We recently connected with Perry Vásquez and have shared our conversation below.

Perry, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

It’s my pleasure. Let me tell you about my pandemic project creating public art for the County of San Diego’s new Probation building. I was asked to design two murals to the theme of restorative justice. Restorative justice is a philosophy that places emphasis on making amends rather than punishment. Victims, offenders, and the community come together to restore the lost harmony between the parties. It’s a philosophy that is starting to take hold in progressive corners across the country.

Anyway, the project stakeholders asked me to consult with members of the justice involved community (former inmates) to get their ideas and insights as to what would be appropriate mural designs. Coming from a privileged background, I have had little meaningful interaction with people involved in the criminal justice system. I found myself relating to formerly incarcerated people as clients. It was a profound and humbling experience to say the least. Here’s why, because to be convicted of a capital crime, serve time and then to turn one’s life around through a slow painful process of self-realization creates much personal wisdom. The ideas offered to me opened many doors and my imagination only had to walk through into a world of possibilities.

An image that turned out to be a key catalyst in starting the design process came from a woman who recalled how soul crushing the old Probation building was with its bad lighting, grungy walls and cramped surroundings. She said the first thing she would like to see when she walks in the door is something warm and welcoming like the colors of the sunrise. Eureka! So now that’s what you see when you walk into the reception area, a huge mural of a sunflower being held in a pair of hands. And by the way, the architects were also asked to design in support of restorative justice. The experience for everyone who uses the building today is radically life affirming compared to the old one.

Perry, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I became aware of wanting to be a painter thanks to the intervention of Don McLean, the folk singer. He wrote a song called “Vincent” that caught my ear at the age of 15. The song is about the life of Vincent Van Gogh. The song kicked off my great teenage obsession to become a painter. It opened me up to Van Gogh’s world and colored my life for a long period of time. It helped me when I was making a transition from a period of intense religious devotion to one of skepticism. Van Gogh also went through a period of religious dedication and indoctrination followed by a dethroning and sharp turning away from his faith. Even though in his mind, he had gotten rid of God, in a larger sense he never really did. He remained true to a secular gospel that encouraged him to draw closer to Nature and to be empathetic to the conditions of working people. In his post-Christian life, Van Gogh became a drunken, syphilis-ridden, crazy adept of an artist. Growing up in an evangelical culture, I totally understood his paradoxical odyssey. At the age of 19, I made a pilgrimage to Van Gogh’s grave in Auvers-sur-Oise in France and that’s where I saw my future as an artist spreading out in front of me. My career as an artist has taken me to extremes and back but I’ve always managed to navigate some middle way using creativity as a coping mechanism. My artistic path has taught me to take some risks if I want to make an impact in this life. At the same time I have to have some constraints on what I am doing. I have found that complete freedom is a myth when it comes to creativity.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

At this time I just say no to NFTs. I was gifted a set but I haven’t minted any. In Summer 2020 I spent time hanging around NFT-themed chat rooms trying to understand the ecosystem but in the end I walked away. It wasn’t the cost or process of minting NFTs that turned me off as much as it was the psychology surrounding NFTs. A majority of the conversations around NFTs were about business networking and NFT marketing but very little about having something to say with the art form. This was right after Beeple sold his NFTs for millions so everybody in these chat rooms was looking for someone to show them the money. NFT gurus popping up everywhere offering advice, trying to build market share and giving off everything from New Age entrepreneurial vibes to straight up street hussle. As they say in business school, there was lots of sizzle but not much steak.

Aesthetically, NFTs frustrate. The Empire of NFTs reminds me of Plato’s Cave where the metaphysical world becomes a substitute for reality. Painting tethers me to the material and physical world. Painting can be textured, tactile and emotional. On the other hand, NFTs are emotionally void and sensually impoverished like the world of the Matrix. There are one or two NFTs that interest me. One is by artist Dread Scott of a white man on a slave trading block. Ha! Smart and critical. A hedge fund in the Bay Area minted a series of NFT videos trolling stocks they successfully shorted in 2021 and sent them out to clients. Their NFTs come with a carbon footprint statement. NFT meets MBA!

I might change my mind in the future, but for now, I just say no to NFTs.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

In no particular order:

Designing Your Life is a book by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. The book explains how to use the design thinking process to explore new career paths that fit your values, skills and talents. Out of this movement the liberatory design has emerged. Tania Anaissie over at Baytna Design is trying to make the design thinking process more empathetic.

Lateral Thinking by Edward de Bono is a book that teaches you how to avoid the traps of overly rational and linear thinking. It is one of, if not the first, book about how changing your thinking can make you a better problem solver. It was published in 1967 but is still worth reading.

The Grit and Growth podcast hosted by Darius Teeter at the Stanford Business School. Interviews with entrepreneurs from emerging markets in India, Southeast Asia and Africa. My favorite episode is Baba Shiv talking about how advances in neuro-science can be used to develop leadership skills and encourage innovation.

The Oblique Strategies is a unique card deck developed by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt that can be used to help creatives break through mental blocks.

The T’ai Chi Boxing Chronicle is a classic in the Chinese martial arts tradition compiled and translated by Kuo Lien-Ying. As a long time practitioner of t’ai chi, it has helped me mentally and physically over the years. I would recommend that all artists and leaders have some kind of spiritual practice such as t’ai chi, yoga etc to help ground them in times of crisis.

Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes. Don Quixote goes crazy from reading too much chivalric fiction, mistakes himself for a real knight errant then sallies forth into the world to save it from injustice. Along the way he manages to create a reality distortion field that catches others in his madness. Still relevant 400 years later.

Dissolve is a collection of poems by native American poet Sherwin Bitsui. Every sentence is like an acid drop.

The Bible was a great influence in my early life. It was the first text that I read closely and carefully. My idea of scholarship is based on my early experiences reading the New Testament. Ironically, I came away with misgivings about St. Paul’s project, which was not the intention of my teachers!

System Error by Reich, Sahami and Weinstein is an analysis of how a lack of government regulation has contributed to the unhealthy and unprecedented influence of Big Tech on our society. It’s wonky but also informative and will probably surprise most people.

Contact Info:

• Website: Perryvasquez.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/this_is_not_a_pope/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/perryvasquez/

Image Credits
Moonflower by Philipp Scholz-Ritterman
Sunflower by Philipp Scholz-Ritterman
Portrait of Perry by Katherine Sweetman
Who Buys the Con? courtesy Sparks Gallery
A Spiritual Brewdog by Perry Vasquez Saturday
Night Painting by Perry Vasquez
Three Studies of Palm Trees by Perry Vasquez