Art Attack is kicking off a new series of studio visits with local artists. To herald it in, we've interviewed Lane Hagood - sculptor, drawer, painter, member of Sketch Klubb, and 2010 winner of the Hunting Art Prize. Before taking us to his home studio, Hagood invited us to come see his most recent project: painting the side of a taco truck.
How did you get the opportunity to do a taco truck?
Well, the main chef is this guy named Jason Hill. He used to be the chef at Brasil, and I used to work at Domy so I kind of became friends with him through that, and I guess he liked my art. It's been a few years since I've really hung out with him, but he was doing this taco truck and he wanted to kind of do something different and fun, so he asked me to do it and I was definitely stoked to do it, because I think this is way cooler than having an art show. This is going to be driving around and all these people are going to see this thing. It's kind of your dream to have that many people see your artwork - even if they don't really recognize it as that.
Are you going to put your signature on it somewhere?
I don't know. I usually don't - I might. I might put a fake name, I don't know.
Do you have a fake name that you use?
I've shown under probably about six different aliases. I used to never use my real name with my art, but I had a show in Austin about a year ago - November it will be a year - and that's the first time I actually used my real name. So I've been messing around with that whole idea, taking other people's last names that I like, like authors, philosophers and all that.
Did you have to submit a drawing of what you imagined for the taco truck?
Yeah. On Thursday, the last day I worked on it, we went out to eat, and the dogs ate my sketch. Here's a little piece of it here ... nothing's sacred.
What kind of paint are you using?
I'm just using acrylic paint. It's going to flake off a little bit. If you look at other taco trucks, they definitely, after time, lose some of that. And I could've used sign paint, but I kind of wanted to be true to the roots of the taco truck. So I know that someday probably parts will peel off.
Do you come up with names for these characters while you paint them?
For a while, I've done a bunch of drawing of like grids. I really kind of like lists, names -- name dropping especially. I would just draw a head like that and then underneath I would just write "Nietzsche" and I'd write all these different philosophers, writers, filmmakers, people that I really like. I don't know why, I just thought it was funny. I've done that for a lot. I don't really - I've worked in series before where I tried to do that, but I don't really think of them as a coherent narrative for drawing. I just kind of like the ambiguity of having these weird characters doing something and I don't really care if anybody understands what I think is going on, because whenever I talk to people about my drawings and it's somebody I don't really know, their interpretation is always way more interesting than what I - "well actually, I was thinking this..." So I prefer to keep a distance from them and let them create themselves, have their own little thing happening without me telling people what to think about them.
Well that should be fun: this thing driving around and people recognizing it and coming up with their own story. Did you make some sort of deal where you get free food for life?
No. Actually, the first time Sketch Klubb got a show at the Joanna at the end of July, he charged me for my tacos. It's straight business, it's cool, we're friends, but he's got to eat and pay for the supplies so I can't expect too much.
