Gawker Artists I met Joe Heaps Nelson at Polonia on First Ave to get provisions for our interview. Natasha, the first non-Polish girl to ever work there, set us up with mixed pierogies, a pair of meatloaf sandwiches, and a bit of sadness that this little gem from Long Island didn't have enough money to pursue her love of cast-bronze sculpture outside of school. We settled down in the International Bar up the road and got to business. Nelson has the look of a Cultural Studies professor at Berkeley with his mane of hair and perfect rumpledness, boyish eyes sparkling with intelligence and mischief. He left Des Moines, Iowa to slack off at the University of Pennsylvania in 1986 and has been painting in New York since 1990. The Midwesterner still smiled his easy smile and always fell back on his quiet humility, despite a yen for getting a rise out of whomever's around. Nelson's languor is disarming, and it's easy to forget that he is a prolific painter and art history buff. The teenager floats on the surface, but Nelson is a veteran artist, and in the end it's all about the work.
Gawker Artists
What draws you to such Americana subjects – Trucks, Dogs, Cheerleaders?
Joe Heaps Nelson
Well, I'm from the middle of it. I guess it's just my roots. Sometimes it does seem absurd to me that I live here in New york - which is one of the most visually stimulating places – and I enjoy all of that, but I never use it in my work, except subconsciously. Whenever you're in a place you're always thinking about a different place – and I'm sure if I were to move back to Iowa I would start painting New York scenes. You want to do something that makes you stand out and makes you unique. I just think midwestern stuff is fun and wholesome, and I like to share it with others. I'm far from the only midwestern guy out here doing paintings, but I rock it pretty hard.
Gawker Artists
Did you paint back in Des Moines?
Nelson
Well, yeah, I drew a lot more than I painted, cause I was a kid, but I painted a little bit, and I always thought it was easy.
Gawker Artists
What did you draw?
Nelson
Dogs and racecars for a while. Football. I went through a fighterplane period in 5th grade. Comic books. You know, kids stuff.
Gawker Artists
Did you study art in Des Moines?
Nelson
I did go to a few classes at the Des Moines art center. They have one of the greatest Francis Bacon paintings, Screaming Pope, and I think that painting bears some responsibility for the weirdness of the guys who come out of Des Moines. For a young kid, your hometown museum is where your mom takes you to give you some culture, and that painting can definitely warp a young mind. I just remember being very young and blown away by the intense realism of a Richard Estes painting of an airplane – and I was like "Man! That's a painting, it looks like a photograph!" And there was also and Ellsworth Kelly painting that was nothing but a blue canvas with a yellow blob in the lower right corner – and that kind of opened my mind up – wow, there are a lot of different ways to make a painting, I guess anything would be okay.
Gawker Artists
How do you pick what to paint?
Nelson
There are all these ideas floating around in the air and artists kind of have these antennae that pick up the signals and transfer them into work. That's why I was amazed when I was painting cavemen – no before that, when I was painting cheerleaders – nobody gave a shit about cheerleaders, especially in New York. It wasn't in any one's brain, and damned if they didn't come out with a movie about cheerleading right after that, and it was a big hit. Then I'm painting a wooly mammoth chasing a guy and I'm thinking "ha ha ha I'm so funny," and then I'm reading that newspaper you get for free on the subway and damned if they didn't have a picture of it – a movie had come out, 10,000 BC, and there's a still from the movie and it's a guy being chased by a mammoth, and it looked just like my painting, I couldn't believe it. And then I did a painting called "The legendary fighting pandas of the Shaolin temple" before kung fu panda came out. And when that happens you're like, oh my god, they're stealing my thoughts, and I can't have this, because I need my thoughts – but I think the truth is that all of this stuff is kind of zooming around in the atmosphere and you're either plugged into it or you aren't and that's why people have the same idea at the same time. Cause that stuff happens all the time.
Gawker Artists
Talk about the cheerleaders. Is this the first time they have been in a show?
Nelson
Hell no, but this is the first time I've had a show focusing exclusively on stuff that's old. So it's kind of a strange feeling, cause you want to show off your new stuff because you always hope you're making progress and getting better. I mean I'm tickled pink that anybody thinks I'm any good. It's a lot of fun to pull all those painting aout and give them a chance to be together. Because lets face it, 26 paintings of cheerleaders is way better than three paintings of cheerleaders.
Gawker Artists
Have you ever dated a cheerleader?
Nelson
Who hasn't? Mostly the girls I date are the ones who were smoking joints under the bleachers. Everybody knows those are the more interesting girls anyway.
Gawker Artists
Who buys them?
Nelson
Panty shots sold like crazy, it's a miracle there are any left. You'd be surprised by how many girls buy them. And not just lesbians either. And then family guys, gay guys, it's just weird and crazy and you can never predict it – its fun because you never know who's going to like what – and it always sorts out in ways that I would never expect. And that's a big part of the fun of having shows – to see who likes what and to see who puts their money where their mouth is.
Gawker Artists
Why cheerleaders to begin with?
Nelson
Just because I paint something doesn't mean I like it. Just because I make paintings of cops doesn't mean I necessarily like cops. And its funny how some people, especially cultural conservatives, are immune to irony, metaphor, nuance – I mean, come on. Do you really think I was literally obsessed with cheerleaders for seven years? In real life I wasn't really obsessed with cheerleaders, but I thought it was good subject matter, and I was just doing my part to give people something to talk about.
Gawker Artists
How do people usually react to the cheerleaders?
Nelson
Well, 95% of people just ignore them.
Gawker Artists
What do you mean?
Nelson
The Art world, and especially contemporary art, is not a big part of most peoples lives in a way that for example music is – its kind of like a more specialized audience like theater or modern dance. It's a really small group of people who are really interested in it, which is unfortunate. It's in the dealers' interest to be like the high priests of art – like they're the only ones who can get this stuff – and keep it elite and expensive. And so they hire these beautiful girls who are aloof to try to intimidate you – or to try to intimidate normal people – and try to make them not feel comfortable in the gallery because the art world is the playground of the idle rich…which makes them feel really cool, like they're welcome in this exclusive world – you know high fashion is like this too…hey that's how it's set up – I didn't make the world I've just got to live in it. It's tough club to get into…sure it's flawed like every example of anything organized by humans, its flawed…deeply, but it's also a very interesting place.
Gawker Artists
Is there an alternative?
Nelson
You could get a lot of work just going to artists' studios. D-uh…I mean it's nice to establish a relationship with the dealer, and it's good to support the galleries, but come on – so few people actually make the effort – and it's pretty easy to make friends with artists – or go to open studios and then come back later. Nobody starts out with Mary Boone or Gagosian. You need to find somebody who's up and coming when you're up and coming and you need the luck of that person to not go out of business. That is, if you want everything to run smoothly. So it's a funny game.
Gawker Artists
Can you do it alone?
Nelson
Its part of the job to go out there and make shit happen. I like people. I like industry people, but maybe part of this is my Midwestern upbringing: I was never comfortable going in and saying "hey man, I'm the shit – check me out!" And if you have that skill or that style it can be very beneficial – But that's not what it's all about – what it's all about is you're around long enough and you get to know a lot of artists, and you really paint to impress your friends and you gain credit for hanging in there for a long time and always working and making good work – that's community. And that's why you stick it out in NY, instead of just going off to a farm to paint by yourself, because your life can really be enriched by being around these other artists – and it's a lot of fun.
Gawker Artists
What would you want your community to say about you?
Nelson
I want them to say: he hung in there, he always worked hard – some guys make a career out of just pure determination. I think Jackson Pollock is a good example – well, besides the fact that he was a horrible drunk, his problem was that he didn't think he could draw. But he didn't let that bother him – he figured out a way of painting where that didn't matter – to me that's a pretty admirable, cool and god bless his cotton-pickin' heart.
Gawker Artists
So what's your strategy?
Nelson
Any strategy is viable – but for me it's not about having a strategy – it's about getting enough work done to keep myself happy and to try to keep my people happy, because the most rewarding thing about being an artist is the great feeling you get when you realize you've touched other peoples' lives and improved them on a continuing basis. I'm just delighted when I run into somebody who has bought one of my paintings and they say something nice like "I'm so glad I bought your painting and I still love it and I'm so happy that I got it" – that's nice. Or when you put something on the internet and you get a message like "Oh shit, you just made me spit coffee all over my monitor, this is going to set the tone for my whole week!" Or, "this is making me late for work!" That's a great feeling. So I don't know what's its like to make a lot of money off of your art. I would be interested to find out so that I could see whether or not I liked it, but its very satisfying to be in a position to make people happy – don't mean to sound corny or anything, but its awesome.
Gawker Artists
What would change if you got rich and famous?
Nelson
I wouldn't do anything different, but I would do everything I do MORE. The trouble is you have to be disciplined and you have to work and there's nothing if there isn't the work. I think many years of being poor and being treated like a jerk has taught me the primacy of constant work. Cause I'm all about work – the only thing that keeps me from work is having sex with my super hot girlfriend.
Gawker Artists
Does it have to be that way?
Nelson
Yes. I'll tell you why: because part of being a great painter is like trying to be a great rock start or movie star. There are seven million hundred thousand jerks trying to go for the same gig you're trying to go for, so you have to be the best. So I can't rest ‘cause I've got to get better. Every year they flush the toilet in New Haven and 100 new assholes pop up in Brooklyn. Art dealers want these kids because they want to find the hot new flavor.
(Pause. Smile.)
It's my town, baby, come and take a piece of it!
Gawker Artists
What are you working on right now?
Nelson
Well, the bulldogs are hanging in there pretty strong. Kitty cats, always fun. I'm trying to get into lion painting right now, but the thing is, you've got to be really good at painting lions, it's a hard animal to paint. Cause if you paint a lion and it doesn't come out scary, then you kind of fucked up.
All painters have a million ideas and there's a sorting out process where you kind of sift and see what comes out. I've been wanting to paint lions vs Christians in the coliseum in Roman times for years –and I think I finally have the right model, and I'm getting ready to work on it. I like to work on one big epic gigantic canvas every so often – and when I get tired of that I work on some little work so I get the feeling of having finished something. It's not a good idea for a painter to give out his ideas before the painting are finished….but what the hell! You've got an exclusive.
Gawker Artists
So what's it like, being an Artist?
Nelson
All I need is an endless supply of drugs a few good buddies and the love of a good woman. It's not a matter of getting to paint – I refuse to not paint. That's the thing. I just want to be left alone to do my own thing. And do it in a legendary way. See – it's getting better – let's have another round.
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