Richard Olmsted

Define art.
It’s subjective, but I think a sword is a suitable metaphor. Sometimes the pen is mightier, but more often the two are not as different as you think.

Where and from whom do you find your inspiration?
On every grinding stone upon which to sharpen my rage.

What is success to you?
Success is a word hijacked by career counselors and con men. It is the ever unattainable carrot on the stick so long as one allows its definition to belong to these fucking monsters. If we are brave enough to trust our own desires, this word is meaningless.

Please share your list of 'things to do'.
Traveling in a manner that resembles a long and drawn out near death experience,
and the constant exhaustive reinvention of fun.

Please share with us a story that changed your life.
There was about a two month period where I was convinced David lynch had crafted a voodoo doll of myself and was subjecting my daily life his directorial visions. One week I was sitting in a greasy little diner at night, and a man I had never seen before began pointing through the glass outside saying he was going to kill me. I ignored him as much as I could but his eyes were locking. He paced and punched the windows five or six times before he broke the glass with a head but, then with blood pouring down his face, unflinchingly he yelled again and again “you with the iron gaze, I’m going to kill you,” eventually charging inside to be wrestled to the ground rolling in broken glass until police arrived. The next week, I was hitchhiking out of Seattle, and a fire truck pulled over next to me, but rather than offering me a ride, they all just got out and pulled the dead dwarf out of the bushes next to me. This general theme of things continued longer than I’d like, but eventually things seemed to normalize.
 I can’t say how that changed my life... 
Maybe it’s just increased my suspicion of Mr. Lynch.

Biography
I find myself a great deal more concerned with the aesthetics of the physical world, than that confined by a frame or held hostage in a museum. We need look no further than these polluted pastures and seas of grey to be reminded why I’m not interested in discussion or depiction so much as in fighting for those whose voices we choose to ignore, and I’d give up any canvas in a heartbeat to draw instead upon the rubble of empires.

I’m influenced by authors and criminals, strangers and friends, by so many people in passing along my travels. I am influenced by every honest smile that was more than good salesmanship.

I’m influenced In a rather different way by rubber bullets and pepper spray. By the police who I’ve watched beat up my friends. I’m influenced by the polluted air, the tainted water, and the dwindling biodiversity. I’m influenced by the developers who are cutting down my back yard, the businessmen that systematically steal the world’s resources, the management that robs our creative energy, and the stress filled dissociative social environment they have left us with, and I think it’s about time that the lines are drawn.

www.richardolmsted.com

five by Kevin Staniec