet. Yeah. So I would look through to you know, expressive characters, sure old people. Yeah, that image that you're talking about later on in like 2006. No, 2000, yeah, yeah, 2006, which would be what 20 years or so. Uh we could we ended up me, Adrian Rose, and Roosevelt Watson, we ended up creating this group or this movement called the Depressionist movement. I remember this, right? And that image was used as the actual love. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01What was the journey like from that sort of work to like the storytelling? You know, I'm curious about those pieces that help that that like that helped you like the all those travels and all of like these new pieces. How did you grow that muscle of becoming a storyteller beyond just the character?
SPEAKER_03So, so now you know, I'm graduated and I'm living in Tallahassee, and you know, I've got friends, you know, you know, I'm out my my parents' house and stuff, you know, and I'm really getting into music, and one of my favorites, if well, my favorite is Wu-Tang. So I had uh two friends, we used to work together, and after work, we used to go to my house or Andrika's house, and we used to chill, and we used to listen to music all night. Yeah, and 99% of the time it was Wu Tang music.
SPEAKER_01Okay, you know what was uh uh it was uh 36 chambers, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Uh only built for Cuban links was the main one. That's Raekwon, right? Raekon, yeah, and Jiza, the liquid swords, yeah. Only built for Cuban links was definitely the highest rotation. Nice. So for me actually listening to this music and loving this music, and because there are nine individual members, I started drawing, you know, Wu-Tang like the Wu-Tang symbol.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And then I started drawing their members individually, and I started attaching characteristics to each and every member. You know, because they all had like different names and yeah, the chef to Bobby Digital to Noodles, to you know, they had so many different names and characteristics. So as I'm doing this, I'm real, I didn't know at the time, but I'm just developing way how to explain things. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, so just because they had so many members and I'm trying to describe them through visual interpretation, I'm learning how to describe things, yeah. So, but then it gets even deeper because we're and then this was before the internet, so you couldn't Google what this was. So it got even deeper because initially I thought that like the way that they talked was just a New York slang, yeah, right? Yeah, but then a friend of mine's for some reason he was doing some research, he got a hold of this pamphlet, and it was like the supreme mathematics and the supreme alphabets and the 12 Jews, and then we started looking at it and we started studying, we still and then we realized wow, this is just not a slang. They are actually talking about a culture that started in the 1960s, around the same time as the flower movement, power, you know, inspired by the song from the fifth dimension. Yeah, yeah, you know what I'm saying? So it's that same era, and it was based, uh, it was based on Clarence X13, okay, which was a guy uh who started what is known as the nations of gods and earth, that is better known as the five percenters. Okay, so a lot of the Wu-Tang members were five
Starts with writing. Decoding the work, making connections across time and space
SPEAKER_03percenters. So what they were saying, like peace God and knowledge be born, and all you know, and stuff the way that they talked, it was not just a slang, it was it was like a a culture that existed. Yeah, so once I learned about that, I was like, Oh my god, I started studying the alphabets, the numbers, the Jews, and then that created a completely different art, which actually started to change from more of I would say the Dali-esque style, yeah, more into like somewhat of a basquiat because I was writing and I was interpreting words and letters and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and creating language and symbology as absolutely, yeah. So we were talking about this a little bit at the beginning. The thing that I always feel about your work, even like the first time that I heard You're talking about it. I think it was just an open studio, and I'd been hanging out with Chip and I was in the hallway looking at his work, and I heard you just talking to people about some of your pieces, and there were so many dense layers and layers of meaning. And I wonder, like, how do all those complexities like come together in time for you to be like, okay, now I'm ready to paint those things together? Like, how does that how does all of those layers of story get in there?
SPEAKER_03Oh, you know what? And that's another thing I would say that is uh that's a little different from a lot of artists. Most artists do a lot of sketching, I do a lot of writing.
SPEAKER_01Okay. You know what I'm saying? So that's interesting.
SPEAKER_03I've had notepads and notebooks that I keep information in. Like when I was living in California, I wrote about, and this was during the Wu-Tang era, I wrote about the 12 Jewels, right? And it was like eight years later, until you know, after I moved to Jacksonville, yeah, that I actually created the paint, uh, the painting called the 12 Jewels. So I keep them in, you know, in writing. And now because I have the phone, I write on my phone constantly. Yeah, I've got like a page just for art, yeah. Like jotting notes down, and sometimes it'll be a year, be two, three years until I actually create it. So by the time, and then what's beautiful about it too, sometimes the ideas start to merge together as time progresses. Like I might have another idea. I say, Oh my god, I was thinking about this, I was thinking about that. Let me put that together, you know? Yeah, so that's that's how it happens. It's just a lot, a lot of writing, a lot, a lot of thinking, yeah, a lot of meditating, a lot of uh sitting in front of the piece and not doing anything, just like trying to figure it out. Yeah, you know, I'm actually I'm actually amazed sometimes, even though I do a lot of writing, and I'm when I'm actually ready to go and put it down and start actually creating it, and I think I know what I'm doing, something new emerges, then I'm like, oh my god, I had no idea what I was doing. Yeah, like this is way greater, it's an amazing feeling. It is way greater than what I thought about, what I wrote, and I could like how could I not have seen this? Right. How am I creating something that I'm surprised by? Yeah, like yeah, it surprises me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I I love that sensation so much. I totally, I totally dig that. I wonder, like, there's no way though, right? Like you've put so much thought and and you've produced, you know, writing is thinking. So every time you're writing, you're thinking through it again and another piece of it, and in all of these different instances, and then you're that that all gets layered in there, even if it's even if it comes out as one thing, and then it surprises you because you're like, oh yeah, that does it is saying something, I believe, but that surprised me the way it said it, or whatever. So if somebody new comes to your work and looks at it, there's no chance if they don't know you and they don't get to have that conversation for them to unlock all that story, right?
SPEAKER_03That's true, but you know, in some of the more complex one, but I've been surprised sometimes where somebody comes in and it's like, oh my god, I completely get it. And they tell it and they explain it and they completely get it.
SPEAKER_01That's what I was wondering. If you get these connection moments that are surprising because it's not on the face, like I know what this is about, you know, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. It's it surprises me. Sometimes people get it, but yeah, it does require some type of interpretation from myself through maybe talking through or artist statement.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I had a question about that because when first met you a couple weeks ago, and I was like, Oh, yeah, I really like some of your stuff, and you were like, Well, that's what this means. And I was talking to John about earlier, like a lot of artists are like, I'm not I'm not gonna tell you what my shit means. One, maybe they want you to, you know, bring your own interpretation to it, or two, I don't know, maybe it doesn't mean anything, but you were just like, Well, this is this, this is this, like right.
SPEAKER_01The targets meant something, the shoes meant something, like football and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_02And so, I mean, do you think that you're in like a minority for people that will just go, well, that's what this means, or did we just get a peek behind the curtain?
SPEAKER_03I think I might be in a minority, and the reason being is because uh what you're saying, I've experienced it all the way back in elementary school, and I've heard this said over and over again. It's not what I think, it's what you think. It's not you know, so I'm like a complete opposite of that.
SPEAKER_02It's interesting because I know one of uh one of your works I forget what you the song is exhuming McCarthy. Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yours is zoom in.
SPEAKER_03Exhuming. This is remember what I was a great segue again, too. Yeah, remember I was telling you that I was just so amazed by that was the piece that I was uh that was in my head because I'm paying, I've written all this stuff down, and and I have all the ideas of what I want to interpret, but you know, and you know, exumen McCarthy. Do you know why it's called Exhuman McCarthy? No, I don't. It's a song by REM. Well, I know that you know I know the REM song.
SPEAKER_02I'm very familiar with the song, but I'm not sure the relation. The context, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I had a I had a teacher when I was in junior high school, which was an inner city school also, but it had a magnet program. It was a and it had art and it had photography. So, but we had to take a test for you know to figure out where we were gonna go. So I took the test and they put me in photography, and I was very, very upset. But the teacher was like had a very big influence on me. He was an amazing teacher, but he was a weirdo, like you know, a white dude, total hippie, okay, you know, in the middle of the inner city teaching us photography. All the teachers hated him. All the kids loved him, even the worst of the worst used to come and hang out in his class. When I say the worst of the work, I'm talking
Hands down - X-zooming Macarthy, boxing gloves as a cheat, pattern-recognition
SPEAKER_03about you know, people who would be cutting class, getting bites and all that stuff. Just want to hang out in his class. Well, anyways, he used to play REM. Oh, okay, you know, and then I guess at first I didn't like it, but then it grew on me. It would end up being one of my favorite bands.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, interesting. Because even Mike, that's what made me think of that. It was because Michael Snipe said he doesn't like to explain his lyrics because he feels like he's still he's robbing the listener of their interpretation. But it's I find it refreshing because I'm like me and John were talking again earlier. Like, it's fun looking at your stuff, you're like, okay, I need a decoder ring, I need to kind of figure out I need the key to this. What does this mean? But it's just it's just to me, it's just I've never seen an artist in my limited experience be so you know open about their symbolic, you know, all that stuff.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, so as I'm working on this piece, and it was uh I believe the REM version is based on the Reagan era, right?
SPEAKER_01Because it's after the original McCarthy, yeah, bringing it back, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So I decided to create one for our era, yeah. And and actually what ended up happening is that I was doing I was it was a period where I was doing drawing so many hands because uh the sign of the time that's the series, right? Okay, because I was using sign language of the hands, right? Yep, yep. I saw the BLM with the conjugate. Absolutely. So that's with the sign of the time. So using sign language to basically sign the letters. Now I get it. Sign of the time, yeah, exhuming McCarthy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the chorus. Yeah, yeah. So so I'm creating this piece, and you know, I I didn't want to do hands anymore. I was so tired of doing hands, right? And then I thought, oh, what if I do a boxing gloves? That would be so much easier to draw the hands, right?
SPEAKER_02But so many people can't do hands. You your hands are really good and accurate, man. But yeah, so is the boxing glove really just to cheat?
SPEAKER_03Is that just I was trying to cheat, right?
SPEAKER_02Like drawing the Simpsons with they only have like three fingers or something, just to keep it simple.
SPEAKER_03So, so I so I but I but the thing is, I need a reason, right? Yeah, I need a reason. I just can't do it. I just can't just but it's like narrative that surprises you, right? So I'm surprised. So I'm like, I'm drawing this whole concept of McCarthyism and this, that, and the other. And it just so happens that during that time, what was the there was there was something with the obstruction of justice. Oh, the Capitol rioters, right? I mean, there was somebody in the office trying to you know stop everybody from investigating, trying to find out the information. Yeah, it just so happened that his name is McCarthy. Wow. Oh wow, right? Yeah, and it just so happened that his in his name is not only McCarthy, but his first name is Kevin, his middle name is Owen, last name McCarthy. So you know what that is? K McCarthy. Oh wow, so now the boxing gloves makes a lot of sense, right? Yeah, so so so that's why there's the K-O and McCarthy on the gloves. And then, you know, if you look in the background, and you when we're talking about McCarthyism, we're talking about the red scare and the blacklist. Oh. So I was interpreting like everything that's red, MAGA's red, Russia's interference and election red, uh, China supposedly you know being the cause of COVID, uh, red, just you know, everything, and then the blacklist, like Colin Kapnick for kneeling and stuff like that. Yeah, but what I found interesting was what surprised me, the Kevin Owen uh, of course, with the KO, which goes with the boxing glove. Yeah, but I was trying to figure out okay, how am I gonna interpret exhuming? Exhuming. I'm trying to, and I sat in front of this painting for like hours doing epsilon, trying to figure out how am I gonna interpret exhuming, right? Because the word exhuming means to dig up. Right. And in the piece, what I'm doing is I'm basically having you dig up all these little small things. They're like, you know, they're specifically created real small, right?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03So you have to do detective work, kind of, and it just so happens to be on a target because I at the time I'm paying it on target.
Floreada Targets and the Hypercube at MOCA and pattern-breaking
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and then it just blew my mind away. I said, hey, what do you do when you're when you're shooting a target? You focus on the X, you zoom in. Uh zoom. So your X zooming in. Yeah, I love. I was like, oh, there it is right there. Yeah, so then that's how I end up. Okay, that's why I'm creating all these little small pieces, so you can actually zoom in on the all these X's on the target.
SPEAKER_01So you're you're getting deep in kind of these pieces, and then you see the story just start to like the patterns overlap, and you start to see like something new emerging from you.
SPEAKER_03That the Kevin Owen was not written, the exhuming was not written. I just had to like meditate and sit in front of this for hours, and then it just comes to me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and then so the uh name of that series is is it just Florida Targets or is it do you print because it's spelled with like Florida with the R-E-A-D meaning read because uh it started off as a magazine cover.
SPEAKER_03So he's also supposed to represent magazines called the Florida Targets, but I spell it with R-E-A-D because it's a magazine. Yeah, yeah, and that all started because the way I started with the targets was I have a friend named Alice Williams, he's a gun enthusiast. I've never shot a gun, I've never like, you know, and I'm not like opposed to guns, it's just never been my thing, you know. We never had one in our house or anything like that. So, but our Alice gave me a target that he shot, and it sat in my house for a while, and then I moved, and then all of a sudden I got the urge to like, oh my god, this is a silhouette. But I don't I do a little rendering of a make it look like a real human being. So that's how it all started. And then there was this show, I think it was the center at the art co-op co-op. Okay, and they had a and I could be wrong, but I think it was a center, and they had this call for arts to participate in the show, and the theme was all things Florida, right? Okay, so in my head, I'm thinking, oh man, it's gonna be some palm trees, it's gonna be some beaches, it's gonna be some pelicans, and you know, like all that stuff. And I'm trying to think, oh, what can I do to disrupt this? You know, yeah, so I was like, okay, but I'm already working on targets, so I don't want to change what I'm doing just to be part of the show, but I want to be part of the show. And then I just thought about this brilliant idea. Hey, I'll just call the targets Florida targets, and it's a magazine from Florida. Okay, you know what I'm saying? And that that solved the theme, and I can continue working on my target, yeah. And that's how this whole concept of this Florida Target magazine started.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Do you do that a lot? Because the last two things you told us, like you're stitching together two ideas.
SPEAKER_03I mean, I imagine sometimes it fails, maybe like the trying to join two disparate ideas, but or is it always just like when you can see the thread, you just I think it's just uh, you know, it's probably just part of who I am and been doing this for a long time, and I'm very like I'm never like yes, there are deadlines, but I don't like the rush things, you know?
SPEAKER_02Right, you know, so you're a union guy, you gotta drag your feet a little bit, you know.
SPEAKER_03So, yeah, if I have to sit in front of painting for two hours and not do anything, then that's what I'm gonna do because I don't like having anything on there that I don't know why it's there for.
SPEAKER_02What about the uh did a little bit of research, but so you there was some a series, I don't know how long it was what with the fabric cubes or what was it called? Oh the hyper cubes, hyper cubes and what was it?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, this is uh actually this is uh a series I think that was started in 2016. Okay, and it was not my brilliant idea as uh Stephanie, my wife idea. Oh, she's an artist as well. She's an artist as well. She just moved out of the studio, but she um had a studio at Cork also. I mean, she's still there, she works in my studio. It's hot right now, so she's working at home. Yeah, yeah. But, anyways, uh, she's a mathematician. Okay, and she came up with this concept called the hypercubes or whatever, and it's basically a shape, you know, you have the 2D, the 3D, and the hypercube would be like an alternative universe, like a 4D. And what I'm saying is her idea, you know, it's like she could better interpret it than I am. I just look at it, okay. Look, we're gonna collaborate on this show together. Let's come up with a concept. And she came up with it, we came up together with the hypercube, right? Okay, and basically we just took this shape and recreated it. And I love doing projects like that. It's it's fun, you know, just because it's not like it's not like the uh other type of work that I do where I have to figure out what's point A, point B, point C, whatever. It's like here's a shape. You get to break out of your own pattern, absolutely. Yeah, here's a shape. How can I run this to the ground? You know what I'm saying? What what yeah? Well, how many things can I do with this shape? I can use fabric, I can use wood, I can use chalk, I can use, you know what I'm saying? So it's all these different interpretations to the one that you probably just seen. Well, when we did that show, I there was so many different variations of this shape, right? But my favorite was the fabric.
SPEAKER_02Okay, that's probably what I saw, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And I've been wanting to do one for a long time, but then you know, it was getting so political that I had to, you know, I had to do the targets. So then Mocha for the first time had a local show, right? I believe that was last year. Yeah, yeah. The biannual or triennial or whatever. So they had a local show for the first time. So so uh uh the the head came to the studio to look at some of my work, and out of all the targets I had, it was that one hyper cube that they were attracted to. So they said, hey, we want you to do another one for the show, but we wanted to do it bigger. So I ended up doing the one for the show with the local t-shirts. You know, so it's just a whole bunch of t-shirts that are glued together flat.
SPEAKER_02How many t-shirts did it take?
unknownWhew.
SPEAKER_03Did you just go to a thrift store or did you uh no, no, these were actual t sh uh these were actually uh personal shirts that I've had for years.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. Wow.
SPEAKER_03And for the ones that I that weren't mine, I actually uh called Ricky and see if she had uh some shirts to donate. But ironically, some of the shirts that she had were the ones that I had I had also, but they had worn out and I probably threw them away. Most of the things so they kind of filled in your collection. Absolutely, yeah. She had a Sean Thurston shirt that I that I uh wanted, but I didn't have, so that was cool. Yeah, yeah. So that's that's what that was. So it was a flat surface, but I drew and I glued the the actual shirts on there, but then I wanted to actually have I wanted to have the actual flow of the real fabric, so I actually drew on the fabric to make it look like it has the you know the folds and stuff like that. Gotcha.
SPEAKER_02I'll have to go back and take a look. And then what was the one? There was a I know I'm half getting these titles, the metal. There was a metal series of some sort.
SPEAKER_03Do you know what I'm talking about? Well, yeah, I did a series with metal, I called it metaling or something like that. And it was inspired by Dolph.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Yeah. Yeah, when he was here, yeah.
SPEAKER_03He was doing woodwork and metalwork.
SPEAKER_01And that's the whose
Current work exploring music by Steely Dan and MF Doom. Upcoming show at Unicat
SPEAKER_01sculpture you got all tangled up in out in the courtyard. Oh, okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So prior to him leaving Cork, uh, he just started giving away a lot of materials. Yeah. Some of it actually had some of his artwork on there. Right. So for the ones that had his artwork on there, I thought instead of just painting over it, because he did metaling and woodwork, I started actually turning, I started interpreting his metal and wood sculptures as uh as 2D. So that I would actually cut out pieces of wood or draw on wood or cut out uh flat pieces of metal and glue it on the draw on it to make it look like it's actually his 3D sculpture.
SPEAKER_01Well, I yeah, I was gonna ask you, what are you working on now?
SPEAKER_03Actually, I've been not I haven't been working for a while. I had this project on a wall and ready to go. Yeah. And then I just got busy doing a lot of other things. Yeah. So I think uh probably by the end of this month or the beginning of next month, I'll get back to working. The project that I was supposed to be, like I had it, I it's already on the wall, ready to go, and I've been writing about it. I don't know how it's gonna turn out though. But I'm trying to interpret interpret this song by Stilly Dan. Pretzel logic was was the one that was supposed to somehow interpret the the colonizers, but I didn't really get it to get into it. So sometimes like I uh I have a brilliant idea and it just doesn't really work out, so I move on and then I just focus on something completely new and yeah, that I I think bad sneakers, I'm gonna just like the uh exomen McCarthy piece. I had all these ideas that I wanted to put in the sign of the time series, right? But when I did the first one, I did, you know, the BM body of a black male with the head and the arms only and the heads representing hands representing the head. And I wanted to do all this blacklist and red scare and all this stuff. Yeah, but then once I looked at the body, it looked at so perfect that I said no, I'm gonna leave it alone. Yeah, so then I said, Okay, well, so I did the front of the body, so let me do the same character, but the back of the body. Yeah. Right? And then the same thing happens again. I was like, oh my God, I just love the way this looks by itself. I'm not gonna add no lettering. Okay. Yeah. So I said, okay, all right, well, then let me go full scale. Now I'll do the whole because at first it was like up to the navel. Yeah. So then I said, okay, let me do the whole body. And this time instead of the man, I already did the front of the man, the back of the man. Let me do a woman. Did that, and I was like, nope, not touching that. So that's like I end up doing like a whole series and not doing any of it. Yeah. You know? So then finally I said, okay, well, I'm gonna focus. So everything that I wanted to do that I didn't do, I'm gonna put it all in exubing McCarthy. And that's why that piece is so busy. Because I've been I've been building up the momentum for a while while creating all the other pieces. Because I'm always trying to figure out a way to like not start over. Like I want to do what I want to do, yeah, regardless of what, because I do a lot of shows or participate in a lot of shows that are theme-based. And I have to figure out how I can do what I want to do without doing, you know, without conforming to what they want me to do. So I have to like, you know, like Frankenstein up my wife, Stephanie. Oh my God, like the way she's just puts, she does these one-line drawings, yeah, and there's so much work that goes into it. And then I've seen her get so far, and it's like, oh, I made a mistake here. I'm starting all over. I'm like, are you crazy? I mean, I would I'll sit sit at the painting for hours and days before I even start over. Yeah, I'm gonna ride this thing out. It'll be sitting in the in my studio for years until like something's gonna, I'm not starting over.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So you would you say you're a stubborn?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, very stubborn. It's gonna work, it's gonna work. I figure it out. Good thing.
SPEAKER_01So when you're like getting busy and the it's on the wall, but like you're not giving it the attention that you want to be able to give to work, it's still like noodling around in your brain that whole time in little ways.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's always in my head, like it's like for especially when it's related to music, which most of the time it is, like that it rings in my head all day. Like when I was uh before I did the sign of the time series, yeah, the sign of the time was ringing in my head, and I was working on a mural, and the sign of the time 2020, it was like in my head all day long, just like bad sneakers has been in my head all day long. Yeah, so yeah, I yeah, I think about it all the time, and then when something clicks, I write it down.
SPEAKER_01It's interesting too, because it sounds kind of like there's almost like a dialogue between you and the universe or your own creative force where you're like, I have all of these thoughts that I'm gonna imbue into this piece, but then when the piece tells you, no, this is it's done, like that's it talking back to you, right? You still had ideas to get in there, but then you're like, no, you know what, I don't want to mess with it.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, yeah. You gotta know when it's done. I usually I used to say, as long as it's in your possession, it's never done, but I find that not to be true.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Like it could go on forever, but it probably wouldn't necessarily always get better.
SPEAKER_03My next exhibit, solo exhibit, is gonna be at Unicat, and that's gonna be in January.
SPEAKER_01Oh, cool. Georgia Noli's place. I love that spot. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So, and currently I'm trying to like I've been saying this to myself, like, why does everything have to make sense so much? You know? So that's why I'm actually trying to. I don't know if it's gonna happen because I'm so I'm so used to like everything have to make sense, but I think that's why I'm trying to do this stiddly dance, stilly dan influence along with MF Doom. Oh, interesting. Yeah, so those are the two of the main artists that I've been listening to for the past uh few years. I've I've always listened to them, but like I've been listening to them like consistently.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so do you think some of your art is gonna contain influences from both of those music?
SPEAKER_03I hope so. Because of when I like, for instance, like a Wu Tang or you know the Age of Aquarius series or so, I can pretty much understand what they're saying based on Supreme Mathematics, based on astrology, and especially now we got Google, you know what I'm saying? Pretty much understand, but still Stilly Dan and MF Doom, their lyrics are so uh unrecognizable to me. It's very, very different. I mean, it's hard to interpret what they're trying to say. Yeah, yeah. So
Overstreet's Jacksonville - The creative community is in a renaissance, but birthing pang thos
SPEAKER_03I I'm trying to use that as the inspiration, and I'm thinking that it's gonna be something a little bit more different from like having a direct from A through Z, like this stands for this, this stands for that. Yeah, I think it's gonna be one of those that you might have to lead to your own interpretation. Hopefully, it will develop some uh a new series or a new style that I enjoy.
SPEAKER_02Looking forward to seeing that, man.
SPEAKER_01Would you ever animate anything? Would you ever bring any of your creations to life?
SPEAKER_03Like have a it'll be interesting to actually like the bodies of the target. I would love to see them like actually speak and tell and narrate their own story because if the artwork, instead of me talking and explaining if the artwork itself can narrate its own story, that would be interesting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01What's something that you love about Jacksonville or something that just interests you all continually? Is there it what it doesn't have to be a place, it can be an activity, it can be like whatever.
SPEAKER_03I think I like my studio here. I'm a pretty much I don't like I mean I wouldn't say I don't like, but I don't really do much at all. Like I don't go out unless like going to support like opening, you know, or or something like that, or musician or or something like that. But I really have like no ambition to go out and do anything at all. Like I can't really like it to me, it's like art all day. Yeah. You know, that's what I do. I wake up, you know, that's what I do, that's what I think about. So unfortunately, yeah, yeah. I don't like yeah, I don't think that's unfortunate.
SPEAKER_01I think that's a great answer. Yeah, you're like, I'm I'm obsessed with my work.
SPEAKER_03Like I am obsessed with my work. Jacksonville is a wonderful place. I moved here mainly because I had for some reason or other, I have three sisters, and all three of them ended up in Jacksonville. Okay, you know, yeah, interesting. So that's how I I I came down here. But I will tell you this though. Right before Jacksonville, I was living in California.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But there was something about Jacksonville, like that's in the air that is motivating. I don't know, it just has this creative energy. Yeah. And you would think being in California, one of them considered one of the most creative places in the world. Yeah. Like, but as soon as I moved to Jacksonville, like I was cranking out artwork. Like I did more artwork like within a month than I did when I for maybe a year and a half when I was in California.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, some people might say because there's not much to do, I don't know if that I think there's a lot of like real stories here, like raw, like raw people out in the world. I I lived in California for a couple of years, and I liked that I didn't know anyone, so I was able to like really be like focused on my work and on me. I didn't go out and do I couldn't afford to go out and do a whole lot. And there were a lot, I mean there were a lot of creative people everywhere there, but they already have kind of their pockets, and they're going for something big, they're not just exploring.
SPEAKER_03Right. I think, yeah, that's that's the unique thing about Jacksonville. I feel like all the major cities, like, what more can you do? Yeah, it's already been done. Yeah, you know, true. Like we're actually making it here. Yeah, we're we're we're in the process of making it and creating it. Yeah, we're in that renaissance period, totally. That depressionist period. This is perfect, yeah. Actually, the the actual the idea behind the depressionist is that the statement was Jacksonville is on the verge of a cultural renaissance, yeah, but the birthing process is very painful. Oh wow, you know, yeah, so that's the concept of the whole depressionist and how do you do you guys still work on that concept at all? Or no, we did murals together, yeah. And you know, as I was saying outside, every time I do a mural, there we're the collaboration's done, right? So nah, we haven't now. We the we have a depressionist page on social media. We haven't posted it for years, we haven't collaborated for years, we haven't did a show or pieces for years. Yeah, I don't know what the future holds. Yeah. Um, but it would be interesting to do something for the 20th anniversary, yeah, which is actually this year.
SPEAKER_01Oh, so yeah, yeah, too. I I have really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you for taking this time with us today. Thank you. Is there anything that we're like skipping over that you'd hope to talk to talk about today?
SPEAKER_03Or not not really. I had no expectations. I came in raw. Nice.
SPEAKER_02Well, you were great, man. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much for this time.
