WITHOUT A LOT OF ROMANTIC GRANDSTANDING ABOUT “BEING GIFTED” OR “HAVING A VISION,” YOU REALLY NEED TO DO WHAT YOU DO TO MAKE YOURSELF HAPPY.

The “creative itch” seems a little mysterious. I teach at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Last year, I asked a student why he had chosen a certain color combination, not once, but five or six times. He paused and said, “Because it makes me happy.” This, to me, seems as clear an answer to the creative mystery as any I have ever heard. It’s a form of self-soothing or therapy. I think I’ve always known this, and I think any other creative would agree with this student. I think it’s important to understand this and accept it about oneself. Without a lot of romantic grandstanding about “being gifted” or “having a vision,” you really need to do what you do to make yourself happy.

After more than twenty-five years of being an artist, and ten years of surviving “professionally,” I suppose I just use anything I can get to get inspired. Los Angeles artist Edward Ruscha talks about his work being the result of everything he sees; everything he buys; everything he does. It all goes in there, and then you just feel where the pressure builds and then “Kapow,” something comes out. And not necessarily what you had planned.

The process of creating an intricate painting starts with an inspiration that turns into a drawing and then one cut turns into a painting that unfolds until you have a piece of art in front of you that will give the viewer the emotion of what you had in your head in the first place.

Starbucks approached me to create some artwork for their new Black Apron Exclusives packaging. They wanted the brightly colored “jewel-like” bag to show through a cut-paper coffee package. I created a series of sketches that showed the process from planting to roasting to brewing. After the artwork was approved, I did the cut-paper art. The art was then digitized and diecut to create these beautiful boxes.

The Dryers
The coffee is spread on the ground and allowed to dry in the sun before being roasted.

The Roaster
This artwork shows coffee beans being lovingly poured into the roaster.

The Taster
This artwork shows the final step of cupping each batch before the coffee is bagged and shipped to the stores.

The coloration of this work is intended to evoke the overheated fecundity of southern California, where the growing season is twelve months per year set in what the Chumash Indians called “The Valley of Smoke.” This sky of fiery red hangs over a configuration of overripe green, creating a complementary mashup of smoggy brown. (“Smoghead”; 2006; 72” (28.3 cm) square; cut paper and acrylic polymers on Plexiglas mounted to acrylic on panel; private collection NYC.)

The Peaceable Kingdom paintings are inspired by the Bronx Zoo. As a metaphor for New York City as a whole, the animals depicted exist in a kind of “tense friendliness.” While touching on ideas related to animal anthropomorphism, I hope the expressions on their faces are closer to the nineteenth-century notion of animal nature, than the twentieth-century banality of traditional children’s animation. (Peaceable Kingdom [Evening Land]; 2007–2008; 60” [23.6 cm] square; urethane on laser-cut paper mounted to acrylic on Plexiglas over acrylic on panel; private collection, Chicago.)