TV: John, thanks so much for doing this. You and I go back a long way: We knew each other in high school and graduated in the same class. I’ve always known you as an artist and admire your dedication to your work. You were in the very first show we did at the gallery in 2022, and then your solo show Unatomy in 2023 which we produced a book for. I’ve seen you go through a lot of development but have maintained a certain style which I love. I wonder, are you currently part of a creative community?

JM: Currently I am not a part of a creative community, but I was when I was surrounded by a group of eccentric artists while attending animation school in Denmark. I miss it a lot. A Friday night could simply be like any other social gathering: beer, conversation, listening to music; but also drawing all the while. Even after a week of drawing in class, we all just felt like continuing. Sometimes passing along a comic strip adding a panel per person. Sometimes sketching each other. You'd see someone messing around with a foreign looking pen nib, they'd let you give it a spin and you'd get a new tool in your belt. At the end of the night there was proof of the evening, maybe make a micro-improvement with my ability and be introduced to something I couldn't self discover.
In that environment there's a constant comparison game, and while that could be detrimental if taken too seriously, it gave me perspective on my defining traits and I stopped fantasizing about the idea of being "best' in the broader sense. The idea of best stopped making sense. There's just too many artistic angles to try and be all of them.
Everyone elevated together in their improvement over those years and still no one's style resembled one another. I work solo these days and I still improve but it's tethered to the limited space of my own brain. I'd love to have a crew again, if nothing else just the positive energy and reminder that other people find art worthwhile.

TV: It’s great to be able to draw that kind of motivation and inspiration from people you really feel like you’re a part of something with. I feel like that often comes when we’re young and it’s hard to find that later in life, but I also feel like having those experiences early is what matters, and even what you described tells me that what happened to you in the past is important even now. Looking back can often help looking forward. So is there a first artist you remember being influenced by? Can you share something about that experience?

JM: Like lots of folks Jim Henson was my first inspiration. His influence doesn't directly show up in my paintings but the good vibes of his work like Sesame Street, The Muppets and Fraggle Rock all had tones of honest, lighthearted, madcap creativity that really charged me up and sank into my subconscious. Fraggle Rock in particular really gave me the idea there were other species and worlds running parallel just outside my existence. Then with something like The Muppet Show you could see the joy and chaos of being a musician, or performer, or eccentric and think "Oh man, being on the outside is where it's at!"
I go back to these shows these days and I'm more aware of the layers that Henson and his team crafted underneath the final product. It's really all a subliminal invitation to say: you're allowed to act this way.

TV: I love when I hear artists influenced by creatives in different genres. Henson was a puppeteer, but I immediately see how he influenced what you do. It’s amazing how what he did keeps showing up. I just saw another revival of the Muppets coming out and it’s really inspiring when those things continue to appeal to new generations. Is that kind of mastery of what can be achieved the reason you yourself continue to make art?

JM: For me, it's a visual cue of where I'm at as a person. I can see when I'm improving, when I'm stagnating, when I'm emotional at my core and unaware of it on the surface. I get to expel whatever baggage I might be carrying at that moment. I remember someone telling me that journaling is a way of telling your brain "you don't have to keep thinking about this, it's on the page, let it go" and your brain actually does! An issue feels more solved and you stop the spin cycle of compulsive, repetitive thinking. I think drawing and painting is a similar therapy. I get it out, I feel lighter, I sleep better with better dreams when I've had a day of making artwork. I think some people make it happen with exercise, writing, whatever, but the important thing is that somebody just doesn't ingest all day and not produce something.
In the case of artwork I get the bonus of having proof of my spent day and the chance to see my days accrue and have a tangible reminder that I'm doing something with my time. And I need that, because otherwise my brain would insult me and convince me I'm doing jack shit with my life.

TV: That is a really great motivator, to have physical, visual, recorded proof that you are indeed productive and not just dreaming. I think that is what impresses a lot of folks, or maybe it’s just me. Are there any secrets embedded in any of your work?

JM: More than likely, and I'm keeping it from myself too until I see them revealed by happenstance after it's done.

TV: Cool, I think that’s probably the most important thing, and anyway, I always say the best thing about art is that everyone can have a totally different view of the same work. I often tell the story of one of your paintings that we had in your solo show that I looked at for the entire month and thought of as joyful, and then someone came in and saw it and it brought them to tears. I’m sure what you do is deeply satisfying sometimes and dreadfully challenging. For you, what’s the most unglamorous part of being an artist?

JM: I'm always fighting the feeling that by existing outside the norm, I might be missing key aspects of life. I wonder if my arrested development that has kept me in a quasi-childlike state has led me to completely miss moments of what it means to be a mature adult: I can't generate any real amount of money. I couldn't fill out a mortgage application if there was a gun to my head. I can't even tie a tie when I have to dress up! (I go online to get instructions every time!)
When I'm in a positive state of mind I can chalk it up to tactfully dodging the bullshit of life, but there are plenty of other times when I genuinely wonder if I'm capable of being a functioning adult.

TV: I’m sure there are lots of people earning a lot of money, with huge mortgages, who wear a tie every day who wonder if they’ve missed out on something, like the Oscar Wilde quote “When bankers get together for dinner, they discuss art. When artists get together for dinner, they discuss money” There always another side, and it seems more extreme these days. For you, does making art in the current political climate affect your work?

JM: I wish it didn't effect me as much as it does, but I do feel like the current state of the US has sucked a lot of joy out of my system. Some artists thrive during difficult times and it can give them more to say, but I don't get energy from it. Many projects are exciting to me because they have the tingling excitement of a future prospect and it's very difficult for me to be optimistic about the future right now. It feels like half the process of art creation these days is trying to rally myself into a state of mind to begin, to sit down and care. I'm stuck in a news-obsessive state these days, and though art does provide some refuge when I can get there, I'm having a harder and harder time convincing myself to do it. Yes, I can make art but it really doesn't address any major issue of the day or help anyone.
I do take some solace in the belief that I'm just going through a negative phase alongside the country and there is a better me and a better communal mind just out past the current horizon. It'd be insulting to let these dumb bastards at the top sink my hope and I'm gonna try like hell to not let it happen.

TV: I also feel like the news cycle overshadows a lot of common sense, but then I hear or see something that reminds me that there are a ton of smart people out there who are not going to let stupidity drown out intelligence. I do believe that humans didn’t come this far to completely give up on themselves. I also believe that it will be artists, not politicians, who demonstrate the best parts of humanity. John, I’m glad to know you, thank you so much for doing this!

John Mallett lives and works in Columbus, Ohio