LC: Scott, we're thrilled to have your work up at the shop as we have been in touch for some time now and there's a certain sense of satisfaction seeing it all come together. Please tell us about this work that you created for the shop and what you hope our community walks away with after spending some time with it.

SS: Robert, thank you immensely. It’s rare an artist gets an opportunity to create a site-specific work - where you know you have an audience. And where folks who may not usually seek out art, but love good coffee, will see it. I like to dream that they are my target audience… and yes, my painting is THE one that opens their minds to the fine tradition of painting forever!

The painting is about one who struggles with irrelevance. How one is, or, why one is, obsessed with being/becoming irrelevant or relevant for that matter. Relevant or irrelevant to what, of course, is ‘fill in the blank’. The poem is mainly about a friend of mine and i growing up artists in NY. in the eighties and nineties - it may also express his fear of irrelevance.

The painting and the poem titled the same in the throes of irrelevance, i thought to be an amusing title/image; i like the large swaying, movements that move the eye around.

These 2 ideas that we brought together at the end for the presentation at Local. The poem of the same title references lyrics from different bands that i’m currently listening to. Each line from a different song. I always love lyrics and poetry. Have you found the excerpt of the e.e. cummings poem in the piece - an excerpt from i carry your heart with me. There’s also another poem by me…called the camel. There’s a lot going on in there - I enjoyed getting into details once I had the main drawing down.

I intended to create the sense of movement. Something of a dance move is at times what is needed for effect of the mark. The mark is very important - it comes first - before design. Design emerges naturally as you feel/plan, or not plan;) your marks. The painting in the throes is mainly comprised of marks - reactions to a previous mark in the design of the entire composition. So, it’s a lot of …make a mark…step away … come back and react to the previous mark. Choosing my materials is the space between doing and not doing something on the canvas.

The Local wall is beautiful with nothing on it so i wanted to keep that integrity - scattering pictures salon style was never an option. The intention is to create a lyrical sense of movement to complement the everyday goings on at Local Coffee.

In general, I like large paintings that can fill up a room, create an atmosphere, a presence - Cy Twomblys’ Peonies/Blossom series comes to mind. Or installations by the likes of Judy Pfaff or Jonathan Borofsky - a sort of entertainment quality.

What i hope the community can take away is a tricky question. I’m not typically an idealist so there is no right answer. Perhaps I’d like the community to walk away feeling like there was something different about the experience outside of the great coffee and friendly atmosphere. Ask themselves a question about the experience, get an impression of the experience.

I wanted to give the community a small taste of an artist who has struggled with his imagery for over 40 years of painting. Forever unlearning, experimenting and painting like a kid again. It’s the activity of making art that’s most rewarding. In my case, through impulsive/reactionary marks, movements, pushing and pulling paint until stepping away. So, a painting is never really complete, never finished.

LC: You are a multimedia artist in that you are also a musician having played in the band BencH. What was it about your childhood that allowed you to pursue such rich, expressive opportunities?

SS: I believe we have innate tendencies toward things we love to do. I’m always drawn to music and art - yes, all kinds, no judgement. I owe every ounce of my childhood growth as an artist to my mom. Making art and music was always encouraged at our Brooklyn apartment. At about age 7 I’d raid her trimmings drawer (she was an apparel trimmings designer) and doodled and glued things like beads, buttons and ribbons onto looseleaf paper, eventually evolving to oaktag. By age 14 i had permission to have a 4-piece drum set in my high school bedroom on the 6th floor of a building in Brooklyn.

By age 16 i was playing Shine on you crazy Diamond with a keyboard and bass player in that same room! So, encouragement to be oneself is a good start for a kid. All i wanted to do was to get home from school and into my kid cave to make art and music. And that’s just what i did. I would take the Daily News and make collages out of the headlines and photos and stick them on the wall and scrawl away. On my high school bedroom walls hung my artwork and those huge posters of rock bands that you bought at Spencer gifts - taped up with fluorescent orange and green masking tape and black light bulbs! Irrelevant indeed.

BencH was an attempt at a street-core, industrial noise art band. 3 people grew up in a band together for 14 years so what you learn is relationship. Musically especially - we were an experimental, noise jam band - heavily influenced by Missing Foundation, Einstürzende Neubauten, Throbbing Gristle, Butthole Surfers, etc.

If you like experimental rock/jazz/industrial noise you might like to venture - find us here:

https://soundcloud.com/tom-t-hall-1

https://soundcloud.com/tom-t-hall-1/popular-tracks

https://www.youtube.com/user/benchresinvideos

LC: We talked a bit about the East Village in NYC. While I was more situated in Greenwich Village and Little Italy, the East Village always fascinated me with its 'we don't really give a fuck what you think attitude'. Some of my childhood's most memorable events happened there. Tell us what the East Village meant and means to you.

SS: The artists and musicians had to think like that - it was a self-fulfilling prophecy - failure was success… we fail over here in the east village - that’s why no one likes us and that’s ok! It was naturally transgressive. It was living art and well done at that. Remember Nick Zedd and Tommy Turner from the cinema du transgression? They were two that had that attitude you speak of but being artists they gave us what they knew how to give at the time. So it was very rock and roll.

Art and Music coincided, cohabitated - it was wonderful.

LC: You've transitioned your life to New Jersey and it's quite a swing from your childhood in Brooklyn and impressionable years in NYC. It took me a while to really accept not living in NYC anymore. (I still dont think I'm over it) How have you made the transition and maintain your core?

SS: For me, the core is maintained by knowing that it exists and most importantly, respected. That it needs food and attention just like a living being - creativity in nature.

Without art and music i am imprisoned. Honor thyself.

As far as the transition? I had built a house in upstate NY while in the band BencH - at first it was a rustic 1 room cabin with an outhouse. It soon became a house on 13 acres with an art studio and 16 track recording studio. So, I already made up my mind that the city was not where I will always be. I had all my toys in one place, it was heaven.

LC: What are you working on now and what can we expect to see from you in the near future?

SS: I’m working on a house in upstate NJ and just about completed the art studio. I have several ideas for another polyptych that is in sketch phase. It will be different than the Throes - they always are. Picture making always seem to get to where it need be.. most times without the throes of anything!

Thanks again Robert! and look forward to another go at that great, rust-colored wall @Local.

LC: What is your favorite coffee or tea beverage?

SS: Cappuccino molto caldo per favore!

Reach out directly to Scott for any inquiries @ 973.873.4258

I'm happy to say that you were one of our first clients at Local and we immediately connected. There was this candid openness while speaking with each other and learning how each of us spend our time. How has this openness to life in general contributed to the genesis of your work?

My work often relies on a certain tension. The tension between public and private…

I have not always been so open. I am naturally shy, and have to work to put myself out there and be open. Maybe the openness is inspired by my peers and my kids. I don’t want to be known as that closed-off dude hermitting out in the corner!!!

Your work is articulated as a peek through a door cracked open which is wonderful honesty but could also be a bit scary because of the associated vulnerability. How do your subjects deal with this transparency?

Peeking through a door cracked has been a theme for me for a long time. I love finding that awkward and completely honest moment. The one where no one is posing or making a cute face. Beautiful imperfect moments.. There is a delicious honesty when you glimpse someone when their guard is totally down and they think they are alone!!

It is amazingly intimate to paint someone.

I paint in layers, many many layers. It is the nature off the acrylic paint, but also it is a metaphor for a person. We all have so many layers. Each one is a little transparent. I like to build those layers with paint. Each one building on another, masking it just a little. Within a painting, I will add one layer right after another. More blue. Just a little more red. More white until it is just right, then flood it with spraypaint. Drip drip drip!

For many years I only painted exquisitely personal subjects…very personal portraits and self portraits. It was an extreme way to show vulnerability.

I made a deal with myself a long time ago: No matter what I portray, I never hold back and always paint what I see…every wrinkle, crease and fold. That may be abstracted by the process, but in my head it is super real.

Honestly, I think that the people that I have painted have been so so absolutely open to anything that I am the one somehow trying to hold back. I find I am maybe the vulnerable one, even though the subject is being exposed and examined.

I am maybe the one looking through the door…

As an artist, how do you see your work evolving as you grow in experience and knowledge?

When I first started painting my work was about one single, honest, situational moment. I was interested in what it was like to view that moment from the outside, when the door cracks. I would make up a situation and narrative that was usually really dark. Lots of blood and tears, Now, I am more accumulative in my process. I watch, listen , Observe and collect and remember. I am more interested in the all the things that add up to blow that door open, so everyone can see.

Currently, I feel like my work is less tragic and more of a diary and journal. Maybe a tiny bit less dark. Somehow it is more fantastical and dreamy, but a lot more true to me. In the past I made things up, and in that journey I was trying to be honest, but maybe it was just a front I put up.

Seems like I am now projecting outward, instead of working inward!

Do you have a work that you have created for sale but then ultimately couldn't part with it?

Yes, absolutely…

I do believe artists should hold onto a piece of work here and there.. To document major bodies of work or personal journeys. Art and artists live and evolve and it is important to document that. I am not the same artist I was 10 years ago. I have been interested in different things, and even my painting technique has evolved. It is great to have that documented. I have always thought so.

One example of a piece that I have held onto is the first portrait I ever did of my wife. I have done many works with her since, but that first one is special. It is an important reminder of a very intense part of my life too. I truly cherish it!

I'm fascinated with the scale of your work; did you always work at these extreme ends of the art spectrum?

Scale as in size? I have always felt that a piece will tell you what size it wants to be if you give it a voice. I have always been more into actually painting larger work. I think it works for me to paint with my body. When you paint smaller work, say something that can sit on a table, you paint with your wrist and you often hunch over the work and stay close. But if you paint larger work, you tend to paint with your body, wrist to elbow then to shoulder and so on. You also tend to need to back away to see it all…that works for me. I need a painting I can dance in front of.

Scale as in scope? I currently have three major themes in my work. I have always loved portrait and figurative work. The body and face are the ultimate way to express for me. I have been drawing or painting people since fourth grade, you can do the math as to how many years that is.

I also paint a lot of balloons. This body of work is really the opposite if portraiture for me. It can be easier for an Audience to digest and also easier for me to just get into the painting process.

I also have painted flowers for quite a while. They started as very realistic still-livesbased on the “language of flowers” from Victorian days when people would communicate with bouquets of flowers, each flower has a meaning. Now the workshave moved to a very fantastical, wild and juicy spot. They are very personal to me, my own visual diary and journal. Each flower representing a moment in my life.

What has living in Montclair meant for you and your work?

Montclair has been wonderful for me and my work. The work has somehow gotten much larger since I have been working in my barn (studio). II have found a community that I didn’t expect to find. There are so many wonderful people!! I fell like I can do anything with my art right now and am so excited about that feeling. I project out since I have lived here, instead of caving inward. It was an amazing moment for me when someone asked if I can call it homeand I said (without hesitation) YES!

I always have music on…it is very influential in my work. When my studio was in Brooklyn I listened to Hip hop almost all the time. Now, in my barn, I find that I still play a lot of hip hop, but a little miles davis can comfortably creep into the mix and live there. Dylan lives with Biggie in my studio now! Living in Montclair has somehow put a beautiful balance to my life…

Conceptually, what does being local mean to you and how does it play a part in your process?

Being local is a support system. Feeling comfortable and supported with where you are in life and also where you actually are. Not feeling transient. Feeling rooted and growing instead of blowing in the wind.

Being local makes me smile!

Tell us something about art that only you or very few people know.

I have always been fascinated with light and how it bounces through your eyes and brain. The Raft of the Medusa by Gericault is my favorite painting of all time. He painted all of the water drops with three strokes of paint-red, yellow and green-in certain shades so that they vibrate when next to one another. The water droplets seem to sparkle because of this! Brilliant!

What is your favorite coffee or tea beverage?

I like ‘em all!! But really, just a good cup of coffee with cream is the most delicious thing in the world.