Interview 13 // Cee Moses

And that's starting now.

Yay.

And now I'm going to start recording the audio.

Sweet.

All right. Cool. Also, I'm pretty sure at some point during the interview, you'd probably want to show your work. Yes, no, maybe?

Yes. Yes.

That's all good. I know this was kind of a sudden thing that sprung up on you, but.

Oh, no, you're good. So we have this trick that we have our, we usually have our like fitness clothes on because we're usually running around and doing stuff, but we always have a blazer for emergencies.

See, now you're making me feel underdressed for this.

Oh, that's okay. With the fitness leggings and awesome sneakers I have on. So if I'm showing my work, would that be just presenting the screen or?

Yeah, you could just share it on your screen, but that wouldn't be a problem.

Okay. So let me, I guess, let me pull some. This thing up. It'd be underdressed.

Yes. Alison. You've been greeted Alison. This is also in the recording. You know, we'll, we'll keep it.

No, no, we'll

Keep it.

No.

It's more authentic that way. We're all, we're all family here.

That's why I was like, if someone's like on the phone with their mom, we were like, Hey mom, what's up?

Like I am

Trying to remember my Instagram password. That's like the most current stuff I have.

Gotcha.

Oh, come on now. I had the same problem last time and I remember the password the second we got off of the off of the meet and I was just like really? Because there's some of the newer pieces that I would like to show for sure. And this one. No. Okay. Do I have anything saved on my drive maybe? I'm so sorry. Sorry.

It's fine. It's cool.

Trying to type as fast as my sausage fingers will let me.

As long as I get the job done.

Right. I've actually been learning how to play piano lately and it shows me just how tiny my fingers are.

Actually, I've always wanted to learn how to play the piano as well. Just never got around to it.

Dude, YOLO. Now's the time, man. Right.

I'm also learning a lot of other things too. So it's like, at what time?

Oh, I feel that on a spiritual level. For sure. I'm trying one more password.

Don't want to get yourself locked out.

I think I got it. I think I got it. Yes. All right.

Cool. So when we actually get to the part where you can show your art, we can see it.

Yes, absolutely. Well, it's really great. You'll see it later sometime.

Well, you know, if the viewer has a great imagination, I mean, they could end up making it be something great. Of course. Yeah. All right. All right.

Cool. Okay.

So just kicking things off here. I'm Davonte Bradley, otherwise known as Davo, fellow Techspressionist here. And we are with, go ahead and introduce yourself.

Hi. My name is Cee Moses. I usually go by C or C-mo. That's how like most people kind of address me now. But I also go by Carmen. So it's whatever people want to call me, I guess. And I'm from Augusta, Georgia, and I'm an artist.

You're an artist? I had no idea.

I know, right?

All right, Carmen. So tell us a little bit about your background. Not just like where you're from, but like your artistic background.

Sure. There's a lot to tell for sure. But as I said, I'm from Augusta. So I've kind of always been creative. I was always that kid that draws, you know? And I, you know, just have always kind of been inclined to be artistic and, you know, always trying to, you know, play with color and draw and all that good stuff. And, you know, as I got older, I kind of got out of it a little bit. But I went to Augusta University when it was Augusta State University.

Cee Moses

A long story there. Of me. I don't know many names. But I went for a little while and, you know, I was kind of having a difficult personal time and kind of not sure what I wanted to do. And I ended up dropping out. I went for art and ended up dropping out and going to culinary school for a little while.

Cee Moses

So if anyone needs cake, let me know. So I studied to be a cake decorator for a little bit and, you know, still unhappy, still unsatisfied. So then I went to like normal work and was still unhappy. I was like, I'm going to go to college. I'm going to go to college. And I ended up being still unsatisfied. So in 2015 or 16, I decided to go back to school as an older person with lots of little people.

Cee Moses

So that was that was fun. And I just stuck with it and recently graduated in 2018 with my BFA in photography and printmaking. So I do photography and printmaking, of course, digital drawing, digital art, regular art painting. Kind of just do a little bit of that. But I also do everything. So I really consider myself a mixed media artist. Just whatever the concept in my mind calls for is what I'm going to go go to create with. So now I work at the Jesse Norman School in downtown Augusta. So I teach now. I teach different various types of art. I'm also a performer and I teach performing arts. So I stay very, very, very busy.

So I was going to say, it sounds like you're a very busy person.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it's just like, am I missing something? Like if I have a day off, I'm like I had to have forgotten something. But yeah. So I've really ever since joining the Jesse Norman School, the connections I've made here and just some of the people that I've met have created so many pathways for me. So I always have to mention the school and name drop and be like, I'm very grateful because I guess the university in here. Just all of the wonderful artists. And mentors and people I've met, they really kind of helped get me out there. And here I am.

Here you are. All right. So that being said, do you would you say that, you know, that background has had any bearing on the kind of art that you do? Like, has your like, has Augusta influenced your art in any way or like your experience with, you know, artists? Your experience with art? Yeah. How you dropped out initially and then kind of rediscovered it. Did that have a bearing on, you know, the kind of art that you did or has any influences on it?

Yes, question mark. So a lot of the art that I do is pretty highly conceptual and kind of goes into this sort of digital fantasy land. But I'm interacting with all of the amazing artists in Augusta. I think. I think they all do tend to influence each other and pick things up. And basically the entire staff here is all working artists.

Cee Moses

So you know, we'll just kind of be like, hey, you got a minute. What do you think of this? And you know, someone will go, well, man, that's really cool. Have you thought about this? I'm like, not yet. But I have now. So definitely interacting in this sort of melting pot incubator kind of city and interacting with these other artists has influenced my work. But I have to say the biggest influence will probably be my time at Augusta University. I had an amazing art history teacher, Michael Schwartz, and an amazing printmaking teacher and an amazing color theory teacher. And basically the staff there is awesome. And they're all artists as well, of course. So interacting with them as well has really influenced, but really the art history was what kind of woke everything up in my brain, especially like studying Renaissance and medieval and also just kind of being, you know, obsessed with technology and that kind of thing.

Cee Moses

So all that kind of just mixed together and created this weird style and printmaking was a huge part of developing my style and thinking of things in layers and yes is the answer to your question sorry

Sorry that sorry about the cat that might have crossed the screen just now okay he likes to get involved oh

That's okay I have dogs at home so I'd much I'd much rather have a cat just quietly walk by and it's like, well,

This, this time he's quiet. He's not always quiet.

Hey what's up meow right

No he likes to peruse this entire desk pretty much and that also includes sometimes tapping on the keyboard but yeah so that all sounds really interesting like I've actually never kind of been like I've been around artists my whole life like a lot of my friends in georgia from back home because I grew up in lawrenceville actually oh yeah a lot of my friends were artists and I was kind of always envious because they had like money for resources and materials and I was just like yes I want to do that but I the only thing I had was my computer so that's how I kind of got digital art so without a necessity of still wanting to create but wanting to go beyond pencil and paper oh

Same I don't know if you remember adobe photo deluxe back in the day yes so that's that was the program that I started using you know as a young young art wannabe artist wannabe so I want to be you just you just an amateur it's okay you're still learning so I think there were like only like four or five tools on there that was like crop and maybe a last so I can't even remember it was such a long time ago but I remember our little what was it I don't even remember the name of the computer it was like an e-machine or something I had one of those yeah it's motherboard died is that all they died on it I don't even do the machines even make them anymore

I to be honest with you I have no idea I know we had three e-machines in our household two of them had bad motherboards the third one's hard drive just up and died randomly so it they were they were they were quality products yeah

They're

Still around though they're still around though apparently but they've been replaced by things like asus or asus however you're supposed to pronounce that and acer

Okay yeah makes sense yeah that was it e-machines and mother deluxe was where it all started and I would you know take screen grabs of interesting things and cut them up and make like kind of these weird fantasy landscapes so I wish I can go back in time and be like hey keep doing this it's gonna be awesome I

Feel you on that one on a major degree because I know I took a long break from exploring the kind of fine art side of things because I was doing a lot of character art stuff because I was wrapped up in manga art and anime and video games and that kind of art so that was where my concerns were and I got away from art art like the art for art's sake says this kind of stuff yes yeah but yeah it's it brought me in like it brought me into that kind of style and it kept me there and it's as I'm sure it did you oh

Absolutely yeah

I remember

Drawing like you know there's book fair and you got your little your little ten dollars your little ten dollar check that your parents got you I would always look for the drawing books and I remember like drawing was so difficult for me like you know everyone knew me as a kid that drew but I always wanted to push and there were you know kids that drew better like you said you know they had better resources and I remember taking my little ten dollars and buying there were two books that I remember that really helped me learn how to draw it was donkey kong country book and a simpsons character drawing book and I remember drawing that look from the first donkey kong country game that b you know with the big booty and the stinger so I remember like drawing that b over and over and over again and getting so frustrated until eventually I just got it and I was really excited so I always think about that b every time and I have a I have a daughter who's who draws and it's kind of it's kind of interesting kind of passing along these books and passing the torch and I'm watching her grow and develop and being able to go hey just keep practicing yeah so

Yeah practice is one thing talent is another but this

Is

More important oh

Yeah I tell my students all the time I'm like you cannot get by just on talent you gotta you gotta work put in the work for sure so fun stuff yeah

My donkey kong country was actually the Pokémon guidebook because there was a nice like a little green Pokémon handbook that had the first 151 Pokémon in it and I used to draw it like draw the Pokémon in there from with my brother and sister actually they were also participants in that but they fell away from it I didn't right yeah wow

There was only 150 Pokémon at one point weren't they now there's over 800 I think

We

I think we're at a thousand now I think something along those lines and

I'm still I'm still in it nice same so we actually have a couple of poke stops right outside the school and you can tell when people are like looking down at their phones and walking across the median I'm just like I know it's huge yeah we're Pokémon loving house my daughter's got Pokémon stuff we were just arranging her pokeballs on her shelf you know

Nice

So definitely video gamers there's

A there's a sketch of charizard right here and a sketch of zoroark from the fourth generation right over here nice yeah so big big big fans here too very cool back to art stuff now oh yeah we'll be there for a while I mean I mean it's still part of you though absolutely yeah so speaking of influence so are there like any other cultural influences for your work like I know there were from the work that I've seen of yours some of them have like seemingly religious overtones to them that I that I picked up on so can you speak a little bit on that or sure

So I do use a lot of religious references in my work and there's always kind of this weird like I'm not I'm definitely not looking to offend for the sake of offense but I do want you know I want people to really kind of think about their spiritual sides and so the renaissance medieval work kind of those madonnas and you know altar pieces and triptychs and that's you know I think that's kind of really that's really a huge huge influence for me kind of pop culture sort of things like the matrix and cloud atlas basically wachowski stuff and you know different kind of sci-fi I'm a big sci-fi fan so that's pretty prevalent my family's from puerto rico and I don't use a whole lot of kind of cultural references but I do really like or I'm not sure if I'm also like mexican culture so like day of the dead and you know catholicism and things like that are in there maybe not as prevalent but they're in there for sure music is also really influential like janelle monae's music I think I listened to metropolis like 6 000 times during my senior year in college which really kept informing the work in pushing it even further and janelle monae if you're out there I love you notice me please notice me please but metropolis was just really inspired and of course metropolis you know the original movie so just lots of it's in my brain I think of it as I'm sure you played katamari like I kind of just roll and pick up and pick up whatever you know I just kind of let the world influence me in general but I was actually talking to michael my collaboration partner yesterday and we were talking about kind of the main sort of bane in my work especially recently has been you know what is what would an AI think of religion what would they think of god you know because if god is a creator and we're creating them do they think that of us and you know that kind of leads to so many different little branches you know about you know if god is perfect and an AI you know thinks that we're god but we're not perfect you know like you can go so many different branches and you're like different directions and so many different questions there.

Cee Moses

So I like to think about how they would interpret our religion and what kind of religious or spiritual practices that might just naturally evolve in an AI. So that's pretty much the main, it's heavy.

No, that's, that's actually a really interesting thought. Like what, if, if AIs actually could like, well, not could, it's, it's actually probably a possibility at this point because they've, they've already, there's some AI have actually developed their own form of language that they use to communicate with each other. So that's, that's a thing that's happened. So naturally they might develop some sort of belief system potentially. And what that would look like would be.

Definitely keeps me up at night on a regular basis. Like I said, it's pretty heavy stuff. You know, so I like to definitely explore that in my work a lot and various ways, sometimes more direct ways. Like I know I've made some pieces where it's just like you see exactly, you know, one particular concept, but others are a little bit more abstract. So you kind of have to sit and experience, you know, for a little while. And but that's, that's pretty much the influence in a very large. Nutshell.

It's a very big nutshell, but it's okay. I think actually now would be a good time that we could, you know, kind of see some of your work if you don't mind.

Oh, absolutely. I was prepared to share some to share. So we can see this. Okay.

Yeah, I can see it.

Absolutely. Awesome. Awesome. So this is my Instagram, my kind of, quote unquote, official art brand or art name is Paisa, which means clown in Spanish. And it's the feminine version of the word clown in Spanish. And if you've been in a room with me for more than five minutes, you're going to be like, that's where you get the name from. Because many people in my house, which is great until we try to out funny each other.

Oh, no. So, you

Know, I like the concept of a clown. You know, because there's sadness and then there's joy. So that's one of that's another kind of thing that kind of lightly, loosely connects my work is as thoughts of, you know, sadness and joy and the juxtaposition and contrast of those two things. But I'm going, let's start maybe we're going to go down.

We got we got clowns, we've got AI, and we've got technology.

Pretty much. And skulls, but we'll get to that.

Skulls. Yeah.

Skulls. I think my boss recently said I was the skull queen. And I'm like, you know it, buddy. So I do love skulls and skeletons. There's some stuff from my from just my working life as well. But I'm trying to get to the artwork. And we're going down. Let's see here. Trying to get to the kind of early college. Stuff.

Cee Moses

Some photography there, some sketches, me wearing a lot of stuffed animals. That was an interesting day for sure.

Actually a picture of somebody that actually looked like a friend of mine.

You know, it's such a small world. I would believe it.

Hey, I recently sold a print to a cousin of mine. I had no idea.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

That's definitely one way to meet. Your family. Yeah. Oh, goodness. You know, you scroll through it so fast on your phone that when you get on the slow computer, you're like, Well, that will not only that the Instagram desktop site

Is not at all optimized like at all. It's just, it's just not

Okay, I think I think we're pretty much getting to the beginning. So, and I'll, we'll just do okay. Yeah.

Hey, I also kind of start with an eye. At the very bottom of my eye.

Got to every, every artist has got to do the eye at least once.

I keep doing them every now and again. I got to come back to it.

For sure. And just to see your eye progress, you know, like, you know, I can show you an eye I did like in fifth grade and this is an improvement, but I could probably do even better. So this is early kind of early college. Late pre college work. So, you know, of course. Yeah. Or course you would start with drawing courses. So I really hit those hard and kept a pretty decent sketchbook. I also was really influenced by graffiti art. So that was one of the reasons I got back into art before college.

Cee Moses

So a friend of mine goes by satire his work is amazing. And I showed him some of my work and we worked together one day. And I was just like, I kind of you know I kind of quit college you know I just don't think I'm good enough he's like no you need to keep going so that's where some of these kind of creepy provocative images came from so kind of these sort of clown burlesque type things but still drawing and then you know sharpie alcohol-based marker kind of working in that sort of graffiti style charcoal you know this is all basically like kind of the building up and discovering what I can do I also big fan of the labyrinth so I did the labyrinth fan piece the labyrinth is an amazing piece of artwork itself yes I mean it's a gorgeous movie and everything kind of in that vein dark crystal oh

Yes did you have you had an opportunity to watch the prequel that came out on Netflix that

Oh oh yep binge watched it was good and I love I love the lore of the movies as well I actually recently just read the comic series the kind of prequel series to labyrinth and just it was brilliant I loved it so here we are trying to kind of get into printmaking I originally did not care for either printmaking or photography and I even told my photography teacher that I was only in his class because it was required about you know a thousand years ago and I actually got into it and I really struggled with it and then you know a I'm stubborn and stubborn driven you know whatever you want to consider it but I just kind of kept having to master the medium and then I ended up really falling in love with printmaking and here's some relief stuff if you've kind of seen and we'll see a little bit later on the Instagram my skelly box so that's kind of my I've been working on some of my works and I've been working on some of my series stuff too long I need to diffuse and just play so that's kind of where the skelly box come from but I'll touch on those in just a minute but this is the original some wood cuts some different things I also worked for one of those like paint and sip companies at one point so I've got some of that stuff up here kind of more of this graffiti style stuff and again just kind of discovering you know who I was and what I was capable of I also did some ceramics because you know that's one of the classes you got to take but I ended up falling in love with that as well and then this is this piece is pretty kind of a game changer right here looks like it this one is when the style really started to develop so that's actually my daughter in that skull mask and we were at a park and she's like mommy I just want to play Pokémon and I'm like mommy wants to make an a put the mask back on so this was one of the pictures that came out of that particular photo shoot and it I think I got an honorable mention in one of the kind of college art contests I can't remember the name of it right now but the photographer's forum that's what it was so this was kind of a springboard into a lot of different pieces my little crooked bowls that I threw so this is kind of where the turning point was I'm like to life hack and multitask as much as possible and especially when you're going through college and you've got 60,000 different due dates so photography and printmaking you know were those main classes that I was taking those were my bfa track and I'm like okay I've got an assignment due for this class and I've got an assignment due for this class how can I combine that and that was the moment you know the pivotal moment for me because photography and printmaking became kind of permanently a mesh for me so instead of going and finding a stock photo I'll go around you know downtown and look for a texture that I like and that will become a background and we'll see that a little bit more going forward so kind of some more of the kind of the day of the dead creepy influencey kind of stuff more school work more kind of photo manipulation

Was that a pyramid head inspired piece

Yes absolutely I know exactly which one you're talking about yeah so yes and dnd is kind of always showing up in my life I've never been a dnd player but I have an appreciation for it but a lot of my friends play it so this I can't really remember what whether this was just an experiment or whether I had something a little bit higher conceptual for it but I kind of started experimenting with like replacing heads so I do get I do get the pyramid head reference so I'm sure I could like go back and be like well yeah no they'll sell the on purpose yeah sometimes the concept comes afterwards for sure I completely understand that one so I'm gonna kind of come back to this in a moment but because those pieces kind of show up later you know just some drawing charcoal drawing this was another this was another pivotal piece for me when I really started to think about this renaissance art and you know instead of a stone tablet why not an iPad and then some photography work and then this was another kind of pivotal piece for me I'm very heavily influenced by Frida Kahlo like I wish I could go back in time and meet her and just be her best friend because I totally would she probably would have needed it yes I would have like hey but just her life and her work were very influential to me I have Frida stuff all over the place but this is part of a self-portrait assignment and I had kind of I don't know why but I this is a self-portrait and I had a friend help me take the pictures and like my eyes looked weird like I kind of looked a little muppety so I was just like man let me just let me just replace my head with something and then this kind of this piece and this piece probably I started to really play with the idea of this kind of tv head so the tv head madonna is something that kind of pops up in my work a lot and kind of going back to this one a little bit so I remember talking to a young person and them not knowing what the vhs tape was and I instantly had a midlife crisis yeah that kind of hurts a little bit I was like you know when you had to be kind and rewind or they charge you a little extra blockbuster okay never mind so this piece they're actually backwards it's supposed to this says los dioses viejos se están muriendo which means the old gods are dying so I kind of thought about you know these things that we revered you know so much in our lives you know tv and that you know going to walmart and grabbing the latest you know tape in their little tape section and those things in our lives that are entertaining but almost in a way objects of worship so that's where the idea of the tv god and the tape god came from the tape god hasn't really shown up too much the tv god kind of has more a little bit for me but that's kind of where like my current style really started I also did some kind of fun abstract photography with miniature sets still kind of a fun thing that I do but I'm not really super prominent you know everyone has their trips to the aquarium photo of course the lionfish and all that good stuff oh yeah you gotta have the lionfish and yeah

Some of these kind of these photo projects were kind of deeply personalized kind of exploring family relationships and kind of feelings and insecurities and you know baggage so there's some kind of more deeply rooted stories in these but like I said I haven't really that's more of kind of a side thing for me and of course I have my particularly offensive pieces particularly offensive particularly offensive so this one offends pretty pretty regularly but what I wanted to say some of my friends just do the rest of my projects for me so you know what I wanted to say here is you know we're more interested in showing kind of the evidence of the experience and the experience itself kind

Of using the feeling that the whole kind of I was there but I actually wasn't a part of it right

And I feel like that's something that we do fairly regularly so it wasn't kind of a way to disrespect you know Christ or the crucifixion but a kind of way of showing a current state of affairs and let's see here Frida Kahlo of course this was me making 30 prints in our print lab I miss those days of midnight working and you know going to the print lab and I'm like oh my god I'm going to the vending machine to grab my dinner and

College yay yeah I mean I remember 3 a.m trips to Walmart oh

You gotta have those yeah no I ran out of actually no I'm good now also really influenced by you know comics and graphic novels so I don't know if I if I officially have the nerd label yet but I think I think I do now after

I think I think you had it even before this right

I try to hide it and look like a cool kid but it doesn't always work hey it's not it's not even working right for

Sure actually I feel like these days actually you actually have more street cred as a nerd than you would have as a cool kid yeah

Another one of those things I want to go back in time and tell myself it's gonna be okay your nerdiness is you know keep playing those video games keep reading those books it's gonna be okay hey I've got I've got my right I actually left my switch at home today because I wanted to get some work done because sometimes it finds its way into my purse but somehow magically so this was another piece and this is one of the first times I interacted with my current work oh there's a cuss word there I'm so sorry oh

No it's okay

We're good okay I

Think we're all adults here it's okay all most of us are adults well

They my work so that's cool so this was another part of my work I'm trying to see if I can if we can see like the whole work so here we have like you know these footsteps and kind of this lighting of an altar you know and a reverence and a sense of worship so this was more of a literal translation of kind of this these thoughts that I've had about this particular concept and this was another you know assignment a you know a school assignment but the great thing about you know art school assignments is their art it's not something that's going to sit in a drawer like oh yeah I remember that report I wrote about you know 15th century France it's like no I still have an interesting saleable hangable piece yeah so this was me using three different mediums to explore this was the point of this particular work so digital color pencil and black and white marker or grayscale but what's kind of more important here is the concept of chorus more of these sort of kind of personal telling oh here's here it is all together ah so this was another you know kind of landmark piece for me and then more of kind of this religious stuff this was my literal tv head mary in one of my shows let's see here some murals I've done murals for different places as well paintings some more of kind of the this kind of this figure and she's gorgeous by the way she's one of the best models I've ever had but this figure kind of represents more of that pushing photography with digital work so

This

Is you know a fully nude figure I went and literally worked each line to make for the next one and I'm like oh my god I'm gonna do this I'm gonna do this look like a robot or an android this is all kind of photo montage digital collage and the idea of adam and eve was kind of really prevalent during this time and thinking about a lot of these are called eve's shame or ashamed eve so this character kind of shows up a few different times but just the idea of all the influences that we have that cause you know our senses of shame and embarrassment and kind of some more of the negative stuff so I did also do an adam but the eves kind of ended up better for some reason so my atoms kind of never never were as compelling to me for whatever reason this is another work with that same model in the same vein but this was a screen print so this is one of the first ones that I did where I really started to kind of stack meaningful layers so everything that I put in the same vein I put in the same layer into a screen print it's some of it's randomly selected like I might randomly select the texture but most of the time every single layer has a meaning so for this one you know you can see the motherboard in the back you can see the apple you can see the snake this one's a little bit more obvious some of them are incredibly subtle so more skellybot stuff more kind of this android photo religious photo montage let's see here this one I recently just traded with colin on which I was pretty pretty excited so I think I might have a better picture of this one so we might go back to that one legos christmas stuff so this is my first college show this is my senior my senior show and I called it spiritual biotech originally it was catholic biotech because I wanted to do mostly catholicism but other religions kind of snuck their way into there so as

As that actually has that's how religion normally works where you start with one and then all of a sudden you find references to a lot of others yes

Studying religion became kind of really important throughout this whole process and kind of in your own reconciling your place in the universe kind of thing so some kind of photograms I did legos legos legos so this was a display that I did in my senior show and this is called viral video a family altar so I have these little tv madonnas and kind of thinking about the mexican ofrenda where you know you put photos of your of your family and stuff so there are different photos of the pieces so a lot of those pieces ended up being smaller pieces in this and originally I was going to have some really creepy cool stuff playing on the tv but I lost the adapter right before the show and got stung by a bee while I was putting this show up for some reason oh geez I took it as a sign to keep going so just kind of more ways that the tv had madonna I took vhs tapes and cassette tapes and spray painted them into kind of these little colorful pieces so this is by far probably one of my favorite installations that I've done and maybe the only one I can't remember let's see here but you know we kind of see it developing a little bit more this is a this is a piece that shows up a lot saint lucy is the patron saint of the blind so I have her with the oculus and with the with the iPhone and I said there was 12 layers on that I'm surprised that was actually pretty light for me my professor used to be like how many layers do you have in this and I'm like 25 sorry I know I'm gonna take up the lab for a little while but it's important and you know me and the goober right there on graduation day I've also painted a couple pianos for I don't know if you can see it but I've painted a couple of pianos for the jesse norman school this is my first real digital piece and my first real piece since since leaving college and this is more of like a personal reflection you know the p for payasa and kind of a maternal thing so this is kind of this kind of springboard of the next me and my me and my babies my students every time I see them outside of work I'm like my babies they probably think I'm nuts and then you know I tell people my kids and they're like how many kids do you have and I'm like one that I birth and like 90 that I just love because hey

Family doesn't always mean blood right

For sure I tell them the second you cross the threshold of my classroom you are my baby I will show up to your graduation occasionally send you a gift maybe you

Know and I think to be completely honest with you I think those kinds of teachers are kind of the best kinds of teachers in a lot of ways because I mean just the ones that you can actually have a genuine connection with for sure it's something it's something special

Absolutely those kind of teachers pretty much and I definitely don't say this lightly saved my life as a youth and as a teenager and you know I learned a lot from them and that's kind of my charge as a teacher now is continuing the love that they gave me and showing me my worth you know I want to make sure that all my little all my little dudes can do that and everything in between that they know their worth as well especially as artists absolutely because you know you always got the this sucks I'm so bad at this it's like no you're not you're where you need to be let's push a little bit further so a lot of fun stuff there I'm just still kind of scrolling through so I recently became a big girl artist got my own website I finally pulled the trigger on a website so I've also kind of developed some of the motion graphics from my website as well and created the logo this past year so those were some huge artistic strides for me personally so this is my website kind of entrance logo it's kind of fun stuff and I love you know already kind of talked about loving tv so this kind of weird futuristic tv comes up a lot you and I as I was talking with Michael yesterday about our collaboration I was I was telling him you know how people call each other sheep you know for me it's like people are tvs you know all they do is get the signal and spot it back out without actually processing it yeah which I don't necessarily I think I still have to kind of process that in terms of how that kind of goes with my you know tv head madonnas and stuff like that I might have to go back and revisit that but that's I think that's the symbol of the tv for me is you know what you take in and what you put out so this is just kind of some random stuff recently started using ibis paint which I'm absolutely in love with so this is kind of some experiments and more skelebot so is it cool that I'm just kind of going yeah no you're fine if you have a question because I mean we're talking to my family no it is completely okay cool so the deal with the skelebots is like I said this is kind of my way to diffuse a little bit after I've been kind of working on these sort of really heavy heavy conceptual things so this originally came from an assignment that we did where we had to do an isometric drawing and you know I couldn't just do what you know what was being asked I wanted to put my own spin on it so that's where the skelebots were born and like I said it's just like a fun it's just like a fun thing that I do it's not really super serious but the whole concept is they kind of have like this little backstory you know of these little aliens that kind of come to the world after we're all gone and they see all these skeletons and think that's maybe what we look like so they form themselves to look like skeletons and then they kind of look at all of our traditions and history and weird things and they're like maybe not mocking it but trying to understand it so this will probably be my wedding invitation someday nice so this is a skelly about weddings so it's them like doing wedding stuff like this is what the humans did they ate cake and put on fancy clothes and had rings and so there's more of those a little a little later this is a playing card deck that I'm working on developing right now these particular images I've changed up the imagery a little bit but I may release those later as something else cool let's see here this is my minecraft character and I'm very proud of it I'm gonna mention that right now because that is I literally have those glasses I have big heart-shaped glasses so nice my blazer I just don't have the pink dress yet but I play minecraft all the time so here's some more of our skele-bots so this is skele-bots you know getting rid of covid so this is kind of my response to that and thinking that this is kind of a kind of a big historical event so I wonder what you know my little skele-bots would think of that you

Know I just noticed something like because I didn't really have a necessarily traditional like artistic upbringing so to speak like as far as like everything that I've learned and picked up over the years but what you've used for the pelvis that was actually a very common anatomy thing that you know was used in a lot of practices like imagine the pelvis and that hip region is like a bucket it's like yeah no that's like a real thing that a lot of artists have like in a lot of guides and tutorials that I've seen that is actually used as a point for like think about the pelvic region as like a bucket

I've never ever heard that is insane so like but I'm gonna start using it now for sure yeah so and I wonder I wonder if maybe I was just thinking about breaking down shapes a little bit simpler or yeah I don't know what I was thinking here for me with figure with figure drawing the pelvis is always a heart so that's one of the that's one of the ones I learned back in the day with my mom's drawing books so I'm gonna I'm gonna look into that bucket thing I'm gonna have to tell my kids about that I mean it works though it does it does whatever whatever can get you to understand that everything we're all just shapes shapes so this is my this is my skelly bot christmas card so all of my co-workers got a skelly bot christmas card and I started recently kind of experimenting with just doing these kind of speed videos which ibis makes really easy to do so kind of just showing the process here and then I'm gonna show you the process and then I'm gonna show you the process here in a very fast way and of course matching envelope is important so and then this is kind of the current iteration of my work except this one this lovely piece was done by my daughter I'm quite jelly that's a fabulous dragon so as I started to I've actually you know I'm not shy about telling people things I'm usually pretty open so I do have depression and anxiety that I struggle with and I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that but I'm going to fight like heck against on a regular basis and with kind of covid and everything I don't think I'm alone in saying that I was I was pretty depressed and I'm sure a lot of people were as well because you know it's like yeah what can we do now and especially you know as a as a theater teacher like we can't get together we can't rehearse we can't put on plays we can't get people to come to our plays so a lot of things were just really kind of hurting and I wouldn't get out of bed so one of my life hacks was did going back to digital drawing and most of these pieces were actually done on my phone which I tell people that I'm like haha no really and I'm like no they were done on my phone so these were kind of my initial explorations with using digital drawing software on my phone.

Cee Moses

I'm going back, of course, to my, you know, reverent Android and just really exploring abstraction and texture as a way to cope. So that really started to evolve quickly. So all of these kind of digital pieces here, and I've never really been one to do much abstract. But I felt like that was the best expression of the things that I was feeling because you know it doesn't always have a name or a face or a reason or even a word or even a word absolutely and but the feeling is there so a lot of them you know you'll kind of see in the in the title what I was thinking so this one's called sight and memory and one of my fondest memories of the first time I went to college in 2005 back in the day which is it's really strange to me that I went to you know I went to college for the first time before some of my students were born I'm still coming to that terms with that but one of my favorite memories were the ginkgo trees on campus so I would always find the ginkgo leaves and kind of press them in my journal and I noticed that I just had a ginkgo brush so like I used that a lot just to kind of signify my own my own positive memories so again it just kind of started to evolve I started to play with filters and abstraction more this was this was a piece where I really turned a corner this is probably one of my favorites of the abstracts thinking about like summoning something within yourself like a phoenix or something that signifies strength and overcoming more skele-bots of course I got one of my favorite ones from valentine's day and they're just like I don't understand what we're supposed to do there are bees there anywho so again more exploring abstraction and abstract feelings and all that good stuff and then this piece I said we're gonna come back to it I can't regret so this is one of my largest screen prints that I've done with a monotype background and this one's called evolution of god so kind of going back to that who's god to whom so you know in islam of course you have that kind of abstract concept of god where you know you never see the face so I kind of included sort of abstract islamic patterning in the back and then kind of the ones that we regularly think about for the most part when we think about our gods and then thinking about humans and dna and androids and so that's kind of where that one ended up going but yeah which brings us to kind of now and more of the abstract stuff and again I love retro tvs and tvs in general so I kind of I put out like a sticker series and if you want to let me know I will send you some because I order every time there's a sticker mule special so I have a lot nice!

Cee Moses

And these are probably my two recent pieces where I'm kind of pushing that digital abstraction a little bit more I'm very happy with this one this one's called the archivist and I put archivist one because I feel like I'm not done with this concept yet and I will hopefully be putting out a video of the process soon but and I recently again did a big girl artist thing and got myself a drawing tablet hey you joined the club? I'm like I'm always like one generation behind or a couple generations behind the video game consoles and it's like that for the rest of my life too always a little tiny bit behind hey

But at least at least you get the experience though yes better late than never I suppose so

This is kind of where I'm at now I'm doing a show down here soon and of course collaborating for the Techspressionism show but that's kind of in a in a norm as well so I'm very happy with that so did you have any other questions and another large nutshell as we have many large nutshells around now kind of the journey the main journey of you know me being here now I guess

Well that's that was a I think you actually probably covered almost the entirety of your artistic life up to this point or at least a good chunk of it from that's the most interesting stuff at least yeah which brings me into another part of the present your affiliation with the Techspressionism movement now that we are both big parts of yes so you want to talk a little bit about how you how you came into contact with the movement and you know what about it kind of reeled you in oh

Absolutely and I actually talk about it on quite a regular basis every time I see my co-workers I'm like guess what we're doing guess what we're doing so I got an artist call through the cafe site and you know I look through the artist calls every so often but with no not necessarily with any kind of seriousness just like oh okay sure you know because a lot of them are in other states and stuff and I saw the expressionism one and I was just like huh interesting because I never really anybody else locally and I'm sure they're out there just I've never I've never run into anybody who really thinks about technology and art together in this particular way or maybe it would be better to say I've never had a name for what I did and

I never

Understood where it fit into the larger you know art thing and I thought it was just kind of a weirdo in a corner making weird art so I read the artist call and looked on the website and I'm like this is it this is this is these are my people this is exactly the kind of thing that I want to explore and talk about so I entered the artist call and the rest is a little bit of a blur but I can't remember who contacted me it's probably colin it's probably I'd have to go back into my emails and look but I remember there being some contact and then I'm on the then I'm on the site and being invited to salons and I'm like and watching it grow has been really interesting and unfortunately two o'clock on a tuesday is always a really popular meeting time for other things that I have to do so I don't make every salon but that first one I was like a kid in a candy store like just looking like listening to everyone and going oh my god other people think like me too that's really cool I'm not a weirdo but I just been really impressed by the movement and the fact that we're kind of going your history book and you read about abstract expressionism you're like oh that's cool but here we are actually living in an art movement and I can't I can't express how like exciting that is to me just to and you know even if I was not part of the movement to watch it would be a privilege as well and a pleasure because it's like you know we're watching history unfold in so many different ways and I remember my boss told me he's like so you might be in a history book one day and I'm like maybe I don't know if it's like a little bit of a cut and I'm like well know that would be so cool so and you know I kind of feel the same way about all of you guys I'm like that'd be so cool to be like dude I know that guy the guy in the history book I know that guy and they're gonna oh hush grandma you're just nuts I'm like no I know that so

I was there I met colin yeah right

And they're gonna go yeah grandma okay sure which my daughter already looks at me like that so I'm pretty sure my but it's just an amazing movement and an amazing thing to be a part of and you know in the in the time that we're at where technology is so integral to life so it's came about this perfect timing what

We're doing right now is kind of a perfect illustration of that like recording audio with my phone the videos being recorded with my computer we're communicating over the internet like right we haven't actually met each other in person before like the majority of the people in this movement have not actually met the people in the movement like in person there's a couple of people that might have worked together in the past but you know for the vast majority of us this is this is how we've connected yeah in a completely digital virtual way yeah

That's crazy it is for people like me they're huggers I'm like I just want to hug you all but you're short but yeah that's it's funny like you know how we've all kind of met each other online but like nobody I don't know I could I guess I can only speak for myself here but nobody really feels like a stranger you know like when we meet people I'm just like hey friend you know

We have a guest by the way apparently oh I thought that was and I was like no it is but we also have a guest now we I ordered lunch not so long ago and apparently

Allison has befriended the delivery person very much like I said we're you know we might be far away but I'm just like these are people that I would like I would just show up and be like hey I brought you know I brought some lunch just you know let's play a video game yeah that's been I'd

Be down for that actually you know the next time I'm in georgia I might be paying you a visit oh

My god please do if you're ever like crossing through a gus you know I'd be happy to show you around the school and if you happen to be here during the time that students might be here if you want to be an artist talk that would be like super cool so if you're ever if you're ever down here just please let me know that'd be awesome

I will definitely do that because I mean I actually spent a good chunk of my youth in georgia like in the north like northeast metro atlanta area oh wow yeah so I mean I still have plenty of friends there like I have friends I made 20 years ago that I'm still in regular contact with like they're in different parts of the country now like one's in north dakota and one's in like I think he actually went from virginia to georgia to florida now he's back in virginia so but these are people that like I made lifelong connections in georgia so as much as I talked about leaving georgia since we arrived when I was like six so I was like I want to go back to virginia I am back here but there's a lot there's a lot of meaning for me in georgia too nice

Yep it's you know I never really thought of augusta you know much I actually grew up in kind of an adjacent town but the more time that I spend you know especially downtown working here now I've been working here for the past three four years just really falling in love with the art scene here it's incredible and it's really it's really coming along and we have some amazing artists here you know you can walk down any street and find a mural or a sculpture so I mean if anyone has never been to augusta and wants a reason like downtown art scene is the reason it's fabulous likewise

Richmond virginia is has a great art scene that I would love to be able to be more of a part of but kovat happened like six six months after we moved into the city or like on the edge of the city that's

That's

What happened so I'm like I want to actually be in the galleries but I can't be in the galleries because right well but soon soon I got the vaccine shot number one down so good job yeah very

Soon but

Back to the art stuff though I'm not sure how much time we have left so let's get right to the art stuff so first of all let's get to the art stuff more time you have but

I don't even know what time it is I could I could probably squeeze out about 15 more minutes before I get angry well

I mean my lunch just walked through the door not too long ago so I get you I get you do you want to you want to talk a little bit about you know what's the future looks like for you and your art like what do you what do you what do you see yourself being in now the next year next five years as far as your art is concerned oh

I that's a really good question so I'm gonna just throw some stuff out there and five years we'll go we'll go back and check it but I absolutely love being a teacher I don't teach younger students as much anymore and especially with COVID and but I definitely want to continue teaching in some way I know I'm still gonna be here I know I've already like name dropped Jesse Norman school like a million times but this really is a second home to me so you know I'm definitely gonna be here probably still being the performing arts director and in five years for sure as far as personally with you know my personal art brand I don't know I hope I hope that you know to maybe get some more visibility and make it you know not just a very serious side hustle but it's something that you know I could I don't know like I always feel bad about saying things like I just want to sell art and make money but because if I had money I would just give my art away you know but we all gotta eat so I definitely you know would like to see it you know more businessy and selling more prints and things of course and I'm hoping to do some more gallery shows that was my big goal for this year was to do another gallery show that was not affiliated with school or with anything else so that's actually coming up in August so I'm hoping to continue to do art shows and you know maybe put out a book have a book signing whatever whatever happens you know I'm a very kind of go with the flow person so I'm hoping that everything just flows good nice

Actually hold on I think we can close out the screenshare for a bit now yeah well yeah that sounds like a that sounds like a good plan to me like yeah just whatever happens ever happens yeah and I don't know it's also interesting to try and think about like what the movement itself is going to look like potentially five years from now yes because I know like we are moving rapidly yes I just in like the past six or seven months lot of things have changed and developed from when I first became part of it yeah I see that so it's just like in another even in another year I have no idea what things are gonna look like because we have this we have the Southampton gallery that's our Southampton museum that's going to be opening up in 2022 that's major and who knows what other big stuff is gonna happen because we're getting we're getting we're getting noticed so to speak yeah

That's very I've noticed just on the discord like you know it was like occasionally a name would pop up and now it's just like every day it's just like oh look who's here who's joining I'm like okay all right so you can thank your boy for the discord yes I definitely appreciate the discord and everything that you do for sure it's been it's been a nice way to kind of because the salons are wonderful it's kind of nice to have like to continue the conversation and I've learned a lot I still have no clue how an NFT works nor do I really care at this point every time I see those conversations I just kind of like I twitch a little bit and keep going maybe I'm just not and I told you I'm always a little bit behind so like in five years I'm going to be like woo NFT but I like I like seeing you know other people introduce their work and you know group critique and you know the enthusiasm and people kind of going oh well hey have you ever thought about this and watching those kind of conversations develop I think there's a conversation on there right now that I'm really I've been following about you know glitches and using glitches and digital work so it's just and even it's just a continuance of this you know of these conversations and being able to learn from other people it's just it's wonderful this is the coolest thing ever it is it is so

Great it is amazing like I am so glad and thankful that Colin found me and glad that I decided to you know put myself back out there in that way to be able to find this because he's the one that found me after I started putting my abstract digital work on Instagram yeah

And

Yeah Colin yeah right Colin

Is such a cool guy yes and so and so it's just everybody that we've kind of met so far I'm like dude I like I'm just gonna start calling everyone aunt and uncle the vibes the vibes are good very good vibes for sure very important right all right

I think we can go ahead and start wrapping wrapping this up we our interview has gone over a little over an hour actually yeah yes

So

We made it so you have any parting parting thoughts party insights before we wrap things up for good so

I had to so the reason I kind of slowed down for a second is because I always like have something funny today and I'm trying to be a serious grown-up artist here don't worry about that and also I couldn't come up with anything funny but just thank you so much for having me and thank you thank you Colin Colin and everybody else, of course, for having me as part of this movement, because, you know, I, you know, I feel at home here, and just, I don't know, I'm just, I have nothing but very, very large amounts of gratitude towards all of you, of course, and for the movement and everything else, so thank you, that's all I gotta say, thank you.

Thank you thank you for your time and thank you for being a part of the movement and helping us grow same

All right

Carmen well it's been nice it's been a pleasure talking to you and again thank you for your

Time oh no problem we'll talk to you soon about video games and stuff later yeah I'm

A huge video gamer I can't help it's like it happens for

Sure all right I'm

Gonna stop recording in three two one