We recently connected with Mort and have shared our conversation below.

Mort, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I have been self taught through my career in art. I do have a day job that takes up most of my time but in the small amount of free time I do have, I try to learn new techniques or work on as many projects as I can. Which amounts to most of the skills I do know have been acquired through years of trial and error. One of the most important skills when it comes with learning the way I do is to never let any errors I make discourage me from continuing my artistic path. Along with that, I feel it is very important to keep yourself open when it comes to learning a new skill or technique. I never want to get myself in an artistic rut, so I try to change it up every now and then to keep my self fresh for new ideas. Even if a piece doesn’t come out the way I imagined, at least I tried and learn from my mistakes. If i feel stuck with a certain style or project, I tend to do something completely different like carve a linoleum block of my sleeping dog or paint a portrait of my brother’s cat in a victorian suit. That way when I return to the original project I have a fresh set of eyes and a new outlook on how to tackle the project.

The biggest obstacle for me is time. When I am working on a project it seems like there is never enough time before another opportunity arises or another project comes my way. I want to make as much as physically possible, but sometimes the lack of amount of time I have isn’t in my favor.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Mort and I got into art seriously through my love and admiration of graffiti and street art. I grew up in a small town in New Jersey where freight trains cut the town in half, so many times we would get stuck at the railroad crossing waiting for a mile long train to pass by. During those stops I would see all this amazing art on the freight trains just pass right by. From a young age that started my interest (or what now feels like an addiction) in street art. In middle school one of my teachers actually used to be very into tagging and getting up in the subway tunnels in New York City. Along with a couple of my close friends, we would stay after school to look through graffiti magazines and try to recreate some of the work in our notebooks while our teacher told us stories of the good old days when he would go out bombing the streets of New York. Of course that led to me tagging a little character around town to then elevating my work to stickers, then posters, then stencils and then onto full on murals.

I always try to keep a light element of humor in my work. Whether it’s my character about to step in dog poo or stuck in a bottle with a message or stuck in a beer fridge, I enjoy putting my character in a humorous situation. I find that I am always prouder in a piece of work if I know it would make my friends laugh or even have a stranger pass by and let out a small chuckle. Recently I made a poster and also painted the words “don’t read this.” on some walls because you know, that’s just funny.

Recently, I’ve been trying different ways and styles of painting my character to help better and tone my overall artistic skills. I always try to top the last thing I did because as an artist I feel it necessary to keep pushing myself above and beyond my comfort zone. Whether thats doing a larger canvas or trying a new technique on a mural, I am always reaching to get to the next level.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

Many times while I’m painting a mural of my character, I have a passerby ask me “What is that? Is is from something?”. My typical response is “Oh no, it’s a character I made.”; which seems to confuse them because most of the times they can’t grasp the idea that my character isn’t from anything besides my imagination. It’s fascinating to me that some people find creating your own character for fun is so far fetched and they can’t compute my reasoning for just creating. If I have an idea for a design, whether it’s a sticker idea or painting concept, I just go and make it. I don’t need someone to approve it or get any money from it. I do it all for the pure enjoyment of creating something new and thoughtful. I guess some people feel that the imagination should stay in the mind and get confused when they see a physical manifestation of someones imagination.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Social media is very important for any artist or small business these days. It has become a necessity. But I feel that social media in my life has changed it through the friends I’ve made on and off line. Through my Instagram (@mort_art) I have befriended people from all over the world, because that’s just the nature of the internet. Some of these online friends have turned out to be my neighbors who we get together on a regular basis. Other online friends I’ve met in my travels to other cities across the US. I’ve gone to other cities without having met any artists then through the use of Instagram have met up in person, grabbed a beer or two with and even have gone out pasting posters around the city with the help of my new local tour guides. Even through the use of social media, my work has been put up in places I’ve never been to thanks to the help of my artist pen pals. I have posters up in London of my work thanks to the London PasteUp Festival (@londonintpasteupfest) which has helped expand my audience to a physical crowd in England.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mort-art.com
• Instagram: @mort_art