STAVO CRAFT

Q: My mother says that artists are all just egomaniacs, afraid of responsibilities. I am wracked with guilt. Please, Mr. Mustang, help me understand the true nature of art and ego so that I may become free to create and vanquish my mother's doubting voice!

As artists, we take photographs of ourselves. Just as we write what's in our minds, we document the surface of the mind. It's face, it's body. And for many people, this isn't ordinarily visible territory, or even familiar. So the work we create, in whatever medium, is about ourselves. But it's also a mirror to a deeper interior world that we all share. So making art is a great service to your fellow beings. Tell mom she is a very silly girl. -Stavo Craft

"My ego is breakin' records!" -Mae West

"In trying to do a portrait, my ideal would really be just to pick up a handful of paint and throw it at the canvas and hope that the portrait was there." - Francis Bacon

"Writing keeps you alive because it eases the monsters in the brain by moving them to paper." -Charles Bukowski