TRAVERSE TOKYO

Up until 2010 I really believed that my pictures were better because I shot them on film, I was wrong. Since I shot so much film one day my producer suggested I try to shoot digital for two weeks to save money. I was always worried that I wouldn't be able to blow up my pictures to a large scale that they might get pixelated, I was wrong. Digital offers me a wider range of possibilities and lets me shoot as much as I want for free. I don't have to think that every click I shoot will cost me money. It took me a little while to figure out how to make the digital photos look like film by adding grain and working with the colors and highlights but now I'm a master at disguising it.

The caves were totally dark, pitch black. I set up the shot, posed the model, put the cameras on a tri-pod and then clicked the shutter to open for two minutes. Me and all my assistants had spotlights with colored gels on them and illuminated the interior of the cave while the shutter was open to light the cave. We worked all day through the night most days for over a year and a half to do that series.

I always thought the title of that article should have been called 'Warhol's Grandchildren." Whenever I hear that phrase it makes me think of Dash Snow and how much I miss him. It was a huge loss to me, Dan Colen, our friends, downtown Manhattan, and the art community worldwide when Dash passed away. He left us too soon.

Downtown is everything to me, it's a place where it all goes down. It's my home but it's also my state of mind that I carry everywhere with me. It's where I feel most comfortable and am surrounded by my kind of people. The artists, the dirtbags, the fags and dykes, the weirdos, and everyone is every color and from everywhere. Downtown never sleeps. Stores are open all night, people wander the streets, bars, restaurants, corner delis are open 24/7. We didn't fit into the towns or schools we grew up in so as soon as we got a chance we all ran away to downtown. We ran away to this 25 block radius of Manhattan that we call "downtown." Downtown is a way of life for my crew. It's a mentality and a subculture, it's a lifestyle. You could be from anywhere in the world and have downtown in your heart. Living downtown we have a responsibility to create. Once we all found each other in downtown is when the real fun started.

Yes I'm having two shows at Tomio Koyama's Galleries. One exhibition is photos from my extensive and constant travels throughout the United States. A picture of a girl falling from a hot air balloon, a boy running across a gigantic stack of hay bails, three girls watching the moon rise. The other exhibition is of Animals, is shot in the studio and has more of a sense of humor. A little monkeys with a broken leg in a cast, mischievous mice, naughty porcupines, turkeys that tell secrets, peacocks with polka dots, lizards with long tongues, screeching baby tigers. All set to a backdrop to a rainbow spectrum.

I'm excited to go and see Koyama's gallery in Kyoto. It would be a dream to meet Nobuyoshi Araki and Rei Kawakubo. I would like to eat sushi from Chef Jiro Ono.