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Please explain what just happened.
I just got up and started to make coffee and noticed that I ran out of coffee filters. I devised a makeshift coffee filter with a paper towel, which FYI, does not work. I ended up spilling scalding hot coffee and coffee grounds all of over my underwear, legs, counter, and floor. I cleaned it up and then emptied out a tea bag and put coffee inside, and now I’m waiting for the coffee to steep, all because I am too lazy to walk out of my fifth floor walk-up to go buy coffee filters.
What is your earliest memory?
Posing for a picture on Easter Sunday with my sister. I was six years old and had a Mickey Mouse belt buckle on.
If you weren’t an artist, what other profession would you choose?
I’d be a surgeon.
Describe a typical work day.
Get up and have coffee, then I get on my bike and go paint in my downtown studio. Later, I head uptown to my partner’s sewing studio to finish up the day. I’m getting ready for my very first solo show here in New York City at Munch Gallery in October.
Is there a time you wish you’d lied?
Yes. My boss got fired once because I was truthful about her behavior in dealing with customers. (I worked in a jeans shop in Soho when I first moved to New York ten years ago) Now I wish I would’ve covered for her.
What would you say to yourself if you could go back in time and have a conversation with yourself at age thirteen?
You’re gifted. The fact that you want to play dress-up with your mom’s wigs and heels is way cool and makes you extra special and very creative.
If you could have only one album to get you through a breakup, what would it be?
The Lion and the Cobra, by Sinead O’Connor
What are three websites—other than your email—that you check on a daily basis?
DListed, NYTimes, and weather.com
From what or whom do you derive your greatest inspiration?
Just keeping my eyes and mind open on a daily basis. New York City is full of hidden treasures. Everything from the Salvation Army thrift store to looking at the sidewalk and seeing the shiny bits inspires me. My friends really inspire me.
Name three books that have impacted your life.
Andy Warhol Diaries (my mom gave it to me as a kid, and as boring as it is in some parts, it really solidified what I wanted in my life); The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz; and Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma, by Michael Peppiatt.
If you could relive one moment over and over again, what would it be?
Seeing the Manhattan skyline when I first moved to New York. It was at 11:30 p.m., October 10th, 2001.
How are you six degrees from Kevin Bacon?
I used to help his wife in a jean shop I used to work in.
What makes you feel most guilty?
Snorting any form of white powder.
How do you incorporate the work of other artists into your own?
I usually look at Rembrandt’s work if I get stuck in a painting or need inspiration.
Please explain the motivation/inspiration behind your most recent exhibit.
I had a two-man show up at Theodore Art. All of the paintings I did are based on drawings I did when I was 6 years old that I came across this past year. I’m really proud of the work… it is the best to date!
What is the best advice you’ve ever given to someone else?
“Never give up hope on your dreams. Put 10,000 hours into your craft.”
List your favorite in the following categories:
Comedian: Monique
Musician: Philip Glass
Author: Harper Lee
Actor: Shirley MacLaine
If you had complete creative license and an unlimited budget, what would your next project be?
I would do an installation on floors in the Guggenheim museum.
What do you want to know?
Who killed JonBenét Ramsey.
What would you like your last words to be?
I WANT MORE!
Please explain what will happen.
The coffee is going to end weak and horrible tasting, and I am going to end up walking downstairs and buying coffee filters and a cup of coffee.
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Scooter Laforge began his love affair with art at a very young age while growing up in the small town of Las Cruces, New Mexico. His burning desire to render things beautifully began with his singer/songwriter mother, and his landscape painting father; both equally inspired his creativity and lust for art.
Laforge’s work can be characterized as Pop Art partnered with abstract expressionism and Dutch classicism. His paintings and drawings are portraitures, landscapes, and objective subject matter, utilizing his special painting techniques and incorporating his homoerotic, in your face, non-apologetic lifestyle. Like Golden Books on acid, his work employs a 50’s illustrated storybook technique, modernized by 70’s color palettes and are influenced heavily by gay pornography, cute fluffy animals, and sometimes iconic cartoons (i.e. SpongeBob Square Pants, The Cookie Monster, and Popeye and Brutis) which are reoccurring characters and themes within his work. His sculptures are derivative of his successful clothing, t-shirt and underwear line, sold exclusively at Patricia Field, East Village, NYC. His sculptures are self imagined 6-foot tall “T-Shirt Monsters” hand-tooled from the exact t-shirts that he makes for sale, and they are a permanent installation at Barney’s New York flagship store.
Laforge’s projects have been showcased at numerous galleries around the Big Apple, such as Exit Art, Wooster Projects White Columns, Feature Inc. and Bucheon, to name a few. His self-entitled t-shirt line has been collected by Iggy Pop, Lil’ Wayne, Nicki Minaj, Debbie Harry, Boy George, and can be seen on many characters on the daytime soap opera The Guiding Light. Recently, he has been selected to feature his work in the London Biennale opening at the Christopher Henry Gallery.
LaForge resides in the East Village and works from his painting studio in Chinatown. His works have been featured in NUMERO Magazine issue 124, T Magazine, and the New York Times.
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