Please enjoy my interview with Stanford Lee Wilson. Stan’s photography captivates you with depth and emotion, his view of an image draws you in like breath.
Interview with Stanford Lee Wilson
Mimi: This is my interview with Stanford Lee Wilson and today the food of choice was pizza, pepperoni, mushrooms and black olives…. and alfalfa sprouts which I forgot. I brought bean sprouts instead, which was a little bit of an error! Did you like your pizza?
Stan: It was awesome.
Mimi: Oh good.
Stan: I didn’t go for the Chinese pizza - the mug sprouts.
Mimi: So, this is my first question for you. Where did you grow up?
Stan: I grew up in Tacoma, born and raised in Tacoma and I left when I was eighteen when I got out of high school and that is a very industrial working class town south of Seattle it was a world apart from Seattle even then. A very military town as well, I grew up around a lot of strange people.
Mimi: But there were lots of good musicians.
Stan: Strange people and a lot of great musicians came from there but they didn’t really play there, there was nowhere to play and there were no coffee shops.
Mimi: Oh.
Stan: Nothing when I grew up.
Mimi: No coffee shops.
Stan: Not even a coffee shop.
Mimi: So, were you artistic as a child and did you make art as a kid?
Stan: Yes, I did a lot of drawing, mainly drawing and painting.
Mimi: Was it realistic?
Stan: it tended to be realistic, I was pretty literal and I never paid much attention to it but grade school people asked me if I was going to be an artist, and I would make pictures just for the hell of it. In high school , I also studied loss wax casting and took classes in jewelry making , wax casting , I liked that a lot but I got into painting in high school , that was mostly impressionist , realistic stuff , then I ended up at the U Dub.
Mimi: Yes, I was going to ask you about that. How do you feel the learning process was for you at the University of Washington , do you think this tamped down your artistic tendencies or did it help you, did it direct you to your own style of work ?
Stan: It helped me a lot, I just kind of ignored anything I didn’t understand and didn’t agree with and I would get a bad grade and did whatever I wanted, but I learned from everybody, I was willing to learn and try and take whatever they were teaching me and make my own, make something different that they expected out of it. That was kind of a game which was fun to play so; I am still friends with a couple of the professors that I liked the best years later.
Mimi: So it was a good experience.
Stan: Yes, even though I didn’t do what they told me to do.
Mimi: You went your own direction huh?
Stan: Yes, but I learned a lot and it sped things up.
Mimi: So, did you concentrate more on painting when you were in school?
Stan: As soon as I got into college I went into oil painting and that was all I did for years. Oil painting on canvas mainly.
Mimi: And they were more abstract, right?
Stan: They started out more like impressionism and cubism and then they became more abstract , I would still do class studies but mainly cubist abstraction , color field abstraction is what I preferred , it was more interesting tome.
Mimi: And then when you paint, this is a very interesting thing to me, you only paint outside, you have a large deck and you paint under the deck, no matter what the weather is, so how did you get started doing that?
Stan: I like painting outdoors , early on I was doing impressionism and I was doing that outside , so , I didn’t like the smell of studios and oil paint and couldn’t really afford a studio , I had a kid and everything so I just found I liked being outside . Fresh air.
Mimi: So would you be out even if it was stormy?
Stan: Oh yeah , I been out in the middle of the night in snow , with storms ,it makes it actually more fun ,pouring rain , I like the natural light too , so no matter what it is.
Mimi: So, but you would paint at night, you would light it up and paint at night.
Stan: Yes.
Mimi: What kind of lights would you use?
Stan: Halogen lights, just real simple.
Mimi: And then would they look as you envisioned them in the morning, if you painted at night would the colors be what you wanted?
Stan: Most of what I painted takes a long period of time, more than a few days and so I would always go back and forth since I worked at night mostly and with my free time in the day, I would work and make sure things were balanced out and the paintings were looking the way I wanted them to.
Mimi: You painted a lot didn’t you?
Stan: I painted a lot.
Mimi: And now you are not painting so much.
Stan: Not for a few years, I haven’t really oil painted for about nine or ten years, well I have but I threw them all away!
Mimi: You threw them away!
Stan: Pretty much, I didn’t like the way they were going so I’m just going to start over at some point. I was working a lot with acrylics for the last eight or nine years so I switched to small acrylics.
Mimi: And they dry a lot faster.
Stan: They dry fast and I can work on hundreds of them.
Mimi: So, I was reading on your web site that Donald Trump owns some of your work?
Stan: Yes, his lead designer bought, kind of in spite of the gallery that was in the nineties but he bought like four, commissioned four really large paintings.
Mimi: Where are they?
Stan: There in a Chicago casino I think, they are like the entry was stuff. I think the galley that sold to him, I think they probably would have preferred to sell another artist but the designer really liked my work so she commissioned it rather than buying something made.
Mimi: That was good, so you had someone championing your work.
Stan: And the last I heard was she ended up in Russia to open a casino there and then just burned out and disappeared because it was so horrible, that’s all I heard and that was the end of that.
Mimi: So, how did you get into photography?
Stan: I went back to school to sturdy graphic design.
Mimi: Where did you go?
Stan: Shoreline community college in north Seattle. I always had friends that did photography and really loved it especially the black and white but I never thought of doing it but I had to take a photo class, it was a requirement and I just took one darkroom class and one quarter of the history of photography, one class. Then I decided I could spend a lot of money on school or I could buy a really nice camera, I bought a Leica and just started shooting photos all the time.
Mimi: What is your favorite thing to shoot?
Stan: I love shooting people in general, I love doing just classic portraits but probably my main thing is live music, bands, because you have so many ready live elements. I like the unpredictability of it .I love music anyway, I love being around bands it is just exciting and unpredictable and you really have to think on your feet, I enjoy that process.
Mimi: If you could do a photo shoot with anyone dead or alive who do you think that would be and why?
Stan: I guess probably the most interesting person to shoot is old school, I work with new people but it would probably be Iggy Pop because he’s such a crazy guy.
Mimi: Very dynamic.
Stan: He is dynamic.
Mimi: An amazing dancer.
Stan: Yes ,he has all the ingredients ,he’s one of those people that can do almost anything and still be fun to be around , so those are two key elements , someone who you enjoy being around ,if you had the opportunity and also a dynamic subject with an unpredictable nature .
Mimi: I was going to ask you? How do you find the essence of a photo when you’re shooting?
Stan: It is an esoteric recipe, I guess. You have to choose your subject first for its interest and then you’ve got to choose a place or time where it is good lighting or the lighting you want. I like to find the unexpected , so I set up or involve myself in situations where I don’t know what is going to happen , so that’s what I like the best .
Mimi: So much more improvised.
Stan: improvised, yes not staged, I’m not excited about staging things.
Mimi: What was the most surprising thing that happened on a photo shoot?
Stan: Nothing too exotic.
Mimi: But was there something surprising of the outcome? Or the picture itself?
Stan: Yes, when I bought the first camera when I was in school, I was invited by a friend and asked if I could take some shots of musical instruments with Mike Johnson, a co-worker was playing in his band temporarily and so I went to do that. I got permission, I expected to be about a half an hour and just do some music instrument shots and I ended up making friends with them and I spent a lot of time in the studio and taking pictures of him and then I ended up through him going on tour with the Mark Lanegan band and Mike Johnson and doing a lot of video for that. I do video as well and taking photos and touring Europe.
Mimi: That sounds like a good adventure. How long did you do that for?
Stan: iI lasted a month and then I spent two years hanging out with them. I was in the studio for two entire albums.
Mimi: What other bands have you shot that we would know about?
Stan: The first time I ever took pictures was the Queens Of The Stone Age , so I’ve done a lot which is just video to me is just motion photography but , Queens Of The Stone Age , Built To Spill , Mark Lanegan , Mike Johnson , Bret Nelson, of Caustic Resin , less known , a lot of Up Records artists , I was friends with the people who run up records , wonderful people , Slater Kinney , for video.
Mimi: Quite a few! Ok, so what do you think of film versus digital? Do you use both still or do you just use digital?
Stan: I still love using film; the nature of it is really exquisite.
Mimi: What is the difference of the look of it?
Stan: You can’t fake black and white film; it just has a unique grain that you cannot substitute, so I love black and white. I still do tons of black and white and develop it myself and scan it and print it.
Mimi: It kind of gives it a timeless look, doesn’t it?
Stan: It takes it into kind of a mysterious realm, a black and white photo; it’s just like a whole other world. It separates from the subject and the color never does, the color is always really of its subject.
Mimi: Do you think it is harsher?
Stan: Digital images tend to be harsher , so , I just work with that on digital just make them with more contrast , color film is so expensive ,that I don’t use it much but I think it’s gorgeous . It is like something a painter would love.
Mimi: Because, I was going to say, I feel like you approach photography like a painter. The photography has a lot of soul and emotion in it. It just feels like a painter’s vision of photography.
Stan: That is how I view it and that is why I think I did well with it so quickly, to me it is just composing paintings in the viewfinder and setting up my subject to get those paintings. I can get very creative and subtle in the composition, it is just very automatic. I am not really ever just taking pictures of a subject ever, I am doing things that a painter would do if they were setting up a painting. I think that is where a lot of my joy comes from in photography is having that sense.
Mimi: When you are doing wedding photography do you talk to the couple at length or do you just start shooting?
Stan: I usually start shooting and people are a little awkward for a little while, you get past that, it takes about an hour usually.
Mimi: Maybe when the drinking starts happening?
Stan: Even before that, but usually it takes people time to forget you are there and realize it is nice having you there. I really enjoy that for the expression people have, there in a happy mood, they kind of lose their awkwardness real quick, they tend to be in a kind of loving or warm positive mood, they become very interesting subjects to me. I enjoy shooting as a journalist and also when I can I move in and interact with people and those are the best shots when they are responding to you.
Mimi: I was reading on your web site your photo journalistic approach, so what does that mean?
Stan: A photo journalistic approach means, I don’t stage things too much, I see what is there and I find the right moment and the right place to take a picture from. So it involves a lot of thinking on your feet, you have to know where you need to be to get something; you’ve got lots of choices.
Mimi: And I suppose you have to think about the background and foreground, that is that artist painterly composition right?
Stan: I could just walk up and take that picture and have it done and call it good but you have to think ahead , if you can’t position yourself at least to arrange the people if you have to so there is a good background , there is nothing horrible in the background or….
Mimi: Or too much distraction.
Stan: Then you have to keep people focused. It is a lot of fun.
Mimi: So, do you always have a camera with you when you go places?
Stan: Always! Now there is the iPhone too.
Mimi: Which takes good pictures, right?
Stan: Right. Most of the last fifteen years I have had a Leica with me at all times, it is an incredible black and white camera, and film camera and then I always have a really good point and shoot if nothing else. So, at any minute if I see something, I can pull it out annoying my friends.
Mimi: So, like in the wedding photography do you direct people somewhat for a shoot?
Stan: Yes, you have to sometimes, you have to arrange people, you have to push people out, yes there is a lot of that, you try and find someone who will help you with that who knows everybody but regardless you have to arrange people and tell them where to go stand, there is a lot of that and that is fun once you get it moving.
Mimi: What new skill would you like to learn?
Stan: People skills, no, I do alright with that!
Mimi: You mean communication? I think your fine.
Stan: I don’t know, I don’t have enough time for the skills I have.
Mimi: You’re busy!
Stan: Video editing I would like to do, more skilled at video editing that is complex that is a major skill knowledge curve to do complex video editing. That is something I would like.
Mimi: Ok, are you ready for this question?
Stan: Ok.
Mimi: If you were commissioned to decorate a train, how would you do the exterior, would you do it with photographs, would you do it with paint? And then also how would you do the interior? If you had a huge crew and you could do whatever you wanted.
Mimi: Just off the top of your head.
Stan: I guess it depends on whether it is going to be moving or not.
Mimi: At some point it will be moving.
Stan: I would probably hire a bunch of graffiti artists and put a bunch of ropes on them and just have the train go around with these graffiti people because they are always tagging. I work near the railroad tracks and all the trains are tagged but you could have a live tagging where there on ropes and the train goes by the countryside and there are all these graffiti artists with their spray paint blowing in the wind.
Mimi: So, a performance piece.
Stan: Yes, it would be more of a performance piece.
Mimi: What about the inside? The interior?
Stan: The inside would be a really nice kitchen so they could eat really nice, like a four star cook, so they would have luxury accommodations kind of like the China railway.
Mimi: What color would it be?
Stan: It would be baby blue, sky blue a totally non industrial color.
Mimi: A warm color, industrial on the outside and warm on the inside.
Stan: Yes.
Mimi: Where the cooking is.
Stan: Yes.
Mimi: What direction do you see your work going in the future? What would you like to concentrate on?
Stan: Actually that is back to the skills you asked earlier, it would be fun to do kind of wilder fashion shoots would be fun just because that is another thing I love, your working with people who have a lot of beautiful ingredients particularly clothing and lighting, I just enjoy design in general like I don’t do clothing design but I love when people design good clothes. Like the burlesque people, belly dancing people, I really enjoy that that makes good subject so more or less like a style shoot or whatever a fashion shoots but I definitely want to get back to painting.
Mimi: Oh you do?
Stan: Yes.
Mimi: Do you think it will be different know that you have had a break from it?
Stan: That is why I am waiting to figure out something different to do, so I think it will be so it will be changed.
Mimi: Stan? Why is pizza your favorite food?
Stan: Definitely an important question , so I never got tired of it , I was a pizza cook for years when I was in college and I worked my way through college in a pizza restaurant and I never got tired of it so it is the one food I could eat any time any where anyhow and enjoy it.
Mimi: Why with alfalfa sprouts?
Stan: That’s because when I was cooking I was trying to make healthier pizza. I was a cook and we discovered that we specialized in vegetarian pizza so you could put a whole pile of alfalfa sprouts on a pizza and it was really good.
Mimi: That’s a good answer; it gives you an extra crunch.
Stan: Yes, and a lot healthier.
Mimi: Ok, Thank you very much, that was a good interview.
Stan: Thank you.
Mimi: This is my interview with Stanford Lee Wilson and today the food of choice was pizza, pepperoni, mushrooms and black olives…. and alfalfa sprouts which I forgot. I brought bean sprouts instead, which was a little bit of an error! Did you like your pizza?
Stan: It was awesome.
Mimi: Oh good.
Stan: I didn’t go for the Chinese pizza - the mug sprouts.
Mimi: So, this is my first question for you. Where did you grow up?
Stan: I grew up in Tacoma, born and raised in Tacoma and I left when I was eighteen when I got out of high school and that is a very industrial working class town south of Seattle it was a world apart from Seattle even then. A very military town as well, I grew up around a lot of strange people.
Mimi: But there were lots of good musicians.
Stan: Strange people and a lot of great musicians came from there but they didn’t really play there, there was nowhere to play and there were no coffee shops.
Mimi: Oh.
Stan: Nothing when I grew up.
Mimi: No coffee shops.
Stan: Not even a coffee shop.
Mimi: So, were you artistic as a child and did you make art as a kid?
Stan: Yes, I did a lot of drawing, mainly drawing and painting.
Mimi: Was it realistic?
Stan: it tended to be realistic, I was pretty literal and I never paid much attention to it but grade school people asked me if I was going to be an artist, and I would make pictures just for the hell of it. In high school , I also studied loss wax casting and took classes in jewelry making , wax casting , I liked that a lot but I got into painting in high school , that was mostly impressionist , realistic stuff , then I ended up at the U Dub.
Mimi: Yes, I was going to ask you about that. How do you feel the learning process was for you at the University of Washington , do you think this tamped down your artistic tendencies or did it help you, did it direct you to your own style of work ?
Stan: It helped me a lot, I just kind of ignored anything I didn’t understand and didn’t agree with and I would get a bad grade and did whatever I wanted, but I learned from everybody, I was willing to learn and try and take whatever they were teaching me and make my own, make something different that they expected out of it. That was kind of a game which was fun to play so; I am still friends with a couple of the professors that I liked the best years later.
Mimi: So it was a good experience.
Stan: Yes, even though I didn’t do what they told me to do.
Mimi: You went your own direction huh?
Stan: Yes, but I learned a lot and it sped things up.
Mimi: So, did you concentrate more on painting when you were in school?
Stan: As soon as I got into college I went into oil painting and that was all I did for years. Oil painting on canvas mainly.
Mimi: And they were more abstract, right?
Stan: They started out more like impressionism and cubism and then they became more abstract , I would still do class studies but mainly cubist abstraction , color field abstraction is what I preferred , it was more interesting tome.
Mimi: And then when you paint, this is a very interesting thing to me, you only paint outside, you have a large deck and you paint under the deck, no matter what the weather is, so how did you get started doing that?
Stan: I like painting outdoors , early on I was doing impressionism and I was doing that outside , so , I didn’t like the smell of studios and oil paint and couldn’t really afford a studio , I had a kid and everything so I just found I liked being outside . Fresh air.
Mimi: So would you be out even if it was stormy?
Stan: Oh yeah , I been out in the middle of the night in snow , with storms ,it makes it actually more fun ,pouring rain , I like the natural light too , so no matter what it is.
Mimi: So, but you would paint at night, you would light it up and paint at night.
Stan: Yes.
Mimi: What kind of lights would you use?
Stan: Halogen lights, just real simple.
Mimi: And then would they look as you envisioned them in the morning, if you painted at night would the colors be what you wanted?
Stan: Most of what I painted takes a long period of time, more than a few days and so I would always go back and forth since I worked at night mostly and with my free time in the day, I would work and make sure things were balanced out and the paintings were looking the way I wanted them to.
Mimi: You painted a lot didn’t you?
Stan: I painted a lot.
Mimi: And now you are not painting so much.
Stan: Not for a few years, I haven’t really oil painted for about nine or ten years, well I have but I threw them all away!
Mimi: You threw them away!
Stan: Pretty much, I didn’t like the way they were going so I’m just going to start over at some point. I was working a lot with acrylics for the last eight or nine years so I switched to small acrylics.
Mimi: And they dry a lot faster.
Stan: They dry fast and I can work on hundreds of them.
Mimi: So, I was reading on your web site that Donald Trump owns some of your work?
Stan: Yes, his lead designer bought, kind of in spite of the gallery that was in the nineties but he bought like four, commissioned four really large paintings.
Mimi: Where are they?
Stan: There in a Chicago casino I think, they are like the entry was stuff. I think the galley that sold to him, I think they probably would have preferred to sell another artist but the designer really liked my work so she commissioned it rather than buying something made.
Mimi: That was good, so you had someone championing your work.
Stan: And the last I heard was she ended up in Russia to open a casino there and then just burned out and disappeared because it was so horrible, that’s all I heard and that was the end of that.
Mimi: So, how did you get into photography?
Stan: I went back to school to sturdy graphic design.
Mimi: Where did you go?
Stan: Shoreline community college in north Seattle. I always had friends that did photography and really loved it especially the black and white but I never thought of doing it but I had to take a photo class, it was a requirement and I just took one darkroom class and one quarter of the history of photography, one class. Then I decided I could spend a lot of money on school or I could buy a really nice camera, I bought a Leica and just started shooting photos all the time.
Mimi: What is your favorite thing to shoot?
Stan: I love shooting people in general, I love doing just classic portraits but probably my main thing is live music, bands, because you have so many ready live elements. I like the unpredictability of it .I love music anyway, I love being around bands it is just exciting and unpredictable and you really have to think on your feet, I enjoy that process.
Mimi: If you could do a photo shoot with anyone dead or alive who do you think that would be and why?
Stan: I guess probably the most interesting person to shoot is old school, I work with new people but it would probably be Iggy Pop because he’s such a crazy guy.
Mimi: Very dynamic.
Stan: He is dynamic.
Mimi: An amazing dancer.
Stan: Yes ,he has all the ingredients ,he’s one of those people that can do almost anything and still be fun to be around , so those are two key elements , someone who you enjoy being around ,if you had the opportunity and also a dynamic subject with an unpredictable nature .
Mimi: I was going to ask you? How do you find the essence of a photo when you’re shooting?
Stan: It is an esoteric recipe, I guess. You have to choose your subject first for its interest and then you’ve got to choose a place or time where it is good lighting or the lighting you want. I like to find the unexpected , so I set up or involve myself in situations where I don’t know what is going to happen , so that’s what I like the best .
Mimi: So much more improvised.
Stan: improvised, yes not staged, I’m not excited about staging things.
Mimi: What was the most surprising thing that happened on a photo shoot?
Stan: Nothing too exotic.
Mimi: But was there something surprising of the outcome? Or the picture itself?
Stan: Yes, when I bought the first camera when I was in school, I was invited by a friend and asked if I could take some shots of musical instruments with Mike Johnson, a co-worker was playing in his band temporarily and so I went to do that. I got permission, I expected to be about a half an hour and just do some music instrument shots and I ended up making friends with them and I spent a lot of time in the studio and taking pictures of him and then I ended up through him going on tour with the Mark Lanegan band and Mike Johnson and doing a lot of video for that. I do video as well and taking photos and touring Europe.
Mimi: That sounds like a good adventure. How long did you do that for?
Stan: iI lasted a month and then I spent two years hanging out with them. I was in the studio for two entire albums.
Mimi: What other bands have you shot that we would know about?
Stan: The first time I ever took pictures was the Queens Of The Stone Age , so I’ve done a lot which is just video to me is just motion photography but , Queens Of The Stone Age , Built To Spill , Mark Lanegan , Mike Johnson , Bret Nelson, of Caustic Resin , less known , a lot of Up Records artists , I was friends with the people who run up records , wonderful people , Slater Kinney , for video.
Mimi: Quite a few! Ok, so what do you think of film versus digital? Do you use both still or do you just use digital?
Stan: I still love using film; the nature of it is really exquisite.
Mimi: What is the difference of the look of it?
Stan: You can’t fake black and white film; it just has a unique grain that you cannot substitute, so I love black and white. I still do tons of black and white and develop it myself and scan it and print it.
Mimi: It kind of gives it a timeless look, doesn’t it?
Stan: It takes it into kind of a mysterious realm, a black and white photo; it’s just like a whole other world. It separates from the subject and the color never does, the color is always really of its subject.
Mimi: Do you think it is harsher?
Stan: Digital images tend to be harsher , so , I just work with that on digital just make them with more contrast , color film is so expensive ,that I don’t use it much but I think it’s gorgeous . It is like something a painter would love.
Mimi: Because, I was going to say, I feel like you approach photography like a painter. The photography has a lot of soul and emotion in it. It just feels like a painter’s vision of photography.
Stan: That is how I view it and that is why I think I did well with it so quickly, to me it is just composing paintings in the viewfinder and setting up my subject to get those paintings. I can get very creative and subtle in the composition, it is just very automatic. I am not really ever just taking pictures of a subject ever, I am doing things that a painter would do if they were setting up a painting. I think that is where a lot of my joy comes from in photography is having that sense.
Mimi: When you are doing wedding photography do you talk to the couple at length or do you just start shooting?
Stan: I usually start shooting and people are a little awkward for a little while, you get past that, it takes about an hour usually.
Mimi: Maybe when the drinking starts happening?
Stan: Even before that, but usually it takes people time to forget you are there and realize it is nice having you there. I really enjoy that for the expression people have, there in a happy mood, they kind of lose their awkwardness real quick, they tend to be in a kind of loving or warm positive mood, they become very interesting subjects to me. I enjoy shooting as a journalist and also when I can I move in and interact with people and those are the best shots when they are responding to you.
Mimi: I was reading on your web site your photo journalistic approach, so what does that mean?
Stan: A photo journalistic approach means, I don’t stage things too much, I see what is there and I find the right moment and the right place to take a picture from. So it involves a lot of thinking on your feet, you have to know where you need to be to get something; you’ve got lots of choices.
Mimi: And I suppose you have to think about the background and foreground, that is that artist painterly composition right?
Stan: I could just walk up and take that picture and have it done and call it good but you have to think ahead , if you can’t position yourself at least to arrange the people if you have to so there is a good background , there is nothing horrible in the background or….
Mimi: Or too much distraction.
Stan: Then you have to keep people focused. It is a lot of fun.
Mimi: So, do you always have a camera with you when you go places?
Stan: Always! Now there is the iPhone too.
Mimi: Which takes good pictures, right?
Stan: Right. Most of the last fifteen years I have had a Leica with me at all times, it is an incredible black and white camera, and film camera and then I always have a really good point and shoot if nothing else. So, at any minute if I see something, I can pull it out annoying my friends.
Mimi: So, like in the wedding photography do you direct people somewhat for a shoot?
Stan: Yes, you have to sometimes, you have to arrange people, you have to push people out, yes there is a lot of that, you try and find someone who will help you with that who knows everybody but regardless you have to arrange people and tell them where to go stand, there is a lot of that and that is fun once you get it moving.
Mimi: What new skill would you like to learn?
Stan: People skills, no, I do alright with that!
Mimi: You mean communication? I think your fine.
Stan: I don’t know, I don’t have enough time for the skills I have.
Mimi: You’re busy!
Stan: Video editing I would like to do, more skilled at video editing that is complex that is a major skill knowledge curve to do complex video editing. That is something I would like.
Mimi: Ok, are you ready for this question?
Stan: Ok.
Mimi: If you were commissioned to decorate a train, how would you do the exterior, would you do it with photographs, would you do it with paint? And then also how would you do the interior? If you had a huge crew and you could do whatever you wanted.
Mimi: Just off the top of your head.
Stan: I guess it depends on whether it is going to be moving or not.
Mimi: At some point it will be moving.
Stan: I would probably hire a bunch of graffiti artists and put a bunch of ropes on them and just have the train go around with these graffiti people because they are always tagging. I work near the railroad tracks and all the trains are tagged but you could have a live tagging where there on ropes and the train goes by the countryside and there are all these graffiti artists with their spray paint blowing in the wind.
Mimi: So, a performance piece.
Stan: Yes, it would be more of a performance piece.
Mimi: What about the inside? The interior?
Stan: The inside would be a really nice kitchen so they could eat really nice, like a four star cook, so they would have luxury accommodations kind of like the China railway.
Mimi: What color would it be?
Stan: It would be baby blue, sky blue a totally non industrial color.
Mimi: A warm color, industrial on the outside and warm on the inside.
Stan: Yes.
Mimi: Where the cooking is.
Stan: Yes.
Mimi: What direction do you see your work going in the future? What would you like to concentrate on?
Stan: Actually that is back to the skills you asked earlier, it would be fun to do kind of wilder fashion shoots would be fun just because that is another thing I love, your working with people who have a lot of beautiful ingredients particularly clothing and lighting, I just enjoy design in general like I don’t do clothing design but I love when people design good clothes. Like the burlesque people, belly dancing people, I really enjoy that that makes good subject so more or less like a style shoot or whatever a fashion shoots but I definitely want to get back to painting.
Mimi: Oh you do?
Stan: Yes.
Mimi: Do you think it will be different know that you have had a break from it?
Stan: That is why I am waiting to figure out something different to do, so I think it will be so it will be changed.
Mimi: Stan? Why is pizza your favorite food?
Stan: Definitely an important question , so I never got tired of it , I was a pizza cook for years when I was in college and I worked my way through college in a pizza restaurant and I never got tired of it so it is the one food I could eat any time any where anyhow and enjoy it.
Mimi: Why with alfalfa sprouts?
Stan: That’s because when I was cooking I was trying to make healthier pizza. I was a cook and we discovered that we specialized in vegetarian pizza so you could put a whole pile of alfalfa sprouts on a pizza and it was really good.
Mimi: That’s a good answer; it gives you an extra crunch.
Stan: Yes, and a lot healthier.
Mimi: Ok, Thank you very much, that was a good interview.
Stan: Thank you.
Here is a very good pizza crust recipe
1 pound {or about 3 ½ cups} high gluten flour
¾ cup warm water
1tablespoon vegetable oil
1 ½ teaspoon active dry yeast
1 /12 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
In a heavy duty stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, add the water, oil, yeast, salt and sugar. Mix thoroughly until yeast has fully dissolved. Add flour and mix on low speed until all of the flour and water have mixed and a stiff dough ball forms, about three to four minutes. Stop mixing as soon as the sough ball forms as this type of dough should not be kneaded.
Place the dough ball into a large bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Let the dough rise for twenty four hours in the fridge before using. The twenty four hour rise is very important this will add flavor and texture.
Tomato sauce for pizza
I like the San Marzano tinned tomatoes
Fresh basil, oregano and a little sugar
Onion
caramelize the onion in olive oil and a little sugar , add basil and oregano , pepper and salt
Add tomatoes and cook for about ten minutes.
Tips for baking
When using a pizza stone put it on the very top rack of the oven {remember, heat rises}
Scoring the pizza crust before baking with a fork will give you a flat even base
Cook at a very high heat for a crisp crust
You can pre bake the crust for a short time before adding the toppings
1 pound {or about 3 ½ cups} high gluten flour
¾ cup warm water
1tablespoon vegetable oil
1 ½ teaspoon active dry yeast
1 /12 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
In a heavy duty stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, add the water, oil, yeast, salt and sugar. Mix thoroughly until yeast has fully dissolved. Add flour and mix on low speed until all of the flour and water have mixed and a stiff dough ball forms, about three to four minutes. Stop mixing as soon as the sough ball forms as this type of dough should not be kneaded.
Place the dough ball into a large bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Let the dough rise for twenty four hours in the fridge before using. The twenty four hour rise is very important this will add flavor and texture.
Tomato sauce for pizza
I like the San Marzano tinned tomatoes
Fresh basil, oregano and a little sugar
Onion
caramelize the onion in olive oil and a little sugar , add basil and oregano , pepper and salt
Add tomatoes and cook for about ten minutes.
Tips for baking
When using a pizza stone put it on the very top rack of the oven {remember, heat rises}
Scoring the pizza crust before baking with a fork will give you a flat even base
Cook at a very high heat for a crisp crust
You can pre bake the crust for a short time before adding the toppings
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